Mysteries

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Issue #24

Fall 2009

death at
lake clinch
WHAT KILLED
CHARLES M. MALLET?

Giant Snakes
EYEWITNESS SERPENT WAS 100
FEET LONG!

Hellhounds
THEYLL PLAY
FETCH WITH
YOUR SOUL!

Astro
Zombies
MYSTERIES SITS
DOWN WITH
TED V. MIKELS

$6.00 US/CAN

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 1

Also: Treasures from the Deep, Validating the Ouija, The Devils Divot,www.mysteriesmagazine.com
and More

2 Mysteries
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Mysteries

Issue #24
Fall 2009

In This Issue
Columns
32

On the Road
Chateau La Roche

A Haunting We Will Go 34
Surrency: A Haunting Town

The Ufology Files

36

Strange Formation Over Cocoa, FL

38

Crypto Safari
Hellhounds on the Prowl

40

Unseen Forces
The Devils Divot

Behind the Shadows

18

Monolith on Phobos

Death at Lake Clinch

What was behind the mysterious death of Charles M. Mallet at Lake
Clinch? - Scott Marlowe

44
56

In the Field
Spookhunters

Regulars

25

This Seance Brought to You By

Ads during the 1920s used Ouija
lore to attract customers - Robert
Damon Schneck

52

Attack of the Astro Zombies

Exclusive interview with horror
film icon, Ted V. Mikels - Richard

Lester

Letter from the Editor

Mysteries Briefing
Breaking News
Treasures from the Deep
Mysteries on Exhibit
Paranormal Happenings
Earth Talk
Subscriptions
Back Issues
Letters to the Editor
Reviews
Classifiles
Poetry

2
4
7
8
10
12
14
48
49
68
70
74
76

60

The Blob
It had people running scared in
the 50s: now the reality of this
freak of nature - Erika Carlson

63

Giant Snakes
Worldwide reports of giant
snakes. Are they in your backyard?
- Michael Newton
Mysteries
MysteriesMagazine
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IssueNo.No.2424 1

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PUBLISHER/EDITOR
Jeremiah Greer
[email protected]
Charlie Carlson
MANAGING EDITOR
Robert Damon Schneck
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Erika Carlson
ADVERTISING
[email protected]
TREASURES AND EVENTS
Judith Kane
[email protected]

a
COVER ART
Barry Anderson

8
FEATURE WRITERS
Scott Marlowe
Michael Newton
Robert Damon Schneck
Erika Carlson
Richard Lester

o
COLUMNISTS
Linda Godfrey
James Willis
Olav Phillips
Robert Damon Schneck

m
REVIEWERS
Don Smith
Erika Carlson
Nestor Vipors
Jeremy Snow

Published and printed in the United States of America. Mysteries

Magazine is a publication of Shadows Media, LLC, ISSN #15372928, and published four times a year. Copyright 2009 Shadows
Media, LLC, PO Box 131, Waynesville, NC 28786 USA. All rights
reserved. No work may be copied or reproduced without the express permission of he editor. Correspondence should be addressed
to: Jeremiah Greer, Editor, Mysteries Magazine, PO Box 131,
Waynesville, NC 28786 USA, email: editor@mysteriesmagazine.
com, web: www.mysteriesmagazine.com or call 828/400-0836.

2 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Letter from the Editor

Dear Subscriber and Readers,
As you may or may not know, Mysteries recently changed ownership and is
now a publication of Shadows Media, LLC. We have had the pleasure of talking
to many of you about this transition and appreciate your excitement and patience.
For those who we havent spoken to, and first time readers, we want to take the opportunity to briefly introduce ourselves, and more importantly, share our plans for
future issues.
We are not going to spend a lot of time talking about Shadows Media because
we are sure you are more concerned with the magazine. As a matter of fact, lets
just jump right to the good stuff and let you in on our plans. Well save the this is
us bit for the end.
You have probably already noticed the improvements to the overall look and
feel. Mysteries is now full color, some of the column titles have changed, and much
of it looks completely different from past issues. You will continue to see these types
of enhancements taking place and hope you enjoy them. If not, let us know. What
you think is important; we want this to be your magazine.
One thing that will not change is the subject matter presented in Mysteries. As
fans of the unexplained and mysterious, we enjoy reading about it just as much as
you and have no plans, or even thoughts, of changing what you enjoy. We do hope
to bring more of a variety of topics by introducing new columns. You will read a
few of those in this issue and there are more on the way.
With all these improvements, you are probably expecting the in order to this
we have to charge more excuse. Well, in order to do this we have to..well..
charge LESS. Yeah, you read that right. You are why we are here, and honestly,
what keeps us going. It is our intention and pleasure to bring you, what we hope,
will be a magazine that you are excited to be a part of.
Now a little about us.
Most of us at Shadows Media, if not all, have been involved with the unexplained for decades. We investigate paranormal phenomena, write books on the
subject, speak at conferences, make appearances on radio and television, and even
had unexplained experiences just like many of you. You can also tune into Shadows
in the Dark, our internet based talk show, which has been around for 2.5 years interviewing guests on the same subjects you read about in Mysteries.
We cant express how excited we are to have this opportunity and hope we do
you justice. You have expressed how important and enjoyable Mysteries is as a part
of your life and we want to make sure that continues.
As we mentioned before, we want to hear your thoughts and feedback, what
you like and dont like. You can email us at [email protected], call
us at 877/897-7797, or write to Mysteries Magazine, PO Box 131, Waynesville, NC 28786.
We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together and
look forward to more.

Jeremiah Greer

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Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 3

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Mysteries BRiefing
Great Wall Becomes Greater

Oily Man Not a Smoothie

A newly discovered section of the

Great Wall of China was uncovered by
Chinese archaeologists, extending it an
additional 6.8 miles [11 km] east.
The ruins were found in the northern province of Xinhua and the section
was built during the Qim (221-206
BC) and Han (206-220 AD) dynasties.
State Administration of Cultural
Heritage conducted the most comprehensive and technologically advanced
survey over the past two years determining the Great Wall stretched more
than 5,500 miles [8,851 km] compared to the previously cited estimates
of 3,106 miles [5,000 km].
The survey also stated that the site
was in danger of disappearing in many
places due to road construction and
other forms of development, as well as
extreme weather.

A love-starved
apparition with a
heavy
mustache
and curly hair has
been
disturbing
the young ladies of
Sungai Petani, Malaysia. 300 families
are being plagued
by the orang minyak (oily man), an evil spirit that
materializes in girls bedrooms and
makes unwelcome advances.
Outraged screams are heard every night and, in one case, a 14-year
old kicked the ghost then ran to her
mother for help. The woman grabbed
a parang, the local form of machete,
and would have bisected the intruder
had it not vanished.
Despite this near parang-ing, the
ectoplasmic Casanova continues to
prowl while the mothers of Sungai
Petani are keeping their eyes open and
cutlery handy.

Source AFP/Yahoo News

Crystal Charged Computers

NASA

data, enough storage for 250,000 pictures or a million books.

The process of creating solid crystals from a salt solution is considered
complex and even a black art by some
scientist due to the difficulty of controlling it. Nevertheless, this technology is expected to be available in devices
like computers within ten years.

Source Breaking News 24/7

In the meantime, just keep storing
your information on hard drives, CDs,
DVDs, or if you have one, a crystal
skull.
Source BBC

The Littlest Tyrannosaur

Maybe there is something to the
belief that crystal skulls hold memories
from the past. Scientist now believe
that tiny crystals could be the secret
to creating computers with massive
storage capacity as much as 100
times larger than todays machines.
At the University of Edinburgh,
scientists have been using a low-energy laser to create salt crystals in gel.
These sugar-cubed sized crystals could
allow the storage of up to a terabyte of

4 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Scientists recently discovered the fossilized

remains of Raptorex, a cute little predatory dinosaur that stood nine feet [2.7 m] tall and tipped
the scales at 150 pounds [68 kg]. Raptorex lived
about 125-million years ago, in the mid-Cretaceous era, a featherweight among the hulking
iguanodons and sauropods. Mighty oaks grow
from little acorns, however, and scientists believe
that Raptorexs big skull, pointed teeth, and powerful jaws, point to it as the ancestor of that most
fearsome dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Source: Science Daily

Mysteries BRiefing
Man Crowned Worlds Tallest by Default
Guinness Book of World Records has awarded the title of Worlds
Tallest Man to Sultan Kosen, an 8 foot, 1 inch [2.5 m] giant from
Mardin, Turkey, only after the current record holder refused to be measured.
Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk, who reportedly stands at 8 foot, 5.5
inches [2.6 m], declined being measured by Guinness claiming that
being in the public eye had taken a toll on his nerves.
As for Kosen, he is excited about the possibility of his newly found
fame leading to a girlfriend.
Up until now its been really difficult to find a girlfriend, Kosen said through an interpreter. Ive never had one, they were usually
scared of me. ... Hopefully now that Im famous Ill be able to meet lots
of girls. Id like to get married.
Kosens extraordinary height, which according to Guinness is one of only 10 confirmed cases of humans growing to the 8 foot
[2.4 m] mark, is due to a condition called pituitary gigantism; tumor-related damage to the pituitary that triggers the overproduction of growth hormones.
With the tumors removal last year, Kosen isnt expected to grow any taller.
Source AP via AOL News

Record Birth Size with Years to Grow

In Kisaran, Indonesia, crowds
gathered at the Abdul Manan hospital
in hopes of catching a glimpse of the
countys largest recorded baby 19.2
pound [8.7 kg] baby boy born by cesarean section.
Amazingly, the birth of Akbar
Risuddin took just 40 minutes with
the only complication being a result of
the babys size. Doctors reported that
both Risuddin and his mother were in
good condition.
Risuddins weight was the result
of excessive glucose from his diabetic
mother during the pregnancy.
The previous record holder
weighed in at 14.7 pounds [6.7 kg]
and was born on the outskirts of Jakarta in 2007 according to the Indonesian
Museum of Records website.
Source: Yahoo News UK

32 Planets Discovered
It was announced at the European
Southern Observatory/Center for Astrophysics in Porto, Portugal, that 32
planets have been discovered outside
of Earths solar system.
The announcement was made by
international researchers, headed by
The Geneva Observatory, who built
HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher). HARPS can
detect slight wobbles of stars responding to tugs from exoplanets (planets
outside our solar system) gravity.
With the newly discovered planets,
HARPS has found a total of 75 out of
about 400 known exoplanets.
HARPS has also boosted
the discovery of socalled super-Earths
- planets with a
mass a few times
that of Earth. Of
the 28 superEarths known,
HARPS
facilitated the discovery of 24. Most reside
de
in multiplanet systems,
with up to five planets per system.
Source - CNN
Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 5

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Mysteries BRiefing

Nazca Lines or Kazakhstan Lines?

The official government website

of Kazakhstan has reported the discovery of giant geoglyphs, drawings
on the ground created by arranging
stones or removing the top layers of
earth. Found in the remote Kararatu
Mountains in the southern part of
Kazakhstan, the geoglyphs appear to
show a humanoid figure between two
unidentifiable shapes.
Although geoglyphs have been
discovered in places like Australia and
the Great Basin Desert in the United
States, the Nazca Lines in Peru have
gained the most notoriety.
Many ufologist believe geoglyphs
are markers or signs to aid or communicate with visiting extraterrestrials.
With Kazakhstan being considered a
hot spot for UFO sightings and rumors of the government contrustion
of a UFO landing pad and alien embassy, one has to wonder if there is a
connection.

India Witch Trials

What would have happened if the Salem Witch
Trials has been televised? Would there have been outrage
from those who saw it happening and could they have
stopped the panic before it spun out of control?
Video was recently shot of five women in the
Deoghar district of the state of Jharkand, India,
who were accused of witchcraft by a local cleric. The
footage, which shows them being dragged from their
huts, paraded naked, beaten, and forced to eat human
excrement, has caused outrage throughout the subcontinent.
Four people have been arrested for their involvement and the victims are receiving police protection.
It is believed that hundreds of people, mostly women, have been killed in India
because they were thought to be witches. Experts say that superstition is largely responsible, but in some cases witches, particularly widows, are targeted for their
land and property.
Source - BBC

Reindeer vs. Eagles

A BBC crew working in Finland recently filmed golden eagles attacking reindeer.
Unlike Sinbads elephant-devouring roc, however, eagles dont actually fly off with the
reindeer but attack the young, attempting to puncture the calves lungs with their talons.
According to television producer, Dr. Ted Oakes, They are not killing anything instantly, so they have to ride like a rodeo cowboy on the back of the calf.
A member of the team, scientist Harri Norberg, has spent years studying the interaction between reindeer and their predators. He examined the bodies of dead calves and
most of those killed in the open mountainous areas of the north were marked with beak
and talon marks. White calves seemed to be particularly vulnerable. The footage is the
Source: All News Web
first proof that eagles attack reindeer, showing successful and unsuccessful attacks and,
in one case, a mother reindeer driving off a bird that seemed undecided about going
after the calf.
There are countless stories of raptors flying off with prey as large as infants and
small children, but naturalists claim this is impossible and the best estimates put the lifting power of an eagle at four or five pounds
(1.8 - 2.2 kg). With enough momentum, though, they might carry twice that weight, which means cats and small dogs can be
vulnerable. (Eagles have also been known to fly off with turtles. In 456 BC, an eagle dropped a turtle on the Greek playwright
Aeschylus,
killing him. Its believed the bird was trying to crack the turtle open and had mistaken the dramatists baldhead for a
smoot stone). According to the BBC naturalists, immature eagles were more likely to attack reindeer, while
smooth
hun
hunger
could also be responsible.
In 1889, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (really) reported that a grey eagle had swooped down on Daniel
B
Button
of Portland, Connecticut. It tore his coat and badly wounded him, yet Button managed to capture
it alive. Upon examination, the bird turned out to be, nearly starved and [that] accounted for its savage
attack upon a stalwart man. Had it been a child instead of a grown person who was attacked, the eagle
would have made way with it. Button constructed a handsome house for the bird, which measured
seven feet [2.1 m] from wing tip to wing tip, and exhibited it for a small fee.
The average golden eagle is even bigger and scientists believe they also attack adult reindeer. According to the local Sami people, the larger white-tailed eagles will tackle them as well so, for Christmass sake,
llets hope Rudolph remembers to duck.
Sou
Source - BBC, www.wildlifenews.alaska.gov, Brooklyn Daily Eagle - August 16, 1889.

6 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Breaking News
What Moves Little Plank?
What exactly is moving Ouijas planchette? Where do we even start to try and find out?
Shannon Sylvia of Ghost Hunters International, recently demonstrated that imagination, and
a willingness to experiment, can produce surprising results even in that most familiar of occult
devices, the Ouija board. To be specific, Ms Sylvia is working with the pointer or planchette (Fr.
little plank).
The planchette has undergone many changes since its popularity peaked in the 1860s. Early examples resemble miniature milking-stools, with their legs ending in casters, and fitted with a downward pointing pencil. It was placed on a piece of paper; the medium rested her hand on top and,
as the planchette slid around, the pencil wrote out messages and produced pictures - presumably
from the spirit world. Another device was the letter board (a board with the alphabet printed on it;
mediums spelled words by moving a finger over the letters and stopping when the spirits rapped).
When combined, the Ouija board was created and patented in 1891. Since then, the planchette
has gotten smaller, a porthole was added around 1915,
Vounteers test Shannon Sylvias and today it is a piece of lightweight, glow-in-the-dark
experimental planchette
plastic with felt-tipped legs.
Ouija is frequently found on the family game
shelf wedged between Parcheesi and Monopoly, but for all its ordinariness, questions
remain about how the board actually works. Do we subconsciously move the planchette or does some force outside the participants play a part in producing those spinetingling yeses and nos.
Shannon Sylvia asked herself these questions while working with the board. She
decided that there must be some way to debunk or prove that the planchette is moving
on its own. But how could that be determined?
This past weekend at Phantom Con in Hickory, North Carolina, Shannon introduced the prototype of a planchette that might put an end to the Ouija real or fake
debate. The main component is a very sensitive scale that measures the pressure put
on it by the participants fingers. The scale has a small digital readout that could be
watched as questions were asked and the planchette moved across the board.
Before the session began, everyone had the opportunity to see how the prototype
worked and how physically moving it, pushing or pulling, would cause the reading to
jump. With everyones fingers placed on the planchette, the base reading was about 50
to 70. I am not sure what unit of measurement was used, but I dont think that mattered. If it was physically pushed or pulled, a readout of over 100 and even into the
200s, would be seen.
After everyone had their chance to play around with it, it was time for a live test.
As everyone gathered around the table, four brave volunteers stepped up to face the
Ouija board and its mystery. When everyones fingers were on the planchette, a base
reading was recorded of around 60. As the question how old are you? was asked, the
planchette began moving across the board towards the row of numbers. No one was
paying attention to the answer, of course; all eyes were on the readout.
To everyones amazement, the pressure being measured had only slightly increased to the 70s and even dropping back down to
the base reading as the planchette kept moving. Every so often you would see a slight spike, but this could have been easily caused
by participants trying to keep up with the movement. This spike would only be seen for a split second and then drop back down to
the base reading or just above.
The session stopped for a minute as everyone had to take a step back and digest what they had just seen. Once the questions
began again, the results were the same. It clearly appeared as if the planchette was moving on its own without the aid of pushing
or pulling fingers.
So whats this say about the reality of an Ouija board? Can we contact the dead or open the doors to evil spirits? I dont think
this unique planchette answers those questions, but it sure does get one to thinking about new possibilities and Mysteries is looking
forward to reporting new developments in Shannons research.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 7

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Royal Rodent Offers Clues to

Shipwreck
Marine archaeologists excavating
the wreck of a late Bronze Age ship off
the coast of Turkey have found that it
contains an impressive
wealth of cargo including silver, ebony, copper
and tin ingots, gold, and
an astonishing collection
of artifacts. The richness
of the cargo suggests that
the ship, which dates to
the 14th century B.C.E.,
was a royal vessel but,
despite all of its treasure, its origin remains
a mystery. The items on
board came from at least
nine different cultures,
including Canaanite, Mycenean, Egyptian, Cypriot, and Babylonian, and until now experts could only

say that the ship probably sailed from the

mines of Cyprus or the
coast of Syria or Palestine.
Among the artifacts recovered are
ostrich eggs, a gold
scarab inscribed with
the name of Egyptian
queen Nefertiti, elephant ivory and hippopotamus teeth, pottery,
tools, fishing equipment, weapons,
jewelry, and one artifact that might
seem insignificant amongst the exquisite and exotic goods, but may prove to
be very valuable for scientists and scholars a tiny jaw bone of
a Mus musculus domesticus, or common house
mouse, that went down
with the ship 3,500 years
ago. Scientists have long
suspected that rodents
spread across the Mediterranean by stowing
away on ships, but the
only other such stowaway ever found is a
brown rat from an 18thcentury French galleon
that sank off Corsica.
The bone, which
is less than half-an-inch [1.3 cm] long,
was found by researchers sifting through
loose sand and sediment brought up

Wood Block Reveals Age of Sunken Indian City

A wood block excavated from the ruins of
Dwarka, an ancient city submerged in the Arabian Sea
off the Gujara coast of India, promises to finally reveal
the age of the city reputed to have been the holy city
of Lord Krishna. Excavations have been going on at
Dwarka since the site was first discovered in 1963, but
none of the stone structures or artifacts, such as beads,
glass, and terracotta artifacts, has yielded datable
material. Consequently, the site has been subject to
various scholarly interpretations, with no archaeological evidence to support the conclusions.
Systematic study of the site began in 2005, but
divers have only recently discovered that the lowermost
portion of a circular stone structure is made of wood
blocks, joined so well with wooden dowels and nails;
they remained in place despite heavy surfs and strong
currents. The structure lies at a depth of less than 10
feet [3 m] and made of local beech wood, so scientists should be able to use carbon
dating to determine the precise age of the ruins.
8 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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from the wreck. Similarities with the

teeth of house mice in Syria leads scientists to tentatively conclude that the
mouse probably came on board with
shipments of grain at the Canaanite
port of Ugarit, on the Syrian coast near
Cyprus. Ugarit was a huge international trading center in the 13th and 14th
centuries B.C.E., and probably the only
place on the Syrian coast where a ship
could have taken on large shipments of
both grain and metal ingots. The scientists hope that the tiny bone, which
is the earliest known direct evidence of
a stowaway rodent, will provide important clues about how the invasive
species spread around Europe.

