excerpts from 'stranger than science' by frank edwards, 1959

excerpts from 'stranger than science' by frank edwards, 1959

selected and edited by jamal munshi as part of his weird but true list


http://www.munshi.4t.com/wbt/frank.html

• on 9/23/1880 a farmer named david lang vainshed into thin air in front of several witnesses in gallatin, tn, and was never heard from again
• ships and armies that vanished without leaving a trace never to be found again: the steamboat 'iron mountain' leaving the harbor at vicksburg, va, june 1872; the danish training ship 'kobenhaven' leaving the harbor at montevideo; an army of 4000 men marching into the foothills of the pyrenees during the spanish war of succession; 650 french troops marching in open country 15 miles from saigon in 1858; 2988 chinese soldiers outside nanking in 1947
• on 8/11/1954 a dead humanoid creature with gills and limbs washed ashore in canvey island
• in 11/1930 all 30 inhabitants of an eskimo village outside of churchill, canada disappeared without a trace. the village was left intact complete with dogs, food, guns, and even a needlework project in progress.
• on 4/22/1881 a rock broke open in a mine to reveal a cavity full of worms. the worms came to life. scientists were asked to examine the worms. they said it was not possible according to their science and therefore the miners must have been mistaken (btw: scientists had also dismissed meteorites found by peasants. it was only after the peasants took charge of things following the french revolution that serious meteor research was undertaken)
• on 4/24/1856 two boys were lost in the woods for ten days. their bodies were found when jacob dibert saw them in a recurring dream.
• in 1833 a boy named adrian christian had a recurring dream that as captain of a ship he rescued his brother from another ship that was sinking. the dream came true in 1880. exactly as advertised.
• assyriologist dr herman hilprecht deciphered the inscriptions on two small ancient agate fragments in a dream
• the volacnic eruption in java in august of 1883 is the most violent geological event in recorded history. the island of krakatoa disintegrated, the temperature of the ocean around java rose to over 140 degf, and huge tidal waves lashed out as far away as california. the boston globe scooped the story. the 'story' turned out to be notes on a dream seen by reporter byron somes.
• in october 1872 a semi literate printer named tom james went into a trance and wrote furiously. he said he was taking dictation from the dead author charles dickens and soon published the missing concluding episode of 'the mystrey of edwin drood'. (btw: edwards' description of the dictation exactly matches the muslim description of god's dictation to mohamed. mohamed as you may know was illiterate.)
• planes that disappeared without a trace over the bermuda triangle: the star tiger british airliner on 1/29/1948, the ariel british airliner on 1/17/1949, five tbm avenger bombers of the us navy on 12/5/1945, a martin flying boat that went to look for the avengers.
• in 15th century britain a peasant named robert nixon correctly predicted that richard and henry would do battle, that henry would win, and that he himself would be taken to henry's castle where he would die of starvation.
• on 7/2/1951 mary reeser was consumed by spontaneous human combustion
• mysterious moments of total darkness at midday that were not an eclipse of the sun: 8/19/1763 london england; 4/26/1884 preston england; 3/19/1886 oshkosh, wisconsin; 4/2/1889 aitkin, minnesota; 12/2/1904 memphis, tennessee; 9/24/1950 much of the usa saw a blue sun
• in the 19th century financial advice from voices inside his head made arthur stilwell of indiana a billionaire. port arthur, tx and stilwell, ok are named after him. the voices correctly predicted: he would meet and marry a girl named genevieve woods in 4 years; that his railroad venture would be profitable; that port arthur, tx and not galveston should be the terminus of his railroad; world war 1; the defeat of germany in ww1; the fall of the czar of russia; and the restoration of palestine to judaism
• in 1935 9-year old shanti devi of india gave accurate details of her previous incarnation
• in 1918 in poland stanislaus omensky became trapped under a collapsed castle. his lover merna saw the castle and his condition in a recurrent dream and rescued him.
• code-like radio signal patterns received from outer space but never explained: cape canaveral missile center october 1958; ohio state university 1956
• the ruins of sachuaman in south america only make sense if tiny humans once peopled the earth.
• rabbi elijah of lithuania, leon gambetta of france, and richard porson of greece read thousands of books and could remember every sentence at will; mathurin veyssiere of prussia could recite any speech in any language with perfect pronounciation after hearing the speech only once
• zerah colburn of vermont, johann martin of germany (1950s), tom fuller of virginia (1779), charles cansler of tennessee (1915), and jedidah buxton of england (1707) could solve complex numerical problems in their mind almost instantaneously
• on october 1932 gold miners in wyoming found a mummy of a fully grown hominid possibly from the pliocene age. the creature was 14 inches tall
• a bright red 6-passenger phaeton touring car built in 1914 brought a grisly end to archduke franz ferdinand and each of its 7 subsequent owners. ferdinand's death in saraevo, bosnia in 1914 also started ww1.
• animals and birds instinctively avoid an area about 165 feet in diameter near grants pass, oregon, called the 'oregon vortex' where gravity has apparently gone berserk. inside the vortex trees point to the magnetic north, gravity is more intense, pendulums hang at impossible angles, and compasses go haywire.
• when jennie moran of sedalia, mo turned 14 in 1895 she became a human high voltage battery but the voltage subsided in her later years. there are other cases of human voltage, curiously all teenagers. caroline clare, bondon ontario 1877; louis hamburger of maryland 1890; frank mckistry of joplin, mo, 1889
• the tunguska explosion in siberia could not have been a meteor because there is no crater and no meteorite fragments; but the pattern of the destruction is similar to that in hiroshima. the ball of fire and mushroom clouds described by witnesses and measurements of residual radioactivity also imply a nuclear blast. possibly a ufo crash.
• during his historic campaign into asia alexander the great saw something that he described as "great shiny silvery shields spitting fire around the rims. things that came from the skies and returned to the skies."
• when patricia kord was hypnotized in 1957 she took on the voice and life of a confederate soldier named gene donaldson
• on good friday each year wounds appear on stigmatists that mimic those christ is thought to have suffered when crucified. also on 5/10/1951 clarita villaneuva age 18 of manila was repeatedly bitten by an invisible assailant only she could see. onlookers could see the wounds appear 'in front of their eyes'
• in 1887 in tennessee old mrs osborn died during a lightning storm. somehow during her last moment on earth a lifelike picture of her was engraved on her window pane
• in 1928 harold lothridge of mount morris, michigan solved the murder of 5-year-old dorothy schneider when he dreamt the entire murder scene and identified the murderer as the town's deacon adolph hotelling.
• in 1956 in south africa murder victim joy aken 'told' police about her murder through a medium named nelson palmer. clarence gordon vanburen, the murderer, was arrested and he confessed.
• paul hurkus of holland could tell a lot about you just by holding an inanimate object you owned. during 1940-1950 he used this technique to identify a german spy, catch a teenage firebug, and solve the famous scone stone burglary of london
• a medium holding seance had correctly identified the location of the lindberg child in 1932 3 weeks before the body was found
• on deighton rock in assonet neck, massachusets, are writings whose message or origin are not known even after many scholarly investigations since 1690.