From time to time, fatal events happen that defy rational explanation. Some of these stories are long ago, some are recent. In any case, people remember them, they are all mysterious and frightening so much that they invariably attract attention. Do you believe in the paranormal? Or do you think this is all just a hoax? Let's remember the most famous mystical cases, here are 15 of them.
15. Dancing Plague of 1518
The so-called "dancing or dancing plague", documented in historical records of the 16th century, has become the only phenomenon of its kind.
In July 1518, in the city of Strasbourg (at that time part of the Holy Roman Empire, now the region of Alsace, France), the inhabitants suddenly felt an irresistible desire to dance. Several people began to dance for days on end, without rest, without stopping. Many have died of heart attacks, strokes and wasting.
The "epidemic" outbreak began when a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing on the streets of the city. During the week 34 people joined the dance, and after a month there were already 400. Historical documents indicate that people died from exhaustion caused by the incessant dancing. But the reasons why people didn't stop are unclear. As the situation got worse and more and more people began to dance, excited nobles began to look for reasons. Some of the dancers were taken to shrines and temples to pray for healing from ailments. It all ended with the dancing stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Modern theories explaining the dancing plague include massive mental illness, ergotism (poisoning with ergot alkaloids), religious ecstasy, chorea, or St. Vitus's dance. But it must be admitted that none of these theories can fully explain what really happened.
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14. Karl Pruitt
The story of the curse of Carl Pruitt's grave began in 1938 in Pulaski County, Kentucky (USA). Pruitt returned home after a hard day to find his wife in the bedroom with another man. Furious, Pruitt grabbed the chain and began to strangle it, and the lover fled the scene. After the woman died, Pruitt committed suicide.
The family of Pruitt's wife refused to forgive him, and he was buried separately, in another cemetery (and even in another city). Visitors to the cemetery who passed Pruitt's grave noticed that something strange was happening to her. They saw strange spots that looked like circles, and then began to connect, and the image on the tombstone became like a chain. The strange image caught the attention of the boys who passed by on their bicycles. To impress friends, one boy threw a stone on a tombstone and suddenly split it. On the way home, the boy suffered an incredible accident: the bicycle chain jumped off, wrapped around his neck and strangled him. The boy's mother was heartbroken and decided to "recoup" on the tombstone. She took an ax and hit the slab several times. The next day,when, after washing, she hung the clothes on a rope, it mysteriously got tangled around her neck and killed the woman.
This is just a part of the eerie stories surrounding the grave of Pruitt's strangler … By the early 1940s, most people were already staying away from that cemetery, in fear of losing their own lives. After another death at Pruitt's grave, his body was exhumed and his tombstone destroyed.
13. The Amityville Horror
Perhaps the most famous story on our list. The Amityville case is the trial of 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. for the murder of all his family members. This tragedy caused a great resonance in society, and over time led to the emergence of a cultural phenomenon called the "Amityville Horror". The story has led to a couple of dozen film adaptations, a book and a lot of parodies. What happened there?
There were 6 victims: Ronald Jr.'s parents - Defeo Sr. (44 years old) and Louise (42 years old); and his four siblings - Don (18), Allison (13), Mark (12), and John Matthew (9). They were all shot with a.35 Marlin shotgun by Ronald Defoe Jr. According to forensics, Louise and Allison were awake at the time of their death.
Defoe's lawyer tried to bring the case to the murderer's insanity, especially since DeFeo claimed that he "heard the voices of his family in a conspiracy against him." However, a physician named Harold Roland stated that DeFeo was responsible for his actions, even though he used heroin and LSD and suffered from antisocial personality disorder. Despite this, a lot of incomprehensible things remained in the case. For example, there is no motive. Also, none of the neighbors heard the shots, although it is simply impossible not to hear the rumble of a shotgun. All the victims were laid face down, but the investigation showed that the killer did not move the bodies. Ronald DeFeo himself claimed that a certain Indian leader forced him to do all this. The killer is currently serving six parallel sentences - he received a life sentence for each of the six murders.
