The bizarre, unusual, amazing, and unexplained continue to fascinate us. Here are ten unsolved mysteries we don’t hear about every day.
10 - Ghost Ship of the Frozen North 1931
The Baychimo, a 1,322 ton steam ship owned by the Hudson Bay Trading Company, regularly traveled to Alaska and British Columbia transporting goods and passengers and traded fur with the Inuit who lived along the Beaufort Sea.
On October 1, 1931, Baychimo was on its return trip to Vancouver. She had completed a run to Victoria Island and her hold was stuffed with furs. Unfortunately, winter arrived sooner than expected and Captain John Cornwell and the crew faced freezing temperatures, strong winds and the threat of blizzards. Baychimo became stuck in the ice and the crew were helpless to do anything but wait.
Luck appeared to be on the Captain’s side and two days later, the ice shifted and Baychimo broke free. Dame Fortune was a fickle master and the ship remained trapped by the thickening ice. By October 15, the Hudson Bay Company sent airplanes to rescue twenty-two of the crew, the Captain and fourteen crew members stayed behind and built a shelter on the ice. Imagine their surprise when they awoke on November 25, the morning after a terrible blizzard, to find Baychimo gone.
A few days later, a seal hunter told Cornwell he had spotted the ship adrift about forty-four miles (71 km) southwest. As time passed, the company continued to receive reports from eyewitnesses who had seen the drifting ghost ship. By 1939 scores of sightings were reported. However no one caught up to Baychimo which continued to elude search teams. The last sighting occurred in 1969. Despite recent searches the ship’s ultimate fate remains unknown.
9 - Pascagoula’s Phantom Barber 1942
In June 1942, a population boom had been brought about by increased manufacturing of warships in Pascagoula, Mississippi, but its citizens were stalked by more than the specter of war - a hair cutting phantom who terrorized the night.
The man nicknamed the Phantom Barber by newspapers worked in the dark, made more profound by the Army’s blackout regulations. On Monday or Friday evenings, he would slit a window screen to access a house, crept inside, and cut the hair of sleeping occupants particularly blonde girls. Not always a lock or two but shearing a full head of hair. He took nothing from the home except his prize.
He began with two young girls in the convent of Our Lady of Victories, followed by a six year old female child visiting another family, on that occassion he left a clue - the print of a man’s bare foot in sand on a bed in the room. Baffled police offered a $300 reward for information. The public panicked. Women refused to go out at night. Men applied for pistol permits. Bloodhounds were brought in to track the bizarre intruder but all efforts failed. The Phantom Barber continued his hair cutting incursions.
At last, it seemed the phantom had broke his pattern when a window screen was slit in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Terrell Heidelburg as the intruder entered their bedroom. Rather than cutting hair, he brutally assaulted the couple. Mrs. Heidelburg lost her front teeth and was knocked unconscious while her husband was beaten with a metal bar. Both survived the attack. Two months later the police chief announced the arrest of a suspect, William A. Dolan, a chemist, who was charged with attempted murder.
The connection between Dolan and the Phantom Barber came with the discovery of human hair allegedly found near his residence. He denied he was the phantom but was convicted in the attack on the Heidelburgs - he had bore a grudge against Terrell’s father, a judge - and was never charged with the phantom’s acts. Since the Phantom Barber only touched his victims hair, it seemed no link existed between Dolan and the Phantom Barber, whose break-ins ended as mysteriously as they began.
8 - The House of Blood 1987
In Atlanta, Georgia, just before midnight on September 8th, 77 year old Minnie Winston found what appeared to be blood splattered on her bathroom floor, She alerted her 79 year old husband, William. Further searches by the couple revealed more spots of red, blood-like fluid on the bathroom’s lower walls, kitchen, living room, bedroom, hallways and basement. Blood was also found in a crawlspace and under a television set.
The couple were alarmed. They owned no pets and lived alone. With no satisfactory explanation and blood continuing to seep out of the floors and walls, Minnie and William called the police.
At first, their concerns were not taken seriously. William regularly underwent dialysis at home but both insisted the blood belonged to neither of them. Police laboratory results revealed the liquid to be human blood, Type O. William and Minnie were both Type A. Once detectives ruled out evidence of wrongdoing, they could not explain the phenomena and dropped the investigation.
