ParaCrypt RSG Official Site

Kemayan City

2011-12-27T16:28:00.003+08:00

I was reading on Kemayan city mystery and I'm quite interested on the haunting... so last saturday I went to Johore Bahru and just passed by the location in the daylight... and it's still standing there and nothing was done till now ether to demolishing it or renovating it... I ask few local in skudai area nearby regarding the location and most of the local I interviewed (unofficially), confirmed the location was haunted and till recently one of them (Abang Hamid) told me that there's an incident when a local Malay taxi driver who was on his way back one night took a Chinese lady at the Kemayan's bus stop. When he asked her, she told that she's from Kuala Lumpur and just finished her shopping in the Kemayan City mall. The taxi driver then told the lady that the Kemayan City Plaza was long abandoned building and there's no shops or such outlet in the building and the lady was surprised and shocked. She insist that she's just finished shopping, buying leather shoes and clothes in Kemayan City. When both of them looked into the shopping bag, it was full of rags and the lady later throw the things away and asked the taxi driver to send her to the hotel near Danga.

Please find attached photos which I took when I was passing in front of the plaza, actually we don't dare to stop since even the daylight the place really looks spooky...

Thanks

Cheer,

Cindy Chew
Selangor DE

PRSG Note: Thank you Ms Cindy fo sharing the stories and photos.

Lebuhraya Karak- Kebenaran atau sekadar Mitos?

2011-07-11T15:45:00.009+08:00

Laluan yang dilitupi kabus pada masa-masa tertentu

Berbagai cerita yang telah kita dengar berkaitan dengan Lebuhraya Karak yang menghubungkan Pantai Timur dengan Kuala Lumpur. Dan semestinya kebanyakkannya berkisar kepada kisah-kisah seram pengalaman pengguna laluan ini malah ada yang telah dijadikan filem atau drama yang menjadi sambutan hangat dikalangan penontonnya. Namun sejauh mana dakwaan laluan ini berpuaka tidak dapat dibuktikan dengan jelas kerana kebanyakkannya bersumber dari kata orang, kata kawan kepada pakcik, kawan kepada kawan dan bermacam lagi. Jika adapun pengalaman sendiri, kebanyakannya tidak dapat dibuktikan dengan bukti sahih dan sebagainya PRSG cuba menyingkap kisah sebenar disebalik cerita mitos dan seram yang sering menghantui pengguna lebuhraya yang amat terkenal ini. Berdasarkan cerita yang disampaikan, laluan lama lebuhraya Karak ini sememangnya amat menggerunkan kepada sesiapa sahaja yang melaluinya lebih-lebih lagi di waktu malam dimana tiada lampu jalan disediakan sepanjang laluan dan ini menyebabkan adakalanya pemandu terbabas kedalam gaung atau bertembung dengan kenderaan lain yang dipandu laju dari arah bertentangan hingga menyebabkan kecederaan mahupun kematian. Laluan lama yang melalui Pekan Karak ini merupakan laluan utama suatu masa ketika dahulu sebelum terbinanya laluan utama Lebuhraya Karak. Dan kebanyakan cerita seram adalah berlaku di laluan lama dan hanya adakalanya berlaku di laluan baru lebuhraya.

Diantara cerita yang pernah didengar adalah:

1. Kisah suami isteri dan makhluk mengerikan

Salah sebuah adegan berkaitan lagenda makhluk memakan manusia diatas bumbung kereta

Cerita ini berkisar dengan kisah sepasang suami isteri yang melalui laluan ini dan kemudianya kereta yang dipandu rosak ditengah jalan. Si Suami kemudiannya menyuruh si isteri duduk didalam kereta bersama anaknya dan mengunci pintu dan jangan keluar dari kereta manakala dia akan pergi mencari bantuan. Dipendekkan ceritanya, tatkala si isteri sedang kerisauan menunggu si suami, dia terdengar bunyi sesuatu yang menghempap bumbung keretanya, namun atas arahan suaminya dia terus duduk di dalam kereta. Tidak lama kemudian sebuah kereta peronda polis (ada yang mengatakan kenderaan peronda PLUS dan ada pula yang mengatakan kenderaan tentera) tiba dan berhenti di hadapan kereta pasangan suami isteri berkenaan. Salah seorang anggota polis kemudiannya mengarahkan si isteri berkenaan keluar dari kenderaan perlahan-lahan kearah kenderaan polis dan jangan menoleh kebelakang. Namun atas perasaan ingin tahu, si isteri kemudiannya menoleh dan ternampak satu makhluk yang mengerikan sedang membaham suaminya diatas bumbung kereta mereka. Makhluk itu kemudiannya terbang ke arah hutan dan menghilangkan diri.

2. Misteri hantu kanak-kanak

Cerita berikutnya berkenaan dengan kelibat seorang kanak-kanak yang meminta tolong (ada yang mengatakan melambai kenderaan untuk berhenti). Kanak-kanak berkenaan akan bertanya jika pengguna laluan ada melihat ibunya dan dia sedang mencari ibunya yang hilang. Ada beberapa dakwaan yang mengatakan apabila pengguna laluan berkenaan berlalu meninggalkan tempat tersebut, kanak-kanak yang sama didapati bergerak (samada melayang atau berlari) dengan kelajuan yang sama dengan kenderaan berkenaan dan menyebabkan pemandu terkejut dan hilang kawalan dan mengalami kemalangan

3. Lembaga putih yang melayang dari hadapan kereta

Terdapat juga cerita yang menyebut ada beberapa orang pengguna laluan pernah mengalami gangguan berupa sesusuk tubuh berpakaian puth melayang dari arah depan menghala ke cermin hadapan kenderaan dan menyebabkan kenderaan yang dipandu terbabas atau hilang kawalan. Lembaga tersebut dikatakan pontianak yang mendiami kawasan lebuhraya Karak. Sungguhpun banyak lagi kisah-kisah seram yang sering didengari di kawasan laluan ini, namun kebanyakannya masih lagi menjadi misteri dan tanda tanya adakah ianya benar-benar berlaku atau hanya cerita mitos yang diceritakan dari mulut ke mulut untuk menakuti pengguna laluan tersebut. Namun demikian, PRSG telah mendapat respons dari beberapa orang pembaca malah turut mencari maklumat berkaitan dengan laluan lama lebuhraya Karak yang sering dikaitkan dengan lalun berpuaka tersebut. Walau apapun hasil penyelidikan yang dibuat oleh PRSG, terpulanglah kepada para pembaca untuk menilai kebenaran disebalik cerita yang disampaikan.

Berikut adalah hasil penyelidikan PRSG dengan kerjasama pengkaji mitos dan lagenda dari luar negara berkaitan dengan fenomena laluan berhantu.

1. Mitos dan lagenda setempat berkaitan dengan laluan puaka dan mayat diatas kereta. Menurut sumber dari salah seorang pengkaji paranormal bebas, Veronica Aliston, 29 yang berasal dari Amerika, lagenda setempat berkenaan dengan kenderaan di laluan berpuaka, terdapat satu kisah yang amat popular dan menjadi 'urban legend' di Amerika iaitu berkenaan dengan sepasang remaja yang berhenti di satu kawasan untuk berasmara dan kemudiaanya apabila hendak kembali ke rumah, kenderaan yang dinaikinya mengalami masalah. Si lelaki kemudiannya keluar dan menyuruh si gadis menutup pintu dan mengunci dari dalam dan jangan keluar dari kereta sementara dia mencari pertolongan. Selang beberapa ketika si gadis kemudiannya terdengar satu bunyi kuat meghempap bumbung kereta mereka dan diikuti oleh bunyi seperti 'skreet' berulang kali.

Lagenda 'The Boyfriend's Death' dari Amerika

Atas sebab ketakutan si gadis terus berada dalam kenderaan sehinggalah pihak berkuasa tempatan melalui kawasan berkenaan dan mengarahkan si gadis berkenaan keluar dari kenderaan berkenaan secara perlahan-lahan menghampiri mereka. Mereka juga turut melarang gadis berkenaan menoleh ke belakang sewaktu berjalan menuju ke kenderaan pihak berkuasa berkenaan, akan tetapi disebabkan perasaan ingin tahu dia kemudiannya menoleh kebelakang dan terpandang olehnya teman lelakinya sedang tergantung pada pokok dengan keadaan mengerikan sambil kakinya menguis-nguis bumbung kereta mereka seolah-olah cuba untuk berdiri.

2. Asal usul kisah dan lagenda

Menurut sumber kajian dan penyelidikan di Amerika, versi paling awal berkaitan tentang cerita sebegini telah direkodkan oleh penuntut di University Kansas. Dan pada pengakhir tahun 1970an ianya tersebar ke serata dunia dan dikenali sebagi 'The Boyfriend's Death'. Mungkinkah cerita ini menjadi asas kepada versi popular di Malaysia dan hanya diubah jalan ceritanya? Jika tidak, kemana perginya saksi sebenar atau rekod laporan bertulis dan sebagainya yang menyatakan kejadian misteri ini benar-benar berlaku di laluan lama Karak?

Walau apapun spekulasi berkaitan dengan lagenda atau mitos yang diceritakan berkaitan dengan lebuhraya Karak, cerita serta kisah yang berkaitan dengan kejadian aneh serta paranormal tetap diceritakan oleh para pengguna lebuhraya berkenaan. Paracrypt RSG sedang dalam perancangan untuk membuat kajian dan merungkai sendiri kisah disebalik cerita dan lagenda ini dan akan dikongsikan bersama dengan para penyelidik dan pembaca.

Sekiranya ada yang ingin berkongsi pendapat atau input berkaitan dengan misteri lebuhraya Karak sila emailkan kepada Paracrypt RSG dan akan disiarkan di blog rasmi ini bagi dikongsikan bersama pembaca dan penyelidik yang lain. Semoga misteri dan lagenda disebalik kisah Lebuhraya Karak ini akan terungkai.

Lagenda Batu Kapal di Batu Pahat

2011-02-09T11:20:00.014+08:00

Bahagian belakang batu kapal tersebut yang menghadap ke Selat Melaka

Jika ditanyakan mengenai lagenda 'Batu Kapal' di Batu Pahat, Johor, mungkin tidak semua yang mengetahuinya kecuali orang-orang tua atau penduduk di sekitar kawasan tersebut sahaja. Bagi orang luar lagenda ini mungkin dianggap sekadar cerita rakyat yang sama halnya dengan mitos serta lagenda seperti Batu Gajah, Batu Bersanding, Batu Sumpahan dan pelbagai lagi yang dikaitkan dengan Sang Kelembai. Namun bagi penyelidik seperti kami, kisah atau cerita seperti ini adalah merupakan sebahagian dari cabang kesenian budaya khususnya dalam aspek penceritaan lisan berkaitan dengan kepercayaan, keagamaan malah budaya masyarakat setempat. Pengkajian kes seperti ini mungkin akan dianggap membuang masa atau remeh namun bagi sesetengah pengkaji, sedikit sebanyak khazanah budaya silam seperti ini dapat dikongsi malah dapat dirungkai akan kesahihannya berdasarkan sains, logik dan sejarah.

Berbalik kepada kisah lagenda batu kapal di Pantai Minyak Beku yang terletak dalam daerah Batu Pahat, Johor ini. Formasi batuan ini tidak kurang berbeza dengan mana-mana batu kapal yang terdapat di kawasan – kawasan lain di seluruh Malaysia namun batu kapal yang terdapat di Batu Pahat, Johor ini mempunyai daya tarikan unik yang tersendiri dan jarang ditemui.

Menurut sumber cerita dari salah seorang penduduk setempat, batu kapal ini asalnya adalah sebuah kapal yang terdampar akibat dipukul ribut hingga terbelah dua. Bahagian haluan kapal tersebut terletak berhampiran dengan Kampung Petani yang jaraknya lebih kurang 3 kilometer dari Bandar Batu Pahat manakala bahagian belakang kapal tersebut terdampar di atas bukit di Pantai Minyak Beku. Menurut sumber lagi, bersebelahan dengan bahagian haluan batu kapal tersebut terdapat sebuah bongkahan batu yang dipanggil ‘Batu Selendang’ kerana terdapat bekas corak selendang di permukaan batu tersebut.

Batu yang dikatakan kemudi kapal

Menurut pengalaman yang diceritakan sendiri oleh Abang Mat kepada kami, bahagian kapal tersebut dipercayai asalnya besi kerana apabila diketuk dengan menggunakan belakang parang pada kemudinya atau bahagian-bahagian tertentu pada struktur tersebut akan terdengar bunyi seakan bunyi logam. Selain itu terdapat dakwaan dari beberapa pihak iaitu kewujudan sebuah pintu masuk kedalam perut kapal namun tidak semua yang dapat menemuinya melainkan bagi mereka yang bernasib baik ataupun mempunyai ilmu serta amalan yang tinggi.

Selain dari misteri batu kapal tersebut, terdapat juga susunan batuan seakan batu nisan di bahagian atas bukit tidak jauh dari formasi batu kapal tersebut, namun tidak diketahui sejarah ataupun cerita sebenar disebalik kewujudan makam misteri ini. Menurut beberapa dakwaan, makam tersebut berkemungkinan milik seorang wali yang tiba di Batu Pahat ratusan tahun dahulu dan dimakamkan di atas bukit tersebut.

Salah satu makam panjang yang tidak diketahui siapa pemiliknya

Batu nisan yang tersusun dalam garisan lurus

Walau apapun dakwaan ataupun kisah disebalik Batu Kapal di pantai Batu Pahat ini, misteri tersebut tidak akan tamat disini. Kajian seterusnya akan dijalankan bagi mengumpul lebih banyak lagi bukti serta fakta yang boleh dikaitkan dengan lagenda Batu Kapal tersebut.

Pihak Paracrypt RSG juga mengalu-alukan kepada sesiapa sahaja yang mempunyai maklumat ataupun ingin berkongsi pengalaman berkaitan dengan misteri Batu Kapal ini.

2010-11-30T08:05:00.008+08:00

SITUBONDO, Indonesia - an entity which claimed to be the ghost haunting an antique spear is now captured and sealed in a bottle by an Indonesian Paranormal according to the local news yesterday.

According to Agus who captured the ghost, perhaps it was the ghost who took cares of the antique spear which were kept in the yard by a local man. The alleged spear was buried in the earth when Agus manage to pull it out during cleansing and it's not yet confirm either the spear belongs to ancient royal kingdom or not.

Yesterday, local news and media shot some of the photo and manage to get this alleged claim to be the apparition of the entity. According to the witness, the apparition in the bottle seems to be in a form of a whitish half torso entity.

How far was the claim is not yet to be confirm by Paracrypt RSG since we don't have the item. However, Paracrypt RSG welcome any comments especially for those who living in Indonesia regarding the news and media reports of the case

Condolence to Raymond Goh

2010-10-07T11:41:00.004+08:00

We here at Paracrypt Research and Study Group would like to expressed our deepest condolence to one of our PRSG team member for his mom whom passed away in last August. May her soul rest in peace.

From
Paracrypt Admin

Ghost sightings in Betong Police Station, Sarawak

2010-05-31T10:55:00.002+08:00

Apparition of a white lady with a long hair claimed to be disturbing the police officers and staffs here in Betong District Police Headquarters, Sarawak.

The sightings and hauntings started few days after the relocation of the old District Police headquarters to their new building at Kuak Huat Wee Street in Betong, 150 kilometres from Kuching.

Since then continuous haunting and eerie feelings experienced by the police officers on duty, and some even claimed to saw the ghostly apparition of the white lady in the detaining cell block

The most bizarre haunting was a case where the spirit manifested itself as one of the duty officer, roaming around the complex and never answers upon calling and later vanished in the thin air.

According to one of the source, there's a case of night shift officers encountered an apparition of the lady in white dress with her hair touches the ground which later creates panic among few of the officers resulting one of investigating officer force himself to jumps out from the second storey building after seeing the ghost. Luckily there's no serious injuries caused by the bizarre encounters.
Meanwhile, the District Chief of Police, confirmed the stories and even calls local sharman to exorcise and cleansing the area from further disturbance.

(from local Harian Metro news)

Loch Ness monster image or a giant squid?

2010-04-07T12:21:00.004+08:00

Image captured by Jason from the Google Earth

Nottingham- A security guy, Jason Cooke 25 drom here claimed that he found an image of the legendary Loch Ness monster or known as Nessie while surfing the Google Earth Search engine, reported by the local papers.

The so called image can be seen at 57°12'52.13 N 4°34'14.16 W.

Based on the image, Paracrypt RSG members together with other freelance researchers, agrees that the so called image of Nessie from the Google Earth is actually an image of a giant squid which might lurks in the dark water of Loch Ness.

A squid like entity in the Loch Ness which once became a highlight in the local news

It is not impossible to find such accidental image or creature due to their natural habitat of living deep in the ocean or waters, and perhaps the various accounts of sightings might be related to this giant squid's tentacles which mostly mistaken as Nessie's long neck and head.

However, further opinion or facts is highly welcome from readers and researchers.

Paracrypt RSG Team

Another Image editng and hoax photo

2010-04-06T11:01:00.003+08:00

According to the sender, the photo was taken in front of an empty and haunted house on his way back from work. His friend took the photo with his Lumix camera and after checking up the photo they saw the ghostly figure of a woman inside the house starring at them.

The photo was straightly confirmed as hoax by Paracrypt RSG based on the image. The so called 'ghostly image' was a longtime chain photo of a ghost lady which has been used by internet users to create hoax image. Here was the same ghost image which also confirmed as hoax by experts.

Kemayan City mystery

2010-04-06T09:17:00.003+08:00

Kemayan City Mall is a well-known abandoned building for its mysterious ghostly accounts especially to local residents in the area of Tampoi, Skudai and Johor Bahru. The abandoned building was actually a consisting of residential and commercial spaces (Cineplex, supermarket, shopping mall etc). In late 90s due to the Asian Economic Crisis the construction project was stopped and though the exterior of the complex was complete, the interior was hardly usable.

Various accounts of ghostly sightings and mysterious cases occurred since. Most famously told till now was stories experienced by tourist from neighboring country Singapore regarding the complex. It was about a family who was on their way back to Woodland Singapore after attending their relative's wedding ceremony in Malacca. Their true life experience was told to the Unit Falaq Syarie Johore. According to the witnesses, while they were on their way to Singapore, they saw the complex which supposedly abandoned earlier was decorated in a glamorous and colourful lights with a lot of peoples came and entering the complex, and it seems something grand was ongoing. Then they stopped by thinking that the complex was finally open for business and since it was still early they planned to have a look inside. What they found was, a grand opening ceremony of the complex was in place with a lot of entertainment and sales. After spending for about half an hour sightseeing in the complex, the family continue their journey to Singapore but stopped by at their relative's house in Kampung Pasir not far from the area for a short visit.

The family then told their relatives bout the grand opening and also show them goods which they have bought at the mall. However, they were surprised to see that all goods like T Shirts and other things turn to dry leaves and also missing. Most shocking part was they were told by their relatives that the mall was never been open for business till now and it the buildings has been left emptied for many years.

How far the claim was true, till now the abandoned building of Kemayan City Mall was still a mystery and various haunting experienced told by not only from Singapore but also the locals from other cities who have been 'tricked' by the mysterious events.

Hoax elves (orang bunian) nailed head

2010-03-26T11:56:00.004+08:00

Paracrypt RSG received these photo which claim to be the head of spiritual being known as elves or 'orang bunian' in Malay language. The sender claims that the head was nailed with a golden nail during the ritual of capturing the being.

However we at Paracrypt RSG revealed it as HOAX due to some clues which the original owner of the photo might not aware or realized during photographing the object

1. The hair is to good to be true and more shiny and looks like made of plastic subtance

2. The tiny rope to hang the object either in the car as decoration or as a key chain

3. More plastic looking rather than skin

Paracrypt RSG

Haunted Banglo in Batu Pahat, Johor

2010-03-25T15:46:00.004+08:00

Based on the story emailed to Paracrypt RSG, the banglo situated at Air Hitam-Parit Sulong-Batu Pahat-Johor Baharu old road have been abandoned for many years and nobody dares to demolish or even live in it. According to some local accounts, the banglo was once used by Japanese Administration office during WW2. However, many ghostly sightings and mysterious incidents happened such as apparition of ghostly entities, mysterious mourning voices etc. Some say it was the spirits of the beheaded prisoners whom their body was thrown into the lake nearby, and others says it came from the soul of dead girl who was raped by the Japanese soldier inside the banglo long time ago. Whatever the story was, the banglo still giving a eerie goosebumps for every passing road user especially during a late night drive.

More confirmation on the sites needed from readers around Johor regarding the haunting.

Confirmed Fake and Edited Image

2010-03-23T13:24:00.006+08:00

Above are some of submitted photo earlier to Paracrypt Research and Study Group for comments.

