The Disappearance of the Yamagamis

January 11, 2016February 2, 2016 / Tristan / 4 Comments

The Yamagami family, composed of 58-year-old Masahiro, 52-year-old Junko, 26-year-old Chie, and 79-year-old Saegusa, went missing from their home in Sera, Japan in June 2001.

On June 4, 2001, 52-year-old Junko Yamagami was scheduled to take a business trip to Dalian, China for the travel company she worked for. Before leaving, she was also supposed to attend a meeting. By noon, after Junko hadn’t shown up to her office or gotten on board her plane, her colleagues began to get worried. They checked her house, where she lived with her husband Masahiro and mother-in-law Saegusa, but nobody appeared to be home. The family dog and Masahiro’s car were gone too.

The Yamagamis’ daughter, a 26-year-old elementary school teacher named Chie, was also missing. She lived alone in an apartment in near-by Takehara city, but came over to visit her parents the night before. Chie was the last member of the family anybody had seen. At 9:30 PM, she picked up some make-up from a colleague and then headed for her parents’ home in the small mountain town of Sera. The Yamagamis’ neighbors heard a car door close at 10:50 PM. Either this had come from Chie after coming home, or it was the sound of the Yamagamis leaving. None of the neighbors were sure. Whatever it was, the family’s newspaper deliveryman reported that the car was missing when he came around 4:00-5:00 AM.

Masahiro Yamagami’s car was also missing.

The Yamagamis’ front door was locked, but the back door was open. Nothing in the house appeared to be disturbed. The kitchen light was left on, all of the beds were made, and breakfast had been prepared. As ordinary as the scene appeared, however, there were a couple of strange details. The Yamagamis’ pajamas were missing, and while their shoes had been left behind, their sandals were gone. Junko’s luggage and the 150,000 yen she needed for her trip were also inside the house, and so was Masahiro’s pager. It seemed that the Yamagamis suddenly dropped whatever they were doing, took the family dog, and quietly left the house in their pajamas and sandals.

A year into the investigation, the case seemed to be going nowhere. The Yamagamis had good reputations, and weren’t involved with any particularly shady or dangerous people. Masahiro did have some money problems, but it wasn’t serious enough to leave town. To some of their neighbors, the Yamagamis’ strange disappearance reminded them of an old story from Edo times. A female servant was said to have gone into the mountains one day and then disappeared. All the townpeople tried looking for her, but she was never found.

Chie Yamagami and the family dog, Leo.

On September 7, 2002, police recovered a car that was found submerged in a reservoir. The car contained the bodies of the four Yamagamis and their dog. No cause of death could be determined, but there were also no signs of anybody being attacked or bruised. Because Masahiro was in the driver’s seat, police believed that it was a murder-suicide or group suicide.

Now the suicide theory does seem credible; after all, why else would they have taken their dog? But the apparent suddenness of how the Yamagamis left strikes me as suspicious. If Masahiro really did kill everybody, how did he manage (or threaten) to convince the other family members to get in the car? Especially when they were getting ready to eat breakfast? Or did somebody force them to leave? Might they have been trying to get away from somebody, and Masahiro accidentally drove into the water?

This case just makes my head spin. It’s a shame that there isn’t much information online about it. According to a poster on this message board, citing a Chinese newspaper, the Yamagamis’ car was found in a neutral state. Masahiro’s window was down, and everybody was wearing their seat-belt. The Yamagamis’ clothes were so damaged that the authorities couldn’t determine whether they were wearing pajamas. Some glasses and an umbrella were also found. Other users brought up a local rumor that Junko was having an affair, arguing that it really was a suicide of some sort.

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6 Creepy Unsolved Japanese Murders

October 23, 2015September 20, 2016 / Tristan / 10 Comments

I’ve noticed that my posts about Japan receive a lot more traffic than I usually get, so I’ve decided I’m going to embark on a series of lists about unsolved Japanese murders. Most of the cases that will be featured here have never appeared in English media before. Some of them are quite obscure, but I’ve tried to find as much relevant information that I could.

6. The Haga Futon Bag Murder

Police sketch of a man found inside a futon bag in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture. (Image source/credit here.)

