Lucid Dreams and Saturn Skies The Life and Writing of Andrew Kincaid

Tag Archives: Supernatural

Proof of Hell Under the Siberian Tundra? …or Not.

May 10, 2013 2:02 pm / Leave a Comment /
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, putative site of the gateway to hell, now welded shut due to lack of funding. Image Credit: Rakot13

The Kola Superdeep Borehole, putative site of the gateway to hell, now welded shut due to lack of funding. Image Credit: Rakot13

It was the mid-1980′s, and the Cold War was still going strong. America had won the Space Race with the triumphant moon landings of the sixties and seventies. Now the superpowers  competed to pioneer a new space — the one beneath our feet.

To achieve those ends, the Soviet Union commissioned a deep drilling project in the icy wastes of Siberia. A team of geologists drilled about 14.4 kilometers (about 9 miles) beneath the Earth’s surface, when something strange happened — the bit started to spin wildly, and temperature sensors recorded temperatures over 2,000 degrees. No doubt baffled, the scientists lowered a mic down the well shaft to get a better idea of what they were dealing with. What they heard horrified them (the sounds start at about the 2:00 mark) and confirmed people’s worst fears for centuries; that Hell was real, and it lay right beneath our feet!

…er, except not.

This one is pretty classic in terms of urban legends. It isn’t exactly certain where the story began, and it has been elaborated on extensively over time. I remember seeing lurid headlines in the Weekly World News as a kid in the 90′s talking about the Devil coming screaming out of a well to hell drilled in Alaska, incinerating all the unfortunate scientists at the site and spreading doom and gloom all around. The story freaked me out as a kid, as the one-two punch of being A) a kid and B) a Bible literalist tends to make one a bit credulous. Even as a teen, hearing the clip featured in the above video scared the crap out of me.

Evidently a lot of people feel the same way, because this one still makes the rounds on paranormal and religious sites of all kinds. And why not? If Hell really did exist in a real, physical place, that would be a really scary thing. It would confirm many people’s worst anxieties about the after life and their potential place in it. It would also raise some pretty uncomfortable moral and theological implications, which we won’t get into here. The point is that Hell is scary, and that fear is what gives this urban legend (and most others while we’re at it) its staying power.

Needless to say, it isn’t true. The recording is believed to be a looped recording of a scene from the B-grade horror flick Baron Blood. To me it almost sounds like it could be a doctored recording of any public space, looped and made to sound all sinister. There is a small kernel of truth behind this sordid tale, as is the case with most good urban legends. There really was a deep drilling well that reached close to 9 miles underground in Soviet Russia. It was located on the Kola Peninsula, not in Siberia. The drill did hit an empty pocket, but there were no hellish sounds from within. Temperatures reached a toasty 180 degrees, and the geologists found water and natural gas, among other things of scientific interest.

The truth is a whole lot less exciting than a literal gateway to hell, but being the compassionate sort I’d rather that be the fact than to have millions of people suffering and burning forever.

Posted in: Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World, Visions of Hell / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mystery, Mayhem, and Quantum Physics: The Bermuda Triangle and the Hutchinson Effect

April 25, 2013 1:06 pm / 3 Comments /

Bermuda_TriangleWell, it was inevitable. Anyone who writes about the weird stuff that happens in this world has to, at some point, tackle two topics: Bigfoot, and the Bermuda Triangle. Not that the two are in anyway related; rather, they’re both arguably the most popular paranormal subjects out there. Usually I try to find more exotic fare for the blog, but when a friend mentioned the Bermuda Triangle in conjunction with something called the Hutchinson Effect, I decided I’d dive in since it was a two-fer.

The Bermuda Triangle is such a facet of pop culture at this point that I won’t spend a ton of time describing it. It is described as a big slice of ocean (between half a million and 1.5 million square miles) that forms, big shock here, a triangle, with the vertices centered in Bermuda, Miami, and San Juan. The Triangle is alleged to be the site of strange phenomena: metallic fogs, strange magnetic disturbances, freak storms, and unexplained lights in the sky. Believers claim that the Triangle swallows ships and planes whole, leaving not a trace for befuddled rescuers to recover.

