As it turns out, there’s quite alot.

Firstly are the prophetic circumstances surrounding the wreck itself. In 1898 an author named Morgan Robertson published a short story entitled ‘Futility’ that bore striking resemblances to the Titanic disaster of 1912. Everything from striking an iceberg on it’s maiden voyage, it’s home port of Southampton, claimed unsinkability due to watertight compartments and a lack of sufficient lifeboats were all eerily similar. Perhaps the most creepy aspect is that Morgan’s ship was named The Titan.

Another paranormal tidbit in Titanic lore are the artifacts. Owned more or less by a single company, and the whole lot coming up for auction soon, there are numerous accounts of the exhibit being haunted. Stories abound from people touring the exhibit seeing things, a famous television investigation team capturing EVP’s, and employees emphatically claiming paranormal activity. Claims range from an employee feeling hands in her hair, shadowy figures walking the corridors, and even an elderly woman haunting a replica of a cabin.

One famous story about Titanic is unfortunately not true. A legend has developed about a mummy shipped aboard the vessel, suggesting, as usual, that a mummy curse sank the Titanic. In fact, there was no mummy on the ship, and the mummified Egyptian in question never existed (except in Ancient times). The whole thing traces to the only extant artifact, a coffin lid in the British Museum, that’s still there to this day. The mummy story must be chalked up to a typical gilded age tall tale, a textbook one, as Tutankamun’s curse must also be. The simple fact is, the man that opened the tomb, Howard Carter… lived for years after his discovery. The curse story persisted, and the model seems to have been recycled into the Titanic saga.

Perhaps the most interesting paranormal phenomena associated with the Titanic is the Captain of the ship, Edward Smith, haunting his birthplace. Located in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire England, the victorian era home has been claimed to be flagrantly haunted by Smith. He is reportedly seen in the bedroom of the home in anthropomorphic form, and cold chills (fitting, perhaps) are reported in other areas of the house. Disconcertingly, residents reported a mysterious kitchen flood that they suspect had something to do with the ghost. The house is on the market for what seems to be an unusually low price, should any Titanic aficionado wish to buy it and investigate further.

It should be no surprise that such a traumatic and emotional event as the Titanic disaster would create ghosts, or at least stories about them. 1500 people died that night under truly horrific circumstances, and if the paranormalists are to be believed these emotions imprinted on the artifacts and surely the ship itself. I could find no reliable reports of anything being seen on the wreck itself, but this is not surprising. Low light, explorers confined to submarines, murky water and the fact that most of the victims would have perished floating on the freezing surface of the ocean instead of miles down on the wreck would tend to explain that. But one must wonder if someday, some expedition might catch something unusual on it’s cameras.

St. Pio had been surrounded by paranormal phenomena since childhood. As a youngster, he was believed to be able to see apparitions of Jesus and Mary, and even went so far as to assume that every person could see them.  These continued into adulthood, until eventually Pio became a capuchin friar. During his time as a novice waiting to become a capuchin, the paranormal phenomena seem to have become more dark and increasingly powerful. In once incidence, the devil appeared to him in his room in the form of a large black dog with glowing red eyes. As early as 1911, he first manifested the stigmata, which he described in a letter as red marks on his hands and feet that caused severe pain. The wounds eventually became visible, sometimes bleeding profusely and would continue the rest of his life. He often prayed for the wounds to disappear, but not the pain, as he found the marks to be an embarrassment. They would never completely disappear, so he was known to hide them.  The visions of the devil continued as well, appearing to Pio as everything from a dancing naked girl, Pope Pius X, St. Francis and most disturbingly, the virgin Mary. One wonders how difficult of a time he had in distinguishing between visions from heaven, and apparitions from hell. Pio died in 1968, still afflicted with the stigmata.

