THE BELL WITCH

This is the only known oilpainting of John Bell

In the early 1800s, John Bell moved his family from North Carolina to the Red River bottomland in Robertson County, Tennessee, settling in a community that later became known as Adams. Bell purchased some land and a large home for his family. The Bells quickly made many friends and gained prominence in the community. John Bell acquired additional land and cleared a number of fields over the next several years.

 

 

   

One day in 1817, John Bell was inspecting his corn field when he encountered a strange-looking animal sitting in the middle of a corn row. Shocked by the appearance of this animal, which had the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit, Bell shot several times to no avail. The animal vanished. Bell thought nothing more about the incident--at least not until after dinner. That evening, the Bells began hearing "beating" sounds on the outside walls of their house.

The Bell house 1909

 

These mysterious sounds continued with increased force each night. Bell and his sons often hurried outside to catch the culprit but always returned empty-handed. The noises were soon followed by more problems. The Bell children began waking up frightened and complaining of sounds like rats gnawing at their bedposts. It wasn't long until the children began complaining of more terrifying things--having their bed covers pulled and their pillows were tossed onto the floor by a seemingly invisible force.

 

As time went on, the Bells began to hear even stranger noises. Only this time, they sounded like faint, whispering voices--too weak to understand--sounding like a feeble old woman crying or singing hymns. The encounters escalated, and the Bells’ youngest daughter, Betsy, began experiencing physically brutal encounters with the entity. It relentlessly pulled her hair and slapped her, often leaving visible prints on her face and body for days at a time. The evil disturbances escalated over the next year to the point it was time for John Bell to share his "family trouble" with his closest friend and neighbor, James Johnston.

Johnston and his wife spent the night at the Bell home, where they were subjected to the same terrifying disturbances that the Bells experienced. After having his bedcovers repeatedly removed, and being slapped, Johnston sprang out of bed, asking, "I ask you in the name of the Lord God, who are you and what do you want?" There was no response of any type, but the remainder of the night was peaceful.

 

 

As word of the Bell disturbances spread throughout the community, so did the entity's antics. Over time, its voice strengthened to the point it was loud and understandable. It sang hymns, quoted scripture, carried on intelligent conversation, and once quoted, word-for-word, two sermons that took place at the same time thirteen miles apart. During this time no one knew who or what the entity was, or its purpose for tormenting the Red River Settlement.



USA President Andrew Jackson
 

Word eventually spread outside the settlement, even as far as Nashville, where one Andrew Jackson became interested. John Bell, Jr. and Jesse Bell fought under General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans, and had developed a good rapport with him. In 1819, Jackson got word of the disturbances at the Bell home and decided to pay a personal visit. Jackson and his entourage, consisting of several men and a large wagon, journeyed from Nashville to the Bell home. As the entourage approached the Bell property, the wagon suddenly stopped. The horses tried pulling but to no avail--the wagon simply would not move.
After several minutes of cursing and trying to get the wagon to move, Jackson exclaimed that it must have been the "witch." As soon as Jackson uttered these words, an unidentified female voice spoke, telling Jackson and his men that they could proceed, and that "she& would see them again later that evening. The men were finally allowed to continue.

Andrew Jacson entourage

 

 

Jackson and John Bell had a long discussion about the Indians and other topics while Jackson's men patiently waited to see if the "spirit" was going to manifest itself. One of the men in Jackson's entourage claimed to be a "witch tamer." After several uneventful hours, this man decided to "call" the "spirit." He pulled out a shiny pistol and made his intent to kill the "spirit" known to all that were present.

 

Bell farm

 

Almost immediately, the man began screaming and moving his body in many different directions. He said he was being stuck with pins and being severely beaten. The man quickly ran out the door, and the "spirit" announced that there was yet one more "fraud" in Jackson's party, and that he would be identified on the following evening.

