Thriller Thursday4

I have to admit, my life is not personally full of supernatural happenings or experiences. I've been wracking my memories trying to come up with thrilling episodes and other than strange but true barely coherent party stories, I got nada. So I present to you a mixed bag from a book sale find of mine called "Strangely Enough" by C.B. Colby. The blurb on the front of the book says "100 Hair-Raising Tales to Fascinate and Intrigue You! Fact or Fiction? Real or Imagination?" You're not getting 100 and I'll try to contain the tidbits to the Fact and Real ones.

Lost TV Signal (page 43)

"... In the early days of television some sets retained a picture long after the program was over... In September 1953, many television screens in England suddenly carried the identification card and call letters of TV station KLEE in Houston, Texas, thousands of miles across the Atlantic. The image stayed on the screen long enough for several viewers to take pictures of the remarkable occurrence. TV usually fades out after about 150 miles [this was back in the day, stop laughing] unless helped along with electronic devices and relay stations. In 1953 this was not possible... What really startled the TV world was the fact that when the British broadcasting engineers contacted KLEE in Houston to tell them of the unusual event, they learned that the station had been off the air for three years. Since that time, no KLEE indentification card had been shown. Where had that picture been for three years? Why did it only appear in England an how did it get back from wherever it had been?"

New England's Darkest Day (pages 29-30)

"... one of the most unusual dark days happened back in the spring of 1780, on May 19, ... May 19th dawned as bright and clear as usual, except that there appeared to be a haze to the southwest. This haze grew darker and soon the whole sky was covered with a thick cloud which was travelling northeast rapidly. It reached the Canadian border by midmorning. Meanwhile the eastern part of New York and Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut were becoming darker and darker. By one o'clock some sections were so dark that white paper held a few inches from the eyes couldn't be seen. It was as dark as a starless night. Apprehension soon turned to panic. Schools were dismissed and lanterns and candles were lighted in homes and along the streets. One New Hampshire town history reports that chickens and birds went to roost,... Many people gathered in churches to pray and await what they assumed was the Judgment Day... That night the darkness continued and it was noted that by the light of lanterns everything seemed to have a faint greenish hue. A full moon was due to rise at nine, but it did not show until after one in the morning, when it appeared high in the sky and blood red. Shortly afterwards, stars began to appear, and the following morning the sun was as bright as ever after 14 hours of the strangest darkness ever to panic staunch New Englanders."

The Vanishing River Boat (pages 61-62)

"... It happened in June of 1872 near Vicksburg, Mississippi, on the great winding Mississippi River. This was the era when stern-wheelers were thick upon the muddy waters. The 'Iron Mountain' was one of these - a monster of a boat, with a length of nearly 180 feet and a beam (width) of 35 feet. She was powered with five huge boilers, and was only eight years old at the time. This day in June, she stopped off at Vicksburg on her way from New Orleans to Pittsburgh, loaded with cotton and molasses. She was towing a string of loaded barges, as was the custom of many of the river boats. She completed her business at Vicksburg, unloaded her passengers and took on more for the trip upriver. Then she pulled away from the dock. Her barges swung out behind her as her great twin stacks belched smoke and sparks and she headed north around the bend in the river - into oblivion. What happened around that bend will never be known, for the 'Iron Mountain' completely vanished - passengers, crew, cargo, and all. All that remained was the string of barges. The first sign of anything unusual was when another streamer, the 'Iroquois Chief', had to swing out of the way of a string of drifting barges coming downstream from around the bend in the great river. She turned and caught the barges and finally brought them to a halt. She expected another steamer to come and claim them - but none did. Later examination showed that the tow cable had been cut, not broken - an action usually taken in an emergency to save a steamer at the expense of losing the barges. These were the barges that had been behind the 'Iron Mountain'. But what happened to her? There was not the slightest sign of debris, either from the huge ship itself, its deck-piled cargo, its many passengers and crew. There was no sound or smoke from a vast explosion or fire, no floating bodies or wreckage. If she had suddenly sunk, some debris, bodies, or cargo would surely have come to the surface. The great ship, its cargo and 55 persons aboard her had utterly vanished from the face of the earth. To this day no one knows how, why, or where she went."