Case File 05 — October 13, 1916

FIERY METEOR STRIKES CEMETERY GROUNDS
Burbank Tales Times — October 13, 1916

WHAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION

This may be the first newspaper in the collection where several earlier threads collide.

A fiery object reportedly fell from the sky and struck the cemetery grounds.

The impact disturbed graves and surrounding earth.

Then came reports of unusual spiders.

The sequence is difficult to ignore:

something falls → the ground is disturbed → something living emerges.

We don't yet know whether those events are connected, but the newspaper places them together.

There is also the date.

October 13, 1916.

At this point, it is worth looking backward:

October 13, 1910.

October 13, 1911.

September 13, 1912.

October 13, 1916.

The number 13 has now appeared often enough that it deserves attention.

But there is an important distinction: we still have no evidence that people living through these events regarded the date as inherently unlucky.

In fact, the first newspaper suggests something stranger. Dr. Jekyll deliberately selected Friday the 13th for the asylum opening and described it as “a day marked and embraced for years to come.”

We don't yet know what he meant.

The cemetery may be more immediately important.

Something struck it.

The ground was opened.

And afterward, spiders appeared.

The farmer's warning from 1910 is becoming harder to forget: “the land has never been quite right.”

FROM THE JOURNAL