UFO Attacks on Washington D.C

(Due to the time period this happened I am not using UAP, I am using UFO)

In 1947 President Harry Truman, in front of a press conference was asked if he had ever seen any flying saucers, his response was “only in the newspapers”. In 1952 he was not planning to run for another term, probably down to low approval ratings, the Cold War, The Korean War and the 1945 bombings of Japan.  In 1952 he was president for a second term when this happened!

19^th July 1952, Washington National Airport, and Ed Nugent (air traffic controller) spotted seven lights on the screen in front of him. There were no planes scheduled, and he called his manager, Harry Barnes, “flying saucers”. In the tower another controller saw it blip, it was a bright light, and it was hovering, then it took off a high-speed using impossible angles to manoeuvre.  Harry Barnes also saw the lights were moving over the city, and a pilot waiting to take off reported seeing a strange light.

In 1947 President Harry Truman, in front of a press conference was asked if he had ever seen any flying saucers, his response was “only in the newspapers”. In 1952 he was not planning to run for another term, probably down to low approval ratings, the Cold War, The Korean War and the 1945 bombings of Japan.  In 1952 he was president for a second term when this happened!

19^th July 1952, Washington National Airport, and Ed Nugent (air traffic controller) spotted seven lights on the screen in front of him. There were no planes scheduled, and he called his manager, Harry Barnes, “flying saucers”. In the tower another controller saw it blip, it was a bright light, and it was hovering, then it took off a high-speed using impossible angles to manoeuvre.  Harry Barnes also saw the lights were moving over the city, and a pilot waiting to take off reported seeing a strange light.

Harry Barnes called Andrews Air Force base, 10 miles way who said that they had seen nothing. They then called back a short while later to confirm that they had in fact seen lights. They had moved over the city, the Whitehouse and in response two USA Air Force F-94 jets from New York Castle Air Force Base, Delaware were deployed. The reports of lights ended soon after, the last detected lights on the radar were at 05.30.

26^th July at 20:15 that night an air stewardess reported she had seen lights above her plane on a flight into Washington, before that at Andrews Air Base they had seen more of them, and some were travelling at 7,000 miles an hour!

This was all great news for the press, hot sales, and all but probably not good for the top brass handling the situation. The CIA formed a special intelligence department for the subject, and Edward Tauss reported for the group that most of the sightings could be explained. He did however recommend the agency continue to monitor the situation.

29^th July and there were not more reported sightings, the Air Force called a press conference. Air Force Major-General John Samford and Roger Ramsey stated that the visual sightings could be attributed to meteors an shooting stars, that the radar had something called temperature inversion and this was present on both evenings. Captain Ruppelt also spoke of an incident in Japan in 1950, that was put down to a flock of ducks…

So what do you think happened? I find this interesting for sure!

https://youtu.be/OKNkF34KLCk?si=a0pnmP5rFOyzIpEQ

Sources:

Wikipedia

The report on Unidentified Flying Objects – Edward J Ruppert

US Project Blue Book, UFO Investigation (Press minutes)

National Archives Museum (museum.archives.org)

Federation of American Scientists

The New York Times

BBC.com

PBS.org

The Chinese Hopping Vampire (Jiangshi)

Jiangshi (殭屍) Mandarin

キョンシー/kyonshī  – (Japanese)

“Wiktionary – A reanimated corpse in Chinese legend, which moves around by hopping with its arms outstretched, and kills living creatures to absorb their life force.”

The “stiff corpse” is a vampiric monster from Chinese folklore, often attributed to having died a violent or unnatural death. They are more often depicted wearing the funerary robes of the Qing Dynasty. There are numerous articles about them recounting either similar details or going through slightly more in-depth looks, so I have decided that they are interesting enough for this blogger too.

How are they created?

It seems that whilst I popped a summary up top there are varying reasons or methods, so it seems that the most common are said to be a violent death, a sudden death, being struck by lightning or if an animal considered to be a black omen hopped over the dead body. There are also suggestions of a third party creating them, so I would assume some form of bad magic would be employed.

The18th Century scholar, Ji Xiaolan identified two types of Jiangshi and said that one of them is recently returned to life or those long buried but had not decomposed.  Ji Xiaolan writes that violent death, suicide, spirit possession of a body, or an absorption of qi (life energy) may bring one back to life or if a funeral had taken place for them but the body for some reason was not buried.

