The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories

by Ventura, Varla

  One month later, on December 5, Captain Morehouse of the Dei Gratia—another cargo ship—noticed a vessel on the horizon. It looked like it was in trouble, so he changed course to see if he could help. After calling out to the ship and getting no reply, Morehouse sent two of his men to board. It was immediately clear that the ship had been deserted. The ship was the Mary Celeste. The men looked for underwater damage, but the vessel was not leaking and was not in danger of sinking. On the whole, the Mary Celeste was in very good condition and should have had no problem continuing its journey. There was evidence it had been hit by a storm, but no harm was done.

  The men also found that there were six months' worth of provisions and plenty of fresh water aboard the ship. All the crew's personal possessions—even their tobacco—were also still intact, indicating that the crew had left the ship in a panic, afraid for their lives. Absolutely nothing was missing, except some of the ship's papers and the ship's lifeboat. Captain Briggs, his family, and the crew had obviously abandoned the ship in a hurry. But why? What could have frightened them so much that they'd desert a seaworthy vessel for an overcrowded lifeboat and take their chances on the Atlantic?

  Puzzled by the disappearance of the crew, Captain Morehouse put three men aboard the Mary Celeste and proceeded with both ships to Gibraltar.

  Officials in Gibraltar investigated and discovered that the Mary Celeste's hull was perfectly sound, indicating that she had not been in a collision. There was also no evidence of a fire or explosion. The cargo of commercial alcohol seemed to be intact and complete. The only mysterious item aboard was a sword found under the captain's bed. It seemed to have been smeared with blood, then wiped. Blood was also found on the ships railing, and both bows of the ship had strange cuts in them that could not be explained.

  Solly Flood, attorney general for Gibraltar, found the bloodstains suspicious and was convinced that there had been violence aboard the Mary Celeste. Morehouse and his crew were cleared of any suspicion, and after the ship's owners had paid Morehouse a reward, the ship was given a new crew and went on to Italy, where its cargo was delivered. It continued to sail for twelve years, but was always known as a hoodoo ship, so most seamen refused to set foot on her.

  To this day, no one knows what exactly happened aboard the Mary Celeste, but people all over the world have theories. Some believe a mutiny had occurred—the crew murdered the captain and his family, then took the ship. But why would they abandon their prize? There is the possibility that pirates attacked the ship and killed everyone on it. But that theory makes no sense because nothing was stolen. Perhaps an outbreak of disease panicked those left alive, but why would they subject themselves to the close quarters of a smaller boat, where crowding would ensure that everyone caught the disease? The most outrageous explanation is that the ship had been attacked by a giant squid, several times, until everyone was killed. But a squid wouldn't have been interested in the ship's papers, and it wouldn't need the ship's lifeboat.

  Experts say only one feasible explanation has been proposed. This theory postulates that four things happened, in succession: First, the captain died of natural causes while the ship was caught in bad weather. Then a crew member misread the depth of the water in the hold, and everyone panicked, thinking the ship was going down. They abandoned the ship in such a hurry that they took no food or water, and everyone in the lifeboat either starved or drowned.

  Is this what happened? Maybe, but we'll never know for sure.

  The bubonic plague was nicknamed the Black Death because of the nasty black sores it left on its victims' bodies.

  THE GHOST SHIP

  Nautical lore is rife with stories of ghost ships. One of the oldest and most celebrated of these stories, the tale of the Sarah, started with a lover's quarrel.

  The year was 1812, and two young sailors, George Leverett and Charles Jose, set out from their native Portland, Maine, to South Freeport to build and stock a ship they planned to use for trading in the Indies. It was there that the pair met and fell in love with Sarah Soule. Both men vied for the lady's attention, but in the end it was Leverett who won her hand in marriage. Dejected and angry, Jose disappeared.