Believers posit various reasons for the phenomena. Perhaps Atlantis sank beneath the waves under the Triangle, or there’s an alien colony on the sea floor abducting people for nefarious purposes. Since those of us who don’t regularly sport tinfoil hats can easily discount those two, let’s move on to a third, more entertaining option: the Hutchinson Effect.

Known was the H-Effect, it was allegedly discovered by an eccentric inventor named John Hutchinson, who was monkeying around with the various electronic gizmos that he packed his apartment with over the years when, lo and behold,  something (it’s never said what) whacked him in the shoulder! Turns out whatever it was had started levitating due to…something. Something that can also cause unlike materials (metal and wood, for example) to meld together, metals to melt without heat, and other strange phenomena, including metallic fogs similar to those allegedly reported above the Bermuda Triangle.. The best explanation that supporters can come up with for the alleged effect is that scalar waves tap into zero point energy, thus producing the phenomena observed. How exactly that happens, they have no explanation.

The story goes that the H-effect occurs over the Triangle all the time, due to vortexes in the Earth’s electromagnetic field over the area. The strange phenomena associated with the H-effect are, they say, responsible for the disappearances. Never mind that the H-Effect has never been independently verified, and Hutchinson himself admits he hasn’t been able to replicate it since 1991. Not only that, he’s faked demonstrations since then, using magnets and string to simulate levitation and other phenomena associated with the H-Effect.

TBF Avengers flying in formation. Similar planes made up Flight 19, one of the most infamous disappearances to occur over the Bermuda Triangle

TBF Avengers flying in formation. Similar planes made up Flight 19, one of the most infamous disappearances to occur over the Bermuda Triangle

“Scalar waves” are apparently made up — I can find no reliable source mentioning them at all, nor explaining what they are. Zero point energy is a real thing though. It is the lowest possible amount of energy in a quantum mechanical system. Since I majored in Biology rather than quantum physics, I can’t comment much on how it works since I don’t understand it myself. Every source I’ve seen says that it is either impossible or impractical to tap into zero point energy as an energy source. Given the dubious veracity of Hutchinson’s demonstrations, the lack of independent proof, and the fact that physics as we know it doesn’t allow for it, it’s pretty safe to say that the H-Effect lay more in the realm of pseudoscience than reality.

But what about the Bermuda Triangle? Even if the H-Effect is bunk, isn’t it still true that there’s a deadly area of sea off the US coast?  Turns out the answer is “no, not at all.” The US Navy, who know a thing or two about the ocean, doesn’t believe it exists. The US Board of Geographic Names doesn’t recognized “Bermuda Triangle” as an official name. The Coast Guard, who would know a dangerous hot spot pretty intimately since it is their job to rescue endangered sailors, also discounts the Triangle’s existence. The fact is that the Triangle is no more dangerous than any other stretch of ocean. It is a busy shipping area, so accidents are bound to happen. The Gulf Stream, a powerful ocean current, passes through the area, and it is prone to severe storms (in part due to the Gulf Stream). The combination of a lot of ships moving through, strong currents, bad weather, and inevitable human error have given rise to the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.

Posted in: Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Forays into Flash Fiction: The Black-Eyed Kids

April 11, 2013 3:44 pm / 2 Comments /

Once again, Angela Goff has inspired a bit of microfiction with her Visual Dares. She said that she was looking forward to seeing my entry this week, and I hope it doesn’t disappoint. I modified the theme a bit (you can see the photo that inspired this at Angela’s blog, Anonymous Legacy) to include one of my favorite modern urban legends — the Black Eyed Kids. Enjoy!

***

Night had fallen, and I had just slipped into my easy chair after a long day’s work.

Someone knocked on my door.

