Comments for Devil's Penny

Comment on Flying Goblin Terrorizes Spanish Village, 1907 by Loes Modderman

Loes Modderman — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:31:37 +0000

Your website is awesome, and I’m very happy to have found it, through ‘The Anomalist’.
I search for weird cuttings myself in old Dutch newspapers. It’s very interesting to see that so many of the more recent ‘high strangeness’ in the world often happened also in the 19th century. Keep up the good work. I will return often, thanks!

Comment on Sherlock Holmes Creator Declares Antigonish Ghost is Real by N.Carroll Macintyre

N.Carroll Macintyre — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:35:24 +0000

Read The Fire-Spook of Caladonia Mills to find the true reasons of the haunting happenings in Caladonia Mills in the winter of 1922. It all goes back prior to 1903, with the arrival of Mary Ellen at the MacDonald home, when it all started !

Comment on Report of Man in Bizarre Flying Contraption by Awesome or Off-Putting: The Man Who Flew Over Coney Island | Hecklerspray

Awesome or Off-Putting: The Man Who Flew Over Coney Island | Hecklerspray — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:38:14 +0000

[...] long, long time ago the New York Times printed a pretty weird story about a man with bat wings and frog legs soaring through the air over Coney Island. The date was [...]

Comment on Current: Gunther von Hagens, aka “Dr. Death” sells “plastinated” human body parts online by D. Mehrtens

D. Mehrtens — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:40:12 +0000

I’d like to find the group that is paying for your body parts before you die. What I read (and lost) said the parts are paid for and harvested for medical research Seems a bit risky on both ends, but a way to distribute your corpse’s worth before you lose it!

Comment on Report of Man in Bizarre Flying Contraption by Kurt Blake

Kurt Blake — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:18:53 +0000

Hahah that’s what I was thinking, Entertaining though. Good old Mr. Talmage!

Comment on Phantasmagoria, New York, 1866 by Kurt Blake

Kurt Blake — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:08:21 +0000

This is really interesting. I receive a Brittish Magazine called Fortean Times where I first heard this storey. I am from Washingtonville N.Y., about 20 minutes from Middletown.

Comment on Report of Man in Bizarre Flying Contraption by CryWolf

CryWolf — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:39:42 +0000

They could see his face from 1000 feet in 1880?

Comment on Teen Girl, Accused of Hoaxing Antigonish Ghost, Speaks in Her Own Defense (1922) by Tweets that mention Teen Girl, Accused of Hoaxing Antigonish Ghost, Speaks in Her Own Defense (1922) -- Topsy.com

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:27:27 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mojoel and Canada's History, Jenna(MacNeil)Morton. Jenna(MacNeil)Morton said: A great Antigonish ghost tale via @NS_Archives http://bit.ly/dk4nyC http://bit.ly/ax4bSR http://bit.ly/d2V0nd http://bit.ly/d7qUgS [...]

Comment on The Boiling of Bad Lord Soulis by Some Irish Superstitions

Some Irish Superstitions — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:12:37 +0000

[...] are more commonly portrayed as sinister beings in much of Scotch-English folklore, as my article “The Boiling of Bad Lord Soulis,” bears [...]

Comment on Pale Lights of the Marshes, 1893 by rbrock

rbrock — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:50:47 +0000

â€˜Tis said, on summerâ€™s evening hour
Flashes the golden-colored flower
A fair electric flame.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

——-

That’s a potentially good location to see the Wisp, especially if the night is dark. Unfortunately, in many places – and particularly in England – artificial lightning has made seeing the “Lanthorn Man” (there are umpteen names for the phenomenon across multiple cultures) a dicey proposition, at best.

What I find particularly interesting about “Will-o-the-Wisp” is that it remains a “problematic” phenomenon, at best. While many will assert that each instance of the Wisp is merely “swamp gas” which undergoes spontaneous ignition, upon really digging into the subject one realizes that many, many reports of the “Wisp” reveal a very dynamic phenomenon for which the “swamp gas” explanation is unsuitable. That is, there is a set of phenomena that have been referred to by various of the folklorish names – Will o-the-Wisp, Lanthorn man, Kitty with a wick, Ignis Fatuus, Vaett-Lys (Scandinavian), etc. – but which clearly behave very differently than burning “marsh gas.”

For interested parties, I’m posting to the blog an excerpt fr0m an article I wrote, which details the “problematic” aspects of Will-o-the-Wisp.

http://www.devilspenny.com/2010/08/the-will-o%E2%80%99-the-wisp-more-than-just-swamp-gas/