1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (114 page)

864

FACT :
From 1920 to 1950, the Glastenbury Mountains area of Vermont saw
several disappearances
, including a college student who vanished while walking in the woods, a man who disappeared from a bus, and a child who went missing from his family’s farm. The region has since become known as “The Bennington Triangle.”
Bus Guy probably died in the bathroom and is still there. No one would notice the smell.

Joseph A. Citro, Weird New England: Your Travel Guide to New England’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets (Sterling Publishing Company, 2005), 75.

865

FACT :
In 1913, satirist
Ambrose Bierce disappeared in Mexico
after traveling there to witness Pancho Villa’s revolution. Scholars believe that the seventy-one-year-old man was killed in the siege of Ojinaga, while others speculate that Bierce’s final letters were a ruse and that he never actually went to Mexico, but instead committed suicide.
Maybe he went for a walk in the Glastenbury Mountains in Vermont.

Joe Nickell, Unsolved History: Investigating Mysteries of the Past (University Press of Kentucky, 2005).

866

FACT :
During her 1937 attempt to fly around the world, pioneering female pilot Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. Military ships scoured a wide area for any sign of Earhart, her co-pilot, or the plane, but
none was ever found
.
Did she fly over Vermont?

“Top Ten Famous Disappearances,”
Time.com
,
www.time.com
.

867

FACT :
On June ii, 1962, inmates Frank Morris and Clarence and John Anglin escaped from Alcatraz prison during the night. Despite one of the largest manhunts since the Lindbergh kidnapping,
the trio were never found
.
Oh, they were found. By sharks.

After they drowned.

“Top Ten Famous Disappearances,”
Time.com
,
www.time.com
.

868

FACT :
After James Dean was killed in a 1955 car accident,
remnant parts of his Porsche Spyder were said to be cursed
. Subsequent owners of those parts allegedly suffered numerous injuries and at least one was killed. Following a 1960 exhibition in Miami, the wreckage of the cursed car disappeared while en route to Los Angeles.
Did the route go through Vermont, by any chance?

Tom Ogden, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings (Alpha Books, 1999), 251.

869

FACT :
George Herbert, one of the men who found the tomb of King Tutankhamen in 1922, died from tuberculosis and blood poisoning shortly after, and Cairo is said to have experienced
a city-wide power outage at the time of Herbert’s death
. Both events are blamed on the “Curse of the Pharoah.”
According to legend, the curse stems from the fact that Tut was buried in his jammies, something the ancient king would not have wanted public.

S. T. Joshi, Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007).

870

FACT :
Since the 1991 discovery of the Ice Man, several people connected to the research of the 5,000-year-old specimen have
met their death
, giving him his own version of “The Curse of Tutankhamen.”
Similarly, the discovery of Vanilla Ice in the early 1990s has led to the deaths of several hundred people, all by their own hand.

Brian Haughton, Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries (Career Press, 2007).

871

FACT :
The Roman Catholic Church still believes in diabolical possession, and has at least
ten official exorcists
in America today.
Oh come on, the Catholic Church would never believe anything so crazy.

Robert Todd Carroll, The Skeptic’s Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions (John Wiley & Sons, 2003).

872

FACT : A San Francisco woman was pummeled to death
in 1995 by Pentecostal ministers who believed she was possessed by demons.
She wasn’t possessed, just Episcopalian.

Robert Todd Carroll, The Skeptic’s Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions (John Wiley & Sons, 2003).