Showing posts with label mysteries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mysteries. Show all posts

Friday, January 20, 2017

Mystery of Lilly E. Gray from Salt Lake City - "Victim of the Beast 666"

The legend, a synopsis: In the Salt Lake City Cemetery, there is a gravestone for a woman named Lilly E. Gray with an inscription that reads, "VICTIM OF THE BEAST 666." Many people have attempted to research this stone and Lilly, but strangely always hit a brick wall, as there is no information aside from her obituary, which states only that she died in a local hospital from natural causes.

Within the sublime Salt Lake City Cemetery, there is indeed a gravestone which has aroused interest and curiosity over the years, and has recently, with the advent of the internet, become the object of intrigue and fascination, amateur and oftentimes apathetic sleuthery. The stone is modest- a small, flat marker; the inscription is anything but: "VICTIM OF THE BEAST 666"

Cemetery legends abound. These stories, more often than not, especially when pertaining to specific gravestones and their inhabitants, tend to take on the attributes of the urban legend, mirroring societal fears, horror, and capitalizing on mystery; they usually have an associated thread of religious intrigue, including 'devil worship'. The legends also tend to arise from the most benign origins.

Part of the fascination with the Lilly E. Gray mystery could be due to its "legend in reverse" quality. The impetus is its blatant-ness, its in-your-face refence to satan, then an unravelling reveals "nothing". The strange lack of any story associated with Lily Gray's gravestone is its biggest mystery and also the not very festive centerpiece its own developing, unique legend. The stone's astonishing, provocative inscription begs for interpretation and meaning; where are all the suppositions? They are few, certainly. There are a couple websites that allude to the use of stone's image within a report by investigators of satanic ritual abuse hysteria. There are a few jokes in a thread about Lilly's husband perhaps being the 'beast.'

Salt Lake City is home of the massive LDS-operated Family History Library, and the world's geneaological research mecca--since the stone's erection in 1958 no one has dug deeply enough to uncover even a minimal account of Lily Gray's life and the origins of the inscription? When confronted with apparent true lunacy, evil, religious ferver, abuse, or implausible as it may be, ultimate victimhood at the hands of satan (as the stone literally implies) do we collectively turn our heads?

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Descopera . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

9 unsolved historical mysteries ( Jack the Ripper,Mary Celeste Ship and did Richard III really murder the Princes in the Tower? )

Who was Jack the Ripper, what happened to the Mary Celeste, and did Richard III really murder the princes in the Tower? These are some of the biggest historical mysteries of all time. 

Here, after scouring 1,000 years of public records at the National Archives in search of answers, Dr David Clarke, the author of Britain’s X-traordinary Files, charts nine of the greatest unsolved puzzles of modern times

1) The Mary Celeste

What became of the crew and passengers of this British-American brigantine remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the sea. The name has since become synonymous worldwide with derelict ‘ghost ships’.

Mary Celeste as Amazon in 1861 photo: wikipedia.org

The Mary Celeste was found drifting 400 miles east of the Azores by the crew of another cargo-carrying vessel, the Dei Gratia, on 5 December 1872. The leader of the boarding party told a British board of inquiry at Gibraltar he found the ship was “a thoroughly wet mess”, with possessions left behind and the lifeboat missing.

A waterspout, photographed off Florida (1969). A waterspout strike has been offered as a possible solution to the Mary Celeste mystery. photo: wikipedia.org

No trace of Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife and their young daughter or the seven experienced crew members has ever been found. Many ingenious theories have been put forward by writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle to explain what happened to them. 

My favourite comes from a 1965 episode of the BBC series Dr Who, where the frightened crew jump overboard when the Daleks materialise on the ship while chasing the occupants of the TARDIS.


2) Jack the Ripper

The true identity of this Victorian serial killer continues to elude us 126 years after the gruesome killing spree in London’s East End in 1888. In the latest development, an ‘armchair detective’ claims DNA evidence from the shawl of one of the five known victims has identified Polish émigré Aaron Kosminski – one of a list of key suspects – as the man also known as ‘Leather Apron’, or ‘the Whitechapel Murderer’. 

