 Welcome to Paranormality Magazine. Each week, Paranormality Magazine explores all 40 subjects from phantoms to UFOs and every cryptid creature in between. Each week, you are treated to a collection of well-researched and investigated stories, interviews and reports on cutting-edge paranormal projects and topics they know you crave. And here in the podcast, I share stories from the magazine to give you just a taste of what you receive in every issue. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Paranormality Magazine. Religious leaders, scientists, even a hen or so it seemed, have been making predictions for the end of the world almost as long as the world has been around. They have predicted the destruction of the world through floods, fires and comets and luckily for us, none of it has come to pass. Remember the Mayan apocalypse for 2012? December 21, 2012 marked the end of the first great cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar. The world did not end. Harold Camping assumed the world would end in 1994. It didn't. So then he predicted it again for May 21, 2011. And again, it didn't end. That hen that I mentioned? In 1806, a domesticated hen in Leeds, England appeared to lay eggs inscribed with the message Christ is coming. A lot of folks reportedly visited the hen, began to despair of the coming judgment day. It didn't happen. And because the Bible calls 666 the number of the beast, many Christians in 17th-century Europe thought the world was going to end in the year 1666. If you look at your calendar, you'll see that no, it did not end in 1666. In fact, we're still here. AP Strange sent in a story entitled, Doomsday Predictions Aren't Rocket Science. On an October evening in 1899, a boy climbed a cherry tree at his family home to trim some branches. While in the tree and enjoying the New England sunset, he had a vision of traveling into space and visiting the planet Mars. He remarked in journals that, I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended for existence at last seemed very purposive. Precisely 45 years prior, a mere stone's throw away from his tree, in which a vision of space travel occurred, a man named Solomon Parsons was preparing for a prophesied ascension of a different sort. Like many around New England, he had followed the teachings of William Miller, who predicted the end of times would arrive October 22, 1844. Both Parsons, an obscure and eccentric pastor and Robert Goddard, the boy in the tree who would go on to be called the father of modern rocketry, lived their experiences on what was then called Rattlesnake Hill by the settlers of what would become the city of Worcester, Massachusetts. The Nipmuc called it Tatecet, which some sources translate as the place of the shaking stone. The hill in question, now referred to as Airport Hill, has a very notable stone courtesy of Parsons. In preparation for the end times, Solomon Parsons purchased ten acres of land there and signed the property over to God himself. The deed for this transaction was chiseled into stone on the property and can still be seen today. There, he also built a temple and a hermitage in which he lived a life in harmony with nature. He refused to kill any animal or benefit from their death. He was a vegetarian and refused to use leather for his shoes or saddle. One imagines the lifestyle would be difficult, living on a hill named after its resident poisonous snakes. Nevertheless, he stayed at the property deeded to God until his death at the age of 93. God's current legal claim to the land is unclear. To the Forty in mind, a few details here do seem significant. The name Parsons calls to mind rocket scientist and occultist John Whiteside Parsons, while the number 93 and the name Solomon hold much significance in the thelamic beliefs that he held. Jack Parsons, as he preferred to be called, was head of the Agape Lodge, the only O2O Lodge in America during the middle of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in developing rocket fuel that allowed humanity to explore the heavens beyond Earth's atmosphere. These seem like coincidences, or perhaps synchronicity, until you trace Jack's family tree backwards in time and realize that he was indeed related to Solomon. Solomon and Jack are respectively descended from Deacon Benjamin Parsons and his brother Cornet Joseph Parsons, who each came to Massachusetts in the mid-17th century. Joseph was one of the earliest settlers of what would become Springfield, Massachusetts, and it is worth mentioning that his wife Mary had several times been accused of witchcraft. Three centuries later, their descendant, Jack, would embrace the term, proclaiming in an essay, We Are the Witchcraft. Solomon of course fell more in line with his Deacon ancestor and became a man of the cloth. His father, also named Solomon, was among the founders of the first Baptist Church in the Worcester area, while his grandfather, Reverend David Parsons, was the first Puritan minister