How can you tell if you are in the presence of a Jiangshi?

They have pale skin, they hate the sun and only tend to appear at night, in some cases they might have green skin due to a fungus that grows on corpses.

They are said to be blind and detect the living from their breathing.

The body does not compose, the hair and nails continue to grow after death.

They can appear at first glance to look like a normal person, or they can be obviously rotting corpses.

The rumours of blood drinking may well be down to Western influence creeping in as they are said to feed on the life force (qi) of a person.

Being bitten by a Jiangshi will also lead to the inevitable turn of the victim into another one.

How can you defend against a Jiangshi?

Taoist Monks use various spells to work against them.

Writing a spell in chicken blood on yellow paper and putting it on the corpse’s forehead is said to stop one moving.

A Jiangshi is terrified of its own reflection.

They are afraid of mirrors. An 8-sided mirror is used, also know as a Feng Shui mirror. The Bagua is the sign of the eight triagrams and so a mirror with this used is thought to be very effective.

They are afraid of peach wood.

They are afraid of jujube seeds.

To banish on you can throw sticky rice at it, it will absorb the evil.

Where do they come from?

The origins appear to come from folklore and the practise of moving corpses/travelling corpses. This was(is?) known as Xiangxi ganshi because it seems it was most well used in the Xiangxi region. I’m going to put in some summary information and then give some other source information, but the gist is this:

In the post low-income families would not have been able to afford the cost of transporting a dead body from a place far away to their own region. They would in turn hire Taoist priests to transport the bodies home on their behest. The priests would move them at night and would ring bells to let the villagers know they were coming through. It was thought that the souls of those who died away from home would be homesick, so it was best to get them back and perform the correct funerary rites. The movement took place at night to avoid people coming into contact with the dead and the lower temperature was better for transporting the dead.

Depending on the source this seems to have happened in two ways:

On a bamboo stretcher where the body was laid out, where the canes would create a creaking nose and the body would jerk stiffly in time with the movements of the priests carrying them.

Liao Yiwu’s book The Corpse Walker has oral accounts and one of them is of how there would be a two man team to move the body. One man would have the body on his back and adorn a large robe to cover them both with a mourners masks on. The other would walk ahead with a lantern to warn the carrier of obstacles ahead.

Did they ever exist?

Well according to “Split Words and Interesting Poems”, Hu Yanhong and subsequent speculation maybe they were never really true? The practise of moving corpses is visited and describes an ancient story where soldiers and villagers watched two sorcerers of the ‘Chenjou Talisman’s’ who led a procession of shuffling corpses. The scene of this method of transportation was so unnerving that soldiers and civilians alike screamed and retreated. However, what if this was just a clever way of using people to hide contraband? The idea that they would do this and then use bits of decaying flesh from other soldiers would indeed make the sight and smell of the dead men walking rather unnerving to say the least!

What about the Jiangshi in the modern era?

Well the practise of corpse walking/travelling was not seen as a good thing in the modern China and it’s move to communism. At the end of the Chinese Civil War, 1949, many of those who were employed in the trade found their livelihoods (and lives) under threat. Attachment to the dead may well be seen as a bourgeois decadency for the weak and the poor.

In the 1980’s a move to make the Jiangshi a more comical creature appears to have moved through the cinema scene. In 1985, “Mr Zombie” directed by Liu Guanwei was released, it made 20 million HKD and ranked 7^th in the charts that year.

A more modern film about them is Rigor Mortis, 2014, a Hong Kong horror movie but doesn’t hold the same sort of overall silly vibe of Mr Zombie or Mr Vampire.

What do you think about the story of Jiangshi? I found this very interesting indeed.

Myself as Chisune with my friend on the now defunct Sword of Legends online – Edgar is taking down the Jiangshi 🙂

Example of the mirror.

Sources – maayot.com

Wikipedia

Libowen.tripod/history/t-cadavar.htm

En.chinaculture.org

Historydefined.net

Liao Yiwu’s book The Corpse Walker  (Amazon sells translated copies)

The18th Century scholar, Ji Xiaolan

The Yorktown Memorial Hospital

So Happy New Year to those celebrating. And I just found this in my drafts from 2015. Wow.. so I thought a little tea break read before the party starts would be good.