On April 21, 1996, while coming home from school, a group of junior high school students were looking through a bamboo grove in the Haga district of Tochigi Prefecture when they noticed a barely-closed futon bag. The kids had seen the bag laying there for almost a month, and curious about what might be inside, one of them poked it with a stick. A human hand then drooped out. The bag, it turned out, contained the body of a middle-aged man.

According to the autopsy, the man had been dead about a month when his body was discovered. He was bruised on his waist, and some of his front teeth were missing. He appeared to be between the ages of 40 and 50. The man was about 5 foot 11, and weighed 150 pounds. He had an O blood type. His clothes consisted of a dark blue jacket, a gray shirt with a green tie, and a gray pair of paints.

Investigators found the surname “Yamamoto” written on the bottom side of the tag of his pants, and the Japanese word for “next” on the other side. Despite these mysterious messages, the man has never been identified. In 2010, a sign was put up on the spot where the unidentified man’s body was found. Police hope that it might someday lead to his identification.

5. The Murder of Yoko Yoshida

Picture of Yoko Yoshida from when she was a high school student. (Image source/credit here.)

On September 29, 2000, around 1 PM, a census taker collecting information in a Tokyo apartment complained to management about a room that had a terrible smell coming from it. When management sent a janitor to check the room out, he found that the door was unlocked. Inside, he found the body of the woman who was living there, a 28-year-old manga artist named Yoko Yoshida.

Yoshida, who lived alone, was laying on her back on her bed, wearing only a t-shirt. As the autopsy determined, Yoshida had been strangled to death. She had been dead for at least 10 days by the time her body was discovered. Her room showed no signs of disarray and nothing appeared to have been taken. 3 million yen and a receipt from a convenience store dated September 18th were found in her purse and wallet.

Pictures of Yoko Yoshida and the apartment she was staying at. (Image source/credit here.)

Police suspect that Yoshida had known her killer, and since she was a manga artist, some suggest that she was killed by a crazed fan. Yoshida had been active in the dojinshi (self-publishing) community since she graduated high school. Her killer might very well have been somebody she knew, but police have never been able to find any shady acquaintances or witnesses.

4. The Murder of Kaori Hirohata

The site where Kaori Hirohata’s body was discovered. (Image source/ credit here.)

On June 24, 2013, a member of a parking cleaning staff found the body of a middle-aged woman lying in a bush outside an apartment complex in Narashino city in Chiba Prefecture. Her belongings were found scattered around her body. Her ID identified her as Kaori Hirohata, a resident of the complex who hadn’t been seen since the day before. Although Hirohata participated in a local community event that day, she never showed up to work that evening.

According to the autopsy results, Hirohata had been choked to death. Her upper body also showed marks of being beaten. Since Hirohata’s purse was found to be empty, the motive appeared to have been robbery. Her body was very lazily hidden, with her feet visibly sticking out of a bush. It’s likely she was dragged to the location from somewhere else.

A model of what Kaori Hirohata was dressed like the day she died.

If Hirohata really was the victim of a robbery, one has to wonder why the killer used his bare hands? Interestingly, the spot where she was found was part of her commune to work. Hirohata’s killer might have known her schedule. For information that could lead to the killer’s arrest, police are currently offering a reward of 3 million yen.

3. The Murder of the Sunamis

A policeman handing out flyers about the Sunami murders.

A policeman handing out flyers about the murder of Haruhiko and Midori Sunami. (Image source/credit here.)

On the morning of April 28, 1995, around 2:30 AM, a house in Kurashiki Kojima had been set on fire. Authorities discovered two bodies on the first floor, the remains of 70-year-old Haruhiko Sunami and his 67-year-old wife Midori. Both had been decapitated. Haruhiko also had a knife lodged into his stomach, and later evaluation of Midori found that she had been stabbed in the chest and several other spots. They are believed to have died the previous night, sometime between 5 PM and 9 PM.

Because the fire destroyed much of the house and subsequently any evidence that might have been found there, authorities have had little clues to lead them to the Sunamis’ killer. Police thought their killing might have been the result of a dispute, but this was never established. The killer might have been familiar with the house, or at least had been in it before.