Raising Russian Treasure

Russia has announced plans to

raise the wreck of the Frau Maria, a
schooner commissioned by Catherine
the Great in 1771 to transport a cargo
of 27 paintings by Dutch masters and
precious porcelain, gold, silver, and
bronze items purchased at auction in
Amsterdam for her art collection. The
ship sank in a storm in the Baltic Sea off
the coast of Finland, and Catherine sent
several expeditions in vain efforts to
raise her treasures, which lie at a depth
of 135 feet [41.1 m] and have a present-day value of $1.5 million.
Divers say that the cargo is largely
undamaged. There is some evidence
that the paintings were packed in lead
boxes sealed with wax. The operation
will be jointly carried out by Russian
and Finnish parties and although Russia
is the legal successor to all property of
the Russian empire, ownership of the
treasure has not yet been settled.

Historic Slave Ship Identified

Archaeologists have identified
the wreck of the Trouvadore, a Spanish
slave ship that while en route to Cuba
with a cargo of 193 African captives,
grounded on a reef in 1841 off the coast
of East Caicos in the British Indies.
All of the captives escaped during the
sinking, except one - a female who was
shot by a crewmember. The survivors
were rescued by local authorities and
the crew arrested since slave trade had
been outlawed in the British Indies.
Most of the survivors settled on Grand
Turk Island and their descendants make
up a significant majority of the 30,000
residents of the Turks and Caicos
Islands. Scholars say that although
many residents of the Caribbean can
trace their ancestry to Africa, few populations anywhere are so closely tied to a
single accident in history.
Although the sinking of the Trouvadore was a major event on Grand Turk
Island, the story was lost to history over
time and none of the present residents
of the Turks and Caicos Islands had
even heard of the ship. Then, in 2004,

Donald Keith - Courtesy of Search for Trouvadore 2008

researchers tracing artifacts sold to

museums more than a century ago as
African idols, uncovered historical
accounts of the long-forgotten Trouvadore. Using those records and remote
sensing equipment, marine archaeologists focused on a wreck near a local
landmark called Black Rock. There they
found the remains of a wooden brigantine, including one side of the hull
preserved from keel to deck.
The wreck is nearly 2 miles [3.2
km] from the site where the historic
ship sank, but the archaeologists say
that constant winds from the east and

a strong current would have caused

the wreck to drift. Careful measurements of well-preserved timbers and
joints, along with years of research,
have amassed compelling evidence that
the Black Rock wreck could only be the
Trouvadore, the only known wreck of
a ship that was involved in the illegal
slave trade.

Norman Fish Trap Found Off Welsh Coast

Archaeologists studying aerial photographs of the coast of Cardigan Bay Conservation Area in West Wales have identified a fishing
trap in the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed. The V-shaped structure is thought to date to nearly 1,000 years ago, shortly after the Norman
invasion of the British Isles, when the sea level was lower and the entrance to the estuary would
have been more aligned for the trap.
Fish traps, or weirs, were designed so Normans could catch fish without a boat or fishing
gear. They would wait for the tide to ebb; trapping fish behind the stone walls as the tide
flowed out. Fishermen then placed nets across the gap at the point of the trap or blocked the
gap and scooped up the fish trapped in the shallows.
The ancient fish trap is thought to be made of locally-quarried rock or, boulders carried
to the coast by glaciers during the last Ice Age. Scientists think that it has sunk into the sand
over the centuries and are unsure how tall the original trap was or how much is buried. It is
now completely submerged even at low tide, so fish are no longer trapped when the water
recedes.
A recent exploratory dive revealed that the wall protrudes only about a foot above the
seabed, in water that is 12 feet [3.7 m] deep. Although the structure looks well-defined in photographs, the divers say that its 3-foot-wide [.9 m] walls are covered in algae, worms, and sea anemones, resembling a natural reef.
The combined length of the structures two arms is about 853 feet [260 m] and scientists believe it is one of the largest of its kind.
Only a few such traps are known to exist in Wales, but experts say that they were widely used and so effective, their use in rivers was
banned in the Magna Carta. They were only allowed on the coasts, where stock was less likely to be depleted, making a significant contribution to the economy of many coastal and estuarine communities.

Treasures from the Deep is written and compiled exclusively by Judith

Kane.You can contact Judith at [email protected].

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 9

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MYSTERIES ON EXHIBIT
East
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL
HISTORY

New York, NY
(212) 769-5100

Featured Exhibit
MONTSHIRE MUSEUM OF SCIENCE

Norwich, VT
(802) 649-2200 | www.montshire.org
Be the Dinosaur: Life in the Cretaceous
(Oct. 1, 2009-Jan. 7, 2010) Take a seat
in a state-of-the-art simulator pod and,
through the magic of high-definition digital simulation, travel back in time 65+ million years to explore theories about dinosaur behavior and some of paleontologys other great mysteries in a completely
interactive way. Be a living, breathing dinosaur in this complex and far-reaching
recreation of the environment of the dinosaurs: find and communicate with others in your herd; cooperate in defense; use your sense of smell to find food and
other animals; cool off in the chilly waters of a jungle stream; and embark on new
adventures!

www.amnh.org
Extreme Mammals:
The Biggest,
Smallest, and Most Amazing Mammals of All Time (through Jan. 3,
2010) This multi-media exhibit explores

Midwest

the surprising and often bizarre world of

mammals, both living and extinct, and features spectacular fossils, live animals, and
vivid reconstructions, including an exact
cast of the recently revealed missing link Darwinius masillae (nicknamed Ida), which
is one of the most complete and beautifully
preserved fossil primates ever found.

Dayton, OH
(937) 275-7431
www.boonshoftmuseum.org
Crime Lab Detective (Sep. 26, 2009Jan. 10, 2010) Develop your powers
of observation and learn what it takes to
be a modern-day detective in this CSIstyle exhibit that invites visitors to solve
a true-to-life crime. Explore the crime
scene of a break-in and theft; search for

BRUCE MUSEUM

Greenwich, CT
(203) 869-0376
www.brucemuseum.org
Alchemy: Magic, Myth or Science?
(Sep. 26, 2009-Jan. 3, 2010) This exhibit offers a multi-faceted introduction
to the practice of alchemy from ancient
times through its flourishing in the 16th
and 17th centuries. It explores the history of alchemy and both the science and
art it inspired
and
features
mineral specimens, scientific
instruments,
paintings and
prints, historical documents, a diorama of an alchemical laboratory, a film demonstrating
chemical reactions, and more.

10 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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BOONSHOFT MUSEUM OF DISCOVERY

SCIENCE MUSEUM OF MINNESOTA

St. Paul, MN
(651) 221-9444
www.smm.org
Titanic:
The Artifact Exhibit
(through Jan. 3, 2010) This exhibit
features a chronology of the life of the
ill-fated vessel through
re-created cabins, a large
simulated iceberg, and
more than 200 artifacts
recovered from the
wreckage. Learn about
the technology, artistry,
and incredible effort
needed to find and reach the ship.
CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL
HISTORY

clues; and evaluate the evidence to solve

the whodunit.
Space Adventures (Sep. 26, 2009-Jan.
10, 2010) Explore the coldest reaches
of space, too-cool-to-be-believed gadgets, and the surreal landscapes of distant
planets. Imagine traveling among the
stars or encountering aliens as you re-live
the tales of your favorite fiction
space adventurers and try to picture just
what might be out there as you build
a moon base, space station, or space ship
and go on a Galaxy Quest!

Cleveland, OH
(800) 317-9155
www.cmnh.org
Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New
Discoveries (Oct. 10, 2009-Jan. 31,
2010) This exhibit showcases the newest
ideas in dinosaur research and the most
up-to-date
scientific
interpretions of many
of the most persistent
and puzzling mysteries
about dinosaurs - how
they looked, how they
behaved, how they
moved and, ultimately, the complex and
hotly debated theories about why they
became extinct.

MYSTERIES ON EXHIBIT
South

West

Outside the U.S.

DISCOVERY PLACE

DE YOUNG FINE ARTS MUSEUM

MONTREAL SCIENCE CENTRE

Charlotte, NC
(704) 372-6261
www.discoveryplace.org
Shipwreck! Pirates & Treasure
(through Jan.
31,
2010)
Walk the plank
to get an upclose look at
the world of
pirates; battle
75-mph winds
in a hurricane
tube; and discover what it
takes to be a
deep-ocean explorer in this multi-media exhibit, which
blends historic artifacts, sunken treasure,
and hands-on, educational, interactive
elements so visitors can plunge into the
experience, the research, technology, archaeological recovery, and conservation
involved in the quest for deep-sea knowledge and treasures.

San Francisco, CA
(415) 750-3600
www.famsf.org/deyoung
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age
of the Pharaohs (through Mar. 28,
2010) This exhibit
features more than
130 treasures from the
tombs, royal graves, and
ancient sites in the Valley of the Kings, including 50 major objects
from the tomb of Tutank- hamun, which are
on exhibit in the U.S.
for the first time in 27
years. Among the artifacts from King Tuts
tomb are his gold crown
and the canopic coffinette that contained
his mummified internal organs.

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

(877) 496-4724
www.centredessciencesdemontreal.com
Strange Matter (Oct. 3, 2009-Mar. 19,
2010) Discover the amazing and sometimes bizarre secrets of everyday stuff in
this highly interactive exhibit, which allows visitors to investigate the structure
of both ordinary and exotic materials and
discover what gives them intriguing and
remarkable properties.

PREMIER EXHIBITION CENTER

Atlanta, GA
(866) 866-8265
www.atlanticstation.com
Bodies...The Exhibition (through
Jan. 3, 2010) Celebrate the wonder of
the human form and learn about anatomy, physiology,
healthy living, and
how the amazing and complex
machine we call
the human body
works by viewing actual human
bodies preserved
by the extraordinary method of
plastination.

NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF SPACE

HISTORY

Alamogordo, NM
(877) 333-6589
www.nmspacemuseum.org
ViewSpace (through Dec. 30, 2009)
This exhibit portrays the beauty and
wonder of the universe and the Earth,
and guides visitors to a deeper understanding of astronomy through an internet-fed, self-updating, ever-changing presentation of the latest breathtaking views

of the cosmos from the Space Telescope

Science Institute, home of the Hubble
Space Telescope and its successor, the
James Webb Space Telescope.

CANADIAN MUSEUM OF CIVILIZATION

Gatineau, Quebec, Canada

(800) 555-5621
www.civilization.ca
Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures (Oct.
23, 2009-Mar. 28, 2010) This exhibit
showcases some of the worlds most significant archaeological
treasures, which were
feared stolen or destroyed in the chaos of
the Talibans takeover of
Afghanistan, but were
actually hidden away by brave Afghans
and rediscovered 20 years later. The
exhibit features more than 200 artifacts
that date from between 300 BCE to 100
CE and reveal a rich and diverse ancient
culture, including exquisite gold jewelry,
finely-carved ivory, delicate glassware,
superb sculptures, and much more.
ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

(416) 586-8000
www.rom.on.ca
Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed
the World (through Jan. 3, 2010) This
exhibit is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century - the
earliest record of biblical patriarchs and
prophets embraced by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Discover many rarely
and never-before-seen Scrolls, as well as
extraordinary 2,000-year-old artifacts of
the period.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 11

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

PARANORMAL
HAPPENINGS
EXTRA, EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! PARANORMAL HAPPENINGS KEEPS YOU INFORMED ON WHAT
IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD OF THE UNEXPLAINED.

Ripley Radio an On-Demand Oddcast

Ripleys Believe It or Not! Seeing Is Believing radio hour is a journey through the weird, wacky, whimsical, wild, and totally unbelievable world of the odd, strange and unusual. Each show provides listeners with amazing and absolutely true tales from the extensive
archives of the company that has been freaking out families for more than 90 years!
Hosts Tim OBrien, Edward Meyer and Marcia Pikel and their unbelievable multi-talented cast of thousands will report on the
latest oddball happenings and current events each week, but with that added Ripley Twist (of course).
Program Notes:

Meyer, Ripleys archivist and keeper of the odd, will go Inside the Vault during each episode to unveil one of Ripleys classic
exhibits or to discuss the companys latest acquisitions.
Each episode will highlight interviews with Believe It or Nots! who are featured in the current book, Seeing Is Believing.
Each week we will follow a different theme from Crazy Creations and Body Oddities to Fantastic Food and Amazing Science!
The first show is devoted to our favorite topic food.
The hosts will honor their founder, Robert Ripley, the man who started all this in 1918, and snippets from early radio programming will be aired.
Ripleys management team from different Ripleys attractions from around the world will discuss their favorite exhibits and talk
about their own Believe It or Not! museums.
The show is an unpredictable and fun-filled hour that will prove beyond all dimensions that Ripleys is indeed, the global authority on the weird, strange and bizarre.
The show is being carried on www.webtalkradio.net and will be linked to Ripleys main web site www.ripleys.com.

Expedition Spots
Mystery Ape In
Sumatra
The Centre for Fortean Zoology
(CFZ) is the worlds largest mystery animal research group. Only a
week after releasing footage of what
appears to be anomalous animals in
an Irish lake, a group of four British
explorers and scientists from the CFZ
have just returned from the jungles
of Sumatra having spent two weeks
in the rainforest on the track of the
orang-pendek, an unknown species

12 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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of upright walking ape. They have

brought back some incredible news.
CFZ member Dave Archer and
local guide Sahar saw the creature
at a distance of around 100 feet as it
squatted in a tree. Dave describes it as
broad shouldered, with a large head,
black skin and dark brown hair. A line
of darker fur was visible on the spine.
He likened the coat of the creature to
that of a mountain gorilla. Sahar saw
the creature jump down from the tree
and walk away on its hind legs. It was
the size of an adult male chimpanzee.

Next to the tree was some rattan

vine that the animal was apparently
chewing. Expedition leader Adam
Davis has preserved part of the plant
in ethanol in the hope that it contains
cells from the animals mouth.
The team also found and photographed several sets of tracks made
by creatures. Expedition zoologist
Richard Freeman confirmed that
they matched no known creature
in the area. The prints were six to
seven inches long with a narrow heel
and wider front. The big toe is well
separated.

PARANORMAL
HAPPENINGS
Hair samples were taken from a
tree close to the tracks. A number of
the hairs contain medullas that the
team hopes will contain orang-pendek
DNA. The samples will shortly be
sent off to experts around the world
for analysis.
If the samples turn out to be
from a new species Freeman suggests
the scientific name of Pongo martyri
in honour of the English researcher
Debbie Martyr who has done more
than anyone else to look into this zoological mystery.
Footage from the expedition and
from the Irish lakes are being submitted for inclusion in a major BBC
documentary about the CFZ, which
is being made by Minnow Films, an
award winning British film production company, over the next eight
months.
Pictures are available from the
expedition, and more information will
be released over the next few days.
For pictures from Sumatra or Ireland,
or to interview personnel from either
expedition please telephone Jon or
Corinna on 01237 4531413.
ABOUT THE CFZ
* The Centre for Fortean Zoology
[CFZ] is the worlds largest mystery
animal research organisation. It was
founded in 1992 by British author
Jonathan Downes (and is a non-profit
making (not for profit) organisation
registered with H.M. Stamp Office.
* Life-president of the CFZ is
Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE,
best known for his groundbreaking
youth work organising the Operation
Drake and Operation Raleigh expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s.
* CFZ Director Jonathan Downes
is the author and/or editor of over
20 books. Island of Paradise, his first
hand account of two expeditions to
the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico

in search of the grotesque vampiric

chupacabra, will be published in the
next few weeks.
* The CFZ have carried out expeditions across the world including
Russia, Sumatra, Mongolia, Guyana,
Gambia, Texas, Mexico, Thailand,
Puerto Rico, Illinois, Loch Ness, and
Loch Morar.
* CFZ Press is the worlds largest publisher of books on mystery
animals. They also publish Animals &
Men, the worlds only cryptozoology
magazine, and The Amateur Naturalist, Britains only dedicated magazine
on the subject.
* The CFZ produce their own full
length documentaries through their
media division called CFZtv (www.
cfztv.org). One of their films, Lair of
the Red Worm, which was released in
early 2007 and documents their 2005
Mongolia expedition, has now been
seen by nearly 50,000 people.
* The CFZ is based in Jon Downess
old family home in rural north Devon, which he shares with his wife
Corinna (52). It is also home to various members of the CFZs permanent
directorate and a collection of exotic
animals.
* Jonathan Downes presents a
monthly web TV show called On the
Track (http://cfzmonthly.blogspot.
com/), which covers cryptozoology
and work of the CFZ.
* The CFZ are opening a Visitor
Centre and Museum in Woolsery,
North Devon.
* Following their successful partnership with Capcom (www.capcom.
com) on the 2007 Guyana expedition,
the CFZ are looking for more commercial sponsors.
Jonathan Downes,
Director: Centre for Fortean Zoology
Editor: Animals & Men
Editor: The Amateur Naturalist
The Centre for Fortean Zoology,
Myrtle Cottage,
Woolfardisworthy,
Bideford, North Devon

EX39 5QR
Telephone 01237 431413
Fax+44 (0)7006-074-925
eMail [email protected]
www.cfz.org.uk
www.cfztv.org
www.weirdweekend.org

MAINES NEW CRYPTO

MUSEUM
Loren Colemans incomparable collection of crypto curiosities has a new
and permanent home in downtown
Portland, Maine. The International
Cryptozoology Museum puts decades
of cryptozoological artwork, models,
movie props, souvenirs, and ephemera, on display at 661 Congress
Street.

GET YOUR
ANNOUNCEMENT IN
FRONT OF
THOUSANDS!
Paranormal Happenings is
for press release type announcements. You can list
yours for $10 and reach the
audience you are looking
for. Press releases must be
kept to one page and not announce the sale of a product
or service.
For more information email
us at:
[email protected]

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 13

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO:

EarthTalk
P.O. Box 5098
Westport, CT 06881
[email protected].
Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.
EarthTalk is now a book!
Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

RainXchange

Dear EarthTalk How can I make good use of the rainwater that runs down my roof and into my gutters?
- Brian Smith, Nashua, NH
For most of us, the rain that falls on our roof runs off into the ground or the sewer system. But if youre
motivated to save a little water and re-distribute it on your lawns or plantsor even use it for laundry,
dishes or other interior needscollecting rainwater from your gutters downspouts is a no-brainer.
If its allowed in your state, that is. Utah and parts of Washington State have antiquated but nonetheless
tough laws banning anyone but owners of water rights from collecting rainwater flowing off privately
owned rooftops. Such laws are rarely enforced, however, and one in Colorado was recently overturned.
According to John C. Davis, writing in E The Environmental Magazine, just about any homeowner
can collect rainwater, given that the roof and gutters do most of the work. And since an inch of rain
falling on a 2,000-square-foot roof produces some 1,200 gallons of runoff, one can harvest enough to
supply all the water needs of a family of four for about two weeks. Of course, most of us would only use
rainwater to irrigate our lawn or garden, and there should be plenty to go around for doing that in all
but the most drought stricken areas.
Plants and grass actually do better when fed rainwater instead of tap water, which is usually treated
with softeners that actually inhibit plant growth. And, reports Davis, the lack of minerals in rainwater
actually makes it more effective than tap water for shampooing or doing dishes. Using rainwater for
plumbing uses can also extend the life of pipes and water heaters, since the salts added to tap water facilitate corrosion. Homeowners should set up a water purification system if they do plan to use rainwater
for interior needs.