I hope you like it.

The Yorktown Memorial Hospital is in Texas, USA and has been put on the haunted list for Texas. The caretakers’ reports are cited the most so I am going to go with those for the purposes of this blog.

The caretaker is there for the basic care and maintenance and says that he thinks there are spirits that roam the corridors and various rooms.

The building was used for rehabilitation centre for people that had suffered abuse for drugs and alcohol. It was built in 1950 and closed thirty years later in the 80’s. Mike Hanson is the caretaker and told reporters that he knows there are ghosts there, for a fact, and has explained he has seen a number of objects moving and experienced a full body apparition of a male standing outside the chapel He has also seen glowing red eyes on more than one occasion.

In the nurses station if the lights are on it all seems quite nice and calm but turn the lights off and that changes, he observes people walking around and that many appear to be walking around like normal guests. There are some though that look like they should be in the hospital and there is a blocked off area that has a pane of glass, despite no one getting access to the are there are sounds like rapping and tapping on the pane.

Central Texas Ghost Hunters went in to the place to research the claims and the team is headed up by a woman that worked as a freelance writer, Brandy Runyan, who has made up a professional team that try to take a scientific approach. They took audio recording equipment and caught the sound of organ music whilst in the chapel area.

All in all, sounds like an interesting place to visit and I believe you can contact the hospital if you are interested in conducting your own investigations.

The Haunted Yorktown Memorial Hospital

https://www.facebook.com/yorktownhospital/

Draugar

In Old Norse they are an undead creature, the Old Norse meaning of the word is revenant. The creatures live in their graves, often guarding the treasure that was buried with them. They are not like ghosts, they have a physical body and abilities that they would have carried in life. There is a clear distinction for those that live in the sea or land as either Sea-draguar or landdraugar.

They possess superhuman strength and can, at will, increase their size. They bring with them the unmistakeable stench of death and they will look swollen, blackened and are generally revolting to look at. In mythology they also keep some semblance of their intelligence, perhaps to ensure they can do their best at guarding their treasure or optimise how they wreak havoc on the living, namely taking revenge on those that have wronged them in life.

According to folklore these beings have a variety of ways to despatch of their victims too, so they can crush them with their enlarged forms, devour the flesh or perhaps swallow them whole when they are large. Some will kill them via driving them mad or maybe even drink the victim’s blood.

They prefer to be active at night but are not restricted like many other revenant styles, but some are immune to weapons and only a hero with the right sort can take them down. Final despatch appears to be preferred by beheading the creature, burning it and then finally dumping the ashes in the sea.

After a person has died the most common indication they will become one is that the corpse is not in a horizontal position, it may be found sat upright indicating that they want to come back. Mean or nasty people are most likely to become one and those who have unfinished business, someone so evil they have a serious impact on those around them.

Preventions include grave binding, a stone with an inscription that will keep them in place or an open pair of iron scissors over the chest of the corpse. Some have tied big toes together, or driven needles through the soles to stop them being able to walk. The coffin should be rotated at least three times when carried to confuse their sense of direction. An effective method is also called the Corpse Door, a special door was built and the corpse carried through feet first, it was surrounded by people to stop it seeing where it was going. The door was then bricked up to prevent any return.

A variation to the creature is also the Haugbui, a mound dwelling creature, where the dead body lives on within its tomb. It cannot leave its burial place but those that enter are free game. The haugbui is usually found in the Norse saga’s and said to swim alongside boats to sail and pick off the men as the boats are semi-submerged.

The barrow-wights in Middle-Earth are based on the legend; they linger around their gold after death.

They are featured in the game The Elder Scrolls V, they are usually those from someone who is of legend and speak in an ancient dragon language.

You can find ‘Draug’ in the game The Secret World, they wander ashore in the fictional Solomon Island, New England.

For World of Warcraft players you can find the Vrykul Race around Northrend, they are heavily influenced by the draugr, and there are two sorts commonly seen. You can spot undead vargul or their blueskinned warriors.