About 300 or so stigmatics have been reported over the last two millenium. The first was St. Paul, who claimed to have them in a letter to the Galatians. St. Francis of Assisi also exhibited them in the 13th century, and cases continue to this day. A number of explanations have been given for the stigmata, ranging from fraud to the wounds somehow being created by the sufferer’s own mind. The phenomena is usually restricted to catholics, however, in the case of the hindu holy man Chaitanya Mahaprabu (1486-1534) he was said to spontaneously bleed from multiple areas of his body.

Often, stigmatics also exhibit a separate phenomena called inedia, which is the act of going without food or water, other than the daily eucharist host, for extended and impossible periods of time. This was seen with Padre Pio, who abstained from eating or drinking for long periods, and even stopped sleeping for a time. The phenomena was most pronounced with the stigmatic Therese Neumann, who is said to have eaten nothing but a single communion host each day from 1922 until she died in 1962. Its also said that she did not drink water during this period either, and suffered no ill health affects. Oddly, the stigmata is known to vary significantly in the location of the wounds. Sometimes they appear at the wrists, or directly in the hands, and the damage from the lance varies between stigmatics on which side of the body it appears.

The bizarre phenomena of the stigmata is something that one might expect from a medieval text, but not in modern times. Yet it almost seems that it is increasing. Never the less, it is likely to remain unexplainable any time soon, as those who suffer from it are still few and far between. The stigmata remains one of the strangest and most frightening phenomena noted in the annals of the paranormal.

The Battle of Mons was the first major action by the British Army in World War I. After the forced withdrawal of French and Belgian forces, the British were left exposed and while they fought valiantly, they too were forced to take a costly retreat in the face of overwhelming German forces. In the midst of this retreat a strange apparition of angels holding back the Germans was claimed to occur. Accounts filtered to the media in Britain of three angels appearing between the British and Germans, protecting the British in their retreat. The angels appeared as larger than men, with a center angel in bright light, with wings extended, seemingly protecting the two smaller angels in the face of the Germans. The British interpreted it as St. George, and the story was used in the recruitment of British soldiers.

But did it really happen? The seed for the story may have been planted by occult novelist Arthur Machen, who wrote a short story in the London Evening News about a month after the battle called “the Bowmen”. Machen himself said the story was fictional, and it wasn’t specifically about Mons. In fact, it wasn’t even about angels, the story relates that a soldier prayed to St. George, who brought back a spectral host of bowmen from the Battle of Agincourt who fought on the side of the British.  But a number of soldiers present at the battle swore that St. George himself had appeared at the battle and staved off the Germans. Its a fact that something did cause the Germans to waver, for a time they recoiled and withdrew which allowed the British to retreat, but was it St. George? The story of the Angels of Mons bears so little resemblance to Machen’s story that its hard to swallow that it was the seed that led to the legend.

Most cite a lack of direct accounts as being supporting evidence that the vision never happened. However, some direct accounts do in fact exist of the Angels of Mons. Harold Begbie’s book “On the side of the angels”. contains his collection of accounts describes the three luminous angels, though unfortunately most of his accounts are anonymous in nature.  Other accounts exist claim that the number of angels was as many as five. All accounts claim that the German cavalry stopped in their tracks as their horses would go no further, allowing the British retreat. Significantly, accounts from the German side are almost entirely lacking. This general lack of witnesses isn’t surprising in light that most of the people present at Mons did not survive the beginning of the war, which would grow into war of attrition mostly spent in trenches. In any case, the story became legendary in Britain throughout the war, and served to both boost morale and recruitment.

Did Angels save the British Army in August of 1914, or did a public desperate for good news latch onto a fictional story and mould it into a legend? We can’t be certain. But the fact remains that the Germans did waver in the face of something, whether it was fierce British firepower, or angels siding with the British Army, we will never know for sure.

