The Eclectic: True Crime & Paranormal Stories

Send us Fan Mail The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall: The Photograph That Haunted the World In 1936, a photograph was taken at Raynham Hall in Norfolk that would become one of the most famous images in paranormal history. It appeared to show a mysterious, translucent figure descending a staircase. The image became known as the photograph of the Brown Lady — and it helped turn an old country house into...

Send us Fan Mail Mother Shipton: The Witch Who Saw the Future Deep in the folklore of Yorkshire lies the story of a woman said to have been born beneath a cloud of scandal, feared by some, revered by others, and remembered for predictions that supposedly stretched far beyond her own lifetime. Her name was Mother Shipton . Born Ursula Southeil, according to tradition, in a cave near Knaresborough i...

Send us Fan Mail Scotland, 1696. In the small community of Bargarran, near Paisley, an eleven-year-old girl named Christian Shaw began suffering from terrifying and unexplained episodes. She claimed she was being tormented by witches. What followed would become one of the most notorious witchcraft cases in Scottish history. Christian named people she believed were responsible for her suffering, an...

Send us Fan Mail Halloween: Where Did It All Begin? Every October, we carve pumpkins, dress as ghosts and witches, tell frightening stories and fill our homes with things that are supposed to scare us. But Halloween didn't begin with pumpkins and costumes. Its history reaches back centuries — through Celtic traditions, Christian observances, folklore, bonfires, the belief that the boundary be...

Send us Fan Mail On 22 June 1983, fifteen-year-old Emanuela Orlandi left her home in Vatican City to attend a music lesson in Rome. She never came home. What followed became one of Italy's most enduring mysteries — a disappearance that would eventually draw in the Vatican, Italian intelligence agencies, organised crime, international politics and decades of speculation. Emanuela was a Vatican...

Send us Fan Mail Hidden in the East Sussex countryside, the remains of Hellingly Hospital have become the stuff of local legend. Opened in 1903 as the East Sussex County Asylum, the hospital was built to care for people with mental illnesses at a time when psychiatric treatment looked very different from today. Over the decades, thousands of patients passed through its doors, while the site grew i...

Send us Fan Mail The Green Children of Woolpit: The Children Who Came From Somewhere Else In 12th-century Suffolk, something very strange was said to have happened. According to medieval accounts, two children appeared near the village of Woolpit. They were dressed in unfamiliar clothing, spoke a language nobody understood — and their skin was reportedly green. The children were taken in and cared...

Send us Fan Mail In 1184, hundreds of nobles gathered in the city of Erfurt, Germany, for what should have been an ordinary political meeting. Instead, they fell through the floor. The gathering was being held on the upper level of a medieval building above a latrine pit. When the wooden floor collapsed beneath the weight of the assembled nobles, dozens of men plunged into the waste-filled pit bel...

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Send us Fan Mail In February 1957, a young boy's body was discovered abandoned in a cardboard box in the woods of Philadelphia. He had no name, no missing person report, and no one came forward to claim him. For more than sixty-five years, he was known only as The Boy in the Box —one of America's most heartbreaking unsolved mysteries. Despite one of the largest identification campaigns i...

Send us Fan Mail In 1931, an ordinary farmhouse on the Isle of Man became the centre of one of Britain's strangest paranormal mysteries. The Irving family claimed they were being visited by a mysterious creature that called itself Gef —a talking mongoose with a sharp wit, an endless stream of stories, and a habit of appearing just out of sight. Gef insisted he was "an extra, extra clever...

Send us Fan Mail In Part One, we followed fifteen-year-old friends Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock on what should have been an ordinary summer day at Cronulla Beach—a day that ended in one of Australia's most infamous unsolved murders. Now, the investigation begins. From the mysterious teenager known only as "The Surfy" to convicted murderer Alan Bassett, serial killer Chris...

Send us Fan Mail On a warm January morning in 1965, fifteen-year-old friends Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock boarded a train to Cronulla for what should have been an ordinary day at the beach. They never came home. Hours later, the girls vanished into the vast Wanda Sandhills, accompanied by a mysterious teenage boy seen only by Marianne's seven-year-old brother. By the following afte...