Collecting rain water from your

gutters downspouts is a nobrainer and is not expensive to
do. It can then be used to water
the lawn and garden, and even
be used for laundry, dishes and
other interior needs with the
addition of a water purification
system.

Beyond the benefits to individual homeowners, rainwater harvesting can also be good for the local
community, as it reduces the erosion, flooding and pollution runoff associated with heavy rainfall, and lessens reliance on public
water supplies, alleviating some of the burden on utilities. Given these benefits, some states, including even drought-prone Texas,
subsidize residential rainwater collection systems.
Many varieties of rain barrel systems, starting at just $100, are available for home installation. A typical set-up is simply a rain barrel
positioned under a gutters downspout. The barrel is typically fitted with a spigot at its base to fill a watering can or attach a soaker
hose (which bleeds out water all along its length, providing effortless drip irrigation), and a filter or screen at its top to prevent a
buildup of leaves and other debris, writes Davis. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a single 100 gallon rain
barrel can save up to 1,300 gallons of utility-provided water during the high demand summer months.
Handy homeowners can make their own water harvesting systems, but buying one pre-made is a lot easier. Most nurseries and
garden centers offer a range of choices (as well as advice), but websites such as Aquabarrel, Clean Air Gardening and Rainxchange
make it easy to order a system online.
CONTACTS: Aquabarrel, www.aquabarrel.com, Clean Air Gardening, www.cleanairgardening.com;
Rainxchange, www.rainxchange.com.
EarthTalk
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
14 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Dear EarthTalk: Not long ago there were concerns about honey bees disappearing. Are the bees still disappearing, and if so
do we know why and do we have a solution?
- David, Grand Rapids, MI

Strangely enough, there was no concrete evidence pointing to disease or predation or of mites that tend to attack bee hives.
Some beekeepers reported that moths, animals and other bees were steering clear of the newly empty nests, leading to speculation that chemical contamination due
to widespread use of pesticides might be
to blame. But no smoking gun emerged
and the mystery remains today.
According to the U.S. Department of
Agricultures Agricultural Research
Service (ARS), which last year convened
a multi-agency steering committee to
assess the problem and find solutions,
several factors could be combining to
cause CCD. Pesticides may be having
unexpected negative effects on honey
bees, reports ARS, adding that as yet
unknown parasites, pathogens or viruses
could also be wreaking havoc on bee
colonies. Studies have also indicated
that poor management of populations of
commercial honey beesincluding inadequate diet and long distance transportationmay play a role.
In one study, researchers from Columbia Finding a single cause of Colony Collapse Disorder seems unlikely, but the U.S. Department of Agricultures
University isolated the presence of Agricultural Research Service points to the possibility of a perfect storm of stresses that compromise the
immune system of bees, disrupt their social system and make colonies more susceptible to disease.
a virusthe so-called Israeli Acute
Paralysis Virusin upwards of 96
percent of the hives studied that were affected by CCD. Other studies point to widespread use of Imidacloprid, a common grubcontrol chemical used on lawns and farms and which has already been banned in France due to its alleged effect on bees. But finding
a single cause of CCD seems unlikely, and ARS researchers point to the possibility of a perfect storm of existing stresses weakening
colonies to the point of collapse: Stresscompromises the immune system of beesand may disrupt their social system, making
colonies more susceptible to disease.
Whatever the cause, CCD remains a real threat to agriculture. About a third of all American farm production is dependent upon
the pollination efforts of commercially-raised honey bees. While diversifying the stock of insect pollinators beyond just one species
of honey bee would certainly represent a step in the right direction, re-jiggering the nations agricultural system represents no small
challenge.
Not surprisingly perhaps, organic beekeepers have not experienced CCD, leading to speculation that overall greener management practices could be the answer even if direct causes are not determined. Meanwhile, efforts to genetically modify bees that are
resistant to predators and pathogens could also prove fruitful, although such high tech solutions are still untested and could open
up other cans of worms.
CONTACTS: USDA Agricultural Research Service, www.ars.usda.gov;
CCD Steering Committee Q&A, www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/ccd.

EarthTalk
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 15

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Rainer Hungershausen, courtesy Flickr

The topic of disappearing honey bees first cropped up in 2004 and by the spring of 2007 was all over the news. Thousands of commercial beekeepers across the U.S. and beyond were reporting in some cases that as many as two-thirds of their honey bees were
flying away from their hives, never to return. What made the problemdubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)so unusual
is that most traumas to bee colonies leaves bees dead in or around their hives, not mysteriously gone altogether.

16 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 17

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Death at Lake Clinch

What killed Charles M. Mallet?

In 1926, a body, whose face had been mutilated beyond recognition, was snagged on a fishermans line.
Officially recorded as a drowning, Pangea Institutes Scott Marlowe examines another possibility.

ong before white men arrived in

Florida in search of the Fountain
of Youth, Native Americans
told stories about monsters living in
the waters. The region was settled
and in the mid-1800s a town established between Lake Reedy and Lake
Clinch. The area is notable for its
frost-free winters,
an important consideration for citrus
growers, and the
town of Frostproof became part
of the burgeoning
orange
industry.
Orchards
were
planted and the
town grew, but talk
about a lake creature
persisted. Settlers
spoke of something
in the lake and early
pioneers, including
leading
citizens,
claimed to have seen
a 30 foot [9.1 m]
long sea serpent
while boating or
from the shore.
On the night
of
August
30,
1926, 49-year-old Charles M. Mallet
stepped out of his simple Florida
Cracker style home wearing a bathing
suit and carrying a tackle box and
bait. Mallett was a businessman,
founder of the towns first bank, and
a partner in a prosperous fertilizer and
supply company that served the local
growers.
He was a practical man and tales
about a giant serpent inhabiting the
lake adjacent to his home did not worry

him as he prepared to venture onto the

legendary monsters domain. Before
going fishing, Mallett had told several
associates that he would be leaving for
Sarasota the next day and absent from
his usual haunts in the coming week.
He stopped long enough to wave
to a neighbor then made his way

line into Lake Clinch from the eastern

shore. While reeling it in, he snagged
something big - a human body.
The features were so mangled,
that given the condition, it might have
remained unidentified but for a ring
on the corpses finger; the name faintly
engraved on the inside of the band
was Charles M.
Mallet.
To confirm
the identity, a
person was dispatched to see
if Mallet had
returned
from
his trip. One
of
Malletts
employees, C.C.
Matthews, discovered the door
to the Cracker
house unlocked
and
Malletts
personal effects
and
suitcase
awaiting
his
return from the
lake. There was
no doubt that the
body was that of
Charles Mercer
Mallett, but what happened out on
Lake Clinch?

The inside rail and outer hull on the left side was reported
to have blood spatters on them

18 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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down to the dock. Like other men

in Frostproof, he kept a small boat at
the pier and frequently fished for the
Largemouth Bass that were, and are,
abundant in the lake. It was Floridas
monsoon season and there had been
heavy rain that afternoon, but now it
was clear skies as Mallett boarded his
boat and headed out onto smooth
dark water.
Three days later, on Thursday
morning, G. D. Moree cast a fishing

Death Documents
It is likely that a physician or
district coroner examined Malletts
body (Polk County did not have a
medical examiner until the 1970s).
A record of the death has been found
in the states official Death Index and

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 19

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Malletts grave and burial records

were only recently discovered[1]. If
anything more detailed ever existed,
it seems to have vanished.
Newspapers reported the official
version of Mallets death as an accidental drowning. It was assumed that
he fell overboard, drowned, and his
face mutilated by fish. The customary
obituary and mention of Malletts
final resting place did not appear in
area newspapers and two weeks later,
when a hurricane nearly wiped out
Miami, the case was forgotten.
Paperwork related to Mallets
death might have been lost or
destroyed in the storm that ran
roughshod over much of the state.
In addition, the relatively primitive
technology found in towns like
Frostproof at the beginning of 20th
Century, made a thorough investigation into Malletts death impractical.
Meanwhile, the townsfolk considered
other possibilities.
Rumors circulated that the
monster was responsible for Malletts
untimely death. Members of the
community were uncomfortable to
discuss this idea with outsiders, yet
they had seen enough to make the
idea seem far from ridiculous.

Things in the Lake

A few years before the Mallett
incident, Frank Whitman was fishing
near Coon Slough on the western
side of Lake Clinch when a great
serpent came up from the water just
20 yards [18.3m] from his boat. He
later confided in Orren Ohlinger, one
of the towns founders, that, it was
so big and ugly; it scared me almost
to death.
Whitman must have felt consid-

Its body was at least

thirty feet [9.1 m] long
20 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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erable relief, and some trepidation,

when Ohlinger said that he believed
him - not because of their friendship
- but because Ohlinger had also encountered the creature. He went on
to say that other townsfolk had been
seeing it off and on since at least
1907.
Ohlinger said that the monster
had appeared after a heavy rain, rising
out of the water some 200 yards
[182.9 m] from the eastern shoreline.
Its body was at least 30 feet [9.1 m]
long and undulated through the lake.
Then, it lifted up its head, which
was as large as the head of an adult
human, three feet [.9 m] out of the

water, before disappearing into the

depths.
Other sightings made by respectable citizens are preserved in diaries
and journals at the Frostproof Historical Society[2], and in private collections of memoirs. Anecdotes
have limited value as evidence, but
a striking aspect of the Lake Clinch
stories is the consistency of the creatures descriptions and, of the circumstances surrounding its appearance.
When
the
press
reported
sightings in 1975, 1978 and 2008,
the creature was labeled as something
akin to Scotlands Loch Ness Monster.
Popular lore (and many cryptozo-

ology buffs) believes that Nessie

is an animal resembling a plesiosaur, a giant marine reptile from the
age of dinosaurs. However, the plesiosaurs most striking features are: a
long neck, oar-like flippers, and oval
body - features which never appear in
eyewitness descriptions of the Lake
Clinch creature. Though each account
contains additional, but revealing,
physical details about the animal, and
encounters took place in different
parts of the lake, the overall serpentine representation of the monster
is extraordinarily uniform. It is always
described as a serpent, about 30 feet
[9.1m] in length without appendages,
and having a large triangular head.
Another common feature is that
nearly everyone claiming to have encountered the creature did so shortly
after a heavy rain. Herpetologists will
tell you that snakes like to come out
after a storm so that they can drink
fresh rainwater. This factor, as well as
reports of the creature being of substantial length, points to a plausible
solution to the Mallet who done it?
However, there is more evidence to
consider.

A Postmortem Postmortem
Mr. Malletts face was unrecognizable when the body was pulled
from the water about 60 hours after
his apparent drowning. This is just
Gone Fishing: This type of boat (right) was commonly
used by fishermen on Lake Clinch. Many of them left
from the pier (bottom), which no longer stands.

SQUEEZING JOHNNY REB

The biggest snake in history was not a flesh
and blood reptile, but a military operation.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, General
Winfield Scott proposed cutting the Confederacy in two by blockading Southern ports
and capturing the Mississippi River and New
Orleans. Scott was trying to avoid bloodshed,
but Northern newspapers calling for direct
military action derided his approach as passive.
They compared it to slow strangulation by a
snake, and cartoonists showed the Anaconda
Plan as a striped serpent with a star-spangled head, encircling the South.
Despite it critics, the plan was adopted and Scotts Great Snake remained in place
until the war ended in 1865.
- Robert Damon Schneck

one aspect of the official cause of

death that is inconsistent with modern
forensic science.
In warm temperatures, drowning
victims will sink as soon as their lungs
are filled with water. Depending on
the persons clothing, body fat, and
other factors, a submerged body may
float several feet above the bottom.
Mallett was of average build for his
age and wore only a lightweight
swimming outfit.
A body floats because gases
produced
from
decomposition,
trapped within it, are more buoyant
than the water in the lungs. This is
similar to the reason a submarine
will surface or dive by taking in, or
releasing, water from its ballast tanks.

The environment in which a

body decomposes affects the rate of
decomposition. A formula called
Caspers Ratio states that if all other
factors are equal, then, when there is
free access of air, a body decomposes twice as fast than if immersed in
water and eight times faster than if
buried in earth.
Decomposition of tissue begins
almost immediately after death, but
the speed of decay in water depends
primarily on temperature. When the
ambient temperature of the surrounding water is 50 degrees Fahrenheit
[10 c] or higher, the body eventually floats to the surface in five to eight
days. The ambient temperature of
Lake Clinch during the summer
months ranges from the high 70s
[21 c] to low 80s [27 c] in Fahrenheit degrees.
Although bloating and discoloration occurs within days,
very little flesh is lost if the body
is found within two to three days
as was the case with Mallett.
Fish can mangle a cadaver but it
generally takes more time unless
the body is in the ocean, where
there are big fish, or in places like
the Amazon that have species like
piranhas.
Alligators take their prey
underwater and wedge it into a
sunken tree or other spot until
it ripens. Gators cant chew,
so they wrench chunks of rotten
meat from the preys body after
it putrefies. Neither do they seem
to have been responsible for the

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 21

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Colonel Fawcetts
Super Serpent
In 1907, the British explorer Colonel Percy H. Fawcett was surveying the Brazilian-Bolivian border for
the Royal Geographic Society of London. The local Indians regaled him with stories about colossal snakes,
which Fawcett dismissed until he and his guides were drifting down the Rio Abura in a canoe.
They reached the confluence of the Tigor and Rio Negro when a triangular head and several feet of undulating body appeared under the bow. Fawcett sprang for my rifle as the creature began
to make its way up the bank, and hardly waiting to aim, smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into
its spine, ten feet below the wicked head whereupon there was a flurry of foam, and several
heavy thumps against the boats keel, shaking us as though we had run on a snag The shot proved fatal but the
reptile proved too large to take precise measurements.
As far as it was possible to measure, a length of 45 feet lay out of the water, and 17 feet in it, making it a total
length of 62 feet.
Though the specimen was not preserved, there are many accounts of anaconda growing beyond what is believed to be their
maximum length of 40 to 42 feet, which are well-documented yet unsupported by physical evidence. The largest confirmed dimensions are 550 pounds and 30 feet, the same size as the Lake Clinch serpent.
The Colonel had apparently bagged a giant green anaconda, but his adventures were not over. He returned to South America
several times where he discovered, among other things, a species of dog with two-noses. While on an expedition to find the Lost
City of Z in 1925, Percy Fawcett vanished in the jungles of Brazil.
- Scott Marlowe
unusual lacerations on Malletts face.
Several
witnesses
reported
puncture wounds around Malletts
face and the back of his head. These
puncture marks reportedly formed
an odd crescent-shaped pattern suggesting an animal with large jaws.
Further, entries in personal memoirs
contradict the idea that wounds were
inflicted after Malletts death.
Malletts boat was found floating
on the water after his body was discovered. The inside rail and outer hull
on the left side was reported to have
blood spatters on them. Although the
spatters were never tested to assure a
human source, there were no caught
fish in the boat, nor did Mallett use
chum or any other bait that would
account for the blood. It was almost
certainly from Mallett. One account
describes what would be considered
normal bruising associated with the
puncture wounds. This too would
mean that the injury occurred before
death.
Every aspect of Malletts death,
along with the stories about the
creature in Lake Clinch, fits what we
know about large South American
anacondas. Problems with exotic
snakes are nothing new to Florida,
where Governor Charlie Crist recently
signed off on a python hunt to destroy
an estimated 150,000 of these exotic
species on state lands.

22 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Large
non-native
constrictor snakes like pythons, boas, and
anacondas have become an epidemic,
threatening native species. Readers
might have seen the photograph of an
American alligator killed and eaten by
a python; the serpent only burst open
after another alligator bit into it.
Is it possible that horrific scenes
like these are not just a modern phenomenon? Recent archeological discoveries suggest some intriguing possibilities.

Ancient Exotics?
From Flathead Lake, Montana,
to the waters of Florida, Native
American legends tell of horned
serpents and great snakes.
Not far from Lake Clinch, in
Lake Pierce, there is a hammock
(a small, forested area rising above
the surrounding marshland) called
Snodgrass Island. The remains of a
Mayan trading post were recently discovered there and confirmed by the
Institute of Mayan Studies in Miami
and anthropologists and archaeologists at the University of Florida at
Gainesville.
The presence of Mayans in
Florida may surprise many people,
but Columbus reported seeing Mayan
seagoing canoes in several places

around the Florida coastline during

his travels[4]. Researchers outside
of mainstream archeology have long
argued that ancient peoples were
more widely traveled than is generally
believed. There are, for instance,
rune stones containing glyphs of
Mende characters (the Mende are
a West African ethnic group) and
colossal sculpted heads with arguably
African features that have been found
in the Yucatan and Central America
(the land of the Mayans and their
predecessors the Olmecs). Mayan
outposts have also been discovered
in Venezuela near the Orinoco River,
within the home range of the green
anaconda.
A serious excavation of the
Snodgrass Island site has not yet
been undertaken, but it is similar
to the Mayan settlement of Punta
de Chimino at Guatamala, a village
with defensive features that included
moats.
Could it be that the ancient
Mayans, who worshiped a feathered
serpent (as did the Aztecs and other
Mesoamerican peoples), brought
green anacondas from South America
to protect the trading village at
Snodgrass Island by stocking the
moat with enormous serpents? If
snakes were a part of the Mayans
defense system, could these exotic
animals have found their way into the

together to attract attention, and

tourism, by concocting the account?
It seems unlikely.
None of the people that might
have been involved in a conspiracy
ever confessed nor are there rumors
of a hoax[5]. No photographs or
physical evidence - real or faked supporting the creatures existence
have come to light, neither has it
been given an affectionate nickname
like Champ, the beast in Lake
Champlain. Drivers heading towards
Frostproof will not be greeted by
a chamber of commerce billboard
welcoming them to the Home
of Frosty, Central Floridas Most
Beloved Monster. In other words,
if it was a publicity stunt, it was an
inept one.
ecosystem and taken up residence in
local lakes long before the modern
era? This hypothesis may offer a
plausible explanation for indigenous
North American tribes passing on
tales of great serpents in the lakes and
rivers of Florida.
On the other hand, residents
of Frostproof were not living in
the Stone Age. Most may not have
actually seen a living anaconda, but
they had access to illustrated books
and periodicals and should have been
able to connect the South American
snake to their monster, if indeed it
resembled one.
More to the point, there is no
physical evidence that one of these
giant constrictors was ever captured,
killed, or just died of old age and
washed up on shore. Nevertheless, it
remains an exciting possibility.
Earlier this year, scientists
including Dr. Jonathan Bloch a vertebrate paleontologist at the University
of Florida, announced the discovery
of a new species of giant prehistoric
snake native to South America. The
fossil remains of the Titanoboa cerrejonensis was found in an open pit coal
mine in Columbia near the border of
Venezuela. Dr. Bloch estimates that
this prehistoric super-snake reached
a length of 40 to 50 feet [12.2 to
15.2 m] and weighed about 2,500
pounds [1134 kg]. He also postulates that a warmer climate than previously assigned to the Paleocene
permitted the cold-blooded T. cer-

rejonensis to reach much larger sizes

than modern day serpents. It lived
during the Paleocene epoch approximately 60 to 58 million years ago,
eons before the appearance of modern
man. Neither the snake nor its fossilized remains are likely to have inspired
Native American folklore about giant
serpents.

A Frostproof Fraud?
Deceit should always be considered when investigating anomalous
animals.
Col. Percy Fawcetts alleged
encounter with a 62 foot [18.9 m]
anaconda (see sidebar) was widely
reported and some might find the
sighting of a serpentine monster in
Lake Clinch the same year a suspicious coincidence. Is it possible that
the citizens of Frostproof conspired

Today
Visitors inquiring about
the monster should be tactful
and, perhaps, express openness
to believing that strange things
sometimes
happen.
Whatever
happened to Charles Mallett was
certainly strange and older residents
of Frostproof might wonder from
time to time if a giant snake was responsible. And, if it was, where did
it come from?
Could it have been the massive
descendent of a Mayan anaconda?
Perhaps a living relic of the age when
colossal serpents lived, died, and fossilized in South America? Most importantly, could the creature or one
of its descendants, still be lurking in
Lake Clinch today?