In the United States alone, there have been no less than 20 unexplained booms over the last decade. Some near water, some not. Of course some can be explained by meteorites entering the atmosphere, and there are many other theories about just what could create a boom, but this Wisconsin affair seems most interesting in that the booms were clearly coming from the ground. There are far less rational explanations for a non-aerial boom. And it wasn’t just one location, we all know about the Clintonville booms, but more were heard 80 miles away in Montello, WI. And, there wasn’t just one boom. There were many over at least a four day period, possibly even months, some reports saying the booms slowed down in the morning and went full force again in the evening!

Seasonal or time sensitive booms are again nothing new. The “Barisal Guns” of Bengladesh were noted to sound like cannon, ran for years in the late 19th century before stopping, and seemed to prefer the summer months and hardly ever happened in the winter. No thunderstorms were ever in the area during the booms, and in this case the booms seemed to have stopped completely by the 1890′s. Clearly, it was not sonic booms from jets.

The most interesting case is the Bell Island boom. This particular boom did some serious damage to local homes in 1978. More interestingly, it damaged the electrical wiring of the homes in a manner that might be similar to what a natural EMP, or a weapon, might do. This specific case was blamed on an unusally large lightning bolt, though meteorologists deny that the conditions were present for lightning, and a ‘crater’ of sorts was pointed out as the impact zone. That’s a hard buy, lightning doesn’t usually make craters, it makes fulgerites which tend to look like small fused glass tubes going into the ground with the surrounding soil undisturbed. Big holes with apparently no fused glass isn’t very consistent, and wierder still Los Alamos labs sent a pair of scientists all the way out to the Island, off Newfoundland in Canada, to investigate. The official story is that the infamous Vela satellite detected the huge lightning bolt, and they were sent on that basis, but that doesn’t seem to add up. Why go out there if you know what it was? Were other superbolts detected by Vela and investigated with the same vigor and expense?

So what did the powers that be do in response to the Wisconsin booms? They’ve called it a small earthquake followed by an earthquake swarm. The media, or at least most of it, took the answer happily and closed the case. Never mind that the explanation was entirely inconsistent with their earlier reports. Witnesses note that the booms began much earlier than the 1.5 magnitude miniquake that the USGS advanced as a possible cause. The dual locations of the booms is also inconsistent with an earthquake. The shaking alone reported by some witnesses should exceed 1.5 magnitude from the reports, which is well below the 2.0 threshhold of usually being feelable by humans.

Residents in Clintonville seem unsatisfied, and well they should be. When illogical, inconsistent concepts are advanced in an authoritative “case closed” manner, it can be insulting and smacks of the want to get the whole thing buried and made to go away. In fact, the Wisconsin underground booms remain unexplained, as do a great many others, and if the ground of Wisconsin continues to boom, we will not have heard the end of this story.

Ninel Kulagina

More obscurely, and more defiant against attempts to debunk, is the case of Ninel Kulagina. A female soldier in the Soviet Red Army, Kulagina found that whenever she became angry poltergeist activity would manifest in the room around her. After some time, she began to sense that the force that was responsible for the moving objects came from within her, rather than from a spirit. With practice, she learned how to focus her power and move objects at will. Soviet Scientist Edward Naumov was among the first to test her claims by spreading a box of matches on a table. Straining to the point of shivering, Ninel spread her hands over the matches and within seconds the matches moved to the corner of the table in a cluster, and fell to the floor one by one.

Ninel was then tested by Dr. Genady Sergeyev, who made more than 60 films of Ninel exhibiting her psychokinetic abilities. These films range from Ninel manipulating a broken egg in a tank of water, seperating the yolk and the white and moving each to opposite sides of the tank. Ninel was standing several feet from the tank at the time. In another experiment, a beating frog’s heart suspended in a solution was sped up and then stopped by Ninel, demonstrating that her abilities extended beyond moving inanimate objects to the manipulation of living cells.

Sergeyev measured an apparently quite strong electrostatic field surrounding Kulagina, and during the egg experiment, that field was found to have a four cycle per second pulse when the yolk and white were in movement. Further, Kulagina was found to be under severe physical and emotional stress during the movement. Sergeyev concluded that she had the ability to magnetize objects, even objects that were non-magnetic, and draw them toward herself, or alternately repel them away.

