Oregon Vortex

Gold Hill, Oregon, has a roadside attraction with a series of interesting effects that sceptics describe as optical illusions but the attraction’s owners claim they are paranormal in original. Well they would wouldn’t they?

The locals say a gold laboratory office built there in 1904 slid from its foundations somewhere in the early 1910’s. It came to rest at an odd angle, because of this it looks like objects roll up hill, much like the Mystery Spot in California. Another effect is that two people can change their heights standing next to one another, but some of the investigators put this down to the backdrop and another clever illusion.

The TV show Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files certainly put the phenomena’s down to illusions. In Supernatural, Sam Winchester also mentions this in Season Three.

Either way it sounds like it’s a fun place to visit.

Dropa Stones

Thought by UFOlogists to be part of a series of at least 716 Circular Stone discs, dating back around 12,000 years. On these stones tiny hieroglyphics may be found, there is, however no evidence of their existence.

Supposedly they were given to Tsum Um Nui for study in 1958, by 1962 he claimed to have deciphered them about a story of spacecraft which had landed and contained the Dropa people. Unable to leave Earth they then had to adapt to it, he then claimed that the local Ham tribesmen then hunted the Dropa people down.

In 1962 it is said he published his findings and then apparently went in to self-exile. It’s said that he died not long after he completed his manuscript.

Tsum Um Nui is not, according to the claims, a real Chinese name and there is no mention of him within China outside of the Dropa Stones. It is said that the stones were housed in several of the Chinese Museums but again there seems to be no records of this happening.

Fairfield State Hospital

It was a psychiatric hospital located in Newtown, Connecticut, that was open from 1931 50 1995, and at it’s peak had 4000 patients. It was built to ease overcrowding, another common factor of the time, for two other hospitals in the area. It’s original plans had 16 buildings which also had a network of roads through large farm meadows and a forest.  It was closed due to de-institutionalization, the hospital patients were moved and in 1995 the doors to the hospital were finally closed.

It used typical treatments for its day, including the use of hydrotherapy, the now controversial shock therapies and frontal lobotomy. Much like other institutes of the scale and time it employed an architectural use of tunnels for staff to move around under the complex and also for the disposal of corpses.

The town acquired the land and building from the State and there are calls to preserve the main buildings at the very least.

It was used for an episode of MTV’s Fear and whilst I could see numerous mentions of hauntings etc… I could find nothing for a basis even anecdotally. other than rumours due to what it was I drew a blank, so perhaps someone else can give me some more concrete stories for the blog?

Hinterkaifeck

March 31st, 1922 left the world with a set of six unsolved murders in the farmstead known as Hinterkaifeck, whilst that is not it’s official name due to the location that is how it has become better known. This makes for an interesting read for armchair detective enthusiasts.

A few days before the crime occurred farmer, Andreas Gruber, had told neighbours he had found footprints leading up to the farm but none leading away again. The house keys had gone missing several days beforehand and despite hearing footsteps in the attic for some reason he did not report the events to the police.

6 months before the event a former maid had left, she had claimed that the farmstead was haunted. The new maid, Maria Baumgartner, arrived a few hours before the event. The bodies of the family and maid were then found on the 4th April after no one from the house had been spotted for several days. Cäzilla had not shown up for school and the post had been left untouched.

An investigation was launched and they believe that somehow the older couple, then daughter Viktoria and her daughter Cäzilla were lured out into the barn one by one and killed. Two year old Josef was killed as he slept in his cot in his mother’s room. The maid was killed in her bed chamber and that left no one alive from the family unit on the farmstead.

An aspect called into question about this is what might have happened to Viktoria’s husband, Karl Gabriel as he had been reported as killed in the French Trenches in 1914. His body had not been recovered leading some to suggest that it might have been a false report.

The victims memorial can be found at Waidhofen but their skulls are not there, they were lost because they were not returned from Munich, during the chaos of World War 2 they were lost after being sent there for further analysis. Apparently Clairvoyants were also allowed to look at them in the hopes of more clues. That they did find from Cäzilla’s autopsy is that she lay there for several hours dying next to her grandparents and her mother. The distress had led her to pulling out tufts of her own hair.

The farmstead itself was demolished in 1923. The mystery remains…

 

Bridge of Sighs

Venice, Italy is a phenomena in history of it’s own, having not joined the Kingdom of Italy until 1866 it has been quite independent until Napoleon and the Austrian forces came into play in 1797. Venices history is pulled in by a variety of influences, countries and a unique collection of islands that are man made around it’s lagoon.

A famous spot in the city is the Bridge of Sighs or Ponte dei Sospiri, it was named by Lord Byron in the 19th Century and yet was built back in 1602.

The bridges purpose was to connect the new prison to the interrogation rooms located at the Doge’s Palace. The bridge was supposedly to offer the convicts one last view of the beautiful city before they were forever locked away in the prison below.

It seems though that Byron may have romanticized this, as the windows from the bridge are covered in stone grills. By the time the bridge had been built the prison would have been more used for petty criminals. The times of summary executions and inquisitions were over.

So what of ghosts? It is said that you can hear sounds, strange noises and the shuffling of feet but it was so busy when we went really all you heard was boats, tourists, workers and Venetians trying to carry on with their lives around the lagoon.

A more romantic tale is that couples in love should take a gondola ride, hope to time it so that the bells of St Mark’s Campanile are tolling and then kiss. This should bless you for eternal love.

(picture taken July 2013)