NOTES
1. The author, with the assistance of modern web resources and research assistance from the kind folks at Greenwood Cemetery in
Orlando, Florida, was able to locate Mr. Malletts grave and the burial records associated with it. The funeral home that embalmed
Malletts corpse recorded his death as an accidental drowning.
2. References to the monster are found in the papers of Mr. and Mrs. H. Bracken, Sophoronia Ohlinger, Jessie Banks, Mary Simmons
Moser, Mrs. Zeke Henry, Frank Jaques, and Charles W. Schoonmaker.
3. See PubMed Postmortem wound dehiscence. A report of three cases. Appearing in www.pubmed.gov, a publication of The
National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Library of Medicine, accessed 8/8/09.
4. Robert J. Sharer & Sylvanus Griswold Morley, The Ancient Maya, Stanford University Press (1994)
5. The Langford family website includes a reference to the Lake Clinch monster that suggests another possibility.
There was a tradition that a sea serpent used to haunt Lake ClinchWhen I asked my aunt, Gladys [sic] Langford Jane about this
she said that she always thought people said that to keep their kids from going out too far in the lake.
The Langford Legacy, Part I, http://www.langfordfamilyties.com/legacy1.html, accessed 8/8/09.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 23

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

24 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

This Seance
brought to
you by......

Advertising is all around us and utilizes current trends to get our attention, and money. Robert
Damon Schneck examines the use of Ouija boards, and their reputation, in advertising during the
height of the Ouija craze.

In 1920, Americans were wild

about Ouija. Everyone from treasure
hunters to policemen to housewives
seemed to be hunched over the board
getting advice from a dead relative. Advertisers, noting the boards popularity,
used its reputation as a Weird, Mysterious, Unexplainable Game from the
East[1], to add glamour to their products and sell goods and services.
Carl Krantz, who presumably
owned a garage in Mitchell, South
Dakota, stated that, Ouija boards may
tell you that your leaky radiator dont
harm your motor but let me tell you
that it just aint so.[2] The Columbus
Oil Company of Piqua, Ohio, rhetorically wondered if drivers asked Little
Ouija what Ails the Old Bus?, then
gave the confusing assertion, What
all-knowing Ouija is lacking the signs
that tells you what fuel is best for your
car, the answer is pure: Columbus Gasoline.[3] Maintaining a car, however,

DONT TRUST OUIJA: In this ad from W.J. Hickisch & Sons,

they claim to check their facts - unlike Ouija.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 25

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

26 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 27

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

was less mysterious than maintaining

the bank balance.
Citizens National Bank of
Putnam, New York offered to help
clients increase their savings by
showing a young couple at the board
asking, Tell us, tell us, WEE-GEE
Where Does All Our Money Go?[4]
Investment brokers, W.J. Hickisch &
Sons, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, compared the uninformed investor to a
Ouija board that sometimes gets
things rightbut it is not reliable[5],
while the Liggett & Myers Tobacco
company emphasized the games dependability. When a Chesterfield
smoker CRANKED up weejee the
board told him, THEY SATISFY.[6]
The United Cigar Stores ran
one of the more elaborate ads. Two
men are shown operating the planchette, two more are looking on intently, and everyone is smoking Ricoros
the Self-Made Cigar under the headline, Who Discovered Ricoro? Told by
a Professor.
A Ouija Board discovered
Ricoro, replied the professor, as he
moved the ash-tray nearer. It happened at a clairvoyant investigation we
conducted at the University.
A famous European clairvoyant
was at the sance, and after hed made
a few passes over the Ouija Board,
the little three-legged planchette [the
Ouijas pointer] spelled the word R-IC-O-R-O.
Ricoro? asked one of the scientists, in an awed voice, What does
that mean?
I can tell you that! interrupted
the Dean, Ricoro is the name of those
delightful cigars. He passed around
some fine, slim, panatelas, and everyone, including the medium, lighted
up.
Now, said the medium, with
the aid of the Ouija Board, I will endeavor to divine the price of these marvelous smokes.
Again the Ouija planchette
moved--quickly spelling out T-w-e-n-

28 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

OUIJA IS NO MECHANIC: Ouija may be able to contact loved

ones from the other side, but as pointed out in this ad from Columbus Oil Company, it cant help you care for your care.

Spirited Advertising: Another advertiser warns

against using the Ouijas wisdom to diagnose car
trouble, while the Citizens National Bank volunteers to answer a question that the public might
ask the board.

t-y f-i-v-e c-e-n-t-s

Wrong, shouted the Dean,
though its a natural mistake! These
Ricoros sell for 9c in every United
Cigar Store in the country!
And ten wise men unanimously agreed that you cant learn everything
at college.[7]
Besides advertising, the board appeared in fiction[8], comic strips, animated cartoons, popular songs (Ouija,
Ouija, Tell Me Do), a stage play, and
at the New York State Fair where the
largest Ouija board in Ouijaland[9]
chose the winner of an airplane ride.
But why did the public develop this
sudden passion for a device that had
been around since 1891?
World War I reportedly created
an unprecedented demand for the
boardsfrom people all hoping to
communicate with loved ones killed
in the war.[10] Yet hostilities ended
in 1918 and it was another two years
before the Ouija craze peaked. Perhaps
another, even more disastrous, event
was responsible.

From 1918 to 1919 a strain of

influenza called Spanish Flu killed
between 50 and 100 million people
worldwide.[11] Cities shut down and
whole villages were wiped out by an
illness that seemed to target healthy
young adults. With approximately 675,000 Americans dead from the
pandemic and 116,516 from the war
(many from influenza), the United
States lost almost 800,000 of its most
energetic citizens in just 24 months.
But what do these grim numbers have
to do with putting a dancing planch-

NOTES
1. Whoever wrote the ad must have lived west of Maryland,
since most Ouija boards were manufactured in Baltimore. The
Washington Post, 24 April 1920.
2. The Evening Republican, South Dakota, 12 April 1920.
3. Piqua Daily Call, Ohio, 31 March 1920.
4. The Potsdam Herald Recorder, New York, 18 June 1920.
5. La Crosse Tribune and Leader Press, Wisconsin, 13 December
1920.
6. The Morning Republican, South Dakota, 22 October 1920.
7. Syracuse Herald, New York, 2 April 1920.
8. The long-running newspaper serial Confessions of a War

ette in a cigarette ad?

After the loss of so much life,
Americans might have taken comfort
in the Ouijas implicit message that
death is not the end of us as individuals, nor an eternal separation from
loved ones. Unlike conventional religions, the board did not rely on faith,
but provided some kind of evidence.
From that perspective, its little
wonder that clergymen denounced it,
or why the mockery of editorial writers
and explanations of scientists failed
to dampen public enthusiasm for the
marvelous magical Ouija board.
Bride frequently involved Ouija boards. A number of novels
were also written by dead authors working through the board,
such as Jap Herron (1917) by the spirit of Mark Twain.
9. Syracuse Herald, 11 September 1920.
10. Fortean Times, #FT250. Interest in the Ouija board is said
to increase during wars, yet the United States has been fighting
in Afghanistan since 2001 and Iraq since 2003 without a noticeable revival of interest in the Ouija. A major film about the Ouija
board is being produced by Universal Pictures, but it is one of a
series of movies based on board games.
If being at war creates an urge to commune with the dead
perhaps ghost hunting has superseded Ouija.
11. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no01/05-0979.htm
. Accessed October 14, 2009.
12. Some writers who believed that the Great War was responsible for Ouijas popularity dont even mention Spanish flu.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 29

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

674*&&18 87 19&


 


      
 

  


         
             
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On The Road With Mysteries...

Travel with Mysteries and James Willis as we visit the Chateau La Roche in Loveland, Ohio.

hey say that every mans home is

his castle. Nowhere is this more
evident than in Loveland, Ohio,
where a man named Harry Andrews
built a castle of his own, by hand and
almost entirely by himself.
Born April 7, 1890, Harry served
in the US Army as a nurse during World
War I and was stationed throughout
Europe. It is believed that while there,
Andrews fell in love with the castles, in
particular the chateaus of France.
He returned to Ohio after the
war and worked several jobs, including teaching Sunday school. In 1927,
Andrews bought almost two acres of
land along the Little Miami River in
Loveland, Ohio, outside of Cincinna-

32 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

ti and used the property as a camping

ground for Sunday school classes. Originally, he put up tents but they were
torn by prolonged exposure to the elements. According to legend, Andrews
had a few boys drag rocks out of the
nearby river and used them to build
two small stone structures. Apparently,
this reminded him of the castles, and
the seed of what was to grow into his
lifes work was planted.
Andrews decided to revive
the ideals of medieval chivalry and
founded the Knights of the Golden
Trail, an organization open to young
men who promised to live a virtuous
life and uphold the Ten Commandments. Now that he had knights, they

The bricks were often filled

with light bulbs, glass bottles, and
other discarded items

needed a castle and, on June 5, 1929,

Andrews began work on the Chateau
La Roche, or Rock Castle. He officially dedicated the structure a year
later at a public ceremony.
If putting up a castle wasnt
unusual enough, the way Andrews
went about it was truly remarkable.
He carried two empty five-gallon
[18.9 lt] buckets down to the Little
Miami, filled them with river rocks,
and hauled the stones up the hill for
use as building material. It is estimated that the castle required over 56,000
buckets of rocks. Throughout the castle
are also stones brought from other

states, and even other countries, mixed

in with those from the river. On each
of these stones, Andrews wrote the location of origin.
Of course, every good castle needs
a squared-off turret or two and, with
square rocks hard to come by, Andrews
had to make his own. He filled empty
quart-sized [.9 lt] cardboard milk containers with concrete, cut the tops off,
and, when the concrete hardened, the
container was removed and a new
brick was ready. The bricks were often
filled with light bulbs, glass bottles,
and other discarded items. Some
believe this was a form of recycling
while others think it was intended to provide insulation.
He worked on the castle parttime until retiring in 1955 at the
age of 65. Shortly afterwards, on
Memorial Day, Andrews moved
into Loveland Castle and devoted
every waking moment to its construction. People often stopped
by to see how the work was progressing and never went away
disappointed.
Andrews relied on memo-

ries of 16th-century castles to create a

scaled replica that towers more than 36
feet [11 m] in the air. There are only
two floors, but there is also a dungeon
and the roof is a Fighting Deck. The
castle has a kitchen, bedroom, Great
Hall, dining hall, chapel, and a terrace
that once overlooked a garden.
On the morning of March 14,
1981, the 91-year old Andrews was
burning trash when his clothing caught
fire. Visitors extinguished the blaze
but not before the old man suffered
severe burns to his arms and legs. He
was taken to a nearby hospital where
doctors attempted skin grafts, but on
April 14th, after nearly 50 years of
building, Harry Andrews died.
Even though Harry Andrews
is gone, his legend lives on at the
Chateau La Roche. He left the castle
to the Knights of the Golden Trail
and they still care for the structure,
which is open to the public. You are
free to wander the halls of the castle,
touch the stones that Andrews himself
pulled from the Little Miami River,
and marvel at how one man turned his
dream into a reality.
The chateau is also said to be
haunted and the river is home to a
short, seldom seen, monster called the
Loveland Frog. For more information
on visiting this wonderful and unique
building, visit www.lovelandcastle.
com.

James A. Willis has been chasing after all things

strange and spooky for over 25 years and is
the co-author/contributing author of 10 books
on the subject, including Weird Ohio, Weird
Hauntings, and Weird, Scary & Unusual. For more information, visit James at www.ghostsofohio.org or
www.strangeandspooky.com.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 33

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

g A HAUNTING WE WILL GO

Surrency: A Haunting Town

by Charlie Carlson

Entire Town Haunted by Ghost of the Past

Surrency, Georgia is a rural town
on the railroad line along Highway
341, about 60 miles [96.6 km] west
of Brunswick. Theres an ordinary
sign welcoming your arrival, but for
decades it included something unusual
- a picture of a ghost. It was sort of like
the towns mascot. You might say the
whole town is haunted - that is, if you
believe all the stories.
People still see a ghost light on
the railroad tracks and an apparition
of a blonde - known locally as the
Blue Lady. According to a tale found
on the internet, a spirit of an Indian
warrior has been seen in one house
watching television. Then, as told
by one ghost hunting group, theres
an apparition of a woman in a bloody
dress seen drinking gasoline from a
pump at a local filling station, and a
ghost of a badly burned woman often
seen walking a dog late at night. Most
of these farfetched yarns may have
been spawned by something well-documented; something that really did
happen a long time ago in Surrency. It
was so strange and bizarre that it has
lingered through several generations,
up to present day inhabitants.
It all began back in 1872 at
the Allen P. Surrency home, which
also served as a boardinghouse for
travelers on the Macon & Brunswick
Railroad. Mrs. Surrency was sitting in
her bedroom sewing when she heard
a strange noise. There was nothing
unusual about it - until the washbasin
stand began jumping around. She put
down her sewing and watched as the
whole stand floated up, then flung
itself, with the water pitcher, across the
room shattering against the wall.
The haunting of the Surrency
house was one of the most extensive in
paranormal history. Log-size timbers
came out of nowhere and crashed

34 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

GHOST WELCOMED: Entering into Surrency, Georgia, you were once greeted by a sign showing the
towns pride in its haunted history.

through windows, while bricks rained

down inside and outside the home.
Windows and doors would constantly open and close, even when
securely latched, and the hands of
the clocks ran wild as if in another
dimension of time. With guests witnessing glassware, books, biscuits,
tables and chairs flying through the
air, a hallway mirror exploding, and
screams and demonic laughter heard
in the middle of the night, there was
never a dull moment at the Surrency
home. Overnight guests complained
it was hard to get any sleep between
the eerie, midnight howling and quilts

being snatched off their beds, which,

hopped up and down like rabbits.
Mrs. Surrencys fine table china
was eventually reduced to a sugar

bowl and a few saucers, the rest having

been busted into pieces by the resident
poltergeist - or whatever it was. One
variation has the family eating off tin
ware which, at worst, could only be
dented if propelled across the room
by a supernatural force. Some put the
blame on the Surrencys daughter, Clementine, proposing she was a medium
who was unconsciously causing evildoings in the house. Others suggested
Mr. Surrency possessed some kind
of occult powers. However, no one
offered evidence to support either
claim and, in many instances, when
things turned crazy, Mr. Surrency and
his daughter were not even in town.
However, it should be mentioned that
his daughter was present during most
occurrences.
The strange happenings were not
infrequent events. It was constant and
observed by hundreds of outsiders,
including reporters, mediums, and
ministers, all of whom found no
trickery involved. After making the
papers across the South, excursion
trains were soon bringing people from

A HAUNTING WE WILL GO g
all over Georgia, all wanting to see the
weirdness for themselves. Whether
factual or not, an old Savannah
newspaper article states a whopping
20,000 curiosity seekers visited
Surrency during its haunting heydays.
The most threatening of paranormal activities were the bricks and
large timbers that fell out of nowhere
or crashed through walls or windows.
Often the bricks were too hot to
touch and seemed to materialize as
if emerging from a portal to another
dimension. Maybe thats where the
sow hog came from that suddenly
appeared in the middle of the parlor,
mystifying a dozen house guests.
They followed the sow as it wandered
into another room and vanished into

thin air. On another occasion, while

guests were sitting at the large dinner
table, All hell broke loose, recalled
a gentleman quoted in an old 1901
news story. Windows flew open and
slammed shut, dishes flew off the table

- along with the biscuits, and ears of

corn dropped from the ceiling nearly
striking a lady holding an infant. We
can assume from this fellows account
that the dining room must have been
left in quite a paranormal mess.
In 1905, Ittie Reno, a reporter,
wrote a newspaper feature on the
Surrency haunting. She interviewed
Sam Surrency, a first class eyewitness,
and took some photographs of the old
house. When the film was developed,
she was shocked to see distinct images
of what appeared to be spirits. Photographic experts had no explanation
but agreed that no film flaws were responsible. On May 13, 1905, Mrs.
Renos photographs were printed in
the Nashville Banner.
Allen Surrencys death in 1877
seems to have put an end to the supernatural shenanigans. He is buried
in the local cemetery, which is easy to
find, being its on Cemetery Road. The
old house stood as a landmark of
curiosity until one Sunday morning in
1925, when it burned to the ground.
Some bystanders claimed to have seen
Allen Surrencys image in the rising
smoke. In recent times, a few folks
claim to have seen his ghost wandering
the tracks or walking Cemetery Road.
Some have always believed the
strange antics were caused by unusual
magnetics in the area, which was

claimed to have a physical effect on

people and things. More recently,
as if the town does not have enough
weirdness, the blame has been put on
another curiosity in Surrencys big bag
of strangeness.
Now, this is where science gets
into the act.
It seems this small Georgia town
is sitting on top of a bizarre geologic
anomaly called the Surrency Bright
Spot. Nine miles [14.5 km] below
the surface, where temperatures are
500 degrees Fahrenheit [260 c], a
team of geologists from Cornell University have discovered a huge convexshaped subterranean pool of water, or
some other fluid, or liquid gas, no one
knows for sure. One geologist is quoted
as saying, Its big, and weve never
seen anything like it before. Well,
get used to it, this is Surrency - where
sow hogs materialize in parlors. The
unusual geologic formation is called
a bright spot by scientists because
it was found to reflect sound waves.
When the strange discovery was made,
Surrencys mayor suggested it might
have something to do with the towns
haunting history. Who knows, but
something weird happened there, and
is still happening according to paranormal sleuths. Whatever it is, it has
certainly earned the town of Surrency
a claim in the world of weirdness.

Did You Know?

What the heck are Googols?
No, theyre not mythical creatures related to gargoyles; theyre actually related to
numbers, very supersize beyond belief numbers.
Can you imagine counting all the grains of sand on Daytona Beach and then expressing the sum in a number? Well, that isnt even big enough to qualify as a googol. Nor is
the sum of all the raindrops that fell in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina qualified
for googol status or all the words spoken in human history. It sounds hard to believe, but
a googol is a much larger number, at least a hundred billion billion, which is a one followed by a string of 100 zeros.
In 1938, mathematician, Edward Kasners nine year old nephew, Milton Sirotta,
coined the term, which was first written about in Kasners 1940 book, Mathematics and
the Imagination. A googol is a number that deals closer with infinity, like more than all
the atoms in the visible universe. If that isnt baffling enough, theres even a bigger number called a googolplex, a one followed by a billion billion zeros.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 35

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

The Ufology files

Strange Formation Over

Cocoa, Florida.