Using her powers took a serious toll on Kulagina. She reported that she knew when the power would come by a sharp pain in her spine and blurred vision. In the late 1970′s Kulagina suffered a near-fatal heart attack that may have been linked to her psychokinetic abilities. Medical examinations showed that she suffered from an irregular hearbeat, problems with her endocrine system and some symptoms of diabetes. She suffered pains in her extremities and had coordination problems and dizzyness, all linked by soviet researchers to the use of her psychokinetic abilities. She curtailed her psychic activies after the late 70′s and died in 1990.

Criticism from skeptics of Kulagina seems to rest on shaky ground. They claim that the soviet scientist’s experiments were far from being done in a controlled environment, and that sleight of hand could account for her abilities. How sleight of hand could be responsible for the seperation of egg yolks and whites in a tank of water several feet away from the manipulator doesn’t seem to have been adequately addressed. Further, skeptics have claimed that the Soviet’s had a motive to fake the whole thing to compete with US Government studies on psychic phenomena. Strangely, this is a conspiracy theory spun by the skeptics, which is obviously problematic in itself.

Whether or not the Soviet Union faked Kulagina, or if she really did have profound psychokinetic abilities remains a mystery.

The singing statues took the world of the Roman Empire by storm. They statues were said to be oracles that could predict the future, and affluent Romans flocked to Egypt to hear the famous singing. Even several of Rome’s emperors visited to see the marvel, but in 199 AD the statues stopped singing as inexplicably as they had began two centuries before. The emperor at the time, Septimius Severus, fearing that the gods were angry, ordered that the statues be reassembled and restored. Never the less, the singing never returned.

Theories range from dew evaporating to some type of oscillation or vibration of the sandstone itself causing the singing, but none seem to explain why the sound stopped so abruptly. To this day, even though the statues still exist, they are totally silent.

Its unlikely that Amenhotep wanted singing statues, for most of the first half of their existance, they didn’t sing at all. But it seems that his Mayan counterparts may have wanted just that. The great pyramid of El Castillo at Chichen Itza near the resort city of Cancun in Mexico has long been known, but recently proven and studied, to have the strange property of being able to produce the sound of a bird chirping when someone claps their hand while standing at the base of the pyramid. If one walks up the steps of the pyramid, it echos the footsteps with the sound of falling rain.

Skeptics state that the Mayans probably couldn’t have predicted precisely what sounds the pyramid would make, if they intentionally designed it to do that at all. However, it seems more than a little suspicious that it would produce a sound similar to the Quetzal bird of Mexico that was considered sacred by the Maya, and would produce the sound of rain, the god of which was also understandably quite important. Belgian scientist Nico Declercq and his team from Ghent University have established that the source of the sound, such as a clap or a footstep, determines what sound will bounce back. In effect sound bounced back varies widely based on the sound made by the listener.

This leaves open the possibility that any number of sounds were made to produce an array of effects from the pyramid. One can imagine the Maya priests astonishing the gathered population as they produced impossible noises that could only have been interpreted as supernatural by those who weren’t in the know. Only expermentation and thorough study will reveal all of the potential sounds that the Mayans might have produced with the pyramid, and it might even be interesting to find out what it can produce when echoing more modern sounds, such as a chainsaw or a music recording.

Its amazing to think that an apparently natural phenomena could grip the Roman world so stongly as the Colossi of Memnon did. Its even more amazing to think of ancient Mayan architects intentionally building a pyramid to echo sound in an altered form, yet they did. That would be difficult even by today’s standards. Thankfully, unlike many of the wonders of the ancient world, the Colossi and El Castillo can still be visited, and listened to by the hopeful, to this day.

