Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Bélmez Faces

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Bélmez Faces

“The appearances in Bélmez began on 23 August 1971, when María Gómez Cámara claimed that a human face formed spontaneously on her concrete kitchen floor. María’s husband, Juan Pereira and their son, Miguel, destroyed the image with a pickaxe and new concrete was laid down. However, the Pereira story goes, a new face formed on the floor. The mayor of Bélmez was informed and forbade the destruction of the new face. Instead, the floor concrete was cut out and taken for study.

“María’s home was advertised to the tourists as La Casa de las Caras (The House of the Faces). By Easter of 1972 hundreds of people were flocking to the house to see the faces. For the next 30 years the Pereira family claimed that faces continued to appear, both male and female and of different shapes, sizes and expressions.”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Crawfordsville Monster

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CRAWFORDSVILLE MONSTER

“On September 5, 1891, the Crawfordsville Journal reported that two ice delivery men sighted ‘a strange phenomenon’ that hovered in the air above their location, describing it as a ‘horrible apparition’ that ‘filled them with dread.’ A similar sighting was reported by a Methodist pastor and his wife. The Crawfordsville Journal described it as ‘about eighteen feet long and eight feet wide and moved rapidly through the air by means of several pairs of side fins. It was pure white and had no definite shape or form, resembling somewhat a great white shroud fitted with propelling fins. There was no tail or head visible but there was one great flaming eye, and a sort of a wheezing plaintive sound was emitted from a mouth which was invisible. It flapped like a flag in the winds as it came on and frequently gave a great squirm as though suffering unutterable agony.’

“The Indianapolis Journal repeated the story, as did other newspapers across the country, including the Brooklyn Eagle. The Crawfordsville Postmaster was deluged with mail, and reports of the sightings generated both ridicule and a number of believers. Two local men, John Hornbeck and Abe Hernley, ‘followed the wraith about town and finally discovered it to be a flock of many hundred killdeer.’ The Crawfordsville Journal suggested that Crawfordsville’s newly installed electric lights disoriented the birds, which caused them to hover above the city. The birds’ wings and white under-feathers likely resulted in misidentification.”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Ararat Anomaly

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Ararat Anomaly

“The Ararat anomaly is an object appearing on photographs of the snowfields near the summit of Mount Ararat, Turkey and advanced by some Christian believers as the remains of Noah’s Ark.

“The anomaly is located on the northwest corner of the Western Plateau of Mount Ararat (approximately 39°42′10″N 44°16′30″E Coordinates: 39°42′10″N 44°16′30″E) at about 15,500 ft (4,724 m), some 2.2 km (1.4 mi) west of the 16,854 ft (5,137 m) summit, on the edge of what appears from the photographs to be a steep downward slope. It was first filmed during a U.S. Air Force aerial reconnaissance mission in 1949 — the Ararat massif sits on the former Turkish/Soviet border, and was thus an area of military interest — and was accordingly given a classification of “secret” as were subsequent photographs taken in 1956, 1973, 1976, 1990 and 1992, by aircraft and satellites.

“Six frames from the 1949 footage were released under the Freedom of Information Act to Porcher Taylor, a professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, and a scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies specializing in satellite intelligence and diplomacy, in 1995.”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Bunny Man

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Bunny Man

“The Bunny Man is an urban legend that probably originated from two incidents in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1970, but has been spread throughout the Washington, D.C. area. The legend has many variations; most involve a man wearing a rabbit costume who attacks people with an axe or hatchet.

“Most of the stories occur around Colchester Overpass, a Southern Railway overpass spanning Colchester Road near Clifton, Virginia. Colchester Overpass is commonly referred to as ‘Bunny Man Bridge’.

“Versions of the legend vary in the Bunny Man’s name, motives, weapons, victims, description of the bunny costume or lack thereof, and sometimes, even possible death. In some accounts, the Bunny Man’s ghost or aging spectre is said to come out of his place of death each year on Halloween to commemorate his passing. In some accounts, victims’ bodies are mutilated.”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Vladimir Demikhov

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Vladimir Demikhov

“Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov (Russian: Влади́мир Петро́вич Де́михов; Khutor Kulikovsky, July 18, 1916 – Moscow, November 22, 1998) was a Soviet scientist and organ transplant pioneer, who performed several transplantations in the 1930s and 1950s, such as the transplantation of a heart into an animal and a lung-heart replacement in an animal. He is also well known for his transplantation of the heads of dogs.”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Bubbly Creek

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Bubbly Creek

“Bubbly Creek is the nickname given to the South Fork of the Chicago River’s South Branch, which runs entirely within the city of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. It marks the boundary between the Bridgeport and McKinley Park community areas of the city. The creek derives its name from the gases bubbling out of the riverbed from the decomposition of blood and entrails dumped into the river in the early 20th century by the local meatpacking businesses surrounding the Union Stock Yards directly south of the creek’s endpoint at Pershing Road. It was brought to notoriety by Upton Sinclair in his exposé on the American meat packing industry entitled The Jungle.”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Chase Vault

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Chase Vault

“Each time that the vault was opened the coffins were replaced in their proper situations, that is, three on the ground side by side, and the others laid on them. The vault was then regularly closed; the door (a massive stone which required six or seven men to move) was cemented by masons; and though the floor was of sand there were no marks of footsteps or water. The last time the vault was opened was in 1819. Lord Combermere was then present, and the coffins were found confusedly thrown about the vault, some with their heads down and others up. What could have occasioned this phenomenon? In no other vault in the island has this ever occurred. Was it an earthquake which occasioned it, or the effects of an inundation in the vault?”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Dyatlov Pass Incident

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Dyatlov Pass Incident

“The Dyatlov Pass incident (Russian: Гибель тургруппы Дятлова) refers to the mysterious, unsolved deaths of nine ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains on February 2, 1959. The area in which the incident took place was named Dyatlov Pass in honor of the group’s leader, Igor Dyatlov.

The experienced trekking group, who were all from the Ural Polytechnical Institute, had established a camp on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl when disaster struck. During the night, something caused them to tear their way out of their tents and to flee the campsite while inadequately dressed during a heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperature.

“Soviet Union investigators determined that six victims died from hypothermia and that the three others showed signs of physical trauma. One victim had a fractured skull; another had brain damage but no sign of an injured skull. Additionally, the tongue and eyes of a female team member were missing. The investigation concluded that an “unknown compelling force” had caused the deaths. Several explanations have been put forward as to the cause of the deaths. They include an animal attack, hypothermia, an avalanche, infrasound-induced panic, military involvement, or some combination of these.”

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: The Tunguska Event

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Tunguska Event

“The Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Stony Tunguska River, in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908. The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened 2,000 km2 (770 sq mi) of forest yet caused no known human casualties. The explosion is generally attributed to the air burst of a meteoroid. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than hit the surface of the Earth.”

The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history. Studies have yielded different estimates of the meteoroid’s size, on the order of 60 to 190 metres (200 to 620 feet), depending on whether the body was a comet or a denser asteroid.

Weird Wikipedia Wednesday: Moll Dyer

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Moll Dyer

“Moll Dyer (died c. 1697?) is the name of a legendary 17th-century resident of Leonardtown, Maryland, who was said to have been accused of witchcraft and chased out of her home by the local townsfolk on a winter night. Her body was found a few days later, partially frozen to a large stone.

“Stories say her spirit haunts the land, looking for the men who forced her from her home. The land near her cabin is said to be cursed, never again growing good crops, and an unusual number of lightning strikes have been recorded there. A white dog is mentioned as causing accidents on Moll Dyer road.”