; Phantoms and Monsters - Real Cryptid Encounter Reports - Fortean Researcher Lon Strickler

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Daily 2 Cents: Witch Raised Dead Woman -- Mutilated Fish in Pennsylvania -- Proof of King Solomon’s Mines


How The Witch Raised A Dead Woman From Her Grave

Living in Cornwall I'm surrounded by legends and stories of witchcraft. One of the most famous of Cornish witches was Tamsin Blight (1798-1856). She was also known as Tammy Blee and or the White Witch of Helston.

Blight started practising her craft around 1830 and built up a reputation as being able to remove spells, that had been cast by other witches. People, especially farmers, would consult her for cures for themselves and their animals.

The most quoted story about her is known as The Ghost of Stythians. Here she attempted to conjure the spirit of an old woman buried in St Stythians graveyard to discover where she had hidden cash that a relative believed was rightfully his.

I saw the following description of what she did in an 1870 book Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (Classic Reprint) by William Bottrell:

"She marked a circle by drawing her Staff on the ground three times round the man, at the same time mumbling in her unknown tongue [Cornish language]. This done, turning to the man she said, 'Now, mind you don't move out of this charmed ring which I have made to protect ye, and if you are determined I will now begin and summon the Spirit.'

"The Witch, holding out her Staff towards the spot where the old woman was buried, began her incantation. or citation, with long, strange words, slowly pronounced. Then she continued in a louder tone, 'Spirit of Jane Hendy, in the name of the powers above and below, I summon thee to rise from the grave and appear before me and this man! By the spirits of Fire, Air, Earth and Water, I summon thee to arise! Come hither, appear and speak to this man! Come!' This she said three times, raising her voice at each repetition until it ended in a shriek.

The Witch paused. All was silent for a moment, and then we heard, most fearful, because unusual, sounds, which more than any other earthly noise resembled the crashing or rending of wood and stones, seemed to come from the old woman's grave.

The Witch stretching out her arms, her red cloak and grey hair streaming back on the wind, pointed with her Staff towards the place whence these frightful sounds proceeded, and said, 'Behold, it cometh: be thou prepared.'"

Source: How The Witch Raised A Dead Woman From Her Grave

Llewellyn's Complete Book of Names: For Pagans, Witches, Wiccans, Druids, Heathens, Mages, Shamans & Independent Thinkers of All Sorts

The Dead Roam the Earth: True Stories of the Paranormal from Around the World

Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande


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Mutilated Fish in Pennsylvania

Conneautville, PA - unedited: Nearly every day I walk around my 3.5 acre lake to view the spring fish hatch. My lake is 200 feet from my front door. I found on a Tuesday morning a mutilated fish twenty feet off the shoreline on the grass. Assuming it was a predator, I threw the fish in the woods to be finished off by other small predators.

Two days later, the exact same occurrence took place. This is an event I have never seen since the lakes were constructed in 1972. So I took a close look at this fish, (a largemouth bass) and found parts of the fish missing. Eyes, internal organs, anal area and a very strange 5/8" (inch) perfectly round hole near the spinal area. No blood was present. Having heard in the past that a hole of this caliber is common to mutilated animal cases. I handled the fish with surgical gloves, photographed the fish from many angles and then froze it.

I then called Linda Moulton Howe who as you may know has been investigating cases of mutilation for more than thirty years. She was immediately interested because this was the first fish mutilation case she had heard about. She gave me some instructions on how to start this investigation. Ive been on it for several years without success. I have been unable to find a scientist, biologist or someone with forensic credentials to be willing to attach their names to the findings of this investigation.

So, I ask your organization for help in this mystifying event. - MUFON CMS

NOTE: no images were provided...Lon

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Proof of King Solomon’s mines found in Israel

New findings from an archaeological excavation led this winter by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures prove that copper mines in Israel thought to have been built by the ancient Egyptians in the 13th century BCE actually originated three centuries later, during the reign of the legendary King Solomon.

