kinda terrifying

Sleep Paralysis // The Nightmare by John Henry Fuseli

In 1781, John Henry Fuseli painted The Nightmare; a dark and dreamlike oil painting that depicts an erotically-posed sleeping woman, an Incubus perched upon her chest. An unsettling, white eyed horse looks in from the curtains behind them. 

Although interpretations vary, it is hard to deny that the artist created this impactful piece with bad dreams somewhere in mind. During those times, common folklore told of demons visiting people in their sleep, or at least those who slept alone. Men were visited by horses or hags, while women were believe to have intercourse with the devil himself.

In more current times, the image brings the immediate thought of Sleep Paralysis, a condition in which a person begins to come up to consciousness from sleep before their body catches up, leaving the individual temporarily physically paralyzed in their bed. Those who experience this often describe it feeling as if something is holding them down or sitting on their chest. It is common to hallucinate during these episodes and, often due to the panic, these can be incredibly frightening.

Sleep Paralysis episodes last less than minutes and only about 5% of the population experience them regularly. Despite this, much paranormal speculation continues around the subject and there are many people that claim to have had genuine experiences with the unknown written off as Sleep Paralysis.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

Built between 1858 and 1881, this asylum is well known for being the largest hand-cut stone masonry building in the entirety of North America. While it was originally built as a safe haven for the mentally ill, it eventually became a nightmare to most of it’s patients. The original hospital was build to accommodate only 250 patients, but it reached it’s peak of 2,400 patients in the 1950’s. Although the building was beautifully built with many windows to allow light, the conditions were terrible, as overcrowding caused living conditions to deplete.

This particular asylum was known well for it’s women’s ward in the early years. In those days, men could have their wives committed for just about anything. Depression, greed, menopause, asthma, inheritance, etc. A man could fall in love with the woman next door or just get tired of his wife and drop her off at the front doors. These women would spend the rest of their lives behind the asylum walls. The only person with permission to check them out were their husbands, who left them behind.

While the medical practices used on mental patients were renowned as “breakthrough operations” in their time can now only be described as cruel. The most popular method of treatment for the worse patients was Lobotomy, which was an operation done on the brain that severed ties to and from the prefrontal cortex. This was meant to cause a calmed state in the patients. However, for the most part, patients that underwent this surgery were thrown into a permanently vegetative state. Many patients were also exposed to shock therapy and other generally torturous experiments and treatments. Additionally, patients that could not be controlled were thrown in cages for days, some even weeks.

The asylum was finally closed in 1994 and is now mostly used to paranormal tours, but is otherwise abandoned. As can be expected from such a wretched place, there are literally hundreds of different paranormal accounts regarding the grounds. People have reported hearing women screaming “help me” and “get me out of here.” A woman on a paranormal tour claimed that she heard a young woman begging “please call my husband.” Additionally, people touring the buildings have reported feeling followed and feeling someone breathing down the back of their neck. The head paranormal investigator in the area reports the spirit of a 9 year old girl that he regards as a very active spirit. Born in the asylum, she lived a short life before succumbing to pneumonia. The investigator states that he’ll ask the young girl, named Lily, to do tasks. These tasks include tapping on walls/windows, turning a flash light on and off, and once tugging on the investigator’s hair. She was able to complete these tasks almost every single time he asked.

For more information on the hospital and tours, click here.

photo source

Additionally, the rad people over at unexplained-events have an actual list of reasons for admission to the Asylum dating all the way back to the 1800’s. Click here to check that out!

The Mysterious Death of Blair Adams (1996)

Blair Adams was found beaten to death and half-naked in a parking lot in Knoxville, Tennessee. Scattered around his body was German, Canadian, and U.S. currency totaling nearly $4k.

Lieutenant Jones recalled the gruesome scene:

“His pants were removed in a way not like someone would take their own pants off, but in a way that someone else would remove your pants from you. His socks were turned inside out. His shoes were off and his shirt was ripped open.”

