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An approachable and devout Christian, a talented organ player at his local church and a man known for helping out the poor and needy…

Who also killed over 40 people and pickled their flesh before selling it, under the label of ‘pork’, at the Wroclaw markets.

Meet Karl Denke the cannibal…

Denke was known locally as ‘Pappa Denke’ – he was a kind character who you could rely upon if you were in some sort of trouble.

A devout Christian, assistant at Evangelist funerals, church organ player and savior to the poor and needy.

He was born on 12 August, 1870 in a small village in Prussia. He disappeared from the history books when he was about 12 – running away from home, and he reappeared when he was 25, due to his father leaving him an inheritance.

He used this money to purchase a small farm, but failed miserably at it. He then used the remainder of his savings to start up a door-to-door salesman business, where he sold leather belts, shoelaces and boneless pork.

He also opened up a small stall at the local market.

The First World War was not kind to Denke, and by the end of it he had lost most of his savings, and sold his house. He was left with a small apartment with a small shed in the backyard area.

Vincenz Olivier

The 21st of December, 1924, and a homeless man named Vincenz Olivier stumbled into the Munsterberg Police Station with blood all over his clothes. He was shouting hysterically that Pappa Denke had tried to kill him with an axe.

At first the police laughed it off – everyone knew Pappa Denke, and he was certainly not a killer.

But Vincenz was adamant, so the police followed up the claims and paid Denke a visit.

Denke actually came clean and claimed that he did attack the homeless man – but it was in self defence. The police put him in the cells for the night and told him not to worry, they would clear his name by the morning.

Denke was found dead in his cell the following morning – he had hung himself.

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The Cannibal Psychopath

When the police searched through Denke’s property – they uncovered a sadistic double life…

It was Christmas Eve, and the police were getting the house ready to hand over to Denke’s relatives…but nothing could prepare them for what they …

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The Deerness mermaid of Orkney has been with many British children since a young age. As a young primary school pupil we were often made to draw pictures representing this magical creature for our basic art lessons.

On several occasions our teacher would go through the story with us before we were allowed to mix our paints and start. I used to love it – the magical theme of the story then the license to be let free in art later was always exciting to me.

Orkney

Off the North coast of Scotland there is a group of small islands that band together to form Orkney. Out of the 70 islands only 20 of them are inhabited, the biggest of which is referred to as the Mainland.

There have been people living on these islands for at least 8,500 years. The two first known civilizations to be living there were called the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Later on on history the islands became inhabited by the more famous Picts.

The island sort of bounced back and forth between Scotland and Norway (the Norse) in early history until 1472 when Scotland took it back for good. It has stayed as one of the 32 council areas of Scotland ever since.

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The Deerness Mermaid

There have been many sightings of mermaids in Orkney but the Deerness mermaid is by far the most famous.

It was around the 1890 period when the sightings began. They happened over a couple of summer periods ( we cannot be exact but we are led to believe it was about two to three summer seasons! ).

The Deerness mermaid used to show herself to visitors to Newark bay with little to no fear of being spotted. It pretty much started off as a bold rumor but then literally hundreds of eyewitness reports came forward.

There were no real details given about her appearance as she swam about some distance from the shore to stay safe.

There is one known report that offers a vaguely decent description of the creature but it’s not exactly what you would expect. We are not talking about a friendly ‘Disney’ character here!

The report claimed that the creature was a rather frightening seven feet in length and had a dark black head and neck upon it’s shoulders. The skin of it’s torso was a deep pale white color and it had long arms that it used to swim …

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In this article we will be taking a closer look at the Bathsheba Sherman story, which is linked to a previous article we published, located here – Old Arnold Estate – The Conjuring.

Accused of being a witch, even after she had proven her innocence – why were locals so convinced that she was in league with the devil?

Bathsheba Sherman History

Born in Rhode Island in 1812, Bathsheba Thayer married her sweetheart, Judson Sherman, on March the 10th, 1844. They were both is their thirties at the time (records do not show the exact ages).

Five years after they tied the knot, Bathsheba Sherman gave birth to their son, Herbert.

The Sherman family owned a farm which Judson ran alone, leaving Bathsheba to look after and raise their young son.

NOTE: Certain reports claim that the Sherman’s had three other children who all died at a young age. There is NO evidence to back this up! 

Life couldn’t be better really – the farm was doing exceptionally well and Bathsheba was doing a great job at raising young Herbert…

But all that changed in an instant, when a neighbor’s infant died whilst in her care.

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Bathsheba Sherman the Witch

The infant died, or was murdered, in a rather gruesome fashion – the cause of death was found to be an impalement at the base of the youngster’s skull.

Bathsheba went to trial and was cleared of any wrongdoing…but the locals did not buy this – they believed that she sacrificed the child as an offering to the devil.