Jack the Ripper photo: thedungeons.com

A small cottage industry, Ripperology has grown up around the murders with investigators such as Patricia Cornwell and Russell Edwards sifting through surviving evidence in search of a ‘prime suspect.’ Among the wild theories that have become legends is one that depicts Jack as a deranged surgeon who killed the women as part of a conspiracy to protect a member of the royal family.

Professor William Rubinstein describes this story as “palpable nonsense from beginning to end”. He believes it is the very elusiveness of the solution that continues to make the Ripper mystery so attractive to writers and historians.


3) Kenneth Arnold’s ‘flying saucers’

The birth of the modern UFO phenomenon can be traced to a sighting by private pilot Ken Arnold of nine peculiar-shaped flying objects over the Cascade Mountains of Washington on the afternoon of 24 June 1947. Arnold told newsmen the bat-wing shaped objects moved like a saucer would “if you skipped it across the water”. He calculated their speed as faster than the most advanced jet aircraft of that time.

Kenneth Arnold The Pandora Society June 24th 1947 Flying Saucers photo: Alchetron.com

A sub-editor came up with the phrase ‘flying saucers’, and the media coverage that followed triggered off an epidemic for seeing things in the sky that continues to this day. Two weeks after Arnold’s sighting, the US Army Air Force announced that wreckage from a ‘flying disc’ had been recovered from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico.

A modern myth was born, but ever since controversy has raged about what it was that Arnold actually saw. In my opinion, the most likely explanation is a flock of American white pelicans flying in echelon formation. But no one will ever know for sure.


4) The Devil’s Footprints

Early on the morning of 9 February 1855, people in towns across southern Devon awoke to find a single line of hoof-like marks in the deep snow as if they had been branded with a hot iron. The Times said the marks were found over a distance of 40 miles on both sides of the Exe, as if “some strange and mysterious animal endowed with the power of ubiquity” had created them during the night.

An example of the tracks as shown in The Illustrated London News, 1855 photo: wikipedia.org

Explanations ranged from an escaped kangaroo, badgers and mice, to a balloon trailing a horseshoe-shaped grappling rope. Superstitious people preferred to believe they were the work of the devil himself. 

The Devil's Footprints photo: Anomalien.com

In its summary of the popular theories at the time, a writer in The Illustrated London News said “no satisfactory solution” had been found, and “no known animal could have traversed this extent of country in one night… neither does any known animal walk in a line of single footsteps, not even a man”.


5) The Shroud of Turin

This piece of linen cloth kept in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy, is one of the most closely investigated objects in human history, yet it retains its secrets. The sacred relic is believed by many Christians to be the shroud in which Jesus of Nazareth was buried.

Shroud of Turin photo: wikipedia.org

There is no doubt that it bears a negative imprint of the face and outline of the body of a man who has suffered injuries consistent with crucifixion, but scientists have been unable to reach a consensus about how it was created. Radiocarbon testing by three laboratories in 1988 dated the cloth to the Middle Ages, and this was proclaimed by some as proof it was a medieval fake. But this interpretation remains the subject of intense debate, leading a former editor of Nature, Philip Ball, to declare that the relic remains shrouded in mystery.


6) Richard III and the Princes in the Tower

In 2012 the skeleton of the last Plantagenet king of England, Richard III, was unearthed from beneath a council car park on the site of Greyfriars in Leicester city centre. The dig that unearthed his remains was instigated by Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society as a direct result of a “strange feeling” she had when visiting the site.
The Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower, 1483 by Sir John Everett Millais, 1878, part of the Royal Holloway picture collection photo: wikipedia.org

This apparent example of psychic archaeology is not the only mystery that surrounds Richard’s life and death. His precise role in the fate of his two nephews – popularly known as ‘The princes in the Tower’ – remains a subject of enduring mystery. 