For whatever reason, the killer was in the Sunamis’ house for at least 5 hours after he killed them. Could he have been looking for something? And why did he think it necessary to cut off the Sunamis’ heads, neither of which have turned up in the 20 years since the murder occurred?

2. The Murder of Makiko Tsuchiyama

Picture of the city of Higashi-osaka. (Image source/credit here.)

On November 21, 1984, around 2:10 PM, a 2-year-old girl named Makiko Tsuchiyama was found fallen on her face in a drainage ditch in an alley behind her home in Higashi-osaka city. Makiko was unconscious, and her neck seemed as though it had been strangled with a cord. Although she was rushed to the hospital, Makiko died 9 hours after being taken there.

The fact that Makiko had been playing outside by herself wasn’t unusual in the neighborhood, since other children and mothers were often outside too. Nobody, however, had seen Makiko’s murderer. Eerily, Makiko had been found unconscious on the same spot a month earlier. She had been strangled that time too, with the marks of a string around her neck. Unlike the second time, she had regained consciousness shortly after being taken to the hospital.

Immediately after this first incident, Makiko’s grandfather received a strange phone call from an unidentified woman. The woman was crying hard and speaking incomprehensibly. He tried talking to her for 2 minutes before she suddenly said “I’m sorry” and hung up. Makiko’s grandfather had not yet heard about Makiko’s incident, and thought the woman had gotten the wrong number. For the next few days, he received several more unexplained phone calls. Every time he answered, he heard only silence on the other end.

Police originally thought the first incident was an accident. They concluded that Makiko had gotten her neck hooked around a vinyl strap that had been attached to the door of her house. After Makiko died, however, they decided to launch a criminal investigation. It was strange that Makiko had been found in the alley, since she had refused to go anywhere near it since the first incident. Since there were no scratches on her face, it was suspected that somebody lured Makiko away and then strangled her in a different location. In the 30 years since Makiko’s death, neither her killer or the mysterious woman who called her grandfather have been identified.

1. The Murder of the Miyazawas

A picture of the Miyazawa family. (Image source/credit here.)

On the morning of December 31, 2000, a relative of the Miyazawa family in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward found father Mikio, his wife Yasuko, their daughter Niina, and their son Rei dead in their home. While Rei had been strangled in his bedroom, the other three members of the family had been stabbed to death in two different parts of the house.

The Setagaya police offering prayers at the Miyazawa home. (Image source/credit here.)

Authorities speculate that the killer had gotten into the home from a bathroom window on the second floor of the house around 11:30 PM. He went into Rei’s room and strangled him as he slept. Mikio was found on the first floor near the staircase, possibly coming up the stairs after he heard the intruder making noise. The female Miyazawas were killed next.

A publicity campaign by the police to bring awareness about the Miyazawa murders. (Image source credit here.)

A publicity campaign by the Setagaya police to bring awareness about the Miyazawa murders. (Image source/credit here.)

The killer then ransacked the family’s house and stayed there for about 10 hours. He went into the kitchen and took some food from the fridge, and then used the family’s computer for a while. None of the money in the house was taken, but some New Year’s cards were missing. A knife the killer left behind was found, along with a shirt and bag. Additionally, blood was found at the scene that didn’t belong to any of the Miyazawas. After more than 15 years, police have had few clues to catch the Miyazawas’ killer. There is currently a reward of 20 million yen being offered to anybody who could give information that would lead to the killer’s identification.

Be sure to check out more creepy Japanese mysteries in my e-book, 20 Unsolved Mysteries of Japan, available on Amazon for Kindle.

The Black Magic Murders of Ahmad Suradji

October 1, 2015October 1, 2015 / Tristan / Leave a comment

Picture of Ahmad Suradji. (Image source/credit here.)

Ahmad Suradji, also known as Nasib Kelewang, was a self-proclaimed black magic master who ritualistically killed 42 women and girls over an 11 year period.

A cattle breeder by trade, he lived in Medan, in West Java, Indonesia, where many women would make the journey to his house seeking guidance and assistance in matters of health, love and finance.

