 Ads heard before, during, or after the podcast are not endorsed by Paranormality Magazine or myself unless voiced by me personally. All other ads are pre-recorded, inserted by ad agencies, and are not under our control. 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're 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. The ghost of the Kalahari seems to sit on the verge between a variety of phenomena. It has glaring similarities to the UFO phenomenon, the way it moves beyond the limits of physics and its penchant for following cars on lonely roads mimic the actions of these suspected alien spacecrafts. But it is also named a ghost and seems to line up with legends and stories of fairy lights from other regions around the world, and the local cultural belief treats them in the same regard. For many investigators, this is a challenging dichotomy to tackle, but for others who work from a non-physical angle, these differences make sense. Something paranormal is occurring to these people. They are simply using their cultural reference points to best understand what is a reality-bending experience. If this is the case, then it is no surprise that this crossover occurs in other paranormal cases throughout Africa, where the belief in the paranormal comes from magicians and spirits here on earth, as opposed to creatures from the sky. In many of these humanoid encounters, this blurring of the line is a prominent feature. One such example was reported to Cynthia Hines after she appeared on a radio show in Johannesburg. The witness wrote to her after hearing her discuss abductions on the radio program, as he'd had an experience that he thought lined up with the other reports. The witness was of Asian descent and was a married mother of two. She told of how one night she heard a strange clicking sound, as if a key was opening a lock. This was strange to her because the doors of her home did not have any key-based locks. She noticed a large, robed figure had entered the room. She described him as looking like a monk. She was paralyzed with fear and the creature walked over to her and blew into her ear. This would repeat several times a night, almost always preceded by a strange sound, clicking, bells ringing, or the sound of birds flapping their wings. She would feel a strange type of vibration in her body and then the entity, and sometimes multiple robed figures, would appear. It was usually around 4 a.m. when they would conduct their raid. The entity, or entities, would then move towards her, touch her, inspect her, and violate her. She started to wake up from these experiences with large hickeys all over her body, and it was this detail that convinced her to call Cynthia, after hearing other reports of similar bruising from abductees. They would prod and inspect her mouth, ears, and genitals. At one point they opened her mouth too wide, causing jaw pain, and a subsequent clicking sound comes from her jaw to this day if she opens her mouth past a certain point. Of course, the robed figure is a common archetype that appears in hauntings as well. The witness was afraid because her children seemed to start interacting with these entities. They eventually moved homes, and it is not said whether this solved the issue, but no new reports were ever submitted after this. These events are similar to not only abduction stories, but also that of sleep paralysis. Another prime example of this ghost or grave phenomenon occurred in March of 1996 in a suburb 10 km outside small town of Bindura, Zimbabwe. The witness in this case was a 17-year-old student. Like most teenagers, this witness had adopted a strange sleep schedule where he would go to bed around 8 p.m. and wake up four or five hours later to do his classwork in the early hours of the morning. This evening was one such occasion. The witness had gotten up at around 1 a.m. to begin his work when he heard something that distracted him. It was this continuous clicking sound that was coming from outside the house on the street. It sounded vaguely electronic and as if it was getting closer. The witness, Lloyd, was home alone that evening and his mother had been staying with his adult sister. The noise frightened him and he spent a while trying to decide what to do about the sound. Eventually he summoned his courage to open the front door and see what was making the noise. He stepped outside and saw nothing. The sound now had faded. He walked around the yard for a moment and began to hear the sound faintly again. It sounded like it was coming from the street where there was a women's training center. It sounded as if it was coming from inside the complex. He went back into the house and shut off the lights but soon the sound grew louder again. This time he was determined to see its source so he snuck out the front door and crouched behind a hedge in his lawn. From this position he saw something very strange. Here is what he described. Quote, I could see this thing about two meters away from me. I nearly died of shock. I had never seen such a thing. I wish I had not seen it. Even now that night still makes me feel timid if I think of all that happened. I saw completely white, short, fast-moving, mysterious things. It was about 1.5 meters or 4.9 feet tall. When I first took a glance at the thing, I nearly collapsed because I had never seen such a person with such a head. The head was like a rugby ball or an egg. I managed to see only the back part of the object. It had a satchel on its back, an aerial antenna, and a small red light. Lloyd even included a small annotated drawing of what he saw, depicting some kind of radio fanny pack on the back of a completely white gnome-shaped creature. The creature also left strange circular footprints in the ground. Its print had five smaller circles inside. Investigators were able to see these for themselves. They were also able to track down a second witness to