Archive for May, 2009

Weirdthings Investigates: Coral Castle, you can come too!

Friday, May 1st, 2009

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Saturday, May 9, join us as the Weirdthings crew hits up Homestead, Florida to investigate Coral Castle. Coral Castle is made up of over 1,100 tons of Coral Stone. Amazingly the entire project was quarried, cut, carved and put in place by one man, a Latvian immigrant named Edward Leedskalnin. Leedskalnin apparently built the castle as a tribute to his fiance who left him the night before their wedding. The mystery of Coral Castle is how Leedskalnin pulled it off all by his lonesome. Since he was very secretive about his work and nobody ever saw him in the middle of actually building the thing, speculation that he used paranormal means, such as levitation, to build the site abounds. It took Leedskalnin from 1923-1951 to build the thing.

Investigation Info, after THE JUMP.

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200 Flee Village To Escape Witch’s Curse

Friday, May 1st, 2009

The tribal village of Siadimal, India has emptied out in recent days. No, it’s not Diwali yet, the villagers of Siadimal have fled because of a witch’s curse. A witch’s curse that they claim has caused a mysterious disease to infect several people. The Times of India reports:

“More than 10 villagers have been suffering from an unknown fever for the past two months. There is no sign of improvement despite medical treatment,” said a villager on condition of anonymity. “In the past, alleged witchcraft has claimed many lives in our locality. We suspect this may as well be the act of a witch,” he added. The villager said the women are putting up with relatives in other villages. “The men are now in search of a powerful tantrik, who can counter the evil spell and also punish the culprit,” he said.

Ten bucks says, that if they are looking to pay a tantrik to confirm their suspicions, they will find a witch real fast.

Superstition abounds in rural India, often ill-understood illnesses are attributed to witchcraft and sorcery. Those determined to find a witch are going to find a witch, and local authorities are concerned that yet another innocent person is going to be murdered in the region by superstitious villagers. In 2007, three women and a man were beheaded in the nearby village of Pratappur after they were accused of sorcery.

-For more on North India witch hunts and murders see the documentary “Indian Witch-Hunt” by author and journalist Sohaila Kapoor.