The Ghost of Eastry Church

This photograph was taken in 1956 when only the man taking the photo and the cleaning lady were in the church. It was only when he developed his film that he realised that they were not alone that day.

The photo shows what appears to be a man of the cloth in one of the pews.

Wem Town Hall - Ghost Girl

In 1677 Wem Town Hall was accidently burned down by 14 year old Jane Churm when she accidentally dropped a candle. Locals maintain that her ghost has haunted the Town Hall ever since, over her guilt for those who died. This rumour was not taken seriously until 1995 when Wem Town Hall once again caught fire. An onlooker snapped a photograph of the burning building but it was not until the picture was developed that she discovered a girl amidst the flames.

Wem Town Hall

The photograph clearly shows a young girl inside the burning building despite nobody seeing her at the time. The photograph has been proven to be untouched and unaltered. 

Jane Churm?

Eastern Airlines Flight 401

The tale of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 begins with the tragic crash of a Tri-Star jetliner into a Florida swamp in 1972. The pilot Bob Loft and flight engineer Don Repo were among the 101 who perished in the crash.

Bob Loft and Don Repo

Shortly after the crash a lot of parts were recovered from the swamp and were reused as spare parts in other jetliners. Coinciding with that were reports of sightings of Loft and Repo on certain Tri-Star flights especially those that were fitted with those spare parts. These sightings were made by people who knew the men before the tragedy and were also identified by people shown their photgraphs after their encounters.

Many of the sightings come from very reputable sources including pilots, flight crew and aircraft safety workers. In many of the sighings the pair are seemingly warning of danger or actively trying to prevent it. Loft was reportedly seen and spoken to by a flight captain and two flight attendants before he vanished in front of them. They were so shocked that the flight was cancelled.

Repo seems especially 'hands on' with a flight engineer reporting that a man of his appearance had fixed a galley oven despite there being no other flight engineers onboard. Another report from a flight attendant tells of Repo appearing in the galley and saying "Watch out for fire on this airplane".  The last leg of this flight had to be cancelled because of a serious engine fire. Interestingly the galley had been salvaged from flight 401.

Other reports tell of a man fitting Repo's description performing pre-flight checks on an airplane that had been fitted with parts from flight 401. He has also appeared to a captain telling him "There will never be another crash. We will not let it happen."

The Lead Masks Case

This case involves the deaths of two men in 1966 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On August 20, a young man came upon the bodies of two men and reported the discovery to the police. The young man had been flying a kite on Morro do Vintem (a hillside outside Rio) and as the bodies were hard to reach, the police did not find the bodies until the next day.

On discovering the bodies, the police noted some peculiarities. The two men were laying next to each other and they were partially covered by grass. A small bottle of water accompanied the bodies along with a notebook and a package containing two wet towels. The men were wearing lead masks and waterproof coats. Within the notebook was a note which was translated as saying

"16:30 be at the agreed place. 18:30 swallow capsules, after effect, protect metals, wait for mask signal"

The two men were later identified as Miguel Jose Viana and Manoel Pereira de Cruz who hailed from the nearby town of Campoosdos Goytacazes. They had left their town on August 17 and travelled to Rio to a spot on the hill where UFO hunters would gather to watch the skies. A woman who lived near the spot where the bodies were found claimed that she saw strange lights in the sky above the hill. The bodies were starting to decompose by the time an autopsy could be performed but no toxic substance was found in their bodies. 

Dyatlov Pass Incident

The Dyatlov Pass Incident refers to the mysterious deaths of nine hikers in the Ural Mountains, in Northern Russia. The case has attracted attention because of the unusual circumstances of the deaths. The hikers seemed to have cut their way out of their own tents and fled their camp in bare feet. This was despite temperatures of down to -35 C (-31 F).

Taken by the hikers themselves, this picture shows them setting up camp 

The hikers had set out to scale Mt. Ortorten on February 2 but had failed to return after their ten day timeline. Friends and family demanded a search and eventually a military search was sent out to find them. On February 26 the investigators discovered the camp and found that the hikers' tents had been cut open from the inside.