the event. When they asked a local security company if they could talk to the guard that had been stationed at the women's center if they had seen anything weird, the head of the company responded with, Oh, that's the guard that saw the ghost. This guard had been so frightened by the experience that she had to quit the company as she could no longer work at night. On the evening mentioned, the guard had heard the clicking sound for around 20 minutes, that it would die off and grow louder. She went to investigate when she saw the same small creature walking slowly and unpleasantly, and the guard was terrified. She described it in the same way as Lloyd did, even including the antenna. She watched a little longer as it appeared to shift from a white color to a rainbow of color. This convinced her that what she was looking at was a ghost, and she fled in fear. The history of witchcraft is deeply fascinating. A large part of that is because witchcraft has been viewed in every lens throughout history from benevolent to malicious. And Paige Wolston-Hulme of Paranormality magazine should know she's done a lot of study on witchcraft and has a lot of knowledge about the discovery of witch bottles. The belief in sorcery and its powers were important to the people of the ancient East and ancient Egypt. Because of this, defensive spells became fairly popular to those wishing to protect themselves and their families in times of crisis. A great example of this would be the use of semicircular pieces of carved ivory used by midwives and healers. Carved into a kind of wand, these were depictions of dangerous creatures fighting off demons. These objects were used to ward off evil or the threat of outside terrors while a mother was pregnant or giving birth. Superstitions like that, in uncertain times, can be a source of comfort. Utilizing spells as a type of protection against harm is referred to today as apotropaic magic. Just like our ancestors had thousands of years ago, today we have our own set of superstitions. The author of this piece is a strong believer in the idea that knocking on wood three times will keep bad luck away caused by her hubris. Alamancy, which is a form of divination wherein you throw salt into the air to read patterns, led to the popular belief that spilling salt is bad luck or that throwing salt over your left shoulder is good luck. In the 1600s, defensive witchcraft became a popular ritual for people wanting to defend their homes and loved ones from harmful intentions. One of the easier ways to do that was to create a witch bottle. Essentially, witch bottles served as a counteractive spell. Anyone could have a witch prepare one for them and they were generally thought to bring the residents of a home a long and healthy life. Whatever diabolical wish an unpleasant neighbor or stranger would cast upon you or your home would end up only bouncing back to them. Despite eras of witch hunts being a common time for the creation of witch bottles, the use of these spells can also be placed in times of turmoil. Wars, plagues, droughts or an unsuccessful year of crops caused believers in dark witchcraft to prepare for the worst and get to work on creating a witch bottle. Originally, witch bottles consisted of salt-glazed stoneware that today are referred to as Bartman jugs or gray beards. This was because they were usually embossed with the figure of a bearded man. Centuries later they would consist of small and clear or colored glass bottles. According to what archaeologists have been able to find and test, witch bottles usually included biological samples such as human urine, hair, fingernail clippings or even menstrual blood. This would be combined with sharp objects like rusty nails, thorns, pins, broken glass or even shards of bone. In some versions, rosemary and red wine would also be added in. After being secured shut, preferably as tight as possible, it was then hidden in one of these several places with owners going to an incredible amount of effort to hide the bottles. Chimneys or fire pits were popular areas, but they were also placed in the framework of buildings or at the furthest ends of a property to help broaden their powers. The contents would then work their magic on any evil spirits that would enter a home. The human clippings or liquids would trick and attract the spirits to enter the bottle, and the sharper objects would impale and trap them. Sometimes the bottle wasn't hidden, but rather heated until it exploded. This was believed to have caused the ill-wisher a slow and painful death unless the bottle was uncorked. The first recorded description of a witch bottle being used was in Suffolk, England in 1681. Joseph Glanville's Cetacismus triumphantus or Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions was one of a handful of books that would later serve as a guide for those wishing to persecute witches in the Salem Trials. The book described an event wherein a traveling man called on the home of a couple only to find that the wife was ill and slowly getting worse. The traveling man then advised the husband to create a witch bottle and to put it near a fire so that it would explode. After the bottle exploded, the wife continued to feel ill, and so the traveling man again advised the husband to make a witch bottle, but that time to bury it deep underground so that the spirits couldn't escape. Not long after that, the wife began to regain her health, and one day from the outskirts of town came across a woman crying out that they had killed her husband. When asked what she meant, she told them that her husband, a man that lived at the edge of town, was a wizard. On his death bed he admitted that he had bewitched this man's wife and that this counter practice prescribed by the old man which saved the man's wife from languishment was the death of that wizard that had bewitched her. In 2019, the demolition of a pub and