Why Haunted Houses Opened During the Great Depression

In the period leading up to the Great Depression, Halloween had become a time when young men could blow off steam—and cause mischief. Sometimes they went too far. In 1933, parents were outraged when hundreds of teenage boys flipped over cars, sawed off telephone poles and engaged in other acts of vandalism across the country. People began to refer to that year’s holiday as “Black Halloween,” similarly to the way they referred to the stock market crash four years earlier as “Black Tuesday.”

Rather than banning the holiday, as some demanded, many communities began organizing Halloween activities—and haunted houses—to keep restless would-be pranksters occupied.

Irving Writes ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ After Fleeing Yellow Fever

Washington Irving's 1820 tale of a headless horseman who terrorizes the real-life village of Sleepy Hollow is considered one of America's first ghost stories—and one of its scariest. Irving may have drawn inspiration for his story while a teenager in Tarrytown, New York. He moved to the area in 1798 to flee a yellow fever outbreak in New York City.

Irving’s story takes place in the New York village of Sleepy Hollow. A lanky newcomer and schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, is chased by a headless horseman. In the tale, Irving weaves together actual locations and family names, and a little bit of Revolutionary War history with pure imagination and fantasy.

Courtesy of Unexplained Mysteries

Are Vampires Real?

Vampire superstition thrived in the Middle Ages, especially as the plague decimated entire towns. The disease often left behind bleeding mouth lesions on its victims, which to the uneducated was a sure sign of vampirism.

It wasn’t uncommon for anyone with an unfamiliar physical or emotional illness to be labeled a vampire. Many researchers have pointed to porphyria, a blood disorder that can cause severe blisters on skin that’s exposed to sunlight, as a disease that may have been linked to the vampire legend.

Some symptoms of porphyria can be temporarily relieved by ingesting blood. Other diseases blamed for promoting the vampire myth include rabies or goiter.

When a suspected vampire died, their bodies were often disinterred to search for signs of vampirism. In some cases, a stake was thrust through the corpse’s heart to make sure they stayed dead. Other accounts describe the decapitation and burning of the corpses of suspected vampires well into the nineteenth century.

Mercy Brown

Mercy Brown may rival Count Dracula as the most notorious vampire. Unlike Count Dracula, however, Mercy was a real person. She lived in Exeter, Rhode Island and was the daughter of George Brown, a farmer.

After George lost many family members, including Mercy, in the late 1800s to tuberculosis, his community used Mercy as a scapegoat to explain their deaths. It was common at that time to blame several deaths in one family on the “undead.” The bodies of each dead family member were often exhumed and searched for signs of vampirism.

When Mercy’s body was exhumed and didn’t display severe decay (not surprising, since her body was placed in an above-ground vault during a New England winter), the townspeople accused her of being a vampire and making her family sick from her icy grave. They cut out her heart, burned it, then fed the ashes to her sick brother. Perhaps not surprisingly, he died shortly thereafter.

Real Vampires

Although modern science has silenced the vampire fears of the past, people who call themselves vampires do exist. They’re normal-seeming people who drink small amounts of blood in a (perhaps misguided) effort to stay healthy.

Communities of self-identified vampires can be found on the Internet and in cities and towns around the world.To avoid rekindling vampire superstitions, most modern vampires keep to themselves and typically conduct their “feeding” rituals—which include drinking the blood of willing donors—in private.

Some vampires don’t ingest human blood but claim to feed off the energy of others. Many state that if they don’t feed regularly, they become agitated or depressed.

Vampires became mainstream after Dracula was published. Since then, Count Dracula’s legendary persona has been the topic of many films, books and television shows. Given the fascination people have with all things horror, vampires—real or imagined—are likely to continue to inhabit the earth for years to come.

Werewolves

The werewolf is a mythological animal and the subject of many stories throughout the world—and more than a few nightmares. Werewolves are, according to some legends, people who morph into vicious, powerful wolves. Others are a mutant combination of human and wolf. But all are bloodthirsty beasts who cannot control their lust for killing people and animals.

Early Werewolf Legends

It’s unclear exactly when and where the werewolf legend originated. Some scholars believe the werewolf made its debut in The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known Western prose, when Gilgamesh jilted a potential lover because she had turned her previous mate into a wolf.