Suradji would generally charge between $200-$300 for his services, with most of his female clients longing to be wealthy or attractive and some asking him to perform black magic rituals to keep their significant others from cheating. As a Dukun, or Shaman, they believed, just as the vast majority of the Indonesian population does, that black magic could help them.

Ahmad Suradji on trial. (Image source/credit here.)

A revered position, many Dukuns make a living with this occupation, and although primarily healers, they are used for a variety of reasons; some are exorcists, some perform blessings on new businesses, and farm lands and on individuals, and some can see the future through spirits. Some Dukuns even offer a darker service of casting curses and hexes and spells for revenge.

Suradji was something of a sorcerer, and between the years of 1986 – 1997 he murdered 42 of his clients in ritual slayings that he believed would ultimately make him more powerful.

Inspired by a dream he had in 1988, in which his deceased father visited him, Suradji would lead the woman and girls out to a sugar cane plant on the outskirts of Medan, and bury them up to their waists in earth before strangling them with a cord. Once dead, he would strip the bodies of the women naked and bury them facing in the direction of his house.As instructed by his father in the dream, he would also consume the victim’s saliva.

His objective was to kill 70 victims in this way, but he was caught at just over half way through his mission at confirmed victim number 42, after the discovery of a body, later identified as Sri Kemala Dewi, by a local man at the sugar cane plantation.

Picture of Ahmad Suradji. (Image source/credit here.)

Investigators found clothing linked to over 20 women who had been reported as missing in and around the local area. All of the victims were between the ages of 11-39 years old. If Suradji was running low on clientele, it was said that he would also kill local sex workers to get closer to his goal.

Despite the official recorded body count of 42 victims, it is possible that the actual number could be almost double that.

Suradji was convicted, along with one of his three wives (all sisters) who had helped him hide the bodies.

Despite protests by Amnesty International, he was executed by firing squad in 2008.

This article originally appeared on Real Life is Horror, a blog about the unexplained, the creepy, and the unsolved. It has been reposted with the author’s permission.

The 6 Foot Tall Monkey on a Skateboard that Terrorized New Delhi in the Summer of 2001

August 21, 2015 / Tristan / 1 Comment

Sketches of the monkey-man. Source: cryptomundo.com.

In April 2001, three men in the Indian city of Ghaziabad reported being attacked by a monkey while they were asleep. While the first two attacks had happened while the victims were laying on their terraces outside, the third attack occurred in the inside of a building. As the attacks increased, the monkey took on a stranger appearance, with one woman claiming he had glowing light bulbs on his back. Panic broke out across the city, and when rumors began to spread that police had arrested a “monkey man” on April 10th, a crowd gathered in front of the police station and demanded to see it.

After only a month passed, sightings of the monkey-man spilled over into the near-by city of New Delhi. The creature seemed to prey entirely on the poor, visiting their neighborhoods late at night and mauling people who happened to be sleeping on their rooftops. Eyewitness descriptions varied widely, with some claiming that the monster was a four foot tall monkey covered in black fur, while others said it was a six foot tall monkey-like creature that wore clothing and had the face of a man. He had everything from an astronaut helmet to a skateboard to the ability to jump from roof to roof without leaving a single footprint behind.

Source: tribuneindia.com.

Hysteria erupted whenever somebody shouted out that they saw the monkey-man. Three people, including a pregnant woman, died while attempting to escape him, and there were two other incidents in which angry mobs almost killed men suspected of being the monkey-man because one was four foot tall and the other carried a motorcycle helmet. Vigilante groups, feeling the police weren’t doing enough, patrolled the streets themselves.

The police, however, treated the existence of the monkey-man seriously, even releasing sketches of eyewitness reports. 3,000 officers were dispatched to the case, instructed to shoot-on-sight. A special task force was assembled and given special vehicles to pursue a monster that could allegedly run and jump at top speed. A reward of the equivalent of $1,000 was even offered to anybody who could help catch the monkey-man.

A Japanese monkey-man toy. Image source: mediacomtoytv.com.

