A Major Mystery: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Past

The Devil’s Footprint was a major mystery back in the 1800s. The mystery started in England and traveled to America later on. The first sighting of this “creature”was in South and East Devon (England). There were hoof marks found all over the snowy ground.They were found in thirty different places all over Devon. In The Times article, it states, “The Times said the marks were found over a distance of 40 miles on both sides of the Exe, as if “some strange and mysterious animal endowed with the power of ubiquity” had created them during the night.

”The hoof marks traveled to put marks on the ground, haystacks, rivers, and even houses. These footprints were soon to be named The Devil’s Footprints or Tracks of Satan because the shape resembled a cloven hoof”(Clark 1). Although the name of this creature may make you think it was just a pig or some other kind of wild animal, people had other ideas. The first theory was that it was a kangaroo. One of the kangaroos had escaped from the nearby zoo and the track marks made an odd shape similar to a kangaroo. This theory was debunked due to the lack of evidence they had, and there was no signs that it was definitely a kangaroo. The second theory is that the creature was a badger because it seemed like a better explanation than an escaped kangaroo. This theory was also proven wrong because there is no way that the badger could’ve traveled that far in one night. The next theory was that it was a hot air balloon dragging an anchor. This helps explains the marks on top of houses, but there was no reported lost air balloon during that time. People also said that the balloon would have gotten tangled up in a tree, leaving the evidence. The fourth theory was that the rain froze over to create a hoof like mark. This was also proved incorrect because it was a bit far fetched. The last theory was that a few animals, such as a wood mouse were leaving the tracks. They are known to hop around and it can sometimes life hoof like marks. However, it is unlikely that the mouse could have hoped that far in the snow. This is the most likely theory, but due to the lack of evidence there is no theory proven right. The legend of The Devil’s Footprints remains a mystery.

People are skeptical of supernatural things such as werewolves, vampires, witches, aliens, and more specifically UFOs. In the 1600s there was sighting of what a folklorist named Winthrop said to be a UFO. There were boatmen who were sailing and they saw a light shoot across the sky and it shot in both directions. Winthrop had a theory that the glow could have been an ignis fatuus, “a pale light that can appear over marshland at night due to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter”(Winthrop). However, the light was not rising from the water, it was shooting across the sky, making that explanation unlikely.After they saw this light there was a strange reposition of the boat. They thought that maybe the wind had shifted them, but that was hard to believe. Some researchers would consider that an alien abduction in today’s day. Besides the light and the boat shifting, there was another strange encounter. A voice was heard upon the water between Boston and Dorchester. It called out, ‘Boy! Boy! Come away! Come away!’; and it suddenly shifted from one place to another, about 20 times. About 14 days after, the same voice was heard by others on the other side of the town towards Nottles Island. There is no explanation for this, especially because the only people who witnessed that were the ones on the boat, or in range of the boat. Winthrop had an explanation for the latest light over his “city upon a hill.” The governor noted that the light was seen near the location where a vessel captained by John Chaddock had exploded months earlier. After, a sailor accidentally ignited gunpowder aboard the ship. The captain was not aboard at the time, but the explosion killed five crew members. Winthrop noted that rescuers had recovered the bodies of all the victims except for the man who they thought was responsible. It was a sailor who “had” the ability to communicate with the dead and who was suspected of murdering his master in Virginia. The devil was thought to have taken possession of the body, and the voice of the sailor’s ghost was said to have accompanied the strange vision of Ye Olde UFO that mystified Boston. There is no evidence that we today have to prove any theories of this odd event. Unfortunately, we will never know what is real and what’s not.

As for UFO sightings, there was thought to be ghost and demon possessions. An example of this was The Bell Witch. The first encounter of this supernatural “witch” was when Andrew Jackson were traveling to find it for themselves. The men’s wagons got stuck, however not in mud. It was stuck in a substance they could not see. Jackson’s men checked the wagons wheels for any damage, but there was none. Then they whipped the horses, but they didn’t move. The men then tried to push them but it didn’t work either. Then the sound of a sharp voice from the bushes said, ‘All right General, let the wagon move on, I will see you again to-night.’ The men looked in every direction to see if they could find where the voice came from, but they could not find an explanation. The horses then unexpectedly started to move and the wagon rolled along smoothly. While one may think the was the end of whatever spirit was present, they are mistaken. When Jackson, his men, and some of his family got to the house they were staying at, the night had haunting things coming. Betsy Bell, a woman staying with them, was screaming all night due to pinching and slapping from the witch. Jackson’s covers were ripped off of him, and all of his men were slapped, pinched and had their hair pulled by the witch until morning. The last encounter of The Bell Witch was when a general was told by a voice, “Alright general, I am at hand and ready for business.” The voice then demanded him to shoot, but when he shot his gun it did not fire. The manx was then struck by an unseen force as he shouted about something sticking painful pins into him. He then cried out that something had him by the nose. The witch then said, “I guess that’s fun enough for tonight general, and you can go to bed now. I will come tomorrow night and show you another rascal in this crowd.” It is said that after this Jackson wanted to stay, but his men insisted they move on. Jackson was later quoted as saying, ‘I’d rather fight the British in New Orleans than to have to fight the Bell Witch'(Jackson). Although it would be astonishing if this was true, researchers don’t have enough evidence or information from this time to prove if it is real or not.