Results from our various analyzing process and also via the online image expert volunteers, all the photos has been confirmed as fake. Based on the photo analyzing results, all the photo's EXIF and BAG results showing it has been edited using photo image editors.

WW2 Japanese soldier apparition

2010-03-09T17:00:00.013+08:00

I have been following PRSG official blog for quite some years now and I'm so anxious everytime I open the blog to read any new findings and new articles. Keep on the good work guys and may all your efforts be blessed.

I would like to share some of my personal experience of encountering paranormal entities especially what most people called 'GHOST'. It was happened when I was visiting a famous fort in Manila, Philippine years ago. I was exploring few of the dungeon and I took several photo to show to my friends back home. I didn't realized there was something eerie inside my photos until one of my friend show it again to me. it was the figure of a man. On closer inspection the man became a soldier dressed in full period uniform of the Japanese Army! He stands holding his rifle in front, with the butt at his feet. Has this soldier been captured in an ethereal moment in time, whilst standing guard over his prisoners? And in addition there was also a bright , strange and random specks of light which clearly seen in the photo? Were they merely the reflection of the flash in the camera - or were they a strange atmospheric phenomenon or something else?

In this close up, his hat, nose, mouth and ears can be clearly discerned. It is a ghostly and inexplicable apparition. It's really gave me a creeps and I would like the readers and other researchers to give comments bout the eerie phenomenon

AwG_K-R0ll

Philippines Haunting

2010-03-09T14:55:00.014+08:00

Signboard of the Balete Drive

The eerie look in one of Balete Drive area

Balete Drive ghost stories have been around allegedly since the 1950s. The most popular is a “white lady” that haunts the long avenue and seems to target cab drivers in particular—but not exclusively. The hair-raising accounts went through the years, many claiming to have personally seen this mysterious lady. Paranormal experts believe that the white lady was raped by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War, and other version was in one late night a cab driver violated a pretty girl on her way home. Since then, the ghost stories started and circulated in the metropolis. Witnesses of the white lady, advise motorists to avoid the street at night, especially if they are alone. If it is necessary to travel the route, they advise that the backseat of the car is fully occupied and that no one should look back or look in any mirrors.

The apparition wears a night gown, has long hair but has no face or one covered with blood. This has somewhat become part of Philippine folklore unofficially. Other ghost tales of Balete Drive include spirit kingdoms, spirit creatures, and haunted houses.

Another view of Balete Drive

Balete Drive connects the long span between E.Rodriguez and N. Domingo Avenues in New Manila, Quezon City. It’s about 45 minutes travel from Manila via the Cubao route through Espana and E. Rodriguez Avenue. The Balete Drive corner at E. Rodriguez is a bustling business area mushroomed with fast foods and other establishments.

Miri most active haunting site and location

2010-03-08T16:11:00.004+08:00

Due to request from Miri readers and folks via email, Paracrypt Research and Study Group proudly share and released some of the list of most active haunting ground in Miri for other researchers who might be interested to conduct their own research and test. The known active haunting ground was:

1. Krokop Chinese Cemetery (half torso apparition)

2. Riam Bus Stop near Chinese Cemetery (actively haunting especially around 2-3 am)

3. SRK North compound (Japanese soldiers marching)

4. Taman Awam children's pool under the bridge (weird entities and EVP)

5. Curtin University near the lake and island (dark entities, lady in white and EVP's). Other place was in ME, GP Building and also area surrounding the campus.

6. Tanjung Lobang old government Quarters (mysterious dark apparition)

7. M- Floor of Wisma Pelita Tunku @ Electra House (EVP's and ghostly entities of a lady and apparition of male wearing khaki color uniform-old PDRM uniform). The site also known as one of famous location of a murdered police inspector in 80's.

There are more known active area which is still waiting to be confirm by the PRSG team and we will keep up updating on the latest location status to reveal the truth behind the phenomenon.

Cheers

Editor
Paracrypt Research and Study Group

Haunted house in Kuala Belait, Brunei

2010-03-08T15:20:00.004+08:00

The haunted house in Kuala Belait, Brunei

Another view of the house

Mysterious cases still surrounding the house history

Based on the email received by Paracrypt RSG, this house was actually build nearly 20 years ago and till date nobody wants to stay or even live in this house due to various disturbance and haunting. One of the famous story about the house was how the tenants were mysteriously moved or shift from inside of the house to outside near the roadside by unknown force or in the other term- ghost. How far the claim was true no one knows but the house still standing and empty till date. Any Bruneian from Kuala Belait is highly appreciate to flow some information of the real stories behind the phenomenon.

Hantu atau slow shutter?

2010-03-08T13:01:00.001+08:00

ATAS: NOR Kharunisa menunjukkan imej lelaki tidak berkaki (bulatan) di belakangnya yang muncul apabila gambar itu dirakam di sebuah restoran di Johor Bahru baru-baru ini. KIRI IMEJ lembaga bertudung dengan muka yang kabur (bulatan) ini didakwa tidak kelihatan sewaktu gambar ini dirakamkan di Air Hitam, Muar baru-baru ini. JOHOR BAHRU -

Belum reda kisah lembaga 'wanita kebaya merah' di Lebuh Raya Utara-Selatan, kini timbul pula kisah dua orang di sini yang terkejut melihat gambar mereka rupa-rupanya ada imej lain yang tidak disangka-sangka.

Nor Kharunisa Abd. Ghani, 24, mendakwa dalam sekeping gambar yang dirakam menggunakan telefon bimbit di sebuah restoran di sini baru-baru ini meresahkannya kerana ada imej 'lelaki tidak berkaki' di belakangnya.

"Saya hanya menyedari imej ganjil yang kabur itu apabila memasukkan gambar itu ke komputer.

"Pada mulanya saya ingatkan itu adik angkat saya, tetapi dia ketika itu duduk di hadapan saya,'' ceritanya ketika ditemui Kosmo! di sini semalam.

IMEJ lembaga bertudung dengan muka yang kabur (bulatan)
ini didakwa tidak kelihatan sewaktu gambar ini dirakamkan di Air Hitam, Muar baru-baru ini.

Dakwanya, sejak kejadian itu perasaannya menjadi tidak tenang kerana terasa seperti diekori.

Sementara itu, seorang lagi yang mendakwa berjaya merakamkan gambar ganjil, Mazluini Jema'an, 36, berkata, dia terkejut apabila ada imej wanita bertelekung tanpa muka muncul di hadapan gambar seorang saudaranya.

Lagenda Datu Merpati

2010-02-23T23:25:00.004+08:00

Lagenda Datu Merpati dan Datu Merpati Jepang di Sarawak merupakan sebuah lagenda dan sejarah yang berkaitan dengan asal usul perabangan serta keturunan Raden di Sarawak. Namun terdapat beberapa kekeliruan serta percanggahan fakta dari segi kesahihan serta salasilah yang juga berhubungkait dengan salasilah Kesultanan Sambas dan Brunei dimana menurut lagenda ini terdapat hubungan tali kekeluargaan diantara ketiga-tiga negeri ini. Sejauh mana ianya benar terpulang kepada mereka yang mengetahui.

Berbagai kajian telah dijalankan oleh individu, badan serta pengkaji sejarah yang berminat akan kisah yang dianggap satu khazanah bagi Sarawak. Akan tetapi terdapat berbagai versi, mitos dan juga kekaburan dari segi fakta mahupun penceritaan. sungguhpun terdapat banyak kawasan yang dikaitkan dengan kehadiran Datu Merpati ke Borneo, kajian terhadap lagenda ini bukan bertujuan untuk mempertikai atau membuat persepsi negatif keatas aliran keturunan pihak tertentu, tetapi ingin merungkai apa sebenarnya berlaku dan siapa sebenarnya tokoh ini. Adakah beliau hanya sebuah mitos hikayat lama seperti tokoh lain umpamanya Hang Tuah, Bendahara Tepok, Puteri Gunung Ledang dan sebagainya? atau beliau benar-benar wujud tetapi riwayat kisah beliau telah diubah atau ditokok tambah agar penceritaannya lebih menarik, ataupun ianya adalah satu dari adaptasi hikayat lain dan kemudian dimasukkan kedalam penulisan kisah beliau?

Walau apapun teorinya, nama Datu Merpati@Raden Merpati merupakan sebuah nama yang begitu sinonim dengan peradaban Melayu Sarawak khasnya. Sambas dan Brunei yang juga dikaitkan tentang asal penubuhan kerajaannya juga diceritakan didalam lagenda ini.

Paracrypt Research and Study Group juga tidak melepaskan peluang untuk membuat kajian tokoh yang bersejarah ini dan cuba merungkai misteri disebalik lagenda ini berdasarkan beberapa rujukan dan fakta sejarah peradaban dan kesusasteraan nusantara. Namun hasil kajian ini tidak bermakna 100% ianya harus diterima, tetapi mungkin boleh membantu kajian lanjut dan menjadi batu loncatan kepada kajian atau expedisi yang lain malah pendapat mahupun input dalam berbagai bentuk juga amat dialu-alukan dalam menjejak dan merungkai siapakah sebenarnya DATU MERPATI@RADEN MERPATI

Sekian

R Iskandar

untuk muat turun artikel kajian, sila klik:

http://paracrypt-research-and-study-group.googlegroups.com/web/Lagenda-Datu-Merpat Jepang.pdf

Malaysian Ghost and beliefs

2010-01-25T15:21:00.002+08:00

There are many kinds of beliefs in this world about the types of ghosts. One of the more popular types of ghosts in our local culture are the Malay ghosts. Of course, there are also the Chinese ghosts, English ghosts and even Indian ghosts depending on your religion, race and beliefs. For example, a vampire is an English ghost version whereas Malays simply knows them as “pontianak” and Chinese as “Kiong Xi”.

Malays believe that ghosts are usually only active at night especially during the full moon where it is belief to be the most powerful time for the underworld. Of course, be it fact or just simply another Malaysian Urban Legend, we’ll never know. Below are a lists of the types of Malay Ghosts:

Pontianak
also known as the vampire where it is belief that they are usually ladies dressed in white seeking for revenge. The pontianak is said to be the spirit of a woman died of childbirth. Most of the time, they can look very beautiful but if you look closely, she would have razor sharp teeth. They usually comes out after the sun sets searching for men or pregnant women (apparently, it is said that she could not bear the thought of other women being able to enjoy motherhood) to suck blood. Sometimes, they even eat the flesh of babies ripped out from their mother’s womb.

Toyol
These are actually ghostly kids that people adopt for the objective of stealing other people’s money. It is believed that this spirit is kept and preserved in a jar in a form of a foetus. Because the toyol is kept by people to do bidding, you have to feed it with blood everyday.
Polong – unsen ghost that can be used by black magic practitioners (bomoh) to harm someone

Pelesit
A ghost in the form of grasshopper used by bomohs to possess someone

Hantu Air

Water ghost found usually in rivers, lakes and swimming pools. They are usually the victim of drowning

Kum Kum
An old witch who attacks young virgins to restore her youth and beauty
Hantu Raya
Ghosts that acts as a double for the bomoh

Hantu Tetek Translates as Ghost Breast. This ghost is a female with huge breasts which is said to use it to suffocate her victims

Bunian Good ghost or jinns (genie) that is usually found in the jungle. Loves to help humans in trouble or in need.

Hantu Bungkus (Pocong) Ghost jumping around wrapped in white shroud

Hantu Bukit Ghosts that haunt the hilly areas.

Hantu Jepun Translates as Japanese ghost. Believed to appear wearing WW2 army attire carrying samurai swords. Usually found marching or if you are lucky, you can only hear the footsteps of marching. They are mostly headless
Hantu Pari Pari Fairy ghosts

Hantu Kubur – Just like its direct translation of ghost cemetary. These ghosts are usually found haunting cemetaries

Orang Minyak Also known as “oily man”. They are usually seen all covered in black oil and is said to love rape virgins

Hantu Penanggalan (Hantu Tengelong)
Usually women studying black magic that has the ability to split its body from its head and fly around with its guts hanging around. It is said that its love to suck the blood of women during childbirth

Mohd Saiful (Mr Bob)
Msia

(as emailed to the PRSG)

Letter from readers

2009-11-26T22:03:00.004+08:00

the original image i found in the internet

the retouched image of so called ghost... huhuhu

Dear Paracrypt RSG,

I have been reading and keep following your postings from time to time, and i would like to share with other readers bout one of the photo which posted in the articles earlier. Well for readers out there, here's the original photo which i found in the net and being used by the person in the photo to create a so-called ghost photo. And I also would like to advised other readers out there that most of the picture which coming from the Indo was mostly fake and retouched with photoshop software. Thanks.

Honest opinion from me, Seeing is believing!!

Karen Ting LC
S-pore

Pontianak ghost photo?

2009-11-22T13:15:00.007+08:00

PRSG received these photo from readers via email and it was showing a white figurine standing near the wooden pillars during one of their group's discussion.

Readers and researchers comments are welcome. In the mean while, PRSG still doing further examination on the emailed photo for genuineness.

Hasnida,
Paracrypt Admin

Misteri Tengu- Syaitan terbang dari Jepun

2009-11-20T23:43:00.001+08:00

Konoha Tengu

Di jepun, ada legenda mengenai seekor makhluk angkasa yang misteri, iaitu makhluk yang dianggap sebagai iblis dan digambarkan memiliki tubuh separuh burung dan separuh manusia. Makhluk ini disebut dengan nama Tengu. Luar biasanya, satu mumi Tengu tersimpan dengan rapi di Perfektur Aomori.

Muzium Hachinohe di Aomori, Utara Jepun, adalah rumah bagi Mumi Tengu yang konon pada awalnya dimiliki oleh Nambu Nobuyori, pemimpin klan Nambu yang memerintah Hachinohe di pertengahan abad ke-18. Mumi itu memiliki kepala manusia, namun memiliki kaki dan sayap berbulu seperti burung. Tengu yang telah menjadi mumi ini dipercaya berasal dari kota Nobeoka (perfektur Miyazaki) di Selatan Jepun. Beberapa teori menyebut bahawa mumi ini sampai ke Utara Jepun setelah diwariskan ke beberapa anggota keluarga Samurai yang memerintah Jepun, hingga akhirnya sampai ke Museum Hachinohe di Aomori.

Mitologi Tengu bermula dari sekitar abad ke-6 Masihi sama dengan tibanya agama Budha ke Jepun dari China. Tengu dianggap sebagai goblin yang tinggal di hutan dan gunung. Mereka disebut memiliki kekuatan supranatural seperti dapat berubah bentuk menjadi manusia atau haiwan, dapat bercakap dengan manusia tanpa membuka mulut dan mampu pindah dari satu tempat ke tempat lain dengan cepat menggunakan sayapnya. Kata Tengu sebenarnya berarti “Anjing langit”. Dalam mitologi Cina, makhluk ini juga memiliki tempat tersendiri dengan nama Tien Kou (Tiangou) yang maksudnya juga anjing langit. Nama ini sebenarnya tidak sesuai dengan deskripsi Tengu. Makhluk ini tidak memiliki rupa anjing, melainkan lebih mirip seekor burung.

Buku Nihon Shoki, catatan kuno yang dianggap paling pertama menyebut Tengu, yang ditulis pada tahun 720 Masehi, menyebutkan bahwa pada abad itu sebuah meteor melintasi langit Jepun dan meteor itu disebut oleh seorang rahib Budha sebagai Anjing Langit (Tengu). Namun bagaimana Tengu berevolusi dari sebuah meteor menjadi makhluk terbang tidak diketahui dengan pasti. Secara umum, Tengu memiliki dua bentuk fisik. Yang pertama disebut Karasu tengu yang memiliki kepala dan paruh seperti burung. Yang kedua adalah Konoha Tengu yang memiliki bentuk seperti manusia namun memiliki sayap dan hidung yang panjang (kadang disebut Yamabushi Tengu) Tengu berhidung panjang seperti dikenal orang zaman sekarang merupakan hasil penggambaran orang pada abad pertengahan. Dalam cerita Konjaku Monogatari-sh?, tengu digambarkan boleh berlari di udara, dan sebagai hantu berbentuk burung rajawali yang membuat orang kerasukan. Gambaran tersebut mengambil model dari hantu Temma dalam konsep agama Buddha yang digambarkan berbadan manusia dan memiliki sepasang sayap.

Model awal tengu kemungkinan berubah pada paruh pertama zaman Muromachi. Dalam kumpulan cerita rakyat Otogiz?shi terdapat cerita Tengu no Dairi (Istana Tengu) yang tokoh utamanya bernama Kurama Tengu. Selain itu, Ushiwakamaru dikabarkan menerima pelajaran seni pedang dari Tengu di Kuil Kurama.Dalam Hikayat Heike, tengu digambarkan seperti “Manusia tapi tidak seperti manusia, burung tapi tidak seperti burung, anjing tapi tidak seperti anjing, tangan dan kakinya seperti tangan dan kaki manusia, wajahnya seperti anjing, memiliki sayap di kanan kiri, dan boleh terbang.”

Menurut Legenda, sewaktu masih kecil, perajurit legendar Jepunbernama Minamoto no Yoshitsune yang hidup pada tahun 1159-1189 pernah berlatih ilmu pedang dengan raja Tengu Soujoubou dekat Kuramadera di gunung utara Kyoto.

Tidak ada keterangan dan informasi lebih lanjut mengenai mumi yang dipamerkan di muzium Hachinohe. Apakah ini mummi syaitan sebenar, makhluk Cryptozoology atau sebuah karya seni palsu dari abad lampau. Beberapa peneliti percaya bahwa mumi itu adalah sebuah karya seni buatan manusia, tapi belum ada bukti pasti yang disediakan untuk mendukung teori tersebut.

Articles shared by Muhd Naim, Singapore

Pocong or another hoax from Indonesia?

2009-11-18T12:40:00.002+08:00

Video which were publish in youtube showing 'pocong' in unnamed location. More to HOAX or is it real?

Haunted place in Peninsular Malaysia

2009-11-18T09:57:00.003+08:00

List of active haunting area in Peninsular Malaysia:

1. Collapsed condo of Highland Tower, Kuala Lumpur

2. Victoria Institute, Kuala Lumpur

3. Abandoned residential in Bukit Tunku, Kuala Lumpur

4. Chinese cemetery in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur

5. Chinese cemetery in Brickfield, Kuala Lumpur

6. Muslim cemetery in Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur

7. Lady Templer Hospital .

8. Girl School Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur

9. Area near Cheras policlinic.

10. Road from Kuala Lumpur to Genting Highland Resort

11. Pudu Jail, Kuala Lumpur

12. Puchong Area, Kuala Lumpur

13. Near the Kuala Ampang Secondary School

14. Area near the Maktab Rendah Sains Mara, Kuala Kubu
Bharu, Selangor

15. Damansara Hill area, Selangor

16. Kellies Castle, Perak

17. Area near Tambun Inn,Perak

18. North-South Highway near Sungai
Perak bridge, Perak

19. 2 way junction heading to Kuala Kangsar Malay College, Perak

20. Junction in the middle of Georgetown near Union High School, Pulau Pinang.

21. Lorong Petani Area, Alor Setar, Kedah

22. Office area of old BERNAMA near Pekan Rabu, Alor Setar Kedah.

23. Area near the Titi Haji Idris bridge, Alor Setar, Kedah.

24. Area of Kubur Panjang, Pendang.

25. Tobiar, Pendang.

26. Hilly area of Telok Chempedak, Kuantan Pahang.

27. Manggrove area in Kuantan, Pahang

28. Surrounding area of Kota Lama, Melaka.

29. Old Istana Jugra, Banting, Selangor

Confirmed Fake Ghost Photo

2009-11-15T09:23:00.005+08:00

Here's some of ghost photo sent by readers to the PRSG. However after further check on the PRSG team using image analyzing test, and by professional image processing lab, the photo and images have been confirmed as FAKE and HOAX.

Thanks to the partners for the examination results and cooperation towards the research.

Alleged ghost photo sent by readers from Indonesia:

'Durian Hantu' @(Devil's Durian Tree)

2009-11-15T09:15:00.002+08:00

The villagers at Dalat, a small coastal town in Sarawak believe this is a "ghost" durian tree. It is a huge tree with big buttresses. Every year it bears hundreds of fruit. No body dare to plant the seeds as it is believed that whoever plant the seeds will die at an early age. this picture was taken in 1981, some 28 years ago.

(As emailed to Paracrypt Admin)

coincidence?

2009-07-05T17:09:00.002+08:00

There are two US presidents and both of them had same tragic death, both were shot to death, but the coincidence doesn't stop there!

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected as a President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected as a President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

It is getting really weird, huh?

Lincoln's secretary was named as Kennedy.
Kennedy's secretary was named as Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Coincidences are now even more creepy, right? Please read more:

Lincoln was shot at the theater named as "Ford."
Kennedy was shot in a car called as "Lincoln" made by "Ford."