“Who could that be?” I grumbled, wondering at the same time why a feeling of cold dread had settled in my gut. It grew as I approached the door and opened it.

Two children, a boy and a girl, dressed in clothing from another century stood on my doorstep.

“Can I help you?” I said, voice quivering.

“May we use your telephone?” the boy said. The girl stared at me, silent.

I nearly said yes, despite my fear. They’re just kids, I thought.

Then I noticed their eyes.

They were completely black.

Needless to say, I didn’t let them in.

Now every knock gives me a panic attack. I can’t step outside without wondering if those black-eyed kids are nearby. Watching…

Posted in: Flash Fiction, Life & Writing / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thirty Years Later, and Nobody Learned Not to Open the Necronomicon: A Review of Evil Dead (2013)

April 9, 2013 11:24 am / 2 Comments /
Evil Dead poster, from IMDB.com. You can see the hype =P

Evil Dead poster, from IMDB.com. You can see the hype =P

I will admit it — the red band trailer has had me excited for Evil Dead for months now. Now, normally I don’t get excited about much of anything, especially a modern horror flick and ESPECIALLY a remake. but my normal guardedness fell away for some reason with Evil Dead. I really like the original trilogy (I own all three), and frankly I haven’t seen a decent horror flick in the theater for a long time.

And that was what Evil Dead shaped up to be — a decent horror flick. It really doesn’t live up to the legacy of the original Evil Dead, but that’s how it is with remakes most of the time. It was a pretty solid movie, I thought. It was very well shot, and the sound effects were done very well. It had some downright creepy scenes, and I thought it did a good job ratcheting up the tension overall.

However, despite its technical proficiency, there was something missing. Despite having a bigger budget, better special effects, and the benefit of modern film technology, it wasn’t as creepy or fun as the original. Some of it had to do with the protagonist, and the fact that he was as dense as granite. Word to the wise: when people are carving their face off with broken glass, it probably isn’t because of a virus, especially if your hippie-looking (stupidly) read from a mysterious, flesh bound book only a couple hours ago. Some of it had to do with the contrived nature of the set up — for example, I’m certified to teach high school, but nowhere in the process did they teach me to read ancient Sumerian.
Not that I would read it to myself, out loud, when the book CLEARLY SAYS NOT TO!

See, that’s what bothered me the most, I think. The original is 32 years old and shot on a quarter million dollar budget, yet the writing is tighter and it is overall a much creepier movie. I mean, look at how they got around the pretty ridiculous scene I mentioned above — in the original, they find the Necronomicon in the basement beside a recorder containing the notes of an archeologist who is studying it. They play a section of the recorder where the archeologist reads an incantation from the book out loud, and thus accidentally summon the demons that torment them that night. Much more elegant, and it has a creep-factor bonus, since a fairly innocuous action brought about horrific consequences.

It isn’t really fair to compare a remake to the original. On the other hand, Evil Dead has been remade before — Evil Dead 2 was basically a remake, despite being billed as a sequel, and many regard it as better than the original. So perhaps it is a fair comparison. Don’t get the wrong impression though — I did like the Evil Dead remake. It was gory, creepy, and generally fun to watch in a theater full of squawking teenagers. But it doesn’t hold a candle to the original.

Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bizarre Buddhism– The Tulpa

March 21, 2013 2:02 pm / Leave a Comment /
Friar Tuck, carrying Robin Hood on his back. Alexandra David-Neel claimed to manifest a tulpa in the image of Friar Tuck

Friar Tuck, carrying Robin Hood on his back. Alexandra David-Neel claimed to manifest a tulpa in the image of Friar Tuck

Imagine being able to create a being or object with only your thoughts. No, not in the way that writers do when they conjure a story; rather, an actual physical manifestation that others can see. Does it sound far fetched? Maybe, but adherents of traditional Tibetan Buddhism believe it is possible to do so, if a person can attain enough sustained concentration. The resulting beings are called tulpa, or thought-forms as we in the West might call them.