Take the vrykolakas, the Greek version of the Vampire. While most vampire legends tend to involve drinking human blood as part of the mythos, in this case, it does not. The vrykolakas comes into being simply after living a sacrilegious life, or after an excommunication or burial in ground that was not consecrated, or most ominously eating mutton that had been previously tasted by a werewolf. Speaking of, even a werewolf couldn’t be safe from becoming a vrykolakas, if you killed the greek werewolf, he could come back as a cross between a vrykolakas and a werewolf! The fusion of these two creatures in Greek culture is one of the most fascinating aspects of the vrykolakas-style vampire.

Once in existance, the vrykolakas would not bite the neck of his victims to draw blood, rather it would cause epidemics of disease by simply walking around town. It would knock on doors, only to dissappear if the person answered on the first knock, but that person would then be condemned to death soon after and would become a vrykolakas themselves. To this day in certain parts of Greece, people do not answer the door until at least the second knock.

Even poltergeist activity is blamed on the vrykolakas, though that may be off-base in that the poltergeist is likely a completely different phenomenon. Sleep paralysis is also pinned on the legend, as a sort of fusion between the concept of the incubus and the Balkan vampire’s penchant for killing victims by sitting on their chest. Methods of dispensing with a vrykolakas are much the same as the western concept of the vampire; impaling. But there are other methods for this creature that work just as well, such as cremating the suspected corpse and even a standard exorcism is said to do the trick.

The vrykolakas is just one of many different variations of legendary undead creatures that resemble the western concept of the vampire. Perhaps, when dealing with folklore, we should take this into account. Imagine a film based on the vrykolakas instead of the western vampire, with powers greatly expanded from simple blood-drinking and wandering in the night.

In fact, in the hundreds of millennial predictions, sects, and beliefs that have surfaced since the death of Christ, and before, not a single one has come to pass. The world may seem close to the abyss, but it never quite makes that last step needed to cross the edge. In fact, it often seems in hindsight that it was never on that last step at all, but more than a day’s walk away.

Now we approach the next round of dire predictions. From the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012, to the last Pope prophesized by St. Malachi to come after the current one, to religious-based predictions that the end must be near as the current state of affairs in the world must be omens signaling the end, we unfortunately will never have the answer until the world actually decides to take the last baby step off the cliff.

Oddly, Nostradamus seems the odd man out in this orgy of prediction that seems to be gripping the world of those who study things paranormal. He doesn’t predict the end of the world until thousands of years from now, if ever.

I can’t help but wonder why the end of the world preoccupies us so much. For all the predictions and doomsday talk, Chances are, we’ll never see it coming. It could come in the form of an asteroid impact, or even a supernova silently bombarding us with lethal doses of radiation. Or it could be one of the religious predictions that comes true, but in this case, it might not be such a good idea to try to read the mind of God and blow the big secret before the almighty has a chance to finish his plan. You might just invite his judgment for such a thing.

I think the reason is psychological. Some need an order to dismiss the chaos of world affairs. It becomes comforting, perhaps, to see a great earthquake with a horrendous loss of life and see it in the context that it means something. We watch the economic troubles of today, and maybe it makes more sense for them to be part of the divine plan for the earth’s end, rather than mistakes stemming from greed and poor financial infrastructure. The problem is though, we’ve seen all of this before, and the first time around none of them turned out to be indicative of the end. In fact, the world has been in almost constant calamity for two thousand years, leading many to believe that the time in which they lived were the end times. For most of these people, it wasn’t.

I can’t say for certain, nor can I say that I hope I’m wrong, but I think it would be prudent for all of us to take all the talk of the end being near with a grain of salt, especially as 2012 approaches, and those on the crazier end of the spectrum start thinking of making up a batch of koolaid. Chances are, these are not the end times, rather they are the times in which we live. When the end does truly come, whether its tomorrow or a thousand years from now, it will likely be inevitable and unchangeable by the time we know about it, and if it is divine in nature, we will be the last beings in the universe that can stop it. So why do we worry so?