Meanwhile, Sanal Edamaruku of the Indian Rationalist Association began to investigate and interview witnesses. He found that many of the sightings were inconsistent, some portraying the monkey-man as a phantom monster, others as a sci-fi robot. The scratches and wounds on victims touted around the media as proof turned out to be small and non-serious, caused by mosquito bites and laying on traditional Indian beds. The victims he interviewed didn’t show signs of trauma, but of excitement. The monkey-man, as it soon emerged, was nothing more than mass hysteria.

The reports of sightings and attacks stopped as quickly as they started, and life in the city returned to normal by the end of the summer. A movie inspired by the incident, Delhi-6, was released in February 2009.

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The Werewolf of Bedburg

August 17, 2015 / Tristan / 4 Comments

Woodcut print of Peter Stubbe’s execution.

As the Cologne War raged in the Electorate of Cologne from 1583 to 1588, the rural town of Bedburg was plagued with a streak of mysterious murders and animal mutilations. Children who went missing soon turned up dead in the fields, and people began to report seeing a strange wolf-like creature.

In one of the few incidents that left a survivor, the monstrous wolf attacked a group of children playing in a meadow. The wolf carried off one of the little girls, but the children’s cries attracted the attention of some near-by cows suckling their calves. Fearing for the lives of their young, the cows with their sharp horns came running to the rescue, and the wolf dropped the girl and took off.

After years of trying to search and trap the beast, some hunters stumbled upon it and let their dogs loose to chase it. When the hunters caught up with their dogs, however, they found that they had caught something entirely different. It was not a wolf, but a local farmer named Peter Stubbe.

The hunters were terribly confused. Peter Stubbe was a wealthy and well-respected man in their community. At first, they were afraid that their captive was the Devil. They went to Stubbe’s house to see if he was there, and when they discovered that Stubbe was missing, were then assured that they had the right man. They turned him over to the authorities, and Stubbe was tortured on the rack until he made a confession.

Stubbe admitted that he was the wolf that had been terrorizing the town. He said that he could transform into a wolf by putting on a magical belt that the Devil had given him when he was 12-years-old. His list of crimes was vast and gut-wrenching. Besides killing lambs and eating their raw flesh, he admitted to murdering 13 young children and 2 pregnant women. He even tore the fetuses out of the women’s wombs, and “ate their hearts panting hot and raw.”

If this wasn’t horrific enough, Stubbe also said he regularly committed incest with his teenage daughter Beele. They had a little boy, but Stubbe killed him and ate his brain. His mistress, a tall and beautiful woman named Katherine Trompin, participated in the bloodshed as well. Beele and Trompin were arrested and charged as accomplices, and the three were sentenced to death on October 28^th, 1589.

Three days later, Trompin and Beele were burned at the stake. Stubbe was first laid on the wheel, and then had flesh pulled off his body in 10 different places with hot burning pincers. After that, his arms and legs were broken with a wooden axe, and then he had his head chopped off. As a final punishment, his body was burned and his head was placed on a pike.

More woodcuts of Peter Stubbe.

Most of what he know about Stubbe (whose name has also been given as Stumpp, Stumpf, and Stube) comes from a London pamphlet that was printed in June 1590. The pamphlet, which takes the claims of Stubbe being a werewolf seriously, was translated from a now lost German source. While we don’t exactly know how true the pamphlet is, Stubbe was certainly a real person, and his case was mentioned in the diaries of a local city councilor named Hermann von Weinsberg.

There is the possibility that Stubbe was innocent, a victim of religious prejudice. The Cologne War was a conflict fought between Catholics and Protestants, and even though the war was over by the time Stubbe was caught, tensions remained high. In a region that was overwhelmingly Catholic, Stubbe was Protestant. If he really was the killer, he probably suffered from schizophrenia. The reports of a werewolf might have stemmed from hysteria, or Stubbe possibly wore a wolf’s skin while committing his crimes. In any event, the authorities never found the magical belt he claimed to have possessed.

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20 Classic Woodblock Prints of Japanese Ghosts and Monsters

August 17, 2015August 18, 2015 / Tristan / 1 Comment

This is a gallery of 20 Japanese woodblock prints depicting yūrei (ghosts) and yōkai (monsters). Most of these were made in the 19th century. The name of each artist is listed below the respective print.