Lincoln was shot in a theater, and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse, and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

What do you think of it?
Please feel free to post your opinion about it.

Condolence from Paracrypt Team

2009-05-25T10:18:00.006+08:00

Deepest sympathy to the family of the late Will... one of the Paracrypt RSG member who died due to fatal car accident in Bintulu Sarawak on 23rd May 2009. May his soul be rest in peace. Paracrypt RSG will miss all the moments without him....

From all Paracrypt RSG Team members

Sarawak River Dragon or wave?

2009-02-27T17:19:00.004+08:00

Ripples not far from the yellow boat

Mysterious ripples in the river and resembles large snake-shape movement

According to local legend and folklore, Datu Depati Jepang has twin son- Datu Merpati and a dragon name Seri Bulan. Their descendant till now believed that the mythical dragon Seri Bulan still exist and guarding his brother's bloodlines. How far is these legend and stories somehow nobody know since it's full of mystiscm and legends. We came across with a photo sent to PRSG admin recently showing mysterious ripples in Sarawak river which people link it to the legends. Further study of the photo still ongoing to determine genuinity. Photo open for readers and researcher to comment.

Giant Snake in Rajang River Hoax Exposed

2009-02-25T14:55:00.006+08:00

PRSG Team along with other photo experts member from Europe confirms the image of 'nabau' or giant snake which lurks in Rajang River, Sarawak is a hoax based on the results after testing and enhanced it with spectrum enhancer. The image was actually a photoshop edited image and purposed of circulating it in the internet was to create sensational news and also as a pranks. The picture was also been published in the local newspaper and cause locals to believed that the mythical creature really exist in the river of Rajang.

Here are some of the published photo which claimed to be taken using handphone by the sender.

Areal photo of the so called 'nabau'

Alleged Nabau

Photo published in the local news

Other proof of the hoax was the actual photo of the river itself which taken from plane and the main differences was the actual Rajang River is muddy brownish color throughout the year and never dark blueish color as claimed in the photo. Below is the actual Rajang River in the State of Sarawak.

HAPPY 2009 TO PRSG MEMBERS AND READERS

2009-01-05T13:36:00.002+08:00

'pocong' image result

2008-12-23T08:24:00.001+08:00

Greetings from State.

Based on the test using enhancing image and spectrum analyzer, the image seems to be more to pareidolia cases.
Image is more to cubical instead of human form and based on info given earlier on what is called 'pocong', it should be more to human shape. The apparition is more to mixture of surrounding and misinterpreted as apparition of ghost etc.

This is just a result from image analyzing by us and it doesn't present the whole opinion of our other research group worldwide counterparts.

regards,

Vicky
PRSG Online Team
Manhattan,US

Haunted KNKP

2008-12-17T16:37:00.003+08:00

Front view

Basement

Basement 2

Side view

Any comments or information on the haunting cases in this college please info the admin. Thanks

Submerged ancient structures and civilization.

2008-12-17T15:21:00.008+08:00

1) The Yonaguni Discovery

One of the greatest discoveries in the history of archaeology was made last summer, off Japan.

There, spread over an amazing 311 miles on the ocean floor, are the well-preserved remains of an ancient city. Or at the very least, a number of closely related sites.

In the waters around Okinawa and beyond to the small island of Yonaguni, divers located eight separate locations beginning in March 1995. That first sighting was equivocal - a provocative, squared structure, so encrusted with coral that its manmade identity was uncertain.

Then, as recently as the summer of 1996, a sports diver accidentally discovered a huge, angular platform about 40 feet below the surface, off the southwestern shore of Okinawa. The feature's artificial provenance was beyond question.

Widening their search, teams of more divers found another, different monument nearby. Then another, and another. They beheld long streets, grand boulevards, majestic staircases, magnificent archways, enormous blocks of perfectly cut and fitted stone - all harmoniously welded together in a linear architecture unlike anything they had ever seen before

This photo of the "face" purportedly from Yonaguni sites were printed in Ancient American) In the following weeks and months, Japan's archaeological community joined the feeding-frenzy of discovery.

Trained professionals formed a healthy alliance with the enthusiasts who first made the find. In a progressive spirit of mutual respect an working alliance, academics and amateurs joined forces to set an example of cooperation for the rest of the world. Their common cause soon bore rich fruit.

In september, not far from the shore of the island of Yonaguni, more then 300 airline miles south from Okinawa, they found a gigantic, pyramidal structure in 100 feet of water.

In what appeared to be a ceremonial center of broad promenades and flanking pylons, the gargantuan building measures 240 feet long. Exceptionally clear sub-surface clarity, with 100 foot visibility a common factor, allowed for thorough photographic documentation, both still photography and video.

These images provided the basis of Japan's leading headlines for more than a year. Yet, not a word about the Okinawa discovery reached the US public, until the magazine, "Ancient American" broke the news last spring. Since that scoop, only the CNN network televised a report about Japan's underwater city. Nothing about it has been mentioned in any of the nation's other archaeology publications, not even in any of our daily newspapers.

One would imagine that such a mind-boggling find would be the most exciting piece of news an archaeologist could possibly hope to learn. Even so, outside of the "Ancient American" and CNN's single report, the pall of silence covering all the facts about Okinawa's structures screens them from view more effectively then their location at the bottom of the sea.

Why? How can this appalling neglect persist in the face of a discovery of such unparalleled magnitude? At the risk of accusations of paranoia, one might conclude that a real conspiracy of managed information dominates America's well-springs of public knowledge.

(Photo Carved Stairway)

Information of the discovery

Yonaguni is a small island south-west of Okinawa in the Japanese archipelago. In 1988, scuba divers led by Kihachiro Aratake discovered an enormous stone structure on the seabed off the coast of Yonaguni.

The structure lay more than 75 feet below the surface. Investigation showed it was 600 feet long, 450 feet wide and 90 feet high. The locals decided it was a natural formation.

Ten years later, the experts weren't so sure. The first geologist to investigate the site was Professor Masaki Kimura of Ryuku University on Okinawa. In April 1998, he discovered a structure divided into five distinct layers and decided it had to be manmade. It is easy to see why. Underwater photographs and video footage reveal a stepped, ziggurat-like monument of extraordinary proportions.

Each step is about 3 feet high with clean edges and sharp angles. There is also an archway and two parallel monoliths among other intriguing features like drainage channels. Further investigation led to the discovery of smaller satellite ziggurats near the main edifice.

Each is about 30 feet wide and 6 feet high. Each appears to be constructed of stepped slabs. Divers also found what looks like a road surrounding the main structure.

Robert Schoch, the American geologist who re-dated the sphinx, dived to examine the Yonaguni Monument and later commented that while natural water erosion and rock splitting might possibly produce a structure of this type, he had never seen anything quite like it before.

Professor Kimura was even more forthcoming. He maintained bluntly that if the sharp steps were the result of natural erosion there would be debris on the seabed surrounding them. In fact, there is none.

The aptly named Team Atlantis expedition who dived to make a video documentary of the site concluded that while the monument may be a natural formation in part, it had certainly been extensively modified by human hands.

In other words, someone in the depths of prehistory discovered a suitable rock formation and used sophisticated engineering techniques to shape it the way they wanted.
But if the various structures in the Yonaguni complex are artificial, there is no known Japanese civilization that could have created them. Geological dating places the site above water no later than 8000 BC. (The actual time-span is somewhere between 8000 and 10,000 BC.)
Orthodox prehistory claims the most advanced culture in Japan at the time was small groups of hunter-gatherers. As Professor Kimura points out, there is no way they could have built or even modified the Yonaguni Monument.

He believes for something of this size some sort of machinery must have been involved

Japanese Scientists Say Yonaguni Pyramid Manmade

Massive Steps
Complex Structure

"On Dreamland, Ancient American Magazine editor Frank Joseph reports on a conference he recently attended in Japan at which Japanese geologists and archaeologists argued that the sunken pyramid off the island of Yonaguni near Okinawa has been found to be manmade.

It appears to be a construction made of wide terraces, ramps and large steps. However, American geologists have contented that the structure is not manmade, but a natural formation.

According to the report, Japanese scientists have documented marks on the stones that indicate that they were hewn. Not only that, the tools used in this process have been found in the area, and carvings have been discovered. A small stairway carved into the rocks appears to render the theory that this is a natural formation implausible.

The problem with all of this for western scientists is that it implies that an unknown eastern culture had developed a high degree of organization thousands of years before the earliest western civilizations. Geologically, the Yonaguni pyramid sank into the ocean at the end of the last ice age, around ten thousand years ago.

Some western geologists have theorized that, if it is manmade, it must have risen from the sea in more recent times, and been carved then.

However, the discovery of other, similar structures beneath the sea of Japan was also announced at the conference. If these prove to be similar to the Yonaguni pyramid they may rewrite the history of early man.

2) Spectacular Underwater Archaeological Find Near India

Sometimes, it pays to listen to the stories of humble fishermen. Local fishermen in the coast of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu have for centuries believed in that a great flood consumed a city over 1,000 years ago in a single day when the gods grew jealous of its beauty.

The myths of Mahabalipuram were written down by British traveler J. Goldingham, who visited the town in 1798, at which time it was known to sailors as the Seven Pagodas. Legend had it that six temples were submerged beneath the waves, with the seventh temple still standing on the seashore.

Best-selling British author and television presenter Graham Hancock took these stories seriously. The hypothesis that there may be ruins underwater off the coast of Mahabalipuram has been around at least since the eighteenth century among scholarly circles.

“I have long regarded Mahabalipuram, because of its flood myths and fishermen’s sightings as a very likely place in which discoveries of underwater structures could be made, and I proposed that a diving expedition should be undertaken there,” said Hancock.

Hancock’s initiative resulted in the Dorset, England-based Scientific Exploration Society and India’s National Institute of Oceanography joining hands. In April this year, the team made a spectacular discovery.

The SES announced: “A joint expedition of 25 divers from the Scientific Exploration Society and India’s National Institute of Oceanography led by Monty Halls and accompanied by Graham Hancock, have discovered an extensive area with a series of structures that clearly show man made attributes, at a depth of 5-7 meters offshore of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu.

“The scale of the submerged ruins, covering several square miles and at distances of up to a mile from shore, ranks this as a major marine-archaeological discovery as spectacular as the ruined cities submerged off Alexandria in Egypt.”

India’s NIO said in a statement: “A team of underwater archaeologists from National Institute of Oceanography NIO have successfully `unearthed’ evidence of submerged structures off Mahabalipuram and established first-ever proof of the popular belief that the Shore temple of Mahabalipuram is the remnant of series of total seven of such temples built that have been submerged in succession.

The discovery was made during a joint underwater exploration with the Scientific Exploration Society, U.K.”

NIO said: • Underwater investigations were carried out at 5 locations in the 5 – 8 m water depths, 500 to 700 m off Shore temple.

• Investigations at each location have shown presence of the construction of stone masonry, remains of walls, a big square rock cut remains, scattered square and rectangular stone blocks, big platform leading the steps to it amidst of the geological formations of the rocks that occur locally.

• Most of the structures are badly damaged and scattered in a vast area, having biological growth of barnacles, mussels and other organisms.

• The construction pattern and area, about 100m X 50m, appears to be same at each location. The actual area covered by ruins may extend well beyond the explored locations.

• The possible date of the ruins may be 1500-1200 years BP. Pallava dynasty, ruling the area during the period, has constructed many such rock cut and structural temples in Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram.

The last claim is questioned by Hancock, who says a scientist has told him it could be 6,000 years old.

Durham University geologist Glenn Milne told him in an e-mail: “I had a chat with some of my colleagues here in the dept. of geological sciences and it is probably reasonable to assume that there has been very little vertical tectonic motion in this region [i.e. the coastal region around Mahabalipuram] during the past five thousand years or so.

Therefore, the dominant process driving sea-level change will have been due to the melting of the Late Pleistocene ice sheets. Looking at predictions from a computer model of this process suggests that the area where the structures exist would have been submerged around six thousand years ago.

Of course, there is some uncertainty in the model predictions and so there is a flexibility of roughly plus or minus one thousand years is this date.”

If that were true, it would be a spectacular development. Previous archaeological opinion recognizes no culture in India 6,000 years ago capable of building anything much.

Hancock says this discovery proves scientists should be more open-minded. “I have argued for many years that the world’s flood myths deserve to be taken seriously, a view that most Western academics reject. “But here in Mahabalipuram, we have proved the myths right and the academics wrong.”

Hancock believes far more research needs to be done on underwater relics. “Between 17,000 years ago and 7000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, terrible things happened to the world our ancestors lived in,” he says. “Great ice caps over northern Europe and north America melted down, huge floods ripped across the earth, sea-level rose by more than 100 meters, and about 25 million square kilometers of formerly habitable lands were swallowed up by the waves.

“Marine archaeology has been possible as a scholarly discipline for about 50 years — since the introduction of scuba. In that time, according to Nick Flemming, the doyen of British marine archaeology, only 500 submerged sites have been found worldwide containing the remains of any form of man-made structure or of lithic artifacts. Of these sites only 100 — that’s 100 in the whole world! — are more than 3000 years old.”

Hancock, who was understandably resentful about the NIO’s silence in his pivotal role in making the diving expedition happen — SES gave him full recognition — was himself quite generous about who deserved the greatest credit:

“Of course the real discoverers of this amazing and very extensive submerged site are the local fishermen of Mahabalipuram. My role was simply to take what they had to say seriously and to take the town’s powerful and distinctive flood myths seriously.

Since no diving had ever been done to investigate these neglected myths and sightings I decided that a proper expedition had to be mounted. To this end, about a year ago, I brought together my friends at the Scientific Exploration Society in Britain and the National Institute of Oceanography in India and we embarked on the long process that has finally culminated in the discovery of a major and hitherto completely unknown submerged archaeological site."

The remains of a huge underwater city off the western coast of India may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history. It's believed that the area was submerged when ice caps melted at the end of the last ice age, 9-10,000 years ago.

Marine scientists say archaeological remains disco vered 120 feet underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old. The vast city - which is five miles long and two miles wide - is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India's National Institute of Ocean Technology who were conducting a survey of pollution. Using sidescan sonar - which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom of the oce an - they identified huge geometrical structures at a depth of 120 feet.

Debris recovered from the site - including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth - has been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old.

However, archaeologist Justin Morris from the British Museum says more work will need to be done before the site can be said to belong to a 9,000 year old civilization, since there can be errors in carbon dating. "Culturally speaking, in that part of the world there were no civilizations prior to about 2,500 BC. What's happening before then mainly consisted of small, village settlements," he says.

Strong tides make investigations in the Cambay difficult. Marine scientists led by the Madras-based National Institute of Ocean Technology are solving this problem by taking acoustic images off the sea-bed and using dredging equipment to extract artifacts.

The Indian Minister for Ocean Technology, Murli Manohar Joshi, says the images indicate symmetrical man-made structures and also a paleo-river, with banks containing artifacts, such as pottery. Carbon dating on a block of wood brought up from the depths suggests it dates back to 7,595 BC.

"We have to find out what happened then ... where and how this civilisation vanished," he says.

The city is believed to be even older than the ancient Harappan civilisation, which dates back around 4,000 years and is the oldest on the subcontinent. Although Palaeolithic sites dating back around 20 ,000 years have been found on the coast of India's western state of Gujarat before, this is the first time that man-made structures as old as 9,500 years have been found deep beneath the ocean surface.

Marine archaeologists have used a technique known as sub- bottom profiling to show that the buildings were built on enormous foundations. Graham Hancock, author of "Fingerprints of the Gods," says, "The [oceanographers] found that they were dealing with two large blocks of apparently man made structures.

Cities on this scale are not known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big cities begin to appear in Mesopotamia. Nothing else on the scale of the underwater cities of Cambay is known. The first cities of the historical period are as far away from these cities as we are today from the pyramids of Egypt."

Hancock feels this discovery could have a major influence on our view of the ancient world.

The Dropa Stone Discs

2008-12-17T15:05:00.000+08:00

The Dropa (also known as Dropas, Drok-pa or Dzopa) are, according to certain controversial writers, a race of dwarf-like extraterrestrials who landed near the Chinese-Tibetan border some twelve thousand years ago. Skeptics note, however, a number of problems with the case (and a lack of corroborative evidence), which offers significant doubt as to the reality of the more sensationalistic Dropa claims. Mainstream critics argue that the entire affair is a hoax.

Alleged Discovery -- Chi Pu Tei, a professor of archaeology at Beijing University, and his students were on an expedition to explore a series of caves in the pathless Himalayan mountains of the remote Bayan-Kara-Ula in Qinghai on the border of China and Tibet. The caves may have been artificially carved to be a system of tunnels and underground storerooms. The walls were squared and glazed, as if cut into the mountain with great heat.

They found many neat rows of tombs with short 4 ft 4 in inch skeletons buried within. The skeletons had abnormally big heads, and small, thin, fragile bodies. A member of the team suggested that these might be the remains of an unknown species of mountain gorilla. Prof. Chi Pu Tei was said to respond, "Who ever heard of apes burying one another?"

There were no epitaphs at the graves, but instead hundreds of one foot wide stone discs ("Dropa Stones") were found having 3/4 inch wide holes in their centers. On the walls were carved pictures of the rising sun, moon, stars, the land, mountains, and lines of pea-sized dots connecting the earth with the sky. Along with the discs, the cave drawings had been determined to be about 12,000 years old.

Dropa Stones

Each stone disk was reportedly inscribed with two fine grooves spiraling from the edge to a hole in the disk's center, perhaps not unlike the Phaitos Disk.

The disks were labeled along with other finds of the expedition and stored away at Beijing University for 20 years, during which deciphering attempts were unsuccessful. When the disks were closely examined by Dr. Tsum Um Nui of Beijing around 1958, he concluded that each groove actually consisted of a series of tiny hieroglyphs of unknown pattern and origin. The rows of hieroglyphics were so small that a magnifying glass was needed to see them clearly. Many of the hieroglyphics had been worn away by erosion. When Dr. Tsum deciphered the symbols, they told the story of the crash-landing of the Dropa spaceship and the killing of most of the survivors by local people.

According to Tsum Um Nui, one of the lines of the hieroglyphs reads, "The Dropas came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropas, they realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions . . . ." Another section expresses "regret" by the Ham that the aliens' craft had crash-landed in such a remote and inaccessible mountain range and that there had been no way to building a new one to enable the Dropas to return to their own planet.

Dr. Tsum's report supposedly appeared in a professional journal in 1962. He was subsequently ridiculed to the point of self-imposed exile in Japan, where he died. The Peking Academy of Pre-history never allowed him to publish and never speak of his findings.

"Tsum Um Nui" is not a real Chinese name, and critics suggest that Dr. Tsum may not have actually existed. However Tsum Um Nui is a Japanese name adapted to Chinese language. There is no evidence of him beyond the Dropa allegations.

Further research

In 1965, Professor Chi Pu Tei and four of his colleagues were finally given permission to reveal their theory. They published it under the title "The Grooved Script concerning Space-ships which, as recorded on the Discs, landed on Earth 12,000 years ago".

The records, some 716 grooved discs later uncovered in the same caves, tell an astonishing story of a space probe sent by the inhabitants of another planet. After landing at the Bayan-Kara-Ula mountain range, the scripts allegedly say, the peaceful intentions of the aliens confused the members of the Ham tribe, inhabitants of the neighboring caves, who hunted down and killed the extraterrestrials.

Photos claiming to show Dropa Disks are in fact Bi Disks, thousands of which have been found throughout China, mostly in the Southeastern Provinces. Bi Disks range in size of a few inches to several feet, and are most commonly made of jade or nephrite, with a round or square small central hole.

Most Bi Disks date to the Neolithic Period (c. 3000 BCE), but are found up to the Shang Dynasty Period. Bi Disks beyond the Shang Period are usually more ornate, carved with dragons, snakes and sometimes fish, and used in ritual ceremonies.

Most Neolithic Bi Disks were found in gravesites, buried beneath the head or feet of the deceased. It is theorized that this was to assist the deceased's spirit. No Bi Disks have been found to contain writing or spiral grooves as described in the Dropa story by authors such as Hartwig Hausdorf.

The Dropa Disks are said to be only 12 inches in diameter. However, one black and white photograph claimed by Hausdorf and others to display a Dropa Disk clearly shows the disk resting on a seat, and it is clearly several feet in diameter and has no markings whatsoever.