 

Terrified, Jackson's men begged to leave the Bell farm. Jackson insisted on staying so that he could find out who the other "fraud" was. Jackson and his men eventually went out to the field to sleep in their tents, and the men continued to beg and plead with Jackson to leave. Jackson maintained the position that he wanted to know who the other "fraud" in his party was. However, by mid-day the next day, Jackson and his men had already left the Bell farm and were seen going through Springfield. Jackson, a hero in the Battle of New Orleans four years earlier, was quoted as later having said, "I'd rather fight the entire British Army than to deal with the Bell Witch." Jackson later became the President of the United States.

 

Over time, Betsy Bell became interested in Joshua Gardner, a young man who lived not far from her. With the blessings of their parents, they agreed to the engagement. Nevertheless, despite their obvious happiness, the "spirit" repeatedly told Betsy not to marry Joshua Gardner. It is interesting to note that their schoolteacher, Richard Powell, was noticeably interested in Betsy and wanted to marry her when she became older. Powell was believed to have been a student of the occult, and had been secretly married to a woman in nearby Nashville for some time. Betsy and Joshua could not go to the river, the field, or the cave, without the "Spirit" following along and persistently taunting them. Betsy and Joshua's patience finally reached critical mass, and on Easter Monday of 1821, Betsy met Joshua at the river and broke off their engagement.

 

 

The encounters decreased after that heartbreaking Easter Monday, although the "Spirit" continued to express its dislike for "Ol' Jack Bell," and relentlessly vowed to kill him. As Bell's health grew worse, the "Spirit" would torture him more severely, sometimes removing his shoes from his feet and relentlessly slapping his face while he was experiencing seizures.

 

On the morning of December 20, 1820, after a long battle with a crippling nervous system disorder, John Bell breathed his last breath. Immediately after Bell's death, the family found a small vial of unidentified liquid that Bell had partaken of the evening before his death. John Bell, Jr. gave some of the liquid to the family's cat, and the cat died almost instantly. The "Spirit" suddenly spoke up exclaiming, "I gave Ol' Jack a big dose of that last night, and that fixed him." John, Jr. quickly threw the vial into the fireplace, where it shot up the chimney in the form of a bright, blue flame. As family and friends began to leave John Bell's burial site, the "Spirit" laughed loudly and sang a cheerful song about a bottle of brandy.

 

 

 

In April of 1821, the "Spirit" visited Lucy Bell and told her that "it" would return in seven years for a visit. Seven years later, in 1828, the "Spirit" returned as promised. Most of this visit centered around John Bell, Jr. The "Spirit" discussed with him such things as the origin of life, Christianity, the need for a mass spiritual reawakening, and other in-depth topics. Of particular significance were the "Spirit's" predictions of the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II.

 

After three weeks, the "Spirit" bade farewell, promising to visit John Bell's most direct descendant in 107 years. The year would have been 1935, and the closest direct living descendant of John Bell was Charles Bailey Bell, a physician in Nashville. Charles Bailey Bell himself wrote a book about the "Bell Witch," but it had been published prior 1935. No follow-up was published, and Bell died a few years later in 1945.

The cause of the Bells' torment nearly 200 years ago and today's unexplained manifestations has remained a mystery. Numerous versions and theories that purportedly explain the cause of the disturbances abound, and vary from person to person. The only constant is that there was "something" wrong on the Bell farm in the early 1800s, and there is still "something" wrong at the old Bell farm today, nearly 200 years later. It happened to the John Bell family in 1817. Maybe next time it will happen to your family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SUICIDE FLORET- AOKIGAHARA

Mount Fuji - Japan

Aokigahara is woodland at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. Also called the Sea of Trees;  Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breath-taking views of Mount Fuji and suicides a destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest.

The forest has a historic association with demons in Japanese mythology and is a popular place for suicides; 54 completed the act in 2010, despite numerous signs, in Japanese and English, urging people to reconsider their actions.

Aokigahara and Saiko Lake, as viewed from Koyodai in 1995.

The trend has supposedly started after Seicho Matsumoto published his novel Kuroi Kaiju (Black Sea of Trees) where two of his characters commit suicide there.