From pirates, to aliens, to crazy captain, The Mary Celeste is a wild event that took place. It was a ghost ship that was found in 1872 without a trace of any crew or any damage. A Chemist named Dr. Andrea Sella conducted an experiment that explained this tragic event. There were about 1,700 barrels of alcohol in the ship’s cargo that may have been able to catch fire and cause an ‘invisible explosion’. It would make a wall of fire, followed by a wave of cool air. The outcome would leave no fire. The crew could have abandoned ship and perished in the sea. This is the most likely theory, but some don’t believe it. MacGregor, a researcher, said that maybe alcohol vapors expanded in the heat and blew off the main hatch. Except, MacGregor knows that the crew found the main hatch secured and did not say they smelled any fumes. Nine of the 1,700 barrels in the hatch were empty, but the empty ones had been made of red oak, not white oak like the others. Red oak is a more perishable wood and more likely to leak, proving this theory to be unlikely. Although what happened to the ship seemed to have been an accident, it was found the the Captain of the ship, Briggs, changed the course of the ship without anyone knowing. The were supposed to go to Azores, but before they got there, Briggs changed the pathway to Santa Maria Island, possibly seeking haven. People believe it was an inside job, with Captain Briggs and his family faking their deaths to claim the salvage money through a co-conspirator. That would be the reason why he changed the course of the ship so last minute. To this day that is not proved to be true. With that theory, there came many more. One of them was about strange marks on the ship. “Initial checks of the ship found strange marks that may have been caused by an axe, along with traces of what seemed to be blood”(Yesterday). The attorney-general believed that members of the crew had got drunk and things became violent on the ship. They then massacred everyone else on board before leaving on the ship’s lifeboat. Except it was shown later that the blood stains weren’t blood stains, the marks were due to natural causes, and the alcohol was “industrial-grade” stuff that wasn’t for drinking. With that theory ruled out, many more were to come. The next theory is about Pirates attacking the ship. While this could have been a likely theory, the ship hadn’t been looted. Some also believed that the crew of the Dei Gratia, the ship which had actually discovered the empty Mary Celeste, could attacked the Mary Celeste and then pretended to have found it abandoned. They would have done that just so they could gain money from the salvage. This other theory is about aliens who caused the ship to be abandoned. Few people think that aliens turned up and took away the crew members which is why they were never found. People think this because before the ship was discovered, half-eaten food was still laid out on the table. They didn’t know why the food would just be sitting there when the crew had just disappeared. This theory is actually a myth because the last log had been made several days before discovery, there was no food laid out, and the ship was dishevelled, and a wet mess. There’s also the missing lifeboat which shows the crew, without a doubt, abandoned the ship. Another possibility is that the Mary Celeste went through a tornado at sea, or maybe a sudden seaquake. Any of these events may have caused damage and some waterlogging, making the crew think the ship was going to sink, leading them to go onto the lifeboat. This theory was also never proven to be true or not. There were many explanations as to why the ship’s crew had disappeared, but none of them were proved right. Although some are more likely than other, there isn’t enough evidence from this time that could prove anything true. Unfortunately this event will remain unsolved.

The next event that happened is something that is in fact not supernatural, but it happened, making it even more unsettling. Jack the Ripper is one of the most famous multi-murder mysteries in the world. Ripperology had been investigated with Patricia Cornwell and Russell Edwards. They look through evidence in search of a ‘prime suspect.’ “Among the wild theories that have become legends is one that depicts Jack as a deranged surgeon who killed the women as part of a conspiracy to protect a member of the royal family”(Clark). The murder total was ten, and the spree lasted nearly six years. Eight out of the ten victims were Martha Tabram, Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Kelly, Alice McKenzie, and Frances Coles. Although the reason why Jack killed so many people, the suspects aren’t as set in stone. There was a great amount of speculation that the killer showed some amount of medical knowledge. The police looked into the activities of medical students who spent time in asylums. However, this drew a blank as the movements of these students were accounted for and they were taken out of involvement in the crimes. Instead of having medical experience, people believed the killings demonstrated more of a butcher or slaughter method. The police carried out theories on this kind of suspect, but nothing came out of the investigations and interviews. Throughout the look for the killer,investigators looked for someone who lived in, or close to the district. It focused more on where the crimes were occurring. Over 2,000 interviews were held by the Victorian police officers, and more than 300 people were actually investigated. 80 people were detained in police custody. It is possible that Jack the Ripper was one of these, but none of the interviews, investigations or people who were detained showed/said anything that made the police point the finger at one suspect and say that he was Jack the Ripper.

This last mystery is certainly a confusing, yet gruesome one. On July 29, 1870, a man named Benjamin Nathan was murdered in his brownstone by having his skull bashed repeatedly with an iron bar. No one knows who killed Nathan,but suspects rolled in quickly. The first suspect was in fact his son, Washington Nathan. He was an angry tempered man who fought with his father quite frequently. They would fight about habits of life such as drinking, women and reckless spending. On the night of his father’s murder, Washington Nathan claimed that between 7:30 p.m. and 12:20 a.m. he visited the bar at the St. James Hotel three times and read a magazine at Delmonico’s. Then he visited the Fifth Avenue Hotel, went to an open-air concert at Madison Square Park, and spent about three hours with a women. Because of his story, the police could not convict Nathan’s son as the killer. As for when Nathan was killed, the police found, “the door to a safe wide open with the key conveniently missing. A drawer from the safe was laying on a bed, and a tin containing papers near a blood-smeared writing desk. On the desk, a partially written check and stub for $10,000”(Frangella). The investigation concluded that Benjamin had been killed while writing the check. Lastly, the investigation found the iron bar and a trail of bloody footprints from the murder scene, leading down the steps and out to the street. The murder remains unsolved, even after a confession of guilt by a burglar named John T. Irving. Irving promised to give evidence for the murder, as long as the District Attorney would not arrest him for two burglaries. However, the deal did not go as planned because Irving was unable to get the necessary evidence. He was arrested for the two burglaries and sent to jail.

Did you like this example?

237

10