So being a geek with multiple interests, I have combined them in what pretty much everyone has told me is a bit of an odd three-day vacation across upstate New York — on my way to New York Jets football training camp, I stopped to see the grave of The Old Leather Man and paid a visit to the Cardiff Giant!

Yeah, a true ODDyssey!

Being a good fan of this site, no doubt you’ve already read the story of The Old Leather Man — and if you haven’t, well, just click the link! I’ll wait here for you rather than re-hash it …

Okay? Good!

Anyway, as mentioned, the Old Leather Man was buried in Sparta Cemetery, located on Route 9 in Scarborough, New York, which is just a few minutes north of Sleepy Hollow — double your damned fun with the town immortalized by Washington Irving, right? As luck would have it, it didn’t take me long to find the grave as it’s literally right there when you drive in, less than 10 feet from the road!

Bonus — an orb in the picture!

Here’s a couple of close-ups …

Even close enough to read. Of course, research from when the marker was first erected has subsequently proven that the Leather Man’s name was NOT “Jules Bourglay.” [click to embiggen!]

And an artsy black-and-white shot!

From there, I drove north toward Albany, hanging a west through the Catskills, home to the men who bewitched Rip van Winkle (another story by Washington Irving) — although all I didn’t see anything but a coyote crossing the road. I eventually made my way to Cooperstown, renowned for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but more importantly for the lovers of the damned, the location of The Farmer’s Museum, which is the current resting place of the Cardiff Giant.

Again, rather than re-hash the story of one of the greatest hoaxes of the 19th century, I’ll let you click the link above and read it.

Skipping the rampant commercialism that has essentially destroyed the once-charming downtown Cooperstown, I got to the museum and paid my admission, which I sort of regretted because the Giant is currently being displayed about 10 feet inside the entrance — I could’ve taken shots with my telephoto lens!

I’ll just chalk up the admission to the upkeep of the Giant, aka “The Giant Naked Guy” thanks to our pal Dr. Kenny …

Here are some photos –

He looks so peaceful!

There were actually people there with me who were half reading the signs and were convinced (temporarily) that it was real. Sad.

They do a nice job of displaying it and telling the story — you know, for those who are “smart” enough to read.

Still, fun to see!

Okay — enough damned stuff. I’m in Cortland now, so it’s time for some JETS football! If I see any other damned stops on the way back, I’ll update this post.

View Sparta Cemetery in a larger map

Admittedly, this has been our first year chronicling the weird in Connecticut, but it seems as though it’s been a banner year for animal oddness. Among the stories was the horrific tale of Travis the chimp, an angry bull attacked workers at Stew Leonard’s, a rabbit with two noses was born, Daisy the reading pig died, mountain lions were alleged to be roaming the state and cats were beheaded in Bridgeport. And yes, I still have white squirrels in my back yard.

If that’s not enough, it’s been an exceptionally odd two weeks on the Connecticut animal front, has it not? Among the stories, in case you missed them:

• In mid-July, 357 chickens and roosters were seized in Harwinton in what was most likely a cockfighting operation. Unfortunately, the birds were deemed aggressive and eventually destroyed, although no news outlet mentioned if grills and barbecue sauce were involved in the euthanization process.
• Over the weekend, more than 150 canaries and saffron finches were liberated by authorities in my hometown of Shelton, apparently unwitting participants in another bird-fighting ring. Maybe the police read a random tweet somewhere? One of the birds sang?
• At the Department of Environmental Protection’s first Exotic Animal Amnesty Day, over 130 creatures were turned in to Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, including numerous alligators, caimans and tortoises as well as an 8-foot albino python, a red-tailed boa constrictor and a Capuchin monkey. An acquaintance of mine who is a vet was at the event, and he reports the number one most turned-in animal were turtles. Apparently, there’s more upkeep on them than people realize.

And these two stories from the last 24 hours:

• Trumbull authorities seized 17 (now already 20!) rabbits from a local home after neighbors complained of unsanitary conditions.
• A Hartford man was involved in an auto crash after he claimed that a 12-inch snakes slithered out of his pocket, causing him to lose control of the vehicle.