"The perfect place to die." That's how Aokigahara was described in Wataru Tsurumui's bestselling book The Complete Manual of Suicide.

BOOK COVER

Reportedly the florest is the most popular popular place for suicides in Japan and second in the world after San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Statistics vary. In the period leading up to 1988, about 30 suicides occurred there every year.

In 2002, 78 bodies were found within the forest, exceeding the previous record of 74 in 1998. In 2003, the rate climbed to 100, and in recent years, the local government has stopped publicizing the numbers in an attempt to downplay Aokigahara's association with suicide. In 2004, 108 people killed themselves in the forest. In 2010, 247 people attempted suicide in the forest, 54 of whom completed the act.

The Aokigahara Forest is a lonely place to die. So dense is the vegetation at the foot of Japan's Mount Fuji, it is all too easy to disappear among the evergreens and never be seen again.

Signs emblazoned with messages such as "Please reconsider" and "Please consult the police before you decide to die!" are nailed to trees throughout the forest. However, the woods have such a reputation that these minor deterrents do little to stop the determined. Local residents say they can always tell who is going into the forest for its stunning natural beauty, who is hunting after the macabre and who is planning never to return.

A short tale:
  
Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness. "My will to live disappeared," said Taro. "I'd lost my identity, so I didn't want to live on this earth. That's why I went there."

Taro, who did not want to be identified fully, was swimming in debt and had been evicted from his company apartment.

He lost financial control, which he believes to be the foundation of any stable life, he said. "You need money to survive. If you have a girlfriend, you need money. If you want to get married, you need it for your life. Money is always necessary for your life."

Taro bought a one-way ticket to the forest, west of Tokyo, Japan. When he got there, he slashed his wrists, though the cut wasn't enough to kill him quickly.

He started to wander, he said. He collapsed after days and lay in the bushes, nearly dead from dehydration, starvation and frostbite. He would lose his toes on his right foot from the frostbite. But he didn't lose his life, because a hiker stumbled upon his nearly dead body and raised the alarm.



Fortunately Taro survived to tell history but most people are never found again!

MOON - SPACESHIP & ALIEN BASE

Now I know that this post will raised everybody eyebrows … here it goes the moon (Yes the moon the very same one you see it every night high up in the sky) Its’ not an artificial satellite in fact the moon is an alien base!
 

Here are some very weird facts about our moon!

1.   Moon’s Age: The moon is far older than previously expected. Maybe even older than the Earth or the Sun. The oldest age for the Earth is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old; moon rocks were dated at 5.3 billion years old, and the dust upon which they were resting was at least another billion years older.

Note: All the pictures on this post are from NASA.

LIGHTS ON MOON SURFACE

2. Rock’s Origin: The chemical composition of the dust upon which the rocks sat differed remarkably from the rocks themselves, contrary to accepted theories that the dust resulted from weathering and breakup of the rocks themselves. The rocks had to have come from somewhere else.

ONE OF MANY FAMOUS MOON FACES 

 3. Weird Orbit: Our moon is the only moon in the solar system that has a stationary, near-perfect circular orbit. Stranger still, the moon’s centre of mass is about 6000 feet closer to the Earth than its geometric centre (which should cause wobbling), but the moon’s bulge is on the far side of the moon, away from the Earth. "Something" had to put the moon in orbit with its precise altitude, course, and speed.

VISIBLE SPACECRAFT CRASHED IN TO ONE OF MOON CRATERS

4. Moon Diameter: How does one explain the "coincidence" that the moon is just the right distance, coupled with just the right diameter, to completely cover the sun during an eclipse? Again, Isaac Asimov responds,

"There is no astronomical reason why the moon and the sun should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion."

MOON STRUCTURES ...

5. Seismic Activity: Hundreds of "moonquakes" are recorded each year that cannot be attributed to meteor strikes. In November, 1958, Soviet astronomer Nikolay A. Kozyrev of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory photographed a gaseous eruption of the moon near the crater Alphonsus. He also detected a reddish glow that lasted for about an hour. In 1963, astronomers at the Lowell Observatory also saw reddish glows on the crests of ridges in the Aristarchus region. These observations have proved to be precisely identical and periodical, repeating themselves as the moon moves closer to the Earth. These are probably not natural phenomena.

