The Midnight Train Podcast

A Midnight Carol (Rerelease) Our take on the Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol

Due to popular demand, we've decided to rerelease our epic remake of the the Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol". 

 

WARNING! This isn't exactly PG so listener discretion is always advised.

Happy Holidays! Thank you for listening.

 

Don't miss this years Christmas bonus as well as all of the other amazing content available only at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

Christmas Disasters

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This week is our Christmas special here on the train. First, we've covered Krampus, Christmas killings, and ghost story Christmas traditions. Then, in keeping with our tradition of crazy Christmas episodes, today, we bring you some crazy Christmas disasters! Christmas isn't immune to crazy shit going on, from natural disasters to fires. Not only that, we're giving you guys a pretty good dose of history today. So with that being said, let's get into some crazy Christmas stuff!

 

While this first topic isn't necessarily a disaster in the usual sense, it definitely caused nothing but problems. And yes, it's a disaster. In 1865 on Christmas Eve, something happened that would change things for many people in this country and still causes grief to this day. While most people in the u.s. were settling down for the night with their families, leaving milk out for Santa, and tucking the kids in for the night, a group of men in Pulaski, Tennessee, were getting together for a very different purpose. Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones, and James Crowe were all officers with the Confederacy in the civil war. That night, they got together to form a group inspired at least in part by the then largely defunct Sons of Malta. While it started as a social club, within months, it would turn into one of the most nefarious groups around, the Ku Klux Klan. According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities (1907), "Beginning in April, 1867, there was a gradual transformation. ...The members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. They had played with an engine of power and mystery, though organized on entirely innocent lines, and found themselves overcome by a belief that something must lie behind it all – that there was, after all, a serious purpose, a work for the Klan to do." It borrowed parts of the initiation ceremony from the sons of Malta with the same purpose: "ludicrous initiations, the baffling of public curiosity, and the amusement for members were the only objects of the Klan," according to Albert Stevens in 1907.

In the summer of 1867, local branches of the Klan met in a general organizing convention. They established what they called an "Invisible Empire of the South." Leading Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen as the first leader, or "grand wizard," of the Klan; he presided over a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans, and grand cyclops. The organization of the Ku Klux Klan coincided with the beginning of the second phase of post-Civil War Reconstruction, put into place by the more radical members of the Republican Party in Congress. After rejecting President Andrew Johnson's relatively lenient Reconstruction policies from 1865 to 1866, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act over the presidential veto. Under its provisions, the South was divided into five military districts. Each state was required to approve the 14th Amendment, which granted "equal protection" of the Constitution to formerly enslaved people and enacted universal male suffrage. From 1867 onward, Black participation in public life in the South became one of the most radical aspects of Reconstruction. Black people won elections to southern state governments and even the U.S. Congress. For its part, the Ku Klux Klan dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both Black and white) to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South. They were joined in this struggle by similar organizations such as the Knights of the White Camelia (launched in Louisiana in 1867) and the White Brotherhood. At least 10 percent of the Black legislators elected during the 1867-1868 constitutional conventions became victims of violence during Reconstruction, including seven who were killed. White Republicans (derided as "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags") and Black institutions such as schools and churches—symbols of Black autonomy—were also targets for Klan attacks. By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan had branches in nearly every southern state. The Klan did not boast a well-organized structure or clear leadership even at its height. Local Klan members, often wearing masks and dressed in the organization's signature long white robes and hoods, usually carried out their attacks at night. They acted on their own but supported the common goals of defeating Radical Reconstruction and restoring white supremacy in the South. Klan activity flourished particularly in the regions of the South where Black people were a minority or a slight majority of the population and were relatively limited in others. Among the most notorious zones of Klan activity was South Carolina, where in January 1871, 500 masked men attacked the Union county jail and lynched eight Black prisoners. Though Democratic leaders would later attribute Ku Klux Klan violence to poorer southern white people, the organization's membership crossed class lines, from small farmers and laborers to planters, lawyers, merchants, physicians, and ministers. In the regions where most Klan activity took place, local law enforcement officials either belonged to the Klan or declined to act against it. Even those who arrested Klansmen found it difficult to find witnesses willing to testify against them. 

 

Other leading white citizens in the South declined to speak out against the group's actions, giving them implicit approval. After 1870, Republican state governments in the South turned to Congress for help, resulting in three Enforcement Acts, the strongest of which was the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

 

For the first time, the Ku Klux Klan Act designated certain crimes committed by individuals as federal offenses, including conspiracies to deprive citizens of the right to hold office, serve on juries and enjoy the equal protection of the law. In addition, the act authorized the president to suspend the habeas corpus, arrest accused individuals without charge, and send federal forces to suppress Klan violence. For those of us dummies that may not know, a "writ of habeas corpus" (which literally means to "produce the body") is a court order demanding that a public official (such as a warden) deliver an imprisoned individual to the court and show a valid reason for that person's detention. The procedure provides a means for prison inmates or others acting on their behalf to dispute the legal basis for confinement.

 

This expansion of federal authority–which Ulysses S. Grant promptly used in 1871 to crush Klan activity in South Carolina and other areas of the South–outraged Democrats and even alarmed many Republicans. From the early 1870s onward, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South as support for Reconstruction waned; by the end of 1876, the entire South was under Democratic control once again.

 

Now, this was just the first version of the Klan. A second version started up in the early 1900s and later on another revival which is the current iteration of the Klan. We're not going to go into the later versions of the Klan because well…. Fuck 'em! We've already given them too much air time! But… This most definitely qualifies as a Christmas disaster.

 

Next up, we have a couple natural disasters. 

 

First up, Cyclone Tracy. Cyclone Tracy has been described as the most significant tropical cyclone in Australia's history, and it changed how we viewed the threat of tropical cyclones to northern Australia.

 

Five days before Christmas 1974, satellite images showed a tropical depression in the Arafura Sea, 700 kilometers (or almost 435 miles for us Americans) northeast of Darwin.

 

The following day the Tropical Cyclone Warning Center in Darwin warned that a cyclone had formed and gave it the name Tracy. Cyclone Tracy was moving southwest at this stage, but as it passed the northwest of Bathurst Island on December 23, it slowed down and changed course.

 

That night, it rounded Cape Fourcroy and began moving southeast, with Darwin directly in its path.

 

The first warning that Darwin was under threat came at 12:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve when a top-priority flash cyclone warning was issued advising people that Cyclone Tracy was expected to make landfall early Christmas morning.

 

Despite 12 hours' warning of the cyclone's impending arrival, it fell mainly on deaf ears.

 

Residents were complacent after a near-miss from Cyclone Selma a few weeks before and distracted by the festive season.

 

Indeed in the preceding decade, the Bureau of Meteorology had identified 25 cyclones in Northern Territory waters, but few had caused much damage. Severe Tropical Cyclone Tracy was a small but intense system at landfall.

 

The radius of the galeforce winds extended only 50 kilometers from the eye of the cyclone, making it one of the most miniature tropical cyclones on record, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

 

Records show that at least six tropical cyclones had severely impacted Darwin before Tracy.

 

The worst of these was in January 1897 when a "disastrous hurricane" nearly destroyed the settlement, and 28 people died.

 

However, unlike Tracy, it is thought this cyclone did not directly pass over Darwin.

 

And while Tracy was reported as a category four cyclone, some meteorologists today believe it may have been a category five shortly before it made landfall.

 

At midnight on Christmas Day, wind gusts greater than 100 kilometers or over 62 miles per hour began to be recorded.

 

The cyclone's center reached East Point at 3:15 a.m. and landed just north of Fannie Bay at 3:30 a.m.

 

Tracy was so strong it bent a railway signal tower in half. 

 

The city was devastated by the cyclone. At least 90 percent of homes in Darwin were demolished or badly damaged. Forty-five vessels in the harbor were wrecked or damaged.

 

In addition to the 65 people who died, 145 were admitted to the hospital with serious injuries.

 

Vegetation was damaged up to 80 kilometers away from the coast, and Darwin felt eerily quiet due to the lack of insect and birdlife.

 

Within a week after the cyclone hit, more than 30,000 Darwin residents had been evacuated by air or road. That's more than two-thirds of the population at that time.

 

Cyclone Tracy remains one of Australia's most significant disasters.

 

As Murphy wrote 10 years after the cyclone: "The impact of Cyclone Tracy has reached far beyond the limits of Darwin itself. All along the tropical coasts of northern Australia and beyond a new cyclone awareness has emerged."

 

Merry fucking Christmas! Damn, that sucks. The information in this section came from an article on abc.net.au

 

Next up, we are going way back. The Christmas Flood of 1717 resulted from a northwesterly storm, which hit the coastal area of the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia on Christmas night of 1717. During the night of Christmas, 1717, the coastal regions of the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia were hit by a severe north-western storm. It is estimated that 14,000 people died. It was the worst flood for four centuries and the last significant flood to hit the north of the Netherlands.

 

In the countryside to the north of the Netherlands, the water level rose up to a few meters. The city of Groningen rose up to a few feet. In the province of Groningen, villages that were situated directly behind the dikes were nearly swept away. Action had to be taken against looters who robbed houses and farms under the fraudulent act of rescuing the flood victims. In total, the flood caused 2,276 casualties in Groningen. 1,455 homes were either destroyed or suffered extensive damage. Most livestock was lost.

 

The water also poured into Amsterdam and Haarlem and the areas around Dokkum and Stavoren. Over 150 people died in Friesland alone. In addition, large sections of Northern Holland were left underwater and the area around Zwolle and Kampen. In these areas, the flood only caused material damage. In Vlieland, however, the sea poured over the dunes, almost entirely sweeping away the already-damaged village of West-Vlieland.

 

We also found this report from a German website. It's been translated, so our apologies if it's wonky. 

 

"According to tradition, several days before Christmas, it had blown strong and sustained from the southwest. Shortly after sunset on Christmas Eve, the wind suddenly turned from west to northwest and eased a little. The majority of the residents went to bed unconcerned, because currently was half moon and the next regular flood would not occur until 7 a.m. At the time when the tide was supposed to have been low for a long time, however, a drop in the water level could not be determined.

Allegedly between 1 and 2 a.m. the storm began to revive violently accompanied by lightning and thunder. Between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning the water reached the top of the dike. The current and waves caused the dike caps to break, so that the tide rolled over the dike into the flat land with a loud roar of thunder. Many only had time to save themselves in the dark on the floor under the roof. Most of the time there was not even time to take clothes, drinking water and some food with you. Numerous houses could not withstand the rising water and the current. In the higher and higher water and the increasing current, windows were Doors and entire walls dented. Allegedly the hurricane and the storm surge raged against the coast for three full days, so that it was not until December 28 that the water fell so far that one could come to the aid of one's neighbors with simply built "boats."

In many places, the dykes had been razed to the ground, which meant that in lower-lying areas, every regular flood caused renewed flooding. At the places where the dykes were broken, deep valleys, some of which were large, formed. In many places where the dike is led around in a semi-arch, these walls, also known as pools or bracken, are still visible and testify to the force of the water. At that time, many people are said to have believed that the march was forever lost. In the low-lying areas, the water was later covered with ice floes, sometimes held up for months. Up until the summer months, bodies were said to have been found repeatedly during the clean-up work on the alluvial piles of straw and in the trenches. Many people who survived the flood later fell victim to so-called marching fever. New storm surges in the following years ruined the efforts for the first time to get the dike back into a defensible condition, and many houses, which were initially only damaged, have now been completely destroyed. Numerous small owners left the country so that the Hanover government even issued a ban on emigration."

 

Looks like the Netherlands got a proper Christmas fucking as well! Some towns were so severely destroyed that nothing was left, and they simply ceased to exist. Damn. 

 

Cyclones and floods… What else does mother nature have for us? Well, how's about an earthquake! On Friday, December 26, 2003, at 5:26 a.m., Bam city in Southeastern Iran was jolted by an earthquake registering a 6.5 magnitude on the Richter scale. This was the result of the strike-slip motion of the Bam fault, which runs through this area. The earthquake's epicenter was determined to be approximately six miles southwest of the city. Three more significant aftershocks and many smaller aftershocks were also recorded, the last of which occurred over a month after the main earthquake. To date, official death tolls have 26,271 fatalities, 9000 injured, and 525 still missing. The city of Bam is one of Iran's most ancient cities, dating back to 224A.D. Latest reports and damage estimates are approaching the area of $1.9 billion. A United Nations report estimated that about 90% of the city's buildings were 60%-100% damaged, while the remaining buildings were between 30%-60% damaged. The crazy part about the whole thing… The quake only lasted for about 8 seconds.

 

Now I know what you're thinking… That's not Christmas… Well, there spanky, the night of the 25th, Christmas, people started to feel minor tremors that would preface the quake, so fuck you, it counts.

 

We have one more natural disaster for you guys, and this one most of you guys probably remember. And this one was another that started last Christmas night and rolled into the 26th, also known as boxing day. So we're talking about the Boxing Day Tsunami and the Indian ocean earthquake in 2004. 

 

A 9.1-magnitude earthquake—one of the largest ever recorded—ripped through an undersea fault in the Indian Ocean, propelling a massive column of water toward unsuspecting shores. The Boxing Day tsunami would be the deadliest in recorded history, taking a staggering 230,000 lives in a matter of hours.

 

The city of Banda Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra was closest to the powerful earthquake's epicenter, and the first waves arrived in just 20 minutes. It's nearly impossible to imagine the 100-foot roiling mountain of water that engulfed the coastal city of 320,000, instantly killing more than 100,000 men, women, and children. Buildings folded like houses of cards, trees, and cars were swept up in the oil-black rapids, and virtually no one caught in the deluge survived.

 

Thailand was next. With waves traveling 500 mph across the Indian Ocean, the tsunami hit the coastal provinces of Phang Nga and Phuket an hour and a half later. Despite the time-lapse, locals and tourists were utterly unaware of the imminent destruction. Curious beachgoers even wandered out among the oddly receding waves, only to be chased down by a churning wall of water. The death toll in Thailand was nearly 5,400, including 2,000 foreign tourists.

 

An hour later, on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean, the waves struck the southeastern coast of India near the city of Chennai, pushing debris-choked water kilometers inland and killing more than 10,000 people, primarily women and children, since many of the men were out fishing. But some of the worst devastations were reserved for the island nation of Sri Lanka, where more than 30,000 people were swept away by the waves and hundreds of thousands left homeless.

 

As proof of the record-breaking strength of the tsunami, the last victims of the Boxing Day disaster perished nearly eight hours later when swelling seas and rogue waves caught swimmers by surprise in South Africa, 5,000 miles from the quake's epicenter.

 

Vasily Titov is a tsunami researcher and forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Center for Tsunami Research. He credits the unsparing destructiveness of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the raw power of the earthquake that spawned it. The quake originated in a so-called megathrust fault, where heavy oceanic plates subduct beneath lighter continental plates. 

 

"They are the largest faults in the world and they're all underwater," says Titov.

 

The 2004 quake ruptured a 900-mile stretch along the Indian and Australian plates 31 miles below the ocean floor. Rather than delivering one violent jolt, the earthquake lasted an unrelenting 10 minutes, releasing as much pent-up power as several thousand atomic bombs.

 

In the process, massive segments of the ocean floor were forced an estimated 30 or 40 meters (up to 130 feet) upward. The effect was like dropping the world's most giant pebble in the Indian Ocean with ripples the size of mountains extending out in all directions.

 

Titov emphasizes that tsunamis look nothing like the giant surfing break-style waves that many imagine.

 

"It's a wave, but from the observer's standpoint, you wouldn't recognize it as a wave," Titov says. "It's more like the ocean turns into a white water river and floods everything in its path."

 

Once caught in the raging waters, the debris will finish the job if the currents don't pull you under.

 

"In earthquakes, a certain number of people die but many more are injured. It's completely reversed with tsunamis," says Titov. "Almost no injuries, because it's such a difficult disaster to survive."

 

Holy fuck…

That's insane!

 

Well, there are some crazy natural disasters gifted to us by mother nature. So now let's take a look at some man-made disasters… And there are some bad ones. 

 

First up is the 1953 train wreck on Christmas Eve in New Zealand. So this is actually a mix of mother nature fucking people and a man-made structure failing. This event is also referred to as the Tangiwai disaster. The weather on Christmas Eve was fine, and with little recent rain, no one suspected flooding in the Whangaehu River. The river appeared normal when a goods train crossed the bridge around 7 p.m. What transformed the situation was the sudden release of approximately 2 million cubic meters of water from the crater lake of nearby Mt Ruapehu. A 6-meter-high wave containing water, ice, mud, and rocks surged, tsunami-like, down the Whangaehu River. Sometime between 10.10 and 10.15 p.m., this lahar struck the concrete pylons of the Tangiwai railway bridge.

 

Traveling at approximately 65 km per hour, locomotive Ka 949 and its train of nine carriages and two vans reached the severely weakened bridge at 10.21 p.m. As the bridge buckled beneath its weight, the engine plunged into the river, taking all five second-class carriages with it. The torrent force destroyed four of these carriages – those inside had little chance of survival.

 

The leading first-class carriage, Car Z, teetered on the edge of the ruined bridge for a few minutes before breaking free from the remaining three carriages and toppling into the river. It rolled downstream before coming to rest on a bank as the water level fell. Remarkably, 21 of the 22 passengers in this carriage survived. Evidence suggested that the locomotive driver, Charles Parker, had applied the emergency brakes some 200 m from the bridge, which prevented the last three carriages from ending up in the river and saved many lives. Even still, 151 of the 285 passengers and crew died that night in the crash.

 

This information was taken from nzhistory.gov. 

 

Next up is the Italian Hall disaster. 

 

Before it was called Calumet, the area was known as Red Jacket. And for many, it seemed to be ground zero for the sprawling copper mining operations that absorbed wave after wave of immigrants into the Upper Peninsula.

 

Red Jacket itself was a company town for the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, a large firm that in the 1870s was known as the world's largest copper producer. For a time, C&H had the world's deepest copper mines.

 

But the company wasn't immune from the organized labor push that swept across the Keweenaw Peninsula and other parts of the U.P. in 1913. Miners in Montana and Colorado had unionized, and in July of that year, the Western Federation of Miners called a strike against all Copper Country mines. According to a mining journal published that year, they were pushing for a $3 daily wage, 8-hour days, safer working conditions, and representation.

 

"The strike took place in a very complicated time in American history," said Jo Holt, a historian with the National Park Service's Keweenaw National Historical Park. "We had all these different things coming together. An increasingly industrialized country was grappling with worker's rights, gender issues, and immigration. We were moving from a gilded age into a progressive era, and recognizing the voice of labor.

 

"We see this event happen in the midst of that struggle."

 

"The reason it resonates today is we are still having these conversations. How do we create a just economy that functions for everybody? ... We are still, almost hundred and 10 years later, in the midst of these conversations."

 

As the strike wore into fall and the holiday season, a women's auxiliary group to the WFM organized a Christmas Eve party for the miners' families at the Italian Benevolent Society building, better known as the Italian Hall.

 

It was a big, boisterous affair, researchers have said. The multi-story hall was packed, with more than 600 people inside at one point. Children were watching a play and receiving gifts. Organizers later said the crowd was so large that it was hard to track who was coming in the door.

 

When the false cry of "Fire!" went up, pandemonium reached the sole stairway leading down to the street.

 

"What happened is when people panicked, they tried to get out through the stairwell," Holt said. "Someone tripped or people started to fall, and that's what created the bottleneck. It was just people falling on top of each other."

 

The aftermath was horrifying. As the dead were pulled from the pile in the stairwell, the bodies were carried to the town hall, which turned into a makeshift morgue. Some families lost more than one child. Other children were orphaned when their parents died.

 

One black and white photo in the Michigan Technological University Archives shows rows of what looks like sleeping children lying side-by-side. Their eyes are closed. Their faces were unmarred. The caption reads: "Christmas Eve in the Morgue."

 

After the dead were buried, some families moved away. Others stayed and kept supporting the strike, which ended the following spring.

 

Rumors emerged later that the Italian Hall's doors were designed to open inward, preventing the panicked crowd from pushing them outward to the street. Those were debunked, along with the suggestion in Woody Guthrie's "1913 Massacre" song that mining company thugs were holding the doors shut from the outside that night.

 

Damn… Mostly kids. On Christmas. That's a tough one.

 

Here's another touchy one. A race riot erupted in Mayfield, Kentucky, just before Christmas 1896.

Although slavery in the U.S. ended after the Civil War, the Reconstruction period and beyond was a dangerous time to be black. Things were awful for non-whites in the former Confederacy, amongst which Kentucky was especially bad for racial violence. In December 1896, white vigilantes lynched two black men within 24 hours of each other between the 21st and 22nd, one for a minor disagreement with a white man and the other, Jim Stone, for alleged rape. A note attached to Stone's swinging corpse warned black residents to get out of town.

 

In response to this unambiguous threat, the local African-American population armed themselves. Rumors spread amongst the town's white people that 250 men were marching on the city, and a state of emergency was called. The whites mobilized, black stores were vandalized, and fighting broke out between the two sides on December 23. In the event, three people were killed, including Will Suet, a black teenager who had just got off the train to spend Christmas with his family. It was all over on Christmas Eve, and a few days later, an uneasy truce between the races was called.

 

Ugh!

Y'all know what time it is? That's right, it's time for some quick hitters.

 

Many of us enjoy the Christmas period by going to the theatre or watching a movie. In December 1903, Chicago residents were eager to do just that at the brand-new Iroquois Theatre, which had been officially opened only in October that year. 1700 people in all crammed themselves in to see the zany, family-friendly musical comedy, Mr. Bluebeard. But just as the wait was over and the show started, a single spark from a stage light lit the surrounding drapery. The show's star, Eddie Foy, tried to keep things together as Iroquois employees struggled to put the curtains out in vain.

 

However, even the spectacle of a Windy City-native in drag couldn't stop the terrified crowd stampeding for the few exits. These, preposterously, were concealed by curtains and utterly inadequate in number. When the actors opened their own exit door to escape, a gust of wind sent a fireball through the crowded theatre, meaning that hundreds died before the fire service was even called. 585 people died, either suffocated, burned alive, or crushed. The scene was described in a 1904 account as "worse than that pictured in the mind of Dante in his vision of the inferno".

Next up, the politics behind this ghastly event are pretty complicated – one Mexican lecturer described the massacre as "the most complicated case in Mexico" – but here's an inadequate summary. The small and impoverished village of Acteal, Mexico, was home to Las Abejas (the bees'), a religious collective that sympathized with a rebel group opposing the Mexican government. Thus, on December 22, 1997, members of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party crept down the steep hill slopes above the village. They chose their moment to attack carefully as people gathered at a prayer meeting when they finally slunk into Acteal.

 

Over the next few hours, assassins armed with guns executed 45 innocent people in cold blood. Amongst the dead were 21 women, some of whom were pregnant, and 15 children. Worst of all, investigations into this cowardly act seem to implicate the government itself. Soldiers garrisoned nearby did not intervene, despite being within earshot of the gunfire and horrified screams. In addition, there was evidence of the crime scene being tampered with by local police and government officials. Though some people have been convicted, there are suspicions that they were framed and that the real culprits remain at large.

 

-Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring… except the Soviet Union. The Marxist-Leninist Khalq and Parcham parties had ousted the Afghan president in April 1978. Still, communism was so unpopular in Afghanistan that the mujahideen succeeded in toppling them just over a year later. So Khalq and Parcham turned to the Soviet Union for help, and on Christmas Eve that year, they obliged by sending 30,000 troops across the border into Afghanistan by the cover of darkness. Bloody fighting ensued, and soon the Soviet Union had control of the major cities.

 

The Soviets stayed for nine years, at which time the mujahideen, backed by foreign support and weapons, waged a brutal guerrilla campaign against the invaders. In turn, captured mujahideen were executed, and entire villages and agricultural areas were razed to the ground. When the Soviets finally withdrew in February 1989, over 1 million civilians and almost 125,000 soldiers from both sides were killed. From the turmoil after the Afghan-Soviet War emerged, the Taliban, installed by neighboring Pakistan, and with them Osama bin Laden. This indeed was a black Christmas for the world.

 

-How about another race riot… No? Well, here you go anyway. Although, this one may be more fucked up. The Agana Race Riot saw black and white US Marines fight it out from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, 1944.

Guam was host to both black and white US Marines in 1944. But instead of fighting the enemy, the white troops elected to turn on the all-black Marine 25th Depot Company. First, the white Marines would stop their fellow soldiers from entering Agana, pelt them with rocks, and shout racist obscenities at them. Then, on Christmas Eve 1944, 9 members of the 25th on official leave were seen talking to local women, and white Marines opened fire on them. Then, on Christmas Day, 2 black soldiers were shot dead by drunken white Marines in separate incidents.

 

Guam's white Marines were decidedly short on festive cheer and goodwill to all men. Not content with these murders, a white mob attacked an African-American depot on Boxing Day, and a white soldier sustained an injury when the 25th returned fire. Sick of their treatment by their fellow soldiers, 40 black Marines gave chase to the retreating mob in a jeep, but further violence was prevented by a roadblock. Can you guess what happened next? Yep, the black soldiers were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, and attempted murder, while the white soldiers were left to nurse their aching heads.

 

One more major one for you guys, and then we'll leave on a kind of happier note. This one's kind of rough. Be warned. 

 

In late December 2008 and into January 2009, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) brutally killed more than 865 civilians and abducted at least 160 children in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). LRA combatants hacked their victims to death with machetes or axes or crushed their skulls with clubs and heavy sticks. In some of the places where they attacked, few were left alive.

 

The worst attacks happened 48 hours over Christmas in locations some 160 miles apart in the Daruma, Duru, and Faradje areas of the Haut-Uele district of northern Congo. The LRA waited until the time of Christmas festivities on December 24 and 25 to carry out their devastating attacks, apparently choosing a moment when they would find the maximum number of people altogether. The killings occurred in the Congo and parts of southern Sudan, where similar weapons and tactics were used.

 

The Christmas massacres in Congo are part of a longstanding practice of horrific atrocities and abuse by the LRA. Before shifting its operations to the Congo in 2006, the LRA was based in Uganda and southern Sudan, where LRA combatants also killed, raped, and abducted thousands of civilians. When the LRA moved to Congo, its combatants initially refrained from targeting Congolese people. Still, in September 2008, the LRA began its first wave of attacks, apparently to punish local communities who had helped LRA defectors to escape. The first wave of attacks in September, together with the Christmas massacres, has led to the deaths of over 1,033 civilians and the abduction of at least 476 children.

 

LRA killings have not stopped since the Christmas massacres. Human Rights Watch receives regular reports of murders and abductions by the LRA, keeping civilians living in terror. According to the United Nations, over 140,000 people have fled their homes since late December 2008 to seek safety elsewhere. New attacks and the flight of civilians are reported weekly. People are frightened to gather together in some areas, believing that the LRA may choose these moments to strike, as they did with such devastating efficiency over Christmas.

 

Even by LRA standards, the Christmas massacres in the Congo were ruthless. LRA combatants struck quickly and quietly, surrounding their victims as they ate their Christmas meal in Batande village or gathered for a Christmas day concert in Faradje. In Mabando village, the LRA sought to maximize the death toll by luring their victims to a central place, playing the radio, and forcing their victims to sing songs and call for others to come to join the party. In most attacks, they tied up their victims, stripped them of their clothes, raped the women and girls, and then killed their victims by crushing their skulls. In two cases, the attackers tried to kill three-year-old toddlers by twisting off their heads. The few villagers who survived often did so because their assailants thought they were dead.