CHARLIE CARLSON LOOKS INTO A SIGHTING OF NINE UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS THAT APPEARED
OVER COCOA, FLORIDA.
Florida ranks about third in the
country for UFO sightings. Maybe its
because the peninsula state sticks out
like a sore-thumb and can be seen from
the far reaches of space. More likely, it is
because NASA is always shooting missiles into the galactic neighborhood.
Thats a good way to get some extraterrestrial attention. If thats the case,
then one might expect to see something strange in the skies over Cocoa,
Florida, a neighboring city to the
Kennedy Space Center. This is what
happened on the afternoon of January
10, 2009, when a dozen witnesses observed nine unidentified objects flying
in what appeared to be, some kind of
formation.
I was alerted to this sighting by
one of the witnesses, Jack Proctor, with
whom I had served many years in the
army. Far from being a UFO buff, Jack
is a retired army warrant officer and a
keen observer. Actually, Jack was a bit
doubtful about reports of aerial phenomena until seeing the unidentified
oval-shaped objects over Cocoa. I like
folks who are skeptical because, in my
opinion, when they report something
strange, it carries more credibility than
coming from those who believe every
bump in the night is a ghost, or every
light in the sky is a UFO.
It was about 4:30 in the afternoon
and Proctor was doing some yard work
when he heard the sound of a Chinook
helicopter. Being a retired army officer
you never forget such sounds and naturally look up to check out the vehicle.
But when he looked up, he saw more
than just a Chinook. At a much higher
altitude, above the helicopter, Jack ob-

36 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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The Ufology files a

served nine oval-shaped objects flying
in a strange pattern on a northeast
course toward Kennedy Space Center.
I first observed four white objects
in a rectangular configuration, said
Jack. At that time, my neighbor and
his wife were walking by, so I called
their attention to the objects. I then
ran inside the house to get my binoculars. When I looked through the binoculars, I could see that the objects were
many beautiful colors that seemed to
expand or contract...or flow into each
other. He described the colors as red,
orange, green, raspberry, and various
shades of blue, the brilliancy of which
seemed to be a pleasant experience for
the observer.
As Jack passed his binoculars to
his neighbor, three more objects came
into view. These were in a straight line,
running east to west, but traveling in
the same northeast direction as the
first four objects. Through the binoculars, the objects seem to emit the same
brilliant colors and appeared translucent like jellyfish.
Trailing behind these were two
more objects, one behind the other.
Jack described them as, Traveling in
the same direction, but the lead one
seemed to slow down and the one
behind it seemed to touch or bump

'The beautiful
colors gave us an
uplifting feeling'
it. The lead one, when touched by the
one behind it, would turn the most
beautiful blue that I cannot fully describe. Almost like Caribbean blue,
but more vibrant. He said that none
of the nine objects moved very fast or
made any turns. They appeared to be
as high as our commercial aircraft fly,
but these things left no contrails. The
sky was clear and blue, and they were
not any kind of conventional aircraft
or balloons.
At least a dozen people, including a pastor, watched the objects for

about 15 minutes. We were all very

excited seeing these things because the
beautiful colors gave us an uplifting
feeling.
The local media issued no reports
about the sighting. When Jack was
asked if he thought the Chinook helicopter had any connection with the
objects, he said, No, not at all. The
Chinook was much too low and flying
in the opposite direction and most
likely unaware of what was above it.
A report of the nine Cocoa UFOs
was filed with the National UFO Reporting Center. On January 28, 2009,
Jack Proctor and I joined UFO expert,
Stanton Friedman, in a discussion
about the sighting on Pangeas World
of Weird radio talk show. During the
show a caller claimed to have had a
similar sighting in the interior part of
the state. Since then, two people have
come forward with similar sightings,
but not the same number of objects.
Of those who had seen the
objects, at least three described them
as having a jellyfish appearance. Its
not the first time people have described UFOs as looking like jellyfish. In early May, 2009, seven people
in the UK reported jellyfish craft over

the towns of Lichfield and Burntwod[1]. The same thing was reported
in Shanghai in 2007[2] and in Petrozavodsk, Russia in 1977[3]. But according to meteorologists those sightings
turned out to be rare cloud formations
known as Altocumulus Castellanus,
beneath which appear to be tentacles. This does not fit the descriptions
of the Cocoa objects, which were oval
with no cloud appendages underneath.
The nine objects over Cocoa behaved
in a manner that would suggest intelligent control. They could not be identified as any known aircraft or weather
balloons, and weather conditions were
not conducive for meteorological phenomena. As to the objects proximity to
the Kennedy Space Center, well, once
again, we are left to speculate about a
lot of possibilities.

Notes
1. http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlandsnews/2009/05/09/jellyfish-style-ufo-s-spotted-in-lichfieldstaffordshire-66331-23584284/ - Accessed 9/17/2009
2. http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/list.
asp?id=26&type=Metro&page=10 - Accessed 9/17/09
3. Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas September 23,
1977 Soviet Press Reports UFO

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 37

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i Crypto Safari
Hellhounds on the Prowl
Black Phantom Dogs, Past and Present

In late 1991, up to a dozen people

around Elkhorn, Wisconsin claimed
to have seen an unknown canine that
walked and ran upright. I dubbed it
the Beast of Bray Road for a local
newspaper and since then people have
been telling me about their own encounters with similar beings. Most
reports match descriptions of a large
wolf or German shepherd gone
bipedal, and describe nothing more
unnatural than the animals upright
stance and weird behavior. Even its
eyes reflect yellow or yellow-green as
would the eyes of any timber wolf.
Over the years, however, a small,
but growing, percentage of reported
incidents have told of strange canines
that look and behave in ways even
harder to reconcile with our notions
of accepted reality. Witnesses say
huge, dark-colored dogs or wolves often with glowing red eyes - appear
suddenly in houses or send telepathic messages from a roadside ditch.
These entities sound like neither the
Beast of Bray Road nor stereotypical werewolves. What they most
resemble in appearance and action are
traditional hellhounds.
These ruby-eyed, phantom black
dogs (occasionally white or gray) associated with death, demons, and
doom, date from ancient times and
appear in many civilizations; a good
example is Garm, the vast and bloodspattered guardian of hell in Norse
mythology. The role of black dogs as
psychopomps (guides or guardians
of the dead) is a feature of British
folklore where mongrel apparitions
are known by many names including
Black Shuck and Gyrtrash. Historic

38 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Linda S. Godfrey

RUBY-EYED, PHANTOM BLACK DOGS HAVE BEEN REPORTED SINCE ANCIENT TIMES
BEING ASSOCIATED WITH DEATH, DEMONS AND DOOM. THE WEREWOLF LADY, LINDA
S. GODFREY, LOOKS INTO THESE TERRIFYING ACCOUNTS.

HUGE, DARK-COLORED
DOGS OR WOLVES APPEAR
SUDDENLY IN HOUSES
OR SEND TELEPATHIC
"MESSAGES"
Old World accounts of hellhounds
often place them at ancient crossroads, graveyards, churches, and
other places with spiritual significance. Reports from contemporary
witnesses, however, suggest that the
same creatures may have also existed
in the Americas from pre-Columbian
times to the present.
Since the late 1800s, crews of
Great Lakes schooners and ships have
kept watch for the Black Dog of Lake
Erie, a shaggy, phantom Newfoundland whose appearance on the deck
of a ship means imminent disaster.
The beast with the crimson stare was
popularly held responsible for the
sinking of several lake vessels in the
1880s. It always made its getaway
over the sides of the doomed ships,
sometimes before they even left port.

Closer to the present, a river

island near the tiny burg of Caryville
in Dunn County, Wisconsin, is reportedly guarded by a pack of black dogs
with glowing red eyes, as is an island
in Okauchee Lake near Oconomowoc in the same state. The Caryville
hounds are part of a local legend that
includes an allegedly haunted schoolhouse, church, and cemetery, while
former residents of Okauchee Lake
have reported similar creatures in
their area. In both cases the hounds
act as hellish watchdogs.
They also still appear as either
guides or warnings in times of peril.
The book Mythical Creatures shares
the story of a California man who has
had three experiences with red-eyed,
black, phantom dogs appearing
suddenly at his living room window
or at his side[1]. Each occurred before,
or just as, he suffered a life-threatening illness or injury.
Black dogs and churches are an
unexpected but universal pairing.
From a famous incident in Suffolk,
England in 1557 when a phantom
hound terrified worshippers during
Sunday service, up to a very recent
flap in July, 2009, in Muskogee,
Oklahoma. On a rural highway, a man
and his fiance saw a black or dark
gray wolf keeping pace with their
car along the tree line of a nearby
wooded area. They lost sight of the
animal for a few moments, but as they
approached a small country church
with a road sign that stood 15 feet
[4.5 m] high, they were shocked to
see the animal somehow perched atop
the sign. That was not the first time
the creature had been sighted in the

Linda S. Godfrey

Crypto Safari i

vicinity.
A few months earlier, in March,
two female relatives of the same man

saw a black canine with red glowing

eyes in almost the same spot, and said
they felt that it was somehow sending
them a mental message to slow down
and stop. The driver almost did, but
the passenger frantically urged her
to keep the car moving as the creatures eyes glittered at them from the
roadside.
Witnesses in at least a half a dozen
unrelated incidents have reported
this sort of telepathic interference
during unknown canid sightings. The
sensation, whether real or imagined,
usually leaves the witness frightened
and traumatized.
Explanations of the hellhound
phenomenon include: mass hallucination, earth spirits, and grave guardians
left by Native American medicine
men. Author Paul Deveraux has speculated in Haunted Land that the sacred
sites visited by similar enigmas may be

centered over geomagnetic anomalies

whose ambient magnetic field could
stimulate the human brain into seeing
certain primal images such as lights or
animal figures[2].
Some cases are undoubtedly
sightings of natural animals obscured
by light or atmosphere to appear
ghostly or unusual; a few may be
nothing more than tall tales. There
are enough unexplained incidents,
however, to keep investigators busy
for as long as people keep seeing fourlegged portents of doom.
Notes
1. Mythical Creatures; Mysteries, Legends and Unexplained Phenomena by Linda S. Godfrey, Chelsea
House Publishers, 2009.
2. Haunted Land; Investigations into Ancient Mysteries and Modern Day Phenomena by Paul Devereaux,
Piatkus Books, 2001.

Linda S. Godfrey is an investigator and author of books on strange creatures and phenomena and other oddities including Strange Wisconsin, a bronze medal winner in the
2008 Independent Publishers Awards. She is a frequent guest of national radio and TV shows, most recently Fox News Sean Hannity, Monster Quests American Werewolf
episode, and the Coast to Coast AM radio show. Follow new sighting reports at http://twitter.com/lindagodfrey and visit www.beastofbrayroad.com and
www.weirdmichigan.com.

Did You Know?

Rancho Cookie-Monga
Remember the Ponderosa? If so, then you know it was Ben Cartwrights ranch on the old western TV series, Bonanza, which was named
for all the ponderosa pines growing on it. Did you know it smelled like
cookies?
At certain stages of their growth, ponderosa pines emit a vanilla or
butterscotch smell, like baking cookies.
Scientists still do not know a lot about the ponderosa pine, like why
their bark changes from black to yellow when they are 110 to 120 years
old, or why they might smell like butterscotch when you sniff the bark.
In the old days, the difference between the older and younger trees was
so great that loggers thought they were different species. The older ones
were called yellow pines and the younger ones, blackjack pines. What is
really strange is their sweet bakery smell. While one person may detect
a vanilla-like aroma, others will say its more like coconut or cinnamon. Science hasnt quite figured out why a closely sniffed ponderosa
smells like cookies, but one theory is that a chemical in the sap is being
warmed by the sun.
A second, less scientific theory, involves Keebler elves....

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 39

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Unseen Forces

The Devil's Divot

DID SATAN TEE OFF IN UPSTATE NEW YORK? ROBERT DAMON SCHNECK HITS THE COURSE TO FIND
OUT MORE ABOUT THIS UNUSUAL PHENOMENON.
In March 1920, John Webber
found a hole in the ground while inspecting a drain at his farm outside
South Byron, New York. Most holes
are not particularly interesting, but this
one was unusual enough for a detailed
description to appear on the front page
of the March 29, 1920, Batavia Daily
the following week.
[H]e discovered that a section
of the luxuriantly growing wheat field
about 13 or 14 feet [3.9 - 4.2 m]
across and nearly circular in shape,
of a depth of 16 inches [40.6
cm] on the west and 20 inches
[50.8 cm] on the east, had
been picked up and carried
to the east about nine feet,
the most of it being deposited unbroken on the
growing wheat, although
a portion had dropped into
the hole.
This moved soil has its
drills of growing wheat the
same as the field, although
the rows of wheat are not quite
parallel with those of the field. A
section of the moved earth about 2
X 6 feet [.6 X 1.8 m] broke off and
was left near the center of the hole and
the drills of growing wheat show that
part to have been turned nearly onefourth around, as the rows of wheat
run northwest and southeast.
A chunk of dirt, perhaps as large as
a peck measure, was carried 15 feet to
the northeast and other small chunks
of earth were carried northeast 75 to
80 feet [22.8 to 24.3 m]. The earth
moved was taken down to hard pan.
The field is nearly level with a slight fall
to the east. When this uplift and carry

40 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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to the east occurred is all speculation,

but from the fact the wheat growing
on it is as large as the rest of the field
it did not happen before winter set in
and the present appearance does not
show it to be recent. The transferred
and almost unbroken section of surface
is estimated to weigh ten tons.

This was not the first oddity to

appear in the area. Strange and unexpected things have happened to
the surface of old mother earth in
Western New York the past year. Two
of these have been in Byron, the first
last autumn, when a round hole thirty
feet deep was found on the Dillingham
farm west of Byron. The farmers

find, however, could not be accounted for by the action of underground

running water carrying away softer
formations. And, while many people
saw it, none could offer a theory or
guess as to its cause.

Theories and Guesses

Was a tornado responsible? They
seldom appear in Genesee County[1],
yet there are similarities between
the newspapers description and
a pasture damaged by twisters
in 1964 (see sidebar). In that
case the surface was torn and
scattered, not pulled up in a
single piece that left plants
undisturbed; if a tornado
created the hole at South
Byron, it had exceptional
finesse. Or was the story a
hoax?
In 1868, a statue of a
giant was buried on a farm
in upstate New York and unearthed a year later. The creators pitched a tent over it and
charged admission to see what
many believed was the petrified
remains of a ten-foot tall man; possibly an Indian or one of the nephilim,
monstrous offspring of women and
angels, mentioned in Genesis. Unlike
the Cardiff Giant, however, there is
no evidence that Mr. Webber exploited
his discovery in any way. A newspaper
hoax is also possible, but the 1922 Genessee County Rural Directory confirms
that John Webber was a real person
living where and when the article
claims[2] and if the story was invented, it was presumably done with the
farmers complicity and for no appar-

Unseen Forces
Topsy-Turfy
Tornadoes do remarkable things. They drive cornstalks through planks and drop farmhouses on witches, but
could they produce a devils divot?
On April 5, 1964, a small tornado touched down
in a pasture outside Marion, Mississippi. It destroyed a
pine tree, then:
As the tornado, apparently still above the surface
of the ground, moved toward the northeast from the
tree, it pulled the sod up, and exerted such force that
huge cracks were forced open in the sod in an area
about 10 ft. [3.05 m] in diameter. These cracks were
all semicircular in shape. The tornado then moved
uphill and reached the surface about 50 ft. [15.24 m]
to the northeast. The force of the small vortex ripped
huge chunks of soil and grass down to a depth of
about 8 in. [20.3 cm] in an area 20 ft. [6.10 m] wide
and 50 ft. long. Upon first examination, it was thought
that this area was ripped up by a tree top, but this was
ruled out by the smooth appearance of the bottom of
the hole. It appears that the soil was pulled out down
to the clay depth which resisted the suction more than
Monthly Weather Review
the topsoil. Huge chunks of this soil were thrown in all
directions around the hole for a distance of about 100 ft. [30.48 m]
While this storm was of minor significance, insofar as property damage was concerned, we felt that it was
unusual in the type of damage. We had not heard of one ripping the ground up in this manner.
C.R. Gray, Ground Damage by Tornado: Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 92, No. 10 (October 1964).
The accompanying photographs show a ravaged
patch of ground with lumps of earth lying in every
direction. It has little in common with the hole at
John Webbers farm apart from topsoil being removed
down to clay, yet the semicircular cracks raise another
possibility. If the tornado stayed in one spot, could
a number of semicircular cracks join together into
a continuous circular fissure? If that happened, the
wind could have lifted and then moved it, dropping
pieces along the way. The Batavia Daily observed that,
the present appearance [of the South Byron hole]
does not show it to be recent, which means smaller
scattered pieces of earth had time to be worn away by
rain and wind.

Monthly Weather Review

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 41

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Unseen Forces
ent reason. In fact there is nothing in
the Batavia Dailys account that raises
suspicions beyond the strangeness of
what was found.
Another possibility, though not
an explanation, is the paranormal.
A modern writer might describe the
hole as a sort of crop circle, yet complicated swirls of barley are much easier
to explain than tons of wandering
topsoil. The writers in 1920 touched
on the paranormal in a simile, Big
Chunk of Soil is Like Ouija Board[3],
or for comic effect; South Byron
Genii Carry Section of a Wheat Field
Through Air to a New Spot[4] and

while geniis might sound farfetched,

it raises an interesting point: natural
oddities have long been attributed to
preternatural beings.
In Great Britain countless places
are identified with fairies and giants,
while Americans seem more inclined
to name peculiar spots after Satan. The
map of the United States is peppered
with so many Devils Lakes, Devils
Mountains and Canyon Diablos (as
well as landmarks like Wyomings
Devils Tower,) that fortean author-researcher Loren Coleman has recorded, over one hundred and twenty-five places with devil names and
concedes that his list is just the tip of

the pitchfork.[5] Old Scratch is closely

connected to quirky topography and
hes known to play golf[6], which suggests another explanation for the South
Byron enigma: Mr. Webber found one
of the Devils divots.

Devils Divots
Strange-but-true literature contains many examples of large, spontaneously appearing, circles, including
sheep circles[7], spinning ice disks[8],
and fairy rings[9]. They are impressive
looking, and seem inexplicable, but are
the products of ordinary natural processes and without evidence to the contrary it
is reasonable to assume
the same about devils
divots. Were divots more
common[10], though, the
combination of soil, circle,
and mound, elements
found in sacred structures
throughout the world,
would doubtless give them
a place in the modern folklore of earth energies and
ley lines, as well as UFOs.
There might even be occasional sightings of a mysterious nocturnal golfer
swinging a red-hot 9-iron.

H
Notes

3. Batavia Daily, 29 March 1920.

4. Kingsport (TN) Times, 27 April 1920.

1. Genesee County historical area-adjusted tornado activity is

significantly below New York state average. It is 7.5 times below
overall U.S. average. On 9/3/1993, a category 1 (max. wind
speeds 73-112 mph [117.4-180.2 kph]) tornado killed 2 people
and caused between $50,000 and $500,000 in damages.
http://www.city-data.com/county/Genesee_County-NY.html.
Accessed 5/20/09.
2. The directory states that John Webber was retired, that his
wifes name was Jennie, and he owned 96 acres, a horse, two
cows, and a telephone.

42 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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5. Loren Coleman: Mysterious America (Faber and Faber, Winchester MA, 1983), p 24.
6. The Devils Golf Course can be found at Californias Death
Valley National Park.
7. Sheep circles are an odd but well-documented phenomenon in
which sheep arrange themselves at regularly spaced intervals and
form a large hollow circle.
8. Large discs of slowly spinning ice are sometimes found on the
surface of otherwise frozen streams.

9. Dozens of species of mushrooms form large hollow circles

as they grow. They are traditionally believed to be places where
witches and fairies dance.
10. A smaller devils divot was discovered in Washington State in
1984 and several have occurred in Norway, including at least one
rectangular example. Researcher William Corliss calls it the cookie-cutter phenomenon.
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf062/sf062g09.htm. Accessed
6/27/09.
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf060/sf060p12.htm. Accessed
6/27/09.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 43

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| behind the shadows

Monolith on Phobos
CONSPIRACY RESEARCHER, OLAV PHILLIPS, EXAMINES THE RECENT STATEMENT BY BUZZ ALDRIN
CLAIMING THERE IS A MONOLITH ON MARS MOON, PHOBOS
unusual structure on this little potato
shaped object that goes around Mars
once in seven hours. When people
find out about that, theyre going to
say Who put that there? Well, the
universe put it there. If you choose,
God put it there.
This is the news and vindication
Richard Hoagland has been waiting
for since the much contested Viking
image of the Face on Mars from
1979.
Aldrin hesitated issuing his the
universe put it there statement, which

is also very suggestive. The sense I had,

as a viewer, was that he certainly knew
it was there, how it was put there, and
why. He was challenging us to go
find the information and make a stink
about it.
What Aldrin said is interesting enough, but what happened afterwards is far more telling and the
reason I bought his book. After
hearing this profound announcement
about unknown Martian structures,
the interviewer, who was a little put
off but tried to play through, picked
up a photo, obviously prepared for the

On the Moon: Buzz Aldrin is the second man to walk on the Moon and has a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame. He also has a crater and asteroid named after him.