The camp discovered by the search team

The investigators also found tracks that left from the camp and noted that the tracks were made by bare-footed or sock-footed people. The first two bodies were found at the edge of a forest only dressed in their underwear. Another three bodies were later found between the forest and the camp. It took another two months to find the final four bodies which were further into the woods in a ravine. These final four bodies seemed to be wearing clothes that had once belonged to the other hikers.

Discovery of the final four bodies

An investigation immediately started in February but concluded that the hikers had simply died of hypothermia. In May however the discovery of the final four bodies threw some doubt over the findings. Three of these bodies had been subject to major blunt force trauma which was determined to be the cause of death. The injuries were noted to be of such force as to be compared to that of a car crash. Some showed no signs of obvious external wounds and were actually consistent with being crushed at high temperature. The bodies were also found to be discoloured and that clothing belonging to some of the hikers was subject to high doses of radiation. One was also missing her tongue.

The investigation was immediately secured by the russian military and any outside involvement was discontinued

A lot of speculation remains about the circumstances of the deaths:

• No indication of outside involvement in the deaths
• All evidence shows that the victims left the camp of their own accord
• Some of the victims were only partially clothed but showed no signs of struggle 
• Three of the victims died from injuries and the remaining six from hpothermia
• Injuries were consistent with massive blunt force trauma
• One of the bodies is missing a tongue
• Some clothes had been removed from the bodies a placed hanging on a nearby tree
• Other clothing not belonging to the expedition was found near the bodies
• The Russian military was launching R-7 intercontinental missiles which were launched on a flight path over the Dyatlov Pass. Various glowing spheres were witnessed in February over the mountain
• Some details of the case which were recorded have never been released and some have gone 'missing'
• A camera belonging to the group has never been found
• One of the victims had a camera poised to take photographs. What was so important that he left shelter to take a picture

Tamam Shud Case - The Somerton Man

The Somerton man was an unidentified man who was found on Somerton beach in Adelaide, Australia in 1948. Also known as the Tamam Shud case from the phrase "Tamam Shud" meaning "finshed" or "ended" which comes from "The Rubaiyat", a Persian book of poetry. A section of the final page of the book was found in a hidden pocket in the man's trousers.

The case occured during the height of the Cold War and as such recieved a lot of scrutiny because of various strange details about the man and other facts (or lack thereof) of the case. These included the man's still unknown identity, the page from "The Rubaiyat" along with what seemed to be a code scribbled on the back of the book.

Here follows a timeline of the case.

December 1, 1948: A mystery man with no apparent cause of death

An unidentified man was found on Somerton Beach at 6:30am. Several witnesses had seen the man in the area on the previous evening and had presumed he was drunk or asleep on the beach. An autopsy was carried out and the estimated time of death was 2:00am although no obvious cause of death could be determined.

Various items were found on his person including a bus ticket for a bus stop less than a mile away, an unused train ticket, chewing gum, cigarettes and matches. All labels had been removed from his clothes but they were of a high quality with some European traits. It was noticed his trouser pocket had been torn and repaired with orange thread. The pathologist noticed that the man had some physical characteristics to lead him to believe he was a long distance runner or a ballet dancer.

Suicide seemed to be the most obvious reason for the man's death and the pathologist reasoned he must have poisoned himself. This was inferred from some swelling of the spleen, increased blood in the vessels of the liver and blood in the stomach. Despite this no evidence of poison was found.

December 2, 1948: Identity confirmed

The local media reported that the man was E.C. Johnson aged 45 and that an investigation was ongoing.

December 3, 1948: Who is this man?

A man identifying himself as E.C. Johnson presented himself at a local police station and the investigation therefore proceeded to search anew for the identity of the man. Also that morning a photograph of the dead man was shown in "The News" newspaper prompting many calls proferring names for the dead man.

