The Mysterious Stones of Death Valley

Author: Ashley Hines

In Life we often come across certain things that are not deemed to be logical or broken down to a science. Some things have to accepted for what they are.

The mysterious stones of Death Valley have raised many suspicions as to what might have caused these rocks to move. There have been many theories and absurd explanations about how the rocks move about without any physical assistance from animals or humans. Although no one has actually seen the stones move, there have been speculations that an alien life form used magnetic pull to move the rocks. The tracks left by these stones led to those suspicions.

From Hitfull.com

The picture above shows the tracks left behind by the moving rocks. The tracks can range in length from anywhere between 2.54 cm deep to 3-12 inches wide, with hundreds of feet in length.  The reason the rocks have never been seen moving is because it take the stones 2 to 3 years to slide. As shown in the picture two rocks may slide parallel to the other but over time will change directions. Some stones however, will turn over an with a different side being a different texture, the tracks will not be the same.

 DEATH VALLEY is a desert valley in California that is 240ft below sea level and is a 20 degree drop in temperature. The drop in temperature has scientists inferring that may be what caused the rocks to move.

Though many scientists have conducted experiments to test this theory, their end results have proven to be inconclusive.

       

Works Cited

  www.yellowecho.com/travel/deathvalley.htm

   www.buzzle.com/articles/sailing-stones-of-death-valley.html    

           

The Georgia Guidestones

Author: Patrick Lowder

Photo by  E. Tak Nar found on Wikimedia Commons

In the quiet town of Elbert County, Georgia, owns its very own unique monument called the Georgia Guidestones. The Georgia Guidestones is an interesting granite structure with ten guidelines so to speak. The Guidestones are not just in English but also in seven other languages as well. The creator of this masterpiece is a man who goes by Robert C. Christian. He created the guidestones in June of 1979. Robert said he represented “a small group of loyal Americans” (Schneider). Just due west of the Guidestones lies a tablet explaining what each of the ten guidelines mean.

 In the article “A Monument’s Mysteries Include Whether It Can Draw Tourist” from The New York Times it was reported that Mr. Clamp, who has long volunteered to maintain the oft-defaced structure, urged county officials this month to lease him the land where the Guidestones stand so he can mount a campaign to attract more visitors to this area near the South Carolina border (Blinder). The Guidestones have potential to become an actual tourist attraction in Georgia. 

Works Cited:

Blinder, Alan. “A Monument’s Mysteries Include Whether It Can Draw Tourist.” The New York Times 17 Sep. 2013: A1. NewsBank Web. 9 Oct. 2013.

Nar, E Tak. “Georgia Guidestones.” Photograph. Wikimedia Commons.  Wikimedia Foundation, 16 May, 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2013

Neimark, Jill. “Georgia’s Own Doomsday Stonehenge Monument.” Discover 9 Sep. 2013 Web. 14 Oct. 2013.

Links for further research:

The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/

This website has articles concerning the Georgia Guidestones.

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/

This website has videos explaining and showing the Georgia Guidestones.

Discover Magazine

 http://discovermagazine.com/

Contains information can be found on this website.

Winchester Mystery House

Author: Gabrielle Mullen

Halloween is fast approaching, how will you be spending your night of horror?  If you are into ghost, fun houses, and haunted mansions then The Winchester MysteryHouse is the place you want to be. The Winchester Mystery House is a haunted mansion located in San Jose, California.  Equipped within the mansion is: 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 40 staircases, 13 bathrooms, two basements and ballrooms, three elevators, 40 bedrooms, 10,000 windows and 2,000 doors which brings the estate out to have 4.5 acres.  Nobody knows the real reason Sarah Winchester build such an extravagant house but the story behind it is quite interesting.

Winchester Mystery House- San Jose, California

Sarah Winchester is the wife of William Winchester, the manufacturer of Winchester rifles, a popular rifle used in the early 1870’s.  The rifle was known as “The Gun that Won the West” because of the important role it had assisting the Western settlers.  As stated on the Winchester Mystery House website, life for the couple was happy until the loss of their infant daughter six weeks after she was born in 1866.  Sarah suffered from deep depression because of the loss and 15 years later the depression got worse because of the death of her husband.  After the loss of both her infant daughter and her husband Sarah was in a state that she could not easily return from (“Early Life”).  In result of the depression and the loss of her family, Sarah consulted in the Boston Medium.  Mrs. Winchester was convinced that her family and fortune was being haunted by the ghost of those fallen by the Winchester rifle.  After informing the Boston Medium of this belief, the medium gave Sarah advice on how to sooth the spirits she felt was haunting her.  He instructed her to move away from her home in Connecticut and construct a house that she would never stop building on.  “As long as construction of the house never ceased, Mrs. Winchester could rest assured that her life was not in danger.  Building such a house was even supposed to bring her eternal life.” (Winchester Mystery…)  With this information Sarah packed up all her belongings and went to visit a niece who lived in California.  There, she came across a piece of land she thought would be perfect for the building of her new house and she purchased it.  This purchase started the journey of what now is known as, The Winchester Mystery House.