We should go boldly where man

has not gone before fly by the comets,
visit asteroids, visit the moon of Mars.
Theres a monolith there. A very
[1] In 1989, someone calling themselves Gaurdian, contacted Bob Oescheler to inform him of a UFO landing just west of Ottawa, Canada. Then, in 1992, the Guardian sent Oescheler a 30 minute video tape
of the alleged landing. It consisted of six minutes of video footage showing strange lights, movements of aliens around the craft, and an image of an alien face. The remaining 24 minutes were still shots.
[2] Code name of an alleged top secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by executive order of U.S. President Harry S Truman. The purpose of the
committee was to investigate UFOs. In 1984, a group of documents begin emerging that outlined when the committee was formed, what their purpose was, and member identities.

44 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

NASA

Ufology is a dangerous business.

Beyond the threat to personal safety
posed by getting too close to certain
information, you simply cannot verify
where much of this information is
coming from. Consider Majestic
12[1] or Guardian. Ufologists have
argued about the validity of the MJ-12
documents since 1989, and 20 years
later, are still divided on the subject.
In the case of the Guardian[2]
incident, Bob Oescheler, a seasoned
UFO researcher, was given what
appeared to be a leaked video of
a flying saucer landing in Ottawa,
Canada. The film turned out to be a
hoax and destroyed Oeschelers credibility, leading to his departure from the
field. This is just one example of how
reputations, and sometimes lives, are
destroyed in ufology.
So what does this have to do
with Buzz Aldrins recent statement
about the monolith on Marss
moon, Phobos? Everything! Aldrins
statement should be taken at face value,
but in the fractionalized and bitterly
divided ufology, it will be examined to
within an inch of its life. In the coming
months more people will learn about
what he said, why we should believe it,
and in a larger context, what it means.
On July 19th, 2009, Aldrin was
being interviewed on C-SPAN about
his new book, Magnificent Desolation,
when he stated that there are indeed
artifacts and/or anomalous structures
present in our solar system.

behind the shadows |

interview, and asked if it showed any
of the objects in question. Aldrins
response was no, saying that the photo
they were looking for was on the next
page. The interviewer then makes the
critical choice to avoid the subject for
the remaining ten minutes, veering
back into safer topics such as Aldrins
dissertation on satellite docking and
concluding with a very nice conversation about his service in the United
States Air Force.
Im not sure if the interviewer
stopped the line of questioning about
the monolith because he was personally uncomfortable, given a signal, or
became concerned it was a dangerous
subject. More importantly, was Aldrins
demeanor during the statement. It can
only be described as controlled excitement and a little strange to watch. He
leaned forward, engaged, and eager to
talk about it.

Finally, we should take a serious

look at where its coming from. When
talking about Buzz Aldrin releasing this
information, its not because he walked
on the moon; were talking about a
man who, for 40 years, patently denied
the existence of anything anomalous in
space. In fact, he once punched Bart
Sibrel, the Producer of A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Moon,
when asked if the Moon landing was
hoaxed. Given that kind of history,
its interesting that Aldrin is talking
about anomalous structures anywhere,
let alone on a potato-shaped moon
orbiting Mars.
This parallels J. Allen Hynek,
the scientist assigned to Project Blue
Book[3], and his conversion from disinformation master to true believer.
Hynek was a government sponsored
explanation machine for all aerial
phenomena that later came out to the
public saying, Wait a second guys.

These are real. This was Aldrins

moment of truth, 40 years in the
making, and a crack in the veneer of
government secrecy.
So, where do we go from
here? Photos of Phobos need to be
examined to try and figure out what
exactly Aldrin was talking about and
we should monitor his speeches for
further revelations.
This is the first time a person of
this stature has confirmed the existence
of extraterrestrial artifacts. Aldrin is a
national hero, the face of the Apollo
program, a scientist and veteran; he is
the right person to make the idea of
artificial structures on the Moon and
Mars acceptable. When that happens,
things like the Disclosure Project[4] will
get the attention they deserve. We need
Aldrins status, history, and no BS
personality delivering the message:
things are not as they seem.

Spuds in Space: Phobos is described as being potato-shaped and orbits Mars once every
seven hours.

So, why should we believe it and

not discount it as disinformation?
First, the event took place on
C-SPAN. Whether you like or hate
C-SPAN, its still C-SPAN and is
usually as exciting as watching paint
dry. Its not a medium for the wide
distribution of information.
Secondly, Aldrin seemed genuinely
engaged. You could sense the excitement as you watched him mention it.
He was a little hesitant at first which
was followed by a slight pause as if hes
thinking Should I really mention this?
Sure, why not. It all seems to add
credibility to the idea that he is telling
the truth. If this were indeed disinformation, the interviewer would have
been duty bound to let him continue.
Buzz Aldrins confession was quickly
shut down.
[3] Formed in 1993 by Dr. Steven Greer, the Disclosure Project has called for the disclosure of UFO/Extraterrestrial presence on and around Earth. It has collected testimony, government documents, photographs,
and more in regards to alien visitation.
[4] Formed in 1952, Project Blue Book was a study on UFOs conducted by the USAF. The project was terminated in December of 1969.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 45

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!       
    
     
      
 

  
    

  
         
        
 

!     
  

   

 
"
#  

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 51

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Attack of the Astro Zombies

Richard Lester sat down with horror film icon, Ted V. Mikels, to look back at his
career and the creation of Astro Zombies.

Ted Mikels has been making

movies for more than 60 years. At age
80, the horror film icon shows no plans
of retiring any time soon. I may slow
down, however, at age 104, Mikels
chuckles during an exclusive interview
with Mysteries.
In 1920, German director Robert
Wiene filmed The Cabinet of Dr
Caligari, and cast actor Conrad Veidt
in the role of the zombie. Veidt had no

idea that he was about to make motion

picture history by becoming the first
person to portray a named zombie on
film.
Thirty-five years later, Hollywood
stuntman Ted Mikels had no idea that
he too would be creating trend-setting
zombies. Ted was too busy storming
a fort defended by Kirk Douglas in
The Indian Fighter. I shot most of the
flaming arrows in that picture, recalls

Ted.
In one scene, I was shooting
flaming arrows from a bareback horse
at the fort. Being left-handed, I swung
my horse around to the left to shoot,
and had no idea the director had sent
another group of Indians galloping
up on my left. I spun right into them,
went flying, and hit the ground with
running horse hooves all around me.
The shot is still visible in the movie.

Photo courtesy of TVM Studios

BOBBLE ZOMBIES: Astro Zombies creator, Ted Mikels, proudly displays bobblehead toys of his demented creature.

52 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Photo courtesy of TVM Studios

Four years later, Ed Wood, known

as Hollywoods cheapest filmmaker,
turned out Plan 9 from Outer Space,
complete with a cast composed of
neighbors, his girlfriend, and his
dentist. Despite cardboard tombstones that fell over during graveyard
scenes, Wood successfully introduced
actress Maila Nurmi (Vampira) to film
audiences, creating a cult horror classic
which still attracts audiences 50 years
later.
About this time, zombies were
also on Ted Mikels mind.
I do know that I created my
astro zombies in 1960. I had never
heard of such a being, but I gave my
new super-human beings the name that
has become synonymous with mine. I
know of no zombie movies filmed in
color before that. Mine were to be the
super-humans sent into early space exploration. Wayne Rodgers (co-producer) talked me into making it campy.
Lack of financing delayed Teds
project for nine years, however, it
allowed George Romero to bring his
zombies to the screen first. In his film
Night of the Living Dead, seven people
attempt to survive the night in a rural
Pennsylvania farmhouse, as legions of
the undead drop by.
By this time, Ted Mikels was no
longer shooting flaming arrows and
accidentally falling off horses; he was
a Hollywood producer and director.
He knew it was his turn to offer up
something creepy and undead for the
horror fans, and he finally had the
financing to do it.
In 1969, Astro Zombies appeared
on drive-in and movie theater screens
for all to experience. Audiences were
treated to 91 minutes of zombies intermixed, in an off the wall way, with
foreign spies, CIA agents, beautiful
women, and a mad scientist all in full
color!

FAN OF THE FANS: Producer/Director Ted Mikels greets fans at a showing of The Corpse Grinders.

Of his $37,000 budget, Ted used

$3,000 to attract John Carradine for
the starring role.
He was an absolute joy to
have on the set, recalls Ted. It was
indeed my pleasure to work with John
Carradine, as we had been involved in
four projects together. We bonded well.
He asked me while we were shooting
Astro Zombies if I had any parts for his
son, as he wished to get into making
movies.
Ted didnt have a part for Carradines son, but did hire aging screen
legend Wendell Corey as Carradines

co-star.
According to Mikels, Wendell
Corey was so very professional working
on the shoot. Ten years earlier, I had
unknowingly filmed him standing by
his marlin catch in Mazatlan, Mexico,
so we had a lot to talk about. Both Mr.
Carradine and Mr. Corey were totally
professional, knowing their lines in
detail before appearing on my set.
Interestingly,
one
future
Hollywood celebrity had his Astro
Zombies scene end up on the cutting
room floor. Actor Peter Falk is remembered by television fans as the rumpled

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 53

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Ted Mikels: Before Zombies

Photo courtesy of TVM Studios

detective, Columbo, but his humor

was too much for the zombie world.
Peter Falk was so funny; I
had to cut him out of the movie,
Mikels explained. His natural humor
brought an element into the scene that
was supposed to be very serious, so I
couldnt use his footage. You would
laugh when you were supposed to
be alarmed, and that did not work.
Also, I did not have the time to totally
explain the scenario to him. So to be
fair, it was not his fault.
Looking back over 40 years of
making horror films, Ted Mikels
concludes, I guess there are Astro

54 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Before introducing film fans to Astro Zombies and

becoming a cult movie icon, Ted V. Mikels worked
as a magician along side Leon Mandrake.
Mikels also acted as the carnival barker for
Sealo, The Seal Boy. In 1972, performers with
Ward Halls show came under attack from politically correct reformers who cited a 1921 Florida
law that banned the exhibition of the handicapped. Sealo, along with others, sued the state
to have the law overturned. It was eventually
repealed. - Richard Lester
Zombies fans everywhere in the world,
and no-one has attempted to participate in my realm of these monster
killing machines. Im appreciative
of that. Everyone has gory, bloody
zombies, but no-one except Ted V.
Mikels has Astro Zombies
Mikels is currently working on his
latest movie featuring astro zombies,

Astro Zombies M3: Cloned, where the

escaped mutants will rampage near
the mysterious Area 51. The film is
expected to be released sometime in
2010. Visit www.tedvmikels.com for
more information.

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 55

Graphic Design/Photography by Gary Lester, Courtesy of TVM Studios

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

L In The Field
Welcome to Mysteries newest feature, in which we turn the spotlight onto groups that
are actively engaged in investigating the anomalous and unexplained. We begin with
Owen Sliter of Spookhunters of Orlando, Florida. In addition to founding and leading
a ghost-hunting group, Owen is unusual in that he is a skeptic who doubts that ghosts
even exist.
Mysteries: How did Spookhunters get
started?

Mysteries:
Theres
one
thing thats unique about the
Spookhunters. Its the fact that youre
skeptical about ghosts and your
members all believe in ghosts. What is
a skeptic doing leading a ghost hunting
group?
Spookhunter Owen: Sure, Im a
skeptic. I think everyone is a skeptic
to some degree. There are no true
believers out there. Youre only a true
believer if youre dead because only then
will you know the truth. So I say we
are all skeptics, just some of us want to
believe a little more than the rest. But,
I want to make it clear, I am not out
to debunk anything or anyone. Being
a skeptic and debunking something
are two different things.
I just dont believe in
ghosts. That doesnt mean
that I am not intrigued
by peoples alleged encounters. I just need more
proof. When it comes right
down to it, I wish ghosts

56 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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Photo courtesy of Spookhunters

Spookhunter Owen: Three of us

used to work together for the same
company and while on a job in Arizona
we decided to take a side trip to the
Grand Canyon and stay at an allegedly
haunted hotel called the El Tovar
on the southern rim of the canyon.
Needless to say, we didnt have any
ghostly experiences but we met a lot of
people there and heard a lot of personal
stories from them. That sort of hooked
us and after that adventure it was hard
to stop, so we formed our team.

I really find it difficult to believe that something made of

cardboard and plastic can be an opening to some evil dimension.
were real! I think it would be great if
we could come back after we die and
finish up a few things. It would really
take the pressure off life.
Mysteries: Since some of your
members are believers, does being a
skeptic create any problems with your
investigative team?
Spookhunter Owen: Not really. Its
like a Yin Yang type relationship. Its
all about balance. When they see a
shadow, I see a shadow. When they
see a spirit, I still see a shadow. I think
it makes the believers in our group try
even harder to find something substantial to prove me wrong.
Mysteries: It seems that the
Spookhunters have investigated some
really difficult places to get into, like

Kennedy Space Center and the Castillo

de San Marcos in St. Augustine,
Florida. Did your team find any
evidence at these places that would
convince you, as a skeptic, of possible
paranormal activity?
Spookhunter Owen: While I didnt
experience anything personally, we
spent the night in the Castillo de San
Marcos and it was very active as far as
beeps and spikes on EMF detectors
and orbs caught by our digital photographic equipment. There were lots of
orbs that night. I must bring up the
fact that it was raining off and on that
night with a beautiful lightning storm
all around on the horizons. Of course
this definitely added to the mood
if nothing else. One Spookhunter
member, Eddie, actually followed an
EMF anomaly up a flight of stairs and

In The Field L
around a corner. Karen, another team
member detected the aroma of what
we decided was perfume. Interestingly,
the sweet aroma supported an age old
legend about a woman that was sealed
up behind a wall with her lover back
during the Spanish period. The ghost
story claims her perfume can still be
smelled in the old fort. Okay, Ill admit
that there was a smell, but at the same
time there is no proof it had anything
to do with spirits.
Mysteries: In researching your group, it
appears that other groups have tried
capitalizing on the Spookhunter name,
or is that just a coincidence?
Spookhunter Owen: When you get
good at something or your name gets
out there, people try to copy what
you do. No one will ever be able to

moonwalk like Michael Jackson, and

with my team, Damon, Randy, and
all the rest, no one will ever be able
to replace the unique mixture of minds
in our Spookhunters group, not to
mention the humor. You might say we
ignored political correctness in coming
up with the name Spookhunters. Its
an entertaining title for a bunch of
goofballs who are out trying to catch
a ghost, yet we are serious about
what we do. But unlike many such
groups, we dont get wrapped up in
the serious stuff; we still take time to
laugh. We even sell ghost repellent on
our webstore. Recently, I received a
fan letter from a mom out west, with
a picture of her son and his friend
sitting on a bail of hay wearing their
Spookhunters T-shirts and holding a
can of our ghost repellent. Thats what
we do, chase ghosts and keep people

smiling. Thats called living lifethen

I guess you die and become an orb.
Mysteries: What is your opinion of
orbs?
Spookhunter Owen: You asked for it.
Orbs are dust, moisture, bugs, reflections of internal camera parts on the
inside of the lens, malfunctions in the
digital photographic processes. I mean
- you name it - the list goes on. Orbs
are a cool thing to speculate and talk
about, but theyre nothing paranormal. Now Ill probably get hate mail
from orb believers.
Mysteries: What are some of the tools
used by Spookhunter investigators?
Spookhunter Owen: We do not discriminate. Well use anything. If you

Castillo de San Marcos: Spanish fort located in St. Augustine, Florida. San Marcos is constructed of a stone called coquina, literally little shells. These
ancient shells were bonded together to form a stone similiar to limestone. It was known as Fort Marion from 1821 until 1942, and Fort St. Mark from
1763 until 1784 while under British control.

National Park Service

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 57

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L In The Field
have a tool that you think will cause a
ghost to show up, I encourage you to
use it! From EMF detectors, to Ouija
boards and EVP recorders, weve used
them all and the world hasnt ended...
yet. And I havent seen a ghost either.
Mysteries: You mentioned using
Ouija boards. Some people believe
Ouija boards can attract dark forces
or something evil. Has your team ever
had a negative experience with Ouija
use?
Spookhunter Owen: Like I said
to the previous question, well try
anything. As for Ouija boards - weve
had no bad experiences. But let me say
this, I really find it difficult to believe
that something made of cardboard and
plastic - a toy that can be purchased for
$10.95 - can be an opening to some
evil dimension. If thats the case, then
why are toy stores selling Ouija boards
to kids? Shouldnt there be a warning?
Hey, maybe I can sue the toy manufacturer if a demon comes out and gets
me.

Mysteries: What do you think about

the ghost hunting reality shows on
television?
Spookhunter Owen:
Ive been
approached by a couple different
companies out of L.A. to do a ghost
show, either of my own or for me
to host one, but Ill be honest, I just
want to see a ghost. Youll notice that
a few of those paranormal shows have
been getting a lot more lighthearted while in other cases they are still
hyping it up, seen while we watch
through night vision devices at investigators running around screaming. I
think Spookhunters was the first to
put out a spoof on DVD about paranormal investigations when we did
Hunt for the Devil. Shortly after that
it seems Hollywood began adding a
little humor to their paranormal reality
shows. The bottom line is that youre
never going to see a ghost on any of
those shows. It is purely entertainment.

Orbs and Relaxation: During their 2004 investigation of the Castillo de San Marcos, Spookhunters captured numerous orbs on photograph. Spookhunter founder, Owen Sliter (Bottom Left),
relaxes from a long night of investigating.

Mysteries: Spookhunter members have

appeared in several independent films
and numerous publications, and youve
been a guest on several radio shows. Is
there any chance that you might have
your own show in the future?
Spookhunter Owen: Its funny you
should ask because myself, along
with Damon and Randy, are actually
starting our own radio show called
SpookHunters Radio. Its a show where
we talk about anything paranormal...I
mean, anything! We were thinking of
a tag line like: If it aint normal we
want to hear about it! Or Not your
normal paranormal talk show! We
hope to have it up and running this
fall.
Mysteries: And how can people get more
information about Spookhunters?
Spookhunter Owen: Check our
website,
www.spookhunters.com
where you can read details about our
many investigations and keep up with
what were doing. You can also sign up
for the free mailing list and well send
you periodic news to keep you up to
date.
Mysteries: Thank you Owen Sliter:
skeptic, Spookhunter and orange
jumpsuit enthusiast.

Is Your Group Unique?

Do you belong to a group that is currently
investigating UFOs, ghosts, cryptids, unconventional archeology, buried treasure,
psychical phenomena, famous unsolved
crimes, or some other unusual pursuit? If
so, please contact the editor at:

Photo courtesy of Spookhunters

Mysteries Magazine, Editor

PO Box 131
Waynesville, NC 28786
or email us at:
[email protected]
Send details about your group and the next
Mysteries spotlight could be turned on
you!

58 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 59

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

The Blob
In the 1950s, The Blob devoured everything in its path. Erika
Carlson looks at the reality behind the slime that Downingtown,
Pennsylvania feared. Just what is the goo all about?
It creeps! It crawls! It oozesat a
rate of 1.35 mm [.05 in] per second.
So run! Casually stroll away! Or stay
and poke it with a stick.
The least studied of the five kingdoms of nature (plant, animal, bacteria, fungi, and slime,), slime mold was
the inspiration for the classic thriller The Blob (1958). It comes in many
decorative colors and ranges in size
from a few centimeters to over thirty
yards. Although alien in appearance,

slime can be found all over the world,

feeding on deciduous plant matter.
Much like its famous relative,
slime engulfs its food, can divide
itself, and group up with more slime
to create one bigblob. Using chemical signals, it communicates with other
slime in the neighborhood and sends
out spores when it is time to reproduce
or relocate to a new feeding ground.
Unlikely to devour a living human
being, slime has been known to crawl

Christian Fisher

Yellow Myxomycota: As pretty a multinuclear blob of protoplasm as youre ever likely to see.

