Americans are not sensationalized. Still, what happened in late 1989 in Western Kansas thrilled even them.
Foley Creek farm owner Joe Bernie, 60, woke up early as usual. After lightly rinsing his face with tap water, he went outside. The pre-dawn twilight had not yet completely dispersed, but he still noticed a small earthen embankment with a stone tombstone. Such a "surprise" nearly fainted the elderly man. Bernie immediately returned to the house and immediately called the police.
As soon as they entered the yard of the farm, the police were convinced that the farmer's head was in order and he was telling the truth. The first version that came from law enforcement officers: someone decided to play a trick on Bernie. But who exactly, no one undertook to say, since the stone slab was so old that it did not allow to make out the words written on it. Therefore, there was no way to find out where the "jokers" could have brought her from.
But as soon as the police began to tear apart the grave mound, the initially put forward version disappeared by itself. It turned out that under a layer of soil is a time-destroyed coffin with human remains that were removed and buried outside of Mr. Bernie's farm.
It is clear that it didn’t smell like a joke. After all, in order to move a decent amount of earth, and even with a coffin and bones, it would take a vehicle and time. In addition, without noise, such work, and even under the windows of the owner, is also impossible to do. And although the police tried not to express their thoughts out loud, but, most likely, each of them, as well as the rest of the eyewitnesses of the incident, thought that it was not without evil spirits …
In short, this case, shrouded in a mass of rumors and the most incredible assumptions, remained unsolved.
But this is not the first and not the only story of this kind. This has happened before.
So, in the 16th century in the Austrian city of Linz, the grave of the burgher Stetenberg moved from one place to another. This case has been preserved in the archives of the local church of St. Thomas.
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The incredible incident immediately agitated the population of the city, because in this event many saw a bad omen, believing that the bearer of evil was the deceased.
And in order to save the city from possible disaster, with a huge crowd of people, Stetenberg's body was removed from the grave and immediately burned. The pit was filled up with sand and cobblestones, and an aspen cross was erected on the raised hill …
In 1627, a similar incident with the grave of a certain Pedro Asuntos was noted in Spain. As in Linz, the massive stone tombstone also moved along with the large volume of earth and the ashes of the deceased …
Another similar incident occurred in 1740 in Germany near the provincial town of Ravensburg. Then the grave with the tombstone moved from the cemetery to the river bank. Local boys grazing cattle stumbled upon her. The epitaph is well preserved on the slab, from which it followed that in the grave "Christina Bauer, a parishioner of the Church of Ravensburg, rests." Using it, without any special problems, they established where the grave-traveler "arrived" from.
The priest of the local church was immediately notified of the incredible incident. At the first moment, he could not believe that such a thing could have happened to the grave of a parishioner who was not only distinguished by decorous behavior, but also made generous donations to the church treasury during her lifetime. For this she was buried in the most prominent place of the church cemetery.
And only when the priest did not find either a tombstone or a burial mound on the place of honor, he was forced to believe the shepherds.
In order to finally make sure of the incredible, in the presence of a large number of eyewitnesses, earth was dug up in the place where the late Bauer was buried. But her remains were not found.
When the burial mound was excavated on the bank of the river, to the great surprise of numerous eyewitnesses, a coffin with human bones was removed from the ground. But in this case, they did not throw stones at the pit, considering that such was the will of God. Therefore, they did not transfer the coffin and the remains to their original place, but, sprinkling it with holy water, left it on the river bank …
Scotland also once became famous for its "wandering grave phenomenon." It happened in the fall of 1928. And the beginning of that old story was laid by a certain Arthur Hazelm, who, accidentally finding himself in the town of Glanceville, suddenly remembered that his longtime relative Roger Hazelm was buried in the local cemetery. And since Mr. Arthur had enough free time, he decided to visit the grave of the deceased.
And although he had not been to the cemetery for more than 15 years, he remembered the place where the grave of the deceased relative is perfectly well. Therefore, I was very surprised when, instead of a tombstone and a grave mound, I saw a flat piece of land overgrown with withered grass.
Then Hazlem turned to the watchman for clarification. But he could not say anything concrete. In the city hall, where the annoyed gentleman soon went, he was shown a diagram of the cemetery, and on it the plot where the grave of a relative was supposed to be. But Arthur Hazelm did not find her there either.
The watchman turned out to be a curious man, so he was also interested in the strange situation with the grave. And he began to look for her. After spending half a day, by evening he nevertheless discovered the tombstone of Roger Hazelm. It was located about 200 meters from the place where the grave was located earlier.
And Sir Arthur, meanwhile, hired workers and ordered the excavation of the place of the former burial. But the coffin was not there.
In order to finally deal with such a strange situation, it was decided to excavate a place under the tombstone, which the watchman found. And to the surprise of eyewitnesses, the coffin lid appeared at a depth of one and a half meters. After a short time, it was opened. Nobody believed it was Roger's grave.
But then one of the close relatives who were present at the exhumation suddenly remembered that the late Roger wore a ring with the monograms "R" and "H". Indeed, when they examined the bones of the hands of the decayed deceased, on the ring finger they found just such a ring. This meant that, indeed, the remains of Roger Hazelm in an incredible way, together with the tombstone and the earth, moved to a new place.
However, these incredible cases seem mysterious and inexplicable mainly for Europeans. At the same time, in a number of African tribes, as well as among the indigenous population of Polynesia, such stories do not cause much surprise.
Therefore, so that the graves in the future could not leave their place, immediately after the completion of the funeral rites, they are doused with the juice of special plants, and they are also lined with shells. And on the islands of Tongo, for the same purpose, two deceased are placed in one grave at once.
Bernatsky Anatoly