Was the “bleeding house” a hoax perpetrated on the Winstons? Or evidence of poltergeist activity? There is no information on what happened to the couple following the events in 1987. Current records indicate the house at 1114 Fountain Drive is occupied.
7 - The Guyra Ghost 1921
On April 8th, the Bowen family in Guyra, New South Wales, Australia, were terrorized by heavy thumps and bangs on the walls followed by showers of stones striking the roof and outside of the house, sometimes breaking windows.
These apparent poltergeist attacks continued every night. Local police investigated, patrolled the area, and surrounded the house but stones continued to fly and loud bangs were heard. A team of detectives from Sydney kept the Bowen family under constant surveillance and formed a double cordon around the residence, to no avail. The continued thumping and stone throwing caused much consternation and distress in the neighborhood. Detectives concluded the family were not responsible.
At one point, a twelve year old daughter, Minnie, confessed to throwing a few stones and rapping on a wall to scare a sibling but events proved she was not responsible for the phenomena. Minnie appeared to be the focus of the activity. When she was sent to Glenn Innes to visit her grandmother, violent thumps and bangs began to disrupt that house as ornaments toppled off shelves. Stones were thrown out of nowhere. In early August 1921, Minnie returned home. The poltergeist activity declined and finally stopped.
Minnie Bowen eventually married and never spoke to journalists about her past encounters with the unknown. The attacks have never been fully explained.
6 - Eleanore Zugun the Ghost Girl—1925
At the age 12, frightening events began to happen to Eleanore Zugun. When she visited her grandmother’s cottage in Romania, stones smashed against the structure and pins and needles flew across the room to scratch and bury themselves in her arms. Broken dishes added to the ordeal. A witness reported seeing a water jug float through the air and land several feet away. Her grandmother believed Eleanore was possessed by an evil spirit.
Months later, Eleanore was sent to a monastery and given an exorcism with no effect. The priests sent her to a lunatic asylum. By then, newspapers had reported her story which came to the attention of Fritz Grunweld, a respected researcher. His observations of Eleanore concluded that a supernatural phenomena was genuine.
She was invited to live with Countess Zoë Wassiliko-Serecki in Vienna who became her protector and had thirteen year old Eleanore trained as a hairdresser. The strange events continued, including objects appearing out of nowhere or disappearing into thin air. The attacks escalated. She was knocked to the ground, slapped, bitten, had her hair pulled and objects thrown at her. On occasion, the countess observed an inexplicable moving shadow in Eleanore’s vicinity shortly before phenomena occurred.
Eleanore was taken to London for more testing by the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, and also to Munich, where she was caught cheating. On her return the activities began to fade gradually and by the time she turned fourteen, all phenomena had ended and her life returned to normal.
5 - Angelo Faticoni the Human Cork - Early 20th Century
A freak show performer and contortionist possessing a strange and unique power, Angelo Faticoni’s singular talent was reflected in his nickname the Human Cork. Faticoni was unsinkable and he made his living in demonstration of that.
Faticoni could sleep on his side while floating in water, stay afloat for hours with twenty pounds of lead fastened to his ankles and assume any position in the water without danger. He was sewn into a sack with a heavy cannonball chained to his body and tossed into the water; he did not sink and floated for almost eight hours in apparent unconcern, now and then peeping out of the top of the sack. He also crossed the Hudson River fastened to a lead weighted chair.
After testing Faticoni, Harvard University doctors concluded he did not possess abnormal internal organs but they failed to find an explanation for his amazing buoyancy. Faticoni continued astonishing audiences with performances in lakes, rivers and pools and was investigated numerous times with no evidence of trickery ever found.
In 1931 while visiting relatives in Jacksonville, Florida, Faticoni died. Although he promised to reveal the secret of his talent he never did. He remains a mystery.
4 - Lost Boy Larry August 1973
New Mexico CB radio operators were shocked on August 7 to hear transmissions from a young boy pleading for help. His name was Larry and said he was trapped in a red and white pickup truck with his father, who might be dead.
Larry reported his father had taken him on a hunting trip and an accident had overturned the truck into a gully, jamming the driver and passenger side doors. He could not get out, had no food or water and no idea where he was. He made matters worse by switching channels in apparent panic. He thought his father had suffered a heart attack and died.