ALIEN STRUCTER

6. Hollow Moon: The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 (3.34 times an equal volume of water) whereas the Earth’s is 5.5. What does this mean? In 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated:

"If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere."

Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested the moon’s reduced density is because of large areas inside the moon where is "simply a cavity."

MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote,

"the Lunar Orbiteer experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field... indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow."

In Carl Sagan’s treatise, Intelligent Life in the Universe, the famous astronomer stated, "A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object."

7. Moon Mascons: Mascons, which are large, dense, circular masses lying twenty to forty miles beneath the centres of the moon’s Maria, are broad, disk-shaped objects that could be possibly some kind of artificial construction. For huge circular disks are not likely to be beneath each huge Maria, centred like bull’s-eyes in the middle of each, by coincidence or accident."

MOON MASCON

8. Magnetic Rocks: Moon rocks were magnetized. This is odd because there is no magnetic field on the moon itself. This could not have originated from a "close call" with Earth—such an encounter would have ripped the moon apart.

9. No Volcanoes: Some of the moon’s craters originated internally, yet there is no indication that the moon was ever hot enough to produce volcanic eruptions.

10. Heavier Elements on Surface: Normal planetary composition results in heavier elements in the core and lighter materials at the surface; not so with the moon. According to Wilson:

"The abundance of refractory elements like titanium in the surface areas is so pronounced that several geologists proposed the refractory compounds were brought to the moon’s surface in great quantity in some unknown way. They don’t know how, but that it was done cannot be questioned."

11. Unusual Metals: The moon’s crust is much harder than presumed. Remember the extreme difficulty the astronauts encountered when they tried to drill into the maria? Surprise! The maria is composed primarily illeminite, a mineral containing large amounts of titanium, the same metal used to fabricate the hulls of deep-diving submarines and the skin of the SR-71 "Blackbird". Uranium 236 and neptunium 237 (elements not found in nature on Earth) were discovered in lunar rocks, as were rustproof iron particles.

THERE ARE CURRENTLY FOUR (MAKE THAT FIVE) THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF THE MOON:  

1) The Moon originated at the same time as the Earth, being formed substantially from the same material, aggregating and solidifying in orbit. 

 2) The Moon was formed not in the vicinity of the Earth, but in a different part of the solar system (or galaxy), and was later captured by the Earth.

3) The Moon was originally a portion of the terrestrial crust and was torn out, after the formation of the Earth, leaving behind the bed of the Pacific Ocean. 

 4) The Moon is an artificial satellite, which was brought into the vicinity of Earth by extra-terrestrials in order to carry out some unknown agenda. 

THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY

The curse of the mummy began when many terrible events occurred after the discovery of King Tut's tomb. Legend has it that anyone who dared to open the tomb would suffer the wrath of the mummy. Because mummies have been associated with many magical powers throughout history, some of the mummies found from Egypt were ground into a fine powder and sold as mystical mummy powder. It's believed the powder had magical healing powers and it wasn't until the discovery of King Tut and the hype of the media that things would change forever.
 
The hype began when Lord Carnarvon, the person who funded the dig of King Tut’s Tomb, died shortly after the discovery. The path to his death began in the spring of 1923 when he was bitten on the cheek by a mosquito. During his morning shaving routines, he further aggravated the mosquito bite. It soon became infected and Lord Carnarvon found himself ill. He suffered a high fever and chills. A doctor was sent to examine him but medical attention arrived too late and Lord Carnarvon died. At that exact moment the lights in Cairo mysteriously went out.

 
Once Carnarvon died the media went wild with stories of his death. They claimed King Tut wanted vengeance and announced a mummy's curse, which targeted those who had entered the tomb.

