Uncanny Atlas
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Disputed

Something happened. What it was is still argued over by the people who've studied the record.

115 entries · page 1 of 3
Disputed
Arne Cheyenne Johnson's possession defence
The 1981 killing of Alan Bono in Brookfield, Connecticut, and the murder trial in which Arne Cheyenne Johnson's lawyer tried to argue demonic possession.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
Arthur Ford, the medium, dies
The medium Arthur Ford died in Miami on 4 January 1971. His claimed contact with Houdini and Bishop Pike's son was later challenged.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Bonilla's objects crossing the Sun
On 12 August 1883 the astronomer Bonilla reported hundreds of small objects crossing the Sun and photographed them over two days.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Borley Rectory
An English rectory that Harry Price promoted as the most haunted house in England, whose case three SPR members attacked in a 1956 report and Robert Hastings re-examined in 1969.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
Daniel Dunglas Home's window levitation
Three witnesses reported that the medium Daniel Dunglas Home floated out of one window and into another above a street on 16 December 1868. Later writers said he crossed a ledge between balconies.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Dead Hand (Perimeter)
A Soviet nuclear command system, codenamed Perimeter, built to order a retaliatory missile launch if the country's leaders were killed in an attack. How automatic it ever was is disputed.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Ed and Lorraine Warren
Paranormal investigators from Monroe, Connecticut, who founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1952 and whose cases fed films such as The Conjuring.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
Franklin's lost expedition
The 1845 Franklin Expedition went looking for the Northwest Passage through Canada's Arctic, and CBC News says close to 130 sailors died. Inuit accounts, recorded by John Rae in 1854 and later by Charles Francis Hall, describe what became of some of the men.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Gambo, the Gambian sea creature
On 12 June 1983, Owen Burnham and three relatives came across the carcass of a large sea creature at Bungalow Beach on The Gambia's coast. Cryptozoologist Karl Shuker and others recorded his account.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Houdini's Margery sitting
On 23 July 1924, Harry Houdini and a Scientific American party attended a séance with the medium known as Margery at 10 Lime Street, Boston.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
Hugh Gray's Loch Ness photograph
On 12 November 1933 Hugh Gray photographed something in Loch Ness at Foyers, the first picture said to show the monster.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Ingo Swann's Jupiter session
On the evening of 27 April 1973, Ingo Swann gave a recorded remote viewing of Jupiter for researchers at SRI, years before spacecraft reached the planet. Supporters and sceptics assess it differently.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
Jacko, the Yale ape-boy
On 4 July 1884 the Daily Colonist of British Columbia reported the capture of a gorilla-like creature named Jacko near Yale. Two other papers said within days that no such animal had been caught.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
James Dean and the Little Bastard Porsche
James Dean died on 30 September 1955 in a crash in his Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed the Little Bastard. Later accounts tie the car to a warning from Alec Guinness.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
Jinmenken, the human-faced dog
A Japanese urban legend about a talking dog with a man's face that races cars at night. AERA dot and Japanese Wikipedia both report that the leading theory is that Popteen magazine's editors and a writer planted it.
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Disputed
John White's return to Roanoke
On 18 August 1590 John White came back to Roanoke Island and found the colony he had left in 1587 abandoned, with the word CROATOAN carved on a post.
Something Left BehindObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
John Williams's dream of the Perceval shooting
Williams, a Redruth man in Cornwall, said he dreamed of a shooting in the House of Commons lobby before Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was shot there on 11 May 1812. The accounts disagree on which night he had the dream.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Katie King's farewell sitting
On 21 May 1874 the figure called Katie King held a farewell sitting at Florence Cook's home, according to those present. The date ended a series of sittings that William Crookes held with Cook from December 1873.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
Kerala's red rain
From 25 July 2001 red rain fell on parts of Kerala. Indian botanists said algae; two physicists proposed cells carried by a comet.
Something SeenObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
La Voisin and the Poison Affair
Catherine Monvoisin, called La Voisin, a sorcerer and fortune-teller, received a death sentence on 22 February 1680 during the Poison Affair after naming clients at court.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
Lake Vostok
A freshwater lake under about 4 km of ice beneath Russia's Vostok Station in central East Antarctica, first detected by airborne radio-echo survey in 1974-75 and confirmed by satellite in 1993. A 2013 report of a new bacterium in its water was later put down to contamination.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Margery Jourdemayne, burned at Smithfield
Margery Jourdemayne, called the Witch of Eye, was burned at the stake at Smithfield on 27 October 1441. The charge against her was false belief and witchcraft.
