Interesting Fact 57: Screaming Skull

Outside Bettiscombe Manor in Dorset, England, a human skull rests atop a white picket fence.  Some believe removing it from the house results in a blood-curdling scream of anguish.

- H.G. Carlson, Mysteries of the Unexplained  (Contemporary Books, 1994) p. 58

Feb. 6, 2008 19:32

The lady who ran the guest house came and picked me up.  She is an extremely sweet lady.  Right off, she told me how to get to all the monuments, how to get to London, and that she's lived in Paris all her life.  She's kicking her daughter out of her room and letting me sleep there.  Walking to the guest house, we passed a man on his phone and heard him arguing.  She looked at me and smiled.

"I love seeing this.  It's very funny to see people arguing on their phone in Paris.  I love it," she said.

When we arrived at the guest house, I found it was a flat with two rooms and 9 other travelers staying there.  People were asleep on the floor, couch, and hallway.  I was lucky to get a bed.

The lady left to get her son, from somewhere.  I went out to the balcony and looked out.  She entered the flat and stood out with me.  She said I could see the Eiffel Tower from there.  I looked around but saw nothing.  Then, she said it was on the other side of the flat.  She took me and we stood on the other balcony.  It was lit.  I wasn't too excited about Paris, but now, I'm seeing it a little differently.

Sharing is Caring 26: The Conqueror Worm (Poe of course)

Lo! t'is a gala night
     Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
      In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
      A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
      The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
       Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly--
       Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
       That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
        Invisible Woe!

That motley drama -- oh, be sure
        It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
        By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
        To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
        And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
        A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
        The scenic solitude!
It writhes! - it writhes! - with mortal pangs
         The mimes become its food,
And angels sob at vermin fangs
         In human gore imbued.

Out -- out are the lights -- out all!
         And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
         Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
         Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy "Man,"
         And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

- Edgar Allan Poe

Interesting Fact 56: Session 9

The film Session 9 takes place in the actual abandoned mental asylum, Danvers State Mental Hospital.  During filming, actors reported strange things happening to them.  Peter Mullan reported having thoughts of jumping off of the building to see what it would be like, until he snapped himself out of the thought.

-Session 9

Interesting Fact 55: Ghost Chicken

To prove that meat would keep longer if frozen, the scientist Sir Frances Bacon killed a chicken, plucked out its feathers, and stuffed it with snow.  He later caught pneumonia and died.  There have been many ghost sightings at the site of his death, but not the ghost of Bacon.  Instead, many report seeing a headless chicken pecking at the ground with its neck.

- Jonathan Wojcik, "The 7 Most Ridiculous Ghost Stories From Around the World."  Cracked.com, October 31, 2010

Interesting Fact 54: Frequency of Ghosts

Humans can't hear the low tone of 19 megahertz, but we can feel the vibration.  Many hauntings have been linked to this frequency.

- "Trapped Souls."  National Geographic, Haunted Prison

Tom Waits-If i have to go

Interesting Fact 53: Haunted Hotels

You'll find one of the most haunted hotels in America in the Rocky Mountain National Park - the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.  The Stanley Hotel is most widely known for inspiring Stephen King's horror novel The Shining.  Although the infamous movie was not filmed there, the Stanley Hotel is said to be home to several ghosts.  Rooms 407, 217, 401, and 418 are all reported to be haunted by a variety of spirits.

      If the Stanley Hotel is fully booked, you can try the nearby Baldplate Inn, which is reputed to be haunted by its original owner, Ethel Mace.  An outspoken prohibitionist in life, Mace's ghost has been known to send cocktails flying off tables.

- Beyond Bizarre: Frightening Facts and Blood-Curdling True Tales

Varla Ventura