https://magnalogos.com/watch/a-police-officer-watched-the-chair-move-the-enfield-poltergeist-1977-0ngmi3pjbja/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-0nGMi3PjbjA.jpgA Police Officer Watched the Chair Move: The Enfield Poltergeist, 1977A POLICE OFFICER WATCHED THIS CHAIR MOVE. πͺ
On the night of 31 August 1977, in a council house in Enfield, north London, two of Peggy Hodgson's four children heard shuffling in their bedroom. Then a chest of drawers slid about eighteen inches across the floor, and the knocking began. Neighbours heard it too. At about one in the morning on 1 September the police came: a constable heard four taps on the wall and then saw a chair slide three or four feet across the living room floor, and she signed a statement saying so. Within days marbles and toy bricks were flying through the house, and a newspaper photographer was hit on the forehead.
Maurice Grosse came for the Society for Psychical Research. A year earlier his own daughter had died after a motorcycle accident. With the writer Guy Lyon Playfair he came back again and again, and they recorded more than 180 hours of tape. In December 1977 a deep, rough voice came out of Janet, who was eleven. It called itself Bill and said it had died on a chair in the corner downstairs. Later, Terry Wilkins said his father, Bill, had died in that house.
But the house was being watched. One investigator said a video camera in the next room caught Janet bending spoons and trying to bend an iron bar. Grosse himself once saw her knocking on the ceiling with a broom. A ventriloquist called the voice a trick of the throat, and the girls admitted some pranks to reporters. Grosse and Playfair said the tricks were few and the rest was real; the skeptics said it was all the same game. Peggy lived in the house until she died in 2003. Years later Janet said they had faked about two percent of it.
What do you think was in that house? π
Sources: Society for Psychical Research, Psi Encyclopedia, "Enfield Poltergeist" (the first night, 31 August 1977; the constable's statement of 1 September; the photographer on 4 September; Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair; over 180 hours of tape; the voice from December 1977; Terry Wilkins; "about two percent"); Wikipedia, "Enfield poltergeist" (thhttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0nGMi3PjbjA?rel=02026-10-23T16:00:32.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/rome-gave-him-total-power-he-gave-it-back-in-16-days-tghbe0o94tw/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-tGHBe0O94tw.jpgRome Gave Him Total Power. He Gave It Back in 16 DaysHE HAD TOTAL POWER AND GAVE IT BACK πΎ
In 458 BC a Roman army was trapped on Mount Algidus. The senate named a dictator: one man with total power for six months. Livy says the envoys found Cincinnatus at work on his small farm across the Tiber, ploughing or digging a ditch.
He put on his toga, raised a new army in a day, ringed the enemy in one night and freed the trapped consul. Then he laid the power down on the sixteenth day and, Dionysius says, went back to his little farm. In 1783 American officers named a society after him, and a frontier town on the Ohio took its name: Cincinnati.
Would you have given it back? π
Sources: Livy, History of Rome 3.13 and 3.26 to 29; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 10.24 to 25
#cincinnatus #ancientrome #romanhistory #ancienthistory #history #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tGHBe0O94tw?rel=02026-10-23T16:00:16.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/thirteen-months-before-the-bridge-fell-the-mothman-of-point-pleasant-aobra440lts/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-AobRA440Lts.jpgThirteen Months Before the Bridge Fell: The Mothman of Point PleasantSOMETHING WITH RED EYES CHASED THEIR CAR. π΄π΄
On the night of 15 November 1966, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette were driving through the old TNT area north of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Near an abandoned power plant, they told the police, their headlights caught something by the road: shaped like a man but bigger, with wings, and eyes that glowed red. They said it kept pace with their car all the way to the city limits. The next day the Point Pleasant Register ran the story ("Couples See Man-Sized Bird... Creature... Something"), and the papers soon called it the Mothman. A wildlife biologist at West Virginia University, Robert L. Smith, suggested a sandhill crane far from its migration route; others said an owl.
On 15 December 1967, ten days before Christmas, the Silver Bridge between Point Pleasant and Ohio collapsed into the river just before five in the evening, full of traffic. 46 people died; two were never found. The investigation traced the failure to a crack about 2.5 mm (0.1 in) deep in a single eyebar, hidden inside a joint where no inspection could see it. From 1971 the United States inspected its bridges every two years. In 1975 the writer John Keel tied the two stories together in The Mothman Prophecies. Today the town has a Mothman statue and a Mothman festival.