in the nearby town of Leicester. It is unsurprising then that Solomon Jr. would help found the first Methodist Episcopal Church in Worcester. His father owned a farm and was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He spent much of his life struggling with the lasting effects of injuries sustained at Monmouth, which informed young Solomon's pacifist beliefs. He believed it to be a sin to kill any living thing and even ejected a man from his temple for killing a rattlesnake. At age 40 he quit the Methodist Church and joined the Millerites. Miller, also the son of a Revolutionary War veteran, had enlisted in the army himself and served in the Battle of Plattsburgh. At some point during this time in the military he fell off a wagon and suffered a head injury. Thereafter he abandoned his Baptist faith and became a deist. Determined to be taken seriously as a theologian, he meticulously decoded what he imagined were clues in the Bible about the precise date of the end of the world. He was wrong several times, but that didn't stop people joining by the thousands to follow his preaching. By the time he settled on the date of October 22, 1844, he had followers so convinced that the end was nigh many of them gave away their land and possessions. Women shaved their heads, people donned white ascension robes and the faithful sought out rooftops, mountaintops or trees in which to sit and wait for the apocalyptic event to occur. Of course, it never did, which resulted in what is known as the Great Disappointment. Miller faded into obscurity after a helping of ridicule while his followers found their way to communities such as the Quakers. Others formed what we now know as the Adventists. Solomon carried on at his temple giving sermons for small crowds every Sunday morning. Goddard would face his own disappointments as he began his research and tests of his rocket designs. His methods were sound, and having earned a Ph.D. in physics at Clark University, one would suppose he had been taken seriously for his efforts. Such was not the case as rocketry and in particular space travel was seen as the stuff of science fiction, not science. Early rocket tests, though promising, were mocked by the press. One headline said, Moon rocket misses target by 238,799.5 miles. The same paper published an apology after the moon landing which never would have been possible without Goddard's early work. It is worth considering that Goddard had in part been inspired by science fiction, having read H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds prior to his vision in the cherry tree. The prominence of Mars in his imagination holds its own irony, as he was later made to continue his work with funding based on applications in weapons of war. Parsons and his team later faced similar conflicts of conscience. Space travel was the dream, but here on Earth, the powers that were only seemed interested in pushing the doomsday clock closer to midnight. At Astra, Perespera, they say, and all the while the God of War chuckles. Is there something about the spirit of the place? Winding its way through time to inspire the young Goddard and by proxy Jack Parsons? Solomon seemed very devoted to living in harmony with nature, and Goddard's early ideas about rocket propulsion came from the study of birds in flight in the same wooded area. The natural setting of that hill holds another odd irony. For a place deeded to God, it is a rather unattractive and desolate one. Urban legends over the years tell of unverifiable suicides in those woods with a particular tree thought to be the hanging tree. Some places like this are given more demonic names like Satan's Kingdom in the western part of Massachusetts, and places like that are often more pleasant. The devil names employed come from conflating the nature Godd pan with the biblical Satan, and is it any wonder Jack Parsons would perform a hymn to pan before each rocket launch? On a hill called Tata Set, from which planes take off and land regularly now, a hopeful dream of a world ending seems to have spiraled through time and become a vision of worlds to come in the mind of a young man daydreaming in a tree at sunset. Time is a corkscrew and a rubber one at that, capable of bending and meeting itself in the form of repeated names and symbols. This is true everywhere, but these astonishing themes are occulted within the tangled mess of history. It takes some work and time to parse it out. The more you dig, the more you find. Would you believe the rights to the land on which Worcester stands were negotiated with Nipmuc leaders who, in typical colonizer fashion, were given the English names Solomon and John? It's true, and the truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. It's tantalizing to think that there exists an ineffable creative force, an imaginable muse that can inhabit the land or travel through bloodlines. Reality rhymes with itself in repeated symbols, names and themes, often not