Artists Concept of The Mad Gasser

During the two weeks between August 31 and September 13 of that year, there were over 20 reports of citizens being temporarily paralyzed by a mysterious odor. The odor, or “gas”, was often accompanied by sightings of a tall, dark man believed to be the assailant. The press later identified this person as “The Mad Gasser of Mattoon”.

Founded less than 100 years previous to the attacks, Mattoon has a rich railroad history and has seen many famous civil war icons passing through on their way to shape modern America. Here is a map of Mattoon during this time period.

The reports told of a sweet smelling odor that was almost instantly followed by weakness of the knees or total paralysis. Even to this day, it is still not known what gas (if any) was being described.

The first Mad Gasser attack occurred on August 31, 1944 at the home of Urban Raef on Grant Ave. Mr Raef said that he was awakened in the early morning by a strange odor. The odor reportedly made him “nauseous and weak” and forced him into a fit of vomiting. Raef’s wife, thinking that her husband was suffering from domestic gas poisoning, attempted to see if there was a problem with the pilot light, but much to her horror, found that she was unable to leave her bed, temporarily paralyzed.

Interestingly enough, the very same night, a similar incident was reported by a neighbor unable to check on her coughing daughter in another room, also paralyzed and unable to leave her bed.

The next day, on September 1, a third incident occurred, from which we get our description of the Mad Gasser. A Marshall Avenue inhabitant, Mrs. Kearney, reported smelling a strong, sweet odor around 11:00 p.m. Believing the smell to be from her flowers just outside the window, she wasn’t alarmed. Soon, the odor became much stronger and Mrs. Kearney reported losing feeling in her legs. Mrs. Kearney’s sister, also present, noticed the odor and determined it was coming from the nearby open bedroom window. The pair contacted the police, but no evidence of a prowler or the smell was found.

Soon after the police left, Mrs. Kearney’s husband, Bert Kearney, returned home from his job as a taxi driver to find a strange man close to the bedroom window where the odor had reportedly come from. Mr. Kearney gave chase and the man escaped, but not before Mr. Kearney caught a good glimpse of him. Kearney’s description painted the gasser as a tall man dressed in dark clothing, wearing a tight fitting cap. After being reported in the local newspapers, this became the common description of The Mad Gasser.

The first of the physical evidence was found on September 5 at around 10:00 p.m. on North 21st street by homeowners Carl and Beulah Cordes. The pair noticed a small piece of white cloth, barely larger than a handkerchief, sitting on their porch by the door. Mrs. Cordes picked up the cloth and as soon as she smelled it, she became violently ill. Her face began to swell, her mouth and throat were overcome with an intense burning sensation and she began to vomit. Similar to the other victims, Mrs. Cordes reported partial paralysis of her legs. Strangely enough, authorities analyzed the cloth but had no explanation of the effects suffered by Mrs. Cordes.

After recovering from her temporary illness, Beulah Cordes is reported to have thought the cloth had been left on the porch to knock out the family dog, so the assailant could enter the home, unnoticed. No definitive motive for burglary was reported.

Here is a link with several other newspaper accounts worthy of a glance.

Many believe that mass hysteria was to blame for these rather paranormal events. Others say that the local industrial company Atlas-Imperial was to blame for it’s use of chemicals such as carbon tetrachloride or trichloroethylene, which were said to have been able to produce the same effect as those purportedly used by the Mad Gasser.

During World War II, many newspapers had been reporting that it was likely the Nazi’s were planning a poison gas attack against the United States civilians. Because of this, some still believe that the attacks carried out in Mattoon were Nazis testing their chemical weapons, but due to the town’s quiet history, we find this unlikely.

Another theory suspects an actual assailant as having committed some if not all of the attacks. This could have been a copycat opportunist taking advantage of recent reports or sheer coincidence.
In 2003, Scott Maruna, a former resident of the area affected by the 1944 Mattoon incident, published a book detailing his belief that the attacks were the work of a mentally disturbed local man named Farley Llewellyn.