King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of London by Paul Delaroche. The theme of innocent children awaiting an uncertain fate was popular amongst 19th-century painters. photo: wikipedia.org

The 12-year-old Edward and his nine-year-old brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, the sons of King Edward IV, were lodged in the Tower of London by their uncle, Richard, at the time of their disappearance in 1483.

No one knows exactly what happened to them, but a box containing two small human skeletons was found near the White Tower in the 17th century and, at the time, was widely believed to be the remains of the princes.


7) The Solway Spaceman

On the afternoon of 23 May 1964, an employee of the Cumbrian fire service, Jim Templeton, took photographs of his wife and daughter during a day out at a local beauty spot on the Solway Firth. When he collected the photographs from a chemist, the assistant told him it was a shame one was “spoiled by the man in the background wearing a space suit”.

Part of Jim Templeton's photograph photo: wikipedia.org

Sure enough, one image of his youngest daughter Elizabeth clearly shows an enigmatic ‘figure’ floating behind her head. The ‘spaceman’ is dressed in a white suit that resembles those worn by NASA astronauts at the time.

The photograph was examined by Kodak and scrutinised by detectives from the Cumbrian police, who were unable to explain it. Jim Templeton died in 2011 without learning the true identity of the ‘Solway spaceman’. The image remains one of the most perplexing in the history of anomalous photography.


8) Mothman

One dark night in November 1966, four American teenagers claimed they saw a huge bird-like monster with glowing red eyes while cruising along a back road near Point Pleasant in rural West Virginia. They claimed it rose into the air, unfolded its bat-like wings, and pursued them as they sped away in terror. The next morning the sheriff’s office held a press conference, and the media dubbed the creature ‘Mothman’ after the Batman series that was showing on TV.
The Mothman Legend photo: wikipedia.org

Encounters with the demonic ‘bird’ inspired the 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies, directed by Mark Pellington. The film was based upon journalist John Keel’s book that chronicled an outbreak of uncanny experiences in the Ohio Valley. 

The Mothman photo: Pinterest

He believed the creature was linked in some mysterious way with the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant in December 1967 that killed 46 people, including some mothman witnesses.




9) Monsters of the Deep

Do the depths of our oceans hide undiscovered species of animal such as the great ‘sea serpent’ that was sighted by the captain and crew of HMS Daedalus near the island of St Helena in 1848?

Among the files at the National Archives and the Natural History Museum I found first-hand reports of similar creatures in records from the late 19th to the early 20th century, including one by Arthur Conan Doyle, author of The Lost World. Could it be that, as the museum’s former keeper of zoology, William Calman, told a puzzled witness in 1929: “…we are not so rash as to suppose that we yet know all of the inhabitants of the sea and it is within the bounds of possibility that you saw some animal that has never been captured or described”.


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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by HistoryExtra . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Six characters who have signed The Contract and sold their soul to the devil


















Updated 11/05/2020


Urbain  Pact Deal Signed by Devil Wikimedia Commons




There had always been rumors about people who have sold their soul to the devil, and that especially Christian period, although pact with evil forces existed in all myths and cultures of the world. 

Financial success, beauty or ability to do special things have been labeled as supernatural powers obtained through a secret pact with an entity, how else than malicious In return, obviously the soul. Musicians, writers, artists of all kinds have often been accused of having signed a pact with the devil in exchange for their virtuosity, wealth or fame. In the following we present the stories of six such people, maybe the most famous in the business of souls sold and their disturbing experiences.



Portrait of Urbain Grandier photo: wikipedia.org
Urbain Grandier (born in 1590 in Bouère, died in Mayenne – 18 August 1634 in Loudun) was a French Catholic priest who was burned at the stake after being convicted of witchcraft, following the events of the so-called "Loudun Possessions". 