Much to the operators’ frustration, Larry’s signal faded in and out. Atmospheric conditions meant his cries were heard in California, Wyoming, and elsewhere. The authorities were contacted and a search for Larry began in the New Mexico mountains where local and state police believed the signal had originated. Thousands of civilian volunteers hit the roads but not all joined the official search, leading to confusion.
As days passed, newspapers and TV stations picked up the story as Larry’s signal grew weaker. Practical jokers began mimicking his voice on the airwaves, adding to the chaos. By August 12, there was no sign of an overturned truck, no one reported a missing boy and Larry’s signal disappeared for good, authorities claimed the broadcasts were a hoax. No one came forward to claim responsibility and no suspects were named. Were Larry’s cries for help a fraud? Or did a young boy die, trapped and alone? The mystery remains unsolved.
3 - The Methuen Water Demon 1963
The Martin family’s ordeal in Methuen, Massachusetts began in October when Francis, his wife and children noticed a damp patch on the wall of their den. They watched the patch grew larger. A moment later a popping sound and drenching spout of extremely cold water began to spew from the wall.
Francis Martin ruled out frozen pipes - temperatures were not freezing - and the drains were just cleaned. The inexplicable water spout streamed a few seconds then stopped. The next day, a second spot in another location began to spew water, the spray lasted under a minute and ceased. The phenomena continued for several days as new icy water streams occurred at fifteen minute intervals in various rooms throughout the house, soaking floors, furniture and the occupants. A deputy witnessed a water jet burst through a wall and spray two feet into the room.
When the Martins moved into a relative’s house it was also inflicted with mysterious water streams from the walls. Returning to their own home, Francis Martin had the water turned off at the mains. The next day water spouts exploded from the plaster walls from several spots simultaneously. Gallons of water poured out in twenty second intervals but the source remained unknown. The Martins moved away again but were forced to return to Methuen when the water demon followed them.
Gradually, the phenomena tapered off and stopped altogether. The family never discovered the cause. The official explanation? Moisture build-up.
2 -The Black Flash of Provincetown 1939
Just before Halloween, the citizens of Provincetown, Massachusetts were startled by a sudden and eerie appearance of a mysterious Black Flash - an impossibly tall, fast, human-like creature dressed in black, with black face, pointed ears and silver eyes. According to witnesses, the Black Flash made a loud buzzing sound and lurked around Provincetown jumping at people, laughing maniacally and eluding pursuit with extreme agility and speed.
Witnesses reported seeing the Black Flash in one location, and a minute later, reports came in of sightings across town. Some said he was a Peeping Tom. Others thought he was a devil with supernatural powers. The town was in an uproar, frightened children refused to go trick-or-treating that year.
Police believed the Black Flash was the work of practical jokers. Chief Anthony Tarvers claimed to know the identity of the hoaxers but declined to name them. “The Black Flash is dead and buried,” he said. There were no further appearances of the terrifying phantom fiend who menaced the small town. Who was the Black Flash? No one claimed responsibility and Tarvers died with his secret intact.
1 - The Phantom Whistler 1950
In February, eighteen year old Jacquelyn Cadow of Paradis, Louisiana began hearing wolf whistles outside her bedroom window at night. The home shared with her mother was also broken into by an intruder. She reported the incidents to the authorities but nothing came of it. Night after night, she heard the whistles until her engagement to State Trooper Herbert Belsom was announced, then the whistler changed his tune to a menacing funeral dirge.
At this time, Jacquelyn received telephone threats, the voice on the other end promised to stick a knife in her if she went ahead with her marriage. Her sleep continued to be broken by whistling dirges and bloodcurdling moans. Newspapers picked up the story as hundreds of curiosity seekers began driving by in the hope of catching a glimpse of the phantom whistler or his victim.
Jacquelyn suffered a collapse when her mother, aunt, herself and a New Orleans States-Item reporter heard the whistler at work. The reporter and Belsom searched the yard but found no one. Investigations by the State police and the sheriff’s office turned up nothing. The harassed bride-to-be, her nerves shattered, tried staying with relatives. The whistler followed and when she went to the home of Belsom’s parents, the whistler called her mother with the message: “Tell Jackie I know she’s at Herbert’s house.”
On October 1st, she and Belsom married. Was the whistler at the wedding as he promised? If so, he never spoke up nor carried out his threats. The local sheriff considered the case closed, a hoax by persons he declined to name. Who was the phantom whistler and why did he choose to terrify Jacquelyn Cadow?
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