  It wasn't until Leverett was married and his rig, the Sarah, was sailing due south that Jose reemerged—as captain of an unmarked ship that was trailing the Sarah. Spooked, Leverett and his crew changed course, hoping to report Jose to the British admiralty, but they never made it. Jose's ship fired its cannons, killing all of the other ship's crew and nearly sinking the Sarah. Miraculously, Leverett was not killed, so the vengeful Jose jumped onto the deck of the Sarah, tied the captain to the mast, and set him out to sea.

  Leverett resigned himself to death—he was floating on an open sea in an unmanned and badly damaged vessel. It was then that the truly astonishing began to happen. Leverett watched, horrified, as his crew slowly came back to life, resuming their posts one by one. The pale and silent crew then started guiding the ship toward home. Leverett lost consciousness.

  The ghost crew sailed the ship safely all the way to Pott's Point, Wales. Onlookers from the shore reported that one foggy day, a dilapidated but fully rigged ship materialized from the gloom and came to a full stop. An apparently lifeless man was then lowered from the ship onto a smaller boat and rowed to shore. The crew, silent and pallid, never said a word. Once their cargo was safely laid on a rock, they returned to the ship and slowly sailed away. The ship was never to be seen again. Captain Leverett regained consciousness and lived to tell the tale.

  BRITISH WITCHES STOP HITLER'S ARMY

  When he learned that Adolf Hitler planned to invade England, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain went to Munich, Germany, in September 1938 to stop him. He returned to England with a treaty declaring there would be “peace for our time.” Widely accused of appeasing the Nazis, he was voted out of office. A year later, when Hitler invaded Poland, World War II began.

  In May and June of 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was nearly crushed by the Nazi army. What saved them was what Winston Churchill called a “miracle of deliverance.” More than three hundred thousand men were rescued from the coastal town of Dunkirk, France, and brought back across the English Channel by English civilians in every kind of boat—yachts, fishing boats, pleasure boats, even rowboats.

  On July 31, 1940, it is said that English witches gathered in the New Forest, in Hampshire, and raised a monumental cone of power to stop Hitler's forces. It is also said that the well-known witch Gerald Gardner and his coven joined this grand coven. Five of Gardner's coveners died a few days later, and Gardner reported that he had been weakened by the energy.

  THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

  It all began in Salem, Massachusetts, in January of 1692, when two girls, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, began to show unusual symptoms: screaming, convulsions, and trancelike behavior. The doctor declared that their fits could only mean that the girls were under the influence of witches.

  Soon many more girls throughout Salem were complaining of similar symptoms. They jumped into holes, crept under chairs, and contorted their bodies in all kinds of odd ways. Others, especially in the company of one particular minister, would make odd sounds, and some even pulled burning logs from fireplaces and threw them around the room.

  People prayed. People fasted. The fits continued anyway. Fingers were pointed to the weakest and strangest of the village, such as Tituba, a slave from Barbados; Sarah Good, a beggar; and Sarah Osborne, an old bedridden woman.

  But as panic grew and the fits continued, more people were accused of being witches, including the Goodwife Proctor, whose husband was a successful farmer and tavern keeper. Also accused was Martha Cory, the wife of a farmer and landowner; the governor's wife; and even Dorcas Good, a four-year-old girl!

  A special court was established in Salem to hear the cases against the accused, and the trials began in June. Bridget Bishop was the first to be tried and hanged.

  In the end, hundreds were accused, and 150 were
imprisoned and chained to the prison walls. In all, twenty people were executed, and more perished in prison.

  KILLING WITCHES

  We all know that witches were burned at the stake, but it turns out that in Salem, Massachusetts, the famous witchcraft capital of New England, other methods were preferred. Twenty-five witches died in Salem: nineteen died by hanging, four died waiting in prison, and one was crushed to death using large stones.

