Unexplained : True Tales of Unexplained Mysteries with Bestselling Author Steph Young

Was there really an Underground Monster at Montauk? Listen to one woman’s story of what happened to her undergound at Montauk… Tales of the Unexplained with music by http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/50238 Ft: AT Martijn de Boer (NiGiD) Tales of the Unexplained

Stories of Strange Intruders, with music by http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/NiGiD/50238 Ft: AT Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

Sent by special cable from France on May the 27th 1922, The New York Times reported on a very curious case. ‘A baffling mystery is exciting the inhabitants of the small Brittany village of Goas Al Ludu in the Brest district. Early in April, a little girl, Pauline Picard, disappeared from her parent’s farm, all searches proving fruitless…. ‘ As the story progresses, soon we will have a missing girl, a girl returned who is a doppelganger, a headless girl, and a bodiless man; all of whom remain unidentified!

When Henry McCabe disappeared, he left what can only be described as the most bone-chilling voicemail. He is screaming, pleading, and growling in raw, animalistic agony. Along with these sounds is a noise in the background that sounds indefinably mechanical. As we listen to it, we do not know what is happening to him. Even more chilling is the moment another voice can be heard, telling Henry in a cold, emotionless, detached voice, “Stop it.” Fifty-five days later, Henry’s body was found in an isolated creek. His body had no wounds, no trauma, no injuries. How could this be possible after Henry’s harrowing, visceral voicemail? What was it that took Henry to the gaping, echoing abyss of unremitting terror? And who, or what took him on that terrible one-way journey? “This is what they did to my son. Henry paid for you to learn the lesson,” said his mother; but what does she mean? Why would he walk six miles to a spot only accessible through thick inhospitable vegetation, in pitch darkness, toward a creek that was so isolated few even knew it was there? For that is where he was found. The crime scene photos show this location. There is no footpath to lead him to where he was found. It is a bleak landscape of tall dense trees and thick brambles. Had Henry tried to cut-through this area, to get home? And yet it was no-where near where he had been dropped off, and no-where near home, and it led only to the cold depths of the water. It was not an easy route to get through, and it was not a route to anywhere other than desolation. The Strange Unexplained Death of Henry McCabe

Beachy head is the most notorious spot for suicide in Britain. The famous white cliffs of chalk were formed in the Late Cretaceous era between 66 and 100 million years ago when the entire area was submerged under the sea. On Easter Sunday in 1981, a local photographer set his camera on a tripod close to the cliff-edge at Beachy head. He was hoping to take some stunning photographs of the South coast of England, when a 19-year-old boy approached him, pointed at the camera and said: “I hope you’ve got that loaded”. The boy then walked away, turned on his heel, and ran at the edge, yelling madly as he jumped to his death.’ “This beautiful place openly invites us to die,” wrote novelist Louis de Bernieres in an essay on Beachy Head. “All about are the wisps and traces of broken hearts, cancelled dreams, abandoned expectations.”  ‘High among the chalk crags, where the wind always howls, dwells the most malevolent spirit in Britain,’ writes John Maklin. ‘It is an evil influence that, it is claimed, has hurled more than 100 victims over the edge to their deaths on the cruel wave-lashed rocks below. Many people have positively stated – some under oath – that they have felt the evil influence on the cliffs. They claim that they had to combat violently a power that attempted to force them over the edge to their doom.’ The unexplained lure of Beachy Head with special thanks to Ed Parnell for audio production

Readers of my earlier books may recall the strange story of Netta Fornario, and it was one of the first stories of unexplained mystery that I came across, and it has beguiled me ever since. Did the spirit of a dead woman come back to kill Netta? Or, was she killed by the Immortal race of the Fairies? It’s a gothic, Victorian tale of magic and mystery, murder and madness, and the yearning for immortality.  It is ripe for a chapter in a Penny Dreadful; but this is a true story. It is a tale that grips as it horrifies; fascinates yet simultaneously strikes at the fear inside of us all, that if we were to delve into the supernatural, it may show us where its allegiances lie, and destroy us entirely. The location of this tale is the tiny ancient island of Iona, an Island in the Outer Hebredies off the Coast of Scotland. It is 1929, and a young woman has gone missing. When she is found, she is naked and dead and lying on a cross cut into the earth on top of a ‘faerie mound.’ There is a knife in her hand and a look of terror etched across her face. She has no wounds. She is barefoot but the soles of her feet are clean. Her story encompasses the most cryptic unsolved disappearance and death of an eccentric student of the esoteric arts, whose adventures into ‘the Nether World,’ would appear to be her undoing. Iona is a mystical place, rich in the lore of dragons, angels, and vengeful faeries. Its victim is perhaps a naive adept of the occult, who believed she could step into ‘Summerland,’ the astral plane of Heaven, and return unscathed. One of her best friends, Dion Fortune said, “I do not object to reasonable risks, but it appeared to me that ‘Mac’ as we called her, was going into very deep waters … and there was certain to be trouble sooner or later.” Netta Fornario and her unexplained death….

