Uncanny Atlas
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Everything in the atlas

Every published entry, A to Z. Each one says what kind of claim it is.

574 entries · page 11 of 12
Disputed
The death of the medium Margery
Mina Crandon, the medium known as Margery, died on 1 November 1941. She said she spoke for her dead brother, and Houdini challenged her.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The death of the medium Rudi Schneider
Rudi Schneider, a medium tested by investigators decades earlier, died suddenly at Weyer on 28 April 1957. By then he worked as a mechanic.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The demon-fires of Dan-no-ura
On dark nights pale lights drift over the beach and the sea at Dan-no-ura, and the fishermen call them demon-fires. When the wind rises, a noise like battle comes off the water.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst
British diplomat Benjamin Bathurst vanished at Perleberg on 25 November 1809 while changing horses on the road between Berlin and Hamburg.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The disappearance of the SS Bannockburn
The Canadian freighter Bannockburn vanished on Lake Superior on 21 November 1902 in a snowstorm, and only a life preserver was ever found.
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Disputed
The disappearance of the USS Cyclops
The Navy collier USS Cyclops was last seen at Barbados on 4 March 1918, bound for Baltimore, and was never found.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The domovoi
The house spirit of Russian and Ukrainian folk belief, usually pictured as a hairy old man living behind or under the stove. In Ukraine he is the domovyk.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Documented
The examination of Martha Carrier
Judges examined Martha Carrier on 31 May 1692 over a witchcraft accusation in Salem Village. This was a preliminary hearing, and the accusing girls fell to the floor when she entered, according to Wikipedia.
Something Left BehindObscurity 4 of 7
Documented
The examination of Rebecca Nurse
On 24 March 1692, Rebecca Nurse, aged seventy, was examined on a charge of witchcraft in the Salem Village meeting house before a crowd.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 3 of 7
Documented
The execution of Anna Göldi
Anna Göldi, a Swiss housemaid, was beheaded at Glarus on 13 June 1782 after a conviction for bewitching her employer's daughter. Glarus cleared her name in 2008.
Something ToldObscurity 4 of 7
Disputed
The execution of John Fian
John Fian, a schoolmaster accused in the North Berwick witch case, was tortured, strangled and burned on Castlehill in Edinburgh on 27 January 1591.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The execution of Louis Gaufridi
Louis Gaufridi, a Provence priest accused of bewitching a nun, was executed at Aix-en-Provence on 30 April 1611 after confessing under torture to sorcery.
Something ToldObscurity 6 of 7
Claimed sighting
The first Hudson Valley boomerang sighting
A former policeman from New York City, living in Kent, said that just before midnight on 31 December 1982 a huge V-shaped craft passed low over his house.
Something SeenObscurity 3 of 7
Documented
The first Salem witchcraft warrants
On 29 February 1692, warrants were issued in Salem Village for Good, Osborne and Tituba, after a complaint of suspected witchcraft. The complaint named four people of the village as harmed: Elizabeth Hubert, Anna Putnam, Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Parris.
Something Left BehindObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The first Swedish ghost rocket sightings
On 24 May 1946 reports began in Sweden of a cigar-shaped object trailing sparks. Sightings continued through the year.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The flying napkins of Hahn and Kern
With the lights burning, Hahn, Kern and an inspector named Knetsch watched two napkins float up to the ceiling and knives and forks fly across the room.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The ghost of Sergeant Davies
Macpherson, staying in a shepherds' summer hut, said the ghost of Sergeant Davies, killed at Braemar in 1749, pressed him to bury its bones and named two Highlanders as its killers. The two men were tried for the murder.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The ghosts of Bloody Meadow, Tewkesbury
Tewkesbury's battle took place on 4 May 1471. Local stories place ghosts around the battlefield, the abbey and a pub.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The ghul (ghoul)
The ghul is a figure of Arabic lore, counted among the jinn in pre-Islamic poetry and said to haunt lonely places and burial grounds. A hadith denies it exists, and some Muslim thinkers rejected it.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Documented
The hanging of Alse Young
Windsor resident Alse Young was hanged at Hartford on 26 May 1647 on a witchcraft charge. The Connecticut Witch Trials project calls her the first English colonist put to death on a witchcraft charge in North America.
Something Left BehindObscurity 6 of 7
Documented
The hanging of Margaret Jones
Margaret Jones of Charlestown was found guilty of witchcraft and hanged on 15 June 1648 per Governor Winthrop's journal.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The haunted Annabelle film set
The director and a producer of the film Annabelle, shot in 2014, said that strange things happened on set in a Los Angeles apartment building. The director told The Hollywood Reporter at the film's after-party.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The haunted Elsa doll of Houston
An Elsa doll that a Houston-area family said kept coming back after they threw it away, reported in 2020.
Something Left BehindObscurity 5 of 7
Religious tradition
The jinn of Feroz Shah Kotla
At a ruined fort in Delhi, visitors write letters to the jinn believed to live there, and a crowd gathers every Thursday.