Maruna writes that Llewellyn was an accomplished chemistry student studying at the University of Illinois, during the time of the attacks. He claims that Llewellyn, suspected by the townsfolk as being a homosexual, had both the knowledge and the motive to commit the attacks.

According to Wikipedia, Maruna goes on to state that many of the attacks were clustered around Llewellyn’s home and that the first victims had attended high school with him.

Llewellyn was indeed a suspect and was placed under surveillance, but was never charged with the gassing. Strangely, shortly after the gassing, his family had him committed to a mental institution.

So, did the events of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon really happen? Probably so. Were there really 20-something incidents that can be attributed to one individual? Probably not. The story of the humiliated Farley Llewellyn coupled with the theorization of copycat prowlers seems to be the most likely explanation, but due to the substantial lack of damning evidence, we believe that the mystery of The Mad Gasser of Mattoon lives on.

The comments last time around were great! If you have something to say about any of these, please, leave a response and let’s discuss these as a community!

5. The Taos Hum

The Taos Hum is a mysterious low-frequency humming noise of unknown origin that reportedly exists in Taos, New Mexico. Other occurrences of this phenomena have been reported all over the world and most have been attributed to industrial sounds. What makes the Taos Hum interesting is that the hum is often intensified inside of buildings and is only heard by around 2% of the local population.

Generally, the Taos Hum is thought to be one of the following:

• Man-made noises (subwoofers, industrial machinery, etc)
• Infrasound from different possible sources, possibly geologic or plate tectonic in nature.
• Pulsed microwaves
• Electromagnetic waves caused by meteors
• Extremely low frequency communications systems (submarine communication, etc)
• Ionospheric heating systems (HAARP)

It should be noted however, that the source of the hum has not been identified, even after exhaustive research by local universities and hobbyists.

You can listen to a recording of the Taos Hum here.

4. Near Death Experiences

Ascent of the Blessed by Hieronymus Bosch

Is there an afterlife? Many individuals who have had a near death experience (NDE) believe so. Their experiences often leave them with newfound spirituality and religious belief, changing their lives forever.

Interestingly enough, a near death experience isn’t the same for everyone. Far from it actually, in most cases, a NDE any particular person experiences will reflect whatever religious beliefs that the person held.

From Wikipedia:

“Children, who typically do not have enough time to develop strongly towards one faith, had very limited NDEs. Examples of this include a boy simply having talked to his brother in his NDE and a daughter having a conversation with her mother. The phenomenology of an NDE usually includes physiological, psychological and alleged transcendental aspects. Typically, the experience follows a distinct progression:

1. A very unpleasant sound/noise is the first sensory impression to be noticed (R. Moody: Life after Life);
2. A sense of being dead;
3. Pleasant emotions; calmness and serenity;
4. An out-of-body experience; a sensation of floating above one’s own body and seeing the surrounding area;
5. Floating up a blue tunnel with a strong, bright light or garden at the end;
6. Meeting deceased relatives or spiritual figures;
7. Encountering a being of light, or a light (often interpreted as being the deity or deities they personally believe in);
8. Being given a life review;
9. Reaching a border or boundary;
10. A feeling of being returned to the body, often accompanied by a reluctance.
11. Feeling of warmth even though naked.

The sometimes fantastic claims of those who have reported NDEs have not gone unchallenged. Most of the scientific community regards such experiences as hallucinatory and even sometimes completely fabricated.

While the paranormal community is somewhat more accepting of the NDE phenomenon, there is constant objective research into the field.

In September 2008, it was announced that 25 UK and US hospitals will examine near-death studies in 1,500 heart attack patients-survivors. The study will attempt to determine if people without heartbeat or brain activity can have an out-of-body experience with visual perceptions.