12. McCormick's Notes
Ricky McCormick was killed on June 30, 1999, and notes were found in his trouser pocket that appear to contain a coded message. However, all attempts by the cryptanalysts of the FBI and the American Cryptanalytic Organization to decipher them did not lead to success. Interestingly, the 1999 news reports contained no information about encrypted notes. This information was released only 12 years later, when the FBI considered the death a murder.
Both notes contained text consisting of letters and numbers, with occasional parentheses. According to the FBI, the notes may contain information about McCormick's killer. According to McCormick's relatives, the deceased used a similar encryption technique since childhood, but, unfortunately, none of them knew the key to his cipher.
All attempts to decrypt the text did not lead to anything, and in 2011, the FBI, through its website, asked for help from everyone who wanted to help figure it out. A huge number of different interpretations and versions have been received, however, there is still no deciphering of McCormick's messages, or an explanation for his mysterious death. Who killed him?
11. Robert Stephen Larsen, Jr
Although Larsen did not die, the circumstances of his injury were curious enough to add to our list. The story is this: Wilissa, a small quiet town in the state of Iowa. In early June 1912, at about 12:45 pm, the Moore family was brutally beaten with an ax. There were 8 victims, of which only two were adults: Joseph (aged 43), Sarah (née Montgomery, 39), Herman Montgomery (11), Mary Catherine (10), Arthur Boyd (7) and Paul Vernon (5), and two guests - Ina (8) and Lena Stillinger (12). The killer, who was never found, was able to enter and leave the house unnoticed because he had the key. As he left, he sang the doors behind him and closed the windows. Although there were several suspects, not a single person was convicted of this heinous crime.
On November 7, 2014, Larsen (a ghost hunter) and a group of his comrades stayed at the "Wilis House, where everyone was killed with an ax" to conduct some kind of investigation into the paranormal. Larsen was in the northwest bedroom (where the Stillinger girls were killed), and suddenly, in a panic, called for help using radio communications. When friends found him, he was stabbed in the chest and, apparently, he inflicted a wound on himself … This happened around the same time that the Moore family was killed.
10. Ghost Widow
In a small village in Thailand called Tambon Tha Sawang, there have been at least 10 unexpected deaths among men who were reported to be completely healthy. Some just dropped dead in the street, while others died in their sleep.
A medium was called in to find out if these strange events were related to the "ghost widow." And the medium ordered all the villagers to hang red shirts in front of the windows to ward off evil spirits. And he also warned families where there was an only son that they were at the greatest risk, a ghost would definitely come to them. An interesting method of struggle! There were also rational assumptions about what actually caused the death of these 10 people: most likely, "airborne" illness or infectious disease.
9. Debra and Mark Constantino
The couple appeared on TV shows, according to some reports, they seemed very close-knit. However, their lives ended tragically. Reports indicated that the couple were in the process of divorce and that there had been episodes of domestic violence.
It all started with the murder of Debra's neighbor, James Anderson, who was found dead, and ended in a two-hour police confrontation at the couple's daughter's apartment. Apparently, Mark killed Debra and then pointed the gun at himself. Was it a murder out of jealousy, or was it one of those paranormal cases? Sounds like a case of domestic violence. However, the influence of supernatural power is not excluded. By the time the police took the house by storm, Debra and Mark had passed away.
8. Henry Thomas
It turns out that there is such a thing as "spontaneous human combustion." Henry Thomas caught fire and completely burned out as he sat quietly in his chair and watched TV. All that was left of him was a skull and one leg in a boot. Someone said that Thomas's death was caused by a lit heater. But why then did the flames not touch Thomas’s house, and the owner of the house didn’t even budge? A mystery … 73-year-old Henry Thomas met his death in 1980.