It was said that the practice of manifesting tulpas was a feat that could be performed by bhodisattvas, or practitioners who have attained a level of spiritual enlightenment just below that of the Buddha. The goal of doing this was to project phantom versions of themselves into many worlds, all at once, to shine the light of the Dharma there. However, one did not have to be the Buddhist equivalent of a demi-god to perform the feat; really, anyone with the right knowledge and practice could do so. Precisely what practices are performed aren’t clear, but allegedly some of them could be found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a tome full of cryptic Tibetan practices and religious rights.

However, like many things, just because you can do them doesn’t mean you should. Accounts from Tibetan mystics of all stripes claim that manifesting a tulpa is not a process to be undertaken lightly, that the process can be dangerous or even deadly for those who lack deep spiritual discipline. After a certain point, when the tulpa has manifested and grown strong, it will outgrow its master, and begin to slip the leash. It can become a menace at that point, even killing its master.

A woman by the name of Alexandra David-Neel gives an eerie account of her own attempt at making a tulpa. She is credited with introducing the tulpa to the West, where it later became folded into extant occult traditions as a ‘thought-form’. David-Neel was one of the first Westerners allowed into Tibet to study their traditions and culture. She became fascinated with the various mystical practices among the Tibetans, particularly the tulpa. She decided to try the practice for herself, and claimed she manifested a tulpa who looked like a jolly Friar Tuck.

However, the monk began to take on a life of its own. She claimed it appeared when she was not thinking of it, and that others in the camp began to ask her who the robed stranger was. Over time, she noticed the once jolly monk creature began to slim down and grow malevolent in appearance. She decided it was time to do away with it at that point, and after a six month struggle she was able to absorb it back into her own mind.

Does it sound like something out of a fantasy novel? Certainly. But then, we know the capacity for the human mind to deceive itself. Cryptids of all stripes live on in the conscience of society at large, taking on a life apart from their dubious biological existence. You could consider beings like Bigfoot, the Beast of Bray Road, and otherstulpa, who exist only because the human imagination gives them life. In that way, tulpa are very real.

Posted in: Abnormal Psychology, Ghost Stories, Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Phantom Barber of Pascagoula

February 28, 2013 8:22 am / 2 Comments /
Credit: Smithsonian National Museum of American History

A barber’s kit. Somehow I doubt the Phantom Barber used standard hair cutting procedure…

Last year in and around Bergholz, Ohio, a breakaway sect of Amish went on a hair clipping, beard cutting rampage that resulted in hate crime charges for the groups ringleader, Sam Mullet Sr., and thirteen others. The attacks came as a result of disagreements over religious matters; apparently, Mr. Mullet is the leader of a cult who rebels against Amish custom. Predictably, an uncomfortable amount of old man sex was supposedly involved.

Why mention it? Well, hair cutting attacks aren’t a strictly Amish phenomena. As weird as that sounds, about seventy years ago there was a series of attacks in Pascagoula, Mississippi by an unknown assailant who became known as “The Phantom Barber of Pascagoula”.

The year was 1942. America was at war. As her men and boys went off to fight in foreign fields, her towns geared themselves up to produce the materiel the troops would need to win the war. The small town of Pascagoula was no exception. Indeed, the war was a boom time for the town–its population increased by 15,000 in just two years. Pascagoula was involved in the manufacture of war ships, a crucial industry for a nation involved in a two front war on two oceans.

However, the influx of so many people into what was once such a small town lead to tensions. It was the perfect recipe for a panic, what with the social upheaval and the phantom of warfare hanging overhead. Soon enough, there was indeed a panic, one that seems similar in many ways to the Mad Gasser of Mattoon episode, which has become a textbook case of mass hysteria. However there are some crucial differences between the cases: the first being that there was actual physical evidence, in the form of missing locks of hair, in the Phantom Barber case, and that police apprehended a suspect.