What the heck?! I’d say the state has gone to the dogs, but that appears (so far) to be one of the only species not running amok at the moment. Is the arrival of warmer weather? Cycles of the moon? Bigfoot working in conjunction with the Bilderburg organization to plot a global animal uprising?

All right, there may be no official global animal uprising on the horizon, but we’ll be vigilant nonetheless.

Since summer has finally arrived in Connecticut, I thought Saturday would be a nice day to relax in the back yard, enjoy the weather, and catch up on some reading.

Adirondack Chair – Check

Iced tea – Check

Small fire burning – check

Book – Check

Cement cylinder rising out of the lawn – Check

All this recent rain we have been having in Connecticut has uncovered a little piece of Hamden past: Right next to my chair sat a round cement shaft.

The shaft was filled with bricks and sand but it was pretty obvious what this was…

This was the secret location of buried treasure or the long lost hidden loot from bank robbers of the 1920s!!!

There was only one thing left to do: Dig.

Pulling sand and brick out I thought “Maybe, just maybe, this was a…. ‘Well To Hell’?”

Well to Hell, you say?

The legend holds that the Russians had drilled a hole that was nine miles (14.5 km) deep before breaking through to a cavity. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, they lowered an extremely heat tolerant microphone, along with other sensory equipment, into the well. The temperature deep within was a 2,000 °F (1,100 °C) — heat from a chamber of fire from which sounds of screaming human voices could be heard.

The above is from the wiki entry.
You can listen to the sounds of hell here.

Of course, this story was never reliable and is considered a urban legend at this time. You can read more on this at Truthorfiction.com

But back to the yard.

I continued to dig for my buried treasure for a while, but eventually I let reason seep in. I knew this was most likely a very old septic tank.And the “treasure” it once contained was probably–hopefully–long gone.

No Well to Hell either, unless you think on Dantes second circle, where the Flatterers lie up to their necks in human feces. This seems a harsh way to spend eternity for throwing a compliment here and there.

Courtesy of Don Carter

As we were coming over on the Orient Point-New London ferry on Sunday, we saw Seaside Sanatorium still sitting there abandoned on the Waterford waterfront, which reminded me of this story last week about Gov. Rell flipflopping and further mucking up its fate.

Seaside, if you’re not familiar with it, was a Cass Gilbert-designed waterfront medical center dedicated in the 1930s to treating children with tuberculosis. Over the decades the once-picturesque facility has fallen into disrepair, before being abandoned altogether by the state in 1997. Our friend Don Carter (author of Connecticut Seaside Ghosts) and his New England Paranormal Video Research Group have visited the site, recording EVPs during their investigation.

Anyway, as the state is trying to sort out its budget mess, the governor and legislature are considering selling some “state assets,” such as Seaside. You know, because it’s good sound business to sell coveted waterfront property right now while values are down and everyone knows you’re in a financial bind. Oh wait …

Interestingly, the state, local officials and a developer had orchestrated an excellent $7.1 million deal that would’ve benefitted everyone and restored Seaside’s historic buildings, made practical use of the property and opened the waterfront to the public — all with private money — but Gov. Rell swept in at the last minute a nixed the deal on a whim, undoing years of negotiations in a single stroke that now looks even more capricious and inane, especially given the current economy and real estate market.

Of course, also knowing how slowly the wheels of government turn, we expect  that if there are any restless spirits roaming the grounds of Seaside Sanatorium, they should be able to continue uninterrupted for years, maybe even decades, to come.

This article on CNN, about President and Mrs. Obama’s trip to Africa in which they visited camps used to ship slaves east, got me thinking about Connecticut’s involvement in the slave trade.

I knew Connecticut participated in the slave trade but I was not really aware to what extent, and I was surprised to see just how influential we were in the capturing and keeping of slaves.

The article, “The State that Slavery Built”, from the Hartford Courant goes into depth about Connecticut’s involvement and is a must-read.