Werewolves made another early appearance in Greek mythology with the Legend of Lycaon. According to the legend, Lycaon, the son of Pelasgus, angered the god Zeus when he served him a meal made from the remains of a sacrificed boy. As punishment, the enraged Zeus turned Lycaon and his sons into wolves.

Werewolves also emerged in early Nordic folklore. The Saga of the Volsungs tells the story of a father and son who discovered wolf pelts that had the power to turn people into wolves for ten days. The father-son duo donned the pelts, transformed into wolves and went on a killing rampage in the forest. Their rampage ended when the father attacked his son, causing a lethal wound. The son only survived because a kind raven gave the father a leaf with healing powers.

Zombies

The zombie, often portrayed as an undead, flesh-eating, decaying corpse, has seen a popularity surge in recent years thanks to music videos and TV shows. Unlike many other monsters—which are mostly a product of superstition and fear—zombies have a basis in fact. Several credible reports in medical journals describe people using certain compounds to first induce paralysis in people, and then revive them. In Haitian voodoo culture, folklore featuring undead beings has been around for centuries.

Zombie Traits

A zombie, according to pop culture and folklore, is usually either a reawakened corpse with a ravenous appetite or someone bitten by another zombie infected with a “zombie virus.”

Zombies are usually portrayed as strong but robotic beings with rotting flesh. Their only mission is to feed. They typically don’t have conversations (although some may grunt a little).

Origin of Zombies

The Ancient Greeks may have been the first civilization terrorized by a fear of the undead. Archaeologists have unearthed many ancient graves which contained skeletons pinned down by rocks and other heavy objects, assumedly to prevent the dead bodies from reanimating.

Zombie folklore has been around for centuries in Haiti, possibly originating in the 17th century when West African slaves were brought in to work on Haiti’s sugar cane plantations. Brutal conditions left the slaves longing for freedom. According to some reports, the life—or rather afterlife—of a zombie represented the horrific plight of slavery.

Zombies and Voodoo

Voodoo (sometimes spelled vodou or vodun) is a religion based in West Africa and practiced throughout Haiti and the Caribbean, Brazil, the American South and other places with an African heritage.

Many people who follow the voodoo religion today believe zombies are myths, but some believe zombies are people revived by a voodoo practitioner known as a bokor.

Bokors have a tradition of using herbs, shells, fish, animal parts, bones and other objects to create concoctions including “zombie powders,” which contain tetrodotoxin, a deadly neurotoxin found in pufferfish and some other marine species.

Used carefully at sub-lethal doses, the tetrodotoxin combination may cause zombie-like symptoms such as difficulty walking, mental confusion and respiratory problems.

High doses of tetrodotoxin can lead to paralysis and coma. This could cause someone to appear dead and be buried alive – then later revived.

Courtesy of Unexplained Mysteries

"I went outside and took a picture but after initially admiring the brickwork

the face just sort of jumped out at me.

I ran into the house to make sure no one was in there because I knew everyone

else was at work, but it was just me and my two-year-old daughter," she said.

After studying the photo for a while she did what any reasonable person would do.

She put the picture on Facebook to see if the Internet "could come up with an

explanation as to how the face could have got there.'"

She said, "Most people thought it was a reflection of the flowers below

the window but the angles are all wrong.

It's hard to believe but it clearly looks like the face of an old man."

Michelle vehemently denies claims that she doctored the photo.

She also said that since then she's noticed other ghostly ongoings.

"I'm a self-confessed non-believer of ghosts but the picture coupled with a

clock randomly falling off the wall and smashing to pieces that morning

did creep me out," she said.

"The clock was there when we moved in, so it hadn't fallen off due to a

dodgy fixture we had put up. Another weird thing was that my friend

saw a door handle move down and the door opened in the same room

the face in the window was in.

Courtesy of Unexplained Mysteries

During the summer of 1983, in a quiet town near

Minneapolis, Minnesota, the charred body of a woman

was found inside the kitchen stove of a small farmhouse.

A video camera was also found in the kitchen, standing on

a tripod and pointing at the oven.

No tape was found inside the camera at the time.

However, a tape seemingly from the camera is

discovered by a well behind the house.

Although the scene was originally labeled as a homicide by police,

an unmarked VHS tape was later discovered at the bottom

of the farm’s well (which had apparently dried up earlier that year).