obvious, but always hard not to notice once revealed. One gets the sense by uncovering obscure historical bits in bobs like visions, daydreams, convictions and inspirations to see where they connect. The whole underlying fabric that supports what we take for granted as reality could be explained, or perhaps it simply drives us mad. Such is the struggle. To the stars, through adversity, all the while remembering to stay grounded. There are healing forces, naturally, all around us. However, there may also be healing forces above us. These same forces, or aliens, that are erasing our memories and stealing glimpses of our planet while we sleep, could also be the ones responsible for healing our fragile, complicated human bodies. Like a band of cosmic Florence Nightingales, some say aliens for centuries have been known to arrive out of nowhere and mend not only our broken bones, but everything from scratches to head injuries. Molly Briggs tells us more. Sitting on the soft, serene beach of Siesta Key in southwest Florida, I picked up a handful of white crystalline sand and let it sift through my fingers. Cool and soft in texture, it's pure white and made up of 99% quartz. We know that quartz crystal is healing. It s the most abundant natural mineral found on earth and resonates with all of your chakras or energy centers of the body. The healing crystal washed up onto the shoreline thousands of years ago, completing its journey from the Appalachian Mountains via the rivers of the Gulf of Mexico. Because our human system is made up of energy, frequency and vibration, the crystals work with our body to absorb, restore, release and regulate energy, making it one of the major healing resources on the planet. Used for centuries all over the world in different practices, it wasn t until the 1980s that crystals began to re-emerge as a healing method. Given that we were unaware of such healing capabilities that were right here at our fingertips all along, stretching over miles of the Florida coastline, should it not give us pause to consider what other healing alternatives we may be missing? For example, aliens or entities? Did I lose you? Hear me out. Stay with me. This will get interesting, I promise. What if we discovered once and for all that aliens were real and they could heal and save our human lives? For example, take Travis Walton. On November 5, 1975, Travis was working with a team of men in the Sitgreaves National Forest near Snowflake, Arizona. Driving away from their work site, they all saw an alien craft scanning the woods. Travis exited the truck and was struck by a beam of light coming from the ship. As he lay there unconscious, the rest of the men abandoned him only to return a short time later to find him missing. He reappeared five days later with no life-threatening injuries. Some speculate, as I do, that Travis merely got in the way of the beam of light, which fatally injured him. It's possible that the beings on board the craft brought him back to life and took five days to do it. This may sound like a far-out scenario, but is it? When you compare it to the theory that God took only seven days to create the entire universe, the idea doesn't seem to feel quite so unreasonable. Preston Dennett, in his book The Healing Power of UFOs, 300 True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials, he states, Given that their technology seems to be far in advance of our own, it's likely that they know more about the human body than we do. He also documented that in 1961, during the abduction of Betty Hill in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, she described having a procedure done on board a craft by way of a needle being inserted into her navel. No such procedures were being done in the medical world in that manner during that time, however today that would be a procedure closely resembling laparoscopy. This leads us to a very important question. Are these alien races far more medically advanced than us, and do they have our best intentions in mind? Unfortunately, it's difficult to know. When we go down that rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, it may be pertinent to remember that a heavy hitting topic on the list of any politician during an election year is healthcare. We should keep in mind that healthcare is one of the largest money-making businesses known to humankind. Now, my dear Watson, where would that tricky business of healthcare be financially if we understood that ETs have not only the ability to heal us of diabetes and cancer, but can also give us the option of everlasting life? Would this be a reason to create fear surrounding our galactic brothers and sisters? Too big of a stretch? A little far out of our earthly comfort zone? Maybe, but an intriguing question all the same. In Preston Dennett's book, he profiles 76 cases of injury healing by ETs. The injuries included ailments such as cuts, bruises, broken bones, burns and head injuries, all claimed to have been healed