 

Yeah...so there's that. We could go much deeper into this incident, but we think you get the point. 

 

We'll leave you with a story that is pretty bizarre when you stop and think about it. But we'll leave you with this story of an unlikely Christmas get-together. This is the story of the Christmas truce. 

 

British machine gunner Bruce Bairnsfather, later a prominent cartoonist, wrote about it in his memoirs. Like most of his fellow infantrymen of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, he was spending the holiday eve shivering in the muck, trying to keep warm. He had spent a good part of the past few months fighting the Germans. And now, in a part of Belgium called Bois de Ploegsteert, he was crouched in a trench that stretched just three feet deep by three feet wide, his days and nights marked by an endless cycle of sleeplessness and fear, stale biscuits and cigarettes too wet to light.

 

"Here I was, in this horrible clay cavity," Bairnsfather wrote, "…miles and miles from home. Cold, wet through and covered with mud." There didn't "seem the slightest chance of leaving—except in an ambulance."

 

At about 10 p.m., Bairnsfather noticed a noise. "I listened," he recalled. "Away across the field, among the dark shadows beyond, I could hear the murmur of voices." He turned to a fellow soldier in his trench and said, "Do you hear the Boches [Germans] kicking up that racket over there?"

 

Yes," came the reply. "They've been at it some time!"

 

The Germans were singing carols, as it was Christmas Eve. In the darkness, some of the British soldiers began to sing back. "Suddenly," Bairnsfather recalled, "we heard a confused shouting from the other side. We all stopped to listen. The shout came again." The voice was from an enemy soldier, speaking in English with a strong German accent. He was saying, "Come over here."

 

One of the British sergeants answered: "You come half-way. I come half-way."

 

In the years to come, what happened next would stun the world and make history. Enemy soldiers began to climb nervously out of their trenches and meet in the barbed-wire-filled "No Man's Land" that separated the armies. Typically, the British and Germans communicated across No Man's Land with streaking bullets, with only occasional gentlemanly allowances to collect the dead unmolested. But now, there were handshakes and words of kindness. The soldiers traded songs, tobacco, and wine, joining in a spontaneous holiday party in the cold night.

Bairnsfather could not believe his eyes. "Here they were—the actual, practical soldiers of the German army. There was not an atom of hate on either side."

 

And it wasn't confined to that one battlefield. Starting on Christmas Eve, small pockets of French, German, Belgian, and British troops held impromptu cease-fires across the Western Front, with reports of some on the Eastern Front as well. Some accounts suggest a few of these unofficial truces remained in effect for days.

 

Descriptions of the Christmas Truce appear in numerous diaries and letters of the time. One British soldier, a rifleman, named J. Reading, wrote a letter home to his wife describing his holiday experience in 1914: "My company happened to be in the firing line on Christmas eve, and it was my turn…to go into a ruined house and remain there until 6:30 on Christmas morning. During the early part of the morning the Germans started singing and shouting, all in good English. They shouted out: 'Are you the Rifle Brigade; have you a spare bottle; if so we will come halfway and you come the other half.'"

 

"Later on in the day they came towards us," Reading described. "And our chaps went out to meet them…I shook hands with some of them, and they gave us cigarettes and cigars. We did not fire that day, and everything was so quiet it seemed like a dream."

 

Another British soldier, named John Ferguson, recalled it this way: "Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!"

 

Other diaries and letters describe German soldiers using candles to light Christmas trees around their trenches. One German infantryman described how a British soldier set up a makeshift barbershop, charging Germans a few cigarettes each for a haircut. Other accounts describe vivid scenes of men helping enemy soldiers collect their dead, of which there was plenty.

 

One British fighter named Ernie Williams later described in an interview his recollection of some makeshift soccer play on what turned out to be an icy pitch: "The ball appeared from somewhere, I don't know where... They made up some goals and one fellow went in goal and then it was just a general kick-about. I should think there were about a couple of hundred taking part."

 

German Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch of the 134 Saxons Infantry, a schoolteacher who spoke both English and German, described a pick-up soccer game in his diary, which was discovered in an attic near Leipzig in 1999, written in an archaic German form of shorthand. "Eventually the English brought a soccer ball from their trenches, and pretty soon, a lively game ensued," he wrote. "How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time."

 

So much more can be said about this event, but that seems like an excellent place to leave off this Christmas episode! And yes, when you really do stop and think about it… That's a pretty crazy yet fantastic thing.

 

Greatest disaster movies of all time

 

https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-disaster-movies-of-all-time

Mary Shelley, The Birth of Frankenstein

We've all heard the story of "Frankenstein's Monster." A bat shit crazy scientist wants to reanimate dead tissue and basically create a fucking zombie baby… BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU GET FUCKING ZOMBIES! Anyway, Dr. Frankenstein and his trusty assistant, Igor, set off to bring a bunch of random, dead body parts together, throw some lightning on the bugger and bring this new, puzzle piece of a quasi-human back to "life." At first, the reanimated corpse seems somewhat ordinary, but then flips his shit and starts terrorizing and doing what I can only imagine REANIMATED ZOMBIES FUCKING DO! 

 

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the first child of the philosopher, novelist, and journalist William Godwin. 

So, she was brought into this world by some smart fucking people. Mary's mother died of puerperal fever shortly after Mary was born. Puerperal fever is an infectious, sometimes fatal, disease of childbirth; until the mid-19th century, this dreaded, then-mysterious illness could sweep through a hospital maternity ward and kill most new mothers. Today strict aseptic hospital techniques have made the condition uncommon in most parts of the world, except in unusual circumstances such as illegally induced abortion. Her father, William, was left to bring up Mary and her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, Mary's mother's child by the American speculator Gilbert Imlay. A year after her mother's death, Godwin published his Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which he intended as a sincere and compassionate tribute. However, the Memoirs revealed Mary's mother's affairs and her illegitimate child. In that period, they were seen as shocking. Mary read these memoirs and her mother's books and was brought up to cherish her mother's memory.

Mary's earliest years were happy, judging from the letters of William's housekeeper and nurse, Louisa Jones. But Godwin was often deeply in debt; feeling that he could not raise Mary and Fanny himself, he looked for a second wife. In December 1801, he married Mary Jane Clairmont, a well-educated woman with two young children—Charles and Claire SO MANY MARY'S! Sorry folks. Most of her father's friends disliked his new wife, describing her as a straight fucking bitch. Ok, not really, but they didn't like her. However, William was devoted to her, and the marriage worked. Mary, however, came to hate that bitch. William's 19th-century biographer Charles Kegan Paul later suggested that Mrs. Godwin had favored her own children over Williams. So, how awesome is it that he had a biographer? That's so badass. 

Together, Mary's father and his new bride started a publishing firm called M. J. Godwin, which sold children's books and stationery, maps, and games. However, the business wasn't making any loot, and her father was forced to borrow butt loads of money to keep it going. He kept borrowing money to pay off earlier loans, just adding to his problems. By 1809, William's business was close to closing up shop, and he was "near to despair." Mary's father was saved from debtor's prison by devotees such as Francis Place, who lent him additional money. So, debtor's prison is pretty much EXACTLY what it sounds like. If you couldn't pay your debts, they threw your ass in jail. Unlike today where they just FUCK UP YOUR CREDIT! THANKS, COLUMBIA HOUSE!!! 

Though Mary received little education, her father tutored her in many subjects. He often took the children on educational trips. They had access to his library and the many intelligent mofos who visited him, including the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the former vice-president of the United States Aaron Burr. You know, that dude that shot and killed his POLITICAL opponent, Alexander Hamilton, in a fucking duel! Ah… I was born in the wrong century.  

Mary's father admitted he was not educating the children according to Mary's mother's philosophy as outlined in works such as A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. However, Mary still received an unusual and advanced education for a girl of the time. She had a governess, a daily tutor, and read many of her father's children's Roman and Greek history books. For six months in 1811, she also attended a boarding school in Ramsgate, England. Her father described her at age 15 as "singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible." My father didn't know how to spell my name until I was twelve. 

In June of 1812, Mary's father sent her to stay with the family of the radical William Baxter, near Dundee, Scotland. In a letter to Baxter, he wrote, "I am anxious that she should be brought up ... like a philosopher, even like a cynic." Scholars have speculated that she may have been sent away for her health, remove her from the seamy side of the business, or introduce her to radical politics. However, Mary loved the spacious surroundings of Baxter's house and with his four daughters, and she returned north in the summer of 1813 to hang out for 10 months. In the 1831 introduction to Frankenstein, she recalled: "I wrote then—but in a most common-place style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered."

 

Mary Godwin may have first met the radical poet-philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley in between her two stays in Scotland. When she returned home for a second time on 30 March 1814, Percy Shelley became estranged from his wife and regularly visited Mary's father, William Godwin, whom he had agreed to bail out of debt. Percy Shelley's radicalism, particularly his economic views, alienated him from his wealthy aristocratic family. They wanted him to be a high, upstanding snoot and follow traditional models of the landed aristocracy. He tried to donate large amounts of the family's money to projects meant to help the poor and disadvantaged. Percy Shelley, therefore, had a problem gaining access to capital until he inherited his estate because his family did not want him wasting it on projects of "political justice." After several months of promises, Shelley announced that he could not or would not pay off all of Godwin's debts. Godwin was angry and felt betrayed and whooped his fuckin ass! Yeah! Ok, not really. He was just super pissed.

Mary and Percy began hookin' up on the down-low at her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's grave in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church, and they fell in love—she was 16, and he was 21. Creepy and super fucking gross. 

 On 26 June 1814, Shelley and Godwin declared their love for one another as Shelley announced he could not hide his "ardent passion,." This led her in a "sublime and rapturous moment" to say she felt the same way; on either that day or the next, Godwin lost her virginity to Shelley, which tradition claims happened in the churchyard. So, the grown-ass 21-year-old man statutorily raped the 16-year-old daughter of the man he idolized and dicked over. In a graveyard. My god, how things have changed...GROSS!

Godwin described herself as attracted to Shelley's "wild, intellectual, unearthly looks." Smart but ugly. Got it. To Mary's dismay, her father disapproved and tried to thwart the relationship and salvage his daughter's "spotless fame." No! You don't say! Dad wasn't into his TEENAGE DAUGHTER BANGING A MAN IN THE GRAVEYARD!?! Mary's father learned of Shelley's inability to pay off the father's debts at about the same time. Oof. He found out after he diddled her. Mary, who later wrote of "my excessive and romantic attachment to my father," was confused. Um… what?

She saw Percy Shelley as an embodiment of her parents' liberal and reformist ideas of the 1790s, particularly Godwin's view that marriage was a repressive monopoly, which he had argued in his 1793 edition of Political Justice but later retracted. On 28 July 1814, the couple eloped and secretly left for France, taking Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, with them. 

After convincing Mary's mother, who took off after them to Calais, that they did not wish to return, the trio traveled to Paris, and then, by donkey, mule, carriage, and foot, through France, recently ravaged by war, all the way to Switzerland. "It was acting in a novel, being an incarnate romance," Mary Shelley recalled in 1826. Godwin wrote about France in 1814: "The distress of the inhabitants, whose houses had been burned, their cattle killed and all their wealth destroyed, has given a sting to my detestation of war...". As they traveled, Mary and Percy read works by Mary Wollstonecraft and others, kept a joint journal, and continued their own writing. Finally, at Lucerne, lack of money forced the three to turn back. Instead, they traveled down the Rhine and by land to the Dutch port of Maassluis, arriving at Gravesend, Kent, on 13 September 1814.

The situation awaiting Mary Godwin in England was packed with bullshit, some of which she had not expected. Either before or during their journey, she had become pregnant. She and Percy now found themselves penniless, and, to Mary's stupid ass surprise, her father refused to have anything to do with her. The couple moved with Claire into lodgings at Somers Town, and later, Nelson Square. They kept doing their thing, reading, and writing and entertained Percy Shelley's friends. Percy Shelley would often leave home for short periods to dodge bill collectors, and the couple's heartbroken letters would reveal their pain while he was away.

Pregnant and often sick, Mary Godwin had to hear of Percy's joy at the birth of his son by Harriet Shelley in late 1814 due to his constant escapades with Claire Clairmont. Supposedly, Shelley and Clairmont were almost certainly lovers, which caused Mary to be rightfully jealous. And yes, Claire was Mary's cousin. Percy was a friggin' creep.

Percy pissed off Mary when he suggested that they both take the plunge into a stream naked during a walk in the French countryside. This offended her due to her principles, and she was like, "Oh, hell nah, sahn!" and started taking off her earrings in a rage. Or something like that. She was partly consoled by the visits of Hogg, whom she disliked at first but soon considered a close friend. Percy Shelley seems to have wanted Mary and Hogg to become lovers; Mary did not dismiss the idea since she believed in free love in principle. She was a hippie before being a hippie was cool. Percy probably just wanted to not feel guilty for hooking up with her cousin. Creep. In reality, however, she loved only Percy and seemed to have gone no further than flirting with Hogg. On 22 February 1815, she gave birth to a two-months premature baby girl, who was not expected to survive. On 6 March, she wrote to Hogg:

"My dearest Hogg, my baby is dead—will you come to see me as soon as you can. I wish to see you—It was perfectly well when I went to bed—I awoke in the night to give it suck it appeared to be sleeping so quietly that I would not awake it. It was dead then, but we did not find that out till morning—from its appearance it evidently died of convulsions—Will you come—you are so calm a creature & Shelley (Percy) is afraid of a fever from the milk—for I am no longer a mother now."

The loss of her child brought about acute depression in Mary. She was haunted by visions of the baby, but she conceived again and had recovered by the summer. With a revival in Percy's finances after the death of his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, the couple holidayed in Torquay and then rented a two-story cottage at Bishopsgate, on the edge of Windsor Great Park. Unfortunately, little is known about this period in Mary Godwin's life since her journal from May 1815 to July 1816 was lost. At Bishopsgate, Percy wrote his poem Alastor or The Spirit of Solitude; and on 24 January 1816, Mary gave birth to a second child, William, named after her father and soon nicknamed "Willmouse." In her novel The Last Man, she later imagined Windsor as a Garden of Eden.

In May 1816, Mary, Percy, and their son traveled to Geneva with Claire Clairmont. They planned to spend the summer with the poet Lord Byron, whose recent affair with Claire had left her pregnant. Claire sounds like a bit of a trollop. No judging, just making an observation. The party arrived in Geneva on 14 May 1816, where Mary called herself "Mrs Shelley." Byron joined them on 25 May with his young physician, John William Polidori, and rented the Villa Diodati, close to Lake Geneva at the village of Cologny; Percy rented a smaller building called Maison Chapuis on the waterfront nearby. They spent their time writing, boating on the lake, and talking late into the night.

"It proved a wet, ungenial summer," Mary Shelley remembered in 1831, "and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house." Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company amused themselves with German ghost stories called Fantasmagoriana, which prompted Byron to propose that they "each write a ghost story." Unable to think up an account, young Mary became flustered: "Have you thought of a story? I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative." Finally, one mid-June evening, the discussions turned to the principle of life. "Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated," Mary noted, "galvanism had given token of such things." Galvanism is a term invented by the late 18th-century physicist and chemist Alessandro Volta to refer to the generation of electric current by chemical action. The word also came to refer to the discoveries of its namesake, Luigi Galvani, specifically the generation of electric current within biological organisms and the contraction/convulsion of natural muscle tissue upon contact with electric current. While Volta theorized and later demonstrated the phenomenon of his "Galvanism" to be replicable with otherwise inert materials, Galvani thought his discovery to confirm the existence of "animal electricity," a vital force that gave life to organic matter. We'll talk a little more about Galvani and a murderer named George Foster toward the end of the episode.

It was after midnight before they retired, and she was unable to sleep, mainly because she became overwhelmed by her imagination as she kept thinking about the grim terrors of her "waking dream," her ghost story:

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."

She began writing what she assumed would be a short, profound story. With Percy Shelley's encouragement, she turned her little idea into her first novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818. She later described that time in Switzerland as "when I first stepped out from childhood into life." The story of the writing of Frankenstein has been fictionalized repeatedly, and it helped form the basis for several films.

Here's a cool little side note: In September 2011, the astronomer Donald Olson, after a visit to the Lake Geneva villa the previous year and inspecting data about the motion of the moon and stars, concluded that her waking dream took place "between 2 am and 3 am" 16 June 1816, several days after the initial idea by Lord Byron that they each write their ghost stories.

Shelley and her husband collaborated on the story, but the extent of Percy's contribution to the novel is unknown and has been argued over by readers and critics forever. There are differences in the 1818, 1823, and 1831 versions. Mary Shelley wrote, "I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in which it was presented to the world." She wrote that the preface to the first edition was her husband's work "as far as I can recollect." James Rieger concluded Percy's "assistance at every point in the book's manufacture was so extensive that one hardly knows whether to regard him as editor or minor collaborator." At the same time, Anne K. Mellor later argued Percy only "made many technical corrections and several times clarified the narrative and thematic continuity of the text."

Charles E. Robinson, the editor of a facsimile edition of the Frankenstein manuscripts, concluded that Percy's contributions to the book "were no more than what most publishers' editors have provided new (or old) authors or, in fact, what colleagues have provided to each other after reading each other's works in progress." So, eat one, Percy! Just kidding.

In 1840 and 1842, Mary and her son traveled together all over the continent. Mary recorded these trips in Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843. In 1844, Sir Timothy Shelley finally died at the age of ninety, "falling from the stalk like an overblown flower," Mary put it. For the first time in her life, she and her son were financially independent, though the remaining estate wasn't worth as much as they had thought.

In the mid-1840s, Mary Shelley found herself in the crosshairs of three separate blackmailing sons of bitches. First, in 1845, an Italian political exile called Gatteschi, whom she had met in Paris, threatened to publish letters she had sent him. Scandalous! However, a friend of her son's bribed a police chief into seizing Gatteschi's papers, including the letters, which were then destroyed. Vaffanculo, Gatteschi! Shortly afterward, Mary Shelley bought some letters written by herself and Percy Shelley from a man calling himself G. Byron and posing as the illegitimate son of the late Lord Byron. Also, in 1845, Percy Shelley's cousin Thomas Medwin approached her, claiming to have written a damaging biography of Percy Shelley. He said he would suppress it in return for £250, but Mary told him to eat a big ole bag of dicks and jog on!

In 1848, Percy Florence married Jane Gibson St John. The marriage proved a happy one, and Mary liked Jane. Mary lived with her son and daughter-in-law at Field Place, Sussex, the Shelleys' ancestral home, and at Chester Square, London, and vacationed with them, as well.

Mary's last years were blighted by illness. From 1839, she suffered from headaches and bouts of paralysis in parts of her body, which sometimes prevented her from reading and writing, obviously two of her favorite things. Then, on 1 February 1851, at Chester Square, Mary Shelly died at fifty-three from what her doctor suspected was a brain tumor. According to Jane Shelley, Mary had asked to be buried with her mother and father. Still, looking at the graveyard at St Pancras and calling it "dreadful," Percy and Jane chose to bury her instead at St Peter's Church in Bournemouth, near their new home at Boscombe. On the first anniversary of Mary's death, the Shelleys opened her box-desk. Inside they found locks of her dead children's hair, a notebook she had shared with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a copy of his poem Adonaïs with one page folded round a silk parcel containing some of his ashes and the remains of his heart. Romantic or disturbing? Maybe a bit of both.

Mary Shelley remained a stout political radical throughout her life. Mary's works often suggested that cooperation and sympathy, mainly as practiced by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view directly challenged the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and Enlightenment political theories. She wrote seven novels / Two travel narrations / Twenty three short stories / Three books of children's literature, and many articles. Mary Shelley left her mark on the literary world, and her name will be forever etched in the catacombs of horror for generations to come.

When it comes to reanimation, there's someone else we need to talk about.

George Forster (or Foster) was found guilty of murdering his wife and child by drowning them in Paddington Canal, London. He was hanged at Newgate on 18 January 1803, after which his body was taken to a nearby house where it was used in an experiment by Italian scientist Giovanni Aldini.

At his trial, the events were reconstructed. Forster's mother-in-law recounted that her daughter and grandchild had left her house to see Forster at 4 pm on Saturday, 4 December 1802. In whose house Forster lodged, Joseph Bradfield reported that they had stayed together that night and gone out at 10 am on Sunday morning. He also stated that Forster and his wife had not been on good terms because she wished to live with him. On Sunday, various witnesses saw Forster with his wife and child in public houses near Paddington Canal. The body of his child was found on Monday morning; after the canal was dragged for three days, his wife's body was also found.

Forster claimed that upon leaving The Mitre, he set out alone for Barnet to see his other two children in the workhouse there, though he was forced to turn back at Whetstone due to the failing light. This was contradicted by a waiter at The Mitre who said the three left the inn together. Skepticism was also expressed that he could have walked to Whetstone when he claimed. Nevertheless, the jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to death and also to be dissected after that. This sentence was designed to provide medicine with corpses on which to experiment and ensure that the condemned could not rise on Judgement Day, their bodies having been cut into pieces and selectively discarded. Forster was hanged on 18 January, shortly before he made a full confession. He said he had come to hate his wife and had twice before taken his wife to the canal, but his nerve had both times failed him.

A recent BBC Knowledge documentary (Real Horror: Frankenstein) questions the fairness of the trial. It notes that friends of George Forster's wife later claimed that she was highly suicidal and had often talked about killing herself and her daughter. According to this documentary, Forster attempted suicide by stabbing himself with a crudely fashioned knife. This was to avoid awakening during the dissection of his body, should he not have died when hanged. This was a real possibility owing to the crude methods of execution at the time. The same reference suggests that his 'confession' was obtained under duress. In fact, it alleges that Pass, a Beadle or an official of a church or synagogue on Aldini's payroll, fast-tracked the whole trial and legal procedure to obtain the freshest corpse possible for his benefactor.

After the execution, Forster's body was given to Giovanni Aldini for experimentation. Aldini was the nephew of fellow scientist Luigi Galvani and an enthusiastic proponent of his uncle's method of stimulating muscles with electric current, known as Galvanism. The experiment he performed on Forster's body demonstrated this technique. The Newgate Calendar (a record of executions at Newgate) reports that "On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion." 

Several people present believed that Forster was being brought back to life (The Newgate Calendar reports that even if this had been so, he would have been re-executed since his sentence was to "hang until he be dead"). One man, Mr. Pass, the beadle of the Surgeons' Company, was so shocked that he died shortly after leaving. The hanged man was undoubtedly dead since his blood had been drained and his spinal cord severed after the execution.

 

Top Ten Frankenstein Movies

https://screenrant.com/best-frankenstein-movies-ranked-imdb/

The Michigan Lake Triangle. Was it aliens?

We're going back to the creepy, mysterious, and strange this week. We're heading up to Lake Michigan, where tons of ships and planes have gone missing, and other odd things have occurred in what is known as the Lake Michigan triangle. Full disclosure, being from Ohio, the only reason we are covering this is that it's not the actual state of Michigan, just a lake that was unfortunately cursed with the same name. So we'll only discuss the state if we absolutely have to. We kid, of course.. Or do we… At any rate, this should be another interesting, fun, historically jam-packed episode full of craziness! So without further ado, let's head to lake Michigan! 

 

So first off, let's learn a little about Lake Michigan itself because, you know, we like to learn you guys some stuff! 

 

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is the largest lake by area in one country. Hydrologically Michigan and Huron are the same body of water (sometimes called Lake Michigan-Huron) but are typically considered distinct. Counted together, it is the largest body of fresh water in the world by surface area. The Mackinac Bridge is generally considered the dividing line between them. Its name is derived from the Ojibwa Indian word mishigami, meaning large lake. We've also seen the title translated as "big water," so honestly, we're not sure of the translation, but those are the two we see most often. Lake Michigan touches Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. According to the New World Encyclopedia, approximately 12 million people live along the shores of Lake Michigan. Major port cities include Chicago, Illinois (population: 2.7 million); Milwaukee, Wisconsin (600,000); Green Bay, Wisconsin (104,000); and Gary, Indiana (80,000). Water temperatures on Lake Michigan make it to the 60s in July and August and can sometimes make it into the 70s when air temperatures have been in the 90s for several successive days.

 

The water of Lake Michigan has an unusual circulatory pattern — it resembles the traffic flow in a suburban cul-de-sac — and moves very slowly. Winds and resulting waves keep Lake Michigan from freezing over, but it has been 90 percent frozen on many occasions. Ocean-like swells, especially during the winter, can result in drastic temperature changes along the coast, shoreline erosion, and difficult navigation. The lake's average water depth is 279 feet (85 meters), and its maximum depth is 925 feet (282 meters).

 

Marshes, tallgrass prairies, savannas, forests, and sand dunes that can reach several hundred feet provide excellent habitats for all types of wildlife on Lake Michigan. Trout, salmon, walleye, and smallmouth bass fisheries are prevalent on the lake. The lake is also home to crawfish, freshwater sponges, and sea lamprey, a metallic violet eel species.

 

The lake is also home to a wide range of bird populations, including water birds such as ducks, Freddy the fox in bird costume, geese, swans, crows, robins, and bald eagles. Predatory birds such as hawks and vultures are also prevalent on the lake. This is mainly due to the wealth of wildlife to feast upon. The pebble-shaped Petoskey stone, a fossilized coral, is unique to the northern Michigan shores of Lake Michigan and is the state stone.

 

Today, the formation that is recognized as Lake Michigan began about 1.2 billion years ago when two tectonic plates were ripped apart, creating the Mid-Continent Rift. Some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Native Americans. However, their culture declined after 800 AD, and for the next few hundred years, the area was the home of peoples known as the Late Woodland Native Americans. In the early 17th century, when western European explorers made their first forays into the region, they encountered descendants of the Late Woodland Native Americans: the historic Chippewa; Menominee; Sauk; Fox; Winnebago; Miami; Ottawa; and Potawatomi peoples. The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, possibly in 1634 or 1638. In early European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has also been found to be that of "Michigan," named for the Illinois Confederation of tribes.

 

The Straits of Mackinac were an important Native American and fur trade route. Located on the southern side of the straits is the town of Mackinaw City, Michigan, the site of Fort Michilimackinac, a reconstructed French fort founded in 1715, and on the northern side is St. Ignace, Michigan, the site of a French Catholic mission to the Indians, founded in 1671. In 1673, Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, and their crew of five Métis voyageurs followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay and up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters, searching for the Mississippi River. By the late 18th century, the eastern end of the straits was controlled by Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, a British colonial and early American military base and fur trade center founded in 1781. 

With the advent of European exploration into the area in the late 17th century, Lake Michigan became used as part of a line of waterways leading from the Saint Lawrence River to the Mississippi River and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. French coureurs des Bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Lake Michigan was integral to the development of Chicago and the Midwestern United States west of the lake. For example, 90% of the grain shipped from Chicago traveled by ships east over Lake Michigan during the antebellum years. The volume rarely fell below 50% after the Civil War, even with the significant expansion of railroad shipping.