60 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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out of the woods and into your yard

on especially rainy days.
The coolest thing about slime is its
underestimated intelligence. Scientists
at the Bio-Mimetic Control Research
Center in Nagoya, Japan placed pieces

of slime mold throughout a 3x3 cm

[1.2in x 1.2in] maze with food at
either exit. The slime not only pulled
itself together, but stretched itself
throughout the maze, from one exit
to the other, using the shortest route

RUN!: In 1958, The Blob landed in theaters but didnt find fame until later. It is now considered to
have be one of the best movies to watch at a drive-in movie theater.

possible.
In robotic research, scientists
linked a blob up to remotely control
a six-legged robot. Naturally sensitive
to light, the slime repeatedly moved its
robot toward dark corners and hideyholes. Former factory workers who
have been replaced by machines can
now take joy in the fact that their exbosses, soon, really will be slime balls.
Once classified as fungi, slime
mold is now scientifically divided into
its own two major phyla: Myxomycota and Dictyosteliomycota. Myxomycota enjoys life as a multinucleate blob
of protoplasm, lacking cellular walls
with only a simple membrane to keep
itself intact. Unlike fungi, which has
cell walls and digests its food externally, slime mold ingests and then digests
as any good science fiction blob should
do. Myxomycetes play an important part
in the ecosystem as scavengers, or the
clean-up crew, of dark, damp places.
Dictyosteliomycota,
considered
to be the social amoebae, lives a
portion of its lifecycle in separate,
free-spirited amoebid cells. These cells
thrive in the abundance of food, but
when food runs low, chemical signals
are sent out and For Sale signs go
up. Other amoebae in the area move
toward a central location where they
form a slug-like, multi-cellular pseudoplasmodium (pronounced blob) and
begin migration as a single organism.
Once in their new location, and when
that loving feeling takes over, some of
the cells become spores. Other cells
form stalks to lift the spores up for the
breeze to carry away.
True slime is not to be confused
with the glop thrown at game show
contestants or that stuff in the bowl at
the back of the fridge. Although it may
sometimes appear gelatinous, dont
expect to find it in individual, snacksize cups. There actually is a form of
slime eaten as a delicacy in Mexico (no,
not flan), but Finnish folklore claims
that witches use the yellow colored
Fuligo to spoil an infants milk. At
any rate, it is not recommended that
one eats things out of rotting logs or
off of the forest floor.

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To Find
Out How
This Space
Could Be
Yours Email
Us At
[email protected]

Or Call
877/876-7797

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6.;A
&;.82@

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt offered $1,000 for the live capture of a snake
measuring 30 feet [9.1 m] or longer. Today, there is a $50,000 bounty offered
by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which remains uncollected despite persistent tales of truly gigantic snakes. Michael Newton chronicles these sightings
from around the world.

o
giant
snakes
exist
today in Africa, Asia, or
South America? If so,
are they anomalous individuals or members of a species yet
unknown to science? Should
reports in the U.S. be written
off as hoaxes or escapees from
captivity? No zoo, menagerie, or
circus in America acknowledges the loss of any specimens that
might explain the sightings listed
here. Indeed, even allowing for
exaggeration, many of the snakes
reported far surpass the record
size of any serpent known to
science.

3?60.
Experts maintain that rock

pythons more than 20 feet [6.1

m] long are most unusual, yet
reports of man-eating reptiles
persist. Likewise, most herpetologists dismiss Internet photos of
a python with a full-grown man
inside its stomach as a cyberhoax.
But what, then, was the
massive serpent Colonel Remy
Van Lierde glimpsed at in 1959?
Van Lierde was scouting the
Belgian Congos Katanga district
by helicopter when he saw a large,
greenish-brown snake below. As
he hovered to snap a photo, Van
Lierde reported that the snake
reared its head 10 feet [3 m]
off the ground. He estimated
that the reptile measured 40 to
50 feet [12.2 15.2 m] long,
but nothing in the photo-

graph provides sufficient scale

for judgment. Various websites
claim the photo has been extensively analyzed and deemed to be
genuine, but they cite no sources
so critics remain skeptical.
Older reports from Africa
also describe giant pythons. In
256 B.C.E., Roman legionnaires
allegedly captured a 45-footer
[13.7 m] in Ethiopia and shipped
it off for display in Egypt, then
killed a 120-foot [36.6 m]
specimen. In 1932, Congolese
tribesmen supposedly killed a
130-foot [39.6 m] python, but
ate it before Belgian authorities
arrived with a tape measure.
In
November
2002,
a
19-foot [5.9 m] specimen
allegedly swallowed a 10 year old
boy in South Africa, but hunters

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 63

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could not find the snake (which

should have been immobilized
by its large meal).
While giant pythons remain
undocumented in Africa, the
discovery of the worlds largest
spitting cobra (Naja ashei)
in Kenya, in December 2007,
proves that the Dark Continent
has yet to yield its final mystery.

@6.
Asias reticulated python is
supposedly the worlds longest
snake. A 25-foot [7.6 m]
specimen is displayed at the U.S.
National Museum in Washington, D.C. In December 2003,
reports claimed that a 49-foot
[14.9 m] reticulated python was
caught on Sumatra, but actual
measurements placed it at 22 feet
[6.7 m]. Meanwhile, in 2005, a
Burmese python at Serpent Safari
Park in Gurnee, Illinois, reportedly measured 27 feet [8.2 m].
Another Asian story, dating
from the Vietnam War, sounds
remarkably like Colonel Van
Lierdes experience in Africa.
The story goes that American
soldiers patrolling in a helicopter photographed a huge python
at some unspecified location.
Unlike Van Lierdes case, no
photos have yet been produced,
and published descriptions of a
snake with eyes three feet [.9 m]
in diameter; raising its head 200
feet [61 m] from the treetops
are clearly absurd.
Reports from natives along
the Mekong River persist of
the Naga, a giant cave-dwelling
serpent with obvious mythical
qualities. Richard Freeman, of
Britains Centre for Fortean
Zoology, traveled up-river in
2000 and collected tales of

massive
snakes,
concluding
that the legends might derive
from prehistoric contacts with
serpents of the family Madtsoiidae, which sometimes exceeded
40 feet [12.2 m] in length. Josh
Gates, host of Syfys Destination
Truth, also sought Nagas in 2006
with no luck.
In February 2009, eyewitness
sighting - and purported photographs [1] - of a 100-foot [30.5 m]
serpent swimming in Borneos
Baleh River, left skeptics unconvinced, as the photos authenticity was challenged. The snake
has since disappeared.

&<BA5 :2?60.

claimed that a 90-foot [27.4

m] snake was killed on the Rio
Negro. It was reportedly so heavy
that four men could not lift its
head. In 1947, Brazilian troops
killed a 74-foot [22.6 m] reptile
near the Rio Manso. One year
later, soldiers killed an 84-footer
[25.6 m] at Fort Tabatinga and
dumped it in a nearby river. Unfortunately, photos of the snake,
while clear, provide no scale from
which to estimate size.
In the 1950s, CIA agents
allegedly
killed
a
Bolivian
specimen 34 feet three inches
[10.4 m] long, which had eaten,
at the very least, 10 Indians.
Witness Canciona Gomez saw
an even larger snake in 1962, in
Argentinas Chaco Province. In
1969, Italian naturalist Bruno
Falcci announced his search for a
Brazilian snake more than 100
feet [30.5 m] long and at least a
yard [.9 m] wide, that had been
blamed for killing several natives.
In 1997, a snake 130 feet [39.6
m] long reportedly terrorized
villagers at Nuevo Tacna, Peru.
Official searchers found nothing

Experts agree that green

anacondas are the worlds heaviest
snakes, with a record weight
of 551 pounds [249.5 kg], but
their maximum length remains
problematic. In 1907, explorer
Percy Fawcett shot and measured
a 62-foot [18.9 m] specimen
along the Rio Abuna. Amazon
adventurer Algot Lange reportedly killed two huge
anacondas in 1910:
one-measured 54 feet
[16.5 m], the other 52
feet eight inches [15.8
m]. In 1927, F.W. Up
de Graff saw a similar
reptile that measured
50+ feet [15+ m].
Although
most
herpetologists dismiss
those accounts as exaggerated,
author
Chris Mattison cites Open Up and Say...Ahh: The man on the right is believed to be
several
reports
of herpetologist Raymond L. Ditmars, forcefeeding a reticulated paython.
anacondas 33 to 37
feet [10.1 11.4 m]
long filed between 1924 and
but its alleged track in the mud
1944. Villagers in Brazils Alca
and soil.
Viaria district allegedly killed
a 30-foot [9.1 m] anaconda
in January 2008, as it tried to
!<?A5 :2?60.
swallow a child, but confirmation remains elusive.
Breeding colonies of exotic
Still, a 30 or 37-footer [9.1
pythons thrive today in Floridas
or 11.3 m] is a pygmy compared
Everglades, but with a record
to some reported anacondas. For
length of over nine feet [3 m],
instance, in 1933, the Brazil-Cothe largest native species is
lombia Boundary Commission
believed to be the gopher snake.

[1] For photo, see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1149743/Picture-100ft-long-snake-sparks-fears-mythical-monster-Borneo.html - Accessed 10/11/2009

64 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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'52 46.;A @;.82 3?<:

<?@2@5<2 #<;1 ;16.;.
Its nearest competitor, the
coachwhip snake, officially does
not exceed 8.5 feet [2.5 m], while
the eastern diamondback rattler
may reach eight feet [2.4 m]. Two
other species, the eastern indigo
snake and the western diamondback, grow up to seven feet [2.1
m]. And yet, much larger snakes
have been sighted in different
parts of the U.S. since the early
19th century.
For instance, in Butler
County, Alabama, reports from
between 1817 and 1855 describe
snake tracks 8 to 13 inches [20.3
to 33 cm] wide. In April 1833,
seven witnesses sighted a large

devil snake at Big Round Top,

near
Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania. They described it as a black
snake, apparently turning gray
with age, 15 to 20 feet [4.5 to
6.1 m] long and the thickness
of an ordinary mans waist.
In 1843, Joshua Buddington
of North Attleboro, Vermont,
found a lost cow lying dead with
an enormous snake entwined
around her hind legs. Buddington fled, and then returned
with reinforcements to kill the
serpent. It measured over 14 feet
[4.2 m], its skin described as
zebra striped above and dark
green underneath.

Tales of a giant snake

prowling the upper Sandusky
River, in north-central Ohio, first
emerged around 1850. During
the Civil War witnesses reported
a serpent in size and form, like
the trunk of a good sized tree,
lying across the river s lower
ford. It vanished until 1890,
when two young fishermen met
a reptile six or eight inches [15.2
- 20.3 cm] in diameter, with a
head larger than their own.
South Canaan, Connecticut,
produced its first giant snake
sighting in 1852, with reports
persisting over the next 15 years.
The last known witness, in 1867,
described a reptile as 28 - 30 feet
[8.5 - 9.1 m] long, with skin so
black and bright that it fairly
dazzled.
Berry-pickers
in
Harlan
County, Kentucky, disturbed an
enormous serpent in 1857, by
dropping stones into its burrow. A
rattling noise preceded the snake,
which rushed out blowing and
spreading his head, 10 feet [3
m] of its body protruding aboveground. Riflemen returned the
next day and killed the reptile,
describing it as a 20-foot [6.1
m] rattlesnake.
Stephen Edmonds confronted a great water snake at New
Hampshires Willoughby Lake
on August 5, 1868. He boldly
rushed upon the monster with

Slithering Facts
They slither, spit, wag their tongues, and are covered with scales. Most of us know
these simple facts about snakes, but may not realize how amazing these feared
reptile actually are. Here are some facts you can use to calm down a friend who
just saw a 50-foot [15.2 m] python.
U Snakes can have over 300 pairs of ribs.
U Snakes turn blue before shedding their skin. This change of color is due to
the presence of a lymph-like layer of fluid between the old and new skins.
U A snakes heart can slide 1 to 1.5 times its length from its normal position. This allows for the
passage of swallowed prey.
U The Brahminy blind snake are all female. When mature, they lay fertile eggs, and the young are
clones of their mother.
U Of the more than 3,000 species of snakes, only about 500 are venomous.
Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 65

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

a sickle and cut it in half. The

carcass measured 23 feet [7 m],
but it was not preserved.
Pennsylvania furnished the
next rash of serpent sightings in
1870-71 when a black snake, 25
to 35 feet [7.6 to 10.6 m] long,
was devouring cats and chickens
around Allentown. The reptile
eluded hunters, but in early
1871, residents of Fredonia,
Kansas, killed a snake 38 feet
9 inches [11.8 m] long and 43
inches [109.2 cm] in circumference.
An anaconda, said to be
15 feet [4.5 m] long, terrorized residents of Halls Springs,
Maryland, in 1875. The reptile
ate pigs and turkeys, and then
escaped from a farmer s trap
after devouring the chicken used
as bait. Its tracks varied from
11 to 15 inches [29.2 to 38.1
cm] wide.
The late 1870s saw citizens
of Rockville, Ohio, panicked by
the presence of a dark-brown,
20-foot [6.1 m] snake that made
its home near Williams Creek.
No precise date for its first appearance is recorded, but the
snake had been in residence for
several years before newspapers published the first report in
1881.
Indiana produced an astounding report in 1879. Jacob
Rishel, a farmer living near Fort
Wayne, was walking home on
August 16, when he heard a loud
hissing behind him. A monstrous
serpent with feelers atop its
head pursued Rishel on a zigzag
course, until he stopped and
fought back with a scythe, slaying
the reptile in a desperate battle.
Afterward, Rishel measured the
snake at almost 40 feet [12.2
m]. Unnamed locals reportedly skinned the serpent, sending
its hide to be stuffed and placed
on exhibition in Chicago, but it
was never seen again. The relic
proved untraceable, since its destination was unstated and the exhibition never occurred.
One year after Rishels
encounter, Dr. C.L. Horner
captured a 40-foot [12.1 m]

66 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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large

serpent, believed to be an
anaconda, on a Des Moines River
sandbar six miles [9.6 km] from
Slayton, Iowa. Horner trailed the
reptile, which was darkish brown
color with golden stripes, to its
burrow and blocked the entrance
with wooden stakes. Its fate is
unknown, though its efforts to
escape caved in the earth for
eight feet [2.4 m] around him.
Big Jim, a 10-foot [3 m]
rattlesnake, killed an Indiana
logger in 1881, and then terrorized local farmers by slaying
their livestock over the next 17
years. W.H. Thompson allegedly
killed Big Jim when it invaded
his pigpen, in 1908. The rattler
measured 12 feet [3.6 m] long
and its rattle had 29 segments.
In 1891, farmer James
Graham discovered a nest of
large rattlers in Scott County.
Graham killed 11 snakes, the
largest 19 feet [5.7 meters] long,
with 40 segments to its rattle.
A newspaper reported that the
skin was stuffed and will be sent
to a museum, but no trace of it
now remains.
The year 1882 brought giant
serpent tales from both ends of the
continent. California scored first,
when fishermen killed a reptilian
behemoth outside Sacramento.
Its carcass measured well over 43
feet [13.1 m] long and was as

around
as
a
mans leg.
Meanwhile,
in
Maine, three men
from Calais found the trail
of an even larger snake near
Chain of Lakes. The monster s
track measured four feet [1.2 m]
wide by three feet [.9 m] deep,
prompting estimates that it
weighed 30 tons [27.2 MT]!
One of the countrys
strangest snake reports issued
came from Lorain County, Ohio,
in 1889. According to the Elyria
Democrat, a farmer was digging
a well when he unearthed skeletal
remains of a rattlesnake with
ribs the size of a small pigs.
Its rattle had 17 segments, the
largest of which measured six
inches [15.4 cm] wide. Stranger
still, when 19 feet [5.7 m] of the
skeleton was exposed, diggers
found inside it the entire skeleton
of a man, his bony right hand
clutching a stone hatchet.
Farther west, farmers were
more concerned about giant
snakes that were still alive.
California
rancher,
J.R.
Williams,
initially
blamed
rustlers for the disappearance
of his sheep at Pleasant Grove
during the summer 1890, but he
later told reporters that a huge
snake living near Pritchards
Lake ate the missing animals.
Williams described the snake as
30 - 40 feet [9.1 - 12.1 m] long
and 7 feet [2.1 m] in diameter,
with a great flat head and a pair
of jaws that...could with ease
admit a full-grown man. A local

hunter set out to kill the beast in

August but the press published
no follow-up reports.
In 1895, a huge snake
invaded
rural
Jay
County,
Indiana. Poultry dealer William
James was talking business with
two farmers when they heard
sounds of fence rails breaking
and saw a hugh [sic] reptile of
the black snake species emerge
from roadside grass. It measured
20 - 40 feet [6.1 - 12.1 m] long,
by their shaky estimates, and was
too fat to crawl under Jamess
wagon.
A 50-foot [15.2 m] snake,
green with dirty white spots
and two short horns on its head,
terrorized
Phillips
County,
Kansas, in spring 1897. Farmers
along Crystal Creek noted the
monster s prodigious appetite:
one claimed that it ate 60
chickens. Another claimed that
the beast devoured 40 piglets.
Attempts to kill the snake were
unsuccessful suggesting, Its
hide was proof against bullets.

<12?;

of him. One year later, witnesses

saw another huge snake cross
a forestry road near Paradise
Furnace. In 1933, another
Saxton Mountain hiker sighted a
snake resembling the one seen in
1927. Finally, two strollers saw
a snake at least 20 feet [6.1 m]
long, 8 - 10 inches [20.3 - 25.4
cm] in diameter, near Kenrock
sometime prior to 1940.
Pennsylvania
produced
another rash of sightings in
the mid-late 1950s. Two men
driving near Coalmont swerved
to avoid a fallen tree that was
actually a 25-foot [7.6 m] snake.
Around the same time, another
motorist watched a log cross

<;@A2?@

Another report, from fortean

researcher
and
cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, briefly
describes multiple sightings of a
40-foot [12.1 m] snake around
Broad Top Mountain, in Pennsylvanias Huntingdon County.
According to Coleman, at least
a dozen hiking parties met the
serpent between years 1919 and
1975. Locals speculated that the
snake survived 56 of Pennsylvanias frigid winters by hibernating in abandoned coal mines.
Chad Arment chronicles five
more sightings from southeastern Pennsylvania in the 1920s
and early 1930s. A coal miner
walking near Langdondale saw a
snake rise from a nearby thicket
to face him at eye-level. In 1927,
a hiker on Saxton Mountain
watched a slate-gray snake with
yellow markings on its head and
neck, 18 - 20 feet [5.4 6.1 m]
in length, cross the trail in front

NEED LEVERAGE?: In the 1800s and early 1900s, many

naturalists believed that for a successfull kill, snakes had
to have their tail wrapped around a tree trunk while constricting its prey. This is evident in some of the art from
that period.

the highway in front of his car,

between Cooks and Robertsdale.
In 1957, mushroom hunters saw
a huge snake sunning on a rock
pile near Six Mile Run, while a
dog-walker met another large
reptile at Coaldale. Two miners
at Hickory Hill saw a snake as
large as an 825 tire in 1958.
The following year, berry-pickers near Duvall Cemetery saw
a 40-foot [12.1 m] snake lying
atop a trash heap. Chad Arment
reports another sighting near the
same Duvall Cemetery in 1960.
Three
sightings
emerged
during the 1970s. In 1971, a
Pennsylvania logger recorded the
last big-snake encounter to date
from Paradise Furnace. Eileen
Blackburn and her daughter

described a cobra-like serpent,

20 to 30 feet [6.1 to 9.1 m] long,
which struck at their car outside
Cascade, Montana, in October
1978. Cascades chief of police
acknowledged receiving several
similar reports.
Four
more
cases
were
reported in the early 1980s.
Clifton Louviere shot a 25-foot
[7.6 m] snake on his farm near
Ames, Texas, in 1982, but the
carcass
vanished
overnight,
prompting Louviere to speculate
that his bullet merely stunned
the reptile. Near Pennsylvanias Broad Top, two different
motorists reported sightings of a
20-foot [6.1 m] snake on a single
day. Later, in 1983, a hunter in
the same vicinity watched the
same snake, or its twin, swallow
a rabbit.
More
recent
giant-snake
reports,
including
several
captures in Florida, Indiana,
and elsewhere, are commonly
explained in terms of exotic pets
lost or released by negligent
owners. That does not appear
to be the case with a spate of
sightings from Raystown Lake,
Pennsylvania,
reported
by
John Baughman in the 1990s.
Likewise, a wayward pet does
not explain the 30-foot [9.1
meters] serpent that devoured
cats,
waterfowl,
and
other
small animals around Foreman,
Arkansas, in 2000. As usual, the
snake evaded pursuers.
Skeptics will not accept the
existence of truly giant snake until
irrefutable evidence is produced.
Believers were hopeful in June
2009, when travelers in Peru
claimed sightings of a 130-foot
[39.6 m] anaconda, supported by
video footage [2] . Coincidentally,
that news came four months after
the discovery of a new fossilized giant snake - the 43-foot
[13.1 m] Titanoboa - in neighboring Colombia. Such discoveries encourage cryptozoologists
to continue their search.

