Lights Out With Sylvia Shults
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White-faced capuchin monkeys greet each other by sticking their fingers up each other’s noses. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)
A 25-ton humpback whale appeared to protect American marine biologist Nan Hauser from a 15-foot long tiger shark while she was swimming off the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. As the shark circled, the huge whale lifted Hauser right up out of the water with its head, then shielded her with its pectoral fin … Continue reading Today I Learned… https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/03/25/today-i-learned-330/
Ready for another episode of Lights Out? Great, me too! Pretend you’re a wealthy English lord in the middle of the 18th century. You’ve just gotten back from a Grand Tour of the Continent, and you want to keep the party going. How do you do that? You start up a not-so-secret club, and you … Continue reading Lights Out #111: Hellfire Caves https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/03/21/lights-out-111-hellfire-caves/
Convicted Missouri deer poacher David Berry Jr. was ordered to watch the Disney movie Bambi at least once a month during his year-long jail sentence. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)
When Roland Hendel and his family were forced to flee their Sonoma County, CA, home to escape the wildfires that devastated the area in October 2017, they had to leave behind their dog, Odin, who refused to be parted from the family’s eight goats that he guards from coyotes and mountain lions at night. The … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/03/11/today-i-learned-328/
A cliff near Gulu, Guizhou Province, China, is said to “lay” mysterious egg-shaped stones every thirty years. Part of Mount Gandeng, Chan Da Ya — Mandarin for “egg-producing cliff” — is 20 feet high and 65 feet wide. It has an uneven surface, and every three decades, erosion causes each hollow to emit an oval-shaped, … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/03/04/today-i-learned-327/
Defying odds of one in 2.1 million, a baby girl was born on Leap Day just like her father. Ivan Rebollar Cortez was born on February 29, 1988, and daughter Camila entered the world on February 29, 2020, just as her 32-year-old father was celebrating his eighth leap-year birthday. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: … Continue reading Today I Learned… https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/02/26/today-i-learned-368/
It is estimated that 24,568 gallons — equal to 195,419 pints — of beer are lost in facial hair each year in the United Kingdom alone. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)
A calf born at James McAuley’s farm in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on Valentine’s Day 2020 had a perfectly shaped heart pattern on her forehead. Her owners named her Be My Valentine. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Out of the Box)
There is a church in Brazil that is made out of wine. Brazil’s Vale de Vinhedos (Valley of Vineyards) was settled in the late 1800s by Italian immigrants, who grew grapes and made wine just as they had done in their native country. In 1904, construction began on Capela Nossa Senhora das Neves, or the … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/02/05/today-i-learned-323/
A woman in Sweden who lost her wedding ring found it sixteen years later — around a carrot that was growing in her garden. She lost it while cooking Christmas dinner in 1995. She looked everywhere, and even had the kitchen floor pulled up. While gardening in 2012, she was digging carrots, and there was … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/today-i-learned-321/
Curl up in a comfy chair, brew yourself a cuppa, and let me take you to London just after the Blitz. Lights Out #110: Stairway to Heaven. On March 3, 1943, tragedy struck in London, at the Bethnal Green Tube station. People on their way down to the station to seek shelter from a air … Continue reading A New Lights Out Is Coming Your Way! https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/01/26/a-new-lights-out-is-coming-your-way/
McDonald’s introduced its drive-thru service for the convenience of the military. The first McDonald’s drive-thru was installed in a restaurant in Sierra Vista, AZ, near the Fort Huachuca military base. Military rules forbade the soldiers from wearing uniforms in public, and they weren’t about to change into civilian clothes just to run out to grab … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/today-i-learned-320/
Every military working dog holds the rank of noncommissioned officer (NCO). Also, a military working dog is always one rank higher than its handler. Some say the custom was implemented to prevent handlers fom mistreating their dogs. (Reader’s Digest, October 2023)
Did you have a good time listening to the Haunted Chronicles podcast I posted last week? I hope so — I had a great time chatting with Michelle. Here’s another fun conversation we had, this time about haunted zoos, museums, and amusement parks. (And it is thanks to Michelle that there will be a second … Continue reading Return to Haunted Chronicles https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/01/11/return-to-haunted-chronicles/
Ever wonder where the game “rock, paper, scissors” came from? You know the one: “Scissors beat paper: after all they can cut the paper to shreds. Rock beats scissors: after all it can blunt the scissors. And finally paper beats rock because, well, just because.” But why should this be? “The calm assertion of paper’s … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/01/08/today-i-learned-318/
Sometimes I am invited to be a guest on someone’s podcast, and the host and I just … click. The hour flies by, and we just have the best time chatting! This is what happened with Michelle Fisher, host of Haunted Chronicles. I must confess, I fell for her as soon as I heard her … Continue reading Podcast Alert: Haunted Chronicles https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/01/05/podcast-alert-haunted-chronicles/
