-
Joshua Chamberlain and the Ghost
The American Civil War was in full rage by 1863. On July 1, 1863 the armies were massing around a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg. The battle that followed was one of the bloodiest and crucial in the war. Joshua Chamberlain was the Colonel of the 20th Maine, promoted after the battle of Chancellorsville. The 20th Maine was described as a “hell of a regiment”, which was not a compliment. Apparently, they were unruly and had some deserters that had to be forced back to duty at the point of a bayonet. I imagine this was par for the course in those days, however. Chamberlain was told by General…
-
The Harem Conspiracy
The royal court is never an easy place. Its full of intrigue and deception and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is true today as it was in ancient times. In Egypt, no one was more powerful than the Pharaoh. However, in the Twentieth Dynasty, Pharaoh Ramses III was getting old. He had ruled Egypt for a little over thirty years, and people were getting antsy. Since he wasn’t vacating the throne on his own power, perhaps it was time to help him along. Ramses had many wives like most pharaohs, however, unlike most pharaohs he did not name a Great Royal Wife. This left the harem open to scheming and…
-
The Solway Spaceman
While out with his family in 1964 local historian, fireman, and photographer Jim Templeton took three photographs of his five-year-old daughter while at Burgh Marsh overlooking the Solway Firth in Cumbria, England. Templeton claimed the photograph shows a background figure wearing a space suit and insisted that he did not see anyone present when the photograph was taken. The image was reproduced widely in contemporary newspapers and gained the attention of UFO specialists and fans. Templeton said the only other people on the marshes that day were a couple of old women sitting in a car at the far end of the marsh. In a letter to the Daily Mail…
-
The Paris Catacombs
The city of Paris is built on top of rich Lutetian limestone deposits, and it was this stone that built most of the city. This stone had been quarried since the time of the Romans, mostly from suburban locations away from the main areas where people lived. Mines were haphazard and not locations were not documented, and once the vein of stone was quarried the mines were abandoned and forgotten. As the city of Paris grew, people ran into the mines when they were building with disastrous results. A series of mine cave-ins in 1774 highlighted the undermining of the Left Bank. So what to do? Fill them with bones!…
-
The bizarre case of Clarvius Narcisse
Narcisse age 40, arrived at a Haitian hospital on April 30, 1962. He was suffering from a fever, and he felt like bugs where crawling on his skin. Doctors noted a general physical deterioration, and immediately gave Narcisse a room. On May 2, 1962, he was pronounced dead. His family laid his body to rest in a cemetery near his village, l’Estere. He was placed in a coffin, nailed shut, and set within the earth. This should have been the end of his story. In 1980, sixteen years later, Narcisse reappeared with a strange and hard to believe tale. He tells that after his funeral, late at night, his body…
