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 Sacred Saturday: The Plowboy Prophet

1400s Henry V Of England Speaking Poster by Vintage Images

Robert Nixon, a rural visionary who, by reputation, was held to be mentally retarded, was born around 1467 on a farm in the county of Cheshire, England. He began his working life as a plowboy, being too stupid, by all appearances, to do anything else. He was mostly a silent youth, though sometimes given to strange, incomprehensible babblings that were taken to be a sign of his limited mentality.

One day, however, while he was plowing a field, he paused in his work, looked around him in a strange way, and exclaimed: “Now Dick! Now Harry! Oh, ill done, Dick! Oh, well done, Harry! Harry has gained the day!” This outcry, more cogent than most, though still incomprehensible, puzzled Roberts fellow workers, but the next day everything was made clear: at the very moment of Roberts strange seizure King Richard III had been killed at Bosworth Field, and the victor of that decisive battle, Henry Tudor, was now proclaimed Henry VII of England.

When Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII after the defeat and death of Richard III at Bosworth Fields the event was “seen” from afar by a clairvoyant plowboy.

Before long, news of the bucolic seer reached the new king, who was much intrigued and wanted to meet him. An envoy was sent from London to escort Nixon back to the palace. Even before the envoy left the court, Robert knew he was coming and was thrown into a fit of great distress, running about the town of Over and crying out that Henry had sent for him, and he would be clammed — starved to death!

In the meantime Henry had decided on a method of testing the young prophet, and when Nixon was shown into his presence the king appeared to be greatly troubled. He had lost a valuable diamond, he explained. Could Nixon help him locate it? Nixon calmly replied, in the words of a proverb, that those who hide can find. Henry had, of course, hidden the diamond and was so impressed by the plowboy s answer that he ordered a record to be made of everything the lad said. What he said, duly interpreted, forecast the English civil wars, the death and abdication of kings, and war with France. He also forecast that the town of Nantwich, in Cheshire, would be swept away by a flood, though this has not yet happened.

But the prophecy that most concerned Nixon was the most improbable of all: that he would starve to death in the royal palace. To allay these fears, Henry ordered that Nixon should be given all the food he wanted, whenever he wanted it, an order that did not endear the strange young man to the royal kitchen (whose staff, in any case, envied his privileges).

One day, however, the king left London, leaving Robert in the care of one of his officers. To protect his charge from the malice of the palace domestics, the officer thoughtfully locked him safely in the king’s own closet. The officer was then also called away from London on urgent business and forgot to leave the key or instructions for Roberts release. By the time he returned, Robert had starved to death.

SOURCE: (Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, pp.277-80)

#prophecy #phenomena #henrytudor #plowboyprophet #robertnixon

Sacred Saturday: Walking around to the other side of the horses --- Benjamin Bathurst's Story

Age of Wisdom Alphonse Mucha 1936 - 1938

In 1809 England sought to persuade Austria to join the confederation opposing Napoleon. Benjamin Bathurst, a 25-year-old diplomat who had already distinguished himself in foreign service, went to Vienna to promise an attack on the French who were occupying Spain in return for Austria’s alignment with England. It proved a bad bargain: Napoleon was victorious at Wagram on the Danube River, and Austria was forced to cede territory to him.

That fall, Bathurst began to make his way back home through Germany. On November 25, traveling under the name of Koch and posing as a wealthy merchant, he and his secretary and valet stopped at an inn in Perleberg. A witness at the inn reported that he seemed very nervous. He asked the commander of the local garrison to provide armed guards against mysterious pursuers - perhaps agents of Napoleon.

Benjamin Bathurst, a British envoy sent on a secret mission to Austria in 1809, was on his way back to England when he vanished forever in a small German town. The distinguished young diplomat, who was traveling incognito, may have been trailed and assassinated by French soldiers. In the middle of the evening, as his coach was preparing to leave, Bathurst went out into the otherwise deserted street, walked around his horses...

And was gone.

His valet, who had been at the rear of the coach with the baggage, cast a look down each side of the coach and saw only the hostler who had harnessed the horses. His secretary, standing in the doorway of the inn to pay the bill, had not seen him return. The soldiers stationed at each end of the street had seen no one pass.

The authorities searched first the inn and then all of Perleberg. Inquiries from the British Foreign Office brought a denial from Napoleon that his agents had been involved. Stories circulated that Bathurst had been robbed and murdered, that he had secretly gone on to a port and been lost at sea, and so on — but all that is known about Benjamin Bathurst’s disappearance from a quiet street in a small German town is summed up in the words of Charles Fort, that tireless collector of events that have no rhyme or reason:“Under observation, he walked around to the other side of the horses.”

SOURCE: (Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 1, p.1327;Charles Fort, The Complete Books of Charles Fort, p.681; Colin Wilson, Enigmas and Mysteries, p.37)

#disappearance #mysteries #enigmas #benjaminbathurst