I'm a freelance journalist with a lifelong interest in the paranormal.
Bigfoot, Nessie, ghosts, poltergeists, human oddness...
You name it, I'm intrigued
Penis panics are surprisingly common. Known to psychiatrists as koro* victims believe that through some magical means, typically the action of a sorcerer, their genitals has disappeared or shrunken.
In Singapore in 1967 hospitals were swamped by men who believed that their penises were shrinking . They were so scared that many were using rubber bands or clothes pins to try and halt the shrinking. Fortunately, thanks to some very good public news conferences the Health Ministry was able to calm the masses and the panic fizzled out.
Last week Reuters reported that the Congo is the latest country to be hit by a wave of alleged penis thefts. What makes this more than the usual panic is that the police, rather than calming the situation, have actually arrested 13 suspected sorcerers.
Police claim that they arrested the men as a precautionary measure, to avoid a repeat of an incident in Ghana when the suspects were beaten to death by an angry mob.
* thought to come either from the Malay word meaning “to shrink”: keruk. Some people believe it may in fact come from the Malaysian-Indonesian words for tortoise kura, kura-kura, and kuro
Has a Russian tourist really snapped the ghost of a 16th Century priest?
According to today’s Sun newspaper Russian tourist, Olga Chtalova spotted the ghostly image when she downloaded her holiday pictures. This particular photo was taken during a morning service at St Paul’s Cathedral.
I have to say I’m not convinced. Looks a bit like someone in pale clothes wandering past. Would be a bit more convincing if the church was empty!
I AM impressed with whoever managed to identify the actual century this ghost came from. I think I’d have a hard time identifying a priest’s robes from a particular century.
But, I’m also a bit disturbed by snapping photos during morning service – I’m not particularly religious but I don’t feel that’s right.
If you’re new to Mothman you’re in for a fascinating journey. Start with John Keel’s classic book on the case: The Mothman Prophecies and get an introduction to the complexities of the case here in Rick Moran’s piece for the Fortean Times.
I love my Aussie soaps. I can even remember Paul Robinson’s FIRST wife, Terry (the mad one who shot him – I was off school with bronchitis).
Watching poor Sam (who is a bit whiny and annoying sometimes) suffer as Johnny Cooper’s ghost haunts her has reminded me how often Neighbours and Home and Away touch on the strange and unusual. So I’ve compiled a list of 5 strange phenomena that have cropped up in Neighbours and Home and Away.
1. Visitors from Beyond the Grave
This seems to happen a lot. Recently, as stated above we’ve have poor Sam being haunted by Johnny Cooper. Although as is almost always the case the rational explanation is that the stress is driving her mad.
Home and Away has had lots of these story lines. Does anyone else remember Bobby coming out of the fridge to haunt Ailsa (who subsequently turned out to have schizophrenia)? Handily available on YouTube…
And then when Alf had a brain tumour, he saw Ailsa rather a lot. Before seeing her one last time when she explained that this time it was really her and she had come to reassure him.
And Hayley always seemed to be seeing her dead Dad.
It happens on Ramsey Street too. When Julie died her daughter, Hannah, experienced visions of her deceased mother. This is a rare case of a soap visitation from the dead that wasn’t later blamed on a neurological disorder.
Boyd’s visions of his dead mother were absolutely due to neurological problems – he had a brain tumour.
Occasionally, the dead warn the living. While pregnant Steph Scully had recurring dreams of her best friend Libby’s dead husband, Drew. She correctly guessed that it was a warning and discovered that her breast cancer had returned.
2. The Near Death Experience
Sally has recently had her own encounters with the dead. She had a vivid near death experience during surgery. Her foster father Tom convinced her to return to the world of the living. Interestingly, just before this Sally had another strange experience. Her childhood imaginary friend, Milco, turned out to be real! He was a memory of her long-lost twin brother, Miles.
3. Urban Legend
We all know the old story of the ring in the fish don’t we? Where the woman loses her engagement/wedding ring (or throws it away in anger) and it turns up in the fish she later serves for dinner.