by ETs. One case in 1965 recounts two policemen driving along the highway in Damon, Texas. One of the men had a bandage on his hand covering a bite mark he'd received from his son's pet alligator. Suddenly the men saw bright lights to the right of their vehicle. Pulling off the side of the highway, they could see the lights were part of a solid mass, 200 to 300 feet long and 50 feet wide. The object moved over the vehicle and beamed a bright light into their patrol car. The man with the injured finger had his arms hanging outside the vehicle. He said, I could feel the heat from the light. Eventually, the men sped away from the stadium-sized craft only to pull off again a number of miles down the road. Noticing his finger was no longer throbbing, the deputy pulled off his bandage. The officer stated, you couldn't tell I had ever been bitten. Another case in 1952 recalls an incident involving a young German citizen named Hans Klutzbach. Hans was interviewed by UFO researcher Gordon Creighton. Klutzbach, a stowaway on a coal train headed towards Luxemburg, was seeking to cross the border illegally. Hans leapt from the moving train and landed badly, sustaining terrible injuries. Bleeding horribly and unable to walk, Klutzbach fainted. He came to aboard a craft surrounded by bright opal blue lights and recalled being addressed in German. After being informed of future events on earth, he passed out again and awoke in a grassy field just six miles from where he had jumped. Although his trousers and shoes were thickly crusted with dried blood, the injured legs were totally healed. Like most instances concerning the UFO phenomenon, evidence for such encounters is typically sparse. We are drawn into fantastical stories of flying saucers, little green men and miraculous healing without so much as a shred of evidence to prove it to be true. What we are left with is our discernment and our intuitive ability to recognize fact from fiction. Wherever these beings come from, if they do have the ability to heal the sick and dying on our planet, why not set a place for them at our cosmic table? Are we afraid of these beings because of what they have done? Or are we afraid of them because of what we think they might do? It has served me well over time to remember to think things through to the end. I have learned not to judge but to use my best judgment and to humbly take the cotton out of my ears and put it in my mouth. There are many things about this universe that we have yet to discover, and much more that we do not yet understand. What we as a society are beginning to see through the power of social media and the internet is that, sadly, there is a small group of nefarious ones that would like nothing better than to control our money, our health care and, ultimately, our lives. This concept, I believe, would go largely undebated. Unfortunately, these folks live right here with us, openly on this planet. If it was determined that beings from outer space could instantly heal the people of this big blue marble, it would sure put a stick in the spokes of the health care industry's collective pocketbook. In the end, as I get on with life, I can see very clearly that we are a collective consciousness, and it is only through sharing our gifts wherever we are from that we will find what we are looking for. I will also concede that if anyone in the universe was willing to give freely of their ability to heal someone I loved and I had exhausted all other earthly resources, I would be more than happy to receive that blessing. Want more Paranormality? Subscribe to Paranormality magazine and each month get it delivered digitally or via mail in our print version. Paranormality magazine is a collaborative endeavor featuring works from people like you who have a passion for all things mysterious and unexplained. Our goal is the pursuit of knowledge, gathering captivating stories from our own team of writers, researchers and investigators, as well as from writers such as yourself. Each monthly issue also includes a list of paranormal, horror, UFO and cryptozoology events around the country, incredible paranormal themed artwork, articles and writing sent in from our readers, suggested books and podcasts to consume and more. Visit ParanormalityMag.com and subscribe today for as little as $3.99 a month. That's ParanormalityMag.com. ParanormalityMag.com. Feeling congested, Grace Fryer excused herself from the front office of the bank withdrawing to privacy to blow her nose. When she was safely at a range of sight and sound, she blew hard into a handkerchief that she had taken from her pocket. As Grace proceeded to remove the handkerchief from her nose to fold it in half to try again, she stopped dead in her tracks. Alarmed by the sight, Grace nearly fell backwards. Her handkerchief glowed. Grace couldn't help but think back to her time working as a dial painter at a radium factory in Orange, New Jersey. Sure, the radium glowed there. That was the point. They