Despite numerous cases of spontaneous combustion of people, science is very cautious about this phenomenon. Indeed, how can a person catch fire if he is 2/3 composed of water and other non-combustible elements? They argue that a person can burn out only if the combustion temperature exceeds 1000 degrees, and this temperature will last for several hours. And nothing like this in ordinary conditions is simply impossible to achieve … There remains only a paranormal and mystical justification for this mysterious phenomenon. Decide for yourself!
7. Evelyn Hernandez
Evelyn Hernandez, 24, went missing on May 1, 2002. The girl was in tears and was about to give birth. Her five-year-old son Alexis also disappeared with her. Hernandez dated a man named Herman Aguilera (father of the unborn child).
On July 24, 2002, Hernandez's body was found in the San Francisco Bay near the bridge. Broken legs and torso in a maternity blouse were all they found. DNA tests have confirmed that these are the remains of Hernandez, however, neither the rest of the body, nor her fetus, nor Alexis have ever been recovered. Intentional harm or paranormal activity? There is a version that Satanists are involved in this terrible crime, who pray to the devil every day, and this brings history to another level.
6. The Jamiesons
On October 8, 2009 at about 2 pm Bobby (44 years old) and Sherilyn Jamison (40 years old), together with their 6-year-old daughter Madison, got together for a trip. They lived in their own home in the small town of Eufaul, Oklahoma. The family was looking for land to buy, and the purpose of their trip was literally 40 km from Eufola, in the mountains of Oklahoma (Latimer County), near the village of Krasny Dub. The land broker offered the family to go with them, but the Jamiesons refused to help. After loading the necessary things on the road into their pickup truck, and taking their little dog, the family went to the vicinity of Red Oak, where they were last seen.
On October 17, 2009, hunters found an abandoned white pickup truck, 10 km from Red Oak, on a dirt road in the forest. In the car were the things of the owners and a dog half-dead from hunger and dehydration. Where did they go? There was no sign of a struggle, and the owners disappeared without taking their documents with them, no mobile phones, no outerwear, a GPS navigator, and even wallets with credit cards and a little cash. But the biggest surprise was under the driver's seat - after searching the car, the police found a paper bank bag with $ 32,000. A week later, the search activities were stopped, and everyone realized that something extraordinary had happened to the Jamison family.
5. Charles Walton
Charles Walton is a resident of the village of Lower Quinton in Gloucestershire, England. Known as a victim of a brutal murder. Walton's murder case has not yet been solved. At the time of the murder, he was 74 years old, and he lived his entire life in Lower Quinton. He was a widower who shared his small home with his 34-year-old niece Edith, whom he adopted at the age of 4 after the death of her mother. Walton had a reputation for being reclusive.
On February 14, 1945, early in the morning, Walton went to work in the fields with a pitchfork and a small ax. The last person to see him alive was a local farmer who spotted Walton near Meon Hill around noon. Night fell, and Charles never showed up. Worried, Edith turned to a neighbor for help and went with him to find her uncle. Walton's body was found lying under a large willow tree at the top of Meon Hill. The pitchfork was driven into his throat with such force that its teeth went deep into the ground. In addition, there was a cruciform wound on the victim's chest, an ax was stuck right in his ribs.
Renowned anthropologist Margaret Murray stated that Charles Walton was killed as a result of a Celtic sacrifice by a secret sect of Druids. Scotland Yard tried to solve the Walton case without mysticism. But February 14 was not an easy day - according to the Druidic calendar, it is February 1, the day of sacrifice to the earth. Among the Celts, it was called the Day of the Festival of Lights - Oymelka, when the druid priests performed their bloody sacrifices on a freshly plowed field, asking the gods to send a good harvest.
Although no one was ever formally charged with the murder of Charles Walton, it is said that it was witchcraft and the murder was occult. In fact, when Walton's pocket watch was found at home, a piece of colored glass was found inside it. The glass of the "glass witch" is used to ward off evil from the wearer - Charles never took off this watch, except on the day he was killed.