Blair Adams was originally from British Columbia where he worked in construction. A few weeks before his death he started exhibiting strange behavior. He had severe mood swings and when confronted by his mother, he refused to tell her what was happening citing “her safety” as the reason. A few days before his death, he withdrew the $6k he had in savings along with thousands more in jewelry, and decided to cross into the U.S through the Canadian border. He then bought a one-way ticket to Washington DC. Upon his arrival, he went 500 miles south-west to Knoxville TN. He had no reason to be in the US, but his overall behavior was extremely unusual.

Upon his arrival in TN, a CCTV footage showed him renting a room in a hotel, half a mile from where his body was found. The hotel’s security camera showed that in the space of an hour, Blair went in and out of the lobby five times before finally paying for the room. After checking in, Blair pocketed the key to his room. But instead of going to his room, he marched out the front door and never came back. 

According to the autopsy report, Blair had sustained many cuts and abrasions. Police believed some of the wounds came from fending off an attack. Blair was ultimately killed by a violent blow that ruptured his stomach. His killer was never found and there has been no evidence uncovered that explained his strange behavior and who he was running from.

Autumn at the old burial ground. Dover VT 2017

Water horses are mythical creatures, originating in Celtic folklore but appearing in several beliefs worldwide. Examples include the kelpie, the each-uisge, the Ceffyl Dŵr, the nuggle and the Bäckahäst. They are sometimes classed as fey creatures, sometimes spirits, and are often viewed as a type of boogeyman.

Water horses usually dwell in land-locked bodies of water, such as lakes and lochs, though certain legends present them as sea monsters. They are often seen as harmful, frightening creatures, with several said to have a taste for human flesh. Some will lure people in to ride them, only to kill them through drowning. A few, however, are more mischievous than outright wicked.

Image source.

Monster master list.

Suggest a spook.

The Italian Bride

In 1921, an Italian woman named Julia Petta passed away while giving birth to her stillborn son, Filippo. Soon afterwards, her mother began having dreams in which her deceased daughter was speaking to her. In these dreams, she would tell her mother that she was very much still alive. After 6 years of these nightmares, her mother insisted that Julia’s body be exhumed.

Upon exhumation, they found that Julia’s body was almost entirely intact,(which is shown in the bottom right photo). The only part of her body that had experienced advanced decomposition was her arm, which held the body of her stillborn baby (who also had decomposed.)

After this, the mother decided to have her statue made along with adding the photos to her monument. No one has been able to explain why Julia had not decomposed.

Photo 1 Source

Photo 2 & 3 Source

Mansfield Reformatory

Also known as The Ohio State Reformatory, Mansfield reformatory first opened its doors to 150 young prisoners in 1896. It’s doors continued to stay open, seeing over 155,000 men in total come through, until December of 1990. The reformatory was, at first, a center that housed young, petty criminals. The first inmates that were admitted actually helped with construction on the building. However, construction would not end until 1910 due to funding issues.

Regardless of the crime, many of the men that walked through the doors of Mansfield Reformatory never left. In fact, their bodies reside in bleak, unmarked graves on the property. While many of them died from Influenza or tuberculosis, others were not quite as normal. Many of the more unnatural deaths occurred in solitary, then called simply The Hole. Of those, there were many suicides, inmates using whatever they could to end their lives and the suffering of being locked in a small cell. 

In 1930, a riot occurred in the east wing of the reformatory, resulting in the guards condemning 120 prisoners to share 12 small confinement cells without food or water. In July 1948, the reformatory’s farm boss along with his wife and daughter were kidnapped by two ex-inmates who were looking for a little revenge. They were all three shot to death. Still, the bloodshed was not over. Only two years later, the Warden’s wife suffered an accidental gun wound that would prove fatal. Within the same decade, the Warden would follow her in death due to a heart attack in his office.

Since the reformatory was closed, the building has been left mostly to historical tours along with paranormal tours. Tour guides have reported being pushed even even punched by things they couldn’t see or touch. Witnesses have also claimed to see shadow figures on the property.