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Disputed
McDivitt's object over the Pacific
Astronaut James McDivitt photographed an unidentified cylinder from Gemini 4 on 4 June 1965. Others say it was a rocket stage.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Mr. Procter's house at Willington Mill
At Joseph Procter's house by Willington Mill, glasses rose off the table with no visible cause, and a Dr. Drury who sat up there fainted at the sight of a female apparition.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
Nongqawuse's prophecy of 18 February 1857
Nongqawuse predicted that on 18 February 1857 the sun would turn red and the ancestors' promise would be fulfilled. The day passed as an ordinary one, and tens of thousands of Xhosa died in the famine that followed.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
Nostradamus and the 1999 King of Terror
A verse attributed to Nostradamus about a leader arriving in 1999 and seven months was linked by some readers to the eclipse of 11 August 1999.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
Old Jeffrey, the Epworth Rectory spirit
A spirit the Wesleys called Old Jeffrey disturbed Samuel Wesley's rectory at Epworth, mostly in December 1716 and the spring of 1717.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
Patience Worth's first message
On 8 July 1913 a housewife, Pearl Curran, and a friend got a message by Ouija board from a voice that gave the name Patience Worth.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
Petronilla de Meath, burned at Kilkenny
Petronilla de Meath was flogged and then burned at Kilkenny, Ireland, on 3 November 1324, after being accused alongside Alice Kyteler. Wikipedia calls hers the first known burning for heresy in Ireland or the British Isles.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
Portefaix and the Beast of Gévaudan
On 12 January 1765 a group of children from Le Villaret in Gévaudan, led by Jacques Portefaix, drove off the Beast of Gévaudan.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
Roland Doe
A 14-year-old boy who, Catholic sources said in 1949, had been freed from possession by the devil by a priest. His case inspired the novel The Exorcist.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
Swedenborg and his predicted death
Emanuel Swedenborg's life ended in London on 29 March 1772, the day he had foretold when writing to John Wesley.
Something ToldObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
Tanganyika laughter epidemic
An outbreak of contagious laughing that began among schoolgirls near Lake Victoria in Tanganyika in 1962 and spread to nearby villages. Christian F. Hempelmann described it in 2003 as mass psychogenic illness.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The 1910 Halley's Comet panic
In May 1910 Earth was due to pass through the tail of Halley's Comet. Newspapers ran warnings of poison gas, and people bought gas masks and "anti-comet pills".
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Disputed
The Amityville Horror
The story of the Lutz family, who moved into a house on Long Island in December 1975, a year after six members of the DeFeo family were killed there, and said supernatural forces drove them out.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 1 of 7
Disputed
The Arnold Paole vampire report
An Austrian army commission's report, dated Belgrade, 26 January 1732, recorded exhumations of villagers at Medveđa and was reprinted across Europe.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Battle of Los Angeles
An anti-aircraft barrage over Los Angeles on the night of February 24 to 25, 1942, fired at a rumored Japanese air raid. Five civilians died during the night.
Something SeenObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
The Big Lake Park fireball
On 17 December 1977 three people in Council Bluffs, Iowa, saw a reddish fireball fall into Big Lake Park, where firefighters found molten metal.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Bloop
A loud underwater sound picked up by underwater sensors in the South Pacific in 1997. NOAA now attributes it to an icequake, the noise of a large iceberg cracking apart.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Bluff Creek footprints
On 27 August 1958 a bulldozer operator named Jerry Crew found oversized footprints beside his machine on a logging road in California's Six Rivers National Forest. In 2002 Wallace's family said Wallace had made them.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Brixton iron spheroid
After a violent thunderstorm on 17 August 1887, a round lump of iron about two inches across turned up in a Brixton garden. The chemist who tested it could not match it to meteorites.
Something Left BehindObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Bélmez faces
María Gómez Cámara said that on 23 August 1971 a human face formed on the concrete floor of her kitchen in Bélmez. More faces followed.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Disputed
The Canterbury Moon sighting
Five witnesses from Canterbury told the chronicler Gervase that on 18 June 1178 the Moon's upper horn split and threw out fire. A later geophysicist proposed an impact on the Moon.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Carroll A. Deering
A five-masted schooner found aground on Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in January 1921 with her sails set and no one aboard. Five U.S. government departments investigated and reached no official explanation.
Something Left BehindObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Chiles-Whitted encounter
Two airline pilots reported a glowing object passing their plane near Montgomery, Alabama, at about 2:45 am on 24 July 1948.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Chinese seals of Ireland
J. Huband Smith described to the Royal Irish Academy a set of Chinese seals found in Ireland, all alike, each a cube with a seated animal on top.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The Christmas Eve 1909 airship and Lovecraft's Venus
The mystery airship drew reports across eastern Massachusetts near Christmas Eve 1909. In Providence, H. P. Lovecraft said a crowd was watching Venus.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The Cock Lane ghost trial
On 10 July 1762 five people stood trial at the Guildhall in London, on a conspiracy charge brought by William Kent, over the Cock Lane ghost affair.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Davenport Brothers riot in Liverpool
At a show in the small concert room of St George's Hall, Liverpool, in February 1865, the audience tied the Davenport Brothers into their cabinet. A riot followed and the cabinet was smashed.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The Demon House of Gary, Indiana
A rental house on Carolina Street in Gary, Indiana, where tenant Latoya Ammons said demons had possessed her and her three children. The Indianapolis Star reported its demolition in 2016.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 4 of 7