| 1999: Paranormal Year in Review | |
Tales from the Dark Side
- Possession Debunked. In a special investigation for Strange Magazine, author/investigator Mark Opsasnick uncovered the truth about the 1940s "possessed" boy of Maryland whose "true" story inspired William Peter Blatty to write The Exorcist. Opsasnick's research concludes that the boy was a problem child long before the supposed possession. The author also shows that the boy's mother, maternal grandmother, and aunt were all believers in the occult and were involved with spiritualism and Ouija board experiments. Almost all of the incidents later attributed to possession were described and reported by one person - the boy's mother.
- The Devil Attacks. Five young men dressed as Ninja warriors, who said they were frightened by demons, knocked on a pastor's door at 2 a.m. and wound up being arrested. They said they had gone to Devil's Hopyard State Park in East Haddam, Conn. to practice martial arts when they encountered the unearthly enemy. One of them said he suddenly heard his name being called in whispers. He said he heard, "Paul... Paul... Leave now or you'll join us forever." On the way out, one said he heard laughter. Another said he saw a beast-like demon sitting on a fence, although he couldn't describe it in detail. They reported finding no evidence the men had been using drugs or alcohol. Each was charged with breach of peace and carrying dangerous weapons.
Our Mysterious Planet
- Forest Circles. In the backcountry of northern Ontario and northwestern Quebec, more than 2,000 mysterious, perfectly round rings have been discovered, reminiscent of the bizarre crop circles that have confounded people for years. The light color of the rings results from sparse vegetation growth, which contrasts with the dense tree cover inside and outside the ring. Most of the rings measure less than 300 meters across, but the largest is two kilometers wide.
- Funding for Crop Circles. In May, U.S. billionaire Laurance Rockefeller announced he would fund the U.K.'s biggest survey of crop circles. Work funded by the billionaire has already built up the biggest crop circle database.
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The footage reveals a small, white rod-like object cruising slowly enough to reveal it's undulatory wave fin in motion. - More Rods Surface. Jose Escamilla, the man who discovered and is studying the weird flying things he calls "rods" announced in May that he had discovered incredible new footage of a small rod captured in an underwater sequence during the taping of a "National Geographic Explorer" television special in Mexico. The footage reveals a small, white rod-like object cruising slowly enough to reveal it's undulatory wave fin in motion. A month later, Escamilla received e-mails from two eyewitnesses who described their direct encounters with what may well be rods. One witness described the thing as looking like "a flying snake."
- Eyewitness to Circle Formation. In June, researcher Linda Moulton Howe received a report from an eyewitness to the creation of two crop circles in Hoeven, a town in southern Holland. A 19-year-old named Robert said he saw a small, misty, pinkish-purple light over a field at a height of about 10 feet. It just stopped in the air and hung over this spot. Then, it started to elongate, and it apparently spread out becoming thinner and thinner, looking like a disc. When it was about 30 feet in diameter, he observed an electrical discharge. Then the light phenomenon simply dissipated, was gone.
From Beyond the Grave
- Dead Dad Saves Daughter. In February, Maria Tejada's life was saved by her dead father. While watching TV one evening, Tejada heard a voice tell her to get up off the couch. "I didn't listen the first two times he said it, but the third time I got up and went over to the love seat," Tejada said. Just then, a 1982 Chevy crashed through the front door, knocked over the couch and took out an interior wall. Tejada said the voice was that of Alphonso Tejada, who died five years ago. "It was my father," said Tejada. "If I didn't listen to my father, I'd be dead."
- Ghost Caught on Camera. This event actually took place on December 23, 1998, but received widespread press coverage in 1999. Security cameras outside a former country mansion in England recorded ghostly apparitions, including one that seemed to be a woman in Victorian dress. Museum staff reportedly had seen her flitting about before, though never on camera. The museum's security lights were triggered by a flickering heat source. Five seconds later, the cameras captured a brilliant six-foot-high white apparition. After another five seconds, the spectre disappeared before a swirling mist came over a nearby wall.
- Haunted by Mom. Minka Kokas of the U.K. had been haunted for 20 years by the ghost of her spiteful mother, she believes. Her mother Yvonne, who hated her only daughter, killed herself on Christmas Day and left a devastating note blaming the little girl for the suicide. Since then Minka has been shaken by a series of chilling and inexplicable events: rooms would fill with the smell of Yvonne's perfume; music would mysteriously fade and then get louder; lights switched on and off by themselves; her mother's bedside lamp made strange noises in the night; her voice echoed in Minka's head. A psychic helped Minka exorcise the spirit.
- Ghosts in the ER. Paramedics in Southend, Essex, England, called in an exorcist after weird goings-on at their ambulance headquarters. They saw a figure drifting through a wall, heard voices in an empty room, and noticed a woman standing by an ambulance who then disappeared.
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She was terrified when she heard a man's voice coming from the listening device in her five-month-old daughter's room. - Nursery Ghost. A sinister ghost was said to haunt a child's nursery using a baby intercom to speak from beyond the grave. In August, Delene Hall said she was terrified when she heard a man's voice coming from the listening device in her five-month-old daughter's room. "I heard a man whispering, but it was hard to tell what he was saying," Hall said. She called in clairvoyant Christine Hamlett who claimed the ghost of an old man called Jack was to blame.
- Iraqis Scared by Naked Ghosts. Iraqi motorists complained of ghosts that danced naked in front of their oncoming cars in August. Drivers passing through Horan Valley, 135 miles northeast of Baghdad, were reporting that "ghosts appeared next to the bridge, naked and doing some acrobatic moves."
- Phantom of the Opera. A real-life phantom created its own backstage drama on the site of London's Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London in August. A mysterious assailant has hurled bricks, nuts, bolts, and metal plating from one of the highest points of the building. No one ever saw the attacker.
The Human Enigma
- New SHC Case. In what may have been a case of spontaneous human combustion, 82-year-old Agnes Phillips died from burns to her upper body while sitting in a car in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. There was no evidence to suggest the source of the fire or how it started.
- Boy Raised by Apes, Like Tarzan. In a story straight from the pages of Edgar Rice Burroughs, a boy was brought up by apes in the rain forest of Kampala. The boy's parents had been killed in a tribal skirmish when he was two and he was abandoned in the forest. A colony of chimpanzees apparently came across the toddler and fed him fruit, nuts, and berries, sheltered him, and treated him as one of their own. For the next four years, he lived with the chimpanzees, out of sight of any human beings. He grew to believe he was an ape and learnt to forage for food. Then, eight years ago, a tribesman saw what he thought was a naked boy roaming with the apes. At first no one believed him, but, when he persisted, a group set off to investigate. When they found the boy, he fled in fear from the human beings and his chimpanzee benefactors put up a ferocious fight to prevent the tribesmen taking him away.
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