Phantom Whistler

An unsolved case from 1950, Paradis, Louisiana in the United States centred around 18 year old Jacquelyn Cadow. She heard wolf whistles outside her bedroom at night, starting in February that year, the home she shared with her mother also suffered an intruder and the incidents were reported to the police but nothing ever came of it.

Cadow would hear the whistles nightly and then they changed to a funeral dirge when she announced her engagement to Herbert Belsom, a State Trooper. Instead of deterring the stranger this escalated the situation and Cadow began to suffer a series of threatening calls. The voice threatened to come to her house and stick a knife in her should she wed Belsom. Her sleep was continuously disturbed by whistling dirges and blood curdling moans.

The local newspapers picked up her story and hundreds of curiosity seekers would pass by to try and catch a sight of the Whistler. I feel quite sure this would not have helped Cadow’s nerves. She finally suffered a collapse when she, her mother and a New Orleans States-Item reporter heard the phantom whistler whilst she was at work. The reporter and Belsom both searched the yard and could find no one.

Again State Police investigations could not turn up anything or anyone to assist in resolving it for her. With shattered nerves the young woman went to stay with her relatives and the stranger followed. When she went to Belsom’s parents the whistler phones her mother back up “tell Jackie I know she’s at Herbert’s house”.

1^st October 1950, despite the threats and harassment Cadow and Belsom married, the whistler? He was no where to be found and the events came to a halt. With no more information or threats the Sheriff finally closed the case.

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Russian Guardians aka Защитники

So I feel this might be me and a few other random folks who enjoyed this film but I’m going to try and break it down. I’d also like to say – Spoiler Alert – but let’s be honest, if you were excited about the film you would have watched it by now I am sure. Maybe this little write up would intrigue you mildly, who knows?

Guardians came out here, UK, in 2017 and was directed by Russian-Armenian Sarik Andreasyan and it is a shame it didn’t get to make a lot of reserve and wasn’t highly rated but I enjoyed the film and I’m pretty sure the rumoured sequel will never happen.

To be fair it is an easy enough plot to follow, (also rated 12+ here) and this is the case I found with a lot of things of this ilk, to be fair that isn’t a bad thing. Let’s be honest who needs an in-depth political level plot for everything? Sometimes I just like watching a fight scene and some silly jokes.

During the Cold War era a secret organisation (Patriots) gathered together and created superheroes. The team was pretty much designed around defending all of the Soviet nations and a bunch of scientists cross various nefarious boundaries to make them.

Inevitably we get the mad scientist plot and Professor August Kuratov (Stanislov Shirin) is that very mad scientist. Side not he had boots that looks a lot like Wellingtons… He turns himself into a cyborg, learns to control machines and sets off to prove to every naysayer he is a genius! Of course he’s so insane he can’t come up with a better idea like curing cancer, resolving mobility with prosthetic limbs that work or some other sensible thing. Silly man right?

In comes Patriot – reimagined with four superheroes, Arsus (Anton Pampushny) is a shape-shifting bear with a giant gun, Khan (Sanjar Madi) is a speedster and martial artist with curved swords, Ler (Sebastian Sisak) can control earth and stone and finally Xenia (Alina Lanina) who has the power of invisibility and can negate temperatures for the most part. They go to battle and after being kicked down they finish the fight on top.

So it is not an entirely new plot idea and I can see it has faults, mainly I think it lay with the special effects. Here’s another thing though, it is not Marvel and did not have that kind of budget! Also for kids I think the less scary the better and the bad guy was still creepy enough regardless, also I grew up with the original Power Rangers… The other thing I noted is that I think the dub-over in English was awful and I really didn’t find it a good watch, swapping to the native language and using subtitles meant it flowed far better.

I can understand that not everyone would enjoy this film but I did. I mean I must have liked it a bit as I ended up scouring the net for cosplayers and getting a little Russian under my belt, feeling inspired to understand the language more.

#хан ##защитники #khan #guardians #cosplay #pleather #superheroes this took a while to make. I hope someone likes it ^^ pic.twitter.com/p4g0gcIQno

— New Cog Recruit (@COGRecruit) 5 November 2018

come on it’s a bear with a gun!!!!

Abandoned Disney

Discovery Island is an 11.5 acre island at the Walt Disney World attraction, Bay Lake, Florida and was once open for guests from 1974 until April 8th 1999 when it was closed to the public.

From the early 1900’s it was known as Raz Island and Disney brought it in 1965, it opened up as Treasure Island in 1974 as a place to observe wildlife. It was later renamed Discovery Island and was recognized as a zoological park. 8th April, 1999 it closed but was operational until 9th July whilst they relocated the animals into other Disney areas like their Animal Kingdom.

Once closed Disney considered teaming up with Myst game creators to make it into a living game island. It never got past the concept stage, a shame as having played Myst that could have been something pretty awesome.

In 1990 the dusty seaside sparrow was declared extinct as the birds were last recorded on the island in 1987 and they seemingly died off entirely.

Online information states that the power was cut in 2009, but before that the illusion was that it was fully operational. Someone in 2009 on a blog mentioned the eerie sounds of the Disney theme music still playing. From most sources that I could find it seems that it more likely the place is operating with power as security would need it; the island is still patrolled with security so this would make sense.