What do you think was standing by that road? π
Sources: Wikipedia, Mothman (the 15 November 1966 report; the Point Pleasant Register headline of 16 November 1966; Robert L. Smith's sandhill crane, Gettysburg Times, 1 December 1966; Joe Nickell's owl; John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies, 1975; the festival and the statue); Wikipedia, Silver Bridge (eyebar 330, the crack, 46 dead and two never found, the Silver Memorial Bridge of 1969); STRUCTURE magazine, "Silver Bridge Failure 1967 (aka Point Pleasant Bridge)" (the final investigation report of 1970; the National Bridge Inspection Standards of 1971).
The pictures are a reconstruction. No one involved is shown, and the film does not suggest that the sightings hhttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/AobRA440Lts?rel=02026-10-22T17:25:39.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/the-half-of-icarus-s-warning-nobody-remembers-mba3h020q9i/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-MbA3H020q9I.jpgThe Half of Icarus's Warning Nobody RemembersTHE WARNING HAD TWO HALVES βοΈπ
Kept on Crete by King Minos, the inventor Daedalus built wings of feathers, thread and wax for himself and his son Icarus. Before they flew, he warned him: too low, and the sea soaks the feathers; too high, and the sun melts the wax. Fly between the two.
Icarus climbed toward the sun, and the sea that took him still carries his name. Ovid adds that a fisherman, a shepherd or a ploughman may have looked up and taken them for gods.
Which half of the warning did you know? π
Sources: Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.152-235; Apollodorus, Library 3.1.4 and Epitome 1.8-13
#icarus #greekmythology #mythology #daedalus #ovid #storytime #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/MbA3H020q9I?rel=02026-10-22T16:00:38.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/an-american-colonel-put-it-in-writing-rendlesham-forest-1980-dffuycb4cbq/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-dfFUYCb4CbQ.jpgAn American Colonel Put It in Writing: Rendlesham Forest, 1980A US COLONEL PUT IT IN WRITING. π¦
In the early hours after Christmas 1980, a security patrol at the back gate of RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk saw lights dropping into Rendlesham Forest. Three men went in on foot. In the words of Lt Col Charles Halt's memo, they found "a strange glowing object", "metallic in appearance and triangular in shape". Two nights later Halt went in himself with a radiation meter and a pocket tape recorder. The Ministry of Defence filed it as of no defence significance; in 1983 a tabloid put it on the front page.
Then science writer Ian Ridpath asked a local forester, Vince Thurkettle. His answer: the Orford Ness lighthouse, five miles away on the coast, one flash every five seconds. The first lights match a bright meteor that night; the holes, rabbit diggings; the light to the south, most likely Sirius. Not everyone accepts it. The lighthouse was switched off in 2013 and taken down in 2020.
What do you think they saw? π
Sources: Ian Ridpath, "The Woodbridge UFO Incident", Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1986 (the Halt memo of 13 January 1981 and the tabloid headline of October 1983); Wikipedia, Rendlesham Forest incident; Wikipedia, Charles I. Halt; the Halt memo, The Black Vault; the transcript of Halt's tape (Patrick Gross, ufology.patrickgross.org); David Clarke, "Rendlesham UFOs 40th anniversary" (26 December 2020); Wikipedia, Orfordness Lighthouse; Suffolk Heritage Explorer, MSF22526.
The pictures are a reconstruction. The colonel's words on screen are quoted from his memo; the voice is the narrator's, not his tape.
#rendleshamforest #ufo #unexplained #mystery #history #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/dfFUYCb4CbQ?rel=02026-10-22T10:44:23.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/achilles-can-never-catch-this-tortoise-zeno-s-paradox-fynok4rf1hq/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-fYNOk4rF1hQ.jpgAchilles Can Never Catch This Tortoise: Zeno's ParadoxACHILLES CAN NEVER CATCH THE TORTOISE π’
Achilles runs ten times faster than a tortoise with a 100 metre head start. But every time he reaches the spot where it was, it has moved on: 10 metres, then 1, then a tenth, then a hundredth. Zeno of Elea argued there is always one more gap, so he never catches it.