The South tends to bear the sin of slavery in this country. The victorious get to write the history books, and the North seems to get a pass on slavery, since it was the North that went to war in part to free the slaves. But I think it’s unwise to start the discussion of slavery at the attack on Fort Sumter.
Connecticut was involved in the slave trade for very a long time–long before the unrest that started the beginning of the end of slavery.

Taken from Slavenorth.com:

“The largest increase came in the period 1749-1774. By the latter year, New London County had become the greatest slaveholding section of New England, with almost twice as many slaves as the most populous slave county in Massachusetts. New London was both an industrial center and the site of large slave-worked farms; with 2,036 slaves, it accounted for almost one-third of all the blacks in Connecticut. New London town itself, with 522 blacks and a white population of 5,366, led the state in number of slaves and percentage of black inhabitants”

I’m pretty sure a lot of this information isn’t making it into the schoolbooks of our children, which is a real shame. History should be complete and honest. How else can we learn from it?

The North lost a lot of great Americans in the Civil war, and they should be remembered and respected. But it’s probably a stretch to say that freeing slaves was everyones sole reason for going to war. Luckily, the outcome of the war did in fact lead to the freeing of the slaves. And that is why that war might be different then most wars before or after–its result was the freeing of another man.

But this shouldn’t wipe out the behavior leading to why such an action was needed, one in which Connecticut holds its share of blame. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the people living here today should have to answer for the sins of our forefathers, especially since many of our “fathers” came well after the Civil War had ended.

But I don’t think that Connecticut history should reap the benefits from the boys in blue, while at the same time, casting stones over the Mason-Dixon line.

After we posted our third story about found skulls and missing bodies in the last few weeks, Steve e-mailed me, “Do you think anything’s up with all this weird stuff?”

To recap:

• Back in mid-June, during a drug bust, Bridgeport police found bloody walls and a human skull in house. The human skull was on an altar of sorts with an alligator skull, a goat’s head, beads and goat’s blood.
• In early July, a grieving family found a pair of human skulls on their recently buried father’s grave. Stuffed inside the skulls were eight blood-stained papers, each containing a name.
• Then a young child’s body was stolen from its Stamford grave and discovered in a New Jersey river a few days later. The child was a referred to as “a miracle baby” because she had been born with a severe brain deformity and had managed to survive for two and a half years.

Apparently, Steve’s not the only one thinking this all might be connected according to a recent story in the Connecticut Post. The Stamford and Bridgeport police departments are working with each other on the unusual and grisly cases, trying to see if there is any connection.

From the article –

“It’s highly uncommon to find three skulls in ritualistic settings in six weeks,” said [Bridgeport police Capt. James] Viadero. “We don’t believe the incidents are connected. “

Both departments contacted experts in ritualistic practices. They can’t say for certain what religion or practice is involved. What [Stamford police Capt. Richard] Conklin has learned is this is an active period for rituals because of the phases of the moon with a new moon forming July 21.

“A lot of sects believe magic becomes more powerful around the time of a lunar eclipse and the new moon,” said Amy Blackthorn, who has a Ph.D. in theology and lectures on various religions.

Conklin also believes Stamford’s “Miracle Baby” was targeted for its supposedly “mystical powers” allowing it too live so long.

Creepy, right?

After eliminating Santeria, Voodoo and Hoodoo, amongst other ritualistic religions, there’s some speculation that it might be the work and worship of those who believe in Regla de Palo, an Cuban-African religion that originated from slaves in Cuba taken from the Congo region. Others speculate that the Stamford incident could be related to those who practice Palo Mayombe, which is a variation of the same main religion — Palo — but is a type of darker magic. (You can also read more about Palo here.)

Either way, these beliefs center around magical rites and harnessing the power of spirits to do one’s bidding — pretty much like any religion, right? I mean, is praying to God to deliver you from sin in Christian church (with kneeling, praying and rituals) really all that different than a Wiccan calling on the Goddess to provide strength and wisdom, or a Muslim venerating Allah to give them guidance in following the five pillars of Islam? It’s called different things by different people and it can have different rules, but a lot of it is the same thing ultimately. Some of them just use symbolic blood and sacrifices, others, actual.