Based on the radiocarbon dating of material unearthed at a new site in Timna Valley in Israel’s Aravah Desert, the findings overturn the archaeological consensus of the last several decades. Scholarly work and materials found in the area suggest the mines were operated by the Edomites, a semi-nomadic tribal confederation that according to the Bible warred constantly with Israel.

“The mines are definitely from the period of King Solomon,” says Dr. Ben-Yosef. “They may help us understand the local society, which would have been invisible to us otherwise.”

Slaves to history

Now a national park, Timna Valley was an ancient copper production district with thousands of mines and dozens of smelting sites. In February 2013, Dr. Ben-Yosef and a team of researchers and students excavated a previously untouched site in the valley, known as the Slaves’ Hill. The area is a massive smelting camp containing the remains of hundreds of furnaces and layers of copper slag, the waste created during the smelting process.

In addition to the furnaces, the researchers unearthed an impressive collection of clothing, fabrics, and ropes made using advanced weaving technology; foods, like dates, grapes, and pistachios; ceramics; and various types of metallurgical installations. The world-renowned Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford in England dated 11 of the items to the 10th century BCE, when according to the Bible King Solomon ruled the Kingdom of Israel.

The archaeological record shows the mines in Timna Valley were built and operated by a local society, likely the early Edomites, who are known to have occupied the land and formed a kingdom that rivaled Judah. The unearthed materials and the lack of architectural remains at the Slaves’ Hill support the idea that the locals were a semi-nomadic people who lived in tents.

The findings from the Slaves’ Hill confirm those of a 2009 dig Ben-Yosef helped to conduct at “Site 30,” another of the largest ancient smelting camps in Timna Valley. Then a graduate student of Prof. Thomas E. Levy at the University of California, San Diego, he helped demonstrate that the copper mines in the valley dated from the 11th to 9th centuries BCE — the era of Kings David and Solomon — and were probably Edomite in origin. The findings were reported in the journal The American Schools of Oriental Research in 2012, but the publication did little to shake the notion that the mines were Egyptian, based primarily on the discovery of an Egyptian Temple in the center of the valley in 1969.

Power without stone

The Slaves’ Hill dig also demonstrates that the society in Timna Valley was surprisingly complex. The smelting technology was relatively advanced and the layout of the camp reflects a high level of social organization. Impressive cooperation would have been required for thousands of people to operate the mines in the middle of the desert.

“In Timna Valley, we unearthed a society with undoubtedly significant development, organization, and power,” says Ben-Yosef. “And yet because the people were living in tents, they would have been transparent to us as archaeologists if they had been engaged in an industry other than mining and smelting, which is very visible archaeologically.”

Although the society likely possessed a degree of political and military power, archaeologists would probably never have found evidence of its existence if it were not for the mining operation. Ben-Yosef says this calls into question archaeology’s traditional assumption that advanced societies usually leave behind architectural ruins. He also says that the findings at the Slaves’ Hill undermine criticisms of the Bible’s historicity based on a lack of archaeological evidence. It’s entirely possible that David and Solomon existed and even that they exerted some control over the mines in the Timna Valley at times, he says. - Science Blog

King Solomon's Mines

In Search of King Solomon's Mines: A Modern Adventurer's Quest for Gold and History in the Land of the Queen of Sheba


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Mystery Animal In Kentucky’s Shelby County Attacks Livestock, Scares Citizens

A mystery animal is attacking farm animals in Kentucky, leaving residents confused and angry.

According to WDRB and WCVB, the animal has attacked several animals, including calves and goats in the town of Waddy, just east of Louisville.

Though no one has seen the animal, one state Fish and Wildlife official believes it might be a domestic dog, or pack of dogs.

A recent town hall meeting drew more than 100 people, and though no one has seen the animal, they know it comes out at night to attack- but not kill- animals.

This is not the first mystery animal found in Kentucky, either. Two years ago, at around this time, WHAS and WLKY both reported that a man in Nelson County shot and killed a hairless animal on his property.

Some residents claimed it might have been the mythical chupacabra, but animal experts deemed it to be an animal suffering from mange.

Is Kentucky the land of mythical creatures? Maybe not, but until this creature is found the mystery continues. - WIBX950

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