  LADY GODIVA'S RIDE

  In 1040, Leonfric, earl of Mercia and lord of Coventry, laid such onerous taxes on the people that they were starving. When Lady Godiva, his wife, begged him to be merciful, he challenged her. If she would ride naked through the town, he would rescind the taxes. Godiva ordered that all windows be covered at noon and that all townspeople stay indoors. She mounted her white stallion and rode through the town, her long hair her only garment. Only one man dared to look at her; his name has come down to us as Peeping Tom. He was struck blind. It is said that his eyes shriveled into darkness at the moment he beheld Godiva's naked figure.

  Godiva was not just any medieval English noblewoman. The tale of Lady Godiva is the story of a (Celtic?) goddess, possibly Epona, who road naked on a white horse while she bestowed blessings upon her people—on their houses and work, their fields and crops.

  A TRULY TERRIBLE TV MOMENT

  The host of a talk show in Florida, Christine Chub-bock, signed off her show on July 15, 1974, by remarking that her viewers were about to see a TV first. She then presented a gun and killed herself on camera.

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the thirty-second president of the United States, and Dick Cheney, the forty-sixth vice president, share the same birthday: January 30.

  TAKING TV TOO SERIOUSLY

  A couple in Toronto fought so viciously over who was the prettier actress on the TV sitcom Married With Children (Christina Applegate or Katey Segal) that the wife slashed the husband in the crotch with a broken wine bottle. They eventually made up, only to get into the same fight again. The second time, she broke his shoulder and arm, and he stabbed her multiple times.

  BIZARRE AND BRUTAL ROYALTY

  TINY ENEMIES

  Queen Christina of Sweden, who ruled in the 1600s, had a tiny problem—she was absolutely terrified of fleas. She was so afraid, in fact, that she commissioned the construction of a tiny cannon for her bedroom, which used to fire itty-bitty cannonballs at the pesky critters. No word on how good a shot she was, but apparently it was an activity that she spent hours per day on.

  BLOODY MARY

  Queen Mary I of England and Ireland (1516–1558) was a Catholic who had Protestants tortured and killed. Her actions inspired the nickname Bloody Mary, which in turn inspired the cocktail.

  ONE LUCKY FLOWER

  Russia's Catherine the Great (1729–1796) once saw a primrose in her garden and fell in love with it, setting a guard over it to protect it from harm.

  PRINCESS DELUSIONAL

  When she was a child, Princess Alexandria of Bavaria (1826–1875) became convinced that she had swallowed a grand piano.

  ENDURING LOVE

  Spanish Queen Juana so loved her husband, Philip, that when he passed away in 1506, she kept his coffin with her for the rest of her life, refusing to allow him to be buried.

  A DEADLY MARRIAGE

  Princess Maria del Pozzo della Cisterno's 1867 wedding day was a bad one, but not because of fiancé Amadeo, the future king of Italy. It was everyone else that caused the trouble: her wardrobe mistress hanged herself, the gatekeeper cut his throat, someone got caught under the wheels of the honeymoon train and died, an associate of the king fell from his horse to his death, and the best man shot himself.

  POOR RICH CHILD

  Isabella, daughter of Charles VI of France, was a true child bride. She was wed in 1396 at age seven to twenty-nine-year-old King Richard II of England to cement a political alliance. Just three years later, in 1399, Richard was usurped by King Henry IV and died in 1400, leaving Isabella a widow at the tender age of ten.

  SECRETS OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT

  The Voynich manuscript is a mystery that has puzzled scholars for hundreds of years. Wilfrid Voynich, a collector of rare books and manuscripts, acquired the 246-page, intricately illustrated manuscript at a Jesuit college in Frascati, Italy, in 1912. The earliest confirmed owner was Georg Baresch, an obscure alchemist who lived in Prague in the early seventeenth century.