Mrs. Winchester

Aside from the construction of the actual house, which was torn down and reconstructed multiple times throughout the years, the garden is another attraction that draws people into the mysterious house.  Many of the garden’s attractions were imported from Mrs. Winchester for the garden, and were tended to by many gardeners back when the house was being built.   Though Mrs. Winchester had her own ideas, she often referred to a book of horticulture published in 1841 by A.J. Downing, which was still popular at the turn of the century (“The Victorian Gardens”).  The plants were supposedly used to stop headaches, purify the blood, and even cure intestinal disorders.  Alongside the medical plants were acres of orchards that produced plums, apricots, and walnuts.  Though Mrs. Winchester did not need a source of income, the crops were taken to the market and sold.  The Winchester Mystery House website commented that after the death of Mr. Winchester, Sarah came upon a couple million dollars and more than 700 shares of stock in her husband’s company.  She also received 2,000 more shares of stock after the death of Mr. Winchester’s mother, which meant she owned a little under fifty percent of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company (“The House that Mrs. Winchester Built”).  Thus explaining why she did not need a source of income but still sold the crops in the town market.    

Winchester Mystery House Gardens

A big controversy surrounding the house and its inhabitants, deals with the number 13.  The number 13 is known to be an unlucky number in a variety of different cultures.  The Thirteenth Number: then, there/here and now by Tok Thompson states, both folklore and in popular culture, the number resonates with connotations (Thompson 145).  Many buildings avoid the number in addresses, room numbers, and even floor numbers but the most common controversy deals with Friday the 13^th, a common day known to popular culture.  Friday the 13^th is described as an unlucky day categorized by the lunar calendar and by unfortunate occurrences dealing with the number 13 and Friday. 

The number 13 was a very commonly used number in The Winchester Mystery House.  Nobody knows why this is but Mrs. Winchester used the number in window panes, rooms, wall panels, step numbers, room sections, and she even had 13 hooks in a room where she talked to spirits.  It was said that the 13 hooks each held a robe that Mrs. Winchester would use to communicate with the spirits.  Why Mrs. Winchester chose the number 13 for such things in her house is a mystery but it was thought to please the spirits. 

The Winchester Mystery House is a place of mystery that will never be fully understood.  There are so many gapes and holes in the story of the house and the history of the family that the pieces will never unravel the real truth of the house.  Do you want to appeal to your fear within?  Are the haunted houses around your way not as scary as you want them to be?  Visit the Winchester Mystery House and your real fears will be revealed. 

 Works Cited:

Crisalli, Joseph. “Building of the Week: The Winchester “Mystery” House, San Jose, California.” Photograph. Stalking the Belle Epoque. 20 Oct. 2012, 19 Oct. 2012

Edmonds, Molly. “Why does the Winchester Mystery House have stairs leading nowhere?” How Stuff Works. How Stuff Works, Inc., 1998-2012. Web. 16 Oct. 2012

Lamb, David. “Monument to Eccentricity.” Washington Post, Times Herald. Washington Post, 19 Nov. 1967. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.

Thompson, Tok. “The Thirteenth Number: then, there/here and now.” N.P. (2002): 145-160. PDF. 

WinchesterMysteryHouse.com. Winchester Mystery House, LLC, 2009. Web. 10 Oct. 2012

 “Winchester Mystery House- San Jose, California.” Photograph. Alamedainfo.com, Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

Winchester Mystery House. “Woman of Mystery.” Photograph. Winchester Mystery House, LLC, 2012. Web. 19 Oct. 2012.

“Winchester’s Widow Dying.” New York Times. New York Times, 11 June 1911. Web. 11 Oct. 2012

Links for Further Research:
Building of the Week: The Winchester “Mystery” Househttp://stalkingthebelleepoque.blogspot.com/2010/10/building-of-week-winchester-mystery.htmlThe Winchester Mystery House was featured on Stalking the Belle Epoque as house on the week on the 10 of October 2010.

Winchester Mystery House Websitehttp://winchestermysteryhouse.com/The official Winchester Mystery House Website with photos of the house and gardens, videos of ghost activities, information on the house and family background, and access to tickets for house tours.

Winchester’s Widow Dyinghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Winchester_1911_article.gifArticle in the New York Times giving information on Sarah Winchester’s death and the construction of the house.

Haunted Athens

Author: Amanda Warren

Map of Athens and Surrounding Area from Athens Cycle Path

Athens, Ohio is a small town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It is home to one of the oldest universities in Ohio, Ohio University, established in 1804, and an abandoned state mental-health facility now-called The Ridges. The Ridges is a semi-restored group of buildings that once housed The Athens Lunatic Asylum and has since been converted into The Kennedy Museum. Stories about Athens and its many ghosts are so prevalent and widely-believed that the town has been dubbed the 13^th most haunted place in the world by the television series Scariest Places on Earth.  According to an article on the Athens County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, entitled “These Woods aren’t Sleeping,” many visitors comment on a creepy sort of feeling they get when visiting the area. They write, When strangers find themselves in Athens County they will often describe a feeling...something they can't really put into words” (“These Woods…”). This feeling may be the result of the strange history of Athens and the ghost stories that have been part of that history since the first settlers came to the region.