The puzzle stood for more than two thousand years. The answer: infinitely many gaps can add up to one finite distance. 111.1 repeating metres, about eleven seconds of running.
Did Zeno have a point? π
Sources: Aristotle, Physics VI.9 (239b14-18); Plato, Parmenides 128c-d; Diogenes Laertius, Lives VI.39
#zenosparadox #achilles #paradox #philosophy #math #ancientgreece #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/fYNOk4rF1hQ?rel=02026-10-21T16:00:39.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/he-jumped-from-a-jet-with-200-000-and-vanished-d-b-cooper-skpa_zvoxf0/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-SKPa_ZvOXF0.jpgHe Jumped From a Jet With $200,000 and Vanished: D. B. CooperHE JUMPED FROM A JET WITH $200,000 AND VANISHED πͺ
On 24 November 1971, a quiet man who gave the name Dan Cooper handed a stewardess a note on Flight 305. It said he had a bomb in his briefcase. In Seattle the 36 passengers walked free in exchange for $200,000 in twenties and four parachutes, and he ordered the jet back into the air.
A little after 8 p.m., somewhere over the woods of southwest Washington, he lowered the rear stairs and jumped. In 1980 a boy found $5,800 of the ransom on the Columbia River. The FBI looked at more than 800 suspects and stopped actively investigating in 2016. He has never been identified.
Did he survive the jump? π
Sources: FBI, "D.B. Cooper Hijacking" (fbi.gov); HistoryLink essay 23059 (2024); Associated Press and UPI (13 July 2016); FBI, "D.B. Cooper Redux" (2007); KIRO 7 (2016); Wikipedia, "Cooper vane"
#dbcooper #truecrime #unsolvedmysteries #coldcase #fbi #history #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SKPa_ZvOXF0?rel=02026-10-20T10:37:53.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/my-name-is-nobody-how-odysseus-tricked-the-cyclops-udnof14hfzm/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-udNOF14hfZM.jpgMy Name Is Nobody: How Odysseus Tricked the CyclopsMY NAME IS NOBODY ποΈ
Trapped in a cave by the Cyclops Polyphemus, Odysseus gets him drunk and says his name is Nobody. Blinded by a glowing stake, the giant roars that Nobody is killing him, and the other Cyclopes go home.
Then, safe on his ship, Odysseus shouts his real name. Polyphemus prays to his father Poseidon, and every word of the curse comes true.
Would you have kept quiet? π
Source: Homer, Odyssey, Book 9
#odyssey #odysseus #polyphemus #cyclops #greekmythology #homer #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/udNOF14hfZM?rel=02026-10-19T12:00:16.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/how-a-volcano-gave-us-frankenstein-mj4anye-e1o/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-mJ4anYE-e1o.jpgHow a Volcano Gave Us FrankensteinIn 1815, Mount Tambora erupted. The following year became known as the Year Without a Summer.
During that rain-soaked summer on Lake Geneva, Lord Byron challenged his friends to write ghost stories. Eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley imagined Frankenstein. The same gathering also led to John Polidori's The Vampyre.
One lost summer. Two monsters that never died.
Would you have stayed in that villa? π
Sources: Mary Shelley's 1831 introduction to Frankenstein; U.S. National Library of Medicine, Frankenstein exhibition (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/frankenstein/exhibition1.html).
Magna Logos: mythology, philosophy, history and literature.
#Frankenstein #MaryShelley #YearWithoutASummer #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/mJ4anYE-e1o?rel=02026-10-19T09:22:13.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/tulip-mania-the-bubble-story-everyone-gets-wrong-qfgva7agvnw/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-QFGVA7agVnw.jpgTulip Mania: The Bubble Story Everyone Gets WrongTulip Mania in 1637 is often called the first financial bubble. Did the Dutch tulip market really ruin an entire nation? This history documentary traces the boom, the crash, and the myth.
In the winter of 1637, the rarest tulip bulbs in Holland sold for more than ten years of a craftsman's wages. Then, in a tavern in Haarlem, a man named his price and nobody bid.