The attacks began in early June 1942, when the Phantom Barber cut the hair of Mary Evelyn Briggs and Edna Marie Hydel in their bedroom at the convent of Our Lady of Victories. By the end of that week, three people received unwanted hair cuts at the shears of the Phantom Barber. None saw their attacker. The town was understandably in a panic. It got to the point where the Army even modified its blackout regulations (blackouts were procedures to defend against air raids) in order to help police hunt the Barber. The Phantom Barber primarily struck on Monday and Friday evenings, and entered through a slit in window screens.

Credit: archives.gov

Welders who worked at Shipbuilding Corp in Pascagoula. Women filled many jobs previously only occupied by men, as able bodied men shipped off to fight.

A week after the first attack, the Phantom Barber struck the home of David G. Peattie, shearing his daughter Carol’s hair. The parents found a bare footprint near the window. The following Friday, the attacks became violent: the Phantom allegedly entered the house of Mr. and Mrs. ST Heidelberg, and proceeded to beat them with an iron bar.  The final attack happened on a Sunday, two weeks later. The Phantom clipped a two inch lock of hair from the head of Mrs. RR Taylor. Mrs. Taylor reported a sickening smell and something being pressed to her face, which authorities assumed to be a chloroform rag. All told, about ten homes were broken into during the Phantom Barber’s reign of terror.

In August, the police apprehended a suspect that they concluded was the Phantom Barber. His name was William Dolan, a 57 year old German chemist with reported German sympathies and a grudge against the Heidelbergs. Mr. Heidelberg’s father was a local judge who had refused to lower Dolan’s bail on a trespassing charge several months before. Dolan was charged with the attempted murder of the Heidelbergs, but curiously he was never charged with one of the Phantom Barber attacks, despite the FBI finding a bundle of human hair behind his house, some of which belonged to Carol Peattrie, who you will remember was the Barber’s fourth victim. Dolan denied being the phantom barber. He received ten years for the attempted murder charge. After his arrest, the Phantom Barber attacks ceased.

It isn’t clear whether Dolan really was the Barber though. His attack was uncharacteristically violent compared to the Barber’s attacks. One could argue that the Barber attacks were practice runs leading up to the assault on the Heidelberg’s, but if that were the case, why do another Barber-style attack after the Heidelberg assault? Also, if they were practice runs, why cut hair? It sounds like something sexually motivated, like the person had a fetish involving hair. If that were the case and Dolan were the assailant, why keep his prizes in the back yard? Also, it doesn’t seem that the footprint in Carol Peattrie’s room was ever analyzed, a definite oversight on the part of the police.

As is often the case, there are no definitive answers in this case. The fact that the events occurred about seventy years ago doesn’t help matters. Likely, we will never know the true identity of the Phantom Barber of Pascagoula.

Posted in: Ghost Stories, Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve Seen Jesus! …In a Grilled Cheese Sandwich.

February 21, 2013 7:17 am / 2 Comments /

The famous ‘Mars face’. This strange formation was first sighted in a photograph taken by the Viking I orbiter and released by NASA in 1976. The apparent face caused quite a stir amongst UFO buffs. Subsequent photos showed the face was nothing more than a mountain.

…well, okay I personally haven’t seen Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich, but there have been those who claim they did. Reports of people seeing religious figures in random, mundane objects are pretty common–there’s even a cottage industry of shilling such objects to believers on EBay. Now the rest of us might snicker and shake our heads, thinking to ourselves that people are nuts and going on about our business. But hold on! This phenomena isn’t confined to a few who let wishful thinking and/or strong religious beliefs cloud what would otherwise be a functional rational capacity. Tell me: did you ever lay on the cool grass as a kid and stare at the clouds? What did you see? Perhaps a cloud that looked like a horse? How about a face? Have you ever been sitting in a doctor’s office, bored, staring at the chintzy wallpaper when all of a sudden you find a face staring back at you?

