Ghosts and ghouls and strange happenings abound all over the world. Every country has it's own weird tales to tell - all are reported to be true, told by people not given to wild flights of fancy. What do you think?
In icy waters off Newfoundland in 1775, sailors on The Herald climbed aboard the battered ship Octavius. A chilling sight greeted them below deck. The captain had frozen to death slumped over his log and behind his were his crew, frozen in their bunks, huddled in blankets. The captain had written the first part of the journey when it sailed north of Alaska into frozen waters in his log, 13 years earlier. The log ended there. The Octavius, with frozen cargo on board, continued the voyage sailing thousands of miles before drifting into the icy waters off Newfoundland. The voyage of Octavius, sailing the north-west passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the first ship ever to have done so, has been considered a nautical miracle.
Golfers at the Dominion Country Club in Windsor, Ontario, in 1941, were afraid to touch anything in the clubhouse, just in case it caught fire. Members claimed tablecloths, curtains and towels burst into flames for no apparent reason. Flames jumped out of the telephone book when the manager tried to call the Fire Chief. A sceptical insurance man, investigating the claims, visited the clubhouse, and a broom burst into flames in front of him. Then, as suddenly as they had started, the mystery fires stopped. There were 43 reported incidents and not one of them has been satisfactorily explained.
A beautiful old farmhouse in southern Ontario was everything the family had hoped for. They moved in with their two large sheepdogs and everything was perfect, except for the back bedroom, which was always freezing cold, and had an eerie feel to it. The dogs refused to enter and growled, barked and put their ears back if they went anywhere near it. Anyone who dared sleep in the room had nightmares about death. Locals told them a woman had been murdered in the room by her jealous husband, before he slashed his wrists and bled to death on the floor. The family solved the problem by converting the bedroom into a storage room.
Young Esther Cox, lived in Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1878, with seven other members of her family. She was 18. Some members of her family worked at the shoe factory and were friends with Bob McNeal, tall, handsome and regarded by local girls as a great catch. When Esther went out with him one night in August 1878, in a borrowed horse-drawn two-seater carriage, something unpleasant happened which ended with Bob threatening Esther with a gun. He changed his mind, drove her home and dumped her at her gate, and then left Amherst and was never heard of in that area again.
Esther cried herself to sleep that night and every night for the next week, which kept her sister, Jean, awake every night. One night Jean finally asked her sister to forget him and pull herself together. This was the moment that the amazing events began, starting slowly at first, then building up as the force gathered power.
Esther stopped crying and sat up in bed with a shriek. Something was moving under her covers, like a mouse. They both threw back the covers and searched, but no mouse was found. Esther thought she had imagined it, but it happened again the following night. Again, they searched but found nothing, but they could hear a rustling noise coming from under the bed. Under the bed, Esther kept a box for storing pieces of cloth to be used for patchwork.
They dragged out the box into the centre of the room ready to catch the mouse. Without any warning, the box lifted itself into the air and then fell back to the floor, twice. The girls screaming bought their uncle into the room, and, after hearing their story, emptied the box onto the floor. There was nothing in there except material. He said they'd had a nightmare and to go back to sleep.
The next night, Jean fetched her uncle to look at Esther who appeared to be ill. She had swelled up like a balloon, with her eyes popping out and hair standing on end.
Some moments later, there was a loud 'pop', and she returned to her normal size. There was no explanation, but the family were getting worried. Nothing happened for a fortnight, then Esther swelled up again.
When Jean summoned help, the bedclothes flew off Esther's bed into the corner of the room, her pillow hit a family member in the face, and thunder-like noises came from under the bed. Esther then returned to normal and the noises stopped.
The next night, the doctor was called when Esther started to swell. Before he had time to examine her, her pillow shot out from under her head, and then replaced itself. When the pillow moved again, her uncle tried to prevent it returning under her head, only to have it wrenched out of his hands by tremendous force. There was then a loud thunderclap and the bedclothes flew off the bed. The doctor stood back, waiting to see what happened next, unable to believe what he was seeing. There was a movement in the plaster behind Esther's bed. Everyone drew back, alarmed, and then watched as letters began to form, as if being cut into the plaster by an invisible knife.
The message read: ESTHER YOU ARE MINE TO KILL.. Everyone left the room as fast as they could, except Esther, who seemed to be unconscious, and went outside. As the doctor and the family discussed what was to be done, a piece of plaster broke away from the bedroom wall, flew through the air, turned a corner and landed at the doctor's feet, followed by pounding noises, shaking the bedroom and it's contents for two hours, before finally stopping. The doctor decided to examine Esther in the morning, before he made a decision.
