The Sedlec Ossuary

In the small town of Sedlec in the Czech republic is something truely extraordinary. A Roman Catholic chapel profusely decorated with the skeletal remains of the dead. 40,000 skeletons were used in the decoration of the chapel, with the bones forming up chandeliers, coats of arms, and other accents to the gothic interior. The story of the Sedlec ossuary starts in 1278, when a certain Henry, Abbot of the Cistercian monastary at Sedlec, made a pilgrimage to the holy land. He brought back a handful of earth from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the cemetery where the ossuary now lies. Soon, the desire to be buried in this cemetary exploded,  and during the period of the black death thousands were laid to rest here.

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They’ve always said that the eye is the window to the soul. Perhaps the real truth is that it is the window of intent. When you drive on the highway and get cut off, the first thing you do is give a sharp glare at the offender, though some of us choose to complement it with a colorful hand gesture. We use our eyes to correct misbehaving children, we shoot a look of incredulity when someone says something ridiculous, and we even advise our friends and family to “always look him in the eye” when we go to job interviews. The eye is our most powerful organ (though I suppose this could be disputed) in social interaction. We are fixated on it, and we use it against others to show our emotion. When used against us, we fear it because we know that it means something bad. Ancient tribesmen were terrified by the eyes of wild animals watching them in the forest; at any moment the creature could pounce, and in the modern world we still fear being watched. Our brains are designed to fear the eye. But does it have anything other than superficial power?

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Belize does not immediately come to mind when thinking of hot bed areas for ghostly activity, but in fact it has one of the more intriguing and long-lasting ghost stories I’ve run across in recent years. The ancient Mayan ruin of Xunantunich lies about 80 miles west of Belize City. The phenomena is so strongly associated with the area that the site itself is now named after the ghost, Xunantunich is mayan for “stone woman”.

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In 1880, the future King George V of England and his brother Prince Albert Victor (incidently a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case) saw a ghost ship while serving in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Bacchante. It appeared around 4 AM off the coast of Australia, glowing with red light with all sails set. The Princes, along with eleven others, momentarily saw the ship off their port bow at a distance of about 200 yards before it vanished as quickly as it appeared. The next day, the seaman who first sighted it fell to his death in an accident. King George V is the most noteworthy person out of hundreds said to have seen the Flying Dutchman.

The story behind the Flying Dutchman is unfortunately convoluted and colored by the exaggeration of centuries of sailors. The earliest written accounts describe a ship lost with all hands off the Cape of Good Hope. Another story describes a Captain Fokke, who made a deal with the devil to increase the speed of his ship. Then there’s the famous Captain van der Decken, who pushed his ship too hard, cursing at the wind to change direction, promising to push his ship forward until judgement day. It is unknown if all of these accounts describe the same ship, or different ghost ships, but the sightings are always said to herald disaster. Read more

Psychokinesis, or the ability to manipulate objects with the mind, is a notoriously difficult to prove ability. Most famously Uri Geller achieved fame in the 1970′s with his seemingly amazing ability to bend spoons with nothing other than the power of his mind. Early on in his career, a number of scientists concluded that Geller does indeed posses psychic and psychokinetic abilities, however controversy over Geller’s power developed after a number of stage magician’s, most recently Criss Angel, claimed that Geller’s abilities are simple stage magic tricks. Whichever is the case, Geller remains the most public individual claiming to have these powers.

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. Read more

Still standing after nearly 3,400 years, two statues of the ancient Egyptian Pharoah Amenhotep III stand guard over a temple that no longer exists. They are called the Colossi of Memnon and remain to this day one Egypt’s major archaeological tourist attractions. At one time, however, they were more notable for the sound they made at dawn, rather than as monuments to a long dead pharoah. The ancient greek historian Strabo wrote in the first century A.D. of a great earthquake that shook Egypt and damaged the statues. In particular, he mentions that the northern colossus cleaved in half. Soon after, each day at dawn, the statues mysteriously began to ‘sing’ by emitting an audible, and apparently loud, hum. Read more

In a world growing increasingly interesting by the day, we humans have our fair share of centerpieces for human eccentricity. Today we’ll take a look at some of the people that make you
think just a little harder about yourself, and just how normal you really are. Here is Paranormala’s List of the 5 Most Eccentric People. Read more

Interestingly enough, a reader sent in this comment in regards to our article, “Is the Jersey Devils Range Increasing?”

“Heyy,

My name is Victoria and i am starting a report on the JD (Jersey Devil) also known as the MLD (The Mother Leeds Devil)…People say when you make the Jersey Devil Cake and put it in your yard the Jersey Devil might come.. Read more