Russian Research

Russian scientists asked to see the discs and several were sent to Moscow for examination. They were scraped free of rock particles which had stuck to them and then put through chemical analysis. To the surprise of the scientists, the disks contained large amounts of cobalt and other metallic substances. What is more, when placed on a special turntable, according to Dr. Vyatcheslav Saizev, who described the experiments in the Soviet magazine Sputnik, they vibrate or "hum" in an unusual rhythm as though an electric charge is passing through them. Or as one scientist suggested, "as if they formed some part of an electrical circuit." At some time, they have clearly been exposed to extraordinarily high voltages. "They seem like ancient hard disks, spinning like the hard disks we have now days. Perhaps if we could read these ancient hard disks, we would find more answers."

Wegerer's Photos

In 1974, Ernst Wegerer, an Austrian engineer, photographed two disks that met the descriptions of the Dropa Stones. He was on a guided tour of Banpo-Museum in Xian, when he saw the stone discs on display. He claims he saw a hole in the center of each disc and hieroglyphs in partly crumbled spiral-like grooves.

Wegerer asked the managers of Banpo-Museum for more information on the pieces in the showcase. The manager knew nothing of the stones' history, though she was able to tell a complete story about all the other artifacts made from clay. She only knew that the stone discs were unimportant "cult objects".

Wegerer was allowed to take one of the discs in his hand. He estimated their weight at 1 kilogram or 2 pounds, and the diameter at one foot. The hieroglyphs can't be seen in his photos, because they have crumbled away partly, and his camera's flash washed out the fine detail, such as the spiral grooves.

A few days after his visit, the manager was called away from her job without telling her why. She and the two stone discs vanished, according to Professor Wang Zhijun, the Director of the Banpo-Museum in March of 1994.

Corroboration

In the years since the discovery of the first disc, archeologists and anthropologists have learned more about the isolated Bayan-Kara-Ula area. Much of the information has been interpreted as corroborating the story recorded on the discs.

Legends supposedly still preserved in the area speak of small, gaunt, yellow-faced men who "came from the clouds, long, long ago". The men had huge, bulging heads and puny bodies and were so ugly and repellent that they were shunned by everyone. "Men with the quick horses" hunted down the ugly dwarfs. Strangely, the description of the "invaders" is said to match that of the skeletons originally discovered in the caves by Professor Chi Pu Tei.

Criticism

Critics have largely rejected the above claims, arguing they are a combination of hoax and urban legend. For example, writer David Richie notes that the Dropa tales intrigued Gordon Chreighton, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society and Royal Geographical Society. Upon investigation, Chreighton judged the sensationalistic Dropa-Extraterrestrial allegations to be "groundless," and detailed his findings in an article for Flying Saucer Review.

No traceable, credible evidence for this theory exists, or can be proven to have existed in the past. Proponents of the Dropa-stones story claim that this is the result of social disruption caused by the Chinese Cultural Revolution and of a conspiratorial coverup by Chinese authorities. However this story goes well beyond China. Its opponents claim it is long proven to be a forgery by Erich von Daniken.

Below is a detailed rebuttal of most sensationalistic Extraterrestrial/Dropa claims:

1. The discovery. There are no mentions of 'Tsum Um Nui' anywhere; as he is supposed to have fled China and died in Japan in the 1960s this cannot be negated by Cultural Revolution, Communist coverup theory. Also, there is no mention of the 1938 archaeological expedition to the Banyan Kara Ulla range. No "Peking Academy of Pre-History" ever existed.

2. Early Sources. The earliest mention of the story is in Erich von Damien¹s infamous 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods. The book has been widely criticized as unreliable; in fact, the vast majority of names and sources appearing in the book cannot be corroborated, and no existence of the following Soviet or Chinese scholars can be found anywhere outside this story: Cho Pu Tei, Tsum Um Nui, Ernst Wagener, Vyatcheslav Saizev, and Sergei Lolladoff. Most tellingly, Däniken gives his main source for the story as a Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev; however Kazantsev himself disagrees with Däniken's account and says that it was Däniken who told him the story, not the other way around.

3. Later Sources. The 1978 book Sungods in Exile "edited" by David Agamon, appeared to lend support to the story of the Dropa, but Agamon admitted in the magazine Fortean Times in 1988 that the book was fiction and that its alleged author, a British researcher named Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans, was imaginary. Some websites claim to show a photo of Dr Robin-Evans with the Dalai Lama. A frail, old man assisted by the current Dalai Lama, the photograph is quite recent and can not be Dr Robin-Evans -- he died in 1978, according to Hartwig Hausdorf.

4. Translation. There is absolutely no precedent for an unknown language being successfully deciphered. All lost ancient languages have been rediscovered only because they survived in forms familiar to scientists. Even in such cases, deciphering and understanding these older language forms and their scripts has usually taken decades for multiple teams of highly competent linguists, and their findings are constantly being debated and updated. Many ancient scripts (notably Linear A from the island of Crete and Rongorongo from Easter Island), have defied deciphering precisely because they cannot be linked to any known language. Given these facts, there would be even greater difficulties in translating a truly extraterrestrial language. It is therefore highly unlikely that a single Chinese scholar with no reported background in linguistics could single-handedly decipher an alien script or language in his spare time.

5. The Disks. All that exists of the supposed alien disks are several wide-angle photographs. The disks photographed, firstly, do not match the described "12-inch disks"; the disks photographed are very large. Secondly, the photos show none of the supposed deep grooves. Finally, absolutely no photos, descriptions, analyses or any other evidence of the actual 'alien script' appear anywhere at all.

6. The Evidence. The disks were supposed to be stored in several museums in China. None of these museums have any traces of these disks, nor can any be found of the ones supposedly sent to USSR for analysis.

7. The Dropa Tribe. While reported to be a tribe of feeble dwarfs, in actuality the Dropas are nomadic herders who inhabit most of the northern Tibetan Plateau. The Ham are also inhabitants of Tibet, and traditionally have supplied Tibet's warriors: many of the 13th Dalai Lama's bodyguards during his escape from the Chinese invasion were Ham Tibetans. The word "Dropa", according to Chrieghton, describes the nomadic residents of Tibetan highlands, and can be roughly translated as "solitude" or "isolated". Furthermore, Chreighton described the Dropa as not resembling "troglodytes", or as stunted; on the contrary, they tend to be rather large and sturdy, befitting their occupation as herders

Ghost image or just reflection?

2008-12-09T15:45:00.003+08:00

The original image sent by reader

Enhance image of the image

Location: Corridor in Polytechnic Sarawak
Date: Unknown
Claim to be: Pocong
Sender: A Polytechnic student
Case status: Image still waiting to be confirm by PRSG team and image experts

PRSG welcomes for any opinion or comments from readers and researchers

Paracrypt RSG Site Updating

2008-10-31T11:49:00.002+08:00

To all readers and PRSG members, the admin section of PRSG is doing time to time site updating. The admin would like to express our regrets for any difficulties during surfing on the sites. The admin also welcome any idea or opinions from the readers or members regarding the sites updating.

Regards and thanks for all of your supports to PRSG

Admin
Paracrypt Research and Study Group

WW2 Execution Field Project- The updates

2008-10-29T13:54:00.007+08:00

Bukit Tanjung was situated in the south west of Miri city. The sites was not known to public as one of active haunting ground. Only some old folks confirmed the area as one of the Japanese Occupation era for beheading and execution ground. During dawn of WW2, some of the POWs were brought to the area for execution and most of the prisoners were the locals supervisors and also the British and Dutch personnel who was being captured by the Japanese before they surrender to the Allied. According to local source, at first after the invasion, Japanese military offers locals and some of western foreigners who didn't manage to escape the attacks to work with the Japanese to operates and repaired the destroyed refinery and operation after being burnt to ground by British. High pay and better living were promised to the people and thus gave a response. But after few years working for the Japanese, all of the workers especially the skill and experienced personnel were captured back. The purposed of capturing the personnels was to ensure the British or the Allied facing difficulties to rebuild and operates back the oil field after the war ended due to lack of skilled and experienced personnel and workers.

Based on local folks account, after the personnels were beheaded, the headless body were kicked and pushed down from the cliff where the execution took place and the heads left lying on the ground and even some of it kicked as a ball by the soldiers. The PRSG try to traced the cements platform (6x 2 ft) which were claimed by the locals as the spot where the POW were executed but until this article were released in the official site, the exact blocks location is still unknown ( theory of the cement block already covered by earth).

In 1980's during Royal Majesty visits to Miri ( Malaysian YDPT Agong), one of the children who were at the area stunned and shock after seeing headless torso of WW2 POW passing in front of him not far from the place he was playing. He later told his mom but it was taken as a joke. Various incidents happened in the area especially during full moon and many claims to saw WW2 Japanese soldier apparitions and in some accounts, local claims to heard the groaning sound of a man.

(Notes; Due to dark area and quiet place, some of the area spot were used as lover port for dates and the claims reported by the visitors and most of them have the same cases- apparition of Japanese like WW2 soldiers wondering in front of their vehicles or spot and even apparition off headless being suddenly appeared from nowhere.)

Long week research which have been done by PRSG team finds that the area are active haunting ground and various EVP and disturbances:

a) Nightshot handycam suddenly off and the tripod suddenly seems to be moved from it's original spot,

b) Recordings suddenly became blur and out-focus without reason (cam were left alone for hours)

c) Dog-like apparitions suddenly appear and vanish into thin air in front of the researcher

d) Heavy goosebumps

e) Headless torso marching and vanished few metres away from the team

f) Thump on the team car's roof and after examined there's no one around in the area except the team

g) Unexplainable car security lock incident- before leaving the car to park, alarm were triggered to on and indication sound were heard. But when the team returned to the car, seems to be nothing happened but when the team leader try to off the alarm, suddenly the car lock and relocked automatically (seems like the entity tried to keep us staying in the area). Further check on the alarm system confirmed that there's nothing wrong with the remote or the alarm.

h) EVP captured sound of WW2 single engine Japanese fighter aircraft hovering and suddenly diving attack position. (Further investigation finds that there's a WW2 Japanese fighter aircraft wreckage not far from the Tun Dato Tuanku Hj Bujang College and the wreckage were found by local fisherman half sunken near the Tanjung Lubang Cliff in early 60's. Unfortunately now it's no more to be seen-either taken as a scrap by nearby village or rusted and washed away by the sea water)

Article by

R Iskandar
Paracrypt Research and Study Group

Lutong Airstrip

2008-10-29T12:44:00.006+08:00

The first Miri airstrip which situated in Lutong and known as Lutong Airport
during the early days

Another view of the abandoned airstrip and now it was use by the local motor club for yearly drag and sprint race events due to the smooth and suitable tarmacs for race

Last visit of PRSG was in early 2008 in order to conduct a night research in the area. The area was known as WW2 sites where craters from aircraft fighters still can be seen and even aircraft wrecks. However, some part of the airstrip is now became a watermelon plantation by the locals.

The area also famous for it's haunting cases back in 70's till 90's where ghostly apparition of Lady in White strolling near Anderson Bridge and also soldiers marching in the middle of the airstrip. PRSG members once experienced of seeing apparition of WW2 Japanese aircraft landing on the airstrip in the middle of the night while conducting paranormal research in the area and when they try to get closed to the landed aircraft, suddenly the fighter aircraft vanished without a trace. The climax of the haunting was in early 90's where one of the auxiliary police who was on duty guarding the airstrip area were hysterically ran from his guard house after he saw full torso apparition of a lady suddenly appeared in front of his guard house door. In another account, some of the guard gave a radio call to their on duty officer to fetch them up due to continous disturbance of building shaken, sound of women crying in the middle of the night, apparition of WW2 Japanese soldier wondering nearby the guard house and sound of footsteps wearing military boots in the locked office building after office hours

During the period of research, PRSG team also conducting excavation project and managed to trace almost complete WW2 Japanese aircraft wrecks but due to iron scavenging activities in the area, the last aircraft was finally gone and only left scattered materials and items from the wrecks.

Article by

R. Iskandar
Paracrypt Research and Study Group

Haunted History, Urban Legends and Tall Tales

2008-10-24T11:28:00.005+08:00

THE HANGMAN'S HOUSE

Near the community of Spring Lake, an old house is rumored to have claimed the lives of the people who have lived there. On three different occassions, three different men met odd ends. Nobody knows why these men were driven to early graves, but everyone knows that the circumstances surrounding their deaths are far beyond the realm of the normal. Construction on the house began in 1910, and the strange occurrences first plagued the house as it was being built. The first contractor mysteriously disappeared. Finally, a second contractor was hired and the job was finished. The owner rented the building to a tenant, but the house was not his home for long. Less than six months after he moved in, the tenant hanged himself from a rafter in attic for unknown reasons.

After the unexplained suicide, the house stood empty for a while. When a few months had passed, a family from Virginia came to settle in North Carolina and bought the house, not knowing of the gruesome event that had occured on the top floor. Six weeks later, the man of the family hanged himself in the attic on the very same rafter where the first owner had met his untimely death.

Now the site of two grisly suicides, the house became a completely undesirable location. It stood vacant for many years, making it suspectible to the ravages of age and environment. The dark, weather-beaten facade was an ominous sight, and no one would live there. In desperation, the owner finally offered the house rent-free to anyone with the nerve to live in it and keep it repair. A Fort Bragg soldier from Boston took the owner up on his offer.

The soldier and his wife moved in and tried their best to make the creepy old house into a suitable living area. However, the plague was not over. Strange happenings disturbed the house and its owners. Alarm clocks rang inexplicably at the wrong hour in the middle of the night. Closed books opened up on their own, and locked doors unlocked themselves.

When news of the house's many curiosities spread throughout town, visitors began showing up at the house. Sometimes, more than 40 people per day would knock on the doors and inquire about the supernatural phenomena. Finally, the dubious publicity struck the young soldier's last nerve. One day, his wife found him dead, hanging from a rafter in the attic-a rafter that was worn with a smooth groove where two other ropes had been looped before.

THE VANDER LIGHT

On a dark and solemn night in the tiny community of Vander, railroad switchman Archer Matthews was alone at the train station. While he awaited the next train to pass by the depot, he lit his lantern and stepped outside onto the platform to smoke a cigarette. A misty rain began to fall. In the distance, an unexplained noise pierced the darkness. Startled, Matthews leaned over the edge of the platform to investigate the source of the sound, but he lost his balance and fell onto the tracks below, knocking him unconscious.

Finally, the lonesome, crying whistle from the incoming train sounded. As the train barrelled toward the station, the conductor saw no one waiting to board at the Vander station. He did, however, see a faint glimmer on the horizon. When the conductor finally realized that the glimmer belonged to a lantern, he caught a glimpse of Matthews' body sprawled across the tracks. The conductor slammed on his brakes, but it was too late. Matthews was killed instantly.

Now, one can allegedly see a flickering light above the train tracks where Vander Station used to stand. The light floatover the tracks for a few seconds and then disappears. Watch your back, though. Eyewitnesses have claimed that if you get too close to the light, it will indeed disappear...only to reappear a few seconds later behind you.

Legend has it that the flicker is the flame from the old switchman's lantern, swinging back and forth from Matthews' ghostly hand. Naysayers may claim that the light is merely phosphorescent swamp gas, known as will o' the wisp. In marshy areas, such as the area where the Vander station was, natural gas is known to escape from the ground and glow as it rises. Skeptics might believe this story, but anyone who has actually seen the Vander Light holds firm to the idea that the light indicates the spirit of Archer Matthews, still waiting on the train that never comes and searching for the sound that literally scared him to death.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Now the home of the Women's Club of Fayetteville, the Sanford House on Dick St. is rumored to also be the home of a ghostly presence. Eyewitnesses have seen the spectre of a woman in black. The spirit has been known to slowly descend the staircase and then forlornly ascend to the landing and disappear. Who is this phantom lady? There are a couple of possibilties.

The most popular tale tells of a young woman searching for her lost love. As the story goes, a Civil War soldier was killed in the Sanford House and buried in the basement-possibly in the old vault that was used when the house served as a bank in the 1820's. The soldier's sweetheart searched the house for him, not knowing that she would never see him alive again. Devastated by her loss, the young woman mourned for the solider until her own death-a death which some say occurred as a result of her broken heart. Now she haunts the stairs of the house, still searching for her love for all of eternity.

Other stories claim that the spirit may be Margaret Halliday, the daughter of a prominent Fayetteville family and the wife of banker John Cameron. Cameron, who was the cashier of the Bank of Fayetteville, lived on the second floor of the house when it served as the bank's headquarters. Upon his marriage, Cameron bought the house and the family lived there for several years. Incidentally, the Oval Ballroom, which stands next door to the Sanford House, was supposedly built for the Halliday-Cameron wedding.

THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY

Speaking of the Oval Ballroom, the ornate and oddly-shaped structure has some secrets that lie within its walls. Its story centers around Ann K. Simpson. Her 1850 murder trial was the "trial of the century" in her time-a captivating and controversial tale for a captivating and controversial woman.
On the night of November 8, 1849 Ann's husband Alexander, a wealthy carriage shop owner, died suddenly. Autopsy results revealed that Alexander had been poisoned with arsenic. The only suspect was his wife. A warrant was issued for Anne's arrest, and she was extradited from Havana, Cuba where she had fled to shortly after Alexander's demise.

Anne was the first woman ever tried for murder in Cumberland County and possibly in the state of North Carolina. The testimony presented at her trial was truly sensational: letters alluding to infidelity and Ann's visit to fortune-teller Polly Rising, who predicted that Alexander would be dead within a week. Then, there was the most damning evidence of all. An employee from Samuel J. Hinsdale's drugstore testified that Ann had purchased an ounce of arsenic, supposedly to kill rats, soon before Alexander's death. The prosecution claimed that Ann had used the rat poison to taint her husband's coffee at dinner in the Oval Ballroom on the fateful night.

In his closing statement, defense lawyer D. K. MacRae said, "You cannot give her peace. You cannot restore her joy. But gentlemen, you can let her live." The jury deliberated for three hours and returned with a not guilty verdict.

Did Ann really poison her husband and fool the jury into believing that she was innocent? Or was she the victim of an unusual coincidence? She took the truth to her grave. Only she (and perhaps Alexander) knew whether she had gotten away with murder.

THE KYLE HOUSE PRESENCE

The Kyle House, the grand Greek Revival Style house on Green Street, might be home to a restless spirit of its own. Several witnesses have claimed to hear strange disembodied noises in the house, such as furniture moving on its own or footsteps on an otherwise empty staircase. When one enters the Kyle House, there is definitely a strange vibe radiating from its elegant walls. Maybe its visitors are being watched.

The house belonged to family patriarch James Kyle, a merchant and prominent city figure who immigrated to Fayetteville from Scotland. He built the beautiful dwelling around 1855 after his first home was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1831. After Kyle's death, his daughter Annie lived in the house. Annie was a nurse during the Civil War era. She eventually rented the house to borders, and for a while, the Kyle House served as city offices.

The strange atmosphere in the house is most often attributed to the presence of the spirit of old James Kyle. Is he still roaming the hallways, still taking care of his home from beyond the grave? Visit the Kyle House and listen up. Maybe you'll hear him yourself.

By Lepprichaun72

Urban Legend from Mexico

2008-10-24T09:27:00.003+08:00

Halo PRSG Team. I'm Alejandro and I have been reading PRSG published articles since February and I am really have interest to join PRSG in researching for Urban Legend and Myth...

So as a start, I have this article about urban legend in Mexico regarding famous gold mine complex. Gracias PRSG for publish this article to share with other readers

Mina Dos Estrellas (Mee-nah Dose Eh-stray-us) "Mine Two Stars", an abandoned gold mining complex tucked into the mountains near the small farming village of Tlalpujahua (Tuh-LAL-poo-HA-wah), Michoacan, Mexico. At its peak, this mine employed over 5,000 workers and was one of the largest producers of gold in Mexico.

In 1903, European settlers invaded Tlalpujahua (Tuh-LAL-poo-HA-wah). When the settlers learned the surrounding mountains held a fortune in gold, local villagers warned against any excavation plans. They believed that the mountain's gold was guarded by a Nahaul (Nuh-wall (proper spelling is "Nagual")) an ancient Mexican sorcerer controlled by El Diablo, the devil. The Nahaul is one of the most feared creatures in all of Mexican folklore. The meaning of Nahaul comes from a combination of ancient Aztec words: "Naualli" (Nuh-waa-LEE), which referred to the sorcerers, or holders of the dark powers, and the word, "Nagual" (Nah-GWALL), which meant the animal companion, or one who walks upright next to man. An early Aztec writing about the Nahaul has been translated as follows:

All at once, the trees begin to rustle and the wind began to moan. And then out of the darkness came a terrible phantom--the Nahaul. He stood seven or eight feet tall, and stood as though he were a man. But it was an animal covered in hair, with long arms, and the feet and claws of a wolf. It had wolf's ears and a wolf's mouth, but the expression of an evil man. It made an extraordinary noise--a howl that pierced with hellish glee. It was there for only a moment, and then disappeared. It was approaching sunrise. I knew I would see it again when the sun set. The villagers believed the Nahaul had the ability to change from human form to beasts such as wolves, snakes, pumas and wild dogs. The settlers paid no attention to the locals' superstitions and constructed a huge mining mill, digging 10 miles of tunnels into the mountains and pillaging the gold they were warned not to touch. Prosperity came at a price. Conditions at the mine were atrocious, employees were overworked and exploited, and fatalities were frequent.