December 5, 1948: Some leads and an uninteresting find

Many possible identifications had been made and "The Advertiser" reported that the police were searching military records after a man came forward and claimed to have had a drink with the dead man in the Glenelg Hotel in November. He claimed the man showed him a military pension card with the name Solomonson.

An inquest was started but was adjourned until June 17, 1949. Meanwhile a man from nearby Glenelg went with his brother-in-law for a drive in a car he kept at Somerton beach and in the back seat he made an innocuous discovery of a book in the back seat.

January 12, 1949: Calling all lost property

With little evidence and the investigation ongoing the police put out a call for all lost property in the local area from hotels, train stations and lost property offices. A brown suitcase was discovered in Adelaide railway station which proved to be the first major lead. It was deposited on November 30 and presumed abandoned.

Among the contents of the suitcase was a reel of orange thread which was discovered to match the thread used to repair the Somerton Man's trousers. Despite this, the case revelaed little else about the man's true identity. As with his clothes, the labels had been removed from the suitcase and all but three of the items of clothing in the case. These labels bore the name "T. Keane" but this name led to another dead end and it was concluded that the labels were left on for this precise reason. Other items in the case indicated that the man was an experienced traveller, particularly on merchant ships, and that he was sending communications overseas.

April, 1949: A mysterious hidden scrap of paper

John Cleland, professor of Pathology in Adelaide University was brought in to reexamine the body. He soon made an exciting discovery. He noticed a small pocket sewn into the waistband of the man's trousers . Hidden inside this secret pocket was a scrap of paper and printed on the paper were the words "Tamam Shud" and seemed to be ripped from the last page of the book "The Rubaiyat". The words were roughly translated to mean "the end" or "finished". A search was started for the copy of the book that the page had come from.

June, 1949: Running out of time

The unknown man was beginning to decompose and it was decided to make a plaster cast of the man's uppper torso and have him embalmed. He was finally laid to rest on June, 14 following a small ceremony.

July 23, 1949: An uniteresting find proves more interesting

A man came forward with a copy of the Rubaiyat which he had found the previous December in the back seat of his car on Somerton Beach. He had presumed that the book had belonged to is brother-in-law. He had put the book into the glove compartment without a second thought.

The book was examined closely and it was concluded that the page in the hidden pocket of the Somerton Man had come from that copy of "The Rubaiyat". On initial investigation the book seemed to provide no clues to the man's identity. Detective Sergeant Lionel Leane however decided to examine the book more closely. He noticed that there were impressions left on the penultimate page of the book as if someone had written on the final page before tearing it out.

Under ultra-violet light five rows of letters were made out.

The five lines of text seem to be a code of some sort with most people concluding that the second line is a mistake and rewritten in line four.

Also discovered were two phone numbers. The first number was the number of a police station and held no leads. The second belonged to a nurse in the area. Known to the police as "Teresa", the nurse admitted that the copy of "The Rubaiyat" had belonged to her but she had given it to a man named "Alfred Boxall" in 1945 and had no contact with the man since then.

It seemed the case may be solved with this man Alfred Boxall tracking this nurse down and committing suicide when she had rejected him. However Alfred was alive and well in Sydney with his copy of the book.

July, 1949 - Present Day: Theories and Intruige

The code was never cracked despite being pored over by professional and amateur code breakers. Although it was concluded by the Navy to be the first letters of a phrase or poem, possibly from the same book.

Some theorist have speculated that a rare genetic trait link the son of Teresa and the Somerton Man and that the chances of a random match are remote.

Others have taken into account the time at which the case played out and have speculated that the man was a Cold-War spy, possibly British, named H.C. Reynolds but this has remained unproven.

A new rocket test base was also being built in nearby Woomera which led man to link the man with spy activity also.

With the body now sealed in Adelaide and many of the people connected with the case dead or forgotten we may never discover the true identity of the Somerton Man.