were told countless times that it was perfectly safe, and once again, when a question arose about the method of making sure the tip of the paintbrush was extra pointy by placing it in between their lips and wetting it with their tongues, but why here? How would she made this handkerchief glow before her? Was she infected in some way? This would be only the beginning of the oddities surrounding Grace Fryer's life. A heartbreaking reality would soon set in that affected more than just Grace, but those who shared the familiar title of dial painter. And before long, they would share a new title. The Radium Girls Dylan Wade Clark brings us the story. Marie and Pierre Curie first laid eyes on one another in 1894 at Sorbonne University in Paris, France. Pierre resided at the School of Physics and Chemistry as a professor, and Marie as a student studying physics and mathematics. The couple quickly bonded over their common interests in natural sciences and by July 1895 they would be married. In the same year, Pierre would publish his doctoral thesis on the connection between temperature and magnetism, giving birth to what we know today as Curie's Law. By 1897, the couple would share the birth of their daughter Irene. And soon after, Pierre would help secure Marie as a job in the school's laboratory. Here she would conduct further research into her husband's discoveries in magnetism, specifically into the properties of the magnetism of steel. But bound for much more, Marie would spark interest in writing her own doctoral thesis, and soon a research topic would present itself. Wilhelm Röntgen amazed the world on December 28, 1895 with his discovery of x-rays, and French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel was just as impressed. Inspired by Röntgen's revelation before him, Becquerel was inclined to find his own discovery in x-ray science by reaching for a connection between invisible radiation and phosphorescence. On February 24, 1896, Becquerel would stand before an assembly, presenting his newfound discoveries armed with evidence. He explained by example that when uranium-based crystals were exposed to sunlight, they would leave an everlasting shadow on photographic plates, even when wrapped in thick black paper. This experiment would be an important footnote in his later accidental discovery of spontaneous radiation and Marie Curie's inspiration for research. Like her husband before her, Marie sought recognition through the publication of her own doctoral thesis. Where the Leacademy de Sciences fell short in their attention with Becquerel's discovery, Marie didn't and was sat on a path of research into the strange uranium rays. Working with the tools amongst her ranks, Marie used an electrometer at her disposal. This electrometer, fabricated by her husband and brother-in-law, worked based on the piezoelectric effect providing insight into materials that gave off weak electrical currents. In her endeavor to find a chemical compound comparable to uranium, she would make multiple insightful discoveries. Firstly, she provided a prominent quality about radiation. The strength of radiation did not depend solely on the compound at hand but on the amount of uranium or thorium contained. She proposed that many chemical compounds of the same element are different in structure and chemical characteristics. Lastly, after she was triumphant in her research of all elements of the periodic table, she concluded that the ability to radiate is linked to the interior of the atom and that only uranium and thorium contain the ability to give off radiation. This discovery would be groundbreaking and considered her biggest addition to the development of physics. Amazed by his wife's innovative findings, Pierre would soon join her side and by the end of June 1898, they would discover a substance 300 times stronger than uranium. The couple accounted for their accomplishment to the public in a publication in July of the same year, suggesting the name of Polonium for the newly found substance. Then on December 26, 1898, the Curies presented to La Académie des Sciences evidence of an additional element and with it a name, radium. In 1903, Antoine-Henriques Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Curie would graciously share a Nobel Peace Prize in Physics for their discoveries in radiation. While the world of science shared their names, the rest of the world embodied the thought of this miracle compound seeking to use its properties to the fullest potential. Dr. Saban Arnold Von Soshaki had just completed his doctorate in medicine at the University of Moscow and his eyes were set on the promising narrative of the American Dream. In 1906, he moved to the United States, specifically immigrating to New York, where he would spend the next ten years practicing medicine. Dr. Von Soshaki stayed busy during his tenure in New York before moving to New Jersey, providing ideas and contributions to the use of radium. In 1913, alongside