During the mine's operation, many unexplainable accidents, deaths and suicides occurred throughout the Mina Dos Estrellas complex. Men broke through rock and plummeted hundreds of feet to their death, never to be found. Others hit pockets of dead air, causing them to suffocate instantly. Men lost limbs on the giant machinery of the complex. Many died from the smallest of injuries since the owners refused to provide proper medical treatment for them. It was often said that the chances of surviving an injury were better if one avoided the hospital. As the accidents increased at the mine, local authorities searched for rational explanations. The workers had their own ideas: They blamed many of the accidents on the beastly Nahaul.
In 1937, unseasonable torrential rains provoked a flood that washed through the gold mine tunnels, killing over 400 workers. The flood brought production to a permanent halt at the Mina Dos Estrellas. The owners said the flood was an act of nature, but the villagers and surviving workers once again blamed the Nahaul. They refused to return to the property for fear of what lurked in its buildings.

A few years after the flood, the villagers of Tlalpujahua became plagued with horrific and gruesome deaths. Many were attacked while they slept. Livestock grazing in the area were found mutilated, and children were reported missing. People believed that the Nahaul continued to stalk the mine and surrounding area. Parents told their children horrible bedtime tales of the shape-shifting beast, and people guarded their homes with barbed wire and high fences. Every precaution was taken, yet the deaths continued.

Desperate, the villagers turned to a local curandero, a folk magic practitioner. He performed an ancient tribal ritual to draw the Nahaul into the mine tunnels. He then instructed the villagers to seal the Nahaul in the gold mine with large boulders and warned against ever re-opening it.

Recently, villagers of Tlalpujahua have reported seeing beasts wandering the abandoned gold mine. Within the last few months, farmers with land bordering the Mina Dos Estrellas have reported unexplainable animal mutilations. Chants and horrible cries echo through the area. Rumors that the Nahaul has returned to use the Mina Dos Estrellas as its home have kept the villagers of Tlalpujahua away from the gold mine. They claim this complex is haunted by dead workers and remains home to the Nahaul

(as email to PRSG admin)

For all readers and friends

2008-09-28T15:22:00.003+08:00

Paracrypt Research and Study Group would like to wish to all the muslim readers, visitors and researchers a bless Eid Fitri..

May this coming Eid will brings joy and happy times..

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Maaf Zahir dan Batin

From
Paracrypt Research and Study Group Team

Mythical Beast, Modern-day Monster

2008-09-26T15:36:00.005+08:00

Bunyip

The Aborigines Dreamtime stories of creation were full of fantastic and magical beasts; the Bunyip was one of the beasts. In Dreamtime the Bunyip was a spirit, which inhabited river, lakes, swamps, and billabongs (former parts of rivers that were left behind when the course of the river was altered). Like other beasts in Dreamtime, the Bunyip was malevolent towards human beings. The Bunyip would defend it's watery home from all who invaded it, normally devouring the invader. At night the Bunyip was said to go and prey upon women and children. Because the Bunyip was such a threat to the Aborigines of the time whenever its terrifying bellowing cry was heard Aborigines steered clear of any water sources.

To the Aborigines the Bunyip was a beast of many different shapes and sizes. Some Bunyips were covered in feathers; some even had scales like crocodiles. Common features in most Aboriginal drawings of Bunyips are a horse-like tail, flippers, and tusks like the ones found on walruses. Modern Bunyip

The settler's view of the Bunyip varies greatly from that of the Aborigines. Whereas the Dreamtime Bunyip was a fierce man-killer, the more modern view sees them are herbivorous grazing animals. The Aborigine's fear of Bunyip can probably be traced back to a known aquatic man-killer, the saltwater crocodile. Settlers also report two different kinds of Bunyips. The more common of the two has a dog-like face and a long shaggy coat. The second and more rare of the Bunyips is the reported to have a long maned neck, as well as a shaggy coat. As to not create confusion between the two Bunyips; the common Bunyip will be called the Dog-faced Bunyip, and the rarer Bunyip will be called the Long-necked Bunyip.

The Dog-faced Bunyip is commonly thought to inhabit lakes and rivers in New South Wales, Victoria, and Australian Capital Territory. There have also been a few Dog-Faced Bunyip sightings on the off shore island state of Tasmania. Reports of the Long-necked Bunyip have only come from New South Wales. No mystery animals fitting the description of the Bunyip have come from Iran Jaya or Papua New Guinea. Sightings

Most sightings of the Bunyip occurred during the 19th century, with a few sighting in the past century. One morning in November 1821, E.S. Hall saw a Dog-faced Bunyip with jet-black hair in the marsh running into Lake Bathurst South, New South Wales.

In 1847 a young herdsmen saw a Long-necked Bunyip grazing while he was looking for some cows in a flooded area. A local settler, George Hobler, reported the young herdsman's story to the Sydney Morning Herald. According to the report made Hobler:

"It was about as big as a six months' old calf, of a dark brown colour, a long neck, and long pointed head; it had large ears which pricked up when it perceived him (the herdsmen); had a thick mane of hair from the head down the neck, and two large tusks. He turned to run away, and this creature equally alarmed ran off too, and from glance he took at it he describes it as having an awkward shambling gallop; the forequarters of the animal were very large in proportion to the hindquarters, and it had a large tail."

He took two men to the place next morning to look for its track, which they described as broad and square, somewhat like what the spread hand of a man would make in soft muddy ground

In 1852 a Dog-faced Bunyip was observed in Lake Tiberias, Tasmania. It was described as being 4 to 4½ feet long, with a head like a bulldog and black shaggy fur. While rowing across Great Lake, Tasmania, Charles Headlam and a friend almost bumped into a Dog-faced Bunyip. They described it as being about the size of a fully-grown sheepdog, and having two small wing-like flippers. The Bunyip stayed at the top of the water until it swam out of view.

In 1872 three men watched a Dog-faced Bunyip swimming in Midgeon Lagoon, New South Wales for about a half-hour. One of the men gave the following first-hand description to the Wagga Wagga Advertiser: Half as long again as an ordinary retriever dog; the hair all over its body was jet-black and shining, its coat was very long, the hair spreading out on the surface of the water for about 5 inches, and floating loosely as the creature rose and fell by its own motion. I could not detect any tail, and the hair about its head was too long and glossy to admit of my seeing its eyes; the ears were well marked.

In 1886 some horsemen were fording a river near Canberra reported seeing a Dog-faced Bunyip, which was about the size of a dog and had a white coat. They threw stones at the Bunyip until it was out of sight. A similar beast was shot at in New South Wales; it retreated into a lagoon and was said to make a grunting sound. Then in 1890 an expedition by the Melbourne Zoo failed to capture a Bunyip commonly seen in the Euroa district near Victoria. Bernard Heuvelmans reports Bunyip sightings from as recently as 1932 near large hydroelectric dams in Tasmania. The Line Up

Now that we've gone over the different sightings of the Bunyip we must ask ourselves if it truly exists as evidence suggests, then what is it?

It seems that there is one extinct animal out there to explain every cryptid now days. The Bunyip is no exception. Diprotodons were large rhino sized plant eating marsupials, which went extinct about 10,000 years ago. Since nearly everything in Australia is a marsupial, why not the Bunyip? Much like the modern view of the Bunyip, the diprotodon was a grazing animal. Lifestyle wise it has been compared to modern cattle, rhinos, and tapirs.

Officially there is only one known species of diprotodon (Diprotodon australis) and it is unclear if it was a somewhat aquatic animal. Although some researchers believe that if diprotodon did survive then it evolved into something like a marsupial hippo. If this is true then a diprotodon could indeed be a Bunyip. Appearance wise the diprotodon is similar to the Bunyip. It had a face somewhat like that of a dog, as well as a somewhat shaggy coat; both major traits of the Bunyip. So could the Bunyip be a diprotodon? Yes, but first we would have to accept the fact that diprotodons survived and evolved into a hippo-like animal. That alone could be a hard theory to stomach.

Of all the animals that frequent Australia, seals fit the description of the Bunyip the best. Researchers have used the seal to explain the Bunyip in one of two ways. The first of these theories seems the more likely one. This is the theory that seals worked their way into the interior lakes and swamps through rivers. Then people who are not use to seeing seals misidentify them for the Bunyip. The second and more radical of the two theories is that long ago seals did work their way into the interior, but somehow became trapped. Eventually these trapped seals adapted to their freshwater conditions, and fur coats would eventually replace their blubber. If we accept this theory then it could also explain the Bunyip.

As stated earlier the first seal theory does seem the more likely of the two. The fact that most Bunyips are seeing swimming in the water and only their heads are visible strengthens the misidentified seal theory. But it is those few land sightings of Bunyips, which proves that not all sightings are of just seals. The search for the Bunyip's identity continues.

It is thought that most of the sightings of Bunyips from the early parts of the 20th century were of nothing more then fugitives hiding in the swamps and billabongs. The billabongs were a prime area to hide from the long arm of the law, since they are such inhospitable places. Those hiding there were called swaggies, whenever they heard something coming their way they would take cover under the water. Once they thought the coast was clear they would rise up out the water, normally covered in muck and weeds. Anyone who was still around would most certainly be frightened by the whole ordeal and run off. So some Bunyips weren't Bunyips at all just men hiding in the billabongs. Just like the seal theory, not all Bunyip reports can be written off as nothing more than swaggies.

Conclusion

The Bunyip is one of those animals that can't just be written off as myth. The fact that reports of them go back to the Dreamtime stories proves this, the sightings by settlers strengthens it. What we have is a genuine mystery aquatic animal here, or should I say we did. With the lack of reports in recent years it seems the Bunyip may have gone extinct. If this is true then it will be a great tragedy to cryptozoology. Here is a truly magnificent animal that may have gone extinct before its existence was even proven. Until a dedicated researcher comes along, and is willing to waste money and man-hours searching will we discover the truth behind the story of the Bunyip.

Yeti: Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas

2008-09-26T15:32:00.003+08:00

A tibetian fortress below the mountains were the Yeti is supposed to roam.

The Himalaya Mountains, the highest range on Earth, have been referred to as the "roof of the world." If that is so, there is a mystery called the Yeti in our attic. In Tibetan the word means "magical creature" and truly it is a seemingly supernatural enigma in the shape of a hairy, biped creature that resembles a giant ape.

The Himalayas lie on the border between India, Nepal, and Tibet (now part of China). They are remote and forbidding. Large stretches around these rough valleys and peaks are uninhabited. The tallest mountain in the world, Everest, 29,028 feet high, lies half in Nepal, half in China. It is from Nepal, though, that most attempts to climb Everest, and the surrounding mountains, are made.

In Katmandu, the capitol of Nepal, a visitor finds himself immersed in the Yeti legend. He is a commercial money maker for the tourist industry (there's even a Hotel named the "Yak and the Yeti") as well as legend, religion and fantasy to some of the Neplaese people.

The first reliable report of the Yeti appeared in 1925 when a Greek photographer, N. A. Tombazi, working as a member of a British geological expedition in the Himalayas, was shown a creature moving in the distance across some lower slopes. The creature was almost a thousand feet away in a narea with an altitude of around 15,000 feet.

"Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to uproot or pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes," said Tombazi, "It showed up dark against the snow and, as far as I could make out wore no clothes."

The creature disappeared before Tombazi could take a photograph and was not seen again. The group was descending, though, and the photographer went out of his way to see the ground were he had spotted the creature. Tombazi found footprints in the snow.

"They were similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide at the broadest part of the foot. The marks of five distinct toes and the instep were perfectly clear, but the trace of the heel was indistinct..."

There were 15 prints to be found. Each was one and one half to two feet apart. Then Tombazi lost the trail in thick brush. When the locals were asked to name the beast he'd seen they told him it was a "Kanchenjunga demon." Tombazi didn't think he'd seen a demon, but he couldn't figure out what the creature was either. Perhaps he'd seen a wandering Buddhist or Hindu ascetic or hermit. As the years went by though and other Yeti stories surfaced, Tombazi began to wonder if he'd seen one too.

Yeti reports usually come in the form of tracks found, pelts offered, shapes seen at a distance, or rarely, actual face-to-face encounters with the creatures. Face to face encounters never come with researchers looking for the Yeti, but with locals who stumble into the creature during their daily lives.

Some of the best tracks ever seen were found and photographed by British mountaineers Eric Shipton and Micheal Ward in 1951. They found them on the southwestern slopes of the Menlung Glacier, which lies between Tibet and Nepal, at an altitude of 20,000 feet. Each print was thirteen inches wide and some eighteen inches long. The tracks seemed fresh and Shipton and Ward followed the trail for a mile before it disappeared in hard ice.

Some scientists that viewed the photographs could not identify the tracks as from any known creature. Others, though, felt it was probably the trail of a languar monkey or red bear. They noted the tracks in snow, melted by the sun, can change shape and grow larger. Even so, the bear/monkey theory seems unlikely as both of these animals normally move on all four feet. The tracks were clearly that of a biped.

Shipton's and Ward's reputations argue against a hoax on their part and the remoteness and height of the trail's location argues against them being hoaxed.

Shipton's footprints were not the first or last discovered by climbers among the Himalayas. Even Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, on their record ascent to the top of Mount Everest, in 1953, found giant foot prints on the way up.

One of the more curious reports of a close encounter with a Yeti occurred in 1938. Captain d'Auvergue, the curator of the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, India, was traveling the Himalayas by himself when he became snowblind. As he neared death from exposure he was rescued by a nine foot tall Yeti that nursed him back to health until d'Auvergue was able to return home by himself.

In many other stories, though, the Yeti hasn't been so benign. One Sherpa girl, who was tending her yaks, described being surprised by a large ape-like creature with black and brown hair. It started to drag her off, but seemed to be startled by her screams and let her go. It then savagely killed two of her yaks. She escaped with her life and the incident was reported to the police, who found footprints.

Several expeditions have been organized to track down the Yeti, but none have found more than footprints and questionable artifacts like scalps and hides. The London Daily Mail sent an expedition in 1954. American oil men Tom Slick and F. Kirk Johnson financed trips in 1957, 58, and 59. Probably the most well-known expedition went in 1960.

Sir Edmund Hillary, the same man that had first climbed Everest in 1953, lead the 1960 trip in association with Desmond Doig. The expedition was sponsored by the World Book Encyclopedia and was well outfitted with trip-wire cameras, as well as timelapse and infrared photography. Despite a ten-month stay the group failed to find any convincing evidence of the existence of the Yeti. The artifacts they examined, two skins and a scalp, turned out to belong to two blue bears and a serow goat.

At the time Hillary and Doig wrote off the Yeti as legend. Later, though, Doig decided that the expedition hadbeen too big and clumsy. They didn't see a Yeti, he agreed, but nor did they observe such animals like the snow leopard which was known to exist.

After spending thirty years in the Himalayas Doig believes that the Yeti is actually three animals. The first is what the Sherpas call the "dzu teh." Large shaggy animals that often attack cattle. Diog thinks this is probably the Tibetan blue bear. A creature so rare it is known only in the west through a few skins, bones and a skull. The second type, called "thelma," is probably a gibbon (a known type of ape) that Diog thinks may live as far north as Nepal, though it's never been spotted past the Brahmaputra River in India. The third Yeti, "mih teh," is the true abominable snowman of legend. A savage ape, covered with black or red hair that lives at altitudes of up to 20,000 feet.

So far there is no firm evidence to support the existence of the Yeti, but there is no way show that he doesn't exist either. If he indeed lives in the barren, frozen, upper reaches of the Himalayas where few men dare to tread, he may find his refuge safe for a long time to come.

THE MYRTLES PLANTATION- Fact behind the haunting

2008-09-09T15:17:00.014+08:00

THE LEGENDARY MYRTLES PLANTATION IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LOUISIANA HAS LONG BEEN REGARDED AS ONE OF “AMERICA’S MOST HAUNTED HOUSES”. AND WHILE SCORES OF GHOST HUNTERS WILL SWEAR TO THE FACT THAT THE HOUSE IS INFESTED WITH GHOSTS, THESE SAME INVESTIGATORS WOULD BE PUZZLED TO LEARN THAT FEW OF THE STORIES THAT HAVE BEEN PASSED ALONG AS “FACT” ACTUALLY OCCURRED.

THIS HOUSE IS CERTAINLY HAUNTED -- BUT NOT FOR ANY OF THE REASONS THAT WE HAVE BEEN TOLD FOR SO LONG! FOR THE FIRST TIME, DISCOVER THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE MYRTLES AND ITS PLETHORA OF GHOSTS AND HAUNTING!

Handprints in the mirrors, footsteps on the stairs, mysterious smells, vanishing objects, death by poison, hangings, murder and gunfire -- the Myrtles Plantation in the West Feliciana town of St. Francisville, Louisiana holds the rather dubious record of hosting more ghostly phenomena than just about any other house in the country. But what could be more dubious than the honor itself -- perhaps some of the questionable history that has been presented to “explain” why the house is so haunted in the first place!

Long perceived as one of the most haunted house in America, the Myrtles attracts an almost endless stream of visitors each year and many of them come in search of ghosts. It is not our purpose here to do anything to discourage these visitors from coming -- or even to discourage them to looking for the ghosts that they can almost certainly find here. The purpose of this article is to question the “facts” as they have been presented by several generations of Myrtles owners and guides -- facts and history that many of them know is blatantly false. We have no wish to try and debunk the ghosts, merely the identities that they have been given over the years. The Myrtles, according to hundreds of people who have encountered the unexplained here, is haunted -- but not for the reasons that we have all been told.

But why go to the trouble to debunk the myths that have been created over the last fifty-some-odd years? Surely, they aren’t hurting anyone, so why bother to expose them as the creation of rich imaginations? To that, we can only say that no dedicated ghost hunter should be afraid to seek the truth. As the history of a house is the most important key to discovering just why it might be haunted in the first place, it seems to be imperative to discover the real history of the site. It has often been recommended to sift through the legends and folklore of the place in a search for a kernel of truth. This is exactly what we did in the article that follows --- we have examined the lore in a search for the truth and have found it. It might not be as glamorous as the legends of the Myrtles Plantation that we have all heard about but it is certainly strange. The real history of the plantation is filled with death, tragedy and despair, leading us to wonder why a fanciful history was created in its place. That question will likely never be answered but many others will.

THE HISTORY OF THE MYRTLES PLANTATION:
THE TRUTH & THE LEGENDS

Since the Myrtles were built by David Bradford in 1794, it has allegedly been the site of the scene of at least 10 murders. In truth, only one person was ever murdered here but as has been stated already, some of the people who have owned the house have never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. But as you will soon see, the plantation has an unusual history that genuinely did occur -- and one that could (and has) left its own real ghosts behind.

David Bradford was born in America to Irish immigrants and was one of five children. In 1777. He purchased a tract of land and a small stone house near Washington County, Pennsylvania. He became a successful attorney, businessman and Deputy Attorney General for the county. His first attempt to marry ended only days before his wedding (nothing is known about this) but he later met and married Elizabeth Porter in 1785 and started a family.

As his family and business grew, Bradford needed a larger home and built a new one in the town of Washington. The house became well known in the region for its size and remarkable craftsmanship, with a mahogany staircase and woodwork imported from England. Many of the items had to be transported from the east coast and over the Pennsylvania mountains at great expense. Bradford would use the parlor of the house as an office, where he would meet with his clients.

Unfortunately, he was not able to enjoy the house for long. In October 1794, he was forced to flee the house, leaving his family behind. Bradford became involved in the infamous Whiskey Rebellion and legend has it that President George Washington placed a price on the man’s head for his role in the affair. The Whiskey Rebellion took place in western Pennsylvania and really began as a series of grievances over high prices and taxes forced on those living along the frontier at that time. The complaints eventually erupted into violence when a mob attacked and burned down the home of a local tax collector. In the months that followed, residents resisted a tax that had been placed on whiskey and while most of the protests were nonviolent, WashingtonBradford left the region on the advice of some of the other principals in the affair.

After leaving Washington, Bradford first went to Pittsburgh. Leaving his family in safety, he traveled down the Ohio River to the Mississippi. He eventually settled near Bayou Sara, near what is now St. Francisville, Louisiana. Bradford was no stranger to this area. He had originally traveled here in 1792 to try and obtain a land grant from Spain. When he returned in 1796, he purchased 600 acres of land and a year later, built a modest, eight-room home that he named “Laurel Grove”. He lived there alone until 1799, when he received a pardon for his role in the Whiskey Rebellion from newly elected President John Adams. He was given the pardon for his assistance in establishing a boundary line, known historically as “Ellicott’s Line” between SpainUnited States.