Photo Source

The Disappearance of the MV Joyita

On October 3rd, 1955, the MV Joyita set course from Samoa’s Apia Harbor for the Tokelau Islands, a voyage would have taken about two days. The ship carried 16 crew members and 9 passengers, including the man (Bert Hodgkinson, a pharmacist) in the image on the right. They should have shown up at the Tokelau port on October 5th, but they never did.

While no distress signal was received from the Joyita, a search and rescue mission was launched to find her. The search spanned from October 6th to the 12th, and an area of about 100,000 square miles was covered, but the Joyita and her passengers were not found.

On November 10th of the same year, the Joyita was sighted nearly 600 miles west of the originally scheduled route. The ship was partially submerged, but no traces of the passengers or crew were found. Additionally, nearly all of the cargo was missing, which included medical supplies, timber, and various food items. The life boats were also missing (along with the life vests, which it is noted that they did not have enough of for everyone), and one of the few things found on board was a doctor’s bag that contained lengths of blood-stained bandages. The radio on board was tuned to a marine distress channel, but the wires had been broken, leaving the radio’s range to about two miles. The ship appeared to have been adrift and abandoned for some time.

There are many hypotheses regarding what happened to the MV Joyita and her crew, ranging from the rational to the supernatural. Despite all of this, the biggest controversy most people find is why the passengers and crew abandoned ship in the first place. While it was clear that the Joyita was taking on water, the ship was built to be incredibly buoyant and therefore impossible to sink fully. Had the passengers stayed aboard, perhaps they’d be here today to tell us what happened.

No bodies have ever been recovered, and the whereabouts of the 16 crew members and 9 passengers remains a mystery.

Stella Lansing: The Occupants

Stella Lansing was a middle-aged housewife from Massachusetts who in 1961 began experiencing strange and otherworldly events that over time led her down a bizarre path of UFOs, strange humanoid creatures, Men In Black, and visions of other worlds. She managed to capture most of these on different types of film. She traveled all over the States and seemed to capture strange things everywhere she went.

The picture above (left) is of 3 men that she took near her home in Munson Hill, MA. None of these three men were in the room when the picture was taken. The photo has baffled photo specialists for decades. It was nicknamed “The Occupants.” The picture on the right is an artist’s cleaned up version. It was later discovered that when the image was transferred to video tape, unidentified voices started to appear, which is interesting because her 8mm camera could not record audio. The voices appear to belong to the unidentified men, but sadly the audio is too fuzzy to make out what is being said. (Listen to it here).

Stella Lansing is such an interesting case, but there isn’t much information about her. However, Berthold Schwarz, a psychiatrist/researcher specializing in the paranormal, has written an interesting paper about her:

Schwarz, B.E. (1976), “UFO contactee Stella Lansing: possible medical implications of her motion picture experiments”, The Journal of the American Society of Psychosomatic Dentistry and Medicine, 23 (2): 60–8, PMID 780328

In 1922 a young Breton girl named Pauline Picard vanished while playing on her parents property. The family searched the woods and creeks but couldn’t find her. After three weeks a little girl matching Pauline’s description was found in a town 300 miles away. When the Picard’s saw her the identified her as their missing daughter. The family took her home but she didn’t seem to recognize the family nor did she speak the language. The family loved Pauline anyway and attributed her odd behavior to the trauma of being lost and found miles away from home. It wasn’t until months later that the family’s world was shook. A man had found a decomposing body of a little girl in a ditch near the family’s home. Her head and limbs were missing and the clothes were neatly folded next to her. A human skull belonging to an adult male was also found. The girl’s clothes were identified as the same ones Pauline was wearing when she disappeared. The girl was sent to an orphanage and the family was never the same. Many people have speculated that the Picard family had actually adopted Pauline’s doppelgänger or that the girl found in the other town was a shapeshifter. The most likely case is that the girl was merely misidentified by the Picards and had no real say in the matter because she was only two years old. The case is unsolved and still confuses and shocks people decades later.

The Disappearance of Jean Spangler

Earlier in this blog’s existence, I wrote a short bit about Jean Spangler, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a ton of information into the post because it was a group post about various disappearances. With today being the 100th birthday of Kirk Douglas, a suspect in her disappearance, I decided that I wanted to cover her story in full.