Dr. Edward J. Lehman, he would play a part in the development of radioluminescent paint, seeing long-term use within one's home. In 1921, he provided the following quote, The time will doubtless come when you will have in your own house a room lighted by radium. The light thrown off by radium paint on walls and ceiling would in color and tone be like soft moonlight. By 1917, Dr. Von Soshaki, along with colleague Dr. George S. Willis, and a handful of investors would form the Radium Luminous Material Corporation, later renamed the United States Radium Corporation. The group's primary focus was producing uranium, until eventually shifting to the application of Dr. Soshaki's radioluminescent paint that he dubbed Undark. The United States Radium Corp wasted little time opening three factories across New Jersey, one in Newark, New Jersey and Orange, and with this ample workforce, they jumped at the opportunity to assist the U.S. military during World War I with a handful of products dosed in Undark. While the management team and scientists took the utmost precautions when handling the radium products, they could care less about their workers. This carelessness was evident by a common practice influenced by management throughout the production lines. They instructed the young women who worked in the factories to place the tip of their paintbrushes between their lips and to wet it with their tongue to keep the tip extra straight. Their reasoning was that dial and watch painting was delicate work, and keeping the paintbrush tips straight was crucial in providing the best quality work. Among the workforce at the radium factory in Orange, New Jersey was Grace Fryer. Daily activities for Grace and her co-workers included manning a workstation with a rack of dials nearby ready to be painted with a radioluminescent solution composed of glue, water and radium powder that would be mixed into a glowing greenish-white paint. Once the paint was ready to be applied, each of the dial painters would dip their brushes in and then neatly apply the paint to the dial's numbers. When the brush lost its pointed appearance, the women lost the ability to paint accurately. To combat this, each painter would follow the standard practice of bringing the brushes back to their pointed form by dragging the bristles between their lips. Grace is quoted saying, Our instructors told us to point them with our lips. And I think I pointed mine about six times to every watch dial. It didn't have any taste and I didn't know it was harmful. Much like Grace, each of the other women shared a similar routine, unbeknownst at the time of the harmful and life-threatening effects of radium. In fact, much of the outside world saw radium as a magical cure-all because of its known use in cancer treatment. The dial painters' exposure to radium expanded much outside of common practice and many women would often paint their nails, teeth and faces because of the glow in the dark properties. Years later, when Grace left her dial painting job for a more suitable employment at a local bank, the lasting effects remained. First, she noticed that glowing snot had filled her handkerchief after she blew her nose and before long, her teeth began to ache. By 1922, her teeth began to fall out and she suffered acute jaw pain. Throughout her painful struggles, Grace would visit various medical professionals who were alarmed by their x-ray findings. Grace was enduring severe bone decay in not only her mouth but her back as well. This finding left doctors bewildered. They hadn't seen anything like it before. Finally, in 1925, a doctor suggested to Grace that her condition could have been the everlasting effects of working with radium at her previous employer. Grace would not be the only worker to suffer from lasting effects due to radium poisoning and because the human body confuses radium with calcium, many of the cases were horrendous. Like Grace, many victims saw the loss of teeth. Beyond this, many experienced brittle bones that were easily broken and in some cases, total spinal collapse. By the late 1920s, it is estimated that more than 50 people had died due to radium exposure with one of the most devastating cases recorded being that of Molly Maggia. Molly Maggia was a fellow dial painter and co-worker to Grace and with the onset of a mysterious illness, she had no choice but to quit her job in 1922. Molly first noticed excruciating pain in her jaw in the form of a toothache. She soon retreated to the dentist for a tooth removal. This pain only continued to spread and multiple teeth had to be removed. Where her teeth once sat, now blood and pus-filled ulcers began to grow, making a simple everyday task like breathing hard to accomplish. This illness continued to spread from Molly's mouth to the rest of her body and eventually, pain in her limbs would grow so terribly that it rendered her unable to walk. It wasn't long before Molly's mouth and lower jaw had become a large abscess. Molly