The following morning, when the doctor returned, Esther was helping with the chores as if nothing had happened. She complained only that sudden noises made her jumpy. She also said that when she had been in the cellar earlier, something had thrown a plank of wood at her. On investigation, the doctor was pelted with potatoes! The doctor decided to sedate her before she went to bed that night, to eliminate the possibility that she herself was causing the strange disturbances.
When Esther finally fell asleep that night, after doctor had administered the sedative, the noises began again, even louder than before, then moved to the roof instead. Outside it sounded like someone was hitting the roof with a sledgehammer, but there was no-one to be seen, and no damage inflicted. He could still hear the banging as he walked home.
At the end of the week, three ministers arrived to exorcise any ghosts or evil spirits which may be tormenting Esther, at the request of neighbours who had become increasingly concerned. They failed to stop the strange occurrences. Esther then caught diphtheria, and after treatment was sent to stay with a married sister, ten miles away in Sackville, to recover.
When she returned a few weeks later, she found that she and Jean had been moved to another room in the house, in the hope that what ever force there was, would not follow her. Of course, it did.
The first night, lighted matches fell from the ceiling onto their bed, one by one, causing small fires which they both managed to extinguish. By now, Jean was becoming suspicious - had Esther thrown the lit matches up to the ceiling herself?
Three days later, while Esther was in the dining- room, a fire started in the cellar, which the family managed to put out with buckets of water. Then the thunderclaps and other noises began again, with other fires which mysteriously started, over the next week. A neighbour, John White, was sympathetic, and offered to have Esther stay in return to helping his wife with her housework.
Esther was sure that what force there was would not follow her there, but she was wrong. Whilst working in the kitchen, a scrubbing brush flew out of her hand, then returned to strike her on her head.
John took her to work with him instead in his restaurant, but strange events happened there too. Doors opened and shut on their own, furniture would move about, then knives started hurling themselves around. On one occasion, a boy sitting at one of the tables was holding his penknife when it flew through the air, opened in mid-flight and stuck itself in Esther's back!
Other people offered to help, and she moved extensively over the next few months, first to St. John's, in New Brunswick, for three weeks, and then at a farm with the Van Ambergh family for eight weeks. All was peaceful, both with Esther and her family.
Finally, thinking it was all over, she returned to her family. A few weeks later, they had a visitor, an actor named Walter Hubbell, who helped the family decide that if it all started again, and it was due to Esther, that they could make money by using Esther to perform her unusual performance to a paying audience. And indeed, the strange occurrences started happening again.
Walter watched, and then hired a hall in the town, sold tickets and put Esther on the stage. Unfortunately, Esther did not set out to make these happen, and on stage, failed miserably to impress. The audience clamoured for their money back, and Walter left town, very hurriedly! Later, he went on to make money for himself writing a totally exaggerated book about Esther.
Esther moved again to escape the publicity, to another farm, not far from the Van Amberg's, but it was another total disaster. Esther was accused of stealing belongings from the farmhouse, which were found in a barn, which burnt down mysteriously. She was convicted of arson, and sentenced to four months.
Shortly after release from prison, she married, and lived in Massachusetts. Her troubles came to an end, and she was never bothered again by the strange forces, but she refused to talk about them in case they came back.
She died in 1912. An investigation was carried out in 1920, by Dr. Walter Price, who came to the conclusion that Esther may have had a split personality. All her previous employers had found her to be respectable, reliable, hardworking and honest, but not very bright. He believed that she may have helped out with the later happenings, but not the ones at the beginning. A poltergiest, coming either from Esther, or her surroundings, was certainly present at the beginning, which no-one could stop. The evidence is beyond dispute or understanding.
In 1795, a 16 year old boy, Daniel McGinnis, beached his canoe on Oak Island and went exploring. He stumbled across a round dent in the ground. At the edge of the dent stood an ancient oak tree, and one of its scarred branches looked as if it had been used as a pulley to bury treasure. The boy fetched his friends and they started digging.
And so began a hunt for buried treasure which has been one of the most frustrating and yet fascinating mysteries of all time. Despite extensive efforts from teams of hopefuls, no-one has yet reached any treasure, over two hundred years later. The Money Pit, as it became known, has cost the lives of six and thousands of pounds, wasted in the pursuit of treasure, and the hunt still continues.
Daniel and his friends managed to dig down to 30ft with spades, and found nothing. Later, in 1804, work began again. Explorers dug down and discovered a mysterious stone at 90ft, but the pit is booby-trapped and water fills the pit. The explorers have to admit defeat. The stone which was unearthed had something written in code scratched onto the surface. A professor cracked the code, which reads 'Forty feet below two million pounds are buried.'
