The Occult Section

So far, this week has been ripe with stories of incredulous speculations about normal, everyday things. From a man calling 911 over Bigfoot “proof” to ufologists claiming to have seen a rat on Mars, a lot of conclusions have been jumped to. Improper grammar aside, here is the latest story of people thinking that a famous cryptid may have been found, and the truth being far less interesting.

Yep, still not a seafood person.

A mysterious sea creature with a set of sharp teeth washed up on a U.K. beach last week, prompting wide speculation as to what it could be—the wildest being a dinosaur or the Loch Ness Monster.

David Mackland was walking with his family on Easthaven beach north of St. Andrews on the east coast of Scotland when he came across the carcass of the menacing creature. He had no idea what he had stumbled upon.

“We were just walking on the beach to see what we could find and we came across this,” Mackland told the U.K. Evening Telegraph. “I would say it was 4 to 5 feet long and about a foot wide. It was pretty big.

“You could see the teeth straight away.

“I don’t know what it is. To be honest, I looks a bit like an eel … You don’t usually see stuff like that. You very rarely see fish on the beach. You sometimes see dead birds, but it is unusual to see that.”

Mackland said a big chunk had been taken out of it and that it must have been killed at sea before washing up on the beach. He took photos and set out to determine its identity.

Online speculation ran the gamut from the humorous—a relative of Nessie?—to the more logical. Pike, shark, eel, and ling were among the guesses. Stephen McKelvie of the St. Andrews Aquarium also weighed in on the matter.

 “It may be an oarfish,”McKelvie told the Evening Telegraph. “There was a specimen found near Carnoustie a few weeks back. It could be that this oarfish was left on the beach and the mystery creature is the desiccated corpse. It’s hard to tell because we are unsure of the size and dimensions of the oarfish they found a few weeks ago.

“The alternate idea is that it is a Conger eel that has been caught and left on the beach, or has died naturally and has washed up. The shape of the jaw and the pattern of the teeth are the only things to go on, because of the level of mortification.”

Mackland returned to the beach on Saturday for a beach cleanup.

“I had the lovely task of bagging the carcass,” he wrote GrindTV Outdoor in an email. “I’m just shy of 6 foot tall, so you can see from the picture that it’s almost 6 foot long rather than the 4 to 5 feet that I’d estimated.”

Mackland told GrindTV Outdoor that his initial reaction upon finding the creature was, “What the heck’s that?”

“When you get a look at the head and the teeth you think, ‘Now that’s one mean-looking fish,’” he added.

In the end, the St. Andrews Sea Life Center identified the frightening creature as a Conger eel, though we kind of like the theory it’s related to the Loch Ness Monster.

The creature is definitely weird looking, but I still don’t know why after all of the previous “monsters” that have washed up on beaches that were ultimately explained to be known animals people still insist on jumping right for the cryptozoological explanation.

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Yes, it’s another addition to the list of celebrity ghost stories. Apparently Miley Cyrus had some paranormal activity in her London apartment during her 2009 tour. I’m terrible at research, so does anyone know if she had been smoking marijuana back then? Also, this is not the first time the Cyrus family has been linked to the paranormal…or featured  on our blog (see here, here and here, where Billy Ray Cyrus was supposed to host a show on SyFy).

“A ghost? That’s pretty cool!”

The 20-year-old singer and her family rented an apartment in the English capital during her 2009 European tour but they had to move to a hotel after a number of ghostly encounters.

She told British Elle magazine: “It was seriously so terrifying. One night, my little sister — it sounds crazy to tell you — but she was standing in the shower and all of a sudden, I hear her scream. I run in there and the water had somehow flipped to hot but it was still … It wasn’t like the water had just changed, the knob had turned but she hadn’t turned it and it was burning her. She was really red.

“I thought I had seen a little boy sitting on the sink watching me take a shower so I felt really freaked out. I was sitting there the next night and maybe I’m crazy, but I could have sworn I could see this little boy sitting there on the sink, kicking his feet.”

The family later discovered the apartment was reportedly haunted and Miley has vowed never to stay there again.

She said: “We found out that there was this older man that owned it [the bakery that had once been in the building] and his son lived with him there, and I guess the wife died or something, she had gotten sick.

“So it was just the son and the dad that lived there in the bakery, and then the dad died and the son took over the bakery, and I thought I was seeing the son. I’m not even kidding.

“I had to move. That’s not a lie. I will never stay there ever again.”

I think it’s safe to say that ever since Ghost Hunters came on the air, any business that can charge admission of some kind is not “reportedly haunted.” Hell, it’s an easy way to make a buck, and all you have to do is make up some cliché, non-verifiable story, and the knuckleheads will eat it up and pay $200 to get in and investigate with 150 other knuckleheads. Like, totally seriously though, old faucets and valves can move on their own if they are old, broken,, and there’s enough water pressure. Like, totally.

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One of my favourite ghost stories relates to an enterprising Scot who immigrated across the pond to the US, finally ending up in Canada. Simon McTavish was a Highlander born around 1750. When he first arrived in the Americas, he spent several years living in New England, before ending his days in Montreal, Canada. In that time, he became a very successful fur trader, owner of the dominant North West Company.