 

The first person to reach the deep bottom of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1985. Klump reached the bottom via submersible as part of a research expedition. In 2007, a row of stones paralleling an ancient shoreline was discovered by Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College. This formation lies 40 feet (12 m) below the lake's surface. One of the stones is said to have a carving resembling a mastodon. The construction needed more study before it could be authenticated. The warming of Lake Michigan was the subject of a 2018 report by Purdue University. Since 1980, steady increases in obscure surface temperature have occurred in each decade. This is likely to decrease native habitat and adversely affect native species' survival, including game fish.

Fun fact… Lake Michigan has its own coral reef! Lake Michigan waters near Chicago are also home to a reef, although it has been dead for many years. Still, it is an exciting feature of the lake, and scientists at Shedd Aquarium are interested in learning more about its habitat and the lifeforms it supports. Dr. Philip Willink is a senior research biologist at the Shedd Aquarium who has conducted research at Morgan Shoal to find out what kind of life there is and what the geology is like. "Morgan Shoal is special because it is so close to so many people. It is only a few hundred yards from one of the most famous and busiest streets in Chicago (Lake Shore Drive)," he said in an interview. 

 

"Now that more people know it is there, more people can make a connection with it, and they can begin to appreciate the geological processes that formed it and the plants and animals that call it home. It is a symbol of how aquatic biodiversity can survive in an urban landscape."

 

"I hope people continue to study and learn from Morgan Shoal. We need to keep figuring out how this reef interacts with the waves and currents of Lake Michigan," he said. "We need to continue studying how the underwater habitat promotes biodiversity."

Passengers, have you heard about the Stonehenge under lake Michigan? Well, in 2007, underwater archeologist Mark Holley was scanning for shipwrecks on the bottom of Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay. Instead, he stumbled on a line of stones thought to be constructed by ancient humans. They believe that this building, similar to Stonehenge, is about 9000 years old, but interestingly, on one of the stones, there is a carving in the form of a mastodon, which died out more than 10,000 years ago. The exact coordinates of the find are still kept secret – this condition was put by local Indian tribes who do not want the influx of tourists and curiosity seekers on their land. The boulder with the markings is 3.5 to 4 feet high and about 5 feet long. Photos show a surface with numerous fissures. Some may be natural while others appear of human origin, but those forming what could be the petroglyph stood out, Holley said. Viewed together, they suggest the outlines of a mastodon-like back, hump, head, trunk, tusk, triangular-shaped ear, and parts of legs, he said.

 

"We couldn't believe what we were looking at," said Greg MacMaster, president of the underwater preserve council.

 

Specialists shown pictures of the boulder holding the mastodon markings have asked for more evidence before confirming the markings are an ancient petroglyph, said Holley. "They want to actually see it," he said. But, unfortunately, he added, "Experts in petroglyphs generally don't dive, so we're running into a little bit of a stumbling block there."

Featured on ancient aliens below clip:

Stonehenge in Northern Michigan - traverse city skip to 4:40

Soooo what's up with that… Michigan Stonehenge? Well, maybe not…

 

Sadly, much of the information out there is incorrect. For example, there is not a henge associated with the site, and the individual stones are relatively small compared to what most people think of as European standing stones. It should be clearly understood that this is not a megalith site like Stonehenge. This label is placed on the site by non-visiting individuals from the press who may have been attempting to generate sensation about the story. The site in Grand Traverse Bay is best described as a long line of stones that is over a mile in length.

 

Dr. John O'Shea from the University of Michigan has been working on a broadly similar structure in Lake Huron. He has received an NSF grant to research his site and thinks it may be a prehistoric driveline for herding caribou. This site is well published, and you can find quite a bit of information on it on the internet. The area in Grand Traverse Bay may possibly have served a similar function to the one found in Lake Huron. It certainly offers the same potential for research. Unfortunately, however, state politics in previous years have meant that we have only been able to obtain limited funding for research, and as a result, little progress has been made.

 

Honestly, even if it's not a Stonehenge but still possibly dating back 10,000 years, that's pretty dang terrific either way. Hopefully, they can figure out what's really going on down there!

 

So that's pretty sweet! Ok with that brief history and stuff out of the way, let's get into the fun stuff!

 

The Lake Michigan Triangle is a section of Lake Michigan considered especially treacherous to those venturing through it. It stretches from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan, before heading south to Benton Harbor, Michigan.

It was first proposed by Charles Berlitz. A proponent of the Bermuda Triangle, he felt Lake Michigan was governed by similar forces. This theory was presented to the public in aviator Jay Gourley's book, The Great Lakes Triangle. In it, he stated: "The Great Lakes account for more unexplained disappearances per unit area than the Bermuda Triangle."

 

The Lake Michigan Triangle is believed to have caused numerous shipwrecks and aerial disappearances over the years. It's also been the scene of unexplained phenomena, from mysterious ice blocks falling from the sky to balls of fire and strange, hovering lights. This has led many to believe extraterrestrials are drawn to the area or perhaps home to a time portal.

 

Let's start with the disappearances. The first ship that traveled the upper Great Lakes was the 17th-century brigandine, Le Griffon. However, this maiden voyage did not end well. The shipwrecked when it encountered a violent storm while sailing on Lake Michigan.

 

The first occurrence in the Lake Michigan Triangle was recorded in 1891. The Thomas Hume was a schooner built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 1870. The ship was christened as H.C. Albrecht in honor of its first owner, Captain Harry Albrecht. In 1876, the vessel was sold to Captain Welch from Chicago. In the following year, the ship was bought by Charles Hackley, a lumber baron who owned the Hackley-Hume Lumber Mill on Muskegon Lake. The boat was then renamed as the Thomas Hume in 1883, after Hackley's business partner. The Hume would make many successful trips across Lake Michigan until May 21, 1891, when it disappeared, along with its crew of seven sailors. After that, not even a trace of the boat was ever found. The Hume was on a return trip from Chicago to Muskegon, having just dropped off a load of lumber. The ship remained lost until Taras Lysenko, a diver with A&T Recovery out of Chicago, discovered the wreck in 2005. Valerie van Heest, a Lake Michigan shipwreck hunter and researcher who helped identify the wreckage, and Elizabeth Sherman, a maritime author and great-granddaughter of the schooner's namesake, presented the discovery at the Great Lakes conference at the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum. The last trip of the schooner began like many others it had completed for two of Muskegon County's prominent lumbermen, Thomas Hume and Charles Hackley. It took a load of lumber to Chicago in May of 1891.

 

The unloaded vessel left to return to Muskegon, riding empty and light alongside one of the company's other schooners, the Rouse Simmons, which years later would go on to legendary status as the Christmas Tree Ship.

 

Sherman relayed the history of the Thomas Hume's final moments. She said the two vessels encountered a squall, not a major storm or full gale that took many Great Lakes ships. 

 

"It made the captain of the Rouse Simmons nervous enough to turn back to Chicago," she told conference members.

 

The Thomas Hume continued on, and no signs of the vessel, the captain, nor the six-man crew were ever seen again. Sherman said Hackley and Hume called for a search of other ports and Lake Michigan, but nothing was found, not even debris.

 

That's when the wild theories began. Sherman said one of the most far-fetched was that the captain sailed to another port, painted the Thomas Hume, and sailed the vessel under a different name. Another theory was a large steamer ran down the schooner, and the steamer's captain swore his crew to secrecy.

 

Hackley and Hume put up a $300 reward, which seemed to squelch that theory because no one stepped forward.

 

The wreck remains in surprisingly good shape. The video shot by the dive group of the Thomas Hume shows the hull intact, the three masts laying on the deck, the ship's riggings, and a rudder that is in quality shape. The lifeboat was found inside the sunken vessel, presumably sucked into the opening during the sinking.

 

So what happened? Simple explanation… Maybe a storm or squall. Better explanation… Probably aliens… Or lake monster… Yeah, probably that.

 

Another mysterious incident believers in the Triangle seem to reference is the Rose Belle. From their archives, the news bulletin for the day reads: "October 30, 1921: the schooner Rosabelle, loaded with lumber, left High Island bound for Benton Harbor and apparently capsized in a gale on Lake Michigan. She was found awash 42 miles from Milwaukee, with no sign of the crew. After she drifted to 20 miles from Kenosha, the Cumberland towed her into Racine harbor. A thorough search of the ship turned up no sign of the crew. She was purchased by H & M Body Corp., beached 100 feet offshore, and attempts were made to drag her closer to shore north of Racine. The corp. planned to remove her lumber."

 

According to the Wisconsin Historical Society's Maritime Preservation Program, the Rosabelle was a small two-masted schooner and was used to bring supplies to High Island for the House of David. It was 100 feet long, with a beam of 26 feet.

 

Despite appearing to have been involved in a collision, there were no other shipwrecks or reports of an accident. What's more, the 11-person crew was nowhere to be found. 

 

We're gonna go with aliens again.

 

Mysterious disappearances have continued to occur along the lake's waters. For example, on April 28, 1937, Captain George R. Donner of the freighter O.M. McFarland went to rest in his cabin after hours of navigating his crew through icy waters. As the ship approached its destination at Port Washington, Wisconsin, a crewmember went to wake him up, only to find him missing and the door locked from the inside. A search of the ship turned up no clues, and Donner hasn't been seen since.

 

Over the years, shipwrecks stacked up, drawing attention to this region of Lake Michigan. Then, during the blizzard of November 1940, three massive freighters and two fishing tug boats sank off the coast of Pentwater, Mich., well inside this triangular boundary. Wrecks of the three freighters have been found, but the two tugboats have yet to be discovered. Whether the wreckages are lost or found, experts find it highly unusual that five ships – killing a total of 64 sailors – all sank on the same day so close together.

 

But did aren't the only thing that had disappeared here. 

 

Theories surrounding UFOs and extraterrestrials roaming the skies of the Lake Michigan Triangle are spurred on by the mysterious disappearance of Northwest Airlines flight 2501. The plane was traveling from New York to Seattle, with a stop in Minneapolis, on June 23, 1950, when it seemingly disappeared out of the sky.

 

At 11:37 p.m. that evening, its pilot requested a descent from 3,500 to 2,500 feet due to an electrical storm. The request was denied, and minutes later, the plane disappeared from radar. Despite a massive search effort, only a blanket bearing the Northwest Airlines logo indicated the plane had gone into the water.

 

As days passed, partial remains began to wash ashore across Michigan, but the plane never resurfaced. According to two police officers near the scene, there had been a strange red light hovering over the water just two hours after the plane disappeared. This has led some to theorize it was abducted by aliens. However, their reason for taking the aircraft remains a mystery.

 

See, told you… Aliens!

 

Do you need more proof of aliens? Here ya go

 

Steven Kubacki was a 23-year-old student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. On February 20, 1978, he was on a solo cross-country skiing trip near Saugatuck, Michigan, when he disappeared. 

 

The next day, snowmobilers found his equipment abandoned, and police located his footprints on the ice. The way they abruptly ended suggested Kubacki had fallen through the ice and died of either hypothermia or by drowning. Seems pretty cut and dry, eh... Well, you're fucking fucking wrong, Jack! The mystery appeared all but solved until May 5, 1979, when Kubacki showed up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Fifteen months after seemingly disappearing into the icy depths of Lake Michigan, he found himself lying in the grass, some 700 miles away. 

 

Kubacki told reporters he had no memory of the past year and a half. However, when he awoke, he was wearing weird clothes, and his backpack contained random maps. This led him to believe he'd been traveling. He also had a T-shirt from a Wisconsin marathon, which he explained by saying, "I feel like I've done a lot of running."

 

The location of Kubacki's disappearance has led many to suggest he was yet another victim of the Lake Michigan Triangle. While some don't believe him regarding his supposed amnesia, others feel an alien abduction is a reason behind his disappearance and lack of memory.

 

So you may be asking yourself… But if this was all alien activity, why is that no mention of UFOs… Well, you're in luck cus… There are!!! In fact, Michigan, in general, has a pretty good share of UFO sightings; coincidentally, there was a sharp rise in sightings about a month after weed was legalized in the state. I'm kidding, of course…or am I. So let's take a look at s few sightings in the area!

On March 8, 1994, calls flooded 911 to report strange sightings in the night sky. The reports came in from all walks of life — from police and a meteorologist to residents of Michigan's many beach resorts. Hundreds of people witnessed what many insisted were UFOs — unidentified flying objects.

 

Cindy Pravda, 63, of Grand Haven remembers that night in vivid detail — four lights in the sky that looked like "full moons" over the line of trees behind her horse pasture.

 

"I got UFOs in the backyard," she told a friend on the phone.

 

"I watched them for half an hour. Where I'm facing them, the one on the far left moved off. It moved to the highway and then came back in the same position," Pravda told the Free Press. "The one to the right was gone in blink of an eye and then, eventually, everything disappeared quickly."

 

She still lives in the same house and continues to talk about that night.

 

"I'm known as the UFO lady of Grand Haven," Pravda laughed.

 

Daryl and Holly Graves and their son, Joey, told reporters in 1994 they witnessed lights in the sky over Holland at about 9:30 p.m. on March 8.

 

"I saw six lights out the window above the barn across the street," Joey Graves told the Free Press in 1994. "I got up and went to the sofa and looked up at the sky. They were red and white and moving."

 

Others gave similar accounts, including Holland Police Officer Jeff Velthouse and a meteorologist from the National Weather Service Office in Muskegon County. What's more, the meteorologist recorded unknown echoes on his radar the same time Velthouse reported the lights.

 

"My guy looked at the radar and observed three echoes as the officer was describing the movement," Leo Grenier of the NWS office in Muskegon said in 1994. "The movement of the objects was rather erratic. The echoes were there about 15 minutes, drifting slowly south-southwest, kind of headed toward the Chicago side of the south end of Lake Michigan."

 

The radar operator said, "There were three and sometimes four blips, and they weren't planes. Planes show as pinpoints on the scope, these were the size of half a thumbnail. They were from 5 to 12,000 feet at times, moving all over the place. Three were moving toward Chicago. I never saw anything like it before, not even when I'm doing severe weather." Hundreds of reports of suspected UFOs were called in not only to 911 dispatchers but also to the Mutual UFO Network's (MUFON) Michigan chapter. 

 

MUFON, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization founded in 1969, bills itself as the "world's oldest and largest civilian UFO investigation and research organization."

 

The reported UFO sightings were the largest since March 1966, Bill Konkolesky, Michigan state director of MUFON, told the Free Press.

 

"It was one of the big ones in the state. We haven't seen a large UFO (reported sighting) wave since that time," Konkolesky said.

 

Wow… Awesome! 

 

A mysterious video, apparently shot from Chicago in late 2020 or early 2021, shows a fleet of UFOs above Lake Michigan, and most of them look like bright orbs. These UFO orbs hovered in the skies for several minutes, and at one point in time, some of these lights disappeared before appearing again. 

The eyewitness who witnessed this eerie sighting claimed that these UFO lights used to appear above Lake Michigan several times in the past.

 

The video was later analyzed by self-styled alien hunter Scott C Waring, who enjoys a huge fan following online. After analyzing the mysterious footage, Waring claimed that something strange was going on in the skies of the United States. He also suggested that there could be an underground alien base in Lake Michigan.

"The lights were so close to the water that sometimes the reflection of the UFOs could be seen. Aircraft can be seen flying over the lights once in a while, but the lights and aircraft stay far apart. These lights are a sign that there is an alien base below lake Michigan. Absolutely amazing and even the eyewitnesses noticed other people not looking at the UFOs. Very strange how people are too busy to look out the window. 100% proof that alien base sites at the bottom of Lake Michigan off Chicago coast," wrote Waring on his website UFO Sightings Daily. 

 

There have been shitload UFO sightings in the area of the Lake Michigan Triangle, only fueling more speculation. So here are some of the patented midnight train quick hitters!

 

An early sighting occurred in November 1957, when a cigar-shaped object with a pointed nose and blunt tail, with low emitting sounds, was seen. Subsequent civilian and military air traffic controllers cited no aircraft were in the vicinity at the time.

 

In July 1987, five youths had seen a low-level cloud expel several V-shaped objects which hovered quietly, with bright lights. Then, the things reentered the cloud formation and rapidly departed toward the lake's north end.

 

In August 2002, seven miles off the Harrisville shoreline, two freighter sailors observed a textured, triangular-shaped object soar above and follow their ship. Then, the thing made a 90-degree turn and quickly disappeared.

 

In September 2009, a couple left their residence to close their chicken coop for the evening. They jointly observed a large, triangular object pursued by a military jet. In addition, they noted two bright and beaming white lights when the object was overhead.

 

In June 2007, an 80-year-old resident inspected what appeared to be a balloon-shaped object near his fenceline. Upon his arrival, the object immediately increased to the size of a car and shot upward. He stated his body hair stood on end and when he later touched where the thing was, his hands became numb.

 

In October 2010, a couple experienced a sky filled with a variety of low-flying white and red objects. The couple returned to the village, where five individuals from a retail establishment joined in the observation. Later, a massive yellow orb appeared and quickly exited into the sky. The viewing lasted for nearly an hour.

 

Well… We're convinced, well maybe at least Moody is anyway. 

 

Anything else weird, you ask? Why yes… Yes, there is. 

 

Yet another odd aerial phenomenon occurred on July 12, 1883, aboard the tug Mary McLane, as it worked just off the Chicago harbor. At about 6 p.m., the crew said large blocks of ice, as big as bricks, began falling out of a cloudless sky. 

The fall continued for about 30 minutes before it stopped. The ice was large enough to put dents in the wooden deck. The crew members brought a two-pound chunk of ice ashore with them that night, which they stored in the galley icebox, proving they didn't make up the story. Ouch… That's nuts. 

 

Littered on the bottom of the Great Lakes are the remains of more than 6,000 shipwrecks gone missing on the Great Lakes since the late 1600s when the first commercial sailing ships began plying the region, most during the heyday of commercial shipping in the nineteenth century. Just over twenty percent of those vessels have come to rest on the bottom of Lake Michigan, second only in quantity to Lake Huron. So many of those have disappeared mysteriously in the Michigan triangle area. What the hell is going on there! Aliens? Weather? Portals to other dimensions?

 

We may never know for sure, but most likely… Aliens

Movies

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/ship-horror-movies/ranker-film

The Banana Massacre - Yep, bananas. Happy Thanksgiving 2021

So we're gonna get into something a bit different this week. Not really truecrime, not unsolved, but definitely crazy. This is another one we got from a listener that we had no clue ever happened. While the official death toll of this incident is usually put at around 45, some estimates say it could be up to 2000. Those bodies are said to either have been dumped in the sea or buried in mass graves. So what was the incident about you ask? Well, long story very short… Bananas. We're gonna dive into what is simply known as the Banana massacre,  a crazy tale of a government squashing a banana strike with excessive force and what came after. Buckle up guys, here we go!

 

Before we start, I want to acknowledge the great sources of info for this episode. 90% of the information on this week's episode came from two amazing sources that had tons of info that we couldn't find anywhere else. First a paper by Jorge Enrique Elias Caro and Antonino Vidal Ortega on the website scielo.org was our source for the actual massacre info while an article called Rotten Fruit by Peter Chapman on the Financial Times website was our source for the company history. 

So, let's start by talking about a fruit company. United Fruit company to be exact. United Fruit began life in the 1870s when Minor Cooper Keith, a wealthy young New Yorker, started growing bananas as a business sideline, alongside a railway line he was building in Costa Rica. Both ventures took off, and by 1890 he was married to the daughter of a former president of Costa Rica and owned vast banana plantations on land given to him by the state. The bananas were shipped to New Orleans and Boston, where demand soon began to outstrip supply.Keith teamed up with Andrew Preston, a Boston importer, and in 1899 they formed United Fruit. Bananas sold well for their tropical cachet: they were exotic, a luxury only affordable to the rich. But the rapidly rising output of United Fruit’s plantations brought down prices. The company created a mass market in the industrial cities of the US north-east and Midwest. The once bourgeois banana became positively proletarian.

 

By the 1920s, United Fruit’s empire had spread across Central America. It also included Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In South America the company owned chunks of Colombia and Ecuador. It came to dominate the European as well as the US banana markets with the help of its Great White Fleet of 100 refrigerated ships, the largest private navy in the world.

 

There are more than 300 varieties of banana, but United Fruit grew only one: the Gros Michel or ”Big Mike”. This variety suited most tastes; it was not too big or too small, too yellow or too sweet - if anything, it was a little bland. This was the forerunner of the transnational products we have today.

 

        But mass production took its toll. In 1903, disease hit United Fruit’s plantations in Panama. An array of pathogens kept up the attack, and the banana was discovered to have a genetic weakness. Its seeds are ill equipped for reproduction, so growers take cuttings from one plant to create another. The banana is a clone, with each inbred generation less resilient. 

 

Although the banana was diseased, United Fruit marketed it as a product that exemplified good health. Banana diseases did not affect humans, and the fruit was said to be the cure for many ills: obesity, blood pressure, constipation - even depression. In 1929, United Fruit set up its own ”education department”, which supplied US schools with teaching kits extolling the benefits of the banana and the good works of the company. Meanwhile, United Fruit’s ”home economics” department showered housewives with banana recipes.

 

One of United Fruit’s most successful advertising campaigns began in 1944, designed to boost the banana’s profile after its scarcity during the war. It featured Senorita Chiquita Banana, a cartoon banana who danced and sang in an exuberant Latin style. Senorita Chiquita bore a close resemblance to Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian entertainer who, in her ”tutti-frutti” hat, wowed Hollywood at the time. Sales soon regained prewar levels.

 

By the 1960s, the banana had become an inseparable accompaniment to the morning cereal of most American children. And today, in countries such as the US and Britain, it has ousted the apple as the most popular fruit. In the UK, figures indicate that more than 95 per cent of households buy bananas each week, and that more money is spent on them than on any other supermarket item, apart from petrol and lottery tickets. 

 

Soooo sounds like a pretty typical big business rise to power by providing a wholesome treat to the people right? Wrong… There was more going on than almost everybody knew. 

 

Over the years, United Fruit fought hard for low taxes and light regulation. By the beginning of the 20th century, troublesome anti-trust laws had been passed in the US to crack down on business behaviour such as price-fixing and other monopolistic practices. Taxes on large corporations were increased to fund welfare benefits in the US and fully fledged welfare states in Europe. But, with a centre of operations far from the lawmakers of Washington DC, United Fruit largely avoided all this.

 

The company also gained a reputation as being ruthless when crossed, and acted to remove governments that did not comply with its wishes. United Fruit had first shown its tough nature in the invasion of Honduras in 1911, which was planned by Sam ”The Banana Man” Zemurray, a business partner of United Fruit who later headed the company. Efforts by Zemurray and United Fruit to set up production in Honduras had been blocked by the Honduran government, which was fearful of the power it might wield. United Fruit was not so easily deterred. Zemurray financed an invasion, led by such enterprising types as ”General” (self-appointed) Lee Christmas and freelance trouble-shooter Guy ”Machine Gun” Molony. Thanks to United Fruit, many more exercises in ”regime change” were carried out in the name of the banana.

 

In 1941, the company hired a new consultant, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, who had adapted the early disciplines of psychoanalysis to the marketplace. Bernays is known as the ”father of public relations” following his seminal 1928 book, Propaganda, in which he argued that it was the duty of the ”intelligent minority” of society to manipulate the unthinking ”group mind”. This, Bernays asserted, was for the sake of freedom and democracy.

 

United Fruit had become concerned about its image. In Central America, it was commonly known as el pulpo (the octopus) - its tentacles everywhere. In the US, United Fruit’s territories were seen as troubled and forbidding. Under Bernays’ guidance, the company began issuing a steady flow of information to the media about its work, rebranding the region as ”Middle America”.

 

America”.

 

In 1954, Bernays exercised his manipulative powers to get rid of the Guatemalan government. Democratically elected, it had taken some of United Fruit’s large areas of unused land to give to peasant farmers. Bernays’ response was to call newspaper contacts who might be amenable to the company view. Journalists were sent on ”fact finding” missions to Central America and, in particular, Guatemala, where they chased false stories of gunfire and bombs. In dispatches home, Guatemala became a place gripped by ”communist terror”.

 

The company looked, too, to friends in high places, both in the corridors of power and in the offices where the big decisions were made. During the Guatemalan crisis, John Foster Dulles, one of the world’s most esteemed statesmen, was secretary of state. His brother, Allen Dulles, was head of the CIA. Both were former legal advisers to United Fruit. Together, the Dulles brothers orchestrated the coup that overthrew Guatemala’s government in 1954.

 

Despite its ugly reputation, United Fruit often made philanthropic gestures.  Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company, played a part in coining the term ”corporate social responsibility” when, in reference to earthquake relief sent to Nicaragua in 1972, he extolled the company’s deeds as ”our social responsibility”.  And in the 1930s, Sam Zemurray donated part of his fortune to a children’s clinic in New Orleans. He later gave $1m to the city’s Tulane University to finance ”Middle American'' research; he also funded a Harvard professorship for women. Philanthropy, however, did not prevent United Fruit’s abuses, and, in the 1950s, the US government decided it had to act. The company’s activities had caused such anti-US feeling in Latin America that leftwing revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had prospered. And so Washington began to take away some of United Fruit’s land.

 

Ironically, Castro had benefited from the presence of United Fruit in Cuba. His father, a sugar planter, leased land from the company, and had made enough money to afford a good upbringing for his children. Guevara had fought both United Fruit and the CIA during the Guatemalan coup; he maintained thereafter that Latin America had no choice but ”armed struggle”. At New Year 1959, Castro and Guevara seized power in Cuba and kicked out the US-supported regime of Fulgencio Batista.

 

Like an ailing dictator, United Fruit lashed out - and nearly took the world with it. In 1961, it lent part of its Great White Fleet to the CIA and Cuban exiles in the US who were plotting to overthrow Castro. When the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, Castro, fearing another attack, ushered in armaments from the Soviet Union, prompting the missile crisis of 1962.

 

United Fruit battled on through the 1960s, its product ever more the victim of disease. Big Mike flagged, died and gave way to the dessert banana most of the developed world eats today, the Cavendish. It was said to be ”disease resistant”. Now that’s dying, too.

 

Eli Black took over the company in 1970, imagining he could turn it back into the colossus it once was. The early 1970s, however, were a terrible period for the image of multinational corporations. Chief among them, oil companies made huge profits from the crisis after the 1973 Middle East war, to the inflationary ruin of rich and poor countries alike. United Fruit became an embarrassment. It was weak where others, such as the oil moguls, remained strong. When its stock market value crashed and regulators moved in, it looked like natural selection.

 

Early on Monday February 3 1975, a man threw himself out of his office window, 44 floors above Park Avenue, New York. He had used his briefcase to smash the window, and then thrown it out before he leapt, scattering papers for blocks around. Glass fell on to the rush-hour traffic, but amazingly no one else was hurt. The body landed away from the road, near a postal service office. Postmen helped emergency workers clear up the mess so the day’s business could carry on. 

 

This jumper was quickly identified as Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company.

 

It emerged that Black, a devout family man, had bribed the Honduran president, Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, with $1.25m to encourage him to pull out of a banana cartel which opposed United Fruit. The story was about to come out in the US press. United Fruit’s Central American plantations were also struggling with hurricane damage and a new banana disease. Facing disgrace and failure, Black took his own life. His death was shocking, not least because he had the reputation of a highly moral man. Wall Street was outraged, the company’s shares crashed and regulators seized its books to prevent ”its further violation of the law”. The company subsequently disappeared from public view and was seemingly erased from the collective mind.