In the elevator, Elisa Lam wore a red hoodie and a white shirt. In the elevator of the Cecil Hotel, we can see she is wearing this outfit. Very strangely, this is identical to the outfit a character called ‘Cecilia,’ wore in the horror movie ‘Dark Water’, where a woman ends up dead in a water tower on the roof of a building. There is also a very creepy elevator scene in the movie, with a young woman dressed identical to Elisa Lam in the elevator. What happened to Elisa Lam is almost identical to this horror movie; yet the movie was made before Elisa’s death. Elisa died in 2013. The movie was released in 2005. It is a remake of a Japanese horror movie made in 2002, and the story originates from a book by Koji Suzuki who also wrote ‘The Rings.’ The American version of ‘Dark Water’ stars Jennifer Connelly as ‘Dahlia,’ who has a young daughter called ‘Cecilia.’ They move into a run-down apartment. Not long after they move in, water begins to drip from their bedroom ceiling. The elevator in the building is prone to malfunctioning, like Elisa’s elevator. Cecilia sneaks up to the roof one day and finds a back-pack sitting next to the water tower. In time, Cecilia and Dahlia cannot help but notice the dark water which starts to run out of their taps and toilet. Dahlia goes up to the roof and to her horror, she finds a girl’s dead body floating in the water tower; just like the real-life case of Elisa Lam at the Cecil hotel. How can it be that a movie released before Elisa vanished, seems to mimic so precisely the last known hours of Elisa’s life; even down to the exact outfit she is wearing in an old elevator that malfunctions just like the elevator in the movie? Naming one character ‘Cecilia,’ and the other ‘Dahlia,’ we also cannot but help think of the infamous ‘Black Dahlia’ case in LA, and indeed there seems to be many similarities between Elisa Lam and the ‘Black Dahlia’ victim, Elizabeth Short. Many believe that the Cecil Hotel where Elisa vanished was the last place Elizabeth Short was seen. Elizabeth Short was a young aspiring actress who was found mutilated in January 1947. Her face was carved into a ‘Glasgow Smile’, her body drained of blood, and cut in half, then washed in gasoline. When a local resident happened across her body, at first, they thought it was a store mannequin. Her body was left on display, deliberately to be found and seen. The notorious case of ‘The Black Dahlia,’ as Elizabeth Short came to be known, is an as yet still-unsolved murder-mystery that has beguiled so many. Elisa was ‘washed clean’ by the water, and some believe she too had been drained of blood, because there was so little blood left in her body that it was not even possible to carry out many of the necessary forensic tests. There are other striking and unsettling similarities between Elisa Lam and Elizabeth Short, whose severed body was found on Leimont Park. Both Elizabeth and Elisa were petite, brunette, and pretty, both were called names that derive from Elizabeth, both were in their twenties, and both sadly suffered from depression. Both were known to travel alone and both had travelled from San Diego to downtown LA just prior to their deaths. Both Elisa and the Black Dahlia vanished after last being seen in a downtown hotel, and many say this was the Cecil Hotel. Both were not reported missing for a number of days before their bodies were found, and both died horrifying, inexplicable deaths that would become notorious. Both appear to have been drained of blood. Both cases ‘went viral.’ Newspapers around the world and armchair detectives have been fascinated with the mystery of who killed ‘The Black Dahlia’ for decades, and now Elisa too. Notably as already said, the movie ‘Dark Water’ has a central character called ‘Dahlia,’ and ‘Dahlia’s young daughter is called ‘Cecilia’; so similar to the word ‘Cecil,’ Elisa’s Hotel. It would almost seem as though this movie ties the Black Dahlia and Elisa Lam together in a way that is impossible ...