TUTANKHAMON'S CURSE


When Lord Carnarvon died on 5 April 1923, seven weeks after the official opening of pharaoh Tutankhamon's burial chamber, rumours were rife about a curse.  News of Tutankhamon's tomb and its discoverers had sent the world's media into a frenzy and the death of Lord Carnarvon added another twist for eager journalists.

LORD CARNARVON

All sorts of links were found. The lights of Cairo were said to have gone out at the moment of his death (not an uncommon occurrence back then), while back at Carnarvon's English estate his dog, Susie, was supposed to have howled and died at the same time.

Carnarvon's death came just a couple of weeks after a public warning by novelist Mari Corelli that there would be dire consequences for anyone who entered the sealed tomb.  The media and public lapped it up.  Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a believer in the occult, announced that Carnarvon's death could have been the result of a "Pharaoh's curse".

One newspaper even printed a curse supposed to have been written in hieroglyphs at the entrance of the tomb, the translation being:

TUTAKHAMON TOMB ENTRANCE

"They who enter this sacred tomb shall swift be visited by wings of death."
 
However, no inscribed curse was found.

One inscription, found on the Anubis shrine (a jackal on a pedestal shown here) in the tomb's so-called Treasury, did say:
 
"It is I who hinder the sand from choking the secret chamber. I am for the protection of the deceased."

ANUBIS SHINE FOUND AT THE TOMB

However, a reporter went on to add his own words to the reported inscription:

"and I will kill all those who cross this threshold into the sacred precincts of the Royal King who lives forever."

Reporting of the curse was further fuelled by more deaths, many with very stretched associations to Tutankhamon. Five months after Carnarvon died, his younger brother died suddenly.
 
Closer to the tomb, another "casualty" was the pet canary of the tomb's discoverer, Howard Carter. The bird was swallowed by a cobra on the day the tomb was opened.  This was interpreted as retribution for violation of the tomb, particularly as a cobra was depicted on the brow of the pharaoh from where it would spit fire at the king's enemies.

THE TOMB

 
According to one list, of the 26 individuals present at the official opening of the tomb, six had died within a decade. In reality, many of the key individuals associated with the discovery and work on the tomb lived to a ripe old age.
 

PHARAOH DEAD MASK

Even when some of the treasures of Tutankhamon went on tour overseas in the 1970s, some people were still of the belief that the curse might be at work. One example was from San Francisco where a policeman guarding Tutankhamun's gold funerary mask tried to claim compensation for a mild stroke based on the effect of the curse. The judge dismissed the claim.
 
 

TUTAKHAMON

Here is a list of some of the major players involved with the tomb and their fates:


LORD CARNARVON

Carnarvon had been in poor health for over 20 years following a motoring accident in Germany. Less than two weeks after the official opening of the burial chamber, Carnarvon received a mosquito bite which became infected after he cut it while shaving. Carnarvon fell ill and, with his resistance lowered, came down with pneumonia and eventually passed away at the age of 57.

H       HOWARD CARTER

As discoverer of the tomb, Carter should have been Number 1 on the curse's "hit list", but he survived until March 1939, just short of his 65th birthday and nearly 17 years after entering the tomb - about a decade of which was spent working in the tomb itself.

He died of lymphoma, a type of cancer, in Kensington, London, on 2 March 1939 at the age of 64

  LADY EVELYN HERBERT       

    

     

Lady Evelyn, Lord Carnarvon's daughter and one of the first into the tomb, died in 1980 at the age of about 79.

                                                                                                                                     HARRY BURTON

Burton was the photographer loaned to Carter by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to document the work done in Tutankhamun's tomb. Many of the magnificent black & white photographs of the time were taken by Burton who died in 1940.

                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                       ALAN GARDINER

 

Gardiner studied the tomb's inscriptions and was still very active working on Egyptian grammar for many decades until his death in 1963.

Dr D. E. Derry

Derry carried out the original autopsy on Tutankhamon's mummy. If anyone should have been cursed along with Carter, it probably should have been Derry, but he didn't die until 1969.

THE TEAM