After receiving the pardon, Bradford returned to Pennsylvania to bring his wife and five children back to Louisiana. He returned again to Pennsylvania in 1801 to try and sell his home but after two years passed with no buyers, he finally agreed to trade the home and property for 230 barrels of flour that were to be delivered to his home in Bayou Sarah. At the time, New Orleans

While living in Bayou Sarah, Bradford occasionally took in students who wanted to study the law. One of them, Clark Woodrooff, not only earned a law degree but he also married his teacher's daughter, Sarah Mathilda.

Clark Woodrooff was born in Litchfield County, Connecticut in August 1791. Having no desire to follow in his father's footsteps as a farmer, he left Connecticut at the age of 19 and sought his fortune on the Mississippi River, ending up in Bayou Sarah. He arrived in 1810, the same year that citizens of the Feliciana parish rose up in revolt against the Spanish garrison at Baton Rouge. They overthrew the Spanish and then set up a new territory with its capital being St. Francisville. The territory extended from the Mississippi River to as far east as the PerdidoRiverMobile.

Still seeking to make his fortune, Woodrooff placed an advertisement in the new St. Francisville newspaper, the Time Piece , in the summer of 1811. He informed the public that "an academy would be opening on the first Monday in September for the reception of students." He planned to offer English, grammar, astronomy, geography, elocution, composition, penmanship and Greek and Latin languages. The academy was apparently short-lived for in 1814, he joined Colonel Hide's cavalry regiment from the Feliciana parish to fight alongside Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. When the smoke cleared and the War of 1812 had ended, Woodrooff returned to St. Francisville with the intention of studying law.

He began his studies with Judge David Bradford and soon earned his degree. He also succumbed to the charms of the Bradford daughter, the lovely Sarah Mathilda. Their romance blossomed under the shade of the crape myrtles that reportedly gave the home its lasting name. The young couple was married on November 19, 1817 and for their honeymoon, Woodrooff took his new bride to the Hermitage, the Tennessee home of his friend, Andrew Jackson.

After the death of David Bradford, Woodrooff managed Laurel Grove for his mother-in-law, Elizabeth. He expanded the holdings of the plantation and planted about 650 acres of indigo and cotton. Together, he and Sarah Mathilda had three children, Cornelia Gale, James, and Mary Octavia. Tragically though, their happiness would not last.

On July 21, 1823, Sarah Mathilda died after contacting yellow fever. The disease was spread through a number of epidemics that swept through Louisiana in those days. Hardly a family in the region went untouched by tragedy and despair. Although heartbroken, Woodrooff continued to manage the plantation and to care for his children with help from Elizabeth. But the dark days were not yet over… On July 15, 1824, his only son James, also died from yellow fever and two months later, in September, Cornelia Gale was also felled by the dreaded disease.

Woodrooff's life would never be the same but he managed to purchase the farm outright from his mother-in-law. She was quite elderly by this time and was happy to see the place in good hands. She continued to live at Laurel Grove with her son-in-law and granddaughter Octavia until her death in 1830.

After Elizabeth died, Woodrooff turned his attentions away from farming to the practice of law. He and Octavia moved away from Laurel Grove and he left the plantation under the management of a caretaker. He was appointed to a judge's position over District D in Covington, Louisiana and he served in this capacity until April 1835. On January 1, 1834, he sold Laurel Grove to Ruffin Grey Stirling.

By this time, Woodrooff was living on Rampart Street in New Orleans and had changed the spelling of his last name to "Woodruff". He had also been elected as the president of public works for the city. During this period, Octavia was sent to a finishing school in New Haven, ConnecticutNew Orleans.

In 1840, the Louisiana governor, Isaac Johnson, appointed Woodruff to the newly created office of Auditor of Public Works and he served for one term. Then, at 60 years of age, he retired and moved to Oaklawn to live with Octavia and her husband. He devoted the remainder of his life to the study of chemistry and physics and died on November 25, 1851. He was buried in the GirodStreet Cemetery in New Orleans.

An interesting side note to the story concerns this cemetery. The graveyard fell into great disrepair and was eventually abandoned. In the 1960's, the city hoped to renovate this part of the city and sent out a notice to families that the cemetery was going to be moved to a new location on Canal Street. The bodies that were not claimed were gathered and placed in large drums, then buried in a mass grave under the Hope Mausoleum. Clark Woodruff was one of those who was not claimed. The old Girod Street Cemetery was once located under the present-day site of the New Orleans Superdome.

In 1834, Laurel Grove was purchased by Ruffin Grey Stirling. The Stirling's were a very wealthy family who owned several plantations on both sides of the Mississippi River. On January 1, Ruffin Grey Stirling and his wife, Mary Catherine Cobb, took over the house, land, buildings and all of the slaves that had been bought from Elizabeth Bradford by her son-in-law.

Since the Stirling's were so well thought of in the community, they needed a house that was befitting their social status. They decided to remodel Laurel Grove. Stirling added the broad central hallway of the house and the entire southern section. The walls of the original house were removed and repositioned to create four large rooms that were used as identical ladies and gentlemen's parlors, a formal dining room and a game room. Year-long trips to Europe to purchase fine furnishings resulted in the importation of skilled craftsmen as well. Elaborate plaster cornices were created for many of the rooms, made from a mixture of clay, Spanish moss and cattle hair. On the outside of the house, Stirling added a 107-foot long front gallery that was supported by cast-iron support posts and railings. The original roof of the house was extended to encompass the new addition, copying the existing dormers to maintain a smooth line. The addition had higher ceilings than the original house so the second story floor was raised one foot. The completed project nearby doubled the size of David Bradford's house and in keeping with the renovations, the name of the plantation was officially changed to the "Myrtles".

Four years after the completion of the project, Stirling died on July 17, 1854 of consumption. He left his vast holdings in the care of his wife, Mary Cobb, who most referred to as a remarkable woman. Many other plantation owners stated that she "had the business acumen of a man", which was high praise for a woman in those days, and she managed to run all of she and her husband's farms almost single-handedly, for many years.

In spite of this, the family was often visited by tragedy. Of nine children, only four of them lived to be old enough to marry. The oldest son, Lewis, died in the same year as his father and daughter Sarah Mulford's husband was actually murdered on the front porch of the house after the Civil War. The war itself wreaked on the Myrtles and the Stirling family. Many of the family's personal belongings were looted and destroyed by Federal soldiers and the wealth that they had accumulated was ultimately in worthless Confederate currency. To make matters worse, Mary Cobb had been invested heavily in sugar plantations that had been ravaged by the war. She eventually lost all of her property. She never let the tragedies of the war, and others that followed after, overcome her however and she held onto the Myrtles until her death in August 1880. She is buried next to her husband in a family plot at Grace Church in St. Francisville.

On December 5, 1865, Mary Cobb hired, William Drew Winter, the husband of her daughter, Sarah Mulford, to act as her agent and attorney and to help her manage the plantation lands. As part of the deal, she gave Sarah and William the Myrtles as their home.

William Winter had been born to Captain Samuel Winter and Sarah Bowman on October 28, 1820 in Bath, Maine. Little is known about his life or how he managed to meet Sarah Mulford Stirling. However, they were married on June 3, 1852 at the Myrtles and together; they had six children, Mary, Sarah, Kate, Ruffin, William and Francis. Kate died from typhoid at the age of three. The Winter's first lived at Gantmore plantation, near Clinton, Louisiana and then bought a plantation on the west side of the Mississippi known as Arbroath.

Twelve years after the death of Ruffin Stirling, and after the Civil War, William was named as agent and attorney by Mary Stirling to help her with the remaining lands, including Ingleside, Crescent Park, Botany Bay and the Myrtles. In return, Mary gave William the use of the Myrtles as his home. Times were terrible though and Winter was unable to hold onto it. By December 1867, he was completely bankrupt and the Myrtles was sold by the U.S. Marshal to the New York Warehouse & Security Company on April 15, 1868. Two years late however, on April 23,the property was sold back Mrs. Sarah M. Winter as the heir of her late father, Ruffin G. Stirling. It is unknown just what occurred to cause this reversal of fortune but it seemed as though things were improving for the family once again.

But soon after, tragedy struck the Myrtles once more. According to the January 1871 issue of the Point Coupee Democrat newspaper, Winter was teaching a Sunday School lesson in the gentlemen's parlor of the house when he heard someone approach the house on horseback. After the stranger called out to him and told him that he had some business with him, Winter went out onto the side gallery of the house and was shot. He collapsed onto the porch and died. Those inside of the house, stunned by the sound of gunfire and the retreating horse, hurried outside to find the fallen man. Winter died on January 26, 1871 and was buried the following day at Grace Church. The newspaper reported that a man named E.S. Webber was to stand trial for Winter's murder but no outcome of the case was ever recorded. As far as is known, Winter's killer remains unidentified and unpunished.

Sarah was devastated by the incident and never remarried. She remained at the Myrtles with her mother and brothers until her death in April 1878 at the age of only 44.

After the death of Mary Cobb Stirling in 1880, the Myrtles was purchased by Stephen Stirling, one of her sons. He bought out his brothers but only maintained ownership of the house until March 1886. There are some who say that he squandered what was left of his fortune and lost the plantation in a game of chance but most likely, the place was just too deep in debt for him to hold onto. He sold the Myrtles to Oran D. Brooks, ending his family's ownership. Brooks kept it until January 1889 when, after a series of transfers, it was purchased by Harrison Milton Williams, a Mississippi widower who brought his young son and second wife, Fannie Lintot Haralson, to the house in 1891.

Injured during the Civil War, in which he began service as a 15 year-old Confederate cavalry courier, Williams planted cotton and gained a reputation as a hard-working and industrious man. He and his family, which grew to include his wife and seven children, kept the Myrtles going during the hard times of the post-war South. But tragedy was soon to strike the Myrtles again.

During a storm, the Williams' oldest son, Harry, was trying to gather up some stray cattle and fell into the Mississippi and drowned. Shattered with grief, Harrison and Fannie turned over management of the property to their son Surget Minor Williams, who married a local girl named Jessie Folkes and provided a home at the Myrtles for his spinster sister and maiden aunt Katie. Secretly called "the colonel" behind her back, Katie was a true Southern character. Eccentric and kind, but with a gruff exterior, she kept life interesting at the house for years.

By the 1950's, the property surrounding the house had been divided among the Williams heirs and the house itself was sold to Marjorie Munson, an Oklahoma widow who had been made wealthy by chicken farms. It was at this point, they say, that the ghost stories of the house began. They started innocently enough but soon, what may have been real-life ghostly occurrences took on a "life" of their own. near mobilized a militia and sends them into suppress the rebellion. Once the protests were brought under control, and the was suffering from a shortage of flour and he thought he could sell the barrels and make back any money that he had lost in the trade. However, until the day that he died in 1817, he never received the shipment of flour. He tried repeatedly for years to settle the debt but it simply never happened. but she returned home to live with her father in 1836. Two years later, she married Colonel Lorenzo Augustus Besancon and moved to his plantation, Oaklawn, five miles north of

THE GHOSTS STORIES OF THE MYRTLES:
SEPARATING TRUTH FROM FICTION

There is no question that the most famous ghostly tale of the Myrtles is that of Chloe, the vengeful slave who murdered the wife and two daughters of Clark Woodruff in a fit of jealously and anger. Those who have been reading the article so far have already guessed that there are some serious flaws in this story but for the sake of being complete, we have include the story here as it has long been told by owners and guides at the house.

THE LEGEND OF CHLOE

According to the story, the troubles that led to the haunting began in 1817 when Sarah Mathilda married Clark Woodruff. Sara Matilda had given birth to two daughters and was carrying a third child, when an event took place that still haunts the Myrtles today.

Woodruff, had a reputation in the region for integrity with men and with the law, but was also known for being promiscuous. While his wife was pregnant with their third child, he started an intimate relationship with one of his slaves. This particular girl, whose name was Chloe, was a household servant who, while she hated being forced to give in to Woodruff's sexual demands, realized that if she didn't, she could be sent to work in the fields, which was the most brutal of the slave's work.

Eventually, Woodruff tired of Chloe and chose another girl with whom to carry on. Chloe feared the worst, sure that she was going to be sent to the fields, and she began eavesdropping on the Woodruff family's private conversations, dreading the mention of her name. One day, the Judge caught her at this and ordered that one of her ears be cut off to teach her a lesson and to put her in her place. After that time, she always wore a green turban around her head to hide the ugly scar that the knife had left behind.

What actually happened next is still unclear. Some claim that what occurred was done so that the family would just get sick and then Chloe could nurse them back to health and earn the Judge's gratitude. In this way, she would be safe from ever being returned to the fields. Others say that her motives were not so pure though and that what she did was for one reason only -- revenge!

For whatever reason, Chloe put a small amount of poison into a birthday cake that was made in honor of the Woodruff's oldest daughter. In with the flour and sugar went a handful of crushed oleander flowers. The two children, and Sarah Mathilda, each had slices of the poisoned cake but Woodruff didn't eat any of it. Before the end of the day, all of them were very sick. Chloe patiently attended to their needs, never realizing (if it was an accident) that she had given them too much poison. In a matter of hours, all three of them were dead.

The other slaves, perhaps afraid that their owner would punish them also, dragged Chloe from her room and hanged her from a nearby tree. Her body was later cut down, weighted with rocks and thrown into the river. Woodruff closed off the children's dining room, where the party was held, and never allowed it to be used again as long as he lived. Tragically, his life was cut short a few years later by a murderer. To this day, the room where the children were poisoned has never again been used for dining. It is called the game room today.

Since her death, the ghost of Chloe has been reported at the Myrtles and was even accidentally photographed by a past owner. The plantation still sells picture postcards today with the cloudy image of what is purported to be Chloe standing between two of the buildings. The former slave is thought to be the most frequently encountered ghost at the Myrtles. She has often been seen in her green turban, wandering the place at night. Sometimes the cries of little children accompany her appearances and at other times, those who are sleeping are startled awake by her face, peering at them from the side of the bed.

I am sure that after reading this story, even the most non-discerning readers have discovered a number of errors and problems with the tale. In fact, there are so many errors that it's difficult to know where to begin. However, to start, it's a shame that the character of Clark Woodruff has been so thoroughly damaged over the years with stories about his adulterous affairs with his slaves and claims that he had the ear cut off of one of his lovers. Sadly, these stories have been accepted as fact, even though no evidence whatsoever exists to say that they are true. In fact, history seems to show that Woodruff was very devoted to his wife and in fact, was so distraught over her death that he never remarried.

Before we get to the problem of Chloe's existence, we should also examine the alleged murders of Sarah Mathilda and her two daughters. In this case, the legend has twisted the truth so far that it is unrecognizable. Sarah Mathilda was not murdered. She died tragically from yellow fever (according to historical record) in 1823. Her children, a son and a daughter - not both daughters, died more than a year after she did. They certainly did not die from the result of a poisoned birthday cake. Also, with this legend, Octavia would not have existed at all (her mother was supposed to have been pregnant when murdered) but we know that she lived with her father, got married and lived to a ripe old age. In addition, Woodruff was not killed either. He died peacefully at his daughter and son-in-law's plantation in 1851.

The key to the legend of course, is Chloe, the murderous slave. The problem with this is that as far as we can tell, Chloe never existed at all. Not only did she not murder members of the Woodruff family but it's unlikely that the family ever even had a slave by this name. While living in Louisiana, researcher David Wiseheart's curiosity about the history and haunting of the Myrtles was so great that he spent countless hours tracking down information about the plantation. It would be his disappointment that, while looking through the properties records of the Woodruff family, that he learned that they had not owned a slave, nor was there any record of a slave, by the name of Chloe (or even Cleo, as she appears in some versions of the story).

So who did such a story get started?

In the 1950's, the Myrtles was owned by wealthy widow Marjorie Munson, who began to notice that odd things were occurring in the house, according to local stories. Wondering if perhaps the old mansion might be haunted, she asked around and that's when the legend of "Chloe" got its start. According to the granddaughter of Harrison and Fannie Williams, Lucile Lawrason, her aunts used to talk about the ghost of an old woman who haunted the Myrtles and who wore a green bonnet. They often laughed about it and it became a family story. She was never given a name and in fact, the "ghost" with the green bonnet from the story was described as an older woman, never as a young slave who might have been involved in an affair with the owner of the house. Regardless, someone repeated this story of the Williams' family ghost to Marjorie Munson and she soon penned a song about the ghost of the Myrtles, a woman in a green beret.

As time wore on, the story grew and changed. The Myrtles changed hands several more times and in the 1970's, it was restored again under the ownership of Arlin Dease and Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Ward. During this period, the story grew even larger and was greatly embellished to include the poison murders and the severed ear. Up until this point though, it was largely just a story that was passed on by word of mouth and it received little attention outside of the area. All of that changed though when James and Frances Kermeen Myers passed through on a riverboat and decided to purchase the Myrtles. The house came furnished with period antiques and enough ghost stories to attract people from all over the country.

Soon, the story of the Myrtles was appearing in magazines and books and receiving a warm reception from ghost enthusiasts, who had no idea that what they were hearing was a badly skewed version of the truth. The house appeared in a November 1980 issue of LIFE magazine but the first book mention that I have been able to find about the house was in Richard Winer's book Houses of Horror. Both of them mentioned the poison deaths of Sarah Mathilda and her daughters.

MORE MURDERS!

As time went on and more books and television shows came calling at the Myrtles, the story changed again and this time, took on even more murders. In addition to the deaths of Sarah Mathilda, her daughters and Chloe, it was alleged that as many as six other people had also been killed in the house. One of them, Lewis Stirling, the oldest son of Ruffin Grey Stirling, was claimed to have been stabbed to death in the house over a gambling debt. However, burial records in St. Francisville state that he died at the age of 23 in October 1854 from yellow fever.

According to legend, three Union soldiers were killed in the house after they broke in and attempted to loot the place. They were allegedly shot to death in the gentlemen's parlor, leaving bloodstains on the floor that refused to be wiped away. Once fanciful account has it that years later, after the Myrtles was opened as an inn, a maid was mopping the floor and came to a spot that, no matter how hard she pushed, she was unable to reach. Supposedly, the spot was the same size as a human body and this was said to have been where one of the Union soldiers fell. The strange phenomenon was said to have lasted for a month and has not occurred since. The only problem with this story is that no soldiers were ever killed in the house. There are no records or evidence to say that there were and in fact, surviving family members denied the story was true. If the ghostly incident occurred, then it must have been caused by something else.

Another murder allegedly occurred in 1927, when a caretaker at the house was killed during a robbery. Once again, no record exists of this crime and something as recent as this would have been widely reported. The only event even close to this, which may have spawned this part of the story, occurred when the brother of Fannie Williams, Eddie Haralson, was living in a small house on the property. He was killed while being robbed but this did not occur in the main house, as the story states

The only verifiable murder to occur at the Myrtles was that of William Drew Winter and it differs wildly from the legends that have been told. As described previously, Winter was lured out of the house by a rider, who shot him to death on the side porch. It is here where the stories take a turn for the worse. In the legend, Winter was shot and then mortally wounded, staggered back into the house, passed through the gentlemen's parlor and the ladies parlor and onto the staircase that rises from the central hallway. He then managed to climb just high enough to die in his beloved's arms on exactly the 17th step. It has since been claimed that ghostly footsteps have been heard coming into the house, walking to the stairs and then climbing to the 17th step where they, of course, come to an end.

While dramatic, this event never happened either. Winter was indeed murdered on the front porch by an unknown assailant but after being shot, he immediately fell down and died. His bloody trip through the house never took place --- information that was easily found in historical records.

Valerie Liska

PRSG Online Member

The legend of JERSEY DEVIL

2008-09-09T13:37:00.008+08:00

The Jersey Devil, the supposed mythical creature of the New Jersey Pinelands, has haunted New Jersey and the surrounding areas for the past 260 years. This entity has been seen by over 2,000 witnesses over this period. It has terrorized towns and caused factories and schools to close down, yet many people believe that the Jersey Devil is a legend, a mythical beast, that originated from the folklore of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Others disagree with this point of view. The following text will show there is evidence to support the existence of an animal or supernatural bring known as the Jersey Devil. The evidence consists of the stories of the Jersey Devil's origin, the sightings of it, and finally, the theories on it.

There are many different versions of the birth of the Jersey Devil. One of the most popular legends says a Mrs. Shrouds of Leeds Point, NJ made a wish that if she ever had another child, she want it to be a devil. Her next child was born misshapen and deformed. She sheltered it in the house, so the curious couldn't see him. On stormy night, the child flapped it's arms, which turned into wings, and escaped out the chimney and was never seen by the family again. A Mrs. Bowen of Leeds point said, "The Jersey Devil was born in the Shrouds house at Leeds Point." 1 Another story that also placed the birth at Leeds Point said that a young girl fell in love with a British soldier during the Revolutionary War. The people of Leeds Point cursed her. When she gave birth, she had a devil. Some people believe the birth of the devil was punishment for the mistreatment of a minister by the Leeds folk.