What was in the mystery box? And did this have anything to do with the synchronicity of the two Zip codes….? The new revelations about Elisa Lam. For anyone has read some of my earlier books, they may recall that in “Something in the Woods” in 2014, I discuss the strange case of Elisa Lam which was very current at the time. I have spent a considerable amount of time over the last few months re-visiting the case of Elisa Lam. The fate of Elisa Lam is a tale of tragedy, synchronicity, and perhaps of how the hunter became the prey in a game that was quite possibly crafted, as Gnostics would say, aeons ago and put into play by shadowy figures of dark power, across centuries. Elisa Lam’s unexplained death is a deeply mysterious story, full of unanswered questions which yearn for revelation of the method, and yet the path to truth lies shrouded in obscurity, layered in riddles, and revolving in astonishing synchronicities. The baffling unsolved death of Elisa Lam seemed to grip much of the world in February 2013, largely due to the bizarre video capturing her in an elevator just before she vanished. She was gone for 19 days. The video capturing some of her last known movements were taken from what was strangely said to have been the only security camera in the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. LAPD released the footage of her inside the elevator, in an appeal for information about her whereabouts, after her parents reported they had not heard from her and this was highly unusual. An official missing person’s case was opened, and the world became transfixed by Elisa inside the elevator. Her behaviour was very odd, playful perhaps in moments, but the overall tone was incredibly eerie and sinister. It was as though she was in a desperate fight for life; her enemy however, was both unknown and unseen. It would not be until guests staying at the hotel began to report to staff, 2 weeks later, that the water in their rooms tasted most odd, that she would be found; naked, dead, and floating in one of the water towers on the roof of the hotel. In June 2013, authorities determined that Elisa Lam’s death was ‘accidental,’ and caused by her own hand. Many crucial questions however, have been left unanswered; One of which is, why would she climb over 15 feet up the side of a water-tower, on a roof at night, without her glasses, alone, and climb in? Another question, is what is happening to her in the very disturbing footage inside the elevator, on the night she disappeared? Captured in immemorial now, it is chilling and unnerving to watch her. There is something very wrong here. She is seen entering the hotel elevator, pressing lots of buttons quickly, and then peeking out of the open elevator door into the corridor, several times, while she waits for the elevator to close. Its almost as though she is fearful that someone is after her, and perhaps they were. Peering along the hotel corridor, she waits as the door fails to close. Becoming increasingly agitated and distressed, we watch her begin to make increasingly odd gestures with her hands, then step out of the elevator and she seems to hide in the corridor, but then quickly she returns, appearing terrified yet not fleeing the scene. Is her imagination playing tricks with her? Or is her killer there?  – Out of sight of the camera but lurking within inches of her? Strange shadows and movement can be seen inside the elevator; even face-type forms appear on the walls of the elevator. It looks like a scene from a horror movie. The video quality is not good however, and perhaps this accounts for the shadows and blurs and unnerving atmosphere, although in hindsight, we are watching it in the full knowledge that soon Elisa would die. Some people think, that on studying the video, they catch sight of a foot in the corridor. Adding to the mystery is that for some reason, when the police released the footage of Elisa in the elevator, it had been chopped and cut,

It’s a tale of strange twin stone heads discovered buried in a garden, a half-man half-beast appearing in bedrooms, and archaeologists appearing to become distressed or possessed: this is the strange mystery of ‘The Hexham Heads.’ One February afternoon in 1972, 11-year-old Colin Robson was playing in his garden at the family home of 3 Rede Avenue, Hexham. He was having a go at weeding when he looked down at a lump in the ground that appeared to be a large stone approximately the size of a tennis ball. As he looked closer, he saw that there appeared to be a conical protrusion on one side of the object. Clearing away the grass and earth around it, he reached down to pick it up, and he saw that it appeared to have human features on it, like a face. The young boy was filled with excitement at his unusual find and he shouted for his brother Leslie to come and see what he had discovered. Leslie was astonished at his brother’s discovery and not to be outdone, he frantically started to dig the ground. It was not long before Leslie too had found a second strange head. One of the heads appeared to be a ‘boy’ and the other the girl. They were a pale, greenish stone colour. The boy had short hair carved into his head. Both of their faces were carved too. Neither of the stone faces were pretty – but the girl’s was the worst. She would go on to be given the name ‘the Hag’ or ‘the Witch,’ for she had a large hook nose and what was described as ‘wild bulging eyes.’ It seemed that the protrusions that stuck out at an angle, were their necks. The discovery of the two strange heads was to see the start of a chain of inexplicable events that involved local folks, academics, scientists, historians and fortean investigators. Mrs Dodds, who lived next door to the boys, suddenly woke one night startled to find a half-sheep half-man creature standing in her bedroom. When it saw that she was awake and staring at it, she said it then turned and “padded” downstairs and went out of the front door! Scientist Dr Don Robbins, a chemist who became involved in the investigation into the mysterious heads, on hearing of this strange night-time visitor, drew a tentative parallel between the half-man half sheep seen in Mrs Dodds bedroom and a creature from Norse mythology called ‘The Wulver;’ a powerful and dangerous creature, he said. Dr Anne Ross said that after much investigation, these heads were of Romano-Celtic origin and part of the Pagan ‘Head-cult’ tradition. The Celts had settled in North East England and they were known to revere the human head as a gruesome charm. The practise of the Celts was such that they would set the severed heads of their vanquished enemies over the doors of their houses and barns. This practise had been particularly rife in West Yorkshire and Northumberland, where Hexham was. However, local lorry driver Des Craigie said he had made the heads for his daughter to play with! They were not ancient he said! The story has many twists and turns, and the ending could be right out of a Fairy Tale….