Send us Fan Mail In 1629, the Dutch ship Batavia struck a reef off the coast of what is now Western Australia. For the survivors, the disaster should have been the end of their ordeal. Instead, it was only the beginning. Stranded on a remote chain of islands, the passengers and crew found themselves trapped in a desperate struggle for survival. As order collapsed, one man seized control, transform...

Send us Fan Mail In 18th-century France, a man named Tarrare became famous for an appetite that seemed impossible. No matter how much he consumed, he remained desperately hungry. Witnesses claimed he could eat vast quantities of food in a single sitting. During the turmoil of the French Revolutionary Wars, his unusual condition even attracted the attention of military officials, who believed his a...

Send us Fan Mail On the night of December 30, 2000, a family of four were murdered inside their home in the Setagaya district of Tokyo. What followed would become one of the most baffling unsolved cases in modern history. The killer left behind an extraordinary amount of evidence. DNA. Fingerprints. Personal belongings. Even traces of what they had eaten. Yet despite one of the largest investigati...

Send us Fan Mail In the summer of 1944, residents of Mattoon began reporting a strange and frightening phenomenon. Late at night, people claimed that an unidentified figure was prowling the town, releasing a mysterious gas through open windows. Victims described a sweet, unpleasant odour followed by symptoms including nausea, dizziness, temporary paralysis, and overwhelming fear. As reports spread...

Send us Fan Mail In 1943, four boys exploring woodland in Hagley Wood discovered a human skull hidden inside the trunk of a wych elm tree. The victim was later identified only as “Bella” — but who she was, how she died, and who placed her inside the tree have never been answered. Then, just a few years later and less than fifty miles away, another case unsettled rural England. In the village of Lo...

Send us Fan Mail Hidden in the hills of West Virginia lies an abandoned amusement park with a history far darker than its rides suggest. Before Lake Shawnee Amusement Park became a family attraction, the land was connected to violence, tragedy, and loss. Over the years, a series of deaths — both historical and accidental — helped build its reputation as one of America’s most haunted locations. Vis...

Send us Fan Mail In 1948, the body of an unidentified man was discovered on Somerton Beach in Adelaide. He carried no identification.  There were no signs of violence.  And every label on his clothing had been removed. What followed became one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth century — a hidden message reading “Tamám Shud,” a coded note found in a rare book, and a trail of clues tha...

Send us Fan Mail In the summer of 1518, a woman began dancing in the streets of Strasbourg. She didn’t stop. Within days, others joined her. Then dozens more.  Soon, entire groups were dancing uncontrollably — for hours, for days, in some cases until they collapsed from exhaustion. Authorities were unable to explain it. Physicians at the time suggested it was a natural illness. Others believed it...

Send us Fan Mail In Rothiemurchus, there’s a grave that no one will touch. It belongs to Seath Mòr Sgorfhiachlach—a 14th-century clan chief known as The Great Shaw . But it isn’t the man people fear. It’s what sits on top of his grave. Five stones.  Placed in a rough cross formation.  Known as the Homing Stones —because no matter where they’re taken… they come back. Thrown into the River Spey—they...

Send us Fan Mail In 1966, two men were found dead on a hillside in Niterói, Brazil — dressed in suits, lying side by side, and wearing strange lead eye masks. There were no signs of violence.  No clear cause of death.  And in their pockets, investigators found a note containing cryptic instructions:   “16:30 be at the specified place… 18:30 ingest capsules… after effect, protect metals… wait for s...

Send us Fan Mail In nineteenth-century Ontario, the Donnelly family became the centre of one of Canada’s most violent and enduring legends. Accused of theft, feuds, and lawlessness, the Donnellys were feared and resented by their neighbours. Tensions simmered for years — until one brutal night in 1880, when a vigilante mob descended on their homestead, killing members of the family and burning the...

Send us Fan Mail In the early nineteenth century, London was gripped by fear of a figure that seemed to defy explanation. Witnesses described a man — or something like one — with glowing eyes, clawed hands, and the ability to leap impossibly high over walls and rooftops. He appeared suddenly, attacked without warning, and vanished just as quickly into the night. He became known as Spring-Heeled Ja...