 

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, in a born-again spirit of globalisation, the world’s main banana companies picked up the free-market banner once carried by United Fruit. The companies - Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole from the US, and Noboa from Ecuador - did not have anything like the force of United Fruit individually, but they were still a formidable presence. Together they were known to their critics, if not to themselves, as the ”Wild Bunch”.

 

In the 1990s, the US took its case to the World Trade Organisation, the new high court of globalisation. The companies protested that west European countries unfairly protected the producers of so-called ”Fairtrade” bananas in former European colonies through a complex system of quotas and licences. The Wild Bunch characterised this as revamped colonialism and outmoded welfare state-ism and, instead, promoted their own ”Free Trade” bananas.

 

In the new millennium, after what had become a general trade war, the Europeans backed down and agreed to concessions. They did so with some rancour, protesting that Washington had again allowed itself to be manipulated by narrow interests. Some spoke of a return of the ”old and dark forces”. They were thinking of United Fruit.

 

Ok so that's kind of a basic history of United Fruit company to get us going in the right direction to talk about one of the most brutal things they carried out on their workers. You've seen the connection they had and the power they had.. Pretty nuts for a fucking banana company. 

 

On the evening of October 5, 1928, the delegates for Colombia’s banana workers in Magdalena gathered to discuss their grievances. Among their concerns were their long hours and low pay; one worker, Aristides López Rojano, remembered: “We worked from six in the morning until eleven and then from one in the afternoon until six.... The contractor paid the salary and reserved up to thirty percent for himself.” Erasmo Coronel (the one wearing the bowtie in the group portrait) spoke in favor of a strike, and the others agreed. At around five in the morning on October 6, 1928, the workers issued the United Fruit Company a list of nine demands.

 

Stop their practice of hiring through sub-contractors

 

Mandatory collective insurance

 

Compensation for work accidents

 

Hygienic dormitories and 6 day work weeks

 

Increase in daily pay for workers who earned less than 100 pesos per month

 

Weekly wage

 

Abolition of office stores

 

Abolition of payment through coupons rather than money

 

Improvement of hospital services

 

The strike turned into the largest labor movement ever witnessed in the country until then. Radical members of the Liberal Party, as well as members of the Socialist and Communist Parties, participated.

 

The workers wanted to be recognized as employees, and demanded the implementation of the Colombian legal framework of the 1920s.

 

After U.S. officials in Colombia and United Fruit representatives portrayed the workers' strike as "communist" with a "subversive tendency" in telegrams to Frank B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State, the United States government threatened to invade with the U.S. Marine Corps if the Colombian government did not act to protect United Fruit’s interests. The Colombian government was also compelled to work for the interests of the company, considering they could cut off trade of Colombian bananas with significant markets such as the United States and Europe.

 

As there was no agreement the Government militarized the zone. The newspaper "La Prensa" published the following:

 

"MORE TROOPS FOR THE BANANERA REGION. We have been informed that the leaving of the Commissioner sent by the Industry Ministry due to the existing conflict between the workers and the company has turned the situation critical. For this reason, the War Ministry ordered the concentration of more troops in Ciénaga. Therefore, yesterday night, a numerous contingent was dispatched from here on a special ship"

 

By the end of November the Magdalena Agriculture Society tried to find a solution to the situation. They named a Commission and along with the Chief of the Work Office and the workers' delegates would have a meeting with the UFC since the conflict was affecting everyone's interests. The multinational rejected meeting the Commission stating that the workers were out of the law. The representatives of the workers left for Ciénaga with the aim of convincing their fellow workers to abandon the region. They also demanded the arbitration as a last legal resort.

 

Social Party (PSR) founded in 1927 in Bogotá. The strike was also supported by the national and departmental union leaders ascribed to the Magdalena Workers Federation, the Magdalena Worker Union and the General Union of Workers of the Union Society (popularly known as the Yellow Union which integrated railway, port and construction workers of Santa Marta).

 

The first week of December everything was at a standstill, without a solution. The company hired a steamboat and brought 200 military men and took over the town hall without the mayor's authorization. To this respect the Ciénaga newspaper "Diario del Córdoba" noted:

 

"We do not know who ordered changing the town house into a campsite of troops, but we are certain that the municipality spokesman was not consulted for this illegal occupation. He would have certainly opposed it since there was no alteration of public order according to the norms in force. We see that the procedures here are "manu militari", without any consideration under the obvious alarm of these peoples, panic in society and business."

 

Military roadblocks were displayed. Trains were searched and the army prevented strikers from using them33. Tension increased and temporary workers started to return to their hometowns. Military pressure blocked the communication systems and the mail, telephones, telegraph and even the press stopped working. The strikers seized the train from Ciénaga to the plantations and they prevented its exit during the day.

 

On December 3rd, the press was conscious of the extreme situation: The situation of the Banana Strike is worse than ever. Especially because of the uneasiness caused by the Governor's Office for having called the Army. Any kind of meeting was banned, as it was assumed that they questioned the state legitimacy and stability and the government decisions. This measure outraged workers, because some detentions took place in Ciénaga and they were justified by the police since some documents of an apparently communist campaign were confiscated.

 

From this moment on, American Diplomats started to worry for the security of the American employees up to the point that the Government of the United States sent a ship to Santa Marta for the protection of their citizens as was stated by the US ambassador in Bogotá. He made clear that it was not a war cruise. Anyhow, it was possible to confirm that in the ports of Ciénaga and Santa Marta war ships docked with the aim of reinforcing troops. 

 

To break the strike, on December 2nd, a military contingent of 300 men arrived in Ciénaga from the interior of the country. The major of the zone considered that these soldiers would be better at facing the situation than those native of the region. At the same time that same day some municipalities protested against the disposition of the governor's office. The workers exodus continued, the general situation of commerce aggravated, many commercial houses closed and some of them stopped paying their debts alleging the scarce security conditions and low sales. Similarly occurred with the stores of the UFC which closed due to lack of business activity. There was a total lack of supplies of basic products in the banana zone.

 

With the excuse that in Ciénaga the strikers were committing all kinds of outrages, the army seized the train to mobilize troops to the different towns, preventing normal circulation; this information proved false and the train returned to Cienaga during the first hours of the next day. The community remained isolated and without the possibility to use the train as a transportation means. The train was used by the militaries for the surveillance of plantations.

 

A State of Siege declaration was expected and this increased tension among strikers who organized collective bodies in different locations to prevent the work of producers. Detentions continued. The train detention by the military and the impossibility to take bananas out due to the positions of the strikers and small landowners, the harvested fruit began to rot.

 

The Workers Union used the newspaper Vanguardia Obrera and other pasquinades to inform about their position and to keep public opinion updated. On December 5th, alleging that the strikers had managed to get weapons, the government decreed the State of Siege. This was not made public to the workers and for this reason they became more exacerbated.

 

A pressure mechanism used to obtain the support of merchants was the fact of creating solidarity to boycott the public market stores and other commercial firms if the transaction was not authorized by the Workers Union. This way, merchants could not sell if they did not have the "permission". To accomplish this policy the union had 5.000 workers acting as vigilantes. This situation led the UFC to ask the government if the State was in condition to protect its interests. The State response was dubious. In its effort to reach an equilibrium between the pressure of the company and that of the workers, it submitted a communication where it stated that it would analyse the situation and would take the corresponding steps.

 

The workers' unrest for not feeling the State support led them to radicalization of their protest and since that moment, seizures of banana farms took place in different municipalities. There were confrontations between land owners, the military and the workers. It is worth mentioning the events in Sevilla, where workers detained a group of soldiers.

 

As the tension increased with this last event the Ministry Council declared general alteration of public order on December 5th, and gave special faculties to Minister Arrazola to act as a mediator between the parties and positioned General Cortés Vargas as Civil and Military Chief. This intervention was justified by the economic losses of the socio-economic and political system of the nation because it had been estimated that up to that moment the losses exceeded one million dollars and given the fact that the fierce position of the workers had stopped communications and transportations and even there had been seizures in several localities and there was fear concerning the situation of Santa Marta.

 

The government sent information to the United Press as follows: "The government has decreed the State of Siege in the Province of Santa Marta where the workers of the United Fruit Company maintain a strike lasting several days. General Carlos Cortés Vargas has been appointed Civil and Military Chief". On the other hand, the national press and especially that of the capital announced: " there has never been a longer and more numerous strike in the country than this of the workers of Magdalena. Thirty-two thousand workers have been in total inactivity for more than thirty days in the banana region, there are no signs that this situation will have a favourable solution"

 

Events reached their peak in Ciénaga. The workers had concentrated for a pacific demonstration in the evening of the 5th of December. The Governor Nuñez Roca decreed the dispersion of the demonstration. The workers did not receive this well; they declared that authorities had taken this decision with the support of the UFC and the militaries without the presence of workers' representatives. This made clear to them that authorities were defending the interests of the Company and the local "bananacracy"and not theirs as Colombian workers. The concentration ended in a protest.

 

The militaries obeyed the orders of the Governor and it was authorized to follow orders and demand the workers to dissolve the demonstration as it was not authorized.

 

The text was read in the square and at the same time the troop took positions. There were approximately 1.500 strikers in the square.

 

The army gave the strikers 15 minutes to disperse and the workers' answer was a the massive agitation of the Colombian flags and shouts related to the workers movement. The army responded with drumbeats and the menace to repel the strikers. Three bugle warnings were given, but nevertheless the strikers remained in their positions. A deep silence reigned in the square and the menace of the army became an unfortunate reality when the shout "Shoot" was uttered. Rifles and machine guns were discharged against the defenceless and unarmed demonstrators. In minutes the ground of the square was tinted with blood.

 

Once the attack of the army against their own fellow citizens ended, the sight was dantesque. The cadavers, the wounded and their relatives were troubling scenes. These events took place at the dawn of December 6th: a brutal aggression against a workers' demonstration.

 

The news invaded the media and the first chronicles appeared with living information about the tragic balance of the events. The first report on the newspaper "La Prensa" from Barranquilla informed of 8 people killed and 20 wounded. After a week, the same newspaper mentioned 100 dead and 238 wounded. Meanwhile official sources and diplomatic communications signalled the number of people killed as being 1.000. This number, and along with other kind of testimonies collected, agree that the number of killings was over a thousand and that the militaries loaded the trains with the corpses and buried them in mass graves in inaccessible areas and up to the present times they have not been localized.

 

This repression caused a massive exodus of the terrified population. They abandoned the zone and migrated to different parts of the country for fear of military persecution and arrestment. Many of them left their scarce possessions behind.

 

National and international media widely covered this event. Both the UFC and the government tried to manipulate the information to protect their image. The press echoed and broadcasted the sometimes biased news, informing about "combats" between the army troops and the "revolutionaries" and that as a result of these combats, 8 "bandits" were killed and 20 were wounded. The War Ministry insisted that "in Magdalena there was no strike, but a revolution".

 

Other newspapers such as "La Prensa" from Barranquilla, issued their edition of December 8th in red characters as a reference to this event that brought mourning to the entire country and as a symbolic commemorative act.

 

Referring to a communication sent to the United Press, the War Ministry informed officially that in the attack of the strikers against the troops there had been 8 dead and 20 wounded and that in order to control the revolutionary outbreaks against state order, the immediate mobilization of more troops had been ordered. They would arrive from cities of the interior of the country. It also emphasised the position of the government that the workers' situation in Magdalena was delicate and that vigorous decisions had to be taken in order to solve this issue. It also informed that beside Ciénaga, other localities had to be intervened.

 

The Times from New York informed in a biased and extended way that the turmoil in the Colombian Banana Region was provoked by Mexican incendiaries, who had led the process of the Mexican Revolution, two decades earlier. It also gave details about the aspects of the banana strike that were consequences of the expiration of the Barco Concession .

 

At the same time the UFC issued a press communication to the New York agencies and the worldwide correspondents declaring: "the difficult situation experienced during the past days in the Colombian banana region, where the company has valuable interests, has quite improved in the last 24 hours and the dispatches sent from the scene, give rise to expectations for a prompt solution of the conflict surged between the workers and the company which ended in an extended strike of revolutionary nature".

 

While the American press provided biased information, trying to defend the multinational interests and that of their government, the national press analysed the situation with greater objectivity. The daily newspaper "El Tiempo" from Bogotá commented in an extended note that most of the claims of the strikers were righteous improvement of working conditions. Nevertheless, due to its conservative position, the editorial stated that they did not agree with the strike since they considered that the workers had a bad leadership and they made the leaders responsible for what had happened. They reminded the authorities that force is not the supreme reason as the only system to solve a conflict since violence is not a valid option to impose certain vindications.

 

In response to these events and as a protest for the massacre, several offices of the United Fruit and the railway were set on fire and destroyed. The hard situation caused by the army repression and the lack of jobs led to the assault of the company's stores where people seized food. 

 

"It is not about fixing anyhow a difficult situation, it is about avoiding more critical events in the immediate future. Therefore we need a wise, prudent, political Colombian, who does not forget the circumstances regarding the conflict. Someone who does not forget how the United Fruit Company manipulates the political and civil life of Magdalena and who does not think it indispensable to send troops for hunting workers as animals. Someone who will not be hard and inflexible with them and subordinated and honey mouthed with the company agents"

 

After the massacre, the workers who managed to escape emigrated to other areas of the region and new versions of the events started to become public. It was the version of the defeated. This version informed the public opinion about the concentration in the Ciénaga square and not in farms as had been informed by authorities to justify the fact of not being able to notify the exact number of deaths.

 

On December 10th after a convulsed weekend, the headings announced "the revolutionaries' flee in stampede to the Sierra Nevada," "government troops completely defeated the strikers "; the War Minister informs that there were more deaths during the last combats". In general, the press informed about a revolutionary movement which confronted the military forces and that the army was responding with rigor, but that there had not been any excess on their part. The banana zone was returning to normal, as well as the train service between Ciénaga and Santa Marta and the steam boat service between Ciénaga and Barranquilla. They also informed that since public order had been reestablished, businesses had already opened and that the exodus of the population had ended.

 

General Cortés Vargas issued a decree through which the revolutionaries of Magdalena were declared a gang of outlaws. The decree consisted of three articles and in one section, as a justification, it was stated that the rebel strikers committed all kinds of outrages: arson in public and private property, pillage, interruption of telegraphic and telephonic communications, destruction of railways, assault of citizens who did not agree with their communist and anarchist doctrine. This was the justification for decreeing martial law to give security to citizens and to re-establish public order. On the other hand the workers' leaders and accessories should be prosecuted to face their responsibilities. And to finish, the public force was authorized to use their guns.

 

At the same time troops were sent to avoid the surviving strikers' flee to the Sierra Nevada and the Departament of Atlántico. To accomplish this all the towns neighbouring the banana zone were alerted. Numerous detentions occurred and the prisoners were sent to Ciénaga to be judged by a Martial Court.

 

Wow…. Fucking bananas caused all this shit… Well obviously not than JUST bananas but holy shit man. 

 

So the crazy thing is United Fruit company continued to operate did so long after this incident until eventually after the the suicide of Eli Black things unraveled and the company went away. Or did it? Well it did not. In fact the company is now still a huge banana company called… Chiquita! But at least all that bullshit is on the past… Oh wait wait… No it's not! 

 

While Chiquita is not actively massacring people, in 2007, it admitted to paying $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (A.U.C.), a far-right paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings and some of the worst massacres in Colombia. The A.U.C. was designated by the United States as a terrorist group at the time and Chiquita was forced to pay $25 million for violating counterterrorism laws. In particular, the A.U.C. targeted labor leaders, liquidated problem employees, and removed people from lands needed for cultivation.

 

“They are so bad that in 2001, even the Bush administration was forced to designate them as a terrorist organization,” said Terry Collingsworth, a Labor and Human Rights Attorney. He proceeds to say that multinational corporations had automatically aligned with the A.U.C. “They’ve made it safe for business here. That’s what they do.” Collingsworth states, from his and his associates’ reporting, that Chiquita likely paid much more than $1.7 million to the A.U.C.

 

Over much of the 20th century, banana companies like United Fruit effectively took over governments in countries like Guatemala and Honduras, leading to the countries’ model being known as “banana republics”. A banana republic would describe politically unstable countries economically dependent on bananas as a sole export and product, and it has been diversified to include other limited-resource products. The CIA would strong-arm these governments to protect the business interests of banana companies at the expense of workers and people who lived in those countries, often propping up repressive regimes.

With a historic priority of keeping the costs of bananas low, banana companies were willing to do whatever it took to keep prices low, from stifling labor movements, keeping wages low, and strong-arming governments. The United Fruit Company did it then, and Chiquita Brands does it now.

 

In 1999, President Clinton apologized to Guatemala, saying that “support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake.”

Movies:

 

Horror movies about killer food

 

https://screenrant.com/funniest-horror-b-movies-murderous-food/

Unsolved: The Springfield Three

Tonight we are taking the train back to true-crimeville. Unsolved as per the usual, the case, or cases if you will, also has a crazy connection to one of our own here in the midnight train family. First we are going to talk about the Springfield 3. The Springfield 3 is an unsolved missing persons case that began on June 7, 1992, when friends Suzanne "Suzie" Streeter and Stacy McCall, and Streeter's mother, Sherrill Levitt, went missing from Levitt's home in Springfield, Missouri. Then we are going to roll into a talk about a giant hunk of shit named Larry Dewayne Hall. And in our discussion of Mr. Hall we shall get to the personal connection to us at the train! So without further ado… Let’s get into today's episode!

 

29 years ago Suzie Streeter, 19, her mother Sherill Levitt, 47, and her friend Stacy McCall, 18 disappeared without a trace from their central Springfield home. Authorities have gathered many theories to explain what could have happened. Some people have even gone as far as blaming alien abduction and the rapture. Can't we go a single unsolved true crime episode without an alien abduction theory? 

 

Anyways, the day before the three went missing, the two girls were celebrating. They had graduated from highschool that day and were planning on going to a friend's house for a party later that day. The two initially intended to head to their friend Janelle Kirby's house, but it was too crowded, and instead, they went back to the home Streeter shared with her mother, Sherrill Levitt. The next day the girls were supposed to meet up with Kirby and her boyfriend to go to a water park. They did not show up at Kirby's house so Kirby and her boyfriend went to the girl's house to see what was going on. They assumed the girls had just overslept.  When they got to the house the girls were not there and there was no sign of the mother either. When they arrived at the home, Kirby found the front door unlocked and entered the house to find it empty despite the women's cars still being outside. The family dog, however, was present and was described as agitated. Kirby also noticed that the porch light was smashed and there was glass everywhere. She decided to go ahead and clean up and unfortunately, not realizing it, may have destroyed some evidence while cleaning the mess. Kirby and her boyfriend started to look around the house and the phone rang. Kirby answered the phone call and said that the call was full of "sexual innuendo". She hung up and then another call came through and it was basically the same as the first. A few hours later, McCall's mother arrived at the property after she failed to reach her daughter on the phone. She noted Suzie's clothes, purse and cigarettes were still in the house and decided to call the police. While doing so, she noticed there was a message on the answering machine. Listening to it, she later described it as "strange" but inadvertently deleted it. Police believe the message may have contained evidence and it was unconnected to the sexual calls made when Kirby was present, which are largely dismissed as a prank. 

 

It was now 16 hours since the two girls had been confirmed to have been seen. The mother had been last heard from at 11:15 the night before when she had called a friend of hers. When Kirby first accessed the property at 9 a.m., more and more friends and relatives came looking for their loved ones, with up to 20 people walking through the house. The crime scene became utterly compromised, and, needing a warrant, police were unable to enter until June 8. By June 9, they had called the FBI. 

 

"The only thing unusual about this house was that three women were missing from it," retired Springfield Police Capt. Tony Glenn told News-Leader in 2006. "You had this feeling as you looked around that something was missing, that something had to be missing. But there wasn't. Just them."

 

Regardless, there was very little evidence at the property, with no signs of a struggle or blood present. All three women owned a car, and all three vehicles were still present; Levitt's blue Corsica was in the carport, Streeter's red Ford Escort and McCall's Toyota Corolla were in the circle drive. The keys were all in the house. Their purses were at the bottom of the stairs, and an inviting graduation cake was waiting in the fridge.

 

Meanwhile, Levitt's bed had been slept in, and her book was even turned over on the nightstand, ready to be resumed. The two young women had also certainly gotten prepared for bed, washing their make-up off and leaving their jewelry by the basin. McCall left her shorts and placed them by Streeter's waterbed, and given that no other clothing appeared to be missing, she is likely to have vanished in just a t-shirt and underpants. The only sign of any disturbance at all was the shattered porch light. The possibility exists that the light was deliberately broken to draw Levitt, Streeter and McCall out of the house just after the two young women arrived home, or another deception was used to the same effect, yet that can only be speculation.

 

Thousands of posters went up throughout Springfield. Police logged 5,200 tips in the case and gave polygraphs to numerous people. They searched woods and fields throughout the Ozark area and made inquiries in 21 states. All to little avail.

 

One potential piece of evidence was a letter left at a News-Leader rack at Smitty's. The letter had a drawing of the Bolivar Road Apartments with the phrase "use Ruse of Gas Man checking for Leak" written on. What it may have meant is unknown.

 

An image of a transient man in the area was distributed, as was a photo of a retouched dodge van seen by the home on June 7. The van is seemingly crucial to the case as an eyewitness claims to have seen Streeter driving a green Dodge later in the day on June 7 and, apparently under duress, a male voice telling her not to do anything stupid. Another witness reported seeing the van with a blonde female driver at a local grocery store and was suspicious enough to write down the license plate on a newspaper. Unfortunately, he threw the newspaper away before contacting authorities.

 

The hunt for the three women was relentless, with police logging 1,632 hours of overtime on the case over ten days, theorizing the transient might have been involved or the answer lay in the background of Sherrill Levitt.

 

A new lead appeared on June 24 when a waitress came forward to say the three missing women had been at George's Steakhouse between 1 a.m., and 3 a.m., with earlier evidence on the timing of the younger women's movements suggesting this is likely to have been near the end of that window. The witness said Streeter appeared to be drunk, and her mother tried to calm her. The sighting has never been confirmed.

 

Going nowhere, the investigation was featured on the Dec. 31 edition of "America's Most Wanted" and produced 29 calls. One stood out above the others when a caller claimed he had information about the three disappearances. However, attempts to link the caller with investigators failed, as he became spooked and hung up. Police appealed for him to get in touch again, but he never did, and his identity remains a mystery.

 

Another program, "48 Hours," shadowed police for weeks as they investigated the case, showing pictures from the search and officers sifting through the many leads. Nothing led to a workable angle, and the case went cold. Five years later, Springfield police announced it could no longer justify the money spent on the matter, officially shutting the case down.

 

Ok so that's fucking odd… Three women just disappeared. No signs of a struggle… No robbery… No blood.. everything left in place. Maybe it was aliens!

 

No you may be asking yourself...but guys… There's gotta be a suspect or something, well we found a couple.

 

Here's what we found:

 

Gerald Carnahan: A businessman, he was convicted in the 1985 killing of Jackie Johns 25 years after it happened. He has ties to Springfield and a long history of legal troubles including:

Jan. 13, 1994, second-degree burglary of a business, two-year prison sentence;

 

-- Jan. 13, 1994, stealing from that business, four-year prison sentence;

 

-- Jan. 13, 1994, arson at that business, three-year prison sentence;

 

-- Jan. 10, 1994, attempted kidnapping of a girl in Springfield in 1993;

 

-- June 1, 1994, assault of a law enforcement officer, 11 months in county jail;

 

-- June 1, 1994, unlawful use of a weapon, one-year prison sentence; and

 

-- other prison sentences for attempted kidnapping and tampering with evidence.

So, he’s an all around, grade A butthole

 

Then there’s Dustin Recla, Michael Clay and Joseph Riedel: Recla is the ex-boyfriend of Streeter who told police he wanted her dead because she gave officers a statement about the men, who were charged with the felony institutional vandalism of a cemetery in February 1992. Which seems a bit excessive to want to kill someone over.

Riedel is accused of breaking into a mausoleum at Springfield’s Maple Park Cemetery on Feb. 21 1992 and stealing a skull and some bones. Police have said Dustin Recla sold 26 grams of gold teeth fillings from the skull at a Springfield pawn shop for $30. So, these jerks were working together, breaking into graves and stealing their gold fillings. In the early 90s. 

 

Steven Garrison:

 

Garrison told police a friend had confessed to killing the three women during a drunken party. He told police information unknown to the public that led investigators to serve three search warrants at two sites in western Webster County; that info was that they would find the women’s bodies and clues about their abduction and deaths. He also said a moss green van believed used to take the women would be found about 12 miles away, south of Fordland.

 

The property searched was the same site where in 1990 LE searched for two of three missing Springfieldians. Property owner Francis Lee Robb Sr. pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in a case authorities said at the time they believed involve a drug deal gone awry.

 

Garrison was believed enough that a gag order concerning the three search warrants was issued by a judge.“…certain aspects of the information we received fit with other (private) aspects of the case,” Springfield Police Capt. Todd Whitson said. Whitson said the gag order was rare, but he could not say why it was issued,“other than to say there is such an order, and it governs the operation and everything related to the operation out here.” Added Webster County Sheriff C.E. Wells:“We can’t tell you anything about it until the order’s lifted.”

 

Garrison is serving 40 years in prison for raping, sodomizing and terrorizing a female Springfield college student in the summer of 1993.

 

After tracking him and several associates almost exclusively for more than a year, police have since backed off Garrison. But not all the way off. They last approached him last summer. Six months ago, investigators looked to Colorado for information on Garrison, who is in a Missouri prison.

 

"They've never let up on me," Garrison says.

 

But even with all these buttholes on the list, there is one main suspect that the police and many others like in this case, Robert Craig Cox. It's always about Cox on this fucking show…

 

In 1995, Cox was arrested for holding a gun on a 12-year-old girl in Decatur, Texas. He is presently serving a life sentence for that robbery and a consecutive 15-year federal sentence.

 

 Robert Craig Cox was convicted of killing a 19-year-old Florida woman who was somehow intercepted while driving home from work at Disney World one night in 1978. Cox - who lived in Springfield the summer of 1992 - walked away from death row in 1989 after the Florida Supreme Court said the jury didn't have enough evidence to convict him.

 

Through the years, Cox has toyed with Springfield police - saying he knows the women are dead and that they're buried near the city. Having discovered that Cox lied about his alibi on the morning of June 7, 1992, officials are skeptical about his claims.

Cox declined to be interviewed by the News-Leader, but in recent letters to the newspaper, he acknowledges police consider him a suspect and that years ago he worked as a utility locator in south-central Springfield. Get that? Remember the “gas ruse” note??

 

Robert Craig Cox was convicted in 1988, of first degree murder, in the 1978 beating death of Sharon Zellers, 19, an employee of Walt Disney World.  The case was weak, and Cox was not charged until eight years after the murder. Cox and his family were staying at a motel in Orlando where the victim’s body was found. He had a cut on his tongue, and hair and blood samples found near the victim were compatible with his. Cox testified he bit through his tongue during a fight.

