5 Paranormal Events That Have Left Historians Baffled

Do these events have plausible explanations?

Listed below are five paranormal events that have baffled historians and opened the road to a new way of thinking.

Through the ages, stories of paranormal events have been told and retold, often with a nod and a wink implying that these tales are based on folklore or a misinterpretation of natural or otherwise explainable events. But sometimes events can’t be explained away with a simple explanation. They leave a profound impression on those who are exposed to them, puzzling scientists and skeptics and changing the perceptions of those who were once nonbelievers.

5. The Devil’s Footprints

The Devil's Footprints is one of many strange paranormal events that have left historians baffled.
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Early on February 8th, 1855, a strange sight awaited the residents of Devon County, England. Marring a fresh blanket of snow that had fallen during the night was a trail of unusual footprints. The trail stretched for more than 100 miles across fields, over walls, and on top of roofs, and they even crossed the River Exe. The prints themselves looked to have been made by a bipedal creature with cloven hooves. The tracks almost seemed to have burned through the snow. Each print was deep, almost reaching the frozen ground below.

Many people were understandably frightened by the appearance of the mysterious footprints. In some cases, the tracks led right up to the entrance of their homes, causing many individuals to cower indoors, fearing that the devil had made his way to Devon in search of sinners.

The footprints have never been explained, but numerous theories have been put forth in the search for a reasonable explanation. Some of the more popular theories include the possibility of a kangaroo having escaped from a private zoo, hopping wood mice, rain falling and then freezing in unusual shapes, a wandering badger, and a stray weather balloon dragging an anchor or instrument. All of these explanations fell short of a concrete answer to the appearance of the mysterious footprints. The distance the tracks traveled would have been very long for any of the animals mentioned and the freezing rain theory doesn’t explain why the tracks were so uniform and clean. As for the weather balloon theory, there were no reports of any balloons having been lost, and the probability of a balloon dragging an implement without snagging on a tree or chimney is very slim.



4. The Belmez Faces

The Belmez Faces is one of many strange paranormal events that have left historians baffled.
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When Maria Gomez Pereira saw that a stain was forming on the kitchen floor of her home in Belmez, Spain, she had no idea that it was the start of one of the most thoroughly documented paranormal events in recent history. The first stain came to her attention in August 1971. What started out as a small area of discoloration on the concrete floor soon turned into an image of a menacing face. No amount of scrubbing would remove the image, and eventually, Maria’s son and husband broke up the face with a pickaxe before re-cementing the floor. The face reappeared a week later and other faces appeared along with it. News quickly spread about the mysterious faces, and soon the curious began arriving at the house to see the strange phenomena.

Parapsychologists also arrived to catalog the activity and eventually the earth beneath the floor was excavated, where it is rumored that human skeletons were found. A new concrete floor was finally poured, with the hopes that the activity had come to a halt. Unfortunately, only two weeks passed before a completely new face began to appear. Over the next 30 years, the Pereira family continued to witness the appearance of both male and female faces in a variety of expressions and sizes, with hundreds of people continuing to visit out of curiosity and scientific interest.

The Pereira family encountered their fair share of skeptics, who thought that the whole thing was a hoax. They speculated that the images were created by the family with paint or some other chemical compound to attract visitors to their home for financial gain. Even after analysis of the concrete flooring, no definitive proof was produced that supported the presence of paint in the creation of the faces.

3. The Curse of Dudleytown

The Dudley Town curse is one of many strange paranormal events that have left historians baffled.
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Located just south of Cornwall Bridge in Connecticut, Dudleytown is an enigma that has intrigued parapsychologists, historians, and curiosity seekers for years. Numerous mysterious events are attributed to Dudleytown including ghost sightings, mysterious deaths, and a curse that traveled across the sea from England with the Dudley family.

Dudleytown was first settled by Thomas Griffis in the 1740s, with Gideon Dudley arriving sometime around 1753. He purchased land from Griffis and more members of the Dudley family soon arrived along with other families to unofficially establish the town. According to legend, the curse of the Dudleys originated with an ancestor of the family. Edmund Dudley was beheaded in 1510 for plotting against King Henry VII. A curse was placed on the Dudley family at that time, with the curse stating that the descendants of the Dudleys would all experience nothing but horror, pain, and death. The family then began experiencing a cruel run of bad luck that followed them to America.

The curse seemed to be running strong in Dudleytown. Several individuals who lived in Dudleytown went insane, including one of the Dudley brothers. A woman reportedly hung herself in 1872, claiming to have had visions of demons before she died. Other events that occurred in Dudleytown included a man who fell to his death during a barn raising, a lightning strike that killed another Dudleytown woman, and the disappearance of two children who were playing in the woods. Eventually, Dudleytown became a ghost town, but around 1900 Dr. William Clarke purchased the land and built a summer home. One weekend while vacationing there with his wife, Dr. Clarke was called away, leaving his wife there alone. When he returned a couple of days later, he found that his wife had gone insane, babbling about frightening creatures that had come out of the woods to attack her. She committed suicide a short time later.

Today the land is privately owned, and local law enforcement keeps a close eye on the property. Still, some paranormal investigators have managed to gain access to the land, and reports have been made of many eerie happenings including strange shadows, the sound of disembodied voices, orbs, cold spots, and other unusual happenings. Apparently, the mystery of Dudleytown continues on.

 

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