The circumstances of Father Grandier's trial and execution have attracted the attention of writers Alexandre Dumas, père, Aldous Huxley and the playwright John Whiting, composers like Krzysztof Penderecki and Peter Maxwell Davies, as well as historian Jules Michelet and various scholars of European witchcraft. Most modern commentators have concluded that Grandier was the victim of a politically motivated persecution led by the powerful Cardinal Richelieu.

Urbain Grandier is the name of that bind, perhaps the most notorious case of accusation and condemnation to death with the devil and witchcraft acts. Grandier was, as few would expect a priest. A Catholic priest in the church of Sainte Croix in Loudon, Catholic diocese of Poitiers, France. 

Diabolical pact



Pact in Backwards Latin photo: wikipedia.org

One of the documents introduced as evidence during Grandier's second trial is a diabolical pact written in Latin and apparently signed by Grandier. Another, which looks illegible, is written backwards, in Latin with scribal abbreviation, and has since been published and translated in a number of books on witchcraft. 

This document also carries many strange symbols, and was "signed" by several demons with their seals, as well as by Satan himself. Deciphered and translated to English, it reads:

We, the influential Lucifer, the young Satan, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Elimi, and Astaroth, together with others, have today accepted the covenant pact of Urbain Grandier, who is ours. And him do we promise the love of women, the flower of virgins, the respect of monarchs, honors, lusts and powers.
He will go whoring three days long; the carousal will be dear to him. He offers us once in the year a seal of blood, under the feet he will trample the holy things of the church and he will ask us many questions; with this pact he will live twenty years happy
on the earth of men, and will later join us to sin against God.
Bound in hell, in the council of demons.
Lucifer Beelzebub Satan
Astaroth Leviathan Elimi

The seals placed the Devil, the master, and the demons, princes of the lord.


Baalberith, writer.

Before, however, of his reputation as a man who dressed the monastic robe, Grandier was made known by his amorous adventures and frequent sexual scandals involving women from every social class, a veritable Rasputin of France. In addition, restive priest was also an ardent foe of the famous Cardinal Richelieu, the one against whom he wrote several pamphlets acidic whom he addressed public criticism repeatedly.


Dr. Johann Georg Faust (1480 -1540)


Ritratto del Dottor Faust photo: wikipedia.org

Because of its association with the legendary literary characters or influenced you, today is difficult to establish the real life character that existed in reality as the Faust.

 Most likely, Faust was born in Germany in Helmstadt, around the years 1480/1481. By the age of 30 years, Faust completes its studies in his native country and in Krakow, where obtained a doctorate in theology. 

Besides this mysterious character is distinguished by his abilities as a physician, alchemist, philosopher, magician, astrologer and filmmaker horoscopes.

In Cracow he met Martin Luther and Philip Melachton, Dr. Faust characters that links a strong friendship. Legend has it that the two have even witnessed him Faust pact that ended with the Devil himself. Rumors have been launched since the time of his life, so that the individual was fired from the University of Ehrfut where ancient philosophy teaches. It is said that it was time to recognize shadowy understanding that he had done. In a conversation with a Franciscan priest, Dr. Klinge, Faust would have confessed to have more trust in God than demons

After such a reputation, Faust is driven from academics and church and get to make a living selling horoscopes and trying to transform simple metals into gold by alchemical processes. Following an experiment unfortunate doctor is torn by an explosion. The medical report says the time his body was "mutilated awful" action interpreted as a sign of the devil who had come to take their reward. What followed you strictly literary talent of a Frank Baron, Marlowe, Ghoete or Thomas Mann.



Herman the Hermit and Codex Gigas (sec. XIII AD)
Codex Gigas photo: wikipedia.org

Herman The Hermit is a character as controversial as it is mysterious. The name is linked to the appearance on the cultural scene of the world's largest medieval document known until now - famous Bible of the Devil, Codex Gigas, and yet nothing, apart from a brief legend, does not speak of life who created the (improperly said) gigantic work.