would visit the dentist for one of her last times in May of 1922, suffering from unbearable jaw pain and to the dentist's horror, her jaw gave way to the weight of his fingers gently nudging. It was discovered that radium poisoning had deteriorated much of Molly's bone structure, leaving it very porous. Later, on September 12 of the same year, 24-year-old Molly Magia would succumb to the lasting effects of radium where her throat deteriorated, causing her jugular vein to collapse and unfortunately, leaving her to choke to death on her own blood before medical assistants could intervene. Henceforth, Molly Magia would set a precedence for what was to come for many of her fellow co-workers. Following the opinion of her doctor and fearful of a similar fate as her peers, Grace sought to expose the atrocities of the U.S. Radium Corporation and it didn't take long for the organization to rear its wicked head in the form of a misinformation campaign. As Grace worked to expose the company, she was met by a Columbia University specialist claiming to be referred by friends wanting to help her in her fight. Frederick Flynn offered to examine Grace's conditions and she obliged. Flynn would be fruitful with evidence supporting his claim that Grace was in perfect health. It wouldn't be long after this encounter that Flynn was exposed as a fraud. He wasn't a licensed professional and lacked any medical training. Frederick Flynn was an industrial toxicologist and vice president of the U.S. Radium who hoped to detour Grace Fryer in her pursuit of justice by squashing her confidence like a bug. Grace would not be hindered and was valiant in her efforts to take down U.S. Radium. As she gained momentum, four of her fellow dial painters would join her side determined to file a lawsuit against the company, remaining resilient in their efforts to find a lawyer to take their case seriously. Eventually, in 1927, the women were successful in finding aid in their fight in the form of a young lawyer by the name of Raymond Berry. With the help of Berry, the women raised a lawsuit against U.S. Radium for their inhumanity in the form of $250,000. But because many of the women were living on borrowed time with some given less than a year to live, they eventually settled for a significantly less $10,000 each and a yearly annuity of $600 for as long as they lived. Beyond this cash settlement, they were truly victorious in their endeavors by exposing the deadly effects of Radium poisoning because of their efforts. The case of the Radium Girls was the first of its kind and a pivotal moment in the history of employee rights. The atrocities exposed during the movement shined a light on the horrible conditions that some employees face and where their employer's hearts and minds truly lay. As a result, the case would give birth to multiple laws intended to protect employees by holding employers accountable for their health and safety, eventually leading to the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA. If this was a movie, we would expect a happy ending on the part of Grace Fryer. But unfortunately, it is not so. Grace Fryer passed away on October 27, 1933, at the young age of 34, suffering from the lasting effects of Radium poison like many of her fellow dial painters. I think it is important to remember Grace Fryer and her fellow Radium Girls for their tenacity. Let's remember to always stand up for what is right and in life's hardest battles, fight like you are dying. As Grace Fryer once said, it is not for myself I care. I am thinking more of the hundreds of girls whom this may serve as an example. Many are familiar with the history of and haunting legends of St. Augustine, but less are familiar with a small island to the north. Sitting right below the state border is Amelia Island. Chaz CMP had the pleasure of spending Halloween on this island and he was absorbed in some of its bizarre history and paranormal locations. He brings us, in writing, a short tour through one of Florida's forgotten haunted islands. Amelia Island boasts a large Spanish fort that still stands named Fort Clinch, and like most of the others, it has attracted a variety of legends. It was used in the Civil War, Spanish American War, and the genocide that would be known as the Seminole War. It sits at the mouth of the Amelia River, which flows all the way down to the Nassau Sound. Along this river sits an area known as Old Town. Archaeological evidence shows that this was the original location of the Timakua settlement and the Spanish began to occupy the same area at various times since 1560, establishing an official town named Fernandina in the early 1800s. Stories of ghosts and witches, pirates, and smugglers have surrounded the area ever since. As one travels south from there, they would cross over Egan's Creek. A rough, unpaved trail follows the creek and despite its proximity to the popular nearby beach, the trail is surprisingly remote. That doesn't prevent the