Unfortunately for Bathsheba – she was not the most popular character with local women before this incident. She was extremely good looking and most women who knew her resented this.

She could not escape the opinions of everyone she knew, and she eventually led the sheltered life of a recluse.

This only added fuel to the fire, and the locals made up fresh rumors of what she did when she was locked away in the farm.

Reports suggest that this sheltered lifestyle eventually changed her personality, and she became incredibly nasty to the hired help that worked the farm.

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Death

Bathsheba is thought to have lived to the age of 72, but then died suddenly from a strange kind of paralysis. Reportedly the medical report on her death states that her body had turned as if to stone.

This strange death only ended up convincing the locals …

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About a decade ago I was introduced to the Mothman Indrid Cold in a Richard Gere film named The Mothman Prophecies. I don’t normally rely on Hollywood as a source of research but…

The film absolutely captivated me and I have spent many hours researching the subject ever since. Let’s take a closer look at the case of Indrid Cold and the Point Pleasant West Virginia Mothman…

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Woodrow Derenberger

A salesman for a sewing machine company named Woodrow Derenberger was on his way home one night to Mineral Wells in West Virginia. He had been away working in Ohio and was heading home along Highway I-77.

As he was reaching Parkersburg a strange car flew past him at an extraordinary speed. The car was like no other car he had seen before – he claimed it had a ‘kerosene lamp chimney’ spouting out of it’s top and it traveled a few inches off the road.

Without warning the car suddenly pulled in front of him and jerked itself sideways making Derenberger slam on the brakes. Suddenly a grinning man in a dark suit got out of the strange car and started to walk towards Derenberger’s truck.

As the man approached the truck his car suddenly took of into the air on autopilot floating about 40 feet off the ground. The man continued walking until he reached the right side window of Derenberger’s truck.

Indrid Cold

Once at the window he somehow connected with Derenberger telepathically. He asked him to wind down the window and informed him that he meant no harm.

The grinning man asked what he was called so Derenberger told him his full name. The man then responded by saying his name was Cold. As they were conversing telepathically Derenberger noticed that Cold was transfixed by the distant light of Parkersburg.

He then asked Derenberger what the lights represented and Derenberger informed him that they were from the city of Parkersburg. Cold followed this with strange questions about the people that live in Parkersburg and Derenberger told him that mostly business went on there – the people lived outside the city.

After the strange questions had finished Cold seemed very satisfied with what he had learned. He turned to Derenberger and said…

“It’s been nice talking to you Mr. Derenberger. We will be seeing you again”

With this he turned and walked away …

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One of the most intriguing stories of a stranger from a strange land is the Mystery of the man from Taured. The story goes that in 1954, a man arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo after disembarking from a plane originating in Europe.

Upon arriving at the customs checkpoint the man presents a passport indicating he is from Taured. The only problem is that officials recognize that no such land exists. The man is insistent that he is from a nation over 1,000 years old situated on the border between Spain and France.

Popular tellings of the story differ with various sources at this point. Some indicate that the man is confused by Andorra and insists that this is not his homeland while the majority have the man identifying the space as Taured though he appears confused that it is being called “Andorra” and claims to have never heard of such a place.

When immigration officials take him to a hotel under guard they are shocked the next morning to find he has disappeared with no discernible means of escape. Complicating matters further is that his confiscated passport is also gone as is virtually every bit of evidence that he ever passed through Tokyo.

The story of the Taured man is a spooky favorite. The idea of a waylaid traveler finding himself in a strange land, seemingly of another world, was constantly used as fodder for mystery and horror stories throughout the last century.

The story itself could easily have been a plot for an episode of ( which, incidentally, would have aired less than five years after the Taured man stepped off that plane at Haneda ).

The Taured Man

There are a few possibilities as to what happened to the Taured man ( ordered from least to most likely ):

1. He Was a Time Traveler – Perhaps the name “Taured” was unknown to the people of 1954, as it is unknown to the people of the present year, because the land formerly known as Andorra is to be known as Taured many years in the future.

For this to be the case, a few assumptions would need to be made. First, the boundaries of Andorra and Taured would need to be nearly identical despite a thousand (or more) years difference between their existence. Very few nations have geographic boundaries that have remained completely unchanged for …

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In this article we will be covering the reincarnation case of the Pollock twins from Hexham, England. A strange tale that reinforces the idea of life after death and hope from tragedy.

Tragic Events

John and Florence Pollock led a normal family life raising their two daughters Jacqueline, 6, and Joanna, 11.

This perfect family picture was torn apart on 5th of May, 1957 when their two daughters and one of their friends ( Anthony Layden ) were tragically hit by a car. They were on their way to church when the driver lost control of his car and slid into the youngsters.

All three children were killed instantly on impact.

Hope From Despair

Both John and Florence were understandably destroyed by this tragic event but clung onto the hope that one day they would be blessed with another child.