What happened to Jeffrey on the isle of Ibiza? How could he have got to the place in which he was found? The unsolved and unexplained disappearance of Jeffrey… Tales of Mystery Unexplained

In the 1980’s, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park of northern England, a retired policeman had a very unsettling experience. On December 1st 1987, retired policeman Phillip Spencer set out on a walk across a windswept Ilkley Moors in the early hours of the morning, taking with him a camera in the hope of photographing the ‘strange lights’ that had recently been reported in the area. As well as it being dark, the moor was swirling with mist and Mr Spencer doubted that he would get any pictures at all, despite having loaded his camera with ultra-light-sensitive film. Suddenly, to his immense surprise, he spotted a human-like creature ahead of him in the gloom. He clicked the camera and duly photographed one of the most talked-about photographs in the history of unexplained phenomena. Although very blurred, the photograph appears to show a ‘humanoid’ figure over 1 metre high, that bears an uncanny resemblance to the ‘Greys’ of UFO legend. Spencer claimed that he ran after the creature, which entered a ‘dome-shaped’ craft that rose rapidly into the sky before he could get a shot of the craft. Spencer remained adamant that what he had seen was an alien, and donated the photo to UFO watchers. Analysis carried out at the Kodak laboratories in Hemel Hempstead suggested that the picture had not been interfered with in any way, but a later computer analysis of the photograph by US Navy expert Dr Bruce Maccabee was inconclusive. When the retired policeman took the photograph on the Moors, of the strange ‘human’ looking creature and saw the craft, he believed the incident lasted merely a couple of minutes, yet when he reached his father-in-law’s house in the village, his intended destination, he noticed that the village clock was an hour fast, or so he thought. It wasn’t – and he appeared to be have ‘lost’ some time. It was this which led him to suspect something else had happened to him after seeing the strange figure on the gloomy Moors. He suspected it was possible he had been abducted. In fact, he would later claim that he had indeed been abducted by an alien craft. When he walked across the moor that early morning, he had with him a compass to help him find his way, and through the gloomy fog he saw the strange-looking being ahead of him on the slopes of the moor. Intrigued, and too surprised to feel any fear, he found himself running toward it, trying to get closer and make out what it was, and it was then that he realized there was a flying craft of some sort, with a dome on top of it, rising up from the moor. It disappeared from sight within seconds however, and the unidentified creature was gone too. He hung around for some time, hoping that both would return so that he could figure out what it was he had just witnessed but neither returned and so he made his way to the village. His compass however was now of no use to him – it was pointing south now instead of north and when he got to the village, his watch said a different time to the village clock. He had lost an hour of time. The photograph that Spencer took was first analysed by a wildlife expert. He concluded that whatever was in the photograph was not any known animal. There was no way to ascertain what the creature in the photo was however. It was dark and quite blurry given the conditions of that morning but analysis of the image in the photo concluded that the strange figure hadn’t been superimposed or added in later, and indeed the photo had not been tampered with at all. It was after this odd encounter, that the policeman began to experience strange dreams at night. It was this that led him to undergo hypnotic regression, organised through the researcher Peter Hough, to try to get to the bottom of what had happened to him on the moor. A Dr Jim Singleton conducted the session and surprisingly it seemed that from Spencer’s recall, his encounter with the creature came after his abduction, and indeed, in his words, the creature was “waving goodbye to him” when he sna...

