After years of bangs in the night, taps turning on and doors slamming, staff at Riccarton's Racecourse Hotel believe they will soon find out whether they have a noisy ghost or fanciful imaginations. Christchurch company Spooks Paranormal Investigations is heading to the site next month – armed with electro-magnetic sensors, cameras, and voice detectors intended to monitor any supernatural activity, to try to confirm whether the reported ghost is myth or reality…
Woman tries to clear Va. witch convicted 300 years ago
Grace Sherwood was a healer, a midwife and a widowed mother of three sons. Her neighbors thought she also was a witch who ruined crops, killed livestock and conjured storms. On July 10, 1706, the 46-year-old woman was tied up and "ducked" - dropped into a river- in what is now Virginia Beach. The theory behind the test was that if she sank, she was innocent, although she'd also likely drown…
Celestial secrets: the hidden history of the Fatima cover-up
Eighty-nine years ago on May 13, 1917, three children watching sheep in Fatima, Portugal, saw lightning. Then a “small, pretty lady” appeared, suspended in the air at the top of an oak tree. The lady told them she would return to the same oak grove every month for six months. Her last visit would be October 13, 1917. Then she would tell the children who she was and what she wanted. The lady did appear on the 13th of each month after that. As word spread that a miracle was happening in Fatima, Portugal, an estimated crowd of 50,000 people were gathered on October 13, 1917, for the sixth and final appearance. By then, the Catholic Jesuits in the parish said it was the Virgin Mary, even though the apparition suspended at the top of the oak tree never called herself that…
Carved stone still unexplained after more than a century
In 1872, so the story goes, workers digging a hole for a fence post near Lake Winnipesaukee in Meredith found a lump of clay that seemed out of place. There was something inside -- a dark, odd-looking, egg-shaped stone with a variety of carvings, including a face, teepee, ear of corn and star-like circles. And there were lots of questions: Who made the stone and why? How old was it? How was it carved?...
Orange cure for upside down girl
A student who could only read and write upside down has been cured - by the colour orange. Gemma Williams, 17, could read a book only if it was upside down, reports the Mirror. Her computer monitor had to stand on its head and she wrote the wrong way up, too. But now she can read and write normally - thanks to orange paper and filters…
Geordie wakes after stroke with new accent
A woman spoke of her distress yesterday at emerging from a stroke to find that her Geordie accent had been transformed into a Jamaican one. Linda Walker, 60, is one of only 50 people to have been recorded as suffering from foreign accent syndrome. She is now helping researchers from Newcastle University in the hope that they can find a cure for future sufferers. The condition occurs when patients wake up after a brain injury. In Mrs Walker's case it appeared as she regained consciousness from a stroke in March…
UFOs in South Africa aren't as rare as you think
Thanks to Hollywood and the X-Files, most people know something about unidentified flying objects. But few people would know how, or where, to report a sighting. Cristo Louw, a "ufologist" from Bellville, discussed this and other issues about extra-terrestrials at a UFO conference, held at the University of Cape Town on Saturday…
The Miracle Detective
When I started The Agony Column podcast, one of my original intentions was to clear out a rather largish-seeming backlog of interviews that had not been uploaded to the site. Primary among them was this week's podcast of my interview from 2004 with Randall Sullivan, author of 'The Miracle Detective'. Even if it was two years ago, it still sends chills down my spine. I've talked with a lot of people, and I've enjoyed all of them, but I have to say that Randall Sullivan went well beyond enjoyment. My conversation with Sullivan was, well, a bit scary. Intense, is the word I'm searching for…
Psychic aids search for missing Alzheimer's sufferer
A search resumed today for a missing 73-year-old Palmerston North man after a psychic helped police find his personal items on the bank of the Manawatu River. Sergeant Bill Nicholson said a local woman, who did not want to be named, contacted police on Friday night and described a location to police. James Alexander, an Alzheimer's sufferer, has been missing more than a week. The area the psychic described was familiar to police, who launched a search late on Friday. On Saturday morning the psychic accompanied Land Search and Rescue and police on another search. Mr Alexander's personal items were found on the banks of the Manawatu River shortly after 11am. They found a hat, a shoe, a watch, a lighter and a pair of glasses…