I know I have. I’ve seen faces in all sorts of random things. It turns out that this phenomena isn’t the result of some sort of mental misfiring, but rather it is part of our wiring. It is a phenomena called pareidolia, which is characterized by people perceiving random stimulus as significant, when really they aren’t. Basically, our brain is a categorizing machine. It despises random crap, and tries to assert order over the deluge of data constantly coming into it. Now this can lead to some odd associations; for example, baseball players are famously superstitious. Many have good luck charms or rituals that they swear by. This is a case of faulty correlation; a player happens to wear pink socks the day he hits five homers, and in his mind he associates the success with the pink socks. Really, we all know the hue of his socks has nothing to do with how well he hit, but the correlation is there nevertheless.

Now we know how the sometimes bizarre superstitions arise, but what does that have to do with an old lady seeing the Virgin Mary in her morning toast? Well, as I said, humans are pattern seeking animals. There is one pattern whose daily discernment is most crucial to our survival, even today–other people. Think about it. You can see a person’s face and instantly know whether they’re angry, happy, sad, or anything in between. Sure there is room for error there, but most people aren’t that great at controlling their facial expressions. Besides, when making a snap decision as to whether someone is going to smack you in the face with a brick and take your wallet, you’re probably not going to stop and ask how they’re feeling. Point being, for the last 2 million years of hominid existence, humans and their ancestors have had to be good at reading others. Which has made us good at picking out faces, even where there may not actually be any.

So, the next time someone sees the Pope in a fried ham and cheese sandwich, don’t be too quick to judge. They’re only being tricked by 2 million years of evolution.

Posted in: Abnormal Psychology, Our Weird World, Weird Science / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The New Jersey Ghost Sniper

January 31, 2013 11:32 am / 1 Comment /
Credit: New York State Museum

Could boys shooting marbles with sling shots be responsible for the wave of terror that swept Camden, NJ in 1928?

Nowadays you don’t have to look too hard to find a headline about a shooting here, there, or anywhere really in this country.  Usually such stories are pretty cut and dry–an argument got out of hand, and someone turned to a gun (the bulk of homicides are spur of the moment, despite popular perception).  That is not meant to trivialize it of course–any death is a tragedy. All of that being said, it isn’t likely these days you’ll come across a gun related crime quite as weird as the Camden Ghost Sniper, the name given to the perpetrator of a very odd set of crimes between 1927 and 1928 in Camden, New Jersey.

The Ghost Sniper’s reign of terror began January 25, 1928 when a bus windshield and the wind shields of four other vehicles were ‘strangely shattered’ by an unknown projectile.  In just about every case attributed to the Ghost Sniper, windows appeared to be shot through with a bullet, although usually no fragments or shell casings were found.  So it was with the first five shootings.  Also, a police officer was struck and knocked to the ground by a blue marble.

After these first strange occurrences, reports of the ‘phantom sniper’ began to flood into Camden police stations.  Reports of similar attacks came in from Collingswood and Lindenwood, New Jersey as well.  Police suspected the culprit or culprits might be using a high powered air gun or a low caliber hand gun with a silencer, or some combination of the two.  Indeed, in later incidents bullets were found, one matching a .38 slug and the other a .22. In another case, a prominent local jeweler had a nickel-plated screw shot through his windshield, which was promptly recovered.

What was strange was that, in most cases, no one reported hearing gun fire during any of the incidents.  There was only one case where a possible shooter was identified; he’d apparently shot through a bedroom window, and when the occupants looked outside to see where the projectile had come from, they saw a man running a away shouting: “It’s all right now, Louie.”  The mystery man was never caught.

Luckily, no one was seriously injured throughout the ordeal, other than some severe cases of jangled nerves and a couple of officers who suffered nasty bruises after being struck by blue marbles.  That is not to say that Camden and the surrounding area were not in a borderline panic over the ‘phantom shooter’.  Police actually outfitted themselves with tommy guns and pursuit vehicles to aid in the hunt for the shooter, and throughout the course of the investigation they operated under a “shoot on sight” order.  People were genuinely terrified of the Ghost Sniper, and with good reason.  After all, no one could catch him, so who was to say when he would get bold and begin to kill, thinking he could do so with impunity?