Anyway, it may not be a stretch to suggest that the recent weirdness with random skulls, corpse tampering, chicken blood, goat heads, etc., really is all somehow related …

Okay, this sounds like an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, doesn’t it?

Just don’t expect me to be crawling around any abandoned junkyards, sewing up the mouths of zombies!

July marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11′s historic voyage to the moon, and as such, you may have noticed a slight increase in NASA-related moon features around the intrawebs the last few days.

First off, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) has just started returning super high-resolution images of the moon, part of NASA’s plan to image the entire satellite. The amazing images thus far have been of some of the dark places on the moon, and really cool, if you are a closet NASA nerd into space photography.

Of course — and quite sadly — when you hear about the moon landings, there seems to be a lot of conspiracy theorists out there who claim the whole thing is a hoax — Capricorn One, anybody? To help combat that, NASA recently announced that as part of the LROC project, it plans on getting images of the lunar landing sites. Ideally, you will be able to see some of the larger stuff we left behind, parts of landers, etc. Then again, no doubt there will be people who say the images were photoshopped and will continue to believe to not believe. Sigh.

If you didn’t see it, the always-entertaining show “Mythbusters” did a special late last summer tackling the moon landings — whether they were hoaxed or not. Adam, Jamie and the team were able to bust most of the hoax myths — that is, they were able to confirm that we did go to the moon.

Also released this past week were the 40-year-old voice recordings from a British control room of an Apollo 11-related incident that seems to have been lost to history a bit. In a last-ditch attempt to steal some of the American glory, the Soviet Union launched the Luna 15 probe, an unmanned  spacecraft that had the mission to land on the moon, retrieve some soil and get back to Earth before the American spacecraft. Unfortunately — for the Soviets — the probe crashed while landing on the moon and was never heard from again.

Or is that what the Soviets want you to believe? The novel  Red Moon is a little like Capricorn One in that it sort of gives you an alternate, conspiracy-laden plot, plucked from the potential fringes of reality: That Luna 15 was actually a one-way manned mission by the Soviets, who were so desperate to top the Americans they would do anything, even if it meant sacrificing a cosmonaut’s life.

The authors note:

The premise of Red Moon — that Luna 15 was a last-ditch manned attempt at beating the United States in the Moon — is not unique to the novel. To our surprise, in our research we discovered the idea figured predominantly in a dark introspective European novel published in the early 1970’s and in a number of amateur efforts. Much to our surprise, after the first promotional release of the novel in 2001, the Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens 2005 novel Freefall made use of the same premise. Clearly, the idea has seized the imagination of many. The question arises: could there really be something to this? Could Luna 15 have been such an attempt?

Though it is unlikely the Soviets took such a drastic step, the possibility, though vanishingly small, remains. Approaching it from another direction,we had to ask, given the hardware available at the time, was this really possible?

The author’s conclude it was indeed possible, but rather unlikely. I’m sure conspiracy theorists may have another view.

Since I’ve been on the “Cabinet of Curiosities” kick as of late — you can check out our post on Joseph Steward’s Museum of Natural and Other Curiosities, if you haven’t already — I’ve been meaning to post something on a link my mother sent me.

This is about another cabinet, this one an online version with a Connecticut pedigree. Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities is a repository of wonderfully cool, rare and interesting things. From the website:

Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities features new acquisitions, unique documents, and visual and textual curiosities from the collections of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. This ongoing exhibition is curated by Tim Young, Curator of the Modern Books and Manuscripts Collection, and Nancy Kuhl, Curator of Poetry for the Yale Collection of American Literature.

You know we’re fans of the Beinecke, home of the mysterious Voynich Manuscript as well as a Gutenberg Bible and thousands of other rare texts.

The website, which appears to get updated about once a week or so, is a great outlet for the Beinecke to share some of its treasures that there isn’t always enough room to physically display. It also offers podcasts with authors, poets and museum curators.