inn in Watford, England led contractors to the interesting find of a glass bottle full of mysterious objects stuffed into the chimney of the building. Eerily the bottle was not only filled with fish hooks, pieces of broken glass and a mysterious liquid, but also with a few human teeth. The house was later linked to the story of Angeline Tubbs, a woman that in the 1700s was nicknamed the Witch of Saratoga. She emigrated from England to New York at age 15 to follow a soldier fighting in the Revolutionary War. He promptly abandoned her when the British were defeated. She was left homeless to wander the streets. According to her story, she ended up walking 15 miles to Saratoga Springs, New York, where she continued to live and make a living telling fortunes surrounded by a brood of cats. The discovery of that particular witch bottle was not an isolated incident. Over 100 bottles just like it have been discovered in England where the superstition primarily existed. In England, a more well-known witch bottle was featured on the popular show Antiques Roadshow. In 2016, a bottle was found in a man's home in Trelesick Cornwall, who afterward took it to the show in hopes of gaining a little more knowledge as to the meaning behind the mysterious object. Glass specialist Andy McConnell ended up tasting a small amount of the contents and believed it to be wine, noting as well that it also tasted like rusty nails. About three years later, the contents of the bottle were revealed to be human urine, a very small amount of alcohol, some brass pins from the 1840s, and a single strand of hair. Witch bottles haven't just been found in England. Less than a dozen witch bottles have been found in the United States, but they have still left their mark in the history books. Archaeologists even believe that a jade blue bottle plucked from an area that served as a Civil War battleground was just such a protective talisman. Despite the Civil War occurring 170 years after the famous Salem trials, it's believed that witch bottles were still being created to ward off bad intentions. The history of witchcraft is, whether you like it or not, something that has had a deep impact on how people view the world. Something I would like to point out is that witch bottles weren't just a counter-active measure against malevolent witches. They were also created by witches as protection against every sort of misfortune or villainy someone else could wish upon you. Taking that into account makes you wonder whether we as a modern society are taking enough precautions to ward ourselves against malice. Even if the magic of yesteryear is all just a bunch of hocus pocus, would it be worth it just to have peace of mind in troubling times? All I know for a fact is that the next time I move, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for a hiding spot to slip a witch bottle into. 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 Very beneath the surface of the southern end of Chicago's sprawling Lincoln Park are the remains of one of the city's best kept secrets, City Cemetery. Lincoln Park is Chicago's largest public park, attracting millions of visitors every year from around the world to its zoo, museums, conservatory, beaches, harbors, lakefront trails, sports facilities and more. Many people who traverse the southern end of the park, even those who call Lincoln Park and Gold Coast neighborhoods home, are not aware that some 12,000 former residents still lie in eternal repose just below their feet. In 1837, the state of Illinois dedicated a large plot of land to bury Chicago's dead outside of what were then the city limits. This area spanned from approximately what is today North Avenue North to Webster Avenue. During the 1840s and 1850s as many as 35,000 people were interred at what came to be called City Cemetery, Chicago's only public graveyard at the time. The city grew quickly around the cemetery and the cemetery itself fell quickly into disrepair. In 1847 the unburied land north of the cemetery was designated Cemetery Park and in 1868 Lincoln Park Zoo was founded. Therefore, residents found themselves living and recreating in uncomfortable proximity to the deceased. Concerns grew that bacteria from the decomposing dead, many of whom had succumbed to the citywide outbreaks of cholera and Spanish flu, could contaminate the city's water supply as the cemetery was located so close to Lake Michigan and the bodies were buried below the water table. Many residents also found the prospect of living so close to the dead rather grim. The last lots at City Cemetery were sold in 1859 and the last burials took place around 1866. After President Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the area that was the cemetery and cemetery park was renamed Lincoln Park in his honor and in 1869 the Lincoln Park commissioners assumed responsibility for the cemetery grounds. Between the late 1860s and 1880s the city undertook the immense project of moving all the bodies and grave markers from City Cemetery to outlying cemeteries. At the time these rural cemeteries included Rose Hill, which opened in 1859, and Graceland and Calvary, which both opened in 1860. The city was successful in moving most of the grave markers with only one monument remaining in place today. The couch tomb was built in 1858 to house the remains of wealthy Chicago hotel owner Ira Couch and his family and sits today on the grounds of the Chicago History Museum. Historians speculate that the couch mausoleum was allowed to remain for several reasons. For one, the couch family had tremendous wealth and influence. The tomb was the last and most expensive mausoleum built in City Cemetery and the city was more than likely willing to let it stand as a memorial to the cemetery's existence. Although sometimes mistaken for an old shed by Passersby on West LaSalle Drive, the mausoleum is possibly the oldest remaining structure