Boleskine House on the banks of Loch Ness in the highlands of Scotland, is best known for its association with occultist Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley was known as a master of the Dark Arts and he studied ‘The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.’ He specifically found the Manor House of Boleskine to be the perfect place to conduct this dangerous ritual. Located on the shores of the home of the Loch Ness Monster, Crowley purchased this ancient hunting lodge called Boleskine. It was an isolated, brooding and deeply malevolent house, and in this house, worrying supernatural phenomenon would occur, to the great detriment and even deaths of those close to it, as we will now discover. Crowley studied the Book ‘The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.’ It is a very old European Kabbalistic Grimoire, an ancient book of magic that claims to describe a method to make contact with ‘Your Holy Guardian Angel.’ The ancient summoning ceremony requires long and intense participation, in seclusion. It was a very dangerous ritual – for it would invoke Angels and Spirits “good or bad.” Crowley ‘raised the demons’ in the lodge at Boleskine and discovered them to be uncontrollable. A workman employed to renovate the buildings attacked Crowley and had to be locked in the cellar. Crowley absent-mindedly’ (although we could perhaps contest this) scribbled some incantation on the Butcher’s bill and the poor man promptly chopped through his own femoral artery and died. People began to take the old hill paths rather than risk offending the inhabitant of Boleskine. More death & disaster would follow… The Unexplained Deaths at Boleskine Tales of Mystery Unexplained Podcast with author Steph Young

Alex Sanders, The King of the Witches was also called The Halloween King. He was England’s highest witch, but he would come to regret his involvement in the dark occult. “I made a dreadful mistake in using black magic in an attempt to bring myself money and sexual success. It worked. Walking through Manchester, I was accosted by a middle-aged couple who told me that I was the exact double of their only son who had died some years previously. They took me into their home, fed and clothed me, and treated me as one of the family. They were extremely wealthy, and when I asked them for a house of my own with an allowance to run it, they were quite happy to grant my wishes.  I held parties, bought expensive clothes, was sexually promiscuous: But it was only after a time that I realised I had a fearful debt to pay.” It would seem that Sanders believed the subsequent suicide of one of his mistresses around this time, along with his sister Joan being accidentally shot and then subsequently diagnosed with terminal cancer, was his price to pay.  He had studied the Book ‘The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.’ It is a very old European Kabbalistic Grimoire, an ancient book of magic that claims to describe a method to make contact with ‘Your Holy Guardian Angel.’ The ancient summoning ceremony which requires long and intense participation, in seclusion. It was a very dangerous ritual – for it would invoke Angels and Spirits “good or bad…..” Tales of Mystery Unexplained Podcast with author Steph Young

The Headlines said, ‘60-year-old found dead on beach was involved in the occult and lived with former King of the Witches Alex Sanders.’ It was the year 2000. Local Newspaper, the Brighton & Hove Argus asked, ‘Was beach death black magic? Victim said to be obsessed with outer space,’ and continued, ‘A man who had been involved in witchcraft for 25 years was found washed up dead on a beach at Rustington, West Sussex, an inquest heard yesterday.’ The Guardian reported; ‘His body was discovered washed up beside a symbol marked out in the sand. A sword was found nearby. He had lived with the former king of black witches, Alex Saunders.’ His death is an Unexplained mystery. The inquest at Worthing, West Sussex, heard how Derek Taylor, 60, of Bexhill-on-Sea, had been involved in witchcraft since 1975.  Mr Taylor’s former wife Anna, said at the inquest that by the time their marriage ended, Taylor had become obsessed with witchcraft, and she had split up with him several times, she said, because of his obsession with the King of the Witches, Alex Sanders. “He wanted to come back to me but he was very ill. He said he would have to return the children to the stars. I never believed him, he used to be an actor and was very dramatic.” However, the Newspaper adds, rather disturbingly, ‘She said “He thought he was the Corn King and would be sacrificed at the end of the year.”’ UNEXPLAINED MYSTERY OF DEREK TAYLOR. WAS HE SACRIFICED? Unexplained Tales of Mystery Podcast

On October 8th 2009 the Jamison family’s white pick-up truck is found abandoned in a remote part of Oklahoma. Inside is $30,000 and a dog. The human occupants of the truck are missing and there are no tracks leading away from the vehicle to indicate where they went. This would see the beginning of one of the most baffling unsolved unexplained murder mysteries. It would become a cryptic and strange tale. The unexplained disappearance of the Jamison family of Oklahoma is a mystery which seemingly involves zombie-like trances, secret lists, special bullets, fighting demons, a bundle of money, and the vanishing of a family in the remote landscape of the Latimer Mountains. Said the Sheriff Israel Beauchamp; “Normally you can go through an investigation and one by one, eliminate certain scenarios. We haven’t been able to do that in this case. With this family, everything seems possible….”