In February 2018, Dr. Caroline Wilkinson, forensic anthropologist and Director of the Faces Lab at Liverpool John Moores University, revealed her facial reconstruction of ‘Bella in the Wych Elm‘. The digital reconstruction shows the smiling face of a young woman… Read More ›
There is an area of land on the west side of the mouth of the Hampton River in Hampton Roads, VA that is known as Blackbeard’s Point. After Blackbeard was killed in battle in 1718, his head was placed on… Read More ›
In December of 1896, a group of anatomists and anthropologists from Washington, D.C. traveled to a sideshow in Atlanta to examine a mummy known as the San Diego Giant, purportedly the ancient desiccated corpse of one of the tallest men… Read More ›
On August 4, 1997, newspapers around the world announced the death of Jeanne Louise Calment, who died her home in Arles, France. She was not a political leader, a scientist, or a famous actress. Jean had the world’s longest (recorded)… Read More ›
Editor’s Note: I recently found out about a European, pagan tradition of celebrating the Winter Solstice, a time when “the dead would have particularly good access to the living,” with ghost stories. Writers of mystery novels continued this tradition by… Read More ›
Editor’s Note: I recently found out about a European, pagan tradition of celebrating the Winter Solstice, a time when “the dead would have particularly good access to the living,” with ghost stories. Writers of mystery novels continued this tradition by… Read More ›
Guides that lead ghost tours in New Orleans have a bounty of history and folklore to pull from when they escort tourists through the city telling tales of paranormal activity. One house that is a favorite on these macabre tours… Read More ›
For me, zombies are probably the scariest of the iconic horror monsters because humans are either zombie food fighting for survival in a post-apolocalypic landscape or they are transformed into mindless walking corpses that are doomed to feed on the… Read More ›
I recently read an article by John Squires, published in 2014, over at Halloween Love about how Dawn of the Dead unintentionally featured a real dead person. Some of the movie crew rented what they probably thought was a fake… Read More ›
Last month National Geographic reported that biological anthropologist Philippe Charlier, from the University of Versailles, and forensic artist Philippe Froesch collaborated on a project to create a 3D computer reconstruction of a face that might have belonged to Mary Magdalene. … Read More ›
In the mid-19th century William Hicks, the mayor of Bodmin, in Cornwall, hosted a dinner party. As the story goes, rather than entertaining his guests with music or poetry, he chose to prank his guests with a fake seance…. Read More ›
History is full of stories about curses spoken by prisoners, either rightfully or wrongfully convicted, on the way to their execution. The hexes were a prisoner’s supernatural retribution for perceived wrongs that the court dealt them. This cosmic vengeance… Read More ›
Paul Revere inadvertently became America’s first forensic dentist when he was given the gruesome task of identifying the body of Dr. Joseph Warren, the man who sent him on his famous “midnight ride.” Warren was struck down by a British… Read More ›
There is an ivy-covered grave in London’s Highgate Cemetery that looks no different than the other graves around it. This particular burial, however, holds the lead-lined coffin and radioactive corpse of Alexander Litvinenko, who was subject of the UK’s “most… Read More ›