Jean Elizabeth Spangler was born on September 2nd, 1923 in Seattle, Washington. She attended Franklin High School, where she graduated in 1941. During her teenage years, Spangler danced with the Earl Caroll Theater and Florentine Gardens. She was married in 1942 to Dexter Benner, and two years later she gave birth to her first and only child, Christine. She later on divorced Benner, who initially took custody of their daughter, denying Jean any visitation. He reasoned that Spangler had been unfaithful during the marriage and cared more about her life of partying and fun than caring for her daughter. However, Spangler fought vigilantly for custody of her daughter, and was awarded with just that by a judge two years after the divorce. The ruling was ultimately in her favor as the judge believed that Spangler’s questionable past was behind her, and she had proven that Christine belonged with her. After the divorce, Spangler lived with her mother, brother, sister-in-law and daughter in Los Angeles. 

Jean began her career as a hopeful actress in 1948. Although she had high hopes for the work, she was only ever awarded bit-roles in films and television shows. She was the girl in the church. The dancer. The showgirl. The pretty girl. Despite the size of the roles, she still had high hopes for her dreams of becoming a star. Unfortunately, this would never come to pass. 

Jean Spangler would only ever become famous for being a missing person.

On October 7th 1949, only a little over a month after her 26th birthday, Jean Spangler left her home around 5:00 PM. Upon her leaving, she had told her family that she was meeting up with her ex husband to discuss child support, and that she had to work on a film afterwards.  However, she never returned home. Her sister-in-law reported her missing the day afterwards. The last person to see Spangler was a store clerk, who said she seemed like she was waiting for someone. Additionally, police found that none of the studios in LA had anything being filmed that night.

Spangler’s ex husband was the first to be questioned. While it was clear that Benner had motive, his new wife assured police that her husband had been with her during the time of the disappearance.

Two days later, her purse was found.

The note found inside of the purse was unfinished, ending in a comma and unsigned, meaning Spangler might not have had time to finish it or she had been interrupted while writing it. It reads as follows:

LA Police scrambled to connect the names to possible suspects. They looked into every Dr. Scott in the LA area but came up with no leads. In a strange turn, Kirk Douglas, who had been working on a film that Spangler had a part in, contacted the police to assure them he was not the Kirk in the note. By this point, the police hadn’t even considered Douglas yet. This seemed suspicious, but with no other evidence or leads pointing to him, Douglas was let off the hook. In another twist that shocked many, Jean Spangler’s friends told police that she was 3 months pregnant during the time of her disappearance, and she was looking into getting an abortion, which was illegal at that time in history.

Los Angeles police continued their search while looking into other possibilities. In the time before her disappearance, Spangler had been spotted with a man named Davy Ogul, who was connected to mobster Mickey Cohen. Around that time, Ogul was under suspicions of conspiracy, and was reported missing two days after Spangler’s disappearance. This led people to believe that they had possibly run away together to avoid prosecution. A hotel clerk claimed to have spotted Ogul in El Paso, Texas with a woman that resembled Spangler. However, neither of their names were used for registry and the claims could not be confirmed either true or false.

As it stands, no one knows what happened to Jean Spangler. She has been a missing person for over 67 years, and while people have claimed to see her all over the United States over the years, her case still remains open and unsolved.

Cryptid of the Day: Barmanou

Description: Pakistan has its own version of Bigfoot, which lives in between the Himalayas and the Pamir Mountains. It’s name translates to “Big Hairy One”, and is said to be the missing link between the Russian Alma and the Yeti. One researcher spent his entire life looking for the monster.

The Tunguska Event

The Tunguska event refers to a large explosion(believed to be caused by an asteroid or comet)  that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908.

The explosion flatted 770 sq miles (2000 sq km) of forest and is considered the largest impact on Earth in recorded history. The really interesting thing is that even though this is considered an impact event, there was no impact crater. The explosion decimated 80 million trees and roughly 3 people died.