 

The Florida Supreme Court reversed Cox’s conviction, ruling that, at best, the evidence created “only a suspicion” of guilt. The court ordered his acquittal and release from death row in1990

 

 He was immediately taken into custody to complete a prison sentence in California for an unrelated 1985 kidnapping. Then he returned to his boyhood home of Springfield, Mo., where he came under suspicion — but was never charged — in the 1992 disappearance of the three females. Texas police also questioned him about an abduction in Plano. In 1995, Cox was arrested for holding a gun on a 12-year-old girl during a robbery in Decatur, Texas. He is serving a life sentence for that robbery and is not eligible for parole until 2025.

 A couple years After being sent to prison in 1995, Cox claimed he knew what happened to the three women. Cox claimed all three had been murdered and buried, taunting that their bodies would never be found. Cox was living in Springfield at the time of the murders and didn't claim to be the killer, saying he was in church that morning as corroborated by his girlfriend.

 

However, that would not discount his involvement earlier in the morning, and in any case, the girlfriend later recanted her statement and said Cox asked her to lie for him. Cox said he was at his parents' home when asked where he was earlier, which was again corroborated.

 

Police remain uncertain as to Cox's involvement with the crimes, observing that he only ever tells them enough for them to believe he knows something but never enough to incriminate himself. Some believe Cox is merely seeking infamy through a false confession. For his part, Cox said he will reveal the truth once his mother dies, but the bodies are buried somewhere around Springfield. wow what a stand up fella. Someone kill that old lady! I’m kidding… Can we at least fake her death??

 

Also one more interesting tidbit. In 2007, investigators revealed they'd received a tip that the bodies were buried in the foundations of the Cox Hospital parking lot. (yay more Cox) That same year, crime reporter Kathee Baird had a corner of the parking lot scanned with ground-penetrating radar and found three anomalies. However, it remains doubtful that the site is the burial location as construction didn't begin there until September 1993, over a year after the disappearances. Equally, the tip came not from anyone connected with a burial but somebody professing psychic abilities. So there's that…

 

While the claims of Cox possibly have merit, there is no evidence to say for sure. Despite 50,000 tips from the public, the case remains unsolved, and with nearly 30 years having now passed, the case of the Springfield Three may never actually be resolved.

 

Ok so by now you may have forgotten that there is a personal connection to this case. You're kind of getting a twofer today. 

 

Let's talk about another fine upstanding citizen, scratch that, a huge giant hunk of shit, Larry DeWayne Hall. Larry DeWayne Hall was born on December 11th 1962 in Wabash, Indiana, US. He was born 2nd of 2 children and raised by both parents. He was raised as a youngest child and had one older (by a few seconds) twin brother, Gary Hall. His father, Robert Hall, was an abusive alcoholic. His mother, a homemaker. His father abused alcohol and/or drugs. He had a speech defect. During his education he had academic, social or discipline problems, including being teased or picked on. Larry DeWayne Hall was physically and psychologically abused at some point of his life. Sound like the makings of a serial killer, what say ye passengers!

 

Police believe that Hall, 54, may have killed 30 to 40 women. He’s confessed to rapes, murders and abductions of women all over the Midwest to reporters, book authors and police investigators. He was convicted in federal court of abducting and raping a 15-year-old Illinois girl.

 

But he’s never been convicted of murder.

 

Hall is serving a life sentence in federal prison in North Carolina for the 1993 kidnapping of school girl Jessica Roach, whose ravaged body was found in a cornfield. She had been out riding her bicycle. In Hall’s confession, which was read to the jury, he admitted that he raped Jessica and strangled her with a belt, the ends of which he held from behind a tree where the child was forced to sit so he wouldn’t have to see her face. He was not tried for murder because the teenager’s remains were mangled by a farmer’s combine to the extent that a cause of death could not be determined. HOLY HELL!! That's a new and extremely disturbing one on this show, folks. 

Without a cause of death, the case was transferred to federal court and Hall was charged with bringing a minor across state lines for purposes of sex.

 

However, in 1996, the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that Hall should be given a new trial because the trial judge erred by not allowing the testimony of a psychologist that Hall’s mental condition led him to falsely confess, to please police. He was convicted again at a second trial and sentenced to life without parole.

 

Hall also confessed to police to killing 20-year-old Laurie Depies after abducting her in Menasha in northern Wisconsin. But he was never charged in connection with her 1992 disappearance, even though he said he killed her and scraps of paper were found in his van on which he had written “Lori” and “Fox River Mall,” where Depies worked. Authorities said they could not corroborate his confession, a legal requirement to bring murder charges.

 

The strange, 30-year odyssey of Larry Hall, a twin who once lived in an Indiana cemetery and wandered the Midwest in a van, involved occasionally attending Civil War re-enactments dressed as a Union soldier, and toying with police despite a low IQ of 85, according to a police report. Hall sent a letter to author Christopher H. Martin, who is from Hall’s hometown of Wabash, Indiana. Martin wrote a book about Hall’s alleged murderous sprees titled, “Urges: A Chronicle of Serial Killer Larry Hall.”

 

On page 39 of the book, Paulette Webster, 19, is listed as a victim. She was walking to a local bowling alley to meet a friend when she disappeared. Hall’s letter to Martin was taunting, noting that, “If I did it, I would have put her in a river or in a field.”

 

Eulalia “Lolly” Chavez was found in a field near Summerfield.

 

Paulette’s mother, Mary Webster, 68, said she and her husband William first learned about Hall when Martin visited them, around 2010. Martin had the letter from Hall, but Mary Webster declined to look at it.

 

Hall also confessed to a television reporter that he killed and sexually mutilated Chavez, who was known for years as the Summerfield Jane Doe until her exhumation in 2008 led to her identification. He later recanted.

 

St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson recently revived an investigation involving Hall and the murder of Chavez, which happened 31 years ago.

 

So where are we going with this? Well well tell you. 

 

Larry was also a suspect in the Springfield 3 disappearances after his twin brother, who people claim looked exactly like Larry, said his brother claimed to have murdered the three women. They were in the area for a civil war reenactment at the time of the disappearances. Twin brothers that traveled around the country doing Civil War Reenactments, known serial killers. Larry claims his brother Gary was stalking one of the teens that night. There are many that believe both men were involved as it would have been hard for one man to subdue and kidnap and murder three women at once. The disappearances fit Larry's mo. And he's a giant piece of shit that's definitely capable. So that brings us full circle to the disappearance of Tricia Reitler. The following details of her disappearance we're taken from the Charley project. Org website:

 

 Reitler was a freshman psychology major at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana in 1993. She was a good student with a high grade point average. She was last seen at approximately 8:00 p.m. on March 29, 1993.

 

Reitler was writing a term paper that evening, and decided to take a break. She walked to Marsh Supermarket, which was approximately half a mile from the university's campus. She purchased a soda and a magazine and left the store, intent on returning to her dormitory in Bowman Hall.

 

She never made it there and has never been seen or heard from again. Reitler's bloodstained jeans, shirt and shoes were discovered in a field near Seybold Pool and Center Elementary School, which is located between Marsh's Supermarket and the campus.

 

Investigators said six or seven unidentified people were playing basketball in the Center School playground adjacent to the pool at the time Reitler disappeared, but none of the possible witnesses have come forward with information regarding her case. Authorities believe that Reitler was taken against her will while walking back to campus. Foul play is suspected in her disappearance.

 

Donald W. Grenier was considered a possible suspect in Reitler's case at one time. Grenier was arrested in 1999 and charged with the abduction and molestation of a young girl from the Marion area. His home was searched for evidence connecting him to Reitler's case and the 1987 Indiana disappearance of Wendy Felton, which seemed to share common traits.

 

Nothing was discovered in the search and Grenier has since been cleared of involvement in both Reitler and Felton's cases. Grenier has always maintained his innocence in both cases.

 

Tony R. Searcy, a habitual criminal offender, has also long been considered a possible suspect in Reitler's case. He has denied all involvement and authorities have never arrested Searcy in connection with Reitler's disappearance.

 

Another possible suspect emerged when authorities discovered materials related to Reitler's case in a van owned by Larry DeWayne Hall several months after her 1993 disappearance. Hall resided with his parents in the 300 block of Grant Street in Wabash, Indiana at the time.

 

Investigators found maps, ether, photos and newspaper articles concerning Reitler inside Hall's vehicle. A photograph of him is posted with this case summary. He was arrested in December 1994 and charged with abducting Jessica Roach, a teenager whose remains were discovered in an Indiana cornfield in 1993.

 

Hall signed a statement confessing to Reitler's kidnapping and murder, but he later recanted and was never charged in connection with her disappearance due to a lack of evidence. Investigators searched an area of Grant County, Indiana near the Mississinewa Reservoir for Reitler's body. Hall led them to the scene, saying he'd buried her body there, but no evidence was located.

 

Hall is presently incarcerated in a psychiatric prison in North Carolina, serving a life sentence for Roach's kidnapping. He is still considered a suspect in Reitler's presumed abduction. He confessed to the murder of Laurie Depies, who disappeared from Wisconsin in 1988, and implied he was involved in the 1988 disappearance of Paulette Webster from Illinois. Police believe he may have killed thirty to forty women, but he hasn't been charged in any cases besides Roach's.

 

Reitler's case remains open and unsolved. She has never been located. Her family lived in Olmsted Township, Ohio, southwest of Cleveland, at the time she disappeared. She is the oldest of four children in a conservative Christian family. Her parents believe she is deceased. 

 

Now you may say to yourself… Olmsted falls? That sounds awfully familiar.. Well friends that's because that's where the train station is located and where both I and Logan live. And now the crazy connection to the case and today's episode? Tricia was Grace, my wife’s, babysitter! (Jon take over and give more back story)

Movies:

 

Horror movies involving planes… Cus why not

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-horror-movies-about-airplanes/ranker-film

Cursed Movies

 In a world, where the midnight train podcast is at the top of the podcast game, one thing has the power to destroy everything they have worked for. This week their world will come crumbling down as everything they've achieved will be tested and possibly destroyed due to the madness that is (dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnn) cursed Movies!!!

Tonight on the midnight train we are combining two of our favorite things…. This podcast and lots and lots of beer…YEAH! Oh wait, we do that every week… Oh, that's right, it’s this podcast and….moooovies!! But… In true midnight train fashion, we can't just talk about movies…. We're gonna talk about cursed movies!!! That's right we are going to look at movies that for one reason or another have led to tragedy during and after the movies were made! Everything is on the table from health issues like cancer, accidental deaths while filming, people going crazy after filming, and just about everything else you can think of. Should be a fun and creepy ride discussing all these movies with you passengers and, in case you're wondering, yes we're still going to have a movies list at the end. 

 

Ok so let's get into this and see what we have as far as cursed movies!

 

We're gonna start it with a big one since we just covered the subject matter of the film! The first cursed movie on our list is the exorcist. The filming of THE EXORCIST was done over nine months. The main set, a reproduction of the Georgetown home, was built in a warehouse in New York. During the filming, several curious incidents and accidents took place on the set and plagued those involved with the production. In addition, the budget of the film rose from $5 million to more than twice that amount. Obviously, any film production that lasts for more than a month or so will see its share of accidents and mishaps, but THE EXORCIST seems to have been particularly affected by unforeseeable calamities. Coincidence? Perhaps, but it left the cast and crew rightfully shaken. 

 

The first incident occurred around 2:30 a.m. one Sunday morning when a fire broke out on the set. There was only one security guard at the Ceco 54th Street Studios when the McNeil house set caught fire and burned. The fire was the result of a bad electrical circuit, but it shut down filming for six weeks while the set was reconstructed from scratch. Ironically, as soon as the new set was ready, the sprinkler system broke down, causing an additional two-week delay. 

 

Few of the actors in the film escaped personal troubles during the shoot. Just as Max Von Sydow (who played Father Merrin) touched down in New York to film his first scenes, he received a phone call saying that his brother died unexpectedly in Sweden. Von Sydow himself later became very ill during the filming. Irish actor Jack MacGowran (who played Burke Dennings) died only one week after his character was killed by the demon in the movie. Jason Miller (who played Father Karras) was stunned when his young son, Jordan, was struck down on an empty beach by a motorcyclist who appeared out of nowhere. The boy ALMOST died. THAT'S GOOD NEWS! Ellen Burstyn (who played Chris McNeill) wrenched her back badly during one scene when she was slapped by the possessed girl. The stunt went badly awry and she was laid up in bed for several weeks afterward, causing more delays in the filming. They had a rig attached to her where a guy offscreen would pull a rope that was tied to her to get that “smacked hard as shit and launched across the room” look the director wanted. Apparently, the director didn’t like the first take or two and told the guy with the rope to yoke the living piss out of her. He got his shot. She screwed up her back. 

 

In New York, one of the carpenters accidentally cut off his thumb on the set and one of the lighting technicians lost a toe. This was all over the news at the time due to the mixup at the hospital where they put the wrong appendages on the wrong patients. Yep, they switched the toe for the thumb. And if you believed that, well… I’m not sorry even a little bit. Anyway, The exorcist's location trip to Iraq was delayed from the spring, which is relatively cool, to July, the hottest part of the summer, when the temperature rose to 130 degrees and higher. Out of the eighteen-man crew that was sent there, Friedkin lost the services of nine of them, at one time or another, due to dysentery (which is super shitty) or sunstroke. To make matters worse, the bronze statue of the neo-Assyrian winged demon Pazazu, which was packed in a ten-foot crate, got lost in an air shipment from Los Angeles and ended up in Hong Kong, which caused another two-week delay. 

 

"I don't know if it was a jinx, really," actress Ellen Burstyn later said. "But there were some really strange goings-on during the making of the film. We were dealing with some really heavy material and you don't fool around with that kind of material without it manifesting in some way. There were many deaths in the film. Linda's grandfather died, the assistant cameraman's wife had a baby that died, the man who refrigerated the set died, the janitor who took care of the building was shot and killed … I think overall there were nine deaths during the course of the film, which is an incredible amount… it was scary." Unholy shit, batman!

 

Things got so bad that William Friedkin took some drastic measures. Father Thomas Bermingham, S.J., from the Jesuit community at Fordham University, had been hired as a technical advisor for the film, along with Father John Nicola, who, while not a Jesuit, had been taught by Jesuit theologians at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. Friedkin came to Bermingham and asked him to exorcise the set. The priest was unable to perform an actual exorcism, but he did give a solemn blessing in a ceremony that was attended by everyone then on the set, from Max Von Sydow to the technicians and grips. "Nothing else happened on the set after the blessing,” Bermingham stated, "but around that time, there was a fire in the Jesuit residence set in Georgetown."

And while nothing else tragic occurred on the set, strange events and odd coincidences were reported during the post-production work on the film. "There were strange images and visions that showed up on film that were never planned," Friedkin later claimed. "There are double exposures in the little girl's face at the end of one reel that are unbelievable."

 

As we talked about in previous episodes, The film opened on December 26, 1973, to massive crowds. Within weeks of the first public screenings of the film, stories started to make the rounds that audience members were fainting and vomiting in the theaters. There were also reports of disturbing nightmares and reportedly, several theater ushers had to be placed under a doctor’s care, or quit their jobs, after experiencing successive showings of the movie. In numerous cities that were checked after THE EXORCIST had run for several weeks, reporters found that every major hospital had been forced to deal with patients who reported, after seeing the film, severe cases of vomiting and hallucinations. There were also reports of people being carried out of theaters in stretchers. What do you think, passengers? Mere publicity stunts, or was this the real thing? 

 

The info for this cursed movie came from a great article on americanhauntingsink.com check them out!

 

Next up we're gonna dive into a sweet little movie about a tree, a child’s toy, and REAL SKELETONS IN THE SWIMMING POOL! Yep, you guessed it, poltergeist! The curse of Poltergeist spawned many theories about why the movie and its sequels were cursed with so much tragedy, with one suggesting the use of real-life human bones in the original film caused the hauntings.

 

Actress JoBeth Williams - who played the mother, Diane Freeling - is seen dropping into a pool of skeletons in one spooky scene and she later reveals the bones were real. She told TVLand: "In my innocence and naiveté, I assumed that these were not real skeletons.

 

"I assumed that they were prop skeletons made out of plastic or rubber . . . I found out, as did the crew, that they were using real skeletons, because it’s far too expensive to make fake skeletons out of rubber."

 

Just four months after the film's release, tragedy struck with actress Dominique Dunne, who played the family's eldest daughter Dana, who became the victim of a grisly murder. On the day before Halloween in 1982, the actress, 22, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney outside their home in West Hollywood.

She survived the attack but was left in a coma. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. Sweeney was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter and spent three and half years of a six-year sentence behind bars for the killing. He changed his name to John Maura so if you want to let him know what a twat he is, I mean… we can’t stop you.

 

In the years after the film's release movie bosses plowed ahead with plans for a sequel and Poltergeist II: The Other Side hit cinemas in 1986. Among the cast was Will Sampson, best known for playing Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest opposite Jack Nicholson. The actor - cast as shaman Taylor in the movie - was concerned about the use of real skeletons in the first film and offered to perform a real-life exorcism. He's believed to have conducted the ceremony alone and in the middle of the night, but the cast reportedly felt relieved afterward. However, less than a year after the film's release - the curse had claimed another victim.

Sampson had long-term health problems as he suffered from a degenerative condition called scleroderma, which affected his heart and lungs. He underwent a heart and lung transplant in the summer of 1987 but died of post-operative kidney failure on June 3. 

 

Ok, this one is sad and you’ve probably heard of it. The most famous victim of the Poltergeist curse was Heather O'Rourke. She appeared as Carol Anne in the first two films as well as the third installment, Poltergeist III, which hit cinemas in 1988. She died just four months before the movie's release at only 12 years of age. In January 1988, Heather fell ill with what appeared to be flu-like symptoms. She collapsed at home the following day and was rushed to the hospital. She suffered a cardiac arrest but doctors were able to revive her and they diagnosed her with intestinal stenosis - a partial obstruction of the intestine. She underwent surgery, but went into cardiac arrest again in recovery and doctors were unable to save her. She passed away in February 1988, just weeks after her 12th birthday, and it was later reported she died from congenital stenosis and septic shock. Absolutely heartbreaking.

 

Character actor Lou Perryman became the second cast member to fall victim to murder. He played Pugsley in the original movie and suffered a brutal end in 1992 when he was hacked to death with an ax aged 67. A convict recently released from prison, Seth Christopher Tatum, confessed he had killed Perryman at his home after coming off his medication and going on a drinking binge. Tatum pleaded guilty to his murder in 2011 and was sentenced to life in prison.

 

Actor Richard Lawson played one of the parapsychologists, Ryan, in the original film (not the guy who ate the chicken with the maggots… you’re welcome) and he came close to becoming another victim of the curse in 1992. He was involved in a terrifying plane crash in 1992 when the USAir Flight 405 crashed into New York City's Flushing Bay on route to guess where? Cleveland friggin Ohio. The crash claimed the lives of 27 of the 51 passengers, but Lawson was among the survivors.

He put his lucky escape down to a last-minute seat change that saved his life. Lawson went on to be part of showbiz royalty when he married Beyonce's mother, Tina Knowles in 2015.

 

Info for this movie was taken from mirror.co.uk. 

 

Next up how about… Hmm…. Oh, I know… The omen! The 2976 version of course. Obviously, Moody is a time traveler and saw the upcoming remake, 955 friggin years in the future! No! It was 1976! Of all the world's cursed film productions, The Omen is considered to have one of the worst movie curses of all time. The 1976 film tells the story of a man who accidentally adopts Damien the Antichrist as his son and the movie remains one of horror's most successful franchises. But what was so odious about the set that led producers to believe the devil was punishing them for making the movie? Is The Omen really cursed? The Omen film set haunting includes death, injury, and lots of lightning bolts: after all, the creator himself warned the cast and crew that Satan wasn't going to like what they were doing. Here's what happened behind the scenes of The Omen movie and why, despite its several sequels and a 2006 remake, it remains one of history's movies that indeed may have angered Satan himself!

 

In June 1975, Gregory Peck's son, Jonathan Peck, killed himself with a bullet to the head, two months before filming was to start. Several strange events then surrounded the production.

 

For protection on the set of "The Omen," Bernhard wore a Coptic cross. In an interview, Bernhard spoke about the production's eerie events, which included the death of an animal trainer.

 

Precisely one day after they shot the sequence involving the baboons at the animal center, Bernhard said that a tiger seized the animal trainer by the head, causing his death immediately. Whhhaat the fuuuuuck?

 

One of the most haunting stories surrounding The Omen didn't happen during the shoot, but during the production of the World War II epic A Bridge Too Far. John Richardson, who did special effects on The Omen, was involved in a head-on collision that beheaded his girlfriend, eerily mirroring the decapitation scene with David Warner. Supposedly, after the crash, Richardson saw a street sign that said, "Ommen, 66.6 km." This accident occurred after The Omen had wrapped production, but many of course linked it to the evil aura of the film.

 

Several planes were also set ablaze, including the plane carrying Peck and screenwriter David Seltzer. Meanwhile, Bernhard said they had to land in Nova Scotia after flying back from England. He added:

 

"We had the film on board... Dick [Donner] and I were very, very nervous."

IRA bombs ripped through a hotel, in which executive producer Mace Neufeld and his wife stayed, and another in which prominent executives and stars, including Peck, were to have dinner.

 

Once word got back to Fox about all the terrible incidents that plagued production, the studio saw it as a great way to drum up a ton of publicity and add to the film's ominous aura. They also put a great tagline into the film's ad campaign:

 

                     You have been warned. If something frightening happens to you today, think about it. It may be The Omen.

 

As Donner recalled in The Omen: Curse or Coincidence, "If we had been making a comedy, you would have recalled all the funny, great, ridiculous, silly moments that happened in that film. if you were doing a love story, you'd remember all the times somebody left their wife, fell in love... You're doing The Omen, anything that happens on that film, you don't tell about the jokes, you don't talk about the love stories, you don't even think about them. You think about things that coincidentally could have been something to do with The Omen. We had lots of them."

 

Creepy stuff right there my friends.

 

Next up we have one of my personal all-time favorites, the crow! The Crow began filming in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1993. Cursed Films revealed that before production got underway, a mysterious caller left a voicemail message warning the crew not to shoot the movie because bad things would happen. Eerily, two on-set electricians were involved in an accident in which their truck hit a live wire. One of the men experienced second and third-degree burns and lost both ears.

 

Disaster also struck the entire production when a hurricane destroyed the movie set. That is when the “curse of The Crow” rumors began circulating in Hollywood. The star of The Crow, Brandon Lee, was the son of martial arts legend, Bruce Lee. The elder Lee died during the production of his final film. Some fans speculated that the Chinese mafia had placed a hit on the actor for betraying martial arts secrets. Others suspected that he had been struck by an insidious death blow at an earlier time.

 

The most popular theory about The Dragon’s death is that he was a victim of the Lee Family Curse. His older brother had died, and Lee’s parents believed there was a demon targeting the males in the Lee family.

 

Like his father, Brandon Lee died before he finished filming The Crow. In a fluke accident, the performer was shot while completing an action sequence, as described in Cursed Films. The crew used what are called ‘dummy rounds,’ for the scene, but there was something in the barrel of the gun that acted as a lethal projectile, killing Lee. 

 

To complete the final photography for The Crow, the man who had been working as Lee’s stunt double wore a mask in his image.

 

Crazy stuff!

 

How about some of our patented quick hitters! 

 

The Conqueror" is a whitewashed 1956 film with John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The film was shot at a location downwind from a nuclear testing site, causing dozens of crew members to eventually die of cancer. so maybe not so much a curse as a poor choice of locations.

 

Apocalypse Now"

 

The horror! Francis Ford Coppola was tempting fate when he decided to film "Apocalypse Now" during monsoon season. Big mistake. The monsoon destroyed multiple sets, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming, and Coppola was so stressed that he suffered a seizure, according to The Independent. "Apocalypse Now" (1979) turned out to be a masterpiece anyway, but the documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" about its making is just as engrossing. 

 

"Fitzcarraldo" 

 

Dysentery. Injuries. Fights among the crew. Nothing seemed to go right during the filming of 1982's "Fitzcarraldo." The story concerns hauling a boat over a hill, which the crew literally accomplished, but not without the same nightmarish difficulty as is depicted in the film. And in the end, director Werner Herzog looked as mad and overly driven as its hero. Check out the documentary "Burden of Dreams" for more.

 

The Superman Curse 

 

Comic book movie fans may know about the "Superman Curse," which is said to afflict multiple actors involved in Superman films. Christopher Reeve was paralyzed following a horse accident. And Margot Kidder, who played Lois opposite Reeve, suffered from bipolar disorder, according to TCM. Also, the original Superman, George Reeves, supposedly committed suicide. His death at age 45 from a gunshot remains a controversial subject; the official finding was suicide, but some believe that he was murdered or the victim of an accidental shooting.

 

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" 

 

Bad luck ran amok in Middle Earth during the filming of 2002's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." DVD interviews revealed that multiple actors and stuntmen suffered injuries while shooting the film's elaborate fight sequences. The worst was Viggo Mortensen, who broke his toe and chipped his tooth while filming.

 

The Exorcism of Emily rose

 

Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter reported that during the making of The Exorcism of Emily Rose — in which she played a big-screen version of German woman Anneliese Michel, whose poor health and subsequent death was blamed on a failed exorcism — her radio would mysteriously turn on and off. From an interview with Dread Central:

 

Q: A common question when making a film like this; did anything weird happen during filming?

 

JC: I thought about that when it happened, and two or three times when I was going to sleep my radio came on by itself. The only time it scared me was once because it was really loud and it was Pearl Jam’s “Alive” (laughs). Laura’s TV came on a couple of times.

 

Q: At 3:00 a.m.?

 

JC: Mine wasn’t 3:00 a.m. I was born at 3:00 a.m. but it hasn’t happened to me. I did check.

 

We’ll totally do an episode on Analiese one of these days

 

Psycho

Myra Jones (aka Myra Davis) was the uncredited body double/stand-in for Psycho star Janet Leigh during the making of Hitchcock’s 1960 film. A handyman named Kenneth Dean Hunt, who was supposedly a Hitchcock “obsessive,” murdered her.

 

The Conjuring

 

Real-life ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren, who aided the real-life Amityville Horror case, investigated the haunting of the Perron family home — a farmhouse plagued by generations of death, disaster, and a possessed doll. The case inspired James Wan’s supernatural film, which left some audiences in the Philippines with such a fright there were priests available at screenings to bless viewers and provide counseling. On and off-set paranormal incidents — including strange claw marks on star Vera Farmiga’s computer, Wan’s tormented dog growling at invisible intruders, a strange wind (that apparently put Carolyn Perron in the hospital), and fire — were reported.

 

The Innkeepers

 

Filmed at the reportedly haunted hotel the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut, The Innkeepers director Ti West was skeptical about the strange occurrences during the making of his movie. Still, creepy stories from the set became the focus in the press. From an interview with West:

 

I’m a skeptic so I don’t really buy it. But I’ve definitely seen doors close by themselves; I’ve seen a TV turn off and on by itself; lights would always burn out in my room. Everyone on the crew has very vivid dreams every night, which is really strange.

 

The one story that is the most intriguing to me — In the film, the most haunted room is the Honeymoon Suite. That’s where the ghost stuff started in the hotel. The only reason I picked the room that I picked to shoot in, was because it was big enough to do a dolly shot. No more thought went into it other than pure technical reasons. So when we’re finishing the movie, I find out that the most haunted room in real life is the room I picked to be the haunted room in the movie. It could be a coincidence. It’s weird that it happened that way. . . . [Star] Sara Paxton would wake up in the middle of the night thinking someone was in the room with her. Everyone has stories, but I was too busy saying, “Let’s shoot this! We have 17 days!