Legend has it that somewhere in the XIII century, the Benedictine monastery of Podlazice (Czech Republic today), a certain priest Herman had committed a sin so hard that not even be uttered. 


Codex Gigas: The Devil's Bible photo: ancients-bg.com 

The colleague shocked that their rulers Benedictine monastery decided, by mutual agreement, the only penalty that Herman would have deserved it was edifying alive. Horrified by the prospect that I had booked an other monks, Herman would have begged in tears to spare her life. 

Instead, he would have followed to write a book one evening which will include all the teachings of the world's largest and most comprehensive book ever written. Astonished, the priests would have agreed to offer him the sinner still a night to prove what may. It was evening when Herman the hermit did, from what they say, a pact with the devil. In exchange for his soul, the devil would have written what remained in history as the Codex Gigas - Devil's Bible, and he would be saved from an agonizing death Herman.


Illustration of the devil, Folio 290 recto. Legend has it the codex was created by a monk who sold his soul to the devil. photo: wikipedia.org

Mysteries manuscript begin, however, until now. Weighing 75 kilograms and a length of about one meter, leathery skin codex required 160 donkeys to be made entirely. It takes at least two strong men to him could carry. Besides a version of the Bible in vulgar Latin, Bible filled with demonic images with a giant portrait of the devil, Codex Gigas also includes Etymologie Isidore of Seville, History of the Jewish historian Flavius ​​Joseph, Chronicle of Bohemia by Cosmas of Prague, many treated by history, medicine and etymology list of Podlazice monastery monks, a calendar with an obituary, a lot of hexes, spells and local notes. 


The entire document is written in Vulgar Latin and the last stop in the year 1229. notes in handwriting experts argue that by Codex was one more character and not, as was customary in the Middle Ages. It is curious that to achieve such a monumental document, it would have taken at least 30 years (meaning that Herman had written a row every 20 seconds and that would have spent a few hours each illustration)

And yet, handwriting indicates that there is even the slightest change in writing or any sign of fatigue, changes inevitable for a man during so many years.


Codex Gigas: The Devil's Bible photo: photo: wikipedia.org


Another mystery surrounding the disappearance of Codex is the 7th pages of the original 320. No one knows where and when they disappeared pages, but rumors say that their absence is due just content that could seriously affect the Benedictine order. 

In addition, Devil's Bible has earned a reputation Plaza real bad, it bringing disaster on the majority of its owners, from mental illnesses, fires and destruction apparently without explanation. Currently, Codex Gigas is kept in the Royal Library in Stockholm, Sweden.

Niccolo Paganini (1782 - 1840)

Certainly few of you reading this material might think of the great Italian composer and violinist as an individual who has got talent following a pact with the devil. But a closer look shows that sources Paganini weather was not bad away from rumors and, moreover, he chose not to rebut ever. In fact, right from his birth in a poor family of a merchant lacks luck, his mother had a dream premonition in which i was told that her son will get the greatest violinist in the world it has ever known.

Following this dream, his parents did everything to fulfill the prophecy. By the age of 7 years, Paganini perfectly learned the secrets of mandolin and violin, which played the first tools. Up to age 11 she was beginning to show itself, because up to 13 years to be already known as a violin virtuoso. Up to 19 years began to compose his own music, and at age 23 already create works of tremendous value. At 27 and already had a huge audience wildly successful ... and rumors of collusion to assure such a fame already circulating on everyone's lips. Curiously, when asked whether such a rumor is true, Paganini replied nonchalantly: "How else do you think I could sing the way I do?"


Niccolò Paganini (1819), by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres photo: wikipedia.org 
Paganini's decline began at age 40 when he was diagnosed with syphilis. Weather empirical treatments, treatments that included mercury and opium, they practically destroyed health. Dressed always in black, pale, almost without any tooth, Paganini was only a shadow of the beautiful and talented young man who astounded Europe. People were convinced that Paganini now paying the price of which had given talent unnatural.


