Before we wrap up the year of 2017 I decided to once again look at some of the creepiest mysteries in our world. Submitted for your approval are tales of; a dream home gone awry, a missing person with and a Youtuber who may hold the answers, and diplomat who got away with murder. Once again if you wish to browse through the archives of wish.
PART 1 PART 5 PART 9 PART 13 PART 17 PART 21 PART 25 PART 2 PART 6 PART 10 PART 14 PART 18 PART 22 PART 26 PART 3 PART 7 PART 11 PART 15 PART 19 PART 23 PART 27 PART 4 PART 8 PART 12 PART 16 PART 20 PART 24I have seen enough crime and Westfield Watcher:paranormal shows to know when you finally move into your dream home things are bound to get scary. In 2014 the Broaddus family purchased a beautiful home in Westfield, New Jersey. Almost immediately as they began to settle into their new home they began to receive letters from someone who dubbed "the Watcher". The Watcher claimed they were the latest to take on a family responsibility to watch this particular home. As if this were not creepy enough, the Watcher began to become more and more threatening in the letters. The children of the Broaddus family, dubbed "the young blood" were in particular called out by the letter writer, stating that as soon as they learned the children's names they would "call to them and draw them to me". The following letters included references; to something hidden in the walls, the previous family who lived there and delivered them "young blood" and the idea the Watcher herself once roamed the house's halls which the "house cries for", as well as more threats against the family. DNA evidence has only concluded that the Watcher is a woman but does not match anyone in the available databases. The family has put the house for sale, due to the zoning board declining their request to simply demolish it to get rid of the Watcher. But the home now has a reputation so it may be a long while before anyone else moves in on a permanent basis.
Whale 52: While most of mysteries I have explored in this series have been strange or terrifying, this particular case is a heartbreaking one. The song whales sing are among the beautiful sounds on the planet. Their melodic high pitched tune is usually measured at around 15-25 Hz.by oceanographers. In 1989, William Watkins was researching these creatures in the North Pacific for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute of Massachusetts when he heard the sound of a creature who has captured the imagination of researchers. His instruments picked up the song of a lone whale who sang its tune at 52Hz. far higher than any other whale has ever been recorded before or since. In the 12 years which followed, Watkins and his team would pick up the sounds of this sea mammal usually in the late summer. It was not until his death in 2004 that his team's findings were published in a scientific journal and caught the attention of the media. This whale seems to be without a pod to accompany it, as it swims the seas looking for other whales like itself. Many wondered if any other whales could even hear this creature at such a frequency, leaving the animal known as Whale 52, in a perpetual search for companionship. Nobody has been able to locate the whale singing at 52 Hz. but that has not stopped the fascination scientists have with this lonely creature and its unusual melody.
Vanished at a Car Accident: In February of 2004, Maura Murray crashed into a snowbank in the back roads of New Hampshire. A passing motorist saw the woman standing beside her car and offered to call police. Murray implored the driver not to worry because she had already called AAA. The Good Samaritan erred on the side of caution and notified the police anyway. When officers arrived on the scene the found the car but no Maura Murray. Not only was she missing, but there was no footprints in the snow to show where she had walked off, she had simply vanished. The next day her boyfriend received a voicemail, which only contained the sound of Maura sobbing. When people started looking over the days leading up to her disappearance things only got stranger. The young woman had been acting strangely and many in her life were beginning to worry about her. According to her boss at work, the reason she had given for taking time off to travel was a death in her family. But nobody else in her family knew of any such passing. To this day the whereabouts of Maura Murray remain a mystery and the odd events surrounding the case have investigators completely puzzled. On the eighth anniversary of her disappearance a chilling new element of the case became known. A video was uploaded to Youtube by someone under the name Mr112Dirtbag, the man in the video is laughing uncontrollably before he says "Happy Anniversary". The name is significant because Murray's father had referred to anyone who may have hurt his daughter as a "dirtbag", and the road the young woman went missing on was Route 112. Before his account was taken down Mr112Dirtbag posted more cryptic video referencing the mysterious disappearance as well as posting bizarre images, the meaning of which remain a mystery. Police were able to track down the video maker, Alden Olson, but after intense questioning were unable to pin anything on him. The most recent theory in the case, came courtesy of a private investigator who is assisting the Murray family. He began poking around in a neighborhood close to where the nursing student disappeared and discovered a rumor that she was taken to a nearby house and possibly murdered. He got permission to investigate in the house and found that the flooring had been recently been completely redone, but in a closet he discovered what could be human blood and has sent it off for testing. Could this be the break in the case of what happened to Maura Murray on that cold February night?
Abduction of Herb Schirmer: As a young patrolman in Ashland, Nebraska in December of 1967, Officer Herb Schirmer was driving through the back roads at 2:00AM. On this drive he saw two red lights in the middle of the road. Initially thinking it was a truck he got out to investigate, and found that the lights were in fact not attached to a truck, but instead were part of a large silver spacecraft. As he got a good look at this craft, it took off in a plume of fire and lifted into the night sky. Upon his return to the police station he found that a full hour had passed, when he swore he had only been gone for 10 minutes. What followed was a long period of the officer becoming ill and developing red marks around his neck. The UFO investigative team the Condon Commission at the University of Colorado brought Schrimer in and put him under hypnosis to learn the truth of the matter. Under hypnosis he told an account of going aboard the spacecraft and learning about the race inside of it. They were an alien race which had a base on Venus and came to earth periodically to feed on electricity. While the Commission deemed his story to be false, the psychologist who had actually worked with him believed the encounter was true at least to Schirmer. His encounter with the UFO hurt his social standings in Ashland, even when he was promoted to chief of police, he did not last long in the role as he was ridiculed to the point of being ineffective. Throughout it all, Herb Schirmer has stuck to his story of being abducted by aliens. His firm commitment to his belief in the encounter has bound to make even a few skeptics question whether it had happened or not.
William Bradford Bishop Murders: During the 1970's William Bradford Bishop was a successful officer in the United States Government Foreign Office. He had married his high school sweetheart and had 3 sons. In his professional life he was quite successful as well, travelling throughout Europe and Africa, representing America's interests aided by his ability to speak multiple languages. With his hard work and talent he was anticipating a big promotion within the State Department. But in early 1976 he was informed he would not be getting this promotion. After leaving work that day Bishop went to a mall where he purchased; a sledgehammer, a shovel, and a pitchfork, as well as a can of gas. That evening when he returned home he used the sledgehammer to bludgeon his; wife, mother, and children to death. After the murders he loaded them into his station wagon and drove them to North Carolina where he put the bodies in a hole and set them on fire. After this horrific crime, Bishop disappeared. When investigators located his car it was in East Tennessee, close to the Appalachian Trail so many believed he joined a group of hikers to get away. Given his overseas connections, it is believed he fled to Europe, a belief backed up by numerous sightings from people he knew from the continent. One woman who worked with him in Ethiopia claimed he followed her around Stockholm in the summer of 1978, and that now he had a beard. The following year one of his old co-workers from the State Department in Italy ran into him in a public restroom of all places and when h tried to strike up a conversation, the man believed to be Bishop ran off. Despite the fact that he would be 80 years old now, William Bradford Bishop still maintains a status as one of the FBI's Most Wanted.