3. Doppelgangers

While often the work of fiction, Doppelgangers (and evil twins) do have some pretty interesting tales.

Here are a few famous historical accounts of Doppelgangers, evil twins and harbingers:

• Queen Elizabeth I reportedly saw herself lying pale and still on her bed, soon before she died.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is said to have seen his double wearing a gray suit, trimmed in gold, riding towards him in the opposite direction while on his way to Drusenheim. Eight years later, while riding from Drusenheim on the very same road, he realized he was wearing the exact outfit that he had seen on his double eight years earlier.
• Catherine the Great of Russia saw her own image coming toward her and became so frightened that she ordered her soldiers to fire upon it, which they did, but to no avail.

Abe Lincoln

Abe Lincoln, of all people, claimed to have witnessed himself with two faces in his mirror. Abe was pretty superstitious and old mirrors can be kind of tricky, but here is Honest Abe’s recount of the incident:

“ It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great “hurrah, boys,” so that I was well tired out, and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler — say five shades — than the other. I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it — nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home again that night I told my wife about it, and a few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough! The thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a “sign” that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.”

Somewhat in tune with the Universal Tricker (sometimes Universal Prankster), Doppelgangers are believed to provide their “twins” with misleading or malicious advice and sometimes are even thought to implant ideas in their minds. Thus, it is considered gravely unwise to attempt to communicate with one’s doppelganger.

2. The Sudarium of Oviedo

The Sudarium of Oviedo is a bloodstained cloth purported to have covered the head of Jesus after his burial. The 34″ by 21″ Sudarium is currently housed in the Cathedral of San Salvador, Oviedo, Spain. The cloth is not mentioned in accounts of the actual burial of Christ, but is mentioned as having been present in the empty tomb. It is also described as a cloth physically separate from yet another popular relic, The Shroud of Turin (which consists of the same material as the Sudarium).

The Sudarium of Oviedo

In an attempt to verify the authenticity of the Sudarium, an investigation of the stains by Dr. Jose Villalain showed that the victim died in an upright position, and the stains are comprised mostly of fluid from the lungs. This finding is consistent with crucifixion, which tends to suffocate the victim instead of causing death by blood loss, as commonly believed. Pollen samples taken from the cloth by Dr. Max Frei are consistent with Jerusalem, North Africa and Spain, all of which the Sudarium has been kept.

1. Black Triangle UFOs

One of the most regularly sighted UFOs is the Black Triangle UFO. The black triangle ufo is characterized as being totally silent in its flight despite being a very large, triangular craft hovering or slowly cruising at very low altitudes over cities and highways. They are often described as having bright lights on the underneath at each corner of the triangle. Sometimes a red pulsating light in the center is reported as well.

Triangle shaped UFOs have been reported regularly since the early 1940s. They are one of the most “social” UFO types, often being seen at night time over major population centers, thus explaining their frequent sightings. Due to the enormous amount of sightings in the US, many believe the craft to be a secret aircraft of the US military.

A Typical Black Triangle UFO.

Here is a quick summary of The Rendlesham Forest Incident, one of the most famous black triangle incidents and my personal favorite:

A pyramid-shaped craft was reported to have landed near an American air base at Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England, on December 27, 1980. Military personnel reported having approached at least one landed craft in the forest and observed it in great detail before it once again took flight. Another craft was observed landing in an open field near the base and then taking off at incredible speed. Between 2002 and 2005, reporter Bryant Gumbel hosted a series of exclusive SciFi Channel documentaries, one of which, entitled UFO Invasion at Rendlesham, focused on this incident. Gumbel interviewed some of the men involved with the sighting, and the documentary toured some of the scenes, attempting to gather evidence that something landed in the forest. The History Channel also aired an episode of UFO Files on the incident, calling it “Britain’s Roswell”. Via: Wikipedia.

That concludes our Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena! We hope you enjoyed our list and remember, if you have anything to say, feel free to leave a comment below!