 

Atuk" 

 

"Atuk" is a movie so cursed that it never got made. The project, based on a 1963 Mordecai Richler novel about an Eskimo in New York, had four different men attached to play the lead while in development hell through the 1970s and '80s: John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy, and Chris Farley. All four died shortly after entering negotiations to be in the film. Holy shit! 

 

Ok how about twilight zone the movie. The 1983 film 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' directed by John Landis and Steven Spielberg gained publicity pre-release because of the deaths of lead actor Vic Morrow and two child extras during the filming of the helicopter crash scene. The children were illegally hired to play the role in this scene, as Landis would go on to reveal in the subsequent trial. It was also prohibited to make children work after a certain hour in the evening. However, Landis insisted that the scene would have to entail a late-night setting to seem more authentic. This was the last scene in the film. It also included explosions as a helicopter flew over the village while Morrow would run across the street to save the Vietnamese children from the explosion. Testing for the scene sparked concerns when the helicopter seemed to vigorously rock at the explosion but despite this, Landis' need to capture the explosion took priority. He reportedly said, "You think that was big? You ain't seen nothing yet." At the controls of this helicopter was a Vietnam War veteran named Dorcey Wingo, who had just joined the movie business. When the cameras began filming, the pyrotechnic fireball that had been fired as part of the explosion hit the helicopter, engulfing it in flames. The helicopter then crashed into the river where the actors were standing — Morrow, 6-year-old Renee Chen, and 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le. Almost a hundred people were present when the tragedy occurred. The helicopter skidded right onto Renee, crushing her to death and when it toppled over, the main blade sliced through Morrow and Myca.

 

Rosemary's baby is next up on the list. Over the years, the myth surrounding Roman Polanski’s 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby has only grown in stature. The film is based on the 1967 novel of the same name by American novelist Ira Levin. He came up with the idea for the book in 1965, drawing inspiration from his wife who was pregnant at the time, his New York apartment, and the anxiety of being a parent.

 

The struggling writer imagined a world where there was no God and the devil was allowed to reign freely. This is evident in the iconic ending where Rosemary finds out that her husband sold her womb to Satan and that her child is the Antichrist. Levin was catapulted into the highest echelons of the literary world due to the success of his novel and a year later, a European auteur who was looking for his own Hollywood break decided to direct the film adaptation of his novel.

 

However, not everyone was pleased with Levin’s attacks on religion. He faced severe backlash from the Catholic Church for his “blasphemy” and his wife left him the year the film was released. He was never the same man again, growing increasingly paranoid over the years. Levin repeatedly had to make public statements denouncing Satanism and told Dick Cavett that he had become “terrified” as he grew older. 30 years after the release of the film, Levin came up with a sequel titled Son of Rosemary but it tanked.

 

William Castle was the man who first recognized the potential of Levin’s work and secured the rights to make a film adaptation. Best known for his work on B-grade horror films, Castle wanted to direct it initially but Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans agreed to go ahead with the project only if Castle worked as a producer. In April of 1969, Castle was hospitalized because of severe kidney stones. He was already under a lot of stress due to the sheer volume of hate mail he received, a terrible consequence of being attached to Rosemary’s Baby. In his autobiography, he claimed that he began to hallucinate scenes from the film during his surgery and even shouted, “Rosemary, for God’s sake drop that knife!” Although Castle recovered, he never reached that level of success again.

 

Producer Robert Evans was not exempt from this alleged curse either. He had risen to the top with major hits like Rosemary’s Baby and The Godfather. However, he was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980 and got a suspended prison sentence. As a part of his plea bargain, Evans had to make an anti-drug commercial. Three years later, the producer would get caught up in the high-profile murder of Roy Radin which has come to be known as the “Cotton Club murder”. Despite two witnesses testifying that Evans was involved in the case, he was later cleared of the charges. In 1993, he told The New York Times, “I had 10 years of a horrific life, Kafkaesque. There were nights I cried myself to sleep.”

 

This is arguably the most renowned story that is related to Rosemary’s Baby. In autumn of 1968, composer Krzysztof Komeda, who worked on the film, fell off a rocky escarpment while partying and went into a four-month coma. Coincidentally, this affliction is exactly what the witches in Levin’s book subject Rosemary’s suspicious friend to. Komeda never came out of the coma and died in Poland the following year.

 

John Lennon was assassinated outside The Dakota in 1980, the famous building where they filmed Rosemary’s Baby. Producer Robert Evans claimed that the whole time he was on set at the apartment building he felt a “distinctly eerie feeling”. Lennon was gunned down by alleged “fan” Mark David Chapman who was influenced by Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye and the loneliness of protagonist Holden Caulfield. However, the fleeting association with the film has led fans of the film to link Lennon’s assassination with the “curse” of the film. It can be said that the primary reason why the myth of the curse came about was the brutal murder of Polanski’s wife, actress Sharon Tate. Polanski even wanted to cast Tate as Rosemary but Evans was adamant about Mia Farrow’s involvement. A year after the film’s release, Tate and her friends were stabbed to death by followers of cult leader Charles Manson. Tate was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time of her demise. The members of the Manson Family delivered around 100 stab wounds to the four victims and wrote “Helter Skelter” on the wall in blood.

 

After his wife and unborn son were killed, Polanski indulged in substance abuse to cope with things but he ended up exemplifying human depravity. While guest editing the French edition of Vogue in 1977, the director preyed upon a 13-year old girl and persuaded her to participate in multiple photoshoots. During the second shoot at Jack Nicholson’s house, he incapacitated the minor with champagne and half a Quaalude before sexually violating her multiple times.

 

Although he was arrested for the felony and spent 42 days in jail, Polanski became a fugitive and fled to France to avoid facing charges. Since then, he has lived the life of a criminal and has avoided traveling to countries where he can be extradited back to the US.

 

Ok, let's round things out with the wizard of oz. Despite its commercial success, The Wizard of Oz is seen by some as cursed. There were so many serious accidents onset that those Oscar-nominated special effects almost cost cast members their lives, from the two actors playing winged monkeys crashing to the ground when the wires that hoisted them up in the air broke, to the Wicked Witch of the West’s stunt double Betty Danko injuring her left leg when the broomstick exploded.

 

Buddy Ebsen was originally cast in the role of the Tin Woodman, a.k.a. the Tin Man, but he was essentially poisoned by the makeup, which was made of pure aluminum dust. Nine days after filming started he was hospitalized, sitting under an oxygen tent. When he was not getting better fast enough, the filmmakers hired Jack Haley to be the Tin Man instead. This time, instead of applying the aluminum powder, the makeup artists mixed it into a paste and painted it on him. He did develop an infection in his right eye that needed medical attention, but it ended up being treatable.

 

Margaret Hamilton — who played the Wicked Witch of the West and was the one tipped who Harmetz off to the turmoil on set more than three decades later for her 1977 book — got burns, and the makeup artists had to rush to remove her copper makeup so that it wouldn’t seep through her wounds and become toxic. Unlike Ebsen, she didn’t get fired because they could live without her on the set for several more weeks.

 

An actor playing one of the Wicked Witch of the West’s soldiers accidentally jumped on top of Dorothy’s Toto, Carl Spitz, the dog trainer on set, told Harmetz. The dog (a female Cairn terrier named Terry) sprained its foot, and Spitz had to get a canine double. Terry did recover and returned to the set a few weeks later.

 

In a memoir by Judy Garland’s third husband, Sid Luft, published posthumously in 2017, he writes that, after bar-hopping in Culver City, the actors who played the munchkins “would make Judy’s life miserable by putting their hands under her dress.” Harmetz says it’s true that the actors would go drinking near the Culver City hotel where they stayed, but she says their interactions with Garland did not rise to the level of what Luft described. “Nobody on the movie ever saw her or heard of a munchkin assaulting her,” said one worker on the film. Garland did say the drinking was annoying in an interview with talk-show host Jack Paar, but experts on Garland’s life say that her rant about being scarred by the rowdy behavior on set may have been a deflection from the real damage she suffered during that time, at the hands of the studio. Garland was only 16 when she made The Wizard of Oz, and her struggles with depression and disordered eating started at an early age and continued for the rest of her life. She claimed that the studio executives gave her uppers and sleeping pills so she could keep up with the demanding pace of show business. She struggled with drug addiction and attempted suicide several times before she died of an accidental overdose on June 22, 1969, at just 47 years old.

 

The film went through four different producers by the time it was through.

 

Richard Thorpe, the first director, insisted that Judy Garland wear a blonde wig and thick makeup to depict Dorothy. When Buddy Epsen got sick from his Tin Man makeup and filming shut down for two weeks, the studio fired Thorpe and replaced him with George Cukor of My Fair Lady fame. Cukor encouraged Garland to wear natural makeup and play Dorothy less cartoonish and more natural. Cukor later left the film to work on Gone with the Wind instead and Viktor Fleming took his place. However, Cukor came back a few weeks later after getting fired from Gone With the Wind by Clark Gable (supposedly he was fired when Gable found out he was homosexual).

 

Director King Vidor was responsible for most of the sepia sequences and also helped Mervyn LeRoy with editing in post-production.

 

Not only did the public think former kindergarten teacher Margaret Hamilton was really evil following the first airing of The Wizard of Oz — she also suffered physically for the role. Hamilton received second and third-degree burns all over her body when the green copper makeup she was wearing got too hot during the fire scene. Her stunt double spent months in the hospital after a prop broom exploded — they were using a double because Hamilton got injured on an earlier take.

 

Stage makeup and prosthetics in 1939 were nowhere near what they are today. Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow makeup left deeply embedded marks in his skin that didn’t disappear for more than a year after the movie wrapped up filming. Luckily, this would never happen today.

 

How bout that hanging munchkin… Well, sorry folks. That seems to be fake. In a scene where Dorothy, the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), and the Tin Man (Jack Haley) are skipping down the Yellow Brick Road, singing “we’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz,” some think the dark, moving figure hanging from a tree in the background is an actor who hanged himself on set. More likely, it’s one of the exotic birds that the filmmakers borrowed from the Los Angeles Zoo to create a wilderness setting. The rumor has been circulating since around 1989, the time of the 50th anniversary of the film’s release.

Alright, there you have it… Cursed movies!!! 

Obscure 90s horror movies you need to see

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/obscure-1990s-horror-movies/christopher-myers

Creepy Antarctica

Grab your parkas, put on those winter boots, don't forget those big ol mittens and hang out with us tonight as we head to the place where the coldest temperature on earth has ever been recorded, a mild -89.2°C (-128.6°F). Maybe we should bring swim trunks instead, eh? Well, aside from the coldest temps known anywhere, there is also possibly Nazis, maybe a hole to the center of the earth, a blood waterfall, and giant sea spiders with legs ranging up to 70cm, and for those of you who aren't sure if that's big or not cus we’re a bunch of archaic buttholes that don't do metric… It's big.. Like close to 28 inches big… oh and how could we forget… the Penguins!! Lots of penguins! Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, we're heading to Antarctica! We're going to be discussing the continent and find out a little about it and then we'll talk about some creepy natural things going on and of course creepy conspiracies. It should be a fun one so let's get going!!!

 

So let's learn a little about Antarctica first off. Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert, with annual precipitation of 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland; yet 80% of the world's freshwater reserves are stored there, enough to raise global sea levels by about 60 metres (200 ft) if all of it were to melt. The temperature in Antarctica has dropped to −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) (or even −94.7 °C or −138.5 °F, as measured from space), although the average for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is −63 °C (−81 °F). Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, and certain animals, such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. Wanna know some fun facts… Well, tough shit negative Nancy, we're gonna tell ya anyways. 

 

1. Antarctica holds most of the world’s fresh water

An incredible 60-90% of the world’s freshwater is locked in Antarctica’s vast ice sheet. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest on Earth, covering an incredible 14 million km² (5.4 million square miles) of Antarctic mountain ranges, valleys and plateaus. This leaves only 1% of Antarctica permanently ice-free. Some areas are ice-free in the summer, including many of the areas we visit on the Antarctic Peninsula.

 

At its deepest, Antarctica’s ice is 4.5km (2.7 miles) thick – that’s half the height of Mt Everest! Again, If it all melted, global sea levels would rise about 60 m (200 ft).

 

2. As mentioned, Antarctica is a desert

With all of that fresh water held in the ice sheet, how could Antarctica be a desert?

 

When most of us think of deserts we think of sand dunes, cactuses and sizzling temperatures, but technically a desert doesn’t have to be hot or sandy, it’s more about how much precipitation the area receives as rain, snow, mist or fog. A desert is any region that receives very little annual precipitation.

 

The average annual rainfall at the South Pole over the past 30 years was just over 10 mm (0.4 in). Although there is more precipitation towards the coast, the average across the continent is low enough to classify Antarctica as a polar desert.

 

So, while Antarctica may be covered in ice, it has taken an incredible 45 million years to grow to its current thickness, because so little rain falls there.

 

As well as being one of the driest continents on Earth, Antarctica is also the coldest, windiest and highest.

 

3. Antarctica used to be as warm as Melbourne Australia!

Given that the coldest ever land temperature was recorded in Antarctica of -89.2°C (-128.6°F), it can be hard to imagine Antarctica as a warm, temperate paradise. But Antarctica hasn’t always been an icy land locked in the grip of a massive ice sheet. In fact, Antarctica was once almost as warm as Melbourne is today.

 

Researchers have estimated that 40-50 million years ago, temperatures across Antarctica reached up to 17°C (62.6°F). Scientists have also found fossils showing that Antarctica was once covered with verdant green forests and inhabited by dinosaurs!

 

4. The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming areas on Earth

The Antarctic Peninsula is warming more quickly than many other areas on Earth. In fact, it is one of the most rapidly warming areas on the planet. Over the past 50 years, average temperatures across the Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 3°C (37.4°F), five times the average increase on Earth.

 

This has led to some changes, for example where and when penguins form colonies and sea ice forms. It also means that the lush mosses of the Antarctic Peninsula have a slightly longer growing season.

 

5. There is no Antarctic time zone

The question of time in Antarctica is a tricky one. At the South Pole the lines of longitude, which give us different time zones around the globe, all meet at a single point. Most of Antarctica experiences 6 months of constant daylight in summer and 6 months of darkness in winter. Time starts to feel a little different without the normal markers for day and night.

 

Scientists working in Antarctica generally stay in the time zone of the country they departed from, but this can cause some issues. For example, on the Antarctic Peninsula you can find stations from Chile, China, Russia, the UK and many other countries. You can imagine that if all of these neighbouring stations keep to their home time zones it could get a little confusing trying to share data and resources without accidentally waking one another up in the middle of the night!

 

For travellers with Aurora Expeditions, they generally stay on Ushuaia time – unless they’re travelling to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Then they adjust to their local times, changing as they travel.

 

6. Every way is north!

If you stand at the South Pole, you are at the southernmost point on Earth. It doesn’t matter which way you look, every direction is north. So why do we talk about the Antarctic Peninsula as being in West Antarctica, and the section directly south of Australia as East Antarctica?

 

It’s based on the prime meridian, an imaginary line which passes through Greenwich in the UK at 0 degrees of longitude. If you stand at the South Pole and face towards Greenwich, everything to your left is west Antarctica and everything to your right is east Antarctica. Got that?

 

7. Antarctica has active volcanoes

Antarctica is home to several volcanoes and two of them are active. Mount Erebus, the second-highest volcano in Antarctica, is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Located on Ross Island, this icebound volcano has some unique features such as ice fumaroles and twisted ice statues that form around gases that seep from vents near the volcanic crater.

 

The first ascent of Mt Erebus was made in 1908, when a team led by Australian scientist Edgeworth David, and including Douglas Mawson, completed an arduous and very chilly five day climb to the steaming crater.

 

The second active volcano is on Deception Island, a volcanic caldera in the South Shetland Islands. Once home to a thriving whaling station and later a scientific station, it was abandoned after the most recent eruption in 1969, and today it is a fascinating place that we visit on some of our Antarctic Peninsula voyages.

 

8. Antarctica has its own Treaty

When humans caught their first glimpse of Antarctica in 1820, it was the only continent without an indigenous population. Several nations quickly made claims to the continent, which led to significant tension. While some countries argued that Antarctica was rightfully theirs, others heartily disagreed.

 

As tension mounted, everyone agreed on the need for a peaceful resolution. In December 1959, 12 countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, an unprecedented international agreement to govern the continent together as a reserve for peace and science. Since then, 41 other countries have signed the Treaty and participate in annual meetings, where decisions are made about how human activity in Antarctica is managed. All decisions made within the Antarctic Treaty System are made by consensus, with collaboration and agreement as the central pillars. Today, the Antarctic Treaty System has expanded to include strict guidelines for commercial fishing, sealing, and a complete ban on mining and mineral exploration. 

 

We got those fun facts  from Aurora expeditions. Com

 

So let's look at some of the weird natural phenomena that goes on in Antarctica. 

 

You guys like weird sounds? Well we got weird sounds for you. Scientists and researchers at the Ross ice shelf have recorded a slow seismic hum being generated by wind whipping across the Antarctic ice shelves. The scientists also discovered that the frequency of the vibrations changed in response to changing weather conditions on the shelf — when the temperature rose or fell, for instance, and when storms resculpted the shelf's snow dunes. The firn was "alive with vibration," Douglas MacAyeal, a glaciologist at the University of Chicago, said in a written commentary that accompanied the paper. "This vibration was found to be driven by the wind blowing across the firn layer and interacting with the intrinsic roughness of the surface called sastrugi." MacAyeal also offered a more poetic description of the sound, comparing it to "the buzz produced by thousands of cicada bugs when they overrun the tree canopy and grasses in late summer."

 

Julien Chaput, a geophysicist and mathematician at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the leader of the research, told NBC News MACH in an email that the sound was "a little like yodeling, except with 10 people all singing in dissonance. It's a little eerie." But the singing ice is more than a sonic curiosity. Chaput and his colleagues argue in their paper that it might be possible to tap into seismic data to help monitor the health of ice shelves, which have been thinning in response to global warming — and causing sea levels to rise around the world. so that's all pretty crazy. Antarctica is singing to us. (Play sound)

 

Ever hear of a solar pillar? Well you're about to. The air in Antarctica is frequently very dry. The low temperatures mean that little or no water vapour is held in the air, instead it freezes and falls out, or builds up on surfaces as frost. Sometimes however, depending on the particular atmospheric conditions, the frozen water vapour remains in the air as suspended ice crystals. In these conditions the crystals can reflect sunlight in a variety of ways forming atmospheric phenomena of different types.

 

One of these phenomena is the "Solar Pillar" in the picture. The sun is reflected very strongly off tiny suspended flat ice crystals in the air which are oriented at or almost horizontally, so that the reflection is almost as bright as the sun itself. Like a rainbow, this sight depends on the viewing angle, where the light is coming from and where the observer is standing. The pillar appears to move when the observer moves, but always remains directly below the sun because the ice crystals are found throughout the air but only act as mirrors for the sun at the correct viewing angle.

 

Most of you have heard of the northern lights, but did you know there are southern lights? The Southern Lights, commonly known as the Aurora Australis, is one of the world’s greatest wonders. The Southern lights are much more elusive than their Northern Hemisphere counterpart-Aurora Borealis. There is significantly less land mass in the Southern Hemisphere and fewer ideal viewing spots to see the Aurora. However, the Southern Lights are just as, if not more, impressive. Boasting a breathtaking colour palette that goes beyond the green and blues commonly seen at the Northern Lights, to include pinks, purples, oranges and golds.

 

Here's a little nerdy science for ya: The Aurora Australis phenomenon occurs when charged particles from solar winds bombard the Earth’s atmosphere and interact with gases in our planet.

 

These highly energised particles are emitted from the sun and smash into the Earth’s magnetic field at more than 6 million kilometres per hour.

 

For the most part, Earth is protected from solar winds by the magnetosphere, which sounds like Magneto from the X-Men franchise’s bachelor pad. The magnetosphere is a region of space that surrounds the Earth's magnetic field and has a primary purpose of preventing cosmic rays, such as solar winds from entering Earth’s atmosphere. However, occasionally, at particular times of the year, a few charged particles from solar winds make their way through the magnetosphere into our atmosphere. The charged particles move along the Earth's magnetic field lines towards the south and north pole. When they reach the each pole, they collide with atoms in the atmosphere, particularly nitrogen and oxygen, and become increasingly charged. Once the electrons settle back down to their normal level of excitement they glow, creating the magnificent light display, we know as an Aurora.

 

One more fun natural thing for you guys and probably the creepiest. BLOOD FALLS! THIS FIVE-STORY, BLOOD-RED WATERFALL POURS very slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. When geologists first discovered the frozen waterfall in 1911, they thought the red color came from algae, but it's true nature turned out to be much more spectacular.

 

Roughly two million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a place with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of “primordial ooze.” The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within. If you've never seen the falls it's pretty awesome and metal. We'll post pics for sure.

 

Ok so enough of the sciency and nerdy stuff let's get into the crazy shit. 

 

The first one is a fun one. In 2020 a clip from Google Earth was loaded onto youtube showing what appears to be an ice ship! So what exactly is it? Well friends, it depends on what you want to believe. The video sparked a conversation of epic conspiracy proportions! Some think that the "ship" is something connected to a secret Nazi base, which we’ll get to later. Others claim ties to the secret elite and illuminati. 

 

“I was told a couple of years ago that there are ships built underground somewhere on upper east coast (like the ones in the movie 2012) to save the rich and powerful when canary islands get hit with massive earthquake that will take out east coast,” one commenter wrote. 

 

Other theory's range from military and government cover ups to some claiming it to be Noah's ark. The mundane exfoliation is that it's our minds playing a trick on us… but that’s fucking lame and we’re going with the fact that it's something creepy and crazy!!

 

Another fun thing found by Google Earth is a giant mountain sized alien face. Yes you heard right. And if you don't think this is leading to crazy talk… You are seriously mistaken. 

 

Conspiracy theorists Blake and Brett Cousins – of YouTube channel thirdphaseofmoon – shared their thoughts on the Google Earth image.

 

"It appears to be a massive, ancient structure of some kind of face that is being revealed for the first time on Google Earth,” Blake said in his video.

 

"I would have to concur that whatever we’re looking at resembles some sort of megastructure."

 

Brett added: "Could this be something that was left behind by the ancient civilisations of Antarctica?

 

"Ice melting could be revealing structures that would baffle the world." 

 

There it is folks, a giant alien face structure hiding a civilization under Antarctica. Can't argue with the facts. I mean I guess you could say that it's just a case of pareidolia but that's not really that fun so… You know… Alien civilization it is. 

 

Speaking of aliens, A video posted to an “alien" sub-section on Reddit shows how zooming in on a certain area of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands reveals a mysterious vast section of disturbed snow. It shows what looks like something that crashed into the snow and skidded some 3000ft. Of course that brought out the nut jobs, and moody, claiming that it is a ufo crash site. 

 

Reddit user Hey-man-Shabozi captioned the post: "What’s over 200ft long, casts a shadow of 50ft, and appears to have crashed on an antarctic  island, moving so fast that it slid over 3,000ft?”

 

The island, located near Antarctica, has a strange snow formation in the area near Mount Carse.

 

It looks very similar to an avalanche but the video posted on Reddit goes into detail about how it could be more than what it seems. The main point of contention for the Reddit user is that there appears to be a long thin object that has created a lengthy straight track away from the disrupted area as if it crashed at speed. The Reddit user estimated that the tracks were more than 3,000 feet long.

 

He also claims to have worked out that the object responsible was 200 feet long.

 

Let's be honest… If you can't trust a reddit user… Who can you trust these days? Of course most people will say “oh it was just a big rock falling during an avalanche”, but everyone else who actually knows… They know it's a ufo. And they all know that the claims of a rock falling during an avalanche is just another global cover up to hide the fact that there are aliens. 

Another one comes thanks to a visual grab from Google Earth, which seems to suggest that there might actually be a tall building standing on the ice in Antarctica. These findings have been uploaded to YouTube Channel MrMBB33 (who coincidentally was also responsible for finding the ice ship we discussed earlier) and the conspiracy theorist who runs this channel suggests that this structure is as much as 2,000 feet in height and the width spans six football fields. Viewers are clearly interested in what they are seeing. “Strange that all countries want to take over land but no country claims Antarctica. I think there is something they know that we don’t," comments a user Lorrie Battistoni. Another user suggested that something on the lines of the Project Iceworm was active in Antarctica—the Project Iceworm was a then top-secret project of the United States Army which attempted to build a network of tunnel based and mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the ice sheet in Greenland. Equally, there are sceptics who suggest this is nothing more than a block of ice, albeit with a slightly different shape. 

 

 Since we brought up tunnels, there's supposedly an air vent on top of a “metallic shield” in a no-fly zone on the icy continent. Estimates are that the area is over 150 feet wide — based on measurements using Google Earth tools. Its two distinctive features: a pitch-black “opening” and a metal-like “shield.”

 

"That looks like some sort of vent, a thermal vent that goes underground. You can tell that the snow is darker than any other snow in the surrounding area,” one person said “That would imply to me that there is heat transfer going on” and suggests the top section is some metal or metal alloy man-made structure “over an opening that goes underground.

 

Someone else points out there is no volcanic activity nearby: “It is just there all by itself.”

 

So what is it? Just a cave? A man made structure hiding a secret underground base? Should we just go back to aliens for this one? What do you guys think?

Ok how about Hitler and the Nazis? Well since people believe there are Nazis and maybe even Hitler himself still hiding out in Antarctica. This theory originates from a story about a Nazi expedition to Antarctica.  The story says that while exploring and mapping the area, they uncovered a multitude of underground caves and rivers.  One of the caves was particularly large and was turned into a large city that would be home to both Nazi’s and other powerful groups, like the illuminati.  Along the way, the Germans either came across alien technology or made contact with the aliens.  The Germans learned how to use the technology and were able to build a number of weapons.  This belief is extraordinary because there is no evidence that the Nazis ever did, or were even capable of building such a base.  Geologist and Oceanographer, Colin Summerhayes, partnered with journalist and historian, Peter Beeching, to examine evidence about Antarctica and the Nazis. In  support of this claim is the fact that the Nazis did at one point carry out an expedition to Antarctica in 1938.  Many conspiracy theorists claim that this was a large-scale expedition, with militarized and scientific ships. Another bit of evidence for this theory is about the Nazi’s agreeing to The Antarctic treaty.  The treaty makes Antarctica a research zone and states that Antarctica cannot be targeted in any way by bombs or missiles.  Conspiracy theorists jump on this and say why would Nazi Germany sign this agreement?  The claim is that they signed this agreement to deter other nations from visiting Antarctica and stumbling upon their base and the research being done there.  There has been no evidence found to corroborate that point.  Additionally, some claim that Hitler himself is actually in Antarctica.  The evidence for this idea is based on the claim that a German ship arrived at an Argentinian base located in Antarctica after the war ended.  Another popular conspiracy theory is that Hitler escaped to Argentina at the end of the war, and so therefore he was picked up by a German ship, and sent to Antarctica to live at the secret bunker.  However there is no evidence that Hitler ever made it to Argentina or that the supposed German boat ever went to Argentina’s Antarctic base… At least that's what they want you to believe! Since there have been other strange military activity there such as supposed German boats coming or the U.S. project “Operation Highjump”, since people really think that this is a feasible thing. Of course These strange events, and the lack of information around them, often lead people to conclude that it must be because there is something going on there that the government doesn’t want us to know about.  Many of these beliefs actually come from Flat Earth.  Flat Earthers often propose that it is illegal to go to Antarctica and has a constant military presence, that’s why none of them can go investigate if the ice wall is out there.  There is a subgroup of flat earth who believes that part of the reason you “can’t go” to Antarctica is because of the Nazi base there. So think about that one...flat earthers believing there are Nazis bases in Antarctica… Good Lord. In 1978, Miguel Serrano, a Chilean diplomat and Nazi sympathizer, published El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico [The Golden Thread: Esoteric Hitlerism] (in Spanish), in which he claimed that Adolf Hitler was an Avatar of Vishnu and was, at that time, communing with Hyperborean gods in an underground Antarctic base in New Swabia. Serrano predicted that Hitler would lead a fleet of UFOs from the base to establish the Fourth Reich. In popular culture, this alleged UFO fleet is referred to as the Nazi flying saucers from Antarctica. Oh boy. We really gotta figure out if the Nazis are on the moon or in Antarctica!