Dr John R Drish House

The house is now more simply known as Drish House and is located in Tuscaloosa. Alabama, USA. The building is on the National Register of Historic places and was first recorded by the Historic American Buildings Society in 1934. The building was started in the centre of a 450 acre plantation, by this point Drish was widowed and had married Sarah Owen McKinney in 1835. The marriage shows up on ancestry.com under All Alabama, Marriage Index, 1800-1969. The couple are listed under the Tuscaloosa area.

The home original incarnation was was attributed to the influence of architect William Nichols, the home’s plasterwork was largely completed by skilled slave artisans, like most of the plasterwork in the area of that period. The house was extensively remodelled in the Italianate-style prior to the American Civil War, mixing it with its Greek Revival Style too.

John Drish died in 1867, he had reportedly died from a fall down a stairway, I found reference to his death as complications from the fall, Richard Southall (Haunted Plantations of the South) and says that viewing and the funeral took place in the home. There is another part to this saying that Sarah lit candles in his honour and kept them alight whilst he lay in state, after the funeral she then extinguished them with an order that they should be lit again when she died.

Www.nps.gov has a featured article on the place and says the building was known as Monroe Place, it was also a working farm and he was a very wealthy man. He is recorded on the document about the property as having been a drunkard and a gambler. Drish seemingly drowned his sorrows and diminished his wife’s wealth by poor management and further alcoholism. It’s worth noting there seems to be no actual evidence of his drinking problems and the full record of his death.

It is anecdotal perhaps from Robert Little, it is recorded by him that he had been suffering from some form of delirium and leapt from his bed, several of the slaves (please note this is from the articles I read, and I am not sugar-coating language) there attempted to hold him down. He escaped and rushed down the stairs, ‘uttered a terrible cry and fell dead midway down’. He had made his will 13^th July, 1867, a few weeks before his death. It seems he may already have known about his serious health issues and limited time left; he had penned it before dying at the very least.

After his death it was found that he did not have the money to pay the claims against the estate, his extensive real estate had to be sold and even the house was sold from under Sarah, but the wording of his will meant she was the “dower” and allowed to live at the estate until her death.

She had lived a wealthy life and for the last 15 years of it lived in genteel poverty with her clothing, furniture, china and silver. Her step-daughter, Catherine Drish King, lived with her until at least the 1870 consensus. Eventually Catherine moved out and Sarah died in 1884.

The contents of her home were sold at public auction, it seems that she had made no will out. It also meant that the family had no knowledge for her funerary wishes. Again this is anecdotal but they missed the previous request about the candles from the details I could find online. Once she had been buried the mansion lay empty for several years, the owner – Ezekiel Abner Powell – sold the property soon after her death and it was sold to the Tuscaloosa Coal, Iron and Land Company.

One of the founding members of the company purchased it as a family home, from there on it passed hands several times. The house was used as a school from 1906 until 1925, Jennison School. It was then a parts warehouse for a wrecking company. 1940 saw it purchased by the Southside Baptist Church, it remained with them and threatened demolition in 1994 and then released to the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County.

In 2012 it may have finally got its future secured, in 2016 the renovations finished opening its doors for weddings and various events.

The sites ghost stories and hauntings are featured in ’13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey’ and in the short story ‘Death Lights in the Tower’. The short story talks about a family moving into the home and experiencing supernatural events. Wikipedia and the events history section show a summary of people seeing third-storey tower on fire when there is not one present and ghostly lights from the house in general.

The tower fire may have its roots from the fact it did set alight a few months after Sarah’s death. There was no one living in the mansion at the time. The neighbours reported the fire as the light was so bright it was seen from several miles away. The fire brigade went out to find no sign of fire and no damage suggesting there had been one. Over the next few years, the reports came in a few times and upon arrival there was the same result.

The stories of fake fires then became known, and people would pass by regularly, the story of fire was then replaced with the sighting of Sarah Drish at the front of the mansion or from the third-floor window of the tower. The closure of the school in 1935 evolved the story further, there were more reports of lights, candle-lights were said to appear, and the suggestion is that it is Sarah’s candles lit for her husband.

Summary – I found no date to support the haunting data or some of the facts around the requests about funerary arrangements. “In 2008 – paranormal investigators were able to go inside and look for any signs of a haunting. The investigators were able to capture a few abnormalities, enough to satisfy the claims.” There seemed to be no linked evidence or anything about how the claim was satisfied. I think unless more comes to light I cannot give any conclusion.