As of this year it is also reported that the buildings and the attractions are still on the island. It is pretty much a given that they will have suffered through the ages, that hurricanes and weather patterns have meant that the usual toll has been taken and it is possible to see it from the Disney Wilderness lodge, the Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground and there are boat trips that mean you are likely to spot them as you head around on that trip. If you have been or seen it would you let me know?

 

My Nan’s Story

You might wonder what set me off on this journey, and quite simply put it was my Nan. My grandmother was a very practical woman, she was an incredibly astute lady, when she felt her driving wasn’t up to scratch she handed over her license. She was always very practical about the home but she was also a staunch believer, and I am going to impart some of why.

My Nan was a nurse who served in the Second World War, I can only give my respect to the serving members who put themselves on the line for their fellow men and their country. Regardless of your opinion I believe this, and I would rather not open a debate about the war etc. I just wanted to give you context as she explained to me that she was in France at the time.

One of the things the nurses did was leave the soldiers to have their own private time in the bathroom, a soak in the bath or whatever else you men do in the bathroom (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) would be given as their own time. They would shut/lock the bathroom door and then they would leave them whilst they carried on changing beds or making busy whilst the men were alone.

She said that on this occasion there were four men in the tubs, she was on duty with another nurse and they saw the handle to the door go. They prepared themselves to help the men and get them out of the bath, although they were expecting it to be one of them in need of assistance because it was very rare they wouldn’t want their own time alone. When they opened the door there was no soldier there, the men were still in the tubs  and they joked about the women trying to catch them misbehaving etc. It was very light-hearted so they carried on with their duties and went back to it all.

The following night the same thing happened, only this time the other nurse on duty swore blind she had seen a man in the corridor. This time they didn’t touch the door handle and listened, the men were still in the bathroom talking and they were, quite rightly, confused! As they stood there debating on whether or not to bother the men again the door handle rattled, they both sprung the door open, surely now they would catch their practical joker! But no! Again the soldiers in their bathtubs were quite surprised by them springing open the door and their equally surprised faces at no man being there trying to give them a little scare.

I found this story fascinating and my Nan was the one that brought me ghost stories, let me sit with her when the ghostly shows were on. I remember the GhostWatch show and how me and my mother sat watching it, I was very young and I had to go to bed, it was probably a good thing but I am one of those people that grew up with the thought it was real, I never got to see the end credits! So there you go, a short but beautfil memory of a nurses ghost story, from her own mouth and now that my Nan is on the other side I hope she’s telling that naught spirit off for interrupting the poor men’s personal time!

Happy Halloween, please be safe and please enjoy whatever you do, celebrating or not.

 This wonderful little picture can be brought online 

Flight 19

Before I get started – there is a lot written about this and it’s a rabbit hole waiting for anyone wanting to indulge. I am going to try to be fairly scant and summarise with this so you can go forth and armchair detective.

5^th December, 1945 and five Grumman TBM Avenger bombers with 14 men took off, their trainer Lt. Charles Taylor was the only experienced pilot among them. They left at 2.10pm on a sunny winter day to go on a triangular routine training flight. Part of the course would have them practise a bombing run. Around 3.40pm the weather was deteriorating and Taylor said he was sure they had taken a wrong turn, saying his compass was not working and was trying to get the men to fly north.

Radio operators could barely hear it all but it was clear he did not feel he was in the right place. Taylor did not want to swap to another uncluttered emergency frequency as he feared  loosing contact with his scattered young air crew team.

At 17.15 he was heard saying they would fly west and at 18.04 they were flying east. The planes were running out of fuel, the sea was choppy and it was getting dark. The call from Taylor was for all planes to ditch together, at 19.05 no more was heard and the planes vanished.

Ditching together was an accepted plan, the debris flares and people would stay closer to enable flares and people would stay closer to enable a more successful recovery of men. Recovery searches were sent out and two Martin PBM Mariner flying boats were diverted to the search. The aircraft also disappeared and a nearby tanker, SS Gaines Mills, reported flames at the time, it left to no avail though as the aircraft and 13 men with it were never recovered either. That particular type of plane was known to be susceptible to fuel leaks, pilots named them ‘flying gas tanks’.

The navy board conducted an investigation, the 500-page document returned a verdict of genuine accident, he had led his flight to the wrong destination when his compass failed. Taylor’s mother appealed it, it suggested he was at fault and in October, 1947, the US Navy changed the verdict to ‘cause unknown.’

It’s just worth remembering that in 1945 there was no GPS and other planes had gone down in the seas, not just in Bermuda.

What happened to Flight 19? There have been TBM’s recovered from the area but so far none of them have been confirmed as Flight 19, is the general conclusion. I found an article www.hidingthetruth.com and it states that in 1990 a private investigation was undertaken, he believed the photographs matched up to serial numbers but I found no sources back to it for confirmation.

I did some more digging and found a more solid article: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2014/april/24/fresh-search-for-lost-patrol

What do you think?

By User:Moriori (original author was User:Anynobody) – Existing file, CC BY 2.5, Link