 

How about pyramids… You like pyramids? We got pyramids… maybe.

THE oldest pyramids on Earth are hidden away under the deep cold snow of Antarctica, conspiracy theorists have shockingly claimed . Ancient alien theorists who are certain secret pyramids are concealed all around the globe, think some may be hidden on Antarctica. Conspiracy theorists, in particular, point to a pyramid-like structure near the Shackleton mountain range on the icy continent. The “pyramid” in question, when viewed on satellite imagery, does appear to have four steep sides much like the Great Pyramid of Giza. Conspiracy theory author David Childress told Ancient Aliens there is a distinct possibility the Shackleton pyramid is the oldest of its kind on Earth.

 

He said: “If this gigantic pyramid in Antarctica is an artificial structure, it would probably be the oldest pyramid on the planet and in fact, it might be the master pyramid that all the other pyramids on planet Earth were designed to look like.” Another conspiracy theorist agreed, saying: "All the way around the world we find evidence of pyramid structures.

 

"We should start looking at the possibility there was habitation on Antarctica.

 

"Was it a lost civilization? Could it be ancient astronauts?

 

"And just maybe, the earliest monuments of our own civilization came from Antarctica.” 

 

But the theory was challenged by Dr Michael Salla, author of Exopolitics Political Implications of the Extraterrestrial Presence. The alien expert argued the Antarctic pyramid is just one node in a global network of power-generating pyramids strategically placed around Earth.

 

A popular pyramid conspiracy claims the triangular structures act as power generators of sorts, built for the purpose of transiting vast amounts of energy wirelessly.

 

Dr Salla said: “There has been extensive research done on pyramids throughout the world, in terms of their structure and what they really are.

 

“One of the theories is that pyramids are power generators and so if you have these pyramids strategically placed around the world generating a charge, it’s possible to create a general standing wave around the world that is a wireless transmission of energy.”

 

Also There is a claim that the British set up a base called Maudheim-1 (there are no records) in Dronning Maud Land during the war to observe the apparent Nazi base, this was supposedly attacked by the Nazis in July 1945 followed by SAS led (failed) retaliatory attacks from October to December that year.

 

How about a couple quick hits:

 

 Some think that the remains of a  Motte and Bailey castle were uncovered. Motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to build with unskilled labour, but still militarily formidable, these castles were built across northern Europe from the 10th century onwards, spreading from Normandy and Anjou in France, into the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. The Normans introduced the design into England and Wales. Motte-and-bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries. 

 

The structure is about 120m across which makes it of the appropriate size range and has two sort-of circles, though the whole thing appears to be more or less completely flat rather than having any significant raised earthworks which in part define a Motte and Bailey castle, the mounds of such castles in towns, cities and in the countryside in Europe are particularly enduring across the centuries. There's a scientific explanation for it but that doesn't stop people from believing what they want. 

 

Then of course you have the flat earthers . There is a weird conspiracy theory that Antarctica and the South Pole do not exist. This belief is most common among flat-earthers who claim that our planet is flat. Flat-earthers believe that the North Pole is at the center of the world while the South Pole surrounds the Earth. According to flat-earthers, Antarctica is actually a thick wall about 30 to 60 meters (100 to 200 ft.) high that surrounds our planet. The wall stops everything from falling over the edge of the Earth. Flat-earthers say we cannot confirm the existence of the wall because world governments and the United Nations have strict no-fly and no-sail zones around Antarctica. Conspiracy theorists believe that the British Captain Cook is one of the few humans to have ever seen the wall apart from government agents. Supposedly, Captain Cook reported seeing the huge wall during the three voyages he made to Antarctica. The wall covered the entire coastline, and he could not land anywhere because it was just too tall to climb.

 

Speaking if stupid, we touched on this not long ago so we'll just mention it in passing… But apparently there's a hole at the south pole that is the entrance to the hollow earth...I mean… Come On people… Is this where we are as a society??

 

Going along with this theory of a hole at the pole, there are people that think the world is hiding that fact with a fake south pole. So when people go to the spot that is thought to be the south pole is actually an arbitrary random spot chosen by the powers of the world to throw everyone off the trail of hollow earth. 

 

Some people also believe that there is actually a tropical region that is  hidden in Antarctica. Yes, a tropical region. Some say it is in the no fly zone that is also attributed to the spot where the hole to hollow earth is… we think these guys should fight it out. To the death. Like, no survivors. On the other hand there is recent evidence that there used to be rain forests on the continent so maybe the believers aren't as crazy as we think. Just kidding. They’re nuttier than squirrel turds.

 

Some other crackpots also really believe Antarctica is the Land of The Ancient Race of Super-Beings With Big Angular Heads. Some of them tried to leave many years ago and made it to Easter Island where their enormous weight made them sink into the ground and a simple common bacterial infection turned them to stone. The bacterium cannot live in Antarctica so they continue their highly sophisticated secret society under the ice, dude we can't make this stuff up. Maybe it was Medusa… see, we can make shit up, too!

 

And finally… Is Antarctica really the lost city of atlantis? The theory that Antarctica is Atlantis is a relatively new one, dating back to the mid 20th Century.

 

According to Charles Hapgood's 1958 book 'Earth's Shifting Crust',  the continent of Antarctica was in fact originally much further north than its current position. Due to the shifting of the Earth's crust, the continent was displaced, and the climate of the continent, which had been mild, plummeted to below freezing.

 

This shift in location and temperature has led some to argue that an ancient Civilisation existed on the continent, which was subsequently destroyed by this monumental geographical realignment.

 

In 2016, faint credence was given to this claim with the revelation that remains of a human settlement had been found under the Antarctic ice.

 

One report claimed, 'the pictures, taken using remote sensing photography for NASA's Operation IceBridge mission to Antarctica, show what online sleuths believe could be a city.'

Ranker list of best winter thriller movies

https://www.ranker.com/list/thriller-movies-set-in-snow/ranker-film

The Exorcism of Roland Doe. Halloween 2021

Happy Halloween you beautiful bastards… Well… in a couple of days, but this is our Halloween episode so keep it or leave it. We've got some pretty crazy and creepy stuff going on today. Let's get into it!

 

Do you guys believe in demons? Possession? Are you afraid that at some point in your life a being from hell or possibly another plane of existence could enter your body and wreak havoc on your body, mind, and soul? That they could possibly even kill you or cause injury or death to someone you know? What must it be like to not be in control of your own being? Well, we're gonna discuss all of that today while talking about perhaps the most famous possession incident out there. The one that inspired what many think it's one of, if not the, scariest horror movies ever. Today we are discussing the possession and Exorcism of Roland Doe, also sometimes referred to as Robbie Manheim. While there are many versions of what happened, we will try to stay as close to what is thought to be the actual events.  "Robbie Mannheim" was Allen's alias for the 13-year-old boy at the center of the exorcism story; the Catholic Church referred to him as "Roland Doe." None of the eyewitnesses publicly revealed the boy's true identity, and it was never disclosed  from the unedited diary of Raymond Bishop that was used by Thomas B Allen to write the book "Possession: The True Story Of An Exorcism, which is thought to be the closest account to what actually happened. 

 

From here on out we will be referring to the boy as Roland since that was the name given to him by the Catholic Church and we don't want to cause any confusion by switching names during the show. 

 

In January of 1949 strange things started to happen in the house where Roland lived in maryland. Roland was born into a Lutheran family and was an only child. He spent a lot of time with his Aunt Harriet. Most accounts of the story day that when Aunt Harriet died that's when the whole ordeal began. You see it seems that Roland took an interest in the… Wait for it… Ouija board!!! Oh yeah the good old wholesome family entertainment known as the Ouija board. Well Aunt Harriet decided to help Roland learn the ways of the Ouija board when he showed interest and when she died the family thought that the things they were experiencing were caused by the deceased Aunt and things having to do with the Ouija board.  So what types of things are the family experiencing you ask? Well we're not going to tell you. Goodnight everyone!!! Anyways… started with the usual small stuff. There were scratching sounds coming from the walls. They claimed to hear dripping water but couldn't locate a source of the sound. They claimed that objects around the house would levitate or move on their own when Roland was around. They claim they witnessed his mattress moving on it's own. The family was understandably concerned. They began to seek the opinions of physicians and psychiatrists who predictably couldn't really find anything wrong with the boy. They also sought advice from a minister from their local Lutheran Church. They go to Rev. Luther Miles Schulze, a Lutheran minister who happened to be greatly interested in the paranormal, as it was called at that time, and he said, 'Go to a Catholic priest; the Catholics know about this kind of thing. well thanks for nothing I guess! 

 

Interestingly enough, later on Rev. Schulze spoke at a meeting of a Washington, D.C., branch of the Society for Parapsychology about this case. That information made its way to the press, and the published Schulze interview led to the leaking of the exorcism story by Catholic sources. Studying at Georgetown at that time, William Peter Blatty read the story in the Washington Post and years later used it as inspiration for The Exorcist. 

 

On Schulze's advice, the family went to a local priest, Father E. Albert Hughes, who "gave them a bottle of holy water and candles and sent them on their way. 

 

Unfortunately the holy water and candles didn't really do the trick. Things kept happening and things kept getting worse. Roland was getting more violent but it only seemed to come out at night. According to witnesses in the evening Roland would put on his pajamas and get in bed and that's when the trouble would start. He seemed to come into a trance-like state. He would claim to have no recollection of the night's events the following morning. 

 

Come February things were getting a little more intense. Around February 26 scratches started to appear randomly on Roland's body. Several nights later words supposedly began to appear on his body either scratched or "branded" on him.  At this point around Feb 28th, it seems Roland's first Exorcism took place at Georgetown hospital. Que the return of father Hughes. Hughes asked the arch­bishop of Washington, D.C., for permission to perform an exorcism on the boy. This was the first time that something major seemed to have taken place. During the Exorcism Roland supposedly broke of a piece of a bedspring from the mattress he was on and slashed the good father from his shoulder to his wrist although Later when the case was looked at a little more in depth there was no evidence that this event ever actually happened but will get to that later. 

 

At this point Roland's mother thought that maybe a change of scenery would be good. She began thinking about moving back to where she used to live...St. Louis. Now low and behold weird had it that after they discussed the move, the word Louis magically appeared scratched onto Roland.  Mama took this as a sign and they packed up and headed to St Louis sometime around March 4 or 5th. The boy ended up staying in a house with a relative who had attended Saint Louis University. One of her professors was Father Bishop, who became one of sev­eral Jesuits to participate in the exorcism and kept the day-by-day account on which Allen's book is based. Bishop talked to his friend William Bowdern, S.J. After both men consulted with Paul Reinert, S.J., then president of Saint Louis University, and St. Louis Archbishop Joseph Ritter, all agreed that an exorcism would be performed according to the Roman Ritual. It was something that Bowdern, who was chosen to be the lead exorcist, knew little about.

 

"Father Halloran said the first thing Bowdern did was hit the books," Allen, who wrote the book about the incident, said. "He would have learned something about it while becoming a Jesuit, but there isn't much call for exorcism to the modern-day priest. But Bowdern was a veteran of World War II, he'd been in combat -- so he was a combination of a religious man who was very tough." 

 

The process ended up taking more than a month, during which Bowdern fasted. Several priests, Alexian Brothers and family members participated in or witnessed the rite, which  always began in the evening.

 

"The pattern was that the boy would act normally during the day, and then he would put on his pajamas and go to bed, and go into a trance and start screaming and yelling and acting wild," Allen said. In the morning, the boy apparently never remem­bered what transpired the night before.

 

Many things were related to have happened during these weeks of Exorcism including the mattress moving as it did before, objects levitating and moving on their own during the rites, Roland speaking in latin and other random languages, more scratches appearing on the boys body and road beginning more angry and violent during the rites. 

 

Halloran stated that during this scene words such as "evil" and "hell", along with other various marks, appeared on the teenager's body. Allegedly, during the Litany of the Saints portion of the exorcism ritual, the boy's mattress began to shake. 

 

A Jesuit priest named John Walsh, a friend of Bowdern's, talked about the Roman numeral X that appeared on the boy's chest. It was believed that 10 demons were involved, Walsh said.

 

A voice coming from the boy supposedly told an attending Jesuit, who was assisting Bowdern, that he would die in 10 years and would burn in hell. The Jesuit had a fondness for strong drink, and the voice so unnerved him that he stopped drinking, for a time. 

 

Another incident supposedly written about in the diary was when One night, sitting on the bed beside the boy, Bowdern watched a tiny, nearly invisible pitchfork, or lines, move from under the boy's upper thigh all the way to the ankle. Droplets of blood occurred. Bowdern was only a foot away, and there were the usual four or five witnesses.

 

Often, according to the priests, he had to be forcibly restrained. In one of these incidents, he broke the nose of  Walter Halloran. He said of the incident

 

          ''I got in on the business with the prayers of exorcism, and the little boy would go into a seizure and get quite violent. So Father Bowdern asked me to hold him.'' (Halloran is a former high school football player.) ''Yes, he did break my nose.''

 

Halloran said he observed the streaks and arrows and words like ''hell'' that would rise on the child's skin. ''That happened a number of times. And it wasn't a case of taking a pin and scratching himself. It just appeared, and with quite a bit of pain.

 

''On Holy Thursday that year, this phenomenon started occurring as I was reading the prayers. 'Don't talk about it anymore, this hurts too much, ' the kid said. The markings were most visible, and there were many obscenities. He was a nice little kid.''

 

Throughout the ordeal, Bowdern fasted on bread and water. ''He looked terrible, '' said his brother, Dr. Edward H. Bowdern of St. Louis. He looked thin and wasted, and developed styes and boils, Dr. Bowdern said.

 

Other accounts attributed a frightening degree of strength to young Roland, and claimed that he spoke in perfect Latin, though the boy was unschooled in the language. Some sources state that at least one of these exorcisms was observed by no less than 48 people, nine of them Jesuits.

 

After all of this craziness took place...a miracle of sorts happened. At 11:00pm on 18 April 1949, while wearing saint medals and holding a crucifix, Roland screamed, “Satan! Satan! I am St. Michael! I command you, Satan, and the other evil spirits to leave this body, in the name of Dominus, immediately! Now! Now! Now!” After a final spasm, Roland fell quiet and proclaimed that “He is gone.”   and with that the Exorcism was finished and Road seemed to well again. Following the final exorcism, Roland claimed to experience a vision of St. Michael slaying a dragon. Believing it was a sign that his ordeal was over, the family returned home from Missouri 12 days later. The strange behavior ceased and Hunkeler returned to school. After this not many people know what happened to Roland but a few people did keep tabs on him and the results are that the boy went on to live a normal life and eventually married and had a son he named Michael after St. Michael. 

 

The following is a timeline of events that took place according to the diary that was kept. There are a few extras details about dinner if the effects as well and it's a pretty good summary. 

15 January 1949

 

A dripping noise was heard in his grandmother’s bedroom by the boy and his grandmother.

 A picture of Christ on the wall shook and scratching noises were heard under the floorboards.

Scratching was heard every night from 7 p.m. until midnight for 10 days. This was attributed to a rodent at the time

 

26 January 1949

 

Aunt “Tillie”/Harriet dies of multiple sclerosis in St. Louis.

Waves of air reportedly strike the grandmother

3 knocks are heard on the floor. Roland's mom asks, “If you are Harriet, tell me positively by knocking four times.” Four knocks were heard.

Scratchings on Hunkeler’s mattress.

 

28 January 1949

 

After 3 days of silence, nighttime “squeaking shoes" on rolands bed heard for 6 nights

 

17 February 1949

 Roland spends the night with Lutheran minister Schulze.

Reportedly Schulze heard scratching noises, and witnessed:

bed vibrations;

a chair in which Roland sat tipping over;

and, the movements of a pallet of blankets.

Schulze's family take Roland to the Mental Hygiene Clinic of the University of Maryland for testing.

After two rounds of testing, nothing abnormal was discovered.

Schulze also contacted J.B. Rhine, the founder of the parapsychology laboratory at Duke University. Rhine and wife, Louisa Rhine, drove up from North Carolina to evaluate the boy but saw no activity.

 

26 February 1949

 

Scratches or markings appeared on the boy’s body for 4 consecutive nights.

Circa

 

27 February 1949

 

Words began to appear on the boy’s body and seemed to be scratched by claws.

Father Edward Albert Hughes of St. James Catholic Church in Mount Rainier is called upon to review the case. Hughes suggested the family use blessed candles, holy water, and special prayers.

Hughes reportedly witnessed:

Unassisted movements of a telephone and other objects in his office.

Roland make obscene and blasphemous remarks at him in a strange, diabolical voice.

And the room became unexplainably cold.

 Father Hughes was convinced that Roland was possessed and requested Cardinal Patrick A O’Boyle at authorize exorcism.

 

28 February 1949

 

 Until

 

3 March 1949

 

Roland is a patient at Georgetown University Hospital.

This is the point that the alleged first exorcism took place.

Mother sees the bloody word “Louis” scratched on Roland. When the boy is asked if word “Louis” means “St. Louis.” The word “Yes” is said to appear.

Family departs for Normandy, Missouri, near St. Louis to stay at the home of an aunt.

 

8 March 1949

 

The shaking of the mattress and scratching resumed at aunt’s home in Normandy.

9 March 1949

 

Father Raymond J. Bishop of St. Louis University sees Roland for the first time.

Bishop  witnesses the scratching of the boy’s body as well as the motion of the mattress.

 

11 March 1949

 

Father William S. Bowdern of St. Francis Xavier Church asked to meet Roland.

Father Bowdern read the Novena prayer of St. Francis Xavier, blessed the boy with a relic and placed a crucifix under the boy’s pillow.

After everyone has left the room, a loud noise was heard and, reportedly, a large book case had moved about. A bench was turned over and the crucifix had been moved to the edge of the bed.

The mattress was also reported to shake.

 

16 March 1949

 

Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter gave Father Bowdern permission to begin the formal rite of exorcism.

The first of the second series of exorcisms is performed at the Normandy, Missouri home.

A number of priest were in attendance including:

Bowdern as chief exorcist,

Rev. Walter Halloran as the assistant exorcist (but he was removed before the final exorcism)

Father Lawrence Kenny

And Father Charles O'Hara of Marquette University.

During the exorcism:

Roland becomes violent, spits at the priests, with howls and growls.

The bed shakes.

Allegedly, word such as “Satan” and “devil” appear on chest as scratches.

Proving too violent for the exorcisms to be performed in home, the exorcisms were moved to the rectory at St. Francis Xavier Church.

When this proves to be too dangerous, Roland is transferred to the Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward.

Exorcisms continue at the hospital.

1 April 1949

 

Roland is baptized Catholic.

4 April 1949

 

In brief trip back to Maryland by train, Roland becomes violent and attacks Father Bowdern, kicking him in the testicles.

9 April 1949

 

Roland is returned to St. Louis and briefly stays at “White House,” a Jesuit retreat along the Mississippi near St. Louis. Roland attempts to commit suicide by throwing himself over the bluff into the river but is prevented from doing so by Halloran.

 Roland is then returned to the Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward where he is restrained.

Communion was refused.

Easter

 

18 April 1949

 

Final exorcism

 

So who was Roland? Well most people seem to think it's a man named Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. And there are many that believe he was never actually possessed. According to one report Hunkeler was nothing more than a bully and a brat looking for attention. 

 

The identity of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler was confirmed by T. Weston Scott Jr., a Cottage City resident since 1919 and a lifelong member of the Cottage City-Colmar Manor Fire Department. Having served as the local fire chief for over twenty years, Scott stated:

 

The boy involved was [Ronald Edwin Hunkeler] and he lived at 3807 40th Avenue… I knew the boy but I didn’t know too much about what was going on to be frank. They kept it quiet at the time and later on there was a lot of stuff about it. The Hunkelers lived there since the thirties and they stayed in that house for about 20 years. I think most of the older neighbors who were around at the time knew about it. Most of them are gone now, though.

One of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler’s contemporaries and neighborhood friends submitted himself to an interview with Opsasnick to discuss the case under the grant of animity.  JC, as he is referred to by Opsasnick, stated:

 

No, I don’t think he was ever possessed. I think it was psychological. As far as any real possession or anything like that, I don’t think so. There are some interesting psychological aspects to it. They were German Lutherans and he was an only child and I think the grandmother is actually the central figure. She played a very influential role in all of this. You had this old world religion superstition and the mother got caught up in it and the father just kind of stayed in the background—I think he could see what was going on which is why he is never mentioned. The true story is much more intriguing from a psychological point of view. The basis of the real thing could be a damn good story, no doubt about it in my mind. The rest of it I can run a parallel. You had these two mischief makers that had a strong tendency to take advantage of people who were weaker than themselves. They were a pair of connivers and they had their act down. In pairs like that they compete with each other and they don’t get along well and they have to keep doing something to retain their relationship and all the time this is mischief in one form or another. They were trying to outdo each other.

JC’s brother, called BC in the interview, was for many years the best friend of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. In discussions with BC, Ronald Edwin Hunkeler was described as being submerged in a household with a fanatically religious mother and grandmother that embraced spiritualism. Hunkeler was hated by his classmates and prone to tantrums. He frequently showed violent tendencies and exhibited sadistic behavior to animals and people around him. In short, may of the traits used to describe the possessed boy had been a fundamental part of his character. JC summed up Hunkeler’s personality with “People ask what he was like back then and I can tell you that he was never what you would call a normal child. He was an only child and kind of spoiled and he was a mean bastard. We were together all the time and we used to fight all the time.”

JC did recall Hunkeler’s last day in class during the 1948-1949 school year:

 

We were in a class together at Bladensburg Junior High. He was sitting in a chair and it was one of those deals with one arm attached and it looked like he was shaking the desk—the desk was shaking and vibrating extremely fast and I remember the teacher yelling at him to stop it and I remember he kind of yelled “I’m not doing it” and they took him out of class and that was the last I ever saw of him in school. The desk certainly did not move around the room like that book [Possessed] said, it was just shaking. I don’t know if he was doing it or what was doing it because I just can’t clear it in my mind.

JC summarized Hunkeler’s character with his own story about life with Hunkeler:

 

There was this dog that ran around the neighborhood at that time…. It was half-red cocker spaniel and it looked like it was half-chow. This dog was mean and nobody ever knew who owned it. It just came out of nowhere. Well, [Ron] basically adopted that dog. That dog was really his best friend, not me. That dog hated everyone and everything and would bite anyone in sight but he loved [Ron]. [Ron] would feed it and bring it in the house with him. One time he called me up and told me to come over and I never really trusted him because he was sneaky and a real mean little bastard. I was going over there and he was looking out from the basement window and when I got to his house I heard the back porch door slam and I knew right away what he’d done. He’d done this sort of thing many times before to different kids. I started running like hell because he’d sicked that dog on me. When I got home he called me up and was laughing like hell. That’s what kind of person he was. He did that all the time.

 

So it seemed like little Roland may not have been the good kid everyone claimed him to be. But did that mean he was crazy enough to fake a possession? 

 

There have been several investigations into the exorcisms. So what did they find?  Well one came up with dinner interesting stuff. According to various reports, Father Edward Albert Hughes (?-1980), was the first priest to attempt an exorcism on Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. The claim is that after an initial session with the boy, Hughes had the boy sent to the Georgetown University Hospital where three days of exorcisms were performed and that Hughes was injured in the process. However, Opsasnick suggests there is no evidence to suggest Hughes ever visited Hunkeler in his Cottage City home or at Georgetown University Hospital. Instead, there seems evidence to suggest Mrs. Hunkeler took her son to a single consultation in February 1949 with Hughes at St. James Church in Mount Rainier, Maryland where he was assigned as assistant pastor. There is also no evidence to suggest that Hughes was ever attacked. On the other hand, Father William Sauders, writing for the Catholic Herald in 1998, asserts firmly that Hughes did conduct the exorcism at the Georgetown University Hospital.

Hughes’s assistant pastor, Frank Bober confirmed that most likely it was Mrs. Hunkeler that initiated the interested of the clergy. According to Bober, “Father Hughes never went to the boy’s home… Basically it was the mother that brought the kid to the rectory and the thing is she’s the one who gave Father Hughes all the information. Everything that I know of that he shared with me took place in the rectory, not at the house.” Bober also stated that Father Hughes had described the Hunkeler boy as having a “dark stare, almost as if there were nothing behind the eyes”. Bober further claims that Hughes experienced an unseen force pressing him against the wall.

 

In an effort to clarify the events surrounding the exorcisms back in 1949, one of the few witnesses willing to go on record was Father Walter Halloran, who was called by Father William Bowdern to assist in the exorcism. When asked if Hunkeler was possessed, Halloran said “I can’t go on record… I never made an absolute statement about the things because I didn’t feel I was qualified. I hadn’t studied the phenomena and that sort of thing. All I did was report the things that I saw and whether I would make a statement one way or another wouldn’t make any difference…” When questioned about reports of the boy speaking other languages, Halloran stated, “Just Latin… I think he mimicked us.” Halloran said there were no demonic changes in the boy’s voice and that when the boy struck him it wasn’t with extraordinary strength.

 

In his 1993 book Possessed: The True Story of an Exorcism, author Thomas B. Allen offered "the consensus of today's experts" that "Robbie was just a deeply disturbed boy, nothing supernatural about him".

 

Author Mark Opsasnick[1] questioned many of the supernatural claims associated with the story, proposing that "Roland Doe" was simply a spoiled, disturbed bully who threw deliberate tantrums to get attention or to get out of school. Opsasnick reports that Halloran, who was present at the exorcism, never heard the boy's voice change, and he thought the boy merely mimicked Latin words he heard clergymen say, rather than gaining a sudden ability to speak Latin. Opsasnick reported that when marks were found on the boy's body, Halloran failed to check the boy's fingernails to see if he had made the marks himself. Opsasnick also questioned the story of Hughes' attempts to exorcise the boy and his subsequent injury, saying he could find no evidence that such an episode had actually occurred.

