Folklore

Pawn Shop What-Is-It?

Please click on this image for a larger view of this thing. What is this? What could this be? This is a body of what Dave’s Pawn Shop claims to be a Chupacabras in a display case at the downtown El Paso, Texas shop. What do you think it might be? It does sound as if the shop has a number of gaffs, including mummified FeeJee mermaids, a supposedly shrunken head, and Pancho Villa’s alleged trigger finger. Is this one different? Is it a Chupacabras, as indicated in an article from the El Paso Times? Could this mummified body be [...]

Maine’s Mystery Moose

‘Mystery Moose’ on the loose This big fella’s made headlines for 100 years – a walking enigma or one tall tale? Antlers 10 feet across. A hide so thick it stops bullets. White. Surly. Elusive. The sight of him is so frightening, he once scared a bicyclist up a tree. So intriguing, the stars of Sci-Fi Channel’s “Ghost Hunters” gave Maine’s “Mystery Moose” a four-page spread in their spin-off magazine. It’s a 2,500-pound enigma that’s maybe roamed the woods here for 100-plus years. A little extra attention might just drum up more sightings, and some answers, said Loren Coleman, a [...]

The Batman Of Cave Creek

It’s just one of those interesting little stories that we looked into but we couldn’t find anyone.Sgt. Mark Clark, Scottsdale Police Department In these days of Homeland Security alerts and school shootings, reports of what I sometimes like to call “Fortean Critters” – like the Bunnyman mentioned yesterday – are being treated much differently than they were 50 years ago. Fear drives today’s reports, that’s for sure. For example, take the bizarre events from Valentine’s Day, 2007, coming out of Arizona. Three schools in the north Phoenix suburb of Cave Creek were on lockdown for about 45 minutes on the [...]

American Dime Museum Closes – Part I

We’re losing another great piece of Baltimore personality. It was esoteric and great and hilarious and very fitting for this city. Maybe it was just too good to be accepted by enough people. – John Waters, Baltimore filmmaker and director of Pink Flamingos Photo credit: Barbara Matteson. A tradition eight years in the making based on wonders, gaffs, and sideshow fakery going back hundreds of years is closing. The American Dime Museum first opened in Baltimore in 1999, but has gone the way of many such sites. The cost of keeping it open has become too much. It is no [...]