Author Archives

• Dissecting the true age of Old Tom Parr

  By strangeremains on January 2, 2018 • ( 7 )

  

  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 ›

• Murder for the Holidays: The slaying at Sandringham

  By strangeremains on December 27, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  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 ›

• Murder for the Holidays: The unsolved Walker family murders

  By strangeremains on December 17, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  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 ›

• Halloween Horror Post #5 (2017): The grisly legends behind the “Sultan Massacre House”

  By strangeremains on October 31, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  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 ›

• Halloween Horror Post #4 (2017): The bizarre reality of Walking Corpse Syndrome

  By strangeremains on October 31, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  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 ›

• Halloween Horror Post #3 (2017): The cinematic after-life of an unidentified skeleton

  By strangeremains on October 10, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  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 ›

• Facial reconstruction of ‘Mary Magdalene’ skull revealed

  By strangeremains on October 10, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  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 ›

• Halloween Horror Post #2 (2017): The haunted bones of the Fighting Fairy Woman

  By strangeremains on October 3, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

    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 ›

• Halloween Horror Post #1 (2017): The curse of Rowland Jenkins

  By strangeremains on October 1, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  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: The first American forensic dentist

  By strangeremains on July 4, 2017 • ( 2 )

  

  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 ›