 

During his investigation Opsasnick discovered:

 

The exorcism did not take place at 3210 Bunker Hill Road in Mount Rainier, Maryland

The boy never lived in Mount Rainier

The boy's home was in Cottage City, Maryland

Much of the commonly accepted information about this story is based on hearsay, is not documented, and was never fact-checked

There is no evidence Father E. Albert Hughes visited the boy's home, had him admitted to Georgetown Hospital, requested that the boy be restrained at the hospital, attempted an exorcism of the boy at Georgetown Hospital, or was injured by the boy during an exorcism (or at any other time)

There is ample evidence refuting claims that Father Hughes suffered an emotional breakdown and disappeared from the Cottage City community

According to Opsasnick, individuals connected to the incident were influenced by their own specializations:

 

To psychiatrists, Rob Doe suffered from mental illness. To priests this was a case of demonic possession. To writers and film/video producers this was a great story to exploit for profit. Those involved saw what they were trained to see. Each purported to look at the facts but just the opposite was true — in actuality they manipulated the facts and emphasized information that fit their own agendas

 

Opsasnik wrote that after he located and spoke with neighbors and childhood friends of the boy (most of whom he only referenced by initials) he concluded that "the boy had been a very clever trickster, who had pulled pranks to frighten his mother and to fool children in the neighborhood".

 

Skeptic Joe Nickell[8] wrote that there was "simply no credible evidence to suggest the boy was possessed by demons or evil spirits" and maintains that the symptoms of possession can be "childishly simple" to fake. Nickell dismissed suggestions that supernatural forces made scratches or markings or caused words to appear on the teenager's body in unreachable places, saying, "A determined youth, probably even without a wall mirror, could easily have managed such a feat - if it actually occurred. Although the scratched messages proliferated, they never again appeared on a difficult-to-reach portion of the boy's anatomy." On one occasion the boy was reportedly seen scratching the words "hell" and "christ" on his chest by using his own fingernails.[8] According to Nickell:

 

Nothing that was reliably reported in the case was beyond the abilities of a teenager to produce. The tantrums, "trances", moved furniture, hurled objects, automatic writing, superficial scratches, and other phenomena were just the kinds of things someone of R's age could accomplish, just as others have done before and since. Indeed, the elements of "poltergeist phenomena", "spirit communication", and "demonic possession"—taken both separately and, especially, together, as one progressed to the other—suggest nothing so much as role-playing involving trickery.

 

Nickell also dismissed stories of the boy's prodigious strength, saying he showed "nothing more than what could be summoned by an agitated teenager" and criticized popular accounts of the exorcism for what he termed a "stereotypical storybook portrayal" of the Devilm

 

Two Christian academics, Terry D. Cooper, a professor of psychology, and Cindy K. Epperson, a professor of sociology, wrote that advocates of possession believe that "although they are not frequent, exorcisms are necessary for casting out the demonic" and "cases of genuine possession cannot be explained by psychiatry". Cooper and Epperson devoted a chapter of their book Evil: Satan, Sin, and Psychology to the case and dismissed natural explanations in favor of a supernatural perspective regarding the nature of evil. 

 

Ok so after all that what are we thinking out there? Possession? Jerk kid? Is the exorcist that scary of a movie? This case spawned a ton of movies and stories and tv shows and documentaries and everything else. Honestly it's crazy because not a huge amount is known about what exactly took place. Only a few people truly knew what went down and they are all gone now. No one is sure if Hunkeler is still alive… He'd be in his 90s today if he was still alive. With all of the media that was produced around this case it will most likely never go away but we may never actually know what happened.

 

To possession movies

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-demonic-posession-movies/ranker-horror

http://www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com

The Bedlam Asylum... um...Bethlem Royal Hospital. OLD AF.

Today we are taking the train to a wonderful little building… Actually scratch that… This place was once so crazy( no pun intended) that its nickname became a common word.  The definition of the word is "A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails. " The word is Bedlam. The place is Bethlehem Royal Hospital. The hospital is considered the first lunatic asylum. The word "bedlam" is derived from the hospital's nickname. Bedlam is a bastardization of the word bethlem, which in turn was a corruption of the name Bethlehem. Although the hospital became a modern psychiatric facility, historically it was representative of the worst excesses of asylums in the era of lunacy reform. We're gonna get into all that craziness tonight and see what kind of "Bedlam" actually went on there. 

 

Bethlem Royal Hospital's origins are unlike any other psychiatric hospital in the western world. As a formal organization, it can be traced to its foundation in 1247, during the reign of King Henry III, as a Roman Catholic Monastery for the Priory of the 'New Order of St Mary of Bethlem' in the city of London proper. It was established by the Italian Bishop of Bethlehem, Goffredo de Prefetti, following a donation of personal property by the London Alderman and former City-Sheriff, the Norman, Simon FitzMary. It bears its name after its primary patron and original overseer. The initial location of the priory was in the parish of Saint Botolph, in Bishopsgate's ward, just beyond London's wall and where the south-east corner of Liverpool Street station now stands. Bethlem was not initially intended as a hospital, much less as a specialist institution for the mentally ill. Rather, its purpose was tied to the function of the English Church; the ostensible purpose of the priory was to function as a centre for the collection of alms to support the Crusaders, and to link England to the Holy Land. Bishop De Prefetti's need to generate income for the Crusaders, and restore the financial fortunes of his apostolic see was occasioned by two misfortunes: his bishopric had suffered significant losses following the destructive conquest of the town of Bethlehem by the Khwarazmian Turks in 1244; and the immediate predecessor to his post had further impoverished his cathedral chapter through the alienation of a considerable amount of its property. The new London priory, obedient to the Church of Bethlehem, would also house the poor, disabled and abandoned; and, if visited, provide hospitality to the Bishop, canons and brothers of Bethlehem. The subordination of the priory's religious order to the bishops of Bethlehem was further underlined in the foundational charter which stipulated that Bethlems's prior, canons and male and female inmates were to wear a star upon their cloaks and capes to symbolize their obedience to the church of Bethlehem.

 

During the 13th and 14th centuries, with its activities underwritten by episcopal and papal indulgences, Bethlem's role as a center for the collection of alms for the poor continued. However, over time, its link to the mendicant Order of Bethlehem increasingly devolved, putting its purpose and patronage in severe doubt. In 1346 the Prior of Bethlem, a position at that time granted to the most senior of London's monastic brethren, applied to the city authorities seeking protection; thereafter metropolitan office-holders claimed power to oversee the appointment of prios, and demanded in return an annual payment of 40 shillings from the coffers of the order. It is doubtful whether the City of London ever provided substantial protection, and much less that the priorship fell within their patronage, but dating from the 1346 petition, it played a role in the management of Bethlem's organization and finances.

 

By this time the crusader bishops of Bethlehem had relocated to Clamecy, France under the surety of the Avignon papacy. This was significant as, throughout the reign of King Edward III (1327–77), the English monarchy had extended its patronage over ecclesiastical positions through the seizure of alien priories, mainly French. These were religious institutions that were under the control of non-English religious houses. As a dependent house of the Order of Saint Bethlehem in Clamecy, Bethlem was vulnerable to seizure by the English crown, and this occurred in the 1370s when Edward III took control of all English hospitals. The purpose of this appropriation was to prevent funds raised by the hospital from enriching the French monarchy, via the papal court, and thus supporting the French war effort. After this event, the Head Masters of the hospital, semi-autonomous figures in charge of its day-to-day management, were crown appointees, and Bethlem became an increasingly secularized institution. The memory of Bethlem's foundation became muddled. In 1381 the royal candidate for the post of master claimed that from its beginnings the hospital had been superintended by an order of knights, and he confused the identity of its founder, Goffredo de Prefetti, with that of the Frankish crusader, Godfrey de Bouillon, the King of Jerusalem. The removal of the last symbolic link to the mendicant order was confirmed in 1403 when it was reported that master and inmates no longer wore the symbol of their order, the star of Bethlehem. This was exclusively a political move on the part of the hospital administrators, as the insane were perceived as unclean or possessed by daemons, and not permitted to reside on consecrated soil.

 

From 1330 Bethlehm was routinely referred to as a "hospital" does not necessarily indicate a change in its primary role from alms collection – the word hospital could as likely have been used to denote a lodging for travellers, equivalent to a hostel, and would have been a perfectly apt term to describe an institution acting as a centre and providing accommodation for Bethlem's peregrinating alms-seekers or questores. It is unknown from what exact date it began to specialise in the care and control of the insane. Despite this fact it has been frequently asserted that Bethlem was first used for the insane from 1377. This rather precise date is derived from the unsubstantiated conjecture of the Reverend Edward Geoffrey O'Donoghue, chaplain to the hospital, who published a monograph on its history in 1914. While it is possible that Bethlem was receiving the insane during the late fourteenth-century, the first definitive record of their presence in the hospital is provided from the details of a visitation of the Charity Commissioners in 1403. This recorded that amongst other patients then in the hospital there were six male inmates who were "mente capti", a Latin term indicating insanity. The report of the 1403 visitation also noted the presence of four pairs of manacles, eleven chains, six locks and two pairs of stocks although it is not clear if any or all of these items were for the restraint of the inmates. Thus, while mechanical restraint and solitary confinement are likely to have been used for those regarded as dangerous, little else is known of the actual treatment of the insane in Bethlem for much of the medieval period. The presence of a small number of insane patients in 1403 marks Bethlem's gradual transition from a diminutive general hospital into a specialist institution for the confinement of the insane; this process was largely completed by 1460. In 1546, the Lord-Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham, petitioned the crown to grant Bethlem to the city properly. This petition was partially successful, and King Henry VIII reluctantly ceded to the City of London "the custody, order and governance" of the hospital and of its "occupants and revenues". This charter came into effect in 1547. Under this formulation, the crown retained possession of the hospital, while its administration fell to the city authorities. Following a brief interval when Bethlem was placed under the management of the Governors of Christ's Hospital, from 1557 it was administered by the Governors of the city Bridewell, a prototype House of Correction at Blackfriars. Having been thus one of the few metropolitan hospitals to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries physically intact, this joint administration continued, not without interference by both the crown and city, until Bethlem's incorporation into the National Health Service (NHS) took place in 1948. 

 

In 1546, the Lord-Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham, petitioned the crown to grant Bethlem to the city properly. This petition was partially successful, and King Henry VIII reluctantly ceded to the City of London "the custody, order and governance" of the hospital and of its "occupants and revenues". This charter came into effect in 1547. Under this formulation, the crown retained possession of the hospital, while its administration fell to the city authorities. Following a brief interval when Bethlem was placed under the management of the Governors of Christ's Hospital, from 1557 it was administered by the Governors of the city Bridewell, a prototype House of Correction at Blackfriars. Having been thus one of the few metropolitan hospitals to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries physically intact, this joint administration continued, not without interference by both the crown and city, until Bethlem's incorporation into the National Health Service (NHS) took place in 1948.

 

The position of master was a sinecure largely regarded by its occupants as means of profiting at the expense of the poor in their charge. The appointment of the early masters of the hospital, later known as keepers, had lain within the patronage of the crown until 1547. Thereafter, the city, through the Court of Aldermen, took control of these appointments where, as with the King's appointees, the office was used to reward loyal servants and friends. However, compared to the masters placed by the monarch, those who gained the position through the city were of much more modest status. Thus in 1561, the Lord Mayor succeeded in having his former porter, Richard Munnes, a draper by trade, appointed to the position. The sole qualifications of his successor in 1565 appears to have been his occupation as a grocer. The Bridewell Governors largely interpreted the role of keeper as that of a house-manager and this is clearly reflected in the occupations of most appointees during this period as they tended to be inn-keepers, victualers or brewers and the like. When patients were sent to Bethlem by the Governors of the Bridewell the keeper was paid from hospital funds. For the remainder, keepers were paid either by the families and friends of inmates or by the parish authorities. It is possible that keepers negotiated their fees for these latter categories of patients.

 

In 1598 the long-term keeper, Roland Sleford, a London cloth-maker, left his post, apparently of his own volition, after a nineteen-year tenure. Two months later, the Bridewell Governors, who had until then shown little interest in the management of Bethlem beyond the appointment of keepers, conducted an inspection of the hospital and a census of its inhabitants for the first time in over forty years. Their express purpose was to "to view and p[er]use the defaultes and want of rep[ar]ac[i]ons". They found that during the period of Sleford's keepership the hospital buildings had fallen into a deplorable condition with the roof caving in, the kitchen sink blocked up and reported that: "...it is not fitt for anye man to dwell in wch was left by the Keeper for that it is so loathsomly filthely kept not fitt for anye man to come into the sayd howse".

 

The 1598 committee of inspection found twenty-one inmates then resident with only two of these having been admitted during the previous twelve months. Of the remainder, six, at least, had been resident for a minimum of eight years and one inmate had been there for around twenty-five years. Three were from outside London, six were charitable cases paid for out of the hospital's resources, one was supported by a parochial authority, while the rest were provided for by family, friends, benefactors or, in one instance, out of their funds. The precise reason for the Governors' new-found interest in Bethlem is unknown but it may have been connected to the increased scrutiny the hospital was coming under with the passing of poor law legislation in 1598 and to the decision by the Governors to increase hospital revenues by opening it up to general visitors as a spectacle. After this inspection, the Bridewell Governors initiated some repairs and visited the hospital at more frequent intervals. During one such visit in 1607 they ordered the purchase of clothing and eating vessels for the inmates, presumably indicating the lack of such basic items. 

 

The year 1634 is typically interpreted as denoting the divide between the mediaeval and early modern administration of Bethlem. 

 

Although Bethlem had been enlarged by 1667 to accommodate 59 patients, the Court of Governors of Bethlem and Bridewell observed at the start of 1674 that "the Hospital House of Bethlem is very olde, weake & ruinous and to[o] small and straight for keeping the greater numb[e]r of lunaticks therein att p[re]sent". With the increasing demand for admission and the inadequate and dilapidated state of the building it was decided to rebuild the hospital in Moorfields, just north of the city proper and one of the largest open spaces in London. The architect chosen for the new hospital, which was built rapidly and at great expense between 1675 and 1676, was the natural philosopher and City Surveyor Robert Hooke. He constructed an edifice that was monumental in scale at over 500 feet (150 m) wide and some 40 feet (12 m) deep. The surrounding walls were some 680 feet (210 m) long and 70 feet (21 m) deep while the south face at the rear was effectively screened by a 714-foot (218 m) stretch of London's ancient wall projecting westward from nearby Moorgate. At the rear and containing the courtyards where patients exercised and took the air, the walls rose to 14 feet (4.3 m) high. The front walls were only 8 feet (2.4 m) high but this was deemed sufficient as it was determined that "Lunatikes... are not to [be] permitted to walk in the yard to be situate[d] betweene the said intended new Building and the Wall aforesaid." It was also hoped that by keeping these walls relatively low the splendour of the new building would not be overly obscured. This concern to maximise the building's visibility led to the addition of six gated openings 10 feet (3.0 m) wide which punctuated the front wall at regular intervals, enabling views of the facade. Functioning as both advertisement and warning of what lay within, the stone pillars enclosing the entrance gates were capped by the figures of "Melancholy" and "Raving Madness" carved in Portland stone by the Danish-born sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber.

 

At the instigation of the Bridewell Governors and to make a grander architectural statement of "charitable munificence", the hospital was designed as a single- rather than double-pile building,  accommodating initially 120 patients. Having cells and chambers on only one side of the building facilitated the dimensions of the great galleries, essentially long and capacious corridors, 13 feet (4.0 m) high and 16 feet (4.9 m) wide, which ran the length of both floors to a total span of 1,179 feet (359 m). Such was their scale that Roger L'Estrange remarked in a 1676 text eulogising the new Bethlem that their "Vast Length ... wearies the travelling eyes' of Strangers". The galleries were constructed more for public display than for the care of patients as, at least initially, inmates were prohibited from them lest "such persons that come to see the said Lunatickes may goe in Danger of their Lives"

 

The architectural design of the new Bethlem was primarily intended to project an image of the hospital and its governors consonant with contemporary notions of charity and benevolence. 

 

By the end of the 18th century the hospital was in severe disrepair. At this point it was rebuilt again on another site.  As the new facility was being built attempts were made to rehouse patients at local hospitals and admissions to Bethlem, sections of which were deemed uninhabitable, were significantly curtailed such that the patient population fell from 266 in 1800 to 119 in 1814. The Governors engaged in protracted negotiations with the City  for another municipally owned location at St. George's Fields in Southwark, south of the Thames.

 

The deal was concluded in 1810 and provided the Governors with a 12 acres site in a swamp-like, impoverished, highly populated, and industrialised area where the Dog and Duck tavern and St George's Spa had been.

 

A competition was held to design the new hospital at Southwark in which the noted Bethlem patient James Tilly Matthews was an unsuccessful entrant. Completed after three years in 1815, it was constructed during the first wave of county asylum building in England under the County Asylum Act ("Wynn's Act") of 1808. Female patients occupied the west wing and males the east, the cells were located off galleries that traversed each wing. Each gallery contained only one toilet, a sink and cold baths. Incontinent patients were kept on beds of straw in cells in the basement gallery; this space also contained rooms with fireplaces for attendants. A wing for the criminally insane – a legal category newly minted in the wake of the trial of a delusional James Hadfield for attempted regicide – was completed in 1816. Problems with the building were soon noted as the steam heating did not function properly, the basement galleries were damp and the windows of the upper storeys were unglazed "so that the sleeping cells were either exposed to the full blast of cold air or were completely darkened". Faced with increased admissions and overcrowding, new buildings, designed by the architect Sydney Smirke, were added from the 1830s. The wing for criminal lunatics was increased to accommodate a further 30 men while additions to the east and west wings, extending the building's facade, provided space for an additional 166 inmates and a dome was added to the hospital chapel. At the end of this period of expansion Bethlem had a capacity for 364 patients. In 1930, the hospital moved to the suburbs of Croydon,[211] on the site of Monks Orchard House between Eden Park, Beckenham, West Wickham and Shirley. The old hospital and its grounds were bought by Lord Rothermere and presented to the London County Council for use as a park; the central part of the building was retained and became home to the Imperial War Museum in 1936. The hospital was absorbed into the National Health Service in 1948. 1997 the hospital started planning celebrations of its 750th anniversary. The service user's perspective was not to be included, however, and members of the psychiatric survivors movement saw nothing to celebrate in either the original Bedlam or in the current practices of mental health professionals towards those in Mneed of care. A campaign called "Reclaim Bedlam" was launched by Pete Shaughnessy, supported by hundreds of patients and ex-patients and widely reported in the media. A sit-in was held outside the earlier Bedlam site at the Imperial War Museum. The historian Roy Porter called the Bethlem Hospital "a symbol for man's inhumanity to man, for callousness and cruelty." 

The hospital continues to operate to this day in this location. 

 

Ok so with that history out of the way let's drive into what really transpired to give this hospital it reputation and that drove Bedlam to strain it's current meaning in our lexicon. 

 

Early on Sanitation was poor and the patients were malnourished. Most of the patients were able to move about freely, but those who were considered dangerous were kept chained to the walls. Patients’ families often dumped unwell family members in the asylum and disowned them. We've discussed other asylums and things dealing with them so we won't get into the fact that most of the patients were horribly misdiagnosed due to little to no understanding of mental health until relatively recently. Some of the treatments used ranged from barbaric and esoteric to just plain crazy. 

 

One of those crazy ass ones was called rotational therapy. Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, began using “rotational therapy”, which involved spinning a patient around and around on a chair or swing for up to an hour. They would sometimes be spun over 100 times per minute. Obviously this would create issues for the patient. Many would get sick and vomit. Most would become very upset and distraught while becoming severely disoriented. The vomiting was seen as a good thing and progress in the treatment. Doctor Joseph Mason Cox was a doctor who actually picked up this type of treatment later on. The time spent spinning, and the speed of the spin, were to be determined by the good doctor. Considering the fact that the common side effect was fear, extreme pallor, vomiting, and voiding the bowels and bladder, the doctor evidently commonly overdid it. Of course he didn’t think so at the time. He wrote happily that, “after a few circumvolutions, I have witnessed the soothing lulling effects, when the mind has become tranquillized and the body quiescent.” It’s true that after being spun until fluid leaves the body via every available orifice, most people have had the fight taken out of them and are ready for a nap. There is one positive side effect of this kind of rampant torture of the insane. Scientists started noticing that vertigo has visual effects, and used the chairs to study them. These rotating chairs mark the beginning of a lot of visual and mental experiments done on perception.

The early 1800s were a particularly grim time, and many patients were chained to the walls naked or almost naked, as the medical director felt that it was necessary to break each person’s will. 

 

Some of the more barbaric and esoteric treatments included bloodletting, leeches and good old fashioned starvation and beatings.  Ice baths would often be used to try and calm down hysterical patients. 

 

At the time, bloodletting was believed to be a completely acceptable and normal way to cure a patient of a variety of mental and physical ailments. Doctors thought that they could literally bleed a sickness out of a patient, which not only doesn't work, it extra-double doesn't work on mental illnesses. Many of the patients were forced to undergo treatment with leeches and the induction of blisters, which mostly just sounds unpleasant, but it often proved fatal. Reportedly, the physicians at the time at least understood that everyone needs blood, so only patients who were deemed strong enough to undergo treatment were allowed to have this "cure." 

 

Here's another fun one. A doctor named William Black wrote that patients were placed in straitjackets and given laxatives, which was seen at Bethlem as one of the "principal remedies." Hearing voices? Some explosive diarrhea oughta clear that up. Seizures? One diarrhea for you. Diarrhea for everyone!

 

We all know the best thing for someone who may not be in their right mind is to be left alone… in the dark… for long periods of time… Like really long periods of time. Well we may know that's probably NOT the best, but Bedlam never got the message. Some patients were left alone in solitary for days, weeks, even months at a time. Seems very counterproductive. 

 

One of the worst ones was the example of the inhumane conditions was that of James Norris. Norris, an American Marine, had been sent to Bethlem on the 1st of February 1800. Her was kept in Bethlem’s “incurable wing,” Norris’ arms were pinned to his sides by iron bars. He was also kept chained to the wall by his neck. This fifty-five-year-old man had been continuously kept in this position for “more than twelve years.”

 

The apathy of families abandoning their relatives to a hellish existence in Bethlem led to a new form of exploitation. From the 1700s to the 1800s, there was a marked increase in the dissection of bodies to learn more about human anatomy. In the 1790s, Bethlem’s chief surgeon was Bryan Crowther, a man who saw opportunity in the search for corpses to study. Crowther would dissect Bethlem’s dead patients in the name of medical science, believing that he would be able to find a difference in the brains of his mentally ill patients, compared to “normal” people. Of course, he did these operations without any kind of consent or legal right.

 

One of the best ways to sum up the reasoning behind this torture is to let you know from the man who was behind the worst of it. John Haslam was one of the most sinister figures in the history of Bethlem, and it was while he was the head of management that the institution sunk to a new low in depravity. While Bryan Crowther was conducting illegal dissections as chief surgeon, Haslam used various tortures against the patients. He was adamant that the first step to curing the patients was breaking their wills first. So ya… They figured fuck em… Break their will and they'll be fine… Wow.

Oftentimes patients would lack even basic amenities for living. That includes proper clothing and food. 

 

To make things even worse for the patients, from approximately the early 1600s until 1770, the public was able to go for a wander through Bedlam. Money was collected as entrance fees, and it was hoped that seeing the crazy people would make people feel sufficiently compassionate that they would donate funds to the hospital. Another reason for this is that they hoped it would attract the families of these patients and that they would bring those patients food and clothing and other things they needed so the hospital would not have to provide them. 

 

Oh if that's not bad enough, how about the mass graves. Modern-day construction of the London Underground unearthed mass graves on the grounds of Bethlem, created specifically to get rid of the corpses of those who didn't survive the hospital's care. Discovered in 2013, the mass graves dating back to 1569, and there are somewhere close to 20,000 people buried in them. Amazingly, authorities have managed to identify some of the deceased, but many others will likely never get a face and name.

 

Anything about any of these areas being haunted? Yup we got that too. Although the first few sites have long been transformed into other things, the girls that happened there could have left tons of negative juju. We found this cool story. 

 

        "The Liverpool Street Underground Station was opened in February of 1874 on the site of the original Bedlem Hospital. Former patients haunt this busy section of the London Underground. 

 

One compelling sighting happened in the summer of 2000. A Line Controller spotted something strange on the CCTV camera that he was monitoring that showed the Liverpool Station. It was 2:00 am in the morning and the station was closed for the night. This witness saw a figure wearing white overalls in an eastbound tunnel. He became concerned since he knew no contractors worked the station this late at night. He called his Station Supervisor to report what he was seeing on the screen.

 

The Supervisor went to investigate. The Line Controller watched as his Supervisor stood nearby the mysterious figure. So he was confused when his Supervisor called to say he had not seen any figure. The Line Controller told his boss that the figure had stood so close to him that he could have reached out and touched it. Hearing this the Supervisor continued to search for the figure.

 

Again the Line Controller saw the figure walk right passed his boss on his screen, but again his boss did not see the figure. The Supervisor finally giving up went to leave the station but as he did so he spotted white overalls placed on a bench that he had passed before. He stated that they could not have been placed there without him seeing who did it.

 

Even before the Liverpool Station was built the area where the hospital stood was considered haunted. Between 1750 and 1812 many witnesses reported hearing a female voice crying and screaming. It is believed that this is a former patient from Bedlam. 

 

Rebecca Griffins was buried in the area. While alive she always frantically clutched a coin in her hand. Witnesses state they hear her asking where her ha' penny is."

 

Fun stuff!

 

The following comes from the old building that was turned into the imperial war museum. 

 

It is said that  to this day  the spectres of those who suffered in Bedlam still roam the hallways and rattle their chains in remembered anguish.

 

During the Second World War, a detachment of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force was stationed inside the Imperial War Museum with barrage balloons. Much of the museum has parts that date back to Bedlam and it isn’t hard to imagine them as cells full of the damned inmates. Many of the young girls who were garrisoned inside had never heard of the buildings sordid past, so had no reason to fear it. Yet soon complaints began to flood in as during the night many found they couldn’t sleep, kept up by strange moaning and the rattling of chains. The long passed inmates of Bedlam made their displeasure well known. Eventually the complaints became so bad the entire detachment had to be rehoused nearby.

 

Possibly the most famous ghost of Bedlam is the sad spectre of poor Rebecca. At a merchant’s house by London Bridge lived a lovely young girl by the name of Rebecca. She fell head over heels in love with a handsome young Indian man who had come to lodge with the family. So besotted was she that when he packed up his bags to return to India she was shocked that he hadn’t loved her quite nearly as much as she’d loved him. She helped him to pack his things, hoping all the while that he would change his mind and agree to stay. But all she received was a gold sovereign that he slipped into her hand before leaving forever.

 

The grief of her spurning was too much for her mind to handle and she snapped, soon being admitted to Bedlam Hospital. The golden sovereign he had given her was gripped firmly in her fist for the remainder of her short life, the final token from her lost love, never to be given up. When she finally wasted away into death it didn’t go unnoticed by one of the guards who prised the coin from her hand and then buried her without her most prized possession. It was after that the guards, inmates and visitors all began to report a strange sight indeed. A wan and ghostly figure began to roam the halls of Bedlam, searching for her lost love token, her spirit refusing to be put to rest until she had it back in her hand. It is said that she still wanders the halls to this day, looking for that stolen coin to make her whole once more.

 

Well… There you have it, the history and craziness of Bedlam Asylum! 

 

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