occasional hiker from following its path, perhaps to read its nature signs or perhaps in search of treasure. The story goes that somewhere along the creek a pirate buried his treasure. Once it was buried, he killed his companions and placed a chain on a tree to mark the location of the treasure. Unfortunately, he was bit by a snake and died on the island, never recovering his treasure. A great pirate story, despite a few plot holes, it is said that those who try to recover the treasure only meet a curse. This is just one of many pirate stories that surround the island. The Amelia Island History Museum has many such stories. The museum itself is inside an old brick building which used to be a jailhouse. The museum itself has attracted ghost stories, including that of a pirate who was sentenced to hang. Instead of letting the hangman have his day, he decided to slit his own throat. Well, his jailers disagreed with his choice and had a doctor stitch him back up. He survived, just to be hung the next day in what one can assume was an extra gory display. The museum today is host to a variety of strange phenomena, especially the portion that remains designed like a jail cell. A headless apparition is also seen from time to time, assumed to be the executed pirate. Near the museum sits a variety of other properties whose histories are said to have ghosts attached. The nearby Florida House Inn was used to house union officers during the Civil War, one of whom bought the property afterwards. Presidents, actors, and other famous guests have stayed at the property, but it is the officer's wife who is said to still be hanging around. Employees and guests have reported smelling her perfume and feeling her presence. Stranger, a pair of her shoes that are normally in a locked display case, have a habit of disappearing and then reappearing in the rooms of guests. We spent the night in the inn and while we experienced nothing strange, the staff assured us that paranormal happenings are common on the grounds. The Epps House is a short walk from there and is also said to be occupied by a female spirit. The green two-story colonial building is stunning. Its large porches elegantly lined with artfully trimmed white pillars and railings. Now it is a private residence. It was once the mansion hotel. This hotel was home to a toxic couple, Thomas Jefferson Epps and his wife Celeste. Celeste was a beautiful but less than stable woman. She told her husband that Ferdinand Sewer, hotel manager and city council president, had made some kind of pass at her and she was deeply offended. Epps shot and killed the man and the couple fled the island. Later Celeste died in childbirth. Afterwards, her ghost began to appear at the bedside of her friends and, according to some, still appears looming over the beds in the house. A few blocks back toward the Amelia River sits the Palace Saloon, which proudly boasts itself as the oldest bar in Florida. The bar itself claims to have ten decades of ghosts. Bar tenders report feeling an icy hand on their shoulder when no one is there. Music and chatter can be heard coming from the building in the odd hours when the bar is closed and empty. A player piano seems to have a mind of its own and starts playing at strange times. We walked a short distance from the Florida house in to the Palace Saloon, stopping at a bookstore on the way to pick up a book about local legends. We got to the bar in ornate wooden one with a carved woman holding lamps. We sat and the bartender told us about the local ghost, a bartender who lived and worked at the bar and is said to still show up from time to time. The surface of Amelia Island is covered in these stories. In downtown, one can even take a ghost tour on the weekends, which covers these and a scattering of other locations on the island. We drag a few more and flipped through the book Ghosts of Amelia and Other Tales written by a local author, Maggie Carter-DeVries. The table of contents surprised us. There were 26 tales, much more than had been available from online sources. The sun sets and we started hopping bars and looking for haunted locations. It became clear that the island had many more legends to explore and one night was certainly not enough. With that in mind, we just might be heading back to Amelia Island next Halloween. Thanks for listening to Paranormality Magazine. Get more information about the magazine and subscribe to our monthly publication at ParanormalityMag.com or click the link in the show description. And if you're a researcher or investigator, send us your stories. We might feature you in our next issue. If you have a paranormal podcast, you can add it to our website so our readers can find your show. And artists, if you'd like your work to be featured in our magazine or on our back cover, contact us. Again, our website is ParanormalityMag.com. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll have more paranormal for you next time from Paranormality Magazine.