A Brief History Various types of alleged supernatural entities are believed to have plagued people in Western Civilization from Ancient to Modern times. Western Civilization includes not only Europe, but also places colonized by Europeans, including, for example, North America. To that end, we begin by examining the earliest examples of perceived supernatural beings, such as the Minotaur from Ancient Greece. From there, we address the Medieval and Early modern witch hunts that terrorized mostly women as well as a smaller number of men in England, France, and Germany, and the English colony of Massachusetts. We ultimately conclude by covering…
Browsing: The Unexplained
A Brief History On February 24, 1942, less than 3 months after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the city of Los Angeles seemed to be under attack from a mysterious flying object. Digging Deeper Later claimed by the government to have been a false alarm, something had to have caused numerous air raid alerts to go off and give anti-aircraft gunners something to shoot at. Shoot they did, and a furious firefight ensued with .50 caliber machine guns and 3-inch artillery shells, about 1,400 rounds of which exploded over the city, showering it with metal fragments. General Marshall later speculated that unknown persons…
A Brief History Throughout history, humans have noticed and wondered about various phenomena that they could not easily understand or explain. Though modern science has often tried to find reasons for such “super” natural occurrences, many people remain unconvinced, leaving room for speculation and wonder. Certainly many aspects of religion might qualify as supernatural, and since the majority of people believe in one sort of religion or another, it would be logical to conclude that the majority of people accept at least some supernatural phenomena in their set of beliefs. Here we list 10 reasons upon which people can logically base a belief in the supernatural,…
A Brief History On February 13, 1961, while 3 Californians were looking for geodes, they picked up a rock believed to be 500,000 years old that was later found to contain a spark plug! Understandably, this find, now known as the “Coso artifact,” sparked a lot of mystery and controversy. Digging Deeper Wallace Lane, Virginia Maxey and Mike Mikesell (love that name), were poking around the geology of Olancha, California when they came across their amazing discovery. Upon cutting open the supposed geode, they expected it to be hollow inside and containing crystals. Instead the trio’s diamond-bladed saw blade was ruined, and rather than find…
A Brief History In the night of February 8-9, 1855, the fresh snow of Devon, England was marked with mysterious, bipedal, cloven-hoofed tracks often referred to as “The Devil’s Footprints.” (Please click on the link for an informative video.) Digging Deeper The tracks were especially unusual in nature in that they were said to have stretched for 40 to 100 miles over the south-western tip of England and to have gone right over tall objects such as buildings and haystacks rather than going around them. Mostly in a straight line, the prints were about 4 inches long by 3 inches wide, with a stride…