Robert Johnson (1911 - 1938)

Except for blues enthusiasts, few are those who know the legend of the singer colored with a meteoric ascent on the American music scene. Robert Johnson was born on a plantation in rural Mississippi in 1911. 

His desire most, since childhood has been to play the guitar and become a famous blues-man but apparently talent or leave seriously desirable in this regard. Then, in the teenage years, Johnson was advised to take their old guitar and disagreement of unsuccessful attempts to compose blues, and seek their fortune at midnight at a crossroads.


Robert Johnson photo: wikipedia.org
Even Robert says he did so at the crossroads near Dockery Plantation, where at midnight, he met a man solid color (Devil). It would have taken a few seconds the young guitar, would have granted it and would be linked to several agreements blues after that would be stretched guitar back

Covenant had been made. Robert Johnson sold his soul in exchange for his talent. And soon, Johnson became famous, one of the greatest blues singers in the history of the United States. His plays have come to influence musicians and famous bands, from Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Johnny Winter

Moreover, Eric Clapton said in a televised interview that Robert Johnson was "the most important blues singer that ever lived". The sign of the devil? Pure coincidence? Nobody will ever know. The fact is that Johnson died only at 27 years, poisoned, apparently, the jealous husband of a woman who had invited her to dance.



Robert Johnson - Hellhound On My Trail

Following his remaining six (figure predestined?) Albums of genius. In most there are songs that make reference to the encounter with the devil in the dead of night or canteratelui fears that he would be in hell.


The exact location of his grave is officially unknown; three different markers have been erected at possible sites in church cemeteries burial outside Greenwood.


Alleged gravesite with one of Johnson's three tombstones photo: wikipedia.org


Research in the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggests Johnson was buried in the graveyard of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City, Mississippi, not far from Greenwood, in an unmarked grave. A one-ton cenotaph in the shape of an obelisk, listing all of Johnson's song titles, with a central inscription by Peter Guralnick, was placed at this location in 1990, paid for by Columbia Records and numerous smaller contributions made through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund.

Jonathan Moulton (1726 - 1787)

Faust nicknamed Yank, Jonathan Moulton was, in fact, an individual that gave rise to many legends smack supernatural, that his influence beyond the actual historical events in New Hampshire, USA. 



Faced with material deprivation in childhood, Jonathan worked as an apprentice to a carpenter until age 19, at which time he left his job to join the militia of New Hampshire.

 In a short time he is appointed captain of a regiment of mountain hunters and, as such, carries numerous battles with Ossippe Indians, allies of France in Anglo-French war, known as the King George's War (1744-1748). This was noted by his acts of bravery and, as a reward, received a land stretched from the former territory of Indians Ossippe.


At war's end, Jonathan Moulton was married Abigail Smith, who was going to provide no less than 11 children. At that time, Moulton opened a small store and tried to put up a business and to import goods from Europe to North America.
Jonathan Moulton tomb photo: pinterest

His business, however, proved unprofitable one and material deprivation started to make their mark on the large families.

 It was when they started to appear Moulton legends pact would be concluded with the devil. The fact is that, for unknown reasons, spouses Moulton began to behave as if it never knew what poverty means. Money is no longer a problem and everything seemed to go smoothly.

Legend says that Jonathan would have sold his soul to the devil to get rid of extreme poverty that you press. In exchange for his soul, every day of the month, the devil should have them fill boots with gold coins. That is until Moulton, money-hungry laziness, he would come up with a clever idea. 

He cut a hole in the floor, over which he placed some huge boots without soles. Thus, no matter how gold could be poured devil coins would be drained directly into the basement leaving the impression that the boots have never made it. Devil understood, however, craftiness captain and, as a reward, her house burned to the ground and made it all the gold tight while the Moulton family disappear without a trace

Jonathan quenched in 1787. It is said that when his relatives wanted to open her casket, inside it has not found a bag with gold than with the sign of the devil himself. But skeptics argue that Moulton was buried in a grave with no name and no one knew where this place ever.


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