Thursday, September 4, 2014

An Assemblage of the Uncanny

"On November 21, 1987, Korrina Lynne Sagers Malinoski, a 26-year old woman from Mount Holly, South Carolina, mysteriously disappeared when she did not show up for work and her car was found parked in front of the Mount Holly Plantation. But that’s not even the most bizarre aspect of this story. On October 4, 1988, Korrina’s 8-year old daughter, Annette Sagers, was on her way to school and went to the bus stop in front of the Mount Holly Plantation… and she mysteriously vanished as well!To make things even stranger, a note was found at the bus stop which read: “Dad, momma come back. Give the boys a hug”. While it looked like it may have been written under duress, handwriting experts determined that Annette likely wrote the note. It’s been speculated that Annette’s mother may have returned to reclaim her daughter so they could disappear together, but she also left two sons behind and no one in their family has heard from either of them in 25 years. In 2000, an anonymous caller claimed that Annette’s body was buried in Sumter County, but that lead never panned out. Overall, this is a truly baffling mystery with no discernible solution." [listverse.com]

In 1932 two German newspapermen were covering a story on the Hamburg-Altona shipyards. While there, the skies darkened eerily and the two men could hear the distant droning of aircraft. Not long after, the pair heard antiaircraft guns in response and within moments they were running for cover as bombs rained down around them, setting the shipyard ablaze. Furiously, the men shot photographs of the sudden destruction before dashing to the main offices of the shipyard to offer their assistance. However, the men were confused to find a nonplussed worker telling them to mind their own business. As the men drove off, the sun broke through, and the surreal landscape of an unremarkable day in Hamburg unfolded with each passing mile. Citizens, seemingly without a care in the world, went about their routine as normal. The pictures the two developed showed no signs of destruction. Years later, one of the reporters moved to England. In 1943, he spied a story in the paper about a night raid on the Hamburg-Altona shipyards, which included startling photographs that matched the devastation he had witnessed 11 years prior. [from J. Bernard Hutton's On the Other Side of Reality]

"The first recorded serial killer in history reigned like a mad queen for 15 years during the first century AD: Her name was Locusta, and her career reads like what would happen if Hannibal Lecter was given his own state college. Locusta's macabre story starts in the mid-first century A.D., where she was arrested for poisoning people. Fortune smiled upon her when Agrippina decided to poison Emperor Claudius, and can you guess who she turned to for help on that one? That's right, Locusta, who subsequently received a pardon for her lethal dose of girl power. So, what did Locusta do with her freedom? She got busted one year later in 55 A.D. for poisoning people. (Again, serial killer.) Fortunately, the new Emperor Nero needed her for another job, and Locusta was pardoned once more so she could whip up a deadly milkshake for Nero's 13-year-old step brother Britannicus. After that hit, Locusta was awarded a sweet villa and even pupils to aid her in her arts. That's right, even though she was a known murderer and repeat offender, Locusta was given everything she needed to open her own goddamn school for murder. However, Locusta's luck ran out when Nero committed suicide, leaving her with few allies and a reputation akin to that of a sorceress. The madwoman was arrested and promptly executed by Emperor Galba in 69 A.D. How did she die? Perhaps an ironic "taste" of her own medicine? Nope: She was supposedly publicly raped to death by a wild animal [some sources say a giraffe]. That's Roman law for you." [cracked.com]

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