Another story placed the birth in Estelville, NJ. Mrs. Leeds, of Estelville, finding out she was pregnant with her 13th child, shouted,"I hope it's a devil". She got her wish. The child wad born with horns, a tail, wings, and a horse-like head. The creature revisited Mrs. Leeds everyday. She stood at her door and told it to leave. After awhile, the creature got the hint and never returned.

Burlington, NJ, also claims to be the birthplace of the Jersey Devil. In 1735, Mother Leeds was in labor on a stormy night. Gathered around her were her friends. Mother Leeds was supposedly a witch and the child's father was the devil himself. The child was born normal, but then changed form. It changed from a normal baby to a creature with hooves, a horses head, bat wings and a forked tail. It beat everyone present and flew up the chimney. It circled the villages and headed toward the pines. In 1740 a clergy exercised the devil for 100 years and it wasn't seen again until 1890.

There are many other versions of the legend. The legends say it was the 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, or 13th child, It was born normal or deformed, and the mother confined it to the cellar or the attic. Although there are many discrepancies in all of these stories, there are 3 pieces of evidence that tie all of the legends of the Jersey Devil's origin together.

The first thing that ties the legends together is the name "Leeds". Whether the mothers name was Leeds or the birth place was Leeds Point, all of the stories include the name Leeds. Alfred Heston, the Atlantic County Historian, believes that the devil could be a Leeds or a Shrouds baby. He discovered that a Daniel Leeds opened land in Great Egg Harbor, NJ, in 1699. His family lived in Leeds Point. He also discovered a Samuel Shrouds, Sr. came to Little Egg Harbor, NJ, in 1735 and lived right across the river from the house of Mother Leeds. The 3rd fact ties in the Burlington story with the others stories. Professor Fred MacFadden of Coppin State College, Baltimore, found that a "devil" was mentioned in writings from Burlington as early as 1735. He also indicated that the word Burlington was used to was the word used to names the area from the city of Burlington to the Atlantic Ocean. This means that the name that is now used for the birthplace such as Leeds point or Estelville, could be the same place referred to in the Burlington Legend.

The origins provide some validity to the existence of the Jersey Devil, but the sightings are the most substantial pieces of evidence. The sightings have been divided up into 3 time periods, pre 1909, January 16-23, 1909, and post 1909.

From the pre 1909 era, few documented records of sightings still exist. The ones that do confirm the existence of the devil.

In the early 19th century, Commodore Stephen Decatur, a naval hero, was testing cannon balls on the firing range when he saw a strange creature flying across the sky. He fired and hit the creature but it kept right on flying across the field. Joseph Bonaparte, former king of Spain and brother of Napoleon, saw the Jersey Devil in Bordentown, NJ, between 1816 and 1839 while he was hunting. In 1840-41 many sheep and chickens were killed by a creature with a piercing scream and strange tracks. In 1859-94, the Jersey Devil was seen and numerous times and reportedly carried off anything that moved in Haddonfield, Bridgeton, Smithville, Long Branch, Brigantine, and Leeds Point. W.F. Mayer of New York noticed while visiting the Pine Barrens, most of the locals would not venture out after dark. The devil was sighted by George Saarosy, A prominent business man, at the NJ/NY border. This was the last reported sighting before the turn of the century.

In 1903, Charles Skinner, author of American Myths and Legends, claimed that the legend of the devil had run it's course and that in the new century, NJ would hear no more of the devil. New Jersey rested easy with that thought for 6 years, until the week of January 16-23. 1909. During this week, the devil would leave his tracks all over South Jersey and Philadelphia. He was seen by over 1,000 people. This was his largest appearance ever.

It all started early Sunday morning, January 16, 1909. Thack Cozzens of Woodbury, NJ, saw a flying creature with glowing eyes flying down the street. In Bristol, PA, John Mcowen heard and saw the strange creature on the banks of the canal. Patrol James Sackville fired at the creature as it flew away screaming. E.W. Minister, Postmaster of Bristol, PA, also saw a bird-like creature with a horses head that had a piercing scream. When daylight came, the residents of Bristol found hoof prints in the snow. Two local trappers said they had never seen tracks like those before.

On Monday, the Lowdens of Burlington, NJ, found hoof prints in their yard and around their trash, which was half eaten. Almost every yard in Burlington had these strange hoof prints in them. The prints went up trees, went from roof to roof, disappeared in the middle of the road, and stopped in the middle of open fields. The same tracks were also found in Columbus, Hedding, Kinhora and Rancocas. A hunt was organized to follow the tracks but the dogs wouldn't follow the trail.

On the 19th the Jersey Devil made his longest appearance of the week. At 2:30 am, Mr & Mrs. Nelson Evans of Gloucester were awakened by a strange noise. They watched the devil from their window for 10 minutes. Mr. Evans described the creature they saw:

It was about three feet and half high, with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs were like those of a crane, and it had horse's hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. It didn't use the front legs at all while we were watching. My wife and I were scared, I tell you, but I managed to open the window and say, 'Shoo', and it turned around barked at me, and flew away

Tuesday afternoon 2 professional hunters tracked the devil for 20 miles in Gloucester. The trail jumped 5 foot fences and went under 8 inch spaces. The hoof prints were found in more parts of South Jersey. A group of observers in Camden, NJ, saw the devil. It barked at them and then took off into the air.

The next day, a Burlington police officer and the Reverend John Pursell of Pemberton saw the Jersey Devil. Rev. Pursell said, "Never saw anything like it before".3 Posses in Haddonfield found tracks that ended abruptly. In Collingswood, NJ, a posse watched the devil fly off toward Moorestown. Near Moorestown, John Smith of Maple Shade saw the devil at the Mount Carmel Cemetery. George Snyder saw the devil right after Mr. Smith and their descriptions were identical. In Riverside, NJ, hoof prints were found on roof tops and also around a dead puppy.

On Thursday, the Jersey Devil was seen by the Black Hawk Social Club. He was also seen by a trolley full of people in Clementon as it circled above them. The witnesses descriptions matched others from the days before. In Trenton, Councilman E.P. Weeden heard the flapping of wings and then found hoof prints outside his door. The prints were also found at the arsenal in Trenton. As the day wore on the Trolleys in Trenton and New Brunswick had armed drivers to ward off attacks. The people in Pitman filled churches. Chickens had been missing all week throughout the Delaware Valley, but when the farmers checked their yards that day, they found their chickens dead, with no marks on them. The West Collingswood Fire Department fired their hose at the devil. The devil retreated at first, but then charged and flew away at the last second.

Later that night, Mrs. Sorbinski of Camden heard a commotion in her yard. She opened the door to see the Jersey Devil standing there with her dog in it's grip. She hit the devil with a broom until it let go of her dog and flew away. She started screaming until her neighbors came over. Two police officers arrived at her house where over 100 people had gathered. The crowd heard a scream coming from Kaigan Hill. The mob ran toward the creature on the hill. The Policed shot at it and the devil flew off into the night. The streets of Camden were empty after this.

On Friday, Camden police officer Louis Strehr saw the Jersey Devil saw the devil drinking from a horses trough. The school in Mt Ephraim was closed because no students came in. Mills and factories in Gloucester and Hainesport had to close because none of the employees came to work. Many New Jersey residents wouldn't leave their houses, even in daylight. Officer Merchant of Blackwood drew a sketch of the creature he saw. His sketch coincided with the descriptions from earlier in the week. Jacob Henderson saw the devil in Salem and described it as having "wings and a tail"4. The devil was only seen once more in 1909 in February.

Since 1909, the Jersey Devil has continued to be sighted by people all over New Jersey. The number of sightings that have been reported to the authorities has dwindled over the years. This could be attributed to the fact that people don't want to be branded as crazy. Even though the number of reported sightings has dropped, there's still a considerable amount of sightings in the post 1909 era.

IN 1927, a cab driver on his way to Salem got a flat tire. He stopped to fix the tire. As he was doing this, creature that stood upright and was covered with hair, landed on the roof of his cab. The creature shook his car violently. He fled the scene, leaving the tire and jack behind. Phillip Smith, who was known as a sober and honest man, saw the devil walking down the street in 1953. The characteristic screams of the Jersey Devil were heard in the woods near Woodstown, NJ, in 1936.

Around 1961, 2 couples were parked in a car in the Pine Barrens. They heard a loud screeching noise outside. Suddenly the roof of the car was smashed in. They fled the scene, but returned later. Again they heard the loud screech. They saw a creature flying along the trees, taking out huge chinks of bark as it went along.

There have been other sightings since 1909, such as the Invasion of Gibbsboro in 1951. The people there saw the devil over a 2 day period. In 1966, a farm was raided and 31 ducks, 3 geese, 4 cats, and 2 dogs were killed. One of the dogs was a large german Shepard which had it's throat ripped out. In 1981, a young couple spotted the devil at Atsion Lake in Atlantic County.

In 1987, in Vineland an aggressive german Shepard was found torn apart and the body gnawed upon. the body was located 25 feet from the chain which had been hooked to him. Around the body were strange tracks that no one could identify.

The sightings and prints are the most substantial evidence that exists. Many of the theories on the Jersey Devil are based upon that evidence. Some theories can be proven invalid, while others seem to provide support for the Jersey Devil's existence.

One theory is that the Jersey Devil is a bird. Mrs. Cassidy of Clayton thought it was an invasion of scrowfoot ducks. The scrowfoot duck is much too small to be mistaken for the devil. Others believe the devil is really a sand hill crane. The crane used to live in South Jersey until it was pushed out by man. The sand hill crane weighs about 12 lbs., is 4 foot high, and a wingspan of 80 inches. It avoids man but if confronted it will fight. It has a loud scream whooping voice that can be heard at a distance. This could account for the screams heard by witnesses. The crane also eats potatoes and corn. This could account for the raids on crops. This theory doesn't explain , however, the killing of live stock. It also doesn't explain why people described the devil as having a horses head, bat wings and tail, all of which the crane doesn't have.

Professor Bralhopf said that" the tracks were made by some prehistoric animal form the Jurassic period"5. He believes the creature survived underground in a cavern. An expert from the Smithsonian Institute had a theory about ancient creatures surviving underground. He said the Jersey Devil was a Pterodactyl. The Academy of Natural Sciences could find no record of any creature, living or extinct, that resembles the Jersey Devil.

Jack E. Boucher, author of Absagami Yesteryear, has a theory in which he believes the devil was a deformed child. He thinks Mrs. Leeds had a disfigured child and kept it locked away in the house. She grew sick and couldn't feed the child anymore. It escaped out of hunger and raided local farms for food. This doesn't take into account the incredible life span of the devil. The child would have been 174 years old in 1909. It also doesn't account for the sightings of the devil flying.

Only a small amount of the sightings and footprints could be hoaxes. The Jersey Devil has been seen by reliable people such as police, government officials, postmasters, businessman, and other people whose "integrity is beyond question."6 As for the hoof prints, even if some were hoaxes, There is still no way to explain most of the tracks, especially the ones on roof tops and tracks that ended abruptly as if the creature took wing.

The last theory is the most controversial one. Many people believe that the Jersey Devil could be the very essence of evil, embodied. It is said that the devil is an "uncanny harbinger of war"7. and appears before any great conflict. The jersey devil was sighted before the start of the Civil War. It was also seen right before the Spanish American War and WW I. In 1939, before the start of WW II, Mount Holly citizens were awakened by the noise of hooves on their roof tops. The Devil was seen on December 7, 1941, right before Pearl Harbor was bombed. He was also seen right before the vietnam War.

The Jersey Devil's habit of being a forerunner to wars could be because of his possible demonic origins. In 1730, Ben Franklin reported a story about a witchcraft trial near Mt Holly, NJ. One of the origin legends say that Mother Leeds was a witch. The devil's birth could have been a result of a witches curse.

Other facts support the supernatural theory are the reports of the death of the devil. When Commodore Decatur fired a cannon ball at the devil, it went through him and he was unaffected.

In 1909, a track walker on the electric railroad saw the devil fly into the wires above the tracks. There was a violent explosion which melted the track 20 feet in both directions. No body was found and the devil was seen later in perfect health. In 1957, the Department of Conservation found a strange corpse in a burned out area of the pines. It was a partial skeleton, feathers, and hind legs of an unidentifiable creature. The devil was thought to be dead, but reappeared when the people of New Jersey thought that this time his death was real. Each time he is reported dead, he returns. Sometimes this year. The Jersey Devil will be 260 years old. It seems the devil is immortal, which a supernatural being would be. Another thing that supports this theory is the incredible distances the devil could fly in a short period of time. No animal could travel as fast as the devil did in 1909 when he was sighted in South Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York through out the week.

None of these theories can give a definitive answer to what the Jersey Devil was or is, but the sightings prove there is something out there. Whether the Jersey devil is a bird or a demon, is still left ot speculation. The people of New Jersey have definitely seen something out there lurking in the Pine Barrens.

By Dave Juliano

Article shared by

GnomeXGurl

Paracrypt RSG Team

Vampire and Werewolf...

2008-09-08T15:44:00.004+08:00

Werewolves

Description

Werewolves are men who change into vicious often man-eating wolves or wolfmen during a full moon. The first half of the name, "werewolf", comes from the Teutonic wer, meaning "man"; therefore werewolf literally means "man-wolf". Although this is the most common belief in lycanthropy, there are numerous others that describe the voluntary or involuntary transformation from man to bears, big cats, hyenas, and other fierce creatures.

Often, werewolfism is passed on through tainted blood and can only be ended in death. It is said that shooting using silver bullets is very effective in killing werewolves, as is forcing them to drink salt water or splashing them with holy water. In some cultures, a blow to the head of a werewolf using an iron rod will free the man from werewolf possession.

Location

Werewolves were primarily sighted in various rural parts of Europe. However, their presence and the appearance other were-animals has also been seen in North America and other regions of the world. This includes Asia (were-tigers & bears), Africa (were-hyenas), Central America (were-coyotes), and New Zealand (were-lizards).

History/Origin

The belief began in the lycanthropy figures in Greek mythology, where Zeus, furious when he learns that Lykaon served him and the other gods human flesh, turns Lykaon into a wolf.

Despite the modern belief that werewolves are nothing more than characters in the newest horror flicks, there was a time that they were feared as a real-life menace. In the 16^th century, areas suffering from bad weather, disastrous harvest, wolf attacks, and burgeoning crime rates needed someone or something to take the blame. As a result, the werewolf became a common and easy scapegoat. Even human mass murderers were declared werewolves.

Reason Behind Creation/Possible Explanation

Of all the possible types of transformations, the werewolf is the most common in Europe, probably because the wolf was the predator most feared by the Europeans. Medieval and later chronicles describe wolf attacks on humans during hard winters and wartime. The development of the concept of werewolves may also be attributed to the vicious warriors in northern Europe, known as wolfmen or berserkers. These notoriously murderous and feared men clad themselves in suits made from wolf pelts.

At the same time, the belief began that honoured ancestors would become wolves after death in Germany. Consequently, names such as Wolfgang, Wolfhard, Wolfbrand began to spring up in hopes that the wolf spirits would enter them and give the soldiers strength and courage. The combination of these events led to wolves became associated with violence and eventually the devil.

Other than the growing relationship between wolves and evil, there were medical disorders that occurred from time to time that may have furthered people’s fears. These made victims of the illnesses appear to have characteristics of werewolfism or convinced that they had become animals. The first disease is called porphyria. It is characterized by yellow, hairy skin that is extremely sensitive to light, forcing the sufferers to go out only at night or risk tissue damage. Ulcers may also cause their hands to become deformed and paw-like. Even their behaviour becomes erratic and red pigments appear in their teeth and urine. The result is a convincing "werewolf".

Sometimes hallucinogens can also play a part in creating werewolves, either through self-administered forms or poisonings. A man with ergot poisoning reportedly escaped from seven straight jackets, lost all his teeth biting through a leather strap, and bent two iron bars on the hospital window while trying to flee from a tiger he believed to be chasing him. Werewolf salves have also been concocted that make people feel as if they were transformed into wolves.

Vampires

The vampire, a creature of the night that rises from the grave to feast on the blood of the living, has terrorized the minds of people of every culture around the world for centuries. Although vampire legends has existed since ancient time, it was not made popular until the novel Dracula by Bram Stroker was published in 1897. Since then, the figure of the vampire can now be seen in all forms of media available including movies, books, and card games.

Location/Map

Variations of the vampire myth can be found in every culture around the world, but those from Slovenia are the most prominent.

Description

There are many variations to the appearance of the vampire. Its form is seen to be human, but can so appear grotesquely distorted, with long nails curved like claws, bloodshot eyes, and deathly pallor. The popular, modern depiction of a vampire is a tall, thin, aristocratic man, dressed in a black suit and a long black cape. He has retractable fangs that are used to the blood from the neck of its victims. He can be a deceiver, luring his young victims through sexual attraction and desire.

Vampires appear undead in their graves, their bodies completely fresh with no traces of decay or rigor mortis (the condition after death which involves the stiffening of the body). There are even signs of rejuvenation like hair, nail, and skin growth. Fresh blood is often seen around the mouth area.

They come out at night from their graves between nightfall and down, hunting down innocent victims to drain their blood. Some vampires in Poland and Russia appear from moon to midnight. Not all vampires drink blood, but steals things that are perhaps even more valuable to a human, such as youth, hope, and love. They have the ability to fly, as well as to change forms into a bat, or other animals, and to mist. They are able to control creatures like rats and wolves, and the elements. Some have the ability to turn invisible.

In most vampire legends, they are required to sleep either in coffins, or return to their graves. They have a need to return to the earth of their homeland each night, or carry their native soil around with them. They cannot cross running water, see their reflection in a mirror, or enter a place uninvited.

Vampires from Different Cultures

Although the more common vampire lore is confined to the resurrected corpse of male humans, there are other variations from different cultures. The Malaysian believed in the penangglan or the langsuir, a female vampire that preys on houses where a birth has taken place, which led to the custom of hanging up a branch of thistle in order to trap her. Some believed that these vampires must place the throat of their victims to the back of their necks to feed, and therefore prefer infants and children. They are credited with a fondness of fish.

Civatateo are Mexican vampires that have the magical powers of a priest. They are noblewomen who died during childbirth who stalk travelers at crossroads and haunts temples and churches. In the Malay Peninsula and parts of Polynesia, they have a vampire that is conceived as a head with entrails attached called the penangal who attack human and their blood.

The Manananggal is the Filipino version of vampire, and is said to be unwilling or unable to touch the tail of a dried stingrays.

In Slavonic countries, the vampire is said to have only one nostril, and possess a sharp point at the end of its tongue, similar to the sting of a bee.

To Become a Vampire

Vampires are believed to be created in a number of ways. It could be a child born under certain omens, someone who committed suicide or came to a violent end, or have been cursed by their parents or the Church. It is a common practice in England to drive an ash stake through the breast of all suicide victims until 1823. A cat, other animals, even a young boy, jumping over a corpse would turn it into a vampire, as well as a bird flying over it.
According to the Servians and Bulgarians, unclean spirits enter into the bodies of criminals and other evil-natured persons, who then become vampires.

Even inanimate objects can turn into vampires, including pumpkins, watermelon and other fruits left out past a certain amount of time, door latches that are left unlatched for too long, as well as dogs, horses, sheep, and snakes.
In Transylvania, it is believed that whoever was killed by a vampire will become one.
Vampire Protection

Holy symbols are often used for protection against the vampire including the cross or crucifix and holy water. Garlic is the most popular vampire repellent, and hawthorn and mountain ash (rowan), is also used. Some believe that the scattering of seeds is also a good defense because the vampire would become so involved in counting every single seed that they would allow its target to escape.

The Wallachians believed that the dead can be prevented from returning to life by driving a long nail through the skull of the corpse and placing a thorny stem of a wild rosebush upon the body. One way prevent a person from becoming a vampire is to rub the body with the lard of a pig killed on St. Ignatius’s Day. For vampire detection, they place a young boy on a black horse and walk them around the cemetery. If the horse refuses to pass over a certain grave, it means that a vampire lies within it.

In Poland and Russia, it is believed that one may become immune from the attacks by eating bread made with flour mixed with the blood of vampires.

To Kill a Vampire

The various methods of destroying a vampire include cremation, beheading, exposure to sunlight, and driving a stake through the heart. Other ways are to touch it with a crucifix and drenching it with holy water and garlic. It is also believed by some cultures that by stealing the left sock of a vampire, filling it with stones, and then throwing it into a river would destroy the creature.