Despite its worn condition, and the fact that it contained no audio,

police were still able to view the contents of the tape.

It depicted a woman recording herself in front of a video camera

(seemingly using the same camera the police found in the kitchen).

After positioning the camera to include both her and her kitchen

stove in the image, the tape then showed her turning on the oven,

opening the door, crawling inside, and then closing the door behind her.

Courtesy of Unexplained Mysteries

Halloween Mystery – The Phantom Barber of Mississippi

In 1942 the United States was in a state of social upheaval. The bombing of Pearl Harbor sent many young men off to fight against the German and Japanese forces, women were taking over the factory jobs once maintained by men, and small towns suddenly became epicenters for the war effort. This was the atmosphere many of the residents of Pascagoula, Mississippi became embroiled in, when women took to the assembly lines to build large ships crucial to the Naval operations abroad

As industry blossomed, the small town suddenly gained 10,000 additional residents and with them came the crime and corruption previously reserved for large neighboring cities. As police struggled to handle the influx of crime, a peculiar prowler found himself in their midst. The locals called him The Phantom Barber of Pascagoula.

The first attacks

The first known Phantom attacks were reported on the night of June 5, 1942. Mary Briggs and Edna Hydel had settled into bed for the night at Our Lady of Victories convent. A noise stirred the young women from their beds just in time to see a man climbing out of their bedroom window. Both girls were unharmed, but noticed that a single lock of hair had been missing from both of their heads. Since it was dark they weren’t able to provide a detailed description. Briggs was only able to tell investigators that he was “Sorta short, sorta fat and he was wearing a white sweatshirt.”

The story is told

In an era where tensions and paranoia were at an all-time high, the attacks did little to ease anyone’s minds. By the time that Monday had rolled around the town was buzzing with stories about the odd attacks at the convent. Perhaps getting some sort of sick satisfaction from the fear he aroused, the prowler struck again.

6-year-old Carol Peattie had been nestled snug in her bed next to her twin brother when the Phantom Barber sliced through their window screen and planted his feet firmly on her bedroom floor. He crept quietly towards the sleeping girl and sheered off a lock of her hair before promptly fleeing the scene. The only evidence left behind was a single sandy footprint, located directly below the children’s bedroom window.

Investigators were working diligently to piece together the string of bizarre attacks, but had no solid leads. A week after the first attacks occurred, Mr. and Mrs. Heidelberg would become the next victims of a home invasion. Unlike the other attacks though, the Barber wasn’t there for hair. He beat the Heidelbergs in their bed with a lead pipe, knocking out Mrs. Heidelberg’s front teeth and leaving Mr. Heidelberg unconscious. The attack happened so suddenly that neither of the Heidelbergs were able to offer a description of their attacker.

Police sent out bloodhounds to track the perpetrator’s scent. The hounds led police to a pair of bloody gloves left behind in the woods, but the trail went cold. Police believed that the location of the gloves may have been where the Phantom Barber had a bike waiting in order to make his escape.

The final victim

The final victim of the Phantom’s sheers would be at the home of Mrs. Taylor. Mrs. Taylor had been asleep in her bed when suddenly she felt something press against her face and a sickly smell. When she awoke she reported to police that she had fallen violently ill and noticed that her window had been sliced open and a lock of her hair had been cut from her head.

Police suspected that this time the Phantom had used a chloroform soaked rag in order to cause Mrs. Taylor to loose consciousness in order to go about his dastardly deeds. With no leads the town was in a panic. Young girls locked their windows at night for fear that they too would become victims of the Phantom, and blonde women especially lived in a perpetual state of terror since the Phantom preferred blondes.

Two months passed without any further reported Phantom attacks when police finally announced that they had made an arrest. A 57-year-old German chemist named William Dolan was picked up. Allegedly police had believed he was the Phantom since he had previously quarreled with the Hiedelbergs and was also reported to have been a Nazi sympathizer.

FBI investigators were able to tie him to the attacks after a bag of hair was found in his backyard and believed to have belonged to Carol Peattie, the youngest of his victims. In spite of the evidence, Dolan was charged with the attack on the Hiedelbergs, but curiously enough was never charged for any of the unwanted haircuts. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted murder.

