The woman depicted above went from female dentist to occult artist. Not the most common career path. She turned out many paintings "inspired" by ghosts.
Unfortunately, despite a fairly substantial career, none of her paintings seem to have survived or been recorded, except for the one depicted below.
Back in 1950, newspapers were full of the story of the Phantom Whistler of Louisiana. The Whistler was terrorizing a young woman, 18-year-old Jacqueline Cadow. He would hide in the shrubbery outside her house at night and whistle a funeral dirge. Sometimes he would follow this with a "blood-curdling moan."
When she got engaged to state trooper Herbert Belsom, the harassment grew worse. He started to make threatening phone calls to the family, threatening to kill Jacqueline if she went through with the wedding.
On several occasions, a few people besides Jacqueline heard the whistling and moaning, but the strange thing was that no one ever saw the Phantom Whistler. And eventually the Sheriff began to suspect that the entire thing was an "inside job and a hoax." Later the Sheriff modified this to say that he had solved the case, but he refused to disclose who or what the Whistler was because he didn't want to "embarrass" the people involved. Jacqueline and Herbert got married without incident.
I was catching a bus the other day, and this box was awaiting transport. If you enlarge the photo, you can see that the label says: PLEASE RUSH/DONATED HUMAN TISSUE/NOT SUITABLE FOR TRANSPLANT.
What does one do with human tissue, if not transplant it? Perhaps create a cell-culture line? It's all very mysterious.
As I was taking the photo, a bus driver came by and joked with another employee. "What's that for--the barbecue?"
If anyone has a good explanation, please offer it in the comments!
Residents of Felixstowe are wondering what caused the giant smoke circles that recently were seen floating in the sky. One resident says: "They appeared for a good ten to 15 minutes. No-one had ever seen anything like them - they just rose slowly then melted into the clouds."
Could smoke circles be the new crop circles?
(via Prof. Hex)
Remember one of the weirdest films ever made, REPO MAN? This month marks the start of filming for a sequel titled REPO CHICK. Let's hope it can live up to its predecessor.
Mystery lumps are washing ashore in New Zealand. What they are: large, barrel-shaped lumps of grease ("like rancid fat or lard") covered in barnacles. Where they come from: nobody knows. The theory that they could be ambergris from whales was quickly disproven. Some entrepreneurs are carving them up and selling the stuff as moisturizing sunblock. Link: stuff.co.nz.
A 40-year-old Indonesian woman named Noorsyaidah is growing metal wires out of her stomach. Apparently this is "big news" in Indonesia. The problem has been plaguing her for almost seventeen years. From the Phantoms & Monsters blog:
During the first week wires kept falling off from her body and were gone. A month later, the wires grew back again and from that time onward the wires did not fall. They kept growing! One of her sisters said that she tried to help by trimming the wires. Alas, whenever she trimmed the wires, the wire retreated as if it were hiding and then popped up in another part of Noorsyaidah’s body.
And we've got video of wire woman:
If these "wires" are more like bony growths, then it might be a real medical condition. But if the wires are actually metal, then it's b.s.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.