Well, Neighbours had their own variation: Libby’s earring. Libby lost her earring (a gift from loving partner Drew) but amazingly, Drew caught a fish (in the obviously fishless Lassiters lake – a fish there really is Fortean). And inside the fish….the earring
4. Telepathy
Just a few weeks ago Rebecca was uneasy and she was right! Declan was trapped under a collapsed warehouse. This sort of thing happens a lot but sometimes the psychic bond between soap characters is even stronger. Amanda was so sure that Belle was alive after the crash. And intuition has saved the day on many occasions.
Most startlingly, though shortly after they arrived, following some terrible accident (I really can’t remember what it was – I think maybe the school collapsed?) Jade and Kirsty turned out to have twin telepathy. This ws extraordinary enough – they weren’t identical. But subsequently it was revealed that they weren’t related at all!
5. Yowies
I was desperate to find a cryptid in Neighbours or Home and Away and sadly I came up with only one…Rick Alessi once pretended there was a Yowie in Erinsborough to impress some Japanese tourists. It’s pathetic really, years of Aussie soaps and not a single cryptid – I’m thinking of starting a petition.
But I was always a bit sad. There was the odd mystery hominid in the UK but no serious collection of research on the subject. So I’m thrilled to see that Nick Redfern has added to his long list of fascinating blogs with MAN-BEAST UK.
So I took a brief hiatus, tweaked some settings, flirted with another server, had some electrics changed in my house… but now Enigma Street is back.
First up, an attempt to establish which imaginary animals (or not so imaginary: I’m not prepared to declare the Mongolian Death Worm “imaginary” just yet) are kosher from Ecstatic Days.
It’s useful to know that Chupacabras are definitely out (being carnivorous). ET isn’t (being sentient). But you can safely eat the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary.
NOTE: This is the first time in my life I have successfully spelt Chupacabras without having to look it up
The so-called Mole Man has been fined £300 000 for burrowing extensive tunnels under his home in East London.
William Lyttle, 77 is a retired engineer but his extensive excavations almost caused the collapse of his home. Some tunnels were held up just by household appliances!
As a former London Council worker I can only support Hackney Council: really don’t try this sort of thing it may end badly and cost everyone (including you a fortune).
A man in San Rafael, California has been charged with reckless driving, driving while intoxicated and causing injuries and hit-and-run.
But, Antonio Patrinostro, 43, had an interesting excuse. He was on a secret mission for Area 51 the military base said to be the centre of extraterrestrial activity and a repository for all sorts of UFO goodies. The vehicle was capable of flying and he was trying to build up enough speed to take off. And the cocktail of drugs including Valium and cocaine? Well, they were part of an experiment that might one day cure AIDS.
If convicted (and frankly I don’t think anyone is buying the Area 51 story) he faces up to 3 years in prison.
A report in the Edmonton Journal describes how Rosemary McArthur, a professional psychic who works under the name “The Celtic Lady”. Diana’s death was not and accident. McArthur met Diana in 1993 and shortly afterwards fell ill and had a premonition including the word “Paris”.
I had a strange experience the day before Diana died. And although I’m sure there was nothing supernatural about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the person I was speaking to thought otherwise.
My sister and I were travelling down the East Coast of America and were in Washington DC. We took one to trolley bus tours but found ourselves with a broken down bus, at Washington Cathedral on a day when everything was shut for refurbishment. Waiting for the replacement bus, we got chatting to a lovely lady from the South who started asking us about the Royal Family, especially Diana and her relationship with Dodi Al Fayed.
“What do you think of Diana and Dodi?”
My Mum and I had talked about it and she had said it would all end in tears. Not because of any arranged assassination but because it was a rich playboy and a woman who seemed quite vulnerable.
So I repeated that: “Oh, it will all end in tears!”
Less than 24 hours later, Diana was dead.
I wonder if that woman remembered our conversation. A young English woman who told her Diana and Dodi’s affair would end tragically…..