Provenance · Living tradition
Somewhere You Can Go
Folklore
The leshy
The forest spirit of Russian folk belief, who takes human or animal shape and grows or shrinks to match his surroundings. Ukrainian tradition has a forest demon called the lisovyk.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The lobizón
The lobizón, or luisón, is the werewolf of Paraguayan and Argentine folklore, said to be the seventh son in a row. In Argentina the president's godchildren, a custom for seventh sons, have had their schooling paid by law since 1974.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Disputed
The loss of Star Ariel
The airliner Star Ariel disappeared over the Atlantic on 17 January 1949 while flying from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Disputed
The loss of Star Tiger
The airliner Star Tiger vanished over the Atlantic in the early hours of 30 January 1948, travelling between the Azores and Bermuda.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Claimed sighting
The loss of the SS Waratah
The liner SS Waratah vanished off South Africa on 27 July 1909, on her way from Australia toward England. A passenger who left at Durban later told of dreams about her loss.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The luz mala
The luz mala, or evil light, is a bright ball of light reported floating just above the ground in rural Argentina and Uruguay. Country people have long taken it for a soul in torment.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The manglalabas in the widow's house
Three days after a father's death, a manglalabas starts coming to his family's house at night. It throws stones, breaks the water-jars and pinches the widow, and the family decide to leave.
Something ToldObscurity 5 of 7
Folklore
The mujina of Kii-no-kuni-zaka
A man tries to comfort a young woman weeping near Kii-no-kuni-zaka hill and finds she has no eyes, nose or mouth. Lafcadio Hearn puts it down to a mujina.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 3 of 7
Religious tradition
The night marchers (huakaʻi pō)
In Hawaiian belief, the huakaʻi pō, or marchers of the night, are processions of spirits dressed as chiefs or gods. Martha Beckwith recorded in 1940 that many Hawaiians have seen or heard them.
Provenance · Religious tradition
Something Told
Folklore
The omens before Constantinople fell
Chroniclers reported a dense fog and a fire-like light over Hagia Sophia in the days before the Turks took Constantinople on 29 May 1453. Later tradition adds a priest who vanished into a wall.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The penanggalan
A being of Malay belief that flies at night with its entrails hanging below it. Walter William Skeat's Malay Magic (1900) quotes Munshi Abdullah's account of it.
Something ToldObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The pishtaco
The pishtaco is the fat thief of Andean tales, told in nearly every Quechua-speaking place. The rumour keeps returning in Peru, in a 2009 police claim the authorities disowned and in crowd violence against people accused of being pishtacos.
Before you read on. Pishtaco rumours put real people in danger. In Sicaya, near Huancayo, residents seized two people they accused of being pishtacos who traffic in organs; RPP Noticias reported that police rescued them before they could be lynched, and that a crowd of about 500 with stones and sticks then surrounded the police station.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The possessed Xuxa doll
A 1989 rumour in Sorocaba that a Xuxa doll, modelled on the children's television presenter, was possessed and had attacked someone. A crowd gathered at the cathedral, and the parish priest told the press it was a rumour.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The radiant boy by the bedside
Fearing something had caught fire, a witness in bed looked out and saw a golden-haired boy in white standing beside the bed.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 3 of 7
Folklore
The rumour that Kitchener survived
HMS Hampshire sank on 5 June 1916 with Lord Kitchener aboard. Rumours that he survived or had never sailed spread within weeks.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The rusalka
A water spirit of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian folk belief, held to be the soul of a girl who died before marrying or of a child who died unbaptised.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
The soucouyant
The soucouyant is a figure of Caribbean folklore, an old woman who sheds her skin at night and flies as a ball of fire to drink a victim's blood. Belief in her survives to some degree from Trinidad to Guyana.
Something ToldObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
The spindle-shaped body on the sun
A long, spindle-shaped body sat on the face of the sun and crept slowly across it, staying in view until it reached the edge on 7 September.
Something SeenObscurity 5 of 7
Documented
The trial of Bridget Bishop
On 2 June 1692 in Salem, Bridget Bishop's trial opened. It was the first case of the newly created Court of Oyer and Terminer and the start of the Salem witchcraft trials.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Folklore
The wreck of the SS Valencia
The passenger liner SS Valencia grounded on a reef off Vancouver Island's southwest coast on 22 January 1906, and scores of people drowned.
Somewhere You Can GoObscurity 4 of 7
Claimed sighting
The yellow light in the Weinsberg prison
In 1835 Madame Mayer spent a night in a cell of the Weinsberg prison and, about midnight, saw a yellow light drift in, felt a cool draught and smelled decay.
Someone Who Was ThereObscurity 4 of 7
Folklore
The yeti
The yeti is a figure of Himalayan legend. Evidence offered for it includes footprints photographed during a 1951 Everest attempt and scalps held by a monastery and a village; a 2017 DNA study and a 2019 account of the 1951 print both point to bears.
Something SeenObscurity 1 of 7
Claimed sighting
The yowie
An ape-like creature that people report seeing in the Australian bush. The name is one of several for a being with roots in Aboriginal oral history.
Provenance · Living tradition
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Claimed sighting
Thylacine sightings
The last known thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, died at Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo on 7 September 1936. People have reported sightings ever since, none of them confirmed.
Something SeenObscurity 7 of 7
Folklore
Tikbalang
The tikbalang is a Philippine forest being, most often pictured as a very tall figure with horse's hooves or a horse's head. Records run from a 1589 list of Tagalog phantoms to modern sculpture. None of these sources counts it among the aswang.
Something ToldObscurity 2 of 7
Disputed
Tim Dinsdale's Loch Ness film
Tim Dinsdale filmed a humped object crossing Loch Ness on 23 April 1960, the last day of his expedition. Later analysts disagreed about what the film shows.
Something Left BehindObscurity 5 of 7