In the 1960s, it was established that the zone of leveled forest occupied an area of 2,150 km sq (830 sq mi), its shape resembling a gigantic spread-eagled butterfly with a “wingspan” of 70 km (43 mi) and a “body length” of 55 km (34 mi).

While there is no confirmed theory behind what caused this, the geophysical hypothesis is that it was caused by an impact of a small asteroid that disintegrated before it made impact and that the air burst of that impact caused this.

SOURCE

Moundsville Penitentiary

The West Virginia State Penitentiary, with such striking gothic style, was built in 1876. While the building was originally built to only compensate for a few hundred prisoners, it housed around 2,400 prisoners by the 1930s. It was well know that they would even have 3 prisoners in one tiny, cramped cell at a time. While they decided to expand in 1926, construction was not completed until 1959. In 1986, the West Virginia Supreme court decided that the cramped living conditions of the prison were too cruel and ruled that the prison should be closed. However, they didn’t get around to moving all of the prisoners out of the building until 1995.

Of course, as all prisons do, Moundsville had a violent history. In the late 1800s, the prison took over all executions in the state. In all, 85 men were hung and 9 were electrocuted. Suicide, murders, and violent punishments were also widely common within the facility, but because of poor record keeping the actual amount of inmates that died violently in Moundsville is unknown. 

With two major riots, many violent deaths, and the absolutely deplorable conditions of the facility; many paranormal investigators have taken interest in the facility over the years. Experts believe that the building is plagued with multiple residual hauntings. A residual haunting, in easy terms, is the spirit repeating the way they died (or something traumatic they experienced before death) over and over again. One of the most commonly talked about spirits is a maintenance man that lived in the basement of the building. It’s rumored that he was a snitch, telling the warden whenever he caught inmates doing something they weren’t supposed to. It is said that the inmates got sick of him and stabbed him to death. People have claimed to see him wandering around the basement. Additionally, people have claimed to hear humming and whistling in the same area.

People have reported feeling very threatened in certain areas of the building. They’ve also reported feeling people pushing them, hearing whispering, and actually seeing inmates running around (most people who saw these apparitions assumed they were actors paid to walk around the building). One specific story I found quite interesting is a paranormal investigator that was touring through the building reported feeling severe stabbing pain in his stomach while talking through the Sugar Shack, which was a common room when the prisoners would be put when the weather was too bad for them to go outside. Prisoners could commit heinous crimes without getting caught, and that included injuring one another. When the Sugar Shack wasn’t being used as a recreation room, the would also use the room for the executions until they started using the electric chair. The pain continued to get worse until the investigator couldn’t take it anymore and he left the building. While he was prepared to go to the hospital, the pain immediately stopped when he left the grounds. Other hot spots in the facility include; the chapel, the shower cages, and the area where they kept the death row inmates. 

The Circleville Writer

In 1976, the small town of Circleville, Ohio was shaken by scandal when many residents began receiving anonymous letters from who would come to be known as the Circleville Writer. Using blocked letters, the writer claimed to be watching those who he targeted, stating information that only the recipient would know. The content of the letters were rude, accusatory, and even threatened violence.

One of the main targets of the Circleville Writer was Mary Gillespie; a wife, mother, and school bus driver. Her family and her life were forever changed after the writer began accusing her of participating in an affair with the superintendent of schools.

This was the first of two letters that Mary initially received, in which she tried to hide at first out of fear and began keeping an aware watch on her daily activities in hopes that she might spot the mystery writer. However, she could no longer keep the secret when her husband received his own letters, both demanding that he end the affair or die.

Mary came clean to Ron about the letters, but insisted that there was no affair going on. They decided to try and ignore it, but another letter proved that to be impossible. The writer threatened to broadcast the accusations on billboards, signs, and CB radios if they didn’t come clean with the supposed affair. The Gillespies had a pretty good idea who might be sending the letters and seeked out the assistance of Paul Freshour, Ron’s sister’s husband, who helped them write their own message to the person they believed was the Circleville writer. This seemed to work as the letters stopped for an extended period of time. However, the quiet wouldn’t last.

