Daily Strange's Toxic Thursday A Hidden Fire: State of Combustion

Daily Strange's Hidden Fire: State of Combustion

In 1847 a French couple was indicted for murdering the man’s father and burning his body to conceal the crime. They claimed that the 71-year-old man was found in a “state of combustion” in his bed on January 6 of that year. According to the account given in court:

The chamber was filled with a cloud of dense smoke, and one of the witnesses asserted that he saw playing around the body of the deceased, a small whitish flame, which receded from him as he approached. The clothes of the deceased, and the coverings of the bed were almost entirely consumed, but the wood was only partially burnt. There were no ashes and only a small quantity of vegetable charcoal; there was, however, a kind of mixed residue, altered by fire, and some pieces of animal charcoal, which had evidently been derived from the articulations.

The victim’s son and daughter-in-law declared that the deceased, according to his usual practice, had a hot brick placed at his feet when he went to bed the previous evening. When they passed his door two hours later, they noticed nothing out of the ordinary. However, early the next morning the victim’s grandson entered his grandfather’s room and found the old man burning up as described.

The inquest established that the victim was not addicted to drunkenness and that he had been in the habit of carrying “Lucifer” matches (an early type of friction match) in his waistcoat pocket. A Dr. Masson, who was commissioned to investigate the case, had the body exhumed and examined. A partially burned cravat was found around the neck, and part of the sleeve of his nightshirt was intact. His burned hands were attached to the forearms only by some carbonized tendons, which gave way when touched. The legs were detached from the torso and looked as though they had been deliberately cut off, except for the presence of some charring around their edges.

The doctor gave evidence to the effect that he thought it's impossible for the victim to have died of accidental burning or as a result of having been deliberately set on fire after he had been killed. He concluded that the burning resulted from “some inherent cause in the individual” and that perhaps the hot brick had touched something off. All in all, Dr. Masson could not put the facts together as they stood. The case was, as far as he could tell, to be classed as one of spontaneous combustion. The son and daughter-in-law were acquitted.

SOURCE:

Theodoric R. and John B. Beck, Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, 10th ed., Vol.3 2, pp.104-05

#compustion #humancompustion #mystery

Wicked Wednesday: Visitor in the Night

Wicked Wednesday: Visitor in the Night

Stationed in Asia on a U.S. government assignment during 1960 - 1961, Mr. and Mrs. John Church spent their vacation in India. It was while they were in New Delhi, staying at the splendid old Imperial Hotel, related to Mrs. Church, that she experienced the following:

One night I awoke from a sound sleep on hearing my brother, David, call my name. At the time he was living in Goshen, New York, where he operated a charter air service. Opening my eyes, I found him standing a few feet away, near the coffee table. There was enough light so that I could see him quite distinctly, and I noted that he was wearing his pilot s uniform. Curiously, though, his face was blank, lacking any features. Checking to make sure I was awake and not dreaming, I pinched myself, identified my surroundings, and touched my husband at my side. All the time I stared at my brother; there was no doubt about it—he was there in the room. I was shaken but not frightened, and I wondered whether to speak. After a moment or two his figure wavered, and then it slowly dissolved into vapor, from the head downward, until it finally vanished.

For the next several weeks we waited uneasily for mail from my family; happily, there was no bad news. Upon my return to the States a year later, I related my experience to my brother. He recalled a terrifying flight the previous year when he thought he was going to die; both engines of his twin-engine aircraft had failed, but as the plane plunged, one engine miraculously started up again. Although we were unable to synchronize the two experiences exactly, we found they had occurred very close in time. [A firsthand report to the Editors]

#appereances #disappereances #mystery

Daily Strange's Tricky Tuesday: A Feeling of Terror and Panic...

Daily Strange's Trikcy Tuesday: A Feeling of Terror and Panic...

Hereward Hubert Lavington Carrington (October 17, 1880 - December 26, 1958) was one of the pioneers of psychical research in the United States, a tireless investigator of telepathy, mediums, poltergeists, and hauntings. He claimed to have “witnessed highly curious and inexplicable phenomena in haunted houses ”on several occasions. He chose the following account as one of the most striking:

Motorists whose cars crashed at this London corner explained that they swerved to avoid a mysterious red bus. It had hurtled toward them, they said, and then suddenly vanished.

On the night of August 13, 1937, a party of seven of us spent the night in a reputed “haunted house,” situated some 50 miles from New York City.... The group consisted of the former occupant [who had rented the house and left before his rental expired, because of the disturbances], two of his friends, two friends of our own, my wife and myself. We also brought with us a dog which had lived in the house while it was occupied, and which, according to reports, had behaved in an extraordinary manner on several occasions.

Hereward Hubert Lavington Carrington

After having spent years investigating psychical phenomena in England, Dr. Hereward Carington came to the United States in the 1920's to continues his research. It led him to one of the most terrifying ''hauntings'' he ever experienced.

Carrington suggested that the house, which was lit from top to bottom upon their arrival, be explored to make sure that it was not practical jokers, cats, bats, rats, or mice that were causing the disturbances:

Examination of the cellar and the ground floor revealed nothing unusual. On the second floor, however, two or three of us sensed something strange in one of the middle bedrooms. This feeling was quite intangible, but was definitely present, and seemed to be associated with an old bureau standing against one wall....

Walking along the hall, we came to a door which had escaped our attention the first time we had passed it.

''Where does this lead?'' I asked.

''To the servants' quarters,'' Mr. X. replied

''Would you like to go up there?''

''By all means,'' I said, opening the door.

Glancing up, I could see that the top floor was brilliantly lighted, and that a steep flight of stairs lay just ahead of me. Leading the way, with the others close behind me, I ascended the stairs, and made a sharp turn to the right, finding myself confronted by a series of small rooms.

The instant I did so, I felt as though a vital blow had been delivered to my solar plexus. My forehead broke out into profuse perspiration, my head swam, and I had difficulty in swallowing. It was a most extraordinary sensation, definitely physiological, and unlike anything I had ever experienced before. A feeling of terror and panic seized me, and for the moment I had the utmost difficulty in preventing myself from turning and fleeing down the stairs! Vaguely I remember saying aloud:

“Very powerful! Very powerful!” My wife, who was just behind me, had taken a step or two forward. She was just exclaiming, “Oh, what cute little rooms!” when the next moment she was crying, “No! No!” and raced down the steep flight of stairs like a scared rabbit.

Carrington pointed out that both he and his wife were seasoned investigators, “accustomed to psychic manifestations of all kinds,” and that neither had previously experienced a comparable moment of terror. He went downstairs to make sure that his wife was all right and found her sitting on the porch “slowly collecting her scattered faculties.” She reassured him. The group, whose other members had all been strongly affected, then gathered in a circle in one of the bedrooms. The lights were turned out, and they waited, cameras and flashbulbs ready.

After passing an uneventful hour they ascended the stairs again, and“ this time not a sensation of any kind was to be felt! The room seemed absolutely clear of all influences, clean, pure and normal... Even the dog, which had growled and bristled like a cat and refused to be coaxed upstairs on the first occasion, now ran up quite willingly, with its tail wagging.

It was only after Carrington and the others had made their original inspection of the place and experienced their“first violent reactions” that the former tenant told them “a suicide had actually been committed on the upper floor, and that these rooms were thought to be the seat’ of the haunting.”

Source: (Hereward Carrington, Essays in the Occult, pp.19-25)

#haunting #poltergeist #physic #oddites #occult #mystery #spectralincursion #dailystrange#ghostbus #londonghost #urbanlegend #trickytuesday #HerewardCarrington #HerewardHubertLavingtonCarrington