4. Christopher Keyes
Christopher Keyes, 35, lived in Seattle, Washington. In April 1991, he was found dead in the bathroom, with a frightened expression on his face. Shortly before his death, he visited San Francisco, where he met and went out to lunch with a couple of acquaintances. Sammy Sauder, a physicist, teacher and longtime friend of Case, received an answering machine from Case. He called in a panic, and claimed that a certain woman put a curse on him because he was not interested and rejected her. According to Sauder: “He said he was very afraid, the witch attacked him all night (in his sleep, not physically), and cut him to pieces. He woke up with small cuts on his fingertips. And he asked me to call him back."
When the body was found, the authorities found candles, crucifixes; the house around the perimeter was watered with salt solution. King County Police's Tony Burt said: “The cause of death is unknown. An initial autopsy does not indicate death by violence. (The detectives) don't think this is murder. The death is being investigated."
3. Newborn from Talisay, Philippines
In this case, little is known. It happened in December 2011: John Edison Malakey, a child ten days old, died under extremely strange circumstances. Grandparents reported red spots splashed across the floor of their daughter's house (they thought it might be rats) and bloodstains in the kitchen.
When the mother of the newborn, Kimberly, received a call, she rushed home in panic. This is awful, get ready … Her newborn son was bleeding from his mouth and nose; his navel was pierced as if it were withered. The child died in the hospital. The family claims that he was killed by some otherworldly creature.
People, of course, are skeptical and suspect hiding evidence, but this is only until the neighbors noticed the blood also on the roof of the house where the crime took place …
2. Peggy's doll
The Peggy doll, supposedly cursed and containing some terrible powers, belongs to a resident of the United Kingdom, Jane Harris. The woman calls herself a researcher of supernatural phenomena and explains her keen interest in the occult with the innate psychic abilities that she inherited from her grandmother.
Peggy is a very unusual doll. She does not talk and does not move at night, however, she has the property of being in the same room with people, causing them severe nausea and chest pain. Jane filmed several recordings in which she tried to exorcise an evil entity from the doll, and posted them on YouTube. Despite the fact that Peggy showed no signs of life, many users who watched these videos reported severe nausea and chest pain. Thus, if you decide to watch the video below, we warn you that you do this at your own peril and risk.
Harris is the head of the Cursed Dolls organization in Shropshire. People from all over the UK periodically bring children's toys to the Englishwoman, which they consider possessed by evil spirits.
1. Eliza Lam
On January 26, 2013, 21-year-old student Eliza Lam left her native British Columbia for California. After spending some time in San Diego, on January 28, she checked into the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. On February 1, she was supposed to leave the hotel. She was last seen alive three days after checking in in the hotel lobby.
While in California, Lam kept in touch with her parents every day, and after they were unable to reach her, they called the police. The police investigated the disappearance of the girl and a few days later found CCTV footage from the hotel elevator, which shows that Lam is behaving very strangely: he presses buttons and pokes his head out of the elevator several times, as if looking for someone. She also periodically walks in and out of the elevator, and even seems to be talking to herself.
It took 2 weeks, but no trace of Lam was found until the hotel residents began to complain about the black water from the taps and the lack of pressure in the taps. After climbing to the rooftop, a hotel employee found Lam's naked body in one of the closed water tanks. An autopsy was carried out, which revealed that the girl had drowned. No drugs or alcohol were found in her blood. Death was defined as an accident.
Ghost worshipers believe that Lam was actually captured by some evil spirit or was under his influence. As proof that Lam was possessed, people point out that it is still unclear how she got to the rooftop. There are two access to it: a fire escape or a door that was always locked. In addition, the locked door was in a place that only long-term guests (and probably a ghost among them) or hotel staff knew about. Lam was a fragile girl, but she somehow managed to open the heavy door and close it behind her.