[2] For a still shot from the video, see http://www.ghosttheory.com/crypto/lisburn-men-find-giant-snanke-in-the-amazon/ - Accessed 10/11/2009

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 67

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Letters to the Editor

Have a comment on an article or an opinion on how were doing? Write us at Mysteries Magazine, Editor,
PO Box 131, Waynesville, NC 28786 or email us at [email protected].

Dear Editor:
In Mary Franzs article entitled The Mayan Calendar in Mysteries #23, the author speculates whether the Winter Solstice
2012 will be the end of days or a new beginning. Occult authors and/or UFO documentaries seem divided on this question, and
even, to the exact date these events will occur, if anything happens at all.
In the film The Outer Space Connection, Rod Serling implies the Visitors may simply be returning to check out what happened to their lost colony - the Mayan city-state. This is questionable, as Epsilon Bootes seems to be a long way to come just
to say hi. Serling also says, they will return on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2011. While in his The Cat People Chronicles,
Manley P. Leister leaves no doubt whatsoever, the Kutsatorians (a race of humanoid lions from Epsilon Bootes) are returning to blast the Earth with their Death Star. Leister, using Mayan terminology places The End Of Days as December 22,
2011. The Cat People Chronicles were written following WWII, allegedly based on top secret documents the author saw working
for MI5 during that conflict, dealing with aliens influencing human evolution and civilization. The Outer Space Connection was
filmed around 1970, as at one point in the film the narrator says; the Second World War ended 25 years ago. Other books and
films place the date for doomsday as December 24th or 25th, 2012 - Jerry Orbachs Mysteries Of The Unexplained and Leonard
Nimoys In Search Of... are two TV series that
come to mind.
With the mess people have made of this
planet if our gods really are ETs as authors like
Erich Von Daniken say, they may be returning to
scrap the experiment as scientists often do when
a project fails. This wouldnt surprise me in the
least as I know what people are and think that
for the most part humanity is a failed species.
Your Loyal Servant,
Mr. J. Grimes
Elkton, Maryland

Dear Mysteries,
Enjoyed your feature The Mayan Calendar.
I recently did Showtimes Penn & Tellers BS
The Apocalypse episode. Showtime flew me
and Shannon McCabe (another investigator) to
Mexico to investigate the Mayan Prophesy of 2012. What is amazing about
this ancient culture is that they were well-versed in mathematics and astronomy. They said that Earth would be in galactic alignment with the center
of the galaxy. They said that in the middle of the galaxy, there is a womb.
Scientists recently found out that in the center of our galaxy is a black hole.
The Mayans predicted the end of their civilization with accuracy. They also
predicted that one day we would drink our water from containers. They
were right. Most of us drink water from bottles. With a high accuracy rate
like this, I give the Mayan prophesy a high score for being on the mark.
Lets see what happens on December 21, 2012.
Paul Dale Roberts, HPI General Manager
68 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

 


 


Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 69

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Reviews Books

Bridge to the Afterlife

By Troy Parkinson
ISBN: 978-0-7387-17435-6
Pub: Llewellyn Worldwide
216 pp
MSRP: $15.95

Reviewed by: Don Smith

Over the years, Ive found

that most people are pleasantly surprised when they
meet me. They see that
Im an ordinary guy and
that sessions with me are
just like having a conversation. No dark rooms, no
gypsy wardrobe, no crystal
balls. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Its
not just not my style; and
besides gypsy dresses make
my butt look fat.
- Troy Parkinson
Independent filmmaker Troy Parkinson was a
good Christian boy reared
in North Dakota. Upon deciding to attend Emerson
College in Boston, Parkinson packed up his belongings, and with girlfriend Chandra the two
made a life for themselves
in Boston.
While in Massachusetts, several experienc-

70 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

es inspired Parkinson to
attend the First Spiritual Temple where he developed his talents to communicate with the dead.
Parkinson writes, Mediumship is a process where
an individual connects with
the afterlife.
He created a mission
statement saying he worked
to be a normal individual who can experience
the meaning life without
having a near-death experience, a normal individual
who can tap into the spiritual world through training and guidance from God
and spiritual teachers.
After studying in
Boston, Parkinson, now
married to Chandra, returned to North Dakota,
and set up shop as a
medium connecting the
world of the living with
the world of dead, basically, acting as a bridge to
the afterlife.
The first part of the
book is an engaging,
humor filled memoir that
pulls back the curtain from
spiritualism
showing
what it means to the
author.
The rest of the book
describes a series of personal experiences connecting the living with
the dead. Each one is presented the same way. First,
meeting a living person.
Second, describing the
spirit of the dead person.
Third, explaining the connection between the living
and the dead. Fourth, the
living person confirms

what the dead said and

thanks Parkinson for his
assistance and comfort. It
doesnt take long for this
to become repetitive.
Besides his experiences
as a medium, I wanted to
read more about his work a
filmmaker for the Discovery Health Channel and
History Channels Monster
Quest.
Bridge to the Afterlife is
Parkinsons first book and
well worth reading. Lets
hope that with a full schedule of filmmaking and
talking to the dead, he still
finds time for writing.

Dancing on the
Head of a Pin
By Thomas Sniegoski
ISBN: 978-0-451-46251-0
Pub: ROC
290 pp
MSRP: $14.00

Reviewed by: Don Smith

Meet Remy Chandler; hes a private investigator on the hunt for

antique weapons, and a
former seraph in the Army
of Heaven.
He fought in the great
war when Lucifer Morn-

ingstar turned a huge

portion of the angels
against the Almighty. God
in Heaven struck back, and
now it appears that the
angels - good or bad - are
in the process of reconstruction similar to what
the South saw after the
American Civil War.
The seraph known as
Remiel, hung up his sword
and wings, chose to live the
life of a human, and met
Madeline, his true love, or
as he said, All this...you...
this is Heaven.
As Dancing on the
Head of the Pin begins,
Remy is mourning Madelines passing from a devastating illness. Part of him
wants to stay on Earth and
live on as a person, but the
nature of the seraph inside
him keeps pushing him
back to Heaven.
While wrestling with
this, he is called by Francis,
an angel that had rebelled
against God but served his
time in the prison realm
of Tartarus, where he repented of his demonic
actions and was paroled
to Earth. Francis now
acts as a parole officer for
other Denizens, rebelling
angels who repent of their
actions. He enlists Remys
help in figuring out why
another angel that became
human allowed himself to
be skinned alive, dissected
and his body parts sold on
the black market.
The dissected angel,
turns out, is part of a group
of angels called Nomads,
who did not pick a side

Reviews Books
during Lucifers great rebellion. Basically, Nomads
are angelic pacifists trying
to make sense of it all.
As
this
happens,
Remy gets word of a group
of antique weapons that
were forged in heaven for
Lucifer during the Heavenly Civil War, but he never
got around to using them.
Should Lucifer ever get his
hands on them, a second
uprising could occur with
different results.
And Remy is on the
hunt.
Author
Thomas
Sniegoski is writing in
a sub-genre of science
fiction/fantasy called urban-fantasy. Instead of
sending oddly named characters e.g. Frodo into
oddly named lands e.g.
Mordor to do an odd task
e.g. drop a ring into a
volcano, the writer brings
these unusual characters
into our world.
Writer Stephen King
pioneered this genre, while
other writers like Neil
Gaiman did it in American
Gods and Jim Butcher with
his Dresden Files series.
Another end of this subgenre is Stephanie Meyers
Twilight series and Charlaine Harriss Sookie Stackhouse novels which have
been turned into the HBO
series True Blood with Anna
Paquin.
As for Dancing on the
Head of a Pin, Remy Chandler is an interesting character and fun to read as he

struggles with his human

and angelic sides.
Towards the end,
Remy has to make an
almost incomprehensible
journey into Hell to retrieve
the weapons, a section of
the book that needed to be
expanded. Simply, Remy
could really stand out if
he had one continuous
person to play off of. In
the first half of the book,
he hangs out with Francis
and in the second half with
another fallen angel named
Modoch - who seemed to
come out of nowhere. He
barely speaks to his human
friend Mulvehill, a homicide detective, while his
wife Madeline pops up in
flashbacks. And that leads
me to Marlowe the dog.
Marlowe was the best
character. Remy can speak
to the dog, and while the
two do not have full conversations, Remy could understand Marlowes basic
clipped canine thoughts.
Park?
Remy responds, Well go
to park.
Food?
Remy responds,
hungry?
Want
cheese?

You
some

Want cheese. Want cheese.

Dancing is a good but
almost as predictable as an
episode of Scooby-Doo. With
some expansion and fleshing out of ideas, the next

one could be even better.

Nazi International
By Dr. Joseph P. Farrell
ISBN: 978-1-931882-93-4
Pub: Adventures Unlimited
413 pp
MSRP: $19.95

Reviewed by: Olav Phillips

As a conspiracy researcher, I have spent

decades reading some of
the most controversial and
disturbing subjects, from
CIA funded human experiments to false flag operations, torture, and everything in-between. But I
can firmly say that Nazi International is the most disturbing book I have ever
read.
I recognize that this is
a bold statement, but Nazi
International lives up to
it and will forever change
your perspective on the
power structures which
control our world. You
will walk away questioning what you know about
history, power, control,
and economics.
In Nazi International,
the reader travels from the

final days of World War II

to the present. Along the
way, Dr. Farrell connects
the dots between the mass
exodus of the Nazi elite
at the end of WWII, the
post war antics of Hitlers
favorite commando and
fascist security consultant,
Otto Skorzeny, and various
power players (both economic and political) at
large today. The book culminates in the exploration
of the work performed by
many of the Nazi engineers who founded NASA
through Operation Paperclip and those scientists ultimate objectives.
Dr. Farrell also explains in depth the structures which were used to
perform this exodus such
as the infamous ODESSA
group, links to the Vatican,
and some of the business
and economic players put
in place, which to this
day are funding a Fourth
Reich. In many ways its
reminiscent of the James
Burk series Connections,
except where Burke explored the interconnections
of science, Farrell exposes a
massive functioning Nazi
government which dwells
in the shadows awaiting
the rebirth of the Reich;
the result of which is a vast
mind bending conspiracy
of biblical proportions.
And now the mechanics Dr. Farrell has written
a phenomenal book, and
when taken with his other
books, forms a series
which is not to be missed.
He is a rare breed of writer

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 71

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Reviews Books
and Nazi International is written in a scholarly fashion with heavy footnoting and a clear path to
the proofs he speaks about.
When reading you can
easily access the sources
used by Farrell to continue the research. A practice
which I must say is generally missing from conspiracy books, but is important
to the journey.
If you are interested
in international politics,
exotic weapons, WWII,
or conspiracies in general,
Nazi International would
be a strong addition to
your collection. However,
be warned, when you finish
reading it, you will question everything you think
you knew about international politics, who is the
control group, and what
the ultimate goal is.

The Philosphers Stone

By Dr. Joseph P. Farrell
ISBN: 978-1-932595-40-6
Pub: Feral House (2009)
360 pp
MSRP: $17.95

Reviewed by: Olav Phillips

It all started with Dr.

Joseph Farrells previous

72 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

book, Brotherhood of the Bell,

where we were introduced
to Serum 525 (The power
source of the Bell). From
then on we wondered what
this exotic liquid was and
how it played into the operation of the Bell, one of
the most enigmatic, exotic
super weapons the Nazis
developed.
Through a successive
series of books the reader is
drawn more into the web
of The Bell and its mysterious sponsor, Engineer
Dr. Hans Kammler. With
The Philosophers Stone, Dr.
Joseph Farrells first Feral
House publication, we
finally learn the true nature
of Serum 525, the Bell,
and other mysteries.
Masterfully written,
The Philosophers Stone, is a
search through the ages in
which Dr. Farrell connects
modern physics, ancient
alchemy, the transmutation
of monotomic gold, before
finally discovering the
energy source for a enigmatic super secret Nazi
device called, The Bell.
Calling deeply on historical
accounts of alchemy and
the work of Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kozyrev,
we are taken on a journey
through the dark recesses
of the lost art of alchemy.
I have often said that
when you are finished
reading one of Dr. Farrells
books, you are almost an
expert on the subject, and
that is clearly by design.
With the references, footnoting and annotations,
Dr. Farrell gives you the

path to research the subject

while also giving you the
background to understand
what you are reading. You
might say its like a graduate history seminar in a
book!
So whats the verdict?
Buy this book! But make
sure youve read the others
as well. It is a fantastic
stand alone book but when
read after Brotherhood of the
Bell and his other books;
The Philosophers Stone
becomes the capstone to a
quest for some of the most
amazing technology and
scientific discoveries of all
time.

Spooky Creepy
Baltimore County
By D.P. Roseberry
ISBN: 978-0-7643-3254-8
Pub: Schiffer (2009)
159 pp
MSRP: $14.99

Reviewed by: Nestor Vipers

When a book is called

Spooky Creepy Baltimore
County, its safe to assume
that the author is taking an
informal approach to their
subject. D. P. Roseberry certainly does; it might

even be described as slipshod.

She is a ghost hunter,
author of four novels, and
three collections of regional
ghost stories with her latest
effort focusing on strange
phenomena in Baltimore
County, Maryland including areas of Owings
Mills, Reistertown, Perry
Hall, Parkville, Towson,
and Garrison. Fortunately this was printed on the
back cover, as theres little
inside the book to suggest
a specific location. Theres
no local history, legends, or
anything else that provides
a sense of the place and, as
a result, the stories have a
generic feeling. They just
happened to take place in
Maryland.
There are eight chapters describing a variety
of paranormal encounters with guardian spirits,
hagging (sleeping person
feels smothered and paralyzed), a crisis apparition (the image of a dying
person is seen by a friend
or relative), a love spell
that proved too effective,
and assorted scary noises
and mysterious incidents.
Each story is followed by
an epilogue wherein Ms
Roseberry describes her
personal experiences and
views about unexplained
phenomena till the book
winds up, for no obvious
reason, with 20 pages
about ghost hunting techniques and equipment.
Her style is amiable,
chatty, and undisciplined,
with a tendency to provide

Reviews Books
more and less information than a reader might
want. In The Power of an
Animal, a woman buys a
stuffed snakes head that
comes with a phantom
Indian and phantom rattlesnake. These spirits prevent
her from becoming involved with an unsuitable
man, but along the way
we learn quite a bit about
her dogs restroom habits
and nothing at all about
when these events actually happened. It might
have been last summer or
thirty years ago; theres
no way to tell. Leaving
out important information, however, is only one
problem. Roseberry seems
to be a natural storyteller,
but that does not always
produce a good writer and
after seven books she still
hasnt learned the basics.
Spelling counts, and
different words have different meanings, which is
why phantom cant be
used for fathom, regiment for regimen, sustenance for substance
and so on. Ms Roseberry even misspelled the
Addams family and in the
Google era that suggests
an indifference to accuracy
that goes beyond slovenliness. (As for Schiffer Publishing, they should proofread manuscripts before
printing them).
In conclusion, Spooky
Creepy Baltimore County is
not worth having. Dont
waste $14.99 or shelf
space on this insignificant
and shabbily produced

work when there are so

many well written, well researched, and entertaining collections of real-life
ghost stories.

Wagging Tales
By Tim Link
ISBN: 978-1-934572-14-6
Pub: Emerald Book Co. (2009)
216 pp
MSRP: $16.95

Reviewed by: Jeremy Snow

We all love our pets

and often wonder what
they are thinking. Does
Fluffy like that brand of cat
food? Why does Max keep
peeing on the carpet even
after being rewarded for
going outside?
In 2004, while attending an Animal Communication workshop, Tim
Link was surprised to learn
that he could communicate telepathically with the
animals around him. After
consulting other workshop
participants about the information he was receiving
from the animals, it turned
out to be very accurate.
Over the next few
months, Tim used this
newly learned ability to
communicate with his own

pets and those of friends

and family. As his confidence grew, he began using it when volunteering at
local animal shelters and to
help others with their pet
problems.
In Wagging Tales, Tim
has put together a collection of moving, humorous
and dramatic stories from
our furry friends.
You
will read about Frazier, a
Plott Hound mix, who just
wanted to run, and Dixie, a
Russian Blue cat, who was
a chatty passenger wanting
to know if they had arrived
at their destination by saying Now, now, now? You
will find most quotes from
the animals are very simple
thoughts or better, straight
to the point if not the point
exactly. Also included are
stories about animals who
received help identifying
their pain, had their feelings hurt, and some who
even ran away from home.
There are 32 stories
in all. Most are four to five
pages long and none over
11 pages, making it a quick
and easy read that can be
finished in a night or savored one story a time.
While Wagging Tales
is a thoroughly enjoyable
book, it fell short in one
area; diversity. We never
hear from anything that
isnt a dog or cat, and while
these are the most common
pets, it would have been interesting to hear from others. A conversation with
a hostile hamster or lovestarved tarantula would
have been that much more

fascinating.
So, if you are an animal lover and/or want to
try looking at your pet
from an unusual perspective, this is the book for
you. $16.95 is a bit pricey
for a 200 page, large print
book, but Link has included a number of useful tips
for keeping Mittens and
Tank happy and, for those
of us who are slaves to our
animals, price is no object.

Got a book, DVD,

CD, game or product
you would like us to
review? Just send a
review copy to:
Mysteries Magazine
Reviews
PO Box 131
Waynesville, NC 28786

If you are a musician,

we also review music.
Note: Not all reviews
will make publication
but may be posted on
our website at:
www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 73

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

 



 
 
 


  

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Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 75


www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Spanish Rhapsody
The throng was great and colourfully gay
And chariots made caterpillar trains
Like prismed blood upsurging through the veins
Of Spain that Spring I came to dance a day
And stayed, enamoured of the throbbing thread
That wove its way into the carousel,
A skein that skirted the backstairs of hell
Where we danced zarabandas with the dead.

Night went insane and laughter blackened stars

And offered psychic sacriffiifice to Mars,
But in that room I danced with avatars
Who sang red ballads and drank purple toasts
To us - the haunted guests, to us - the hosts.
One Spanish Spring I went to sleep with ghosts.

Paris Flammonde
76 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

www.mysteriesmagazine.com

Originally published in Candelabrum

Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24 77

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78 Mysteries Magazine Issue No. 24

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