On August 19th, 1977, Ron Gillespie received a call from the alleged writer. Although Ron didn’t directly relay what was said, Mary deducted that the call confirmed their suspicions about the identity of the Circleville Writer. Ron grabbed his shotgun, got into his truck, and apparently set off to confront the individual. Unfortunately, Ron was found dead only a short distance away, his truck wrapped around a tree. His shotgun had been discharged at some point before the crash, but forensics couldn’t find any evidence of the gun being shot inside the truck.

Initially, Sheriff Dwight Radcliffe stated that he believed the crash was a result of foul play. However, he quickly changed his stance and the official report stated that the crash was an accident caused by drunk driving, as it was found in the autopsy that the blood alcohol content in Ron’s body was twice the legal limit. Those who knew him found this to be incredibly shocking as he wasn’t known to be a heavy drinker at all. During this time, several other residents of Circleville received letters, claiming that the Sheriff was involved in a cover-up.

The superintendent and Mary soon came clean with their affair, but insisted that it had not started until after they began receiving the letters.

Later on in February of 1983, Mary began receiving harassment via posters and signs on the side of the road on her everyday bus route. Becoming fed up, she went to rip down one of the signs before noticing that the sign itself was hooked to a device; a trap which had a box with a gun inside, pointed at her. Had she pulled the sign down in a specific way, the gun would have gone off.

Although an attempt was made by the perpetrator to rub off the serial number, the police were able to trace the gun back to Paul Freshour, now separated from Ron’s sister. Paul was investigated and although he claimed that the gun had been stolen, his boss confirmed that Paul hadn’t been at work the day Mary found the trap. He was also subjected to handwriting tests, in which he was asked to write in the same block lettering.

On October 24th, 1983, Paul Freshour went to trial for attempted murder. Although he wasn’t charged for the letters, they played a key role in the case. Mary testified that she believed Paul to be the writer after his wife had come to her with the same suspicion. A handwriting expert also testified that Paul was the writer. Freshour himself claimed to have a solid alibi, but chose not to testify and was ultimately sentenced to 7 - 24 years.

While in prison, Paul Freshour recieved his own Circleville Writer letter.

Additionally, other residents of Circleville still received letters in the following years as well, despite the fact that Paul was in solitary confinement. He was even denied parole in 1990 as a result, despite the fact that there was no possibility he could’ve written them. He finally received parole in 1994.

Paul Freshour maintained his innocence until his death in 2012 and it is still unknown who the true Circleville Writer is.

In June of 2001 in Omaha, Nebraska, 19-year-old Jason Jolkowski went missing while walking to meet a coworker so they could carpool to work. Jason’s car was being repaired, so he’d arranged for the carpool with the coworker. While walking the eight blocks to meet his coworker at the local high school, Jason vanished. His coworker called Jason’s home when Jason failed to show up, and his parents and the coworker called police. The last known person to see Jason was his neighbor, who had been taking out the trash when Jason left home. It was a clear day, in a well-inhabited suburb, and yet there are no clues as to what happened to Jason. Some people believe Jason was a victim of a hit-and-run, where the perpetrator panicked and took Jason’s body with them and disposed of it elsewhere. Some thought Jason ran away, but his bank account has not been touched since the disappearance, no paychecks cashed, no cellular activity, and his car was never picked up from the shop. No personal items were missing from his home. There have also been theories that the last known person to see him alive, the neighbor, may be involved, but they and everyone else connected to Jason has been cleared of suspicion. Jason’s disappearance remains unsolved.

In the 1940’s, the SS Ourang Medan sent out a distress signal. A ship called the Silver Star got a message that said “I die.” and responded. When the Silver Star got to the Ourang Medan, they saw no evidence of any outside attackers or injuries on the crew. However, they noticed that every crew member had their arms outstretched and terrified looks on their faces, as if they were fighting off an invisible attacker. Although the crew seemingly died from supernatural causes, many have speculated that a carbon monoxide leak killed the crew and the out stretched positions could be rigor mortis. Unfortunately no one is 100% sure why every crew member died suddenly and without any clear cause.