  Believed to date from the late Middle Ages or the Renaissance period, the Voynich manuscript is written in a language and script that has yet to be deciphered by the scores of linguists, cryptographers, and historians who have attempted to crack it. The text contains about 35,000 “words,” derived from what seems to be an alphabet of twenty to thirty distinct glyphs, although some of the glyphs appear only once or twice. The words and glyphs are unlike any others known in linguistic history. Equally curious are the images—the manuscript is densely illustrated with drawings of unknown botanical and pharmaceutical specimens and curious astronomical diagrams. Although nobody knows who wrote the manuscript, it has been attributed to sixteenth-century English mathematician and astrologer John Dee, Dee's companion Edward Kelley, and even to Voynich himself.

  In the sixteenth century, Lady Glamis was accused of witchcraft and trying to murder the king of Scotland. She was burned at the stake. Her ghost now haunts Glamis Castle in Angus, Scotland. Many visitors have seen her floating above the clock tower.

  NOT JUST A TRAIN STATION

  King's Cross station, located in the heart of London, is not just a train station—it's also the rumored burial place of the ancient warrior queen Boudicca, leader of the Iceni people of Norfolk in eastern Britain. In A.D. 60 or 61, she led a rebellion against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire, marching from Colchester and St. Albans to London, where she was defeated at Battle Bridge, the site that is now known as King's Cross station.

  OTTO WAS BLOTTO

  Despite being king of Bavaria for nearly thirty years, Otto of Bavaria never really reigned over his kingdom. Crowned after the strange and unexpected death of his brother in 1886, Otto had been declared insane years earlier, and by some accounts wasn't even aware that he was king. Otto's uncle and cousin served as prince regents and made most of the kingly decisions for him.

  BYE BYE BIRDIE

  General Richard Ewell served the Confederacy well, but he was a touch eccentric in his personal life. His men reported that the general, well known for his delusions, fancied himself a bird, eating seeds and grains for meals and spending long hours inside his tent, chirping.

  Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, suffered from habitual slobbering during his childhood and teens.

  MAGIC MUMMY POWDER

  Twelfth-century Egypt was full of mummies. The ancient custom of mummifying everything from people to dogs to bulls to birds created a mummy-excess problem—mummies were buried under houses, farms, public arenas, you name it. It wasn't until Islam began to take hold that the idea of disposing of mummified bodies became acceptable, and Egyptians responded by burning scores of mummies for fuel. Mummies were also dug up and ground into a fine powder, appropriately called mummy powder, which was known as a kind of panacea for everything from nausea to epilepsy to paralysis. The powder was even used as an additive in paints, as it was believed it prevented color from fading.

  NO RESPECT FOR ELDERS

  Ninth-century Pope Formosus made a few notable enemies during his lifetime. One of them, his successor, Pope Stephen VI, couldn't put the past behind him and forgive Formosus for the injustices he felt the former pope had imposed on him. Stephen had his orderlies dig up the dead pope, dress him in robes, and put his corpse on trial. And because the corpse could not exactly speak for itself, he had a young deacon kneel behind the body and act as Formosus's impersonator.

  Former U.S. president Gerald Ford changed his name when he was twenty-two—a good thing, because his birth name was Leslie Lynch King, Jr.

  THE MYSTERY OF
THE CARNAC STONES

  Everyone knows about Stonehenge, the prehistoric monument of stones located in the English countryside. Lesser known but just as extraordinary are the Carnac Stones, a collection of more than 3,000 freestanding megaliths that can be found in the area outside the French village of Carnac, in Brittany. The stones, which stand in straight columns measuring hundreds of meters long, are the subject of many theories and much speculation. One myth posits that they are the remains of a Roman legion that Merlin, the wizard of the Arthurian legend, turned to stone. They are thought to date from between 3300 and 4500 B.C. The stones are remarkable for their organization and their incredible size; one stone, known as the Giant, is 6.5 meters tall.

  AND WE THOUGHT SPITTOONS WERE BAD

  The Romans believed that purging the digestive system was very important to the overall health of the body. As such, they built special “vomitoriums,” where wealthy Romans could lose their lunch, clean up, and settle in for their next gourmet meal.