Dhampirs are believed to be a vampire’s child and are the only people capable of seeing invisible vampires. Therefore, they often lend out their services as vampire hunters.

In Bulgaria, a vampire can be destroyed by trapping it in a bottle and throwing it into a fire. This is accomplished by chasing it with a picture of a saint to a specially prepared bottle baited with the vampire’s favourite food, for they believed that vampires only have a thirst for human blood when their human food supply ran out. Once the vampire is inside the bottle containing a fragment of an eikon or holy picture, it will be trapped inside.

History

The vampire is one of the oldest and most global myths of all. There are variations of creatures who rises from the dead to drink the blood of the living in almost every culture around the world. However, the vampire lore of the Slavic people are the most prominent.

The word ‘vampire’ comes from the Slavi word ‘obyri’ and ‘obiri’ which evolved into the Bulgarian word ‘vampir". It is also believed to have to be derived from the Servian word, ‘wampira’. Another name for vampires is ‘Nosferatu’, which might have originated from the Greek word ‘nosophoros’ meaning "plague-carrier", or that it evolved from the Old Slavonic word ‘nosufur-atu’. Russians, Morlacchians, inhabitants of Montenegro, Behemians, Servians, and Arnauts know the vampire as wukodalak, vurkulaka, or vrykolaka, which means ‘wolf-fairy’.

The origin in the vampire has been credited to Greek Christianity, but references of this myth can be found in earlier times, in Chaldean and Assyrian tablets. It is believed that the early vampire legends were developed to explain things that nature could not, like mysterious deaths and wasting diseases. For instance, the Greek vampire lamiani attacked babies and pregnant women so that miscarriage and still-born can be explained.

The Romans believed that the dead bodies of certain people could be raised from their graves by magic, as long as the body was not decomposed. The only way to prevent this was to cremate the remains.

From Greece and Rome, vampire lore spread throughout Austria, Hungary, Lorraine, Poland, Romania, Iceland, and the British Isles. It reached its height in the period from 1723 to 1735, when a vampire-related epidemic broke out in Hungary and Servia. The belief continued to gradually spread to the rest of the world, including the Asian countries and Africa.

In countries that believe suicide victims become vampires when they die, the myth is used to help the love ones cope with their deaths. By performing the vampire rituals to destroy the corpse through staking and cementation, for instance, it destroys the dead person’s psychological attachment to the living, allowing his family and friends to cope with their grief and move on.

Literary Connections

British author Bram Stroker popularized the vampire in his 1897 his novel Dracula about a Transylvanian vampire. The character of Count Dracula was supposedly based on Vlad Tepes, Romania’s fierce warrior king. He ruled Walachia in the 15th century as Vlad III. He earned the nicknamed Vlad the Impaler because of his habit for impaling his enemies on wooden stakes and then beheading them. He was the son of Vlad Dracul, and the rightful holder of the name Dracula, for the name means Son of Dracul. It also means son of the dragon or devil. However, Vlad did not have any vampiric tendencies besides his barbarism.

Before Stroker, vampire literature was rare. The most popular pre-Dracula stories include Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer, and The Vampyre: A Tale by John Polidori.

Interesting Facts

Blood is extremely fattening- a litre can provide approximately a thousand calories of high-fat, high-protein nutrition

Porphyria is a rare medical condition whose sufferers display certain characteristics very similar to vampires. Its victims cannot make an adequate amount of blood, and one treatment is to give blood to the patient. However, this is done through injection, and not by ingestion. Porphyria suffers are also very sensitive to light, and burns severely in the sun. Therefore, like the vampire, they tend to avoid sunlight.

The novel Dracula was prevented from being published in Romania until 1993, because Vlad Tepes, the actual character Count Dracula was based on, was a respected historical figure in Romania. The vampire concept surrounding the character caused it to be banned under communist rule

J Dee
Singapore

Mirror and Superstitous

2008-07-25T21:50:00.009+08:00

Look into any mirror ... Do you see a ghost? Or does a real ghost see you? Invisible and watching you from the other side in it's backwards world.

Many old mirrors thick and old and silver back stained are said to be haunted by the ghosts of those that died. their image forever frozen or trapped in the glass. Some recent stories on eBay tell of people selling their antique mirrors that were either bought or passed down the generations in their familes and said to be very haunted . It is said by some that if a ghost or lost soul wanders your home during the night, a mirror can capture it. An old New Orleans Voodoo way to capture a ghost was to put a large standing mirror in your bedroom door way. When the ghost thinking it is a door enters the mirror it is forever trapped in the rooms that were reflected in it when caught not the real rooms.

Bloody Mary The Face In The Mirror

A urban legend of sorts states: If you go into the bathroom and look into the mirror with the lights off and the room completely black, and then say 'Bloody Mary' thirteen times, a woman will appear and scratch your face off. The research into Bloody Mary goes back to 1978, when folklorist Janet Langlois published her essay on the legend. Belief in summoning the mirror-witch was even at that time widespread throughout the U.S.

Mary is summoned whenever young teen aged girls get together for a sleepover, but boys have been known to call on her too. The 'Bloody Mary' legend was common in the early 1970s. Typically performed the "ritual" in bathrooms, because the bathrooms of suburban homes had large mirrors and were easily darkened even during the day since they had no windows. In latter years after the release of the movie Clive Barker's Candyman (1992) calling upon him became more popular. Many do believe the Candyman's Movies premise is based on fact and try summoning him even today.

Helen Lyle is a student who decides to write a thesis about local legends and myths. She visits a part of the town, where she learns about the legend of Cabrini Green and the Candyman, a one-armed man with a hook who appears to you in your bathroom when you say his name five times, in front of a mirror. Of course, Helen doesn't believe all this stuff, but the people of the area are really afraid. When she ignores their warnings and begins her investigation in the places that he is rumored to appear, a series of horrible murders begins.

In the 1998 movie Urban Legend, two co-eds try to summon an evil spirit by chanting 'Bloody Mary.' In an episode of television's The X Files ("Syzygy," original air date 26 January 1996), two teenage girls lure a rival for a boy's affections into the bathroom — and a "Bloody Mary" ritual — during a birthday party. They prevent her from leaving the bathroom, and the camera cuts to the rest of the partygoers downstairs, who hear a crash of breaking glass and a scream.

Mirror ... Mirror on the wall you make my skin creep and crawl. Whose the ghost that resides within... The spirts of the dead the lost or my next of kin!

Fear of mirrors probably arose from the time when the first humans saw their reflections in a pool of water and once they had got over their initial shock of seeing someone or something, believed that the image was their soul or spirit and to endanger it would mean risking injury to the other self. Also since ancient times, mirrors were said to have magical powers, including the power to foretell the future and were considered to be devices of the gods. Thus breaking a mirror would end its powers and bring untold miseries and misfortunes upon the one whose reflection it last held. Or even damning a trapped spirit to a hell that only the Devil himself knew exisited.

All is Vanity Charles Allan Gilbert, American Illustrator, 1873 - 1929.

The Vanity is considered by many to be one of the finest optical illusions ever conceived. Reproductions of this illusion continue to be popular more than 100 years after the drawing first appeared in print.

The painting is an ambiguous illusion with an allegorical theme, as the title suggests. The two aspects become clear as you study the figure. It can be seen as either, a beautiful girl gazing at her reflection in a large mirror; or the scene can be realized as a grinning human skull. The girl's two heads make up the eye sockets of the skull, her vanity items, and an embroidered table cloth form the teeth and jaws.

The reason for the popularity of the artwork is clear; stunning realism, style, and exquisite detail performed flawlessly by a master illustrator. Charles Gilbert learned his amazing style in New York, and Paris.

Mirrors are the perfect example of an everyday household furnishing attached with countless superstitions. Probably the most common belief concerning mirrors is that their breakage causes seven years of bad luck. But does Breaking a mirror with a real ghost locked in it set it free to haunt you? Consider this: Was the ghost trapped their on his own or placed their by some force to trap it to save others from the haunting the ghost could cause? In New Orleans Voodoosit are said to use a grand spell to capture household haunting ghosts in Zombie bottles or large mirrors. The mirrors which render the ghost harmless only to haunt the world that is reflected in the mirror. Not the Real world we live in. One custom unique to New Orleams voodoo is to watch ( particualrly if it is a bad or evil spirit or ghost) wander into a room or door way reflected in the mirror then to smash it trapping the ghost forever to roam into a different eternity and not haunt your house any longer. And to tell if a old mirror given to you or purchased is haunted place to tall white candles no further then 12 inches apart . Do this at midnight. Focus your eyes at the space between the two candles if it is haunted you will see the ghost!
STROZZI, Bernardo
(b. 1581, Genova, d. 1644, Venezia) Old Woman at the Mirror
c. 1615
Oil on canvas, 132 x 108 cm
Pushkin Museum, Moscow
The theme of this painting has a long tradition: the old woman who has not learned to give her life any other meaning but that of ornament and vanity, and who is unable to see the truth or recognize her true self in the mirror. Strozzi's formulation, however, is both individual and new. It makes the most of the surface values, deliberately contrasting the wrinkled skin of the old woman with the fresh complexion of her servant and juxtaposing the firm and rounded forms of youth with the withered slackness of old age. He reveals in the mirror that the old woman's red cheeks are painted with rouge, and he places a blossoming, scented rose in her wrinkled hand. He also shows us the uncriticizing complacency on her face, leaving it up to the spectator to deduce a sense of embarrassment, emptiness, transparent illusion and moral warning.

As for the seven-year period, the ancient Romans believed that life renewed itself every seven years. If the person looking into the mirror were of ill health, their image would break the mirror and the run of bad luck would continue for seven years, at the end of which their life would be renewed, ending the curse.

But if you do not wish seven years of ill-luck, a variety of remedies are available to counter the curse of the mirror, including some crazy ones like taking all the pieces and throwing them into running water or pounding the broken mirror into tiny fragments so that no piece can reflect anything ever again or taking the pieces outside & burying them in moonlight. There is also help for those who are too lazy or too busy, just leave the breakage the way it was for seven hours and then clean it up immediately after the hours are up.In Greek mythology, the hero Perseus killed Medusa by using a mirrored shield so as not to gaze upon her monstrous appearance (she turned anyone who looked at her to stone.)

In English literature, a famous example is Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, in which protagonist Alice uses a mirror as a portal to a strange alternate world. A common use is that of scrying with a mirror. In Canterbury Tales, "The Squire's Tale" describes a magical mirror that can look over a king's realm; similarly, in The Faerie Queene, Merlin enchants a mirror to have this power. Another example, from the German tales of the brothers Grimm, is Snow White, in which the Wicked Queen consults a magic mirror to determine the identity of the most beautiful woman in the world; this mirror is capable of scrying the forest and finding Snow White. In modern fantasy, the mirror of Galadriel, in J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be.

Mirrors, along with labyrinths, figure prominently in the work of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who often used them as symbols of infinity, impersonation, and illusion. In Dreamtigers, he writes of fearing that his reflection would move independently or change shape before his eyes. In Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, a fictional heresiarch declares that "mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of men."

Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe expresses an aversion to mirrors in The Philosophy of Furniture:

Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, – a thing always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects.

In the Harry Potter series of novels, the Mirror of Erised is a magic mirror that reflects its viewer, not physically, but representing the viewer's deepest desires. Also featured in the series is a type of device (a dark detector) that functions as a mirror, depicting not only the gazer but also a number of shadowy figures in the background; they are enemies and their proximity to the viewer represents their imminent threat.

In Bram Stoker's Dracula the count (Dracula) has no reflection in a mirror (and no shadow).

In Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, Kilgore Trout calls mirrors "leaks," and tells people he believes they lead to other worlds. He often tells people that where he is from "taking a leak" means stealing a mirror.

Venus Effect

The Venus effect is a phenomenon in the psychology of perception, named after Diego Velázquez's painting The Rokeby Venus. Viewers of the painting assume that Venus is admiring her own reflection in the mirror. However, since the viewer sees her face in the mirror, Venus would actually be looking at the viewer, not at herself.

La Venus del espejo, also known as The Rokeby Venus, is a painting by Diego Velázquez in the National Gallery, London. It dates from 1644 to 1648.

In the painting the goddess Venus is depicted lying on a bed, looking into a mirror held up by Cupid. The face reflected in the dimmed mirror appears to be that of an older woman, which has long intrigued experts. Some think it is a commentary on the vanity of beauty which is transitory due to aging. Some think the face in the mirror was over-painted by another artist at a later time. Another explanation is that the face is not aged, merely out of focus, a sharper face would distract our immediate attention from the form of Venus. By seeing the nude first, and the face afterwards, we are "caught" in voyeurism. The face in the mirror is also substantially larger than it should be, and the mirror is angled such that, in reality, it would reflect a different part of the goddess's body.

The painting is unique for being the only surviving female nude by Velázquez, and one of only two such paintings in all of 17th-century Spanish art, which was often censored by the Spanish Inquisition. It was revolutionary for its depiction of the nude female form with its back facing the viewer. The composition has only three main colours: red, white and grey, which include the pigment of Venus's skin.

This psychological "trick" is often used in the cinema, where an actor will be shown apparently looking at himself in the mirror, with the camera just out of shot. In fact, the actor will be looking at the camera and just be pretending to see himself in the mirror.

The difference in relative sizes of the real face and the reflected face makes it possible to estimate the distance the viewer was from the object when they formed the image.

In Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera Erik (the Phantom) uses a revolving room of mirrors to torment his captives. Erik also hides behind a one way mirror when teaching Christine how to sing. In Erik's lair all of the mirrors are hidden behind curtains as Erik is afraid of his own face. At the end of the film of The Phantom of the Opera the Phantom breaks out of his solitude by smashing a mirror and entering an underground tunnel.

Mirrors appear in the Bhagavad Gita (3.38): As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, similarly, the living entity is covered by different degrees of this lust.

In Chinese Literature, the novel Dream of the Red Chamber, a Taoist monk has a two sided mirror that is capable of reflecting truth from the main screen, while the back screen shows the distorted truth.

In most fantasy stories and games, mirrors are often items that have great magical power, such as being able to oversee the activities of others in locations far away, being gateways to other realms or its most common application of being used to redirect an opponent's attack back at them.

Mirrors, typically large and unframed, are frequently used in interior decoration to create an illusion of space, and amplify the apparent size of a room.

The softness of old mirrors is sometimes replicated by contemporary artisans for use in interior design. These reproduction antiqued mirrors are works of art and can bring color and texture to an otherwise hard, cold reflective surface. It is an artistic process that has been attempted by many and perfected by few.

Ghost And Mirror Superstitions

Never look into a mirror by candlelight, it may show you a very haunted version of your home.

If you stare into a mirror between two tall white candles you might see the spirit of a loved one who has passed away. And their soul is stuck in your mirror.

Always cover a haunted mirror during a thunderstorm lightning will release the ghosts.

It is considered a bad omen to receive a mirror from a deceased persons home as a present.

If a mirror in the house falls and breaks on its own, A evil ghost is trying to escape it's mirror prison.

A baby should never be shown its own reflection before it is a year old, else it will stutter or grow no bigger than it is or die before it turns one.

Many families cover a mirror if someone dies, as they believe that the mirror will capture the dead person’s soul, thus preventing its entry into heaven. When a person is bad in life many say let them be trapped in mirror it is better then going to Hell!

And if someone sees their reflection in a mirror from a room where someone has recently died, they will die soon too.

It is said that if ghost wanders your home during the night, a mirror can capture it.

Early mirrors were often little more than a sheet of polished metal, often silver or copper, for example the Aranmula kannadi. Most modern mirrors consist of a thin layer of aluminum deposited on a sheet of glass. This layer is called the Tain. They are back silvered, where the reflecting surface is viewed through the glass sheet; this makes the mirror durable, but lowers the image quality of the mirror due to extraneous reflections from the front surface of the glass (ordinary glass typically reflects around 4% of the light). This type of mirror reflects about 80% of the incident light. The "back side" of the mirror is often painted or coated in some way to completely seal the metal from corrosion.

Mirrors for precision optical applications are more likely to have the reflective coating on the front surface of the mirror, to eliminate reflection from the glass. Metal films on the front surface are generally covered with a thin, transparent coating to protect them from corrosion. This is often made of silica. In some cases this coating may also enhance reflectivity.
The Devil's Looking Glass
A mirror is an object with a surface that has good specular reflection; that is, it is smooth enough to form an image. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat surface. Curved mirrors are also used, to produce magnified or demagnified images or focus light. Mirrors are most commonly used for personal grooming, decoration, and architecture. Mirrors are also used in scientific apparatus such as telescopes and lasers, cameras, and industrial machinery. Most mirrors are designed for visible light, however, mirrors designed for other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are also used, especially in optical instruments.
Magic Mirrors
They bring bad luck The help tell the future. Before mirrors came along, any reflective surface was considered to be magical and credited with the ability to look into the future. In ancient mythology we can often find the gods and goddesses, as well as mere mortals, looking into the still water to catch a glimpse of their fate. The power of reflective surfaces to captivate and deceive are also featured strongly in such myths as Narcissusand Snow White. Reflective surfaces like shiny metals and mirrors were also used to receive messages from the gods.
Queen Elizabeth's court magician and well-known alchemist, John Dee, used a mirror for scrying. He has been credited with prophesying the plot to kill King James in 1605.
Because mirrors were thought to hold the key to the future, to break one was to shatter your own future. One of the techniques devised to reverse the bad luck was to bury all the pieces deep within the earth. Another superstition for breaking a mirror was that shortly thereafter a family member would die.

(As email to PRSG by Kirsten Scholl, Budapest)

Abondaned surau in the bushes

2008-05-05T12:08:00.003+08:00

View from the road side

Thick bushes surrounding the building

Swampy land near the location

Another view of the building

Located in the middle of Kuala Baram Lutong Road and has been abandoned for nealy 20 years. Few sightings of apparition reported by highway user near the area in the form of dark figure, old man crossing the road in front of the place and suddenly vanished, mist and goosebumps

The building was about 100 metres from the road and surrounded by thick bushes and trees. Investigation during a day time was done for a stage 1 assessment by PRSG Team ( Goh TT and R Iskandar) and found out that in term of entering the area, the team needs to walk and hack the bushes and also crossing a swampy ground. Further visits and research will be done in a near time.

Hasnida
PRSG AV

Letter from reader

2008-05-04T19:59:00.004+08:00

Hello and best of wishes to all the PRSG team !

Firstly, I'm one of the tetamu biasa kat blog ni and really impressed dengan apa yang you all published kat main page. Memula saya drop by kat page you all ni... well i thought that takde group selain 'Seekers' kat MY tapi ada gak group yang buat Pranormal research blog untuk dikongsi bersama researcher yang lain.. Well Done to PRSG. Kebelakangan ni banyak dokumentari about this kinda stuffs... you all tak keluarkan apa apa video ke? kalau ada leh gak beli...:) And nak tanya.. kalau I ada article yang minta tolong untuk publishkan macam mana plak caranya? is it just email to either one of the email?

Selain dari tu I juga pernah ke Miri Sarawak dalam tahun 2001, tapi tak tau plak ada tempat-tempat mistik dan misteri :) Dan artikel yang paling saya suka adalah mengenai WW2 remnants eg crashed japs plane, bomb's crater, bunker etc.. tapi sayang sama gak dengan tempat-tempat kat MY yang lain dimana semuanya tak dijaga dengan cara yang sepatutnya... kalau nak dikatakan tempat bersejarah memang pun... kalau ler dapat di preserve kan elok.

Artikel tentang paranormal entiti yang lain pun seronok tengok... and yang latest tentang lokasi tentera jepun pancung kepala tu... ada photo yang berjaya korang shoot and evp tak? tak sabar nak tengok ;)

So, that's all my comments and keep up the great works of yours and waiting for the latest findings from PRSG. Yeeha!

K-rules
Muar Johor

(Seperti yang diemailkan ke PRSG )

Canada Hill apparition

2008-05-04T18:57:00.005+08:00

Canada Hill is the place where the first oil well in Malaysia which famously known as the Grand Old Lady Oil Well No 1 located. Based on local resource, there's few cases where visitors who came there at night to see the night view of Miri City, claimed to saw dark apparitions crossing the road towards the bushes near the ravine. In some accounts, witness also claim to stumble upon a mysterious tall apparition which known to the local as Hantu Tinggi (Tall Ghost) standing in the middle of the road towards the historical monument. The PRSG team when there to investigate the stories and manage to captured some photo with a nightshot mode near the road entrance. The investigation took about 4 hours starting from 2300 until 0200 am on 14th March 2008 in order to capture any evidence of paranormal entities, apparition and also evp's.

Team members on Site:

R Iskandar @ Ezan
Goh T S @ Tee Tee

Apparition of a face taken with a nightshot camera

A close-up of the face apparition. A set of fangs or sharp front tooth is clearly seen after enhancement

Hasnida
PRSG AV