The town of Cameron Corner straddles the border of three Australian states with three different time zones. So the New Year is rung in three times in the town, each half an hour apart — first New South Wales, then South Australia, and finally Queensland. (From Ripley’s Believe It or Not: Out of the Box) … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2024/01/01/today-i-learned-317/
Join me for a chat with Charlotte Sanchez-Kosa, host of California Haunts Radio. We’ll revisit the Peoria State Hospital, and share some fun spooky stories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ0-u2y9dx0
So that he could spend Christmas 2018 with his daughter Pierce, who was working as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines, Hal Vaughan, from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, bought tickets to fly with her as a passenger on all six of her flights on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. (From Ripley’s Believe It or Not: … Continue reading Today I Learned … https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/25/today-i-learned-316/
Merry Saturkwanzukah! It’s time for our Christmas Eve story. Here is one of my favorites. Every so often, we hear of ghosts helping the living. It’s rarer still when a living person has the chance to help a ghost. Mary Pepper was an orphan living in Liverpool in the 1880s. At seven years old, she … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 12 — The Ghost and Mary Pepper https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/24/twelve-nightmares-of-christmas-day-12-the-ghost-and-mary-pepper/
The Tower of London comes by its ghostly reputation honestly. Built by William the Conqueror in 1078, it has stood as a symbol of the might of England for nearly a thousand years. It was originally a royal palace as well as a defensive fortress. In fact, Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress, The Tower … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 11 — The Ghost of Anne Boleyn https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/23/twelve-nightmares-of-christmas-day-11-the-ghost-of-anne-boleyn/
There is a startling ghost photograph that was taken in a stately English home, Raynham Hall in Norfolk. This might just be the most famous ghost photograph of all time. Raynham Hall was once the home of Lady Dorothy Townshend, who married Viscount Charles Townshend in 1713. As in many ghost stories, all was not … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 10 — The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/22/twelve-nightmares-of-christmas-day-10-the-brown-lady-of-raynham-hall/
I was privileged, this spring, to spend three weeks ghost hunting in England and Scotland with Dale Kaczmarek. Our host for those three weeks was Paul Adams, a renowned writer of ghost stories himself. One evening as we were sitting around talking after supper, Paul brought out file after file of newspaper clippings he had … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 9 — The Woman in the Blitz https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/21/twelve-nightmares-of-christmas-day-9-the-woman-in-the-blitz/
Ready for another ghost story as we creep up on Christmas? Me too! Let’s dive in! Here’s another story from Spirits of Christmas. The winter winds whistled around the cabin in the South Carolina woods, but inside the snug home, all was well. The cabin’s owner, David Miles, was a Quaker, and held himself and … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 8 — Ghost Rider of the Revolution https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/20/twelve-nightmares-of-christmas-day-8-ghost-rider-of-the-revolution/
I had a fabulous time chatting with Jon Mallard, host of the Odd to Newfoundland podcast. Listen in as I spin some spooky tales of Christmas hauntings. https://podfollow.com/oddtonewfoundland/view?fbclid=IwAR0_FlxyNn0BRuyKLYV16pIAr713xclaqyPJPaWkYl6bFDklXajyTgp2xT8#_=_ Drop in on www.weirddarkness.com, too. You’re sure to find even more exciting ghost stories over there. Tell Darren I sent you!
Aileen Sterling’s family, from Renfrew, Scotland, has decorated the same ornamental Christmas tree for over 100 years. (From Ripley’s Believe It or Not: Out of the Box) Short and sweet, right? Need more spooky Christmas goodness? Check out www.weirddarkness.com. I know there’s some great stuff going on over there.
(This story, and many others, can be found within the pages of Spirits of Christmas, available from Bookshop.org and Amazon.) This tale comes from the brooding mountains and dark hollows of Appalachia. A young man from West Virginia was engaged to be married to a beautiful girl. But the dark clouds of World War I … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 5 — Blood Brothers https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/17/twelve-nightmares-of-christmas-day-5-blood-brothers/
(This story, and many others, can be found within the pages of Spirits Of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays. https://bookshop.org/p/books/spirits-of-christmas-the-dark-side-of-the-holidays-sylvia-shults/10267269?ean=9780999604007 It was a cold winter afternoon early in the last century. A mother huddled in her cabin on the west fork of the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee. She held two of her … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 4 — Footprints In The Snow https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/16/footprints-in-the-snow/
Here’s another Lights Out for your listening enjoyment: the Christmas edition, brand-new for 2023. The tragic disappearance of the Sodder children, on Christmas Eve 1945, began in flames and ended in enduring mystery. How could five children simply vanish from their bedrooms without a trace? The unsolved mystery continues to haunt West Virginia today. https://five.libsyn.com/show/episodes/view/29097618 … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 3 — Lights Out Extra: Christmas 2023 https://sylviashults.wordpress.com/2023/12/15/lights-out-extra-christmas-2023/