Speaking of curators, here’s a nice article with the Beinecke curators Nancy Kuhl and Timothy Young about Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities, courtesy of the Yale Office of Public Affairs. From the article:

“I’m always exclaiming to Nancy: ‘Look at this great children’s book I just got!’ or sharing my excitement about some other new item for the collections, and she does the same with me,” says Young. “We realized that a blog would allow us to share with the outside world our own passion for the interesting or fascinating things we see on a daily basis at the library.”

Anyway, a lot of good stuff here, especially in the way of photographs. Warning: If you like books, literature or just cool images, don’t be surprised if you spend a bit of time here browsing the collection.

Again, a shout out to my mom for the link — thanks Barbie!

Well, one good thing about the rainy-type weather we here in Connecticut have experienced lately — aside from not having to water our gardens since April — is that we’ve gotten to experience some unusual weather-related phenomena.

As some of you no doubt know first hand, there was a rare tornado touch-down in Wethersfield last Friday. From the Hartford Courant –

The tornado that tore through Wethersfield Friday afternoon lasted three minutes and traveled 1.7 miles, according to a report released Sunday by the National Weather Service.

The narrow twister started near Nott Street and Park Avenue and, with speeds of 80 to 90 mph, continued southeast, passing just south of town hall. It crossed the old town green, tore through a cornfield and ended before reaching I-91.

I’d just like to say for the record: Tornadoes are freakin’ scary and super dangerous, and those guys who chase them all over Tornado Alley each year, have screws loose.

At the same time the tornado was laying waste to Wethersfield and hail was pounding other parts of the state, at my home in Shelton we were getting bombarded by lightning — so much, as a matter of fact, that I was able to get a few pics of lightning strikes from my front porch.

Pretty cool, huh? And trust me, I’m no expert photographer, nor did I do anything tricky. Basically, I set my camera to “sports” and just sort of kept snapping for about 10 minutes. Not surprisingly, I’ve learned that lightning is really really really fast! Duh, right?

Much slower — and easier to capture on film — was a double rainbow we had Sunday night after a brief storm. Same porch, different direction, and this time the entire Damned Connecticut team were together — Kate noticed it first.

As interesting and cool as all this is, right now, I’d prefer just some plain old boring sunshine for a few weeks, thanks!

Okay, I’m not big into the religion thing, but when I saw this story about the Ark of the Covenant about to be revealed in Ethiopia on Friday, my interest was piqued.

Of course, the first thing I thought about was the famous climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the ark is openend and those who dare to look upon it are instantaneously smited. And I hope if they do actually have it, and they do actually open it, it doesn’t actually melt everyone involved! Apparently, the Judeo-Christian God is a rather private entity, and doesn’t care for people peeking in on His business …

Seriously though, when I first starting reading this story, I didn’t get the connection between the Ark and Ethiopia — seemed kind of random to me, you know, like if you found a piece of the true cross in downtown Naugatuck. But then, from the article:

The idea that the Ark is presently in Ethiopia is a well-documented, albeit disputed, tradition dating back to at least 642 B.C. The tradition says it was moved to Elephantine Island in Egypt, then to Tana Kirkos Island in Ethiopia and finally to its present site at St. Mary’s of Zion Church in Axum.

… where it was stored anonymously in a giant warehouse … oh wait.

One of the interesting questions is that if it is truly the ark, why, after two millennia or so, are they finally bringing it out of hiding and displaying it now? Some say this is an attempt by the Catholic Church to become relevant again; others prophesize that the ark’s return will mark the beginning of the End of Times. Any publicity is good publicity, right?

Still, I suppose it could be the real deal, and we’ll find out soon enough. I just hope — as I saw a poster on Fark.com suggest — when they open it, it doesn’t have the frozen body of Bigfoot in it.

UPDATE: When it came time for the big announcement, the leader of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who had claimed he was going to unveil the ark, was conspiciously nowhere to be seen. No announcement was made, and no explanation as to why there was no announcement was given.

To me, there are three possibilities as to what happened:

1. The world called his bluff and there is no ark
2. He’s waiting for more drama to build
3. He tried to get in an early sneek peek, and now is a puddle of goop.

We’ll keep you posted.