in the Great Chicago Fire Zone and is shrouded in its own myths and legends. There have long been doubts about whether anyone is even buried inside as some records indicate the couch family were interred at Rose Hill Cemetery and a worker who entered the tomb sometime in the early 20th century claimed to have seen no evidence of any burials within. However, the rather plain-looking above-ground structure is merely a ruse for more complex subterranean chamber which may explain where the bodies are and why the mausoleum wasn't so easily dismantled along with the rest. The city was not quite as successful in moving all of City Cemetery's bodies. The Cemetery's primary researcher and advocate, Pamela Banos, has estimated that as many as 12,000 people are still buried beneath Lincoln Park. Many of the Cemetery's grave markers were destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 when the fire swept through the cemetery and surrounding areas, famously forcing some fleeing residents to hide in open graves to escape the flames. The fire, along with poor record-keeping, lack of manpower and outright scandal, were all significant factors which contributed to the failure of the city to disinter and reinter elsewhere all of the bodies. Additionally, there was a large Potters' Field where many of the city's poor were laid to rest in a mass, unmarked grave, as well as some 4,000 Confederate prisoners of war who had been imprisoned and died at Camp Douglas on Chicago's near South Side during the Civil War. The Potters' Field, still containing many of the remains of the Confederate soldiers, is located below what are now Lincoln Park's baseball fields. I would be remiss not to mention Suicide Bridge, in conjunction with Lincoln Park's dark history. In 1894, a high pedestrian bridge was built over the lagoon that runs parallel to Lake Shore Drive. This bridge came to be known as Suicide Bridge, so infamously that it was even designated as such on postcards of the time. Until it was permanently closed in 1919, as many as 100 people died by suicide there, typically by jumping or hanging themselves from the bridge. The bridge attracted morbidly curious spectators from around the city who would visit in hopes of witnessing a death. Famously in 1899, an ostrich escaped from the Lincoln Park Zoo and jumped off the bridge, surviving and making national headlines in the New York Times. As early as the 1880s, ghost stories began circulating about the park and its deceased inhabitants, including regular sightings of spectral figures in Victorian-era clothing wandering through the park. Police officers on their nightly patrols in the late 19th century reported playground swings swinging on their own when there was no wind or even a breeze. There were even reports of a police shootout or two with a mysterious dark bandit clad in a Mexican-style poncho and cowboy hat who would disappear into thin air before he could be apprehended. The couch tomb was said to be guarded by a black dog with glowing red eyes, reminiscent of those described in English folklore. Teens looking for thrills would stand in front of the tomb at midnight and chant three times, the graves belong to the dead, not the living. In hopes of witnessing the door to the tomb fly open and a tall male apparition clad all in white emerge from its depths. Many of these stories continue to circulate today, fueled by a love of Chicago legends and lore, and the ongoing discovery of coffins, bodies and body parts throughout the park. In 1962, a skeleton and coffin were unearthed during the construction of the barn at Lincoln Park Zoo. Both skeleton and coffin were reburied and remained beneath the barn today. In 1998, 81 bodies and parts of bodies, along with a cast iron fisk metallic burial case, were excavated during the construction of the Chicago History Museum's parking lot. These remains became property of the state of Illinois under the Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act, and many are now part of the collection at the Illinois State Museum. As recent as 2013, human remains were discovered during construction on a home built over an area of the cemetery that is now part of the Gold Coast neighborhood. More recently, sightings and mainstream news coverage of the Chicago Mothman have drawn hopeful spectators to the area in hopes of catching a glimpse of the creature, or creatures, which have been spotted along Lake Michigan for decades. While not directly related to city cemetery, this and the proximity of the haunted St. Valentine's Day massacre site at 2122 North Clark make Lincoln Park a rich and rewarding location for a paranormal phenomena of all kinds. The Lincoln Park Zoo now also offers ghost tours of its own, giving visitors a glimpse of its haunted history. One of the Lincoln Park Zoo's most beloved ghost stories is that of the woman in black who haunts the women's bathroom beneath the lion house. She is often spotted in the bathroom's expansive mirrors standing directly behind her hapless observer. In recent years, one terrified male security guard on his nightly patrol was approached by the ghost and told in no uncertain terms, you don't belong here. Some security guards will not enter the bathroom alone after hours when conducting their nightly rounds. Undoubtedly, Lincoln Park and the inhabitants of city cemetery have many stories left to tell. If only they could speak to us, the woman in black not with standing, and tell us more of their tales. Or perhaps if on a clear night with the moon hanging low over the lake, we could pay a visit to the park and our respects to its dead, and just listen. Thanks for listening to Paranormality Magazine. Get more information about the magazine and subscribe to our monthly publication at ParanormalityMag.com. That's 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 on 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.