20. “The Sailor Tokuso and the Sea Monster.” A sailor encountering an umibozu, a sea spirit that destroys and drowns any boat that it comes across. They are said to be the souls of drowned monks.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

19. “The Ghost Oiwa.” A character from the kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan. Oiwa committed suicide and then returned from the grave to haunt her husband.

Katsushika Hokusai.

18. “The Ghosts of Togo and His Wife” shows the ghosts of two peasants harassing their samurai lord.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

17. “Various Yokai Flying out of Wicker Clothes Hamper.”

Omoi Tsuzura.

16. The Yuki-onna (Snow Woman) kills people who are stuck in snowstorms by freezing them to death with her icy breath.

Sawaki Suushi.

15. “Ashinaga and Tenaga Fishing.” The yokai with the long arms is an Ashinaga-jin, and the one with the long legs is a Tenaga-jin.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

14. “Okiku the Well Ghost.” Okiku was a servant girl who was thrown into a well by her master.

Katsushika Hokusai.

13. The ghost of Kohada Koeiji, a man who was killed by his wife and her lover. In this scene, he is hiding in a mosquito netting while watching his killers get into bed.

Katsushika Hokusai.

12. “A Ghost Appears to Kingo Chunagon.” Encounter of a ghost by late 16th century samurai Kingo Chunagon.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.

11. “Child’s Nightmare of Ghosts.”

Kitagawa Utamaro.

10. “Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre.” Takiyasha was a 10th century princess whose rebellious father was killed by the emperor. In this scene, Takiyasha has summoned a giant skeleton to fight imperial officials.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

9. I’m not sure about the title of this one, but the man is the immortal sage Gama-Sennin. The giant toad is Gama’s companion, and they’re watching some other toads fight.

Utagawa Yoshitora.

8. “Oiwa the Lantern Ghost.” Another depiction of the ghost featured in entry 19#.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

7. Print from Kuniyoshi’s “Bakemono Chunshingura” series, a monster adaptation of a popular play about the 47 Ronin.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

6. Depiction of a scene from the kabuki play “Ume no hara gojusan tsugi”.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

5. “The Priest Raigo of Mii Temple Transformed By Wicked Thoughts into a Rat.”

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.

4. “The Woman Shizunome Oyaku.”

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.

3. “The Ghost of Kamata Matahachi.” This is a scene from the 1855 kabuki play “True Record of the Famous Song for Hand-balls”. The male ghost is Kamata Matahachi, and the female ghost behind him is Kikuno. They had both heard about a love affair the main character Mari Yashiro had, so Yashiro killed them.

Utagawa Kunisada.

2. A print of tengu and other demon masks.

Utagawa Kunisada.

1. “The Laughing Demon.”

Katsushike Hokusai.

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15 Creepy Pictures from the Japanese Side of the Internet

August 15, 2015March 12, 2016 / Tristan / 5 Comments

15. A festival in Tochigi Prefecture.

14. Decapitated heads work just as well as traditional scarecrows.

13. Kids making poses.

12. GHOST CAT, DEAR GOD.

11. No idea where this thing is.

10. These little kids are holding up tengu masks, a kind of Japanese demon.

9. I never thought watermelon could be so terrifying.

8. Three people died in a car accident here. That’s supposedly the face of a ghost.

7. Your guess is as good as mine.

6. H’m, there’s just something about putting creepy faces on inanimate objects.

5. Now here’s a gritty reboot I’d like to see.

4. Some sort of ball of light hovering over a graveyard

3. A life-sized doll dressed in a kimono.

2. She seems happy.

1. Some photoshops should just never be done. (EDIT: A reader has pointed out to me that this is actually face paint. My bad!)

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The Jiangshi, a Vampire Zombie that Moves by Hopping

August 13, 2015August 13, 2015 / Tristan / Leave a comment

The jiangshi, meaning “stiff corpse”, is a monster from Chinese folklore somewhat similar to Western vampires and zombies. There are several different ways a person can become a jiangshi, and while they are usually dead beforehand, some living people can turn into jiangshi after being bitten or attacked by one. People who commit suicide, aren’t buried after