Simon McTavish

By all accounts, McTavish was a colourful character, who kept the citizens of Montreal highly amused by his antics. An acknowledged hard worker, he also liked to enjoy himself. One of his favourite past-times was apparently either falling in love or being in love. He led quite a grand life, throwing large parties and enjoying good food. In 1793, he got the hang of the love game, marrying Marie-Marguerite Chaboillez, a local woman. They had six children, of whom four survived. McTavish promised his wife that he would built her a castle on top of Mount Royal, the grandest house in all of Montreal. But he died during its construction in 1805. His body was buried on the site in a mausoleum.

But McTavish did not rest easily in his tomb, and in fact went on to become the centre of one of Montreal’s biggest local legends. The story became so notorious, that it led to McTavish’s mausoleum being covered over. There are quite a few twists to the tale. Following his death, the grand house McTavish planned for his wife was never finished, and became known as the ‘haunted house on the hill’. People reported hearing the revelries of huge parties emanating from the house. Others said that the man himself could be seen dancing on the rooftop – maybe with or without a few accompanying fairies. Perhaps more unusual, and rather befitting for the ghost of an eccentric ex-pat Scot, his ghost could also be seen sitting upright in his coffin, sledging down the side of Mount Royal.

It goes that the abandoned construction of his castle after his wife left Montreal angered McTavish’s spirit, causing it to get up to such merry japes. His ghost was also said to be somewhat miffed when some grave robbing took place in the new cemetery in Mount Royal in 1870. An anatomy professor had employed some bodysnatchers to sort out a supply problem for his classes. The resurrection men were reportedly accompanied by McTavish sliding down the hill next to them in his coffin. McTavish’s tomb itself was also apparently broken into.

A few years ago, archaeologists began excavating Simon McTavish’s mausoleum. It’s not known if they had any coffin-sledging company from the other side…

Technorati Tags: canada, ghost, ghost hunting, ghost stories, ghost story, ghosts, great britain, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, haunting, humor, mount royal, new england, paranormal, people, scotland, Simon McTavish, supernatural, The Sledging Ghost, thoughts, UK

I’ll admit, I’m totally jealous of these two – they get to look for all the famous ghosts, while most of us are reduced to searching for the “normies.”  I suppose someone’s gotta do it though, and why not Robbie Williams and Meat Loaf? Also, can we just talk about how this article informally refers to Meat Loaf as just “Meat.” AWESOME.

Yeah…this kind of happened….

SUPERNATURAL nut ROBBIE WILLIAMS would do anything to spot ghosts and UFOs.

Now he’s got a new pal to help him do that – MEAT LOAF.

The pair have known each other for years and Meat is planning to take Rob on a hunt for CHARLIE CHAPLIN’s poltergeist.

He said: “Robbie should absolutely come ghost-hunting with me. There are so many places to go – we could head to the old A&M recording studios in LA. They think Charlie Chaplin’s down there.”

Meat, who starts his farewell tour in Newcastle on April 5, believes his body acts as a ghost doorway.

He said: “There are people they say are conduits, who are more open to it, and so this stuff’s been going on since I was a kid.

“I’ve seen my mother after she died and my grandmother. I talked to my mother, and she talked back.

“And I’m not crazy, but people would think, ‘He’s crazy’.”

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I’m not a big fan of psychics, and TV psychics in particular annoy me. I think it’s just too easy for these guys and gals to use their parlor tricks and have things edited to make them look accurate. Plus, I’m sure there’s hordes of producers feeding them information so that they appear “correct.” Derek Acorah is one of the most infamous offenders (perhaps beating only Chip Coffey), and it looks like he tried to contact Michael Jackson, but didn’t have enough time. Apparently, it takes a 2-hour TV special (with the appropriate check to go along with it, I’m sure) in order to hold a proper séance.

“I’m getting a word…it starts with an ‘F’…and ends with a…’raud!’

The Doctor Who bookazine isn’t the only SFX special to hit the newsstands today. There’s also our spooky Paranormal special, about which you can learn more here.

In it we interview UK TV’s premier medium, Derek Acorah, about chasing, angry spirits and séances with Michael Jackson, and he had something important he wanted to get off his chest about the last matter:

SFX: You conducted a séance recently with Michael Jackson that proved controversial…

Derek Acorah: “It shouldn’t have been controversial! I answered the call of a person who wanted me to do it, and I was glad to do it because I thought the world of Michael Jackson. But I wasn’t given enough time. All I had was 26 minutes out of an hour. It’s just not known to conduct a séance in under two hours. You’ve got to personally encourage a person to come into the atmosphere and then, when they feel okay, they’ll start conversing. Maybe we didn’t give all of what he wanted to say about the world. That wasn’t my fault. That was Sky TV’s fault. I told them that it needed a two-hour special. But you know what? There’s something going off quite soon. It appears that I’ll be doing a proper séance to make contact for longer with Michael, with his family’s approval. And I can’t wait.”

SFX: Is this for Sky again?

DA: “No. I know that it’s going to be covered by TV, but it’s more likely to be a shared project between an English network and American one. Unfortunately that’s all I can say about it at the moment…”

I just think it’s funny that these people claim to have super powers, but these “powers” only work when they are on TV and getting royalty checks. Where were these guys before September 11th? Or the Boston marathon attacks? Until someone can come forward and predict something before it happens, I’ll never be convinced that these guys are anything but hoaxers preying on the vulnerable and weak-minded.

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