For almost two hundred years, Tulip Mania has been told as the first great financial bubble: a whole nation gone mad for a flower, fortunes lost overnight, ruined families. The archives tell a stranger story. It involves a flower named after a turban, a disease nobody could see, a market where nothing changed hands, and a few satirists who wrote the version we still believe.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Haarlem, 1637
1:14 I. The Turban Flower
3:42 II. The Beautiful Disease
6:05 III. Trading the Wind
8:48 IV. The Peak
11:12 V. The Day Nobody Came
13:43 VI. The Myth Machine
17:11 VII. Why We Need the Tulip
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
- Anne Goldgar, Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age (University of Chicago Press, 2007)
- Peter M. Garber, Famous First Bubbles: The Fundamentals of Early Manias (MIT Press, 2000)
- Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841)
- Maarten Prak, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
- History.com, "There Was Never a Tulip Mania Crash": https://www.history.com/news/tulip-mania-financial-crash-holland
- Frans Hals Museum, Hendrick Pot, Flora's Wagon of Fools: https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/?p=11963
- Wikipedia, Tulip mania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
- Wikipedia, Tulip breaking virus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_breaking_virus
- Wikipedia, Tulip period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_period
Artwork, music and sound are original to this video.
Magna Logos: history, myth, philosophy and literature.
#TulipMania #EconomicHistory #HistoryDocumentaryhttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/QFGVA7agVnw?rel=02026-10-19T08:18:51.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/he-cheated-death-twice-the-myth-of-sisyphus-lo5wnh6dg5a/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-lo5wNh6Dg5A.jpgHe Cheated Death Twice: The Myth of SisyphusONE MUST IMAGINE SISYPHUS HAPPY πͺ¨
Sisyphus, king of Corinth, was the craftiest man alive. When Death came for him, he put Death in chains. Later he talked his way out of the underworld and refused to go back.
The gods gave him a boulder and a hill. Every time it nears the top, it rolls back down. In 1942, Albert Camus wrote: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Could you imagine him happy? π
#sisyphus #mythofsisyphus #albertcamus #absurdism #greekmythology #philosophy #mythology #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lo5wNh6Dg5A?rel=02026-10-19T05:38:52.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/burn-everything-kafka-s-last-wish-wmiovbpfaxg/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-WmiovBPFAxg.jpgBurn Everything: Kafka's Last WishKAFKA'S LAST WISH: Burn everything π₯
In 1924 Franz Kafka died of tuberculosis at forty. He had published only short stories. In his desk, his best friend Max Brod found a note: everything was to be burned, unread.
Brod refused. He published The Trial, The Castle and Amerika, and in March 1939 he fled Prague with a suitcase full of Kafka's papers.
Traitor or best friend? π
#franzkafka #maxbrod #kafka #kafkaesque #thetrial #booktok #history #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/WmiovBPFAxg?rel=02026-10-18T18:12:05.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/she-didn-t-stop-the-dancing-plague-of-1518-81-qcrcvbhk/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-81-qcRcvBhk.jpgShe Didn't Stop: The Dancing Plague of 1518THE DANCING PLAGUE OF 1518: Strasbourg π
July 1518. A woman stepped into the street and began to dance. She didn't stop. Within a month, the chronicles say, 400 people were dancing with her.
The doctors blamed overheated blood and prescribed more dancing. The city built stages and paid musicians. Then it banned the music.
Would you have joined the dance? π
#dancingplague #dancingplagueof1518 #darkhistory #history #medievalhistory #strasbourg #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/81-qcRcvBhk?rel=02026-10-18T17:54:27.000Zhttps://magnalogos.com/watch/they-cut-the-rope-the-raft-of-the-medusa-ndqotuvrdri/https://magnalogos.com/images/videos/youtube-nDqOtUvrDRI.jpgThey Cut the Rope: The Raft of the MedusaTHE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA: ThΓ©odore GΓ©ricault (1818β1819) π¨
July 1816. The French frigate MΓ©duse ran aground off West Africa. 147 people were put on a raft and towed behind the lifeboats. A few miles out, the lifeboats cut the line. Thirteen days later, only 15 were still alive.
Three years later, GΓ©ricault painted the moment they first saw the rescue ship: not the rescue, just a speck on the horizon. The canvas is over 7 metres wide and hangs in the Louvre.
Would you have kept waving? π
#raftofthemedusa #gericault #arthistory #painting #darkhistory #history #louvre #Shortshttps://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/nDqOtUvrDRI?rel=02026-10-18T17:51:08.000Z