In 1849, work began again, but the pit floods again. Treasure hunters are forced to stop digging, but they drilled down and hit layers of oak and metal. They reach the conclusion that its two treasure chests filled with money, but are unable to dig them up. The team return the following year, and tunnel over to retrieve the treasure hoard, but the booby-trap springs again. The flood tunnel is discovered but the treasure seekers can't block it off.
In 1860 a new team digs more shafts to get access to the treasure but the bottom falls out of the pit, and the treasure drops further down.
Another group re-discovers the pit in 1897, but encounter yet another booby-trap, and the pit floods again. They lose the treasure, but find an inscribed stone with the letters 'v.i.'
The pit depth has now reached 150ft, and is abandoned. Interest started again in 1930, when a new team find an underground stream. They think the treasure must lie at the bottom, but are disappointed.
In the 60s, bulldozers and cranes are called in, but fail to dig up any treasure. Four men die in the attempt.
A submarine camera showed up what looked like three chest and a severed hand in 1970. Divers were sent to investigate, but returned with nothing.
A theory put forward in 1980 by Rupert Furneaux, a pit expert, is that the treasure was dug up by the man who put it there in the first place. Rupert is certain that Sire Henry Clinton, who was in charge of the British Forces in American around 1780, built the pit as a hiding place for war funds in his care, and recovered the money before returning to England.
Explorers are not convinced, however. The idea that it was built by Captain Kidd and that the treasure is still there keeps the hunt going. But according to Furneaux, Captain Kidd's days as a pirate were over by 1780 and claims the pit designer was too clever to have been a pirate, and Kidd would not have had the men or the time. He believes the pit took 100 men and six months to build. Only one thing is certain, whoever built the Money Pit, certainly had something to hide.
Canadian lumberjacks boast some of the greatest tales of bravery in the world, but this tale beats the lot. One lumberjack was sawing off branches up a treetop when his chainsaw slipped and he sliced himself in half! Luckily for him, his spinal cord remained intact, and, using a belt, he managed to swing down the tree. When he reached the ground, his mate collapsed at the sight of him. Amazingly, the injured man not only revived his mate, but also phoned for help. Help arrived soon afterwards, he was sewn together and made a complete recovery! Now believe that if you can!
Vancouver General Hospital had a young patient with severe burns sustained during a terrible fire, who later died of his injuries in 1975, after three months. His ghost returned to help comfort patients through the night, flushed toilets, and pressed their help buttons for them. The nurses couldn't understand who the patients were talking about until the ghost started helping them on their rounds! Then they realised this ghost was the image of their burns victim who they regarded as their bravest ever patient. They assumed this was his way of saying thank you and repaying them for their treatment of him.
Two boys on the beach during their holiday near Thetis Lake in 1972, could not believe their eyes when a giant reptile resembling a man emerged from the water and started making his way towards them. It was 1.5 metres tall, on hind legs with flipper feet and covered in silvery scales with a frog-like face, huge eyes and large pointed ears, and "strange objects" sticking out of it's head! It goes without saying that they didn't wait around to ask it what it wanted!
A snorting, twin humped rocky-faced 6 metre sea monster was spotted by students on Vancouver Island in July 1997, surfacing twice before disappearing back into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Experts thought it was a member of the Cadborosaurus family of living dinosaurs, a carcass of which was found in the 1930s in the same area. There could be a family of sea monsters still around this area!
Chad had a lifelong dream to go deer hunting in Canada, so one weekend, he picked up a game licence, his shotgun, packed his rucksack and headed off toward the mountains.
He didn't have to wait too long before he spotted deer. He picked out a fine specimen and lined up his shot through his sights. The trees were not too dense, and he could see the stag easily in his sights. He couldn't miss. He took aim and gently squeezed the trigger. The deer crashed to the ground under a tree, and the rest of the herd took flight. Chad couldn't believe his luck - he'd got one with his first shot! He set up his camera on a tripod to capture his triumph, then walked over to the prone stag and placed his gun between its giant antlers. Then he put on his best pose and waited for the timer to click.
But - just as the timer activated the camera, the stag rose to it's feet and bolted into the trees with Chad's gun still resting on it's antlers!
Chad had got so excited when the stag went down, that he hadn't realised that he had missed it, and had shot a branch instead, which had crashed down on the stag's head and knocked it out!
Totally mortified that he had missed such an easy shot, he packed up and sulked for the whole drive home. But at least his camera had taken a shot he'd never forget - the picture of his amazement as the deer charged off into the forest was one which he decided not to show around, after all!