The Ridges sits on the hill above the college.
This abandoned mental health facility is home to an art gallery
and some of the town’s most famous ghost stories
(“Lin Hall—Kennedy Museum”).

According to several sources, including a special collection of materials archived by the Ohio University Library, the town of Athens, Ohio sits in the center of a pentagram formed by five notorious, and difficult to locate, cemeteries in the surrounding foot-hills. Each cemetery has its own ghostly history, but combined they have become an even greater part of local ghost legends. In the very center of the cemetery pentagram sits what is considered by many to be the “most haunted” place on campus: Wilson Hall (Henderson).

Wilson Hall sign from Ohio University College of Arts and Sciences

Andrew Henderson, writer and founder of Forgotten Ohio, a website dedicated to collecting stories, and providing information on the many supernatural occurrences found around the University and in the Athens, Ohio area, claims that Wilson Hall “is truly the main campus’s most famous haunting; it’s the one primarily featured in Scariest Places on Earth, and the building most people point to when they’re talking about ‘Haunted Athens.’”  Unfortunately, no one has ever proven that the pentagram even exists. Despite the lack of proof the sheer number of sightings is impressive: from ghosts who haunt the halls of sororities, to the ghost of Margaret Schilling  who has been seen haunting the room in the Ridges where she died, to a marble angel statue that sheds tears for lost soldiers in the city’s West Cemetery, to rumors of a suicide-pact between a witch and a demon in Wilson Hall. According to Elizabeth Tucker, author of the book Haunted Halls : Ghostlore of American College Campuses,

A former Residential Life staff member at Ohio University told me in the winter of 2003 that Wilson Hall held the spirit of a witch who had committed suicide there in the early 1970s. Dead animals appeared in hall closets; doors locked and unlocked themselves; furniture moved itself around; and lights turned themselves on and off. When students tried to verify the witch’s suicide, relevant documents disappeared from the university’s archives. (Tucker 32)

Despite the many retellings of the particular story, about room 428 in Wilson Hall, there is no record of a suicide anywhere in Wilson Hall. There are so many competing stories about the room, all with very different facts and details, that it is hard to determine the true story, or if anything ever happened there at all. Conspirists could see this as a university cover-up, but it is more likely that the Wilson Hall story is nothing more than a local legend with very little basis in fact.

Having been a student at Ohio University, and having lived in the town for three years, I have personally witnessed some strange things, including what has come to be known as the “Marble Drop” noise in many of the buildings on campus. The noise, which sounds like marbles falling on the floor above and rolling away, has been reported on the top floor of some dormitories, and has been reported by numerous students, faculty and staff for over 30 years. I have also walked through The Ridges at night and have seen shadows in the windows of empty rooms. There is a lot of disagreement and exaggeration in the ghost stories of Ohio University and Athens, Ohio, but many people agree that there is something supernatural happening on campus. Whether these ghost stories are based in fact, or are simply the product of student and resident imagination, they have become a part of the town’s identity as a haunted place.

Works cited:

 @AandS_eNEWS_OU. “Wilson Hall” Twitter Profile. Twitter, 2012. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. 

Henderson, Andrew. “Forgotten Ohio: Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.” Forgotten Ohio. Forgotten Ohio, 27 Apr. 2008. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. 

“History and Legends.” Ohio University Library Guide to Haunted Athens. Ohio University, 11 Sept. 2012. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.

“Lin Hall—Kennedy Museum.” Athens Campus Map and Tour. Ohio University, 2006. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.

 “Ohio WV Bigmap.” Mountain Bike and Hiking Trails in Athens, Ohio. Cycle Path, Inc., 2012. Web. 12 Oct. 2012.

“Satan’s Dormitory: Episode One.” Scariest Places on Earth. Writ. Will Dixon. Host Linda Blair. ABC Family, Athens, OH. 23 Oct. 2000.

“These Woods aren’t Sleeping.” Athens County Ohio. Athens County Visitors Bureau, 2012. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.  

Tucker, Elizabeth. Haunted Halls : Ghostlore of American College Campuses.Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. Print.

Links for further research:

 Haunted Athens Ohio

 http://hauntedathensohio.com/

Claims to be the “the Official Haunted Athens Ohio Website,” but it’s unclear who granted this title.

Ohio University Library Guide to Haunted Athens

http://libguides.library.ohiou.edu/content.php?pid=131902&sid=1131098

Articles and information compiled by Ohio University’s Research, Archives, and Special Collections Librarians. 

Ghosts of Athens: The Most Haunted Town in Ohio

http://www.prairieghosts.com/oh-athen.html

Some traditional information about Athens’ Ghosts, and some that are not as well-known.

ABC Family’s Scariest Places on Earth. “Satan’s Dormitory: Episode One.”

http://youtu.be/lknJ_g2iHf4

The full episode featuring Athens, Ohio as the “13^th Scariest Place on Earth.”