The strange story concluded when police arrested two youths for shooting a hole in a windshield with a slingshot.  So far as I can see, after that point there were no more incidents reported.  This story reminds me strongly of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon; meaning, it is probably an incidence of mass hysteria.  Was there an initial attack?  Probably.  Then for whatever reason, possibly because of the public nature of the attack and the fact a police officer was injured, the story blew up.  Every pebble shot through a window by a passing car and every prank by bored school boys became a sign of a mad man on the loose.  Copy cats probably came out of the woodwork and fueled the flames, for reasons of their own.  Like such things do, it eventually peaked, and probably by the time the two youths were arrested, interest in the whole business had waned anyway.  It was a phantom shooter indeed, as it only existed in the collective minds of the residents of Camden, New Jersey.

Posted in: Ghost Stories, Killers and Serial Killers, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Strange Story of James Worson

January 24, 2013 8:24 am / Leave a Comment /
A portrait of Ambrose Bierce. ...this will have more context as you read on.

A portrait of Ambrose Bierce. …this will have more context as you read on.

Long time readers know that I like me a good weird story now and again.  So when I ran across the story of James Worson, it truly fit the bill.  It goes that Worson, who was a shoe maker from Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, England, was in his cups one day when he took a bet that he could run from his hometown to neighboring Coventry, a distance of about nine miles, without stopping once.  There aren’t any details as to how exactly this bet came about, but every account I’ve come across said Worson was drunk, which for something as silly as an impromptu nine mile run is reason enough.

So Worson began his run with his fellow better, a fellow named Barnham Wise, and a photographer named Hamerson Burns, who all followed him in a wagon.  It seems things were going pretty well for awhile there, with Worson plodding along resolutely, no doubt sobering up from the exertion and wondering what exactly he’d gotten himself into, when things became plain weird.  Worson stumbled over something on the road and pitched forward.  He let out a scream, and promptly disappeared.  Nobody ever heard from him again.  The disappearance happened in front of three no doubt startled witnesses, who were acquitted of any wrong doing.  Worson was never seen again.

Now most times this is where the story ends.  Worson’s story has long been reported among the ranks of mysterious disappearances, and taken at face value it is indeed very strange and not a bit unnerving.  But this is where the story gets interesting: it never happened, as it is quite literally a story of the fictitious variety.

It turns out what I dubbed “The Strange Story of James Worson” is in reality called “An Unfinished Race” by Ambrose Bierce.  The story itself is brief, only about three paragraphs long, and was included in the collection Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories.  You can read the actual story here.  You’ll notice some details differ from the version I presented–the version above is the one I found floating around the net.

The style of the story itself explains part of why it became the subject of urban legend.  It is presented almost in a perfunctory manner, like something you might read in a newspaper.  My guess is that people back in that time some people read the story and, later, misremembered where they heard the story and reported it as fact.  It sounds silly but think about it–how many times in a day do you repeat something as fact when you aren’t entirely sure of the source?  Sometimes things enter the canon of our personal knowledge without us really being able to remember where we heard it or from whom.  That’s one way stories of dubious veracity get circulated around, and eventually become urban legends and fodder for bloggers such as myself.

In any case, the story of Ambrose Bierce is at least as strange as the fictional story that overshadowed his own mysterious end.  The author of what has become an infamous disappearance himself disappeared without a trace.  Bierce was in Mexico covering the punitive expedition against Pancho Villa in 1913 when he just vanished.  Or maybe he wasn’t–there are some who don’t believe he ever went to Mexico.  All parties agree that he just up and disappeared in 1913 and was never seen again.  As for why Bierce’s very really mysterious disappearance has been overshadowed by the fictional one he created, well, that too is a mystery that won’t be answered any time soon.

Posted in: Ghost Stories, Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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