Their prayers were answered a lot sooner than they imagined – a year later John found out that his wife was pregnant again.

Florence’s doctor informed them that she was only carrying one child but John disagreed with this and claimed she was carrying reincarnated twins.

This was a strange claim by John seeing that his Catholic religion stood firmly opposed to the concept of reincarnation – but this did not stop him from believing.

He was convinced that Florence would have twins and that the souls of Jacqueline and Joanna would be reborn.

The Pollock twins

Against all odds John’s prediction on twins turned out to be correct and on the 4th of October 1958, Gillian and Jennifer were born.

John noticed that the infant Jennifer had a strange white line across her forehead similar to her dead sister Jaqueline’s scar from a bike accident. When he checked the baby’s leg he also located a birthmark identical to Jaqueline’s birthmark.

When the twins reached the age of three months John and Florence decided to move to Whitley Bay. They did not return to Hexam until the twins were nearly four years old…

We’ve Been Here Before…

When the family drove through Hexam the twins started pointing out landmarks that they had never been to before. When they past the school that their dead sisters had attended they swore blind that it was ‘their school’ and they used to attend it.

The family started to dig out the old possessions of Jacqueline and …

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The case of the Hudson​​ Valley UFO sightings is made up of numerous first hand reports that began at almost the beginning of a new year, 1982.

It all started with a retired policeman relaxing on his backyard porch on the night of December 31, 1981…

Lights to The South

The policeman in question was admiring the night sky just before midnight on the 31st when he noticed a grouped selection of rather bright lights to the south.

When the lights approached his area he realized they were selectively colored as red, green and white. At first he thought it was nothing more than a plane flying from the New York area but it seemed to be awfully low in height.

As the lights got closer he realized they were moving very slowly and there was no sound coming from them – no engine noise to indicate a craft in flight whatsoever!

As the lights passed over him he realized that a V-shaped fuselage was holding them together. The V-shaped craft hummed peacefully past him and carried on it’s mysterious journey.

One of Many

This kind of report would be repeated many times in the Hudson Valley over the next few years. Most of the Hudson Valley UFO sightings seemed to indicate that the craft was a V-shaped fuselage with the brightly colored lights attached to it.

On March 26, 1983, the Westchester-Rockland Daily Item released a front page story covering the incidents and Ufologists the world over got wind of the case.

A well known UFO investigator named Dr. J. Allen Hynek put a group of associates on the case and they immediately set up a hotline for incident reports. They received well over 300 calls and all of them described the vessel in it’s V-shaped form.

On the night of March 24, 1983, the city of Yorktown also came alive with reports of this strange UFO activity. The local police switchboard had severe difficulties in trying to keep up with reported emergencies due to the constant stream of UFO sightings.

The Taconic parkway that runs through the area was packed with stalled cars as their drivers got out to witness the strange UFO pass over them.

There were over 5,000 Hudson Valley UFO sightings from the period of 1982 through 1986.

The Sightings

• ​The UFO was always spotted at night – for some reason

…

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On October 17, 1973, Police Chief Jeff Greenhaw received a phone call that would change the way he looked at life forever.

In this article we will be taking a look at the events that led up Greenhaw’s encounter with the Falkville alien – the metal man…

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The Call

Police Chief Jeff Greenhaw was relaxing at his home in Falkville, Alabama, at about 10 o’ clock at night. His television program was suddenly interrupted by the sound of the house phone so he got up and answered it.

On the other end of the line was a lady who remains anonymous to this day – she was in a complete state of panic.

The lady claimed to have just witnessed a UFO land on a piece of land owned by Falkville resident Bobby Summerford. Greenhaw took the call very seriously and decided to respond to it even though he was off duty.

He loaded his police car up with his camera and his gun and set off for the area the woman had described on the phone.

When he arrived there he found nothing out of the ordinary. He walked around the area several times but could not see any signs of anything strange. He was just about to head off back home when he decided to give the area one more scan – the woman had sounded very concerned on the phone…

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The Falkville Alien

Greenhaw decided to check out a gravel dirt road that he had avoided during the initial searches. As he drove along it slowly he noticed a figure in the distance moving rather strangely.

He approached slowly because he believed the figure to be hurt in some way due it’s strange movements.

It was a fairly dull night so visibility was not that good – Greenhaw pulled up about 5 yards away from the figure in complete shock.

He was confronted by a small being in a complete silver body suit. Here are Greenhaw’s own words:

“It looked like his head and neck were kind of made together… he was real bright, something like rubbing mercury on nickel, but just as smooth as glass-different angles give different lighting… when I saw him standing in the middle of the road I immediately stopped the car and asked if he was a foreigner, but no sound came out of his mouth.”

Greenhaw suddenly remembered his camera on the …

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