Dolan had always denied being the Phantom Barber and many in the area believed that police had the wrong man. Though no attacks occurred after Dolan’s arrest, some believe that the Phantom Barber moved on to another area. Six years after his arrest the Governor of Mississippi asked Dolan to submit to a lie detector test. After passing all of the questions, including questions relating to the attack on the Hiedelbergs, Dolan was allowed early release in 1951.

Was Dolan really the Phantom Barber, or was he simply a patsy police used to quell the hysteria? It seems like we will never know for sure. All that is known is that there haven’t been any reports of hair cutting intruders in the area since.

Courtesy of Unexplained Mysteries

Gilles Garnier – the wolf

Besides being a recluse, Gilles Garnier was also a mass murderer who devoured children when they strayed from home. Witnesses who saw him committing these atrocious crimes said he sometimes took the form of a wolf. Once captured Garnier confessed that he had indeed changed himself into a wolf and killed and eaten children. He was charged with the abominable crimes of lycanthropy and witchcraft and burnt alive at Dole, in eastern France, on 18 January 1573.

Usually only starving or rabid wolves attack people, and in the sixteenth century these were assumed to be werewolves (from the Old English word wer, meaning man). Garnier came from a wolf-infested area where four people were tried as werewolves between 1520 and 1575. Elsewhere in Europe trials were less common, though many more accusations were made. England had none, as wolves had been eliminated by 1500. A notorious werewolf came from near Cologne, Germany. Peter Stubbe was convicted of murdering and eating 13 children (including his own son) and two pregnant women. He boasted that the devil had given him a magic belt, which he used to turn himself into the likeness of a devouring wolf. Stubbe was broken on the wheel, beheaded, and burnt on 28 October 1589.

Shape-shifters

During the witch craze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, female witches were said to ride to their sabbats on wolves, and male witches to change, or shape-shift, into wolves when attacking people and animals. If a transformed wolf was injured, the person’s body would still bear the wound when it returned to human form. A 1588 story from the French Auvergne tells of a huntsman who cut off the paw of a wolf and placed it in his bag. Later, when showing it to a local nobleman, he was astonished to find that it had changed into a hand wearing a golden ring. The horrified nobleman recognized the ring and rushed to his kitchen where he found his wife nursing her wounded arm. She was promptly burnt as a witch. In many werewolf trials, such as the Gilles Garnier case, the defendant was judged to be genuine shape-shifter and was condemned to a painful death. But since ancient times lycanthropy – the belief that one is turning into a wolf – has also been recognized as an abnormal mental condition. Afflicted people howl, frequent graveyards and crave human flesh.

I eat children

In 1603 a 14-year-old shepherd boy, Jean Grenier, was tried at Bordeaux in France for attacking and eating children. In court the boy claimed that the lord of the forest had given him a wolf skin and a salve with which to turn himself into a wolf. He admitted eating a dog, a baby and two little girls. But detailed questioning during his trial showed that Grenier was given to inventing all manner of wild stories. After consulting with medical specialists, the judge pointed out that the unfortunate Grenier was clearly mentally retarded and called for a verdict of insanity. Instead of being burnt at the stake, he was imprisoned in a monastery, where he died at the age of 20.

While most convicted werewolves do seem to have been psychotic serial killers, werewolves also have a more benign side. In 1692 an 80-year-old peasant named Thiess told the judges of Jurgensburg, Livonia – at that time a province of Russia – that three times a year he turned into a wolf. It was his destiny, announced at his birth, to change into an animal and fight on behalf of his people. On the nights of Saint Lucy, Saint John and the Pentecost, Thiess claimed he joined the other Livonian werewolves on a journey to hell to fight with the devils and sorcerers over the harvest for the coming year. Thiess seems to have been continuing an ancient tradition of dream battles for fertility undertaken by special people in the form of animals.

Are werewolves real?

Wolves were traditionally associated with the realm of the dead and werewolves were thought to be most active during the 12 nights after Christmas, when the dead were supposed to roam the earth. In hunter-gatherer societies the ability to change temporarily into the shape of an animal was one of the sources of a shaman’s power. The belief that some people can change themselves into wild animals seems almost universal. In areas where wolves do not exist, other creatures fulfill this role. In South America they change into were-jaguars; in Africa into were-leopards, were-hyenas, and even were-crocodiles; in India into were-tigers; and in Japan into were-foxes and were-badgers!

Courtesy of Unexplained Mysteries