Feasting With Panthers

10 charles dickens speaks from the gravewhen charles dickens died at age 58, he had been hard at work on a new novel, which wasto be called the mystery of edwin drood. the story was a murder mystery, with the titularedwin vanishing and presumed dead. unfortunately, dickens succumbed before thebook was finished. there were several attempts by other writersto finish the tale, including one version by charles dickens jr.the weirdest versionwas penned by a printer from vermont in 1873. the man, named thomas james, claimed thatcharles dickens himself had channeled him from beyond the grave to finish the storyonce and for all. james would sit and write in a strange handwritingwhich belonged to neither him nor dickens.

many people dismissed james as some kind ofcon artist. after the book was finished, it was well receivedin the united states, but rather less so in the united kingdom. however, spiritualists such as arthur conandoyle lent their support to james, believing he had indeed been in contact with the deceasedauthor. not surprisingly, thomas james never wroteanother book, despite lucrative offers. 9 the suicide bridgebridges are notorious hotspots for despondent people to commit suicide. san francisco’s golden gate bridge has hostednearly 2,000 suicides and counting.

there were at least 10 suicides in august2013 alone. pasadena’s colorado street bridge, builtin 1913, certainly has a lower death count, but is no less creepy. one of the 100 or so tragedies that occurredhere happened on may 1, 1937, when a mother hurled her infant daughter over the side andthen made the leap herself. amazingly, the baby got snagged in some treelimbs and lived, while the mother smashed into the riverbed below.unfortunately, legendhas it that those who choose to take their lives here often refuse to pass on. witnesses have reported seeing a ghostly manin wire-rimmed glasses walking the span of

the bridge, along with a woman in a long robeplunging off the edge, doomed to repeat her final act. creepiest of all, spectral beings are saidto wander in the riverbed below, wailing and beckoning to the self-destructive to jointhem. 8 the maero of new zealandthe maori people of new zealand have a brutal history. this warrior culture is known for their elaboratefacial tattoos and cannibalism, and outwardly they seem fearless. but the maori live in terror of a race theycalled “maero,” wild men who lived in

the forest. the maero were described as being coveredwith hair and possessing long, bony fingers which they used to spear meat and gobble itraw. while the maero might have much in commonwith other bipedal humanoids around the world, such as the sasquatch or the yeti, these beastshave a more supernatural origin. one common maori folktale concerns a man namedtukoio, who was attacked by a maero. tukoio battled the creature, managing to severits limbs and decapitate it. as he returned to his village, the head screamed,“my children, i am being dragged off!” tukoio dropped it and fled.

later, he and other men from his village discoveredthat the remains had gone missing, presumably after magically patching themselves back together. 7 loveland frogsfor those of us who grew up singing along with kermit, there are few things less frighteningthan an anthropomorphic frog. but the creatures that are said to roam aroundloveland, ohio, are well on the other side of horrifying. late one night in 1955, a man claimed to haveseen a trio of frog-like creatures around a meter tall hunkered beneath a bridge. they were described as wrinkled and leathery,with webbed hands and feet.

one of them held up what the man said wasa wand that made sparks. terrified, the witness left the scene. over the years, there have been many othersightings. on march 3, 1972, a police officer was saidto have encountered the creature on a bridge over the little miami river. the officer returned to the station and recruitedanother officer, mark matthews, to help investigate the scene. the two men claimed that they found scratchmarks near the river. two weeks later, officer matthews again encounteredthe creature on a roadside.

he opened fire, but the frog man escaped. understandably, the two men were ridiculedabout their sightings, and in the years since, matthews has backpedaled on his claim, sayingthat he’d merely seen an iguana. 6 the blue holenew jersey’s sprawling pine barrens are a place of great mystery. one such strange site is the blue hole ofwinslow township. the blue hole is located in the midst of adense wilderness, and is immediately peculiar. while all the other bodies of water in thearea tend to be brown and murky, the water of the hole is a crystalline blue.even atthe height of summer, the blue hole is quite

cold, and legends claim that it might be bottomless. there is an element of danger as well; thereare reports of whirlpools and beasts dragging swimmers down into their depths, never tobe seen again. people have even claimed to see the infamousjersey devil haunting the blue hole, waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting victim.likesome of the other entries on this list, the blue hole is easily investigated by amateursleuths and monster hunters; it is part of a public wildlife preserve and easily reachableon foot. 5 the haunting of the koteitales of ghosts stalking the white house in washington dc are de rigueur, but reportsout of japan indicate that their prime minister’s

home, the kotei, might also be populated byspirits. the kotei was built in 1929 in the architecturalstyle of frank lloyd wright, and former prime ministers and their first ladies have frequentlycomplained of spectral happenings. the current prime minister, shinzo abe, hasresisted moving into the headquarters, instead living in his own private residence. although he has gone on record as saying thatthe mansion is too large for his needs, japanese newspaper asahi shimbun quoted him tellingothers, “i don’t feel like living here because there are ghosts.” the mansion certainly has a bloody history;on may 15, 1932, navy officers ambushed prime

minister inukai tsuyoshi, shooting him todeath. the insurgents’ plot was originally evenmore sinister: at the time inukai was murdered, he was hosting film star charlie chaplin athis estate. luckily, chaplin was attending a sumo matchwith the prime minister’s son when the soldiers arrived. four years later, another military coup occurredat the kotei, when a contingent of roughly 280 soldiers forced the gates open and engagedin a gun battle with four police officers and the new prime minsiter, keisuke okada. the police were killed, but their braverygave okada enough time to escape.

instead, his brother-in-law, denzo matsuowho bore a striking resemblance to okada, was gunned down. years later, the front entrance of the mansionis still pocked with bullet holes, but the violent legacy of the kotei runs even deeper. . . several people have reported seeing spectral soldiers in the garden, and abe himselfacknowledged that former prime minister yoshiro mori had seen a ghost at the residence. 4 lemp family cursethe lemps were a family of brewers from st. louis, missouri, known for producing germanlager. in the years following the civil war, theirbusiness took off with william j. lemp at

its head. he purchased a lavish mansion with which toraise a family. lemp had several children, but his favoritewas frederick, who he hoped would one day take over lemp beer. unfortunately, frederick had health problems,and died from heart failure before reaching his 30th birthday. frederick’s passing haunted his father,whose health deteriorated afterward. on january 1st, william’s best friend frederickpabst died. a little more than a month later, the distraughtbrewer shot himself in the head in his mansion.

operations were taken over by his son, william“billy” lemp jr. sadly, this kicked off a legacy of suicide. william’s daughter elsa, who suffered frombouts of depression and had been having marital woes, shot herself in the heart at her homeon march 19, 1920. prohibition went on to destroy the lemp brewery,and on june 28, 1922, the facilities were sold at auction for a fraction of their worth. five months later, billy lemp also shot himselfin the heart in the office of the mansion. his brother, charles lemp, moved back to thefamily mansion in his later years, where he turned into a sickly recluse, eventually turninga gun on himself on may 10, 1949.

he was 77 years old. his suicide note read “in case i am founddead, blame it on no one but me.”it is unknown what demons drove the lemp family to suchtragic endings, but they can be visited; the lemp mansion is now a restaurant despite thefact that it is rumored to be one of the most haunted places in america. 3 the caged gravesold mt. zion cemetery in catawissa, pennsylvania, boasts a curious phenomenon—a pair of gravesoutfitted with iron cages overhead. both graves belong to women who died in june1852. a third caged grave, belonging to one rebeccaclayton, had been removed in the 1930s after

falling into disrepair. rebecca perished just a few weeks before theother women. in a strange coincidence, all three womenwere closely related, young, and recently married.not surprisingly, the cages have generateda lore of their own over the years. the fact that the women all died within ashort period of time has led to the belief that they may have been vampires. the cages, then, were constructed to keepthem from rising from their graves and feasting on the blood of the living. however, as lurid an idea as this is, thecages were likely built not to keep something

in, but to keep someone out. in the mid-19th century, grave-robbings weredepressingly common. not only were people sometimes buried withvaluables, but the bodies themselves could be sold to medical schools to be dissected,allowing thieves to turn a quick profit.the fact that three young, closely related womenwould all die within a short period of time seems creepy at first glance, until you considerthat they likely were frequently exposed to each other and probably shared a water source. in those days of only the most basic sanitation,contagions often swept through concentrated regions.

that time period in particular also linesup with cholera outbreaks devastating america. 2 the beast of exmoorthere are a great many tales of mysterious black cats and dogs wandering the britishisles, some seemingly composed of flesh and blood, and others spectral. unlike many supposed cryptids, there is awealth of photographic evidence that panthers and wolves and hulking demon dogs roam thecountryside. not surprisingly, these photos are often grainyand taken at a distance. without discernible scale, we could just aseasily be looking at someone’s pet labrador as a terrible monster.

one area famous for such sightings is exmoor,a hilly moorland in the southwest of england. beginning in the 1970s, people began reportinga strange creature, since dubbed “the beast of exmoor,” a big cat said to resemble eithera leopard or a mountain lion. this beast has been sporadically blamed forkilling farm animals, there have been several explanations proffered regarding the originsof the beast. while big cats once roamed the british isles,the last of them died out thousands of years ago; the likelihood that some remnant populationmanaged to hang on is slim. a more plausible theory is that in the wakeof the uk passing the 1976 dangerous wild animals act, many people released their exoticpets rather than face costly fines.

these animals could have formed a small breedingpopulation, subsisting mainly on rabbits and deer, and raiding farms when food was scarce. in 2009, a carcass that washed up on a beachin devon was briefly rumored to be the beast of exmoor, but it was quickly identified asa dead seal. however, there is potential evidence thatbig cats do roam england; deer and boar bones have been discovered that appear to bear marksfrom of the teeth of a large feline. 1 the miracle of loretto chapelthese days, religious miracles seem to be in terribly short supply. a pall has even been cast over such seeminglyinfallible characters as mother teresa.

but new mexico’s loretto chapel, built in1878, might just give credence to idea that saints walk among us. during the building of the chapel, the architectwas shot to death, and when the project was completed, the building was missing one keyfeature: a way to get to the choir loft, which was 6.7 meters above the ground. there was no room for a conventional staircase,and the nuns were averse to using ladders because they were afraid of snagging theirlong habits. the legend goes that the sisters of lorettoprayed for nine days, and on the final day, a bedraggled man arrived on a donkey and askedpermission to solve their problem.

using only the most basic of tools he createda glorious winding helix staircase over the course of a few months. at first glance, the structure seems to defythe laws of physics, as it appears to have no central means of support. upon finishing, the unidentified carpentersimply went on his way without being paid. the nuns, taken by the majesty of his creation,believed that the man was none other than st. joseph, patron saint of carpenters. other theories have been advanced, probablythe most plausible being that the man was an itinerant french carpenter named francois-jeanrochas.the staircase itself has since been

thoroughly examined, and while beautiful,it is not exactly a marvel. the helix is so tight that the center portionacts as its own support, keeping it from toppling over. it has also been judged as very unsafe, actingas a spring when people climb on it. today, the loretto chapel is privately owned,and frequently stages weddings where couples are allowed to pose on the staircase.

Share this :