By Kathy Murray
C is for…
CALVADOS CASTLE
This French castle was the setting of some serious poltergeist activity in the 1870s. The husband/father kept a diary, making sure he wrote down every detail of the ordealhis familywent though. An entry is as follows: “At 2 A.M. some being rushed at top speed up the stairs from the entrance hall to the first floor, along the passage, and up to the second floor, with a loud noise of tread which had nothing human about it. Everybody heard it. It was like two legs deprived of their feet and walking on the stumps. Then we heard numerous loud blows on the stairs and the door of the green room.” After a year of this, and other haunting occurrences, the family left the castle.
CAULD LAD OF HYLTON
In 1609,Lord RobertHylton is said to have stabbed a stable boy with a pitchfork and then disposed of the body in a pond. The boy’s ghostthen started hauntingHylton Castle(which is now desertedinEngland). For those who don’tknow, “cauld” is another word for cold. Theyoung man’s spirit became known as the CauldLad because his spirit would cry out that he was cold and needed warmth. People living and working in the castle would enterrooms to find that someone had taken still warm ashes from the fireplace, spread them on the floorand lain on top of them, leaving an outline of a body behind.
CH’IANG SHICH
In China, it’s thought that if you leave a corpse unburied for any amount of time, evil spirits may invade the body. These spirits will animate the corpse at nighttime and hunt the living. When the sun rises, the spirits will leave or become trapped,and the body will stop moving.
CHUPACABRA
No witnesses can quite agree on just what the Chupacabra looks like. Some say it resembles a reptile, while others say it looks like a mix between a large rat and a dog. But what is agreed on is thatit attacks farm animals and sucks their blood. Reports of Chupacabra violence have come in from North, Central and South America. The Chupacabra is very elusive and not recognized as an animal by scientists or wildlife researchers. This leaves many to believe it’s actually some sort ofalien.
CRYPTOZOOLOGY
The study of creatures whose existence has yet to be confirmed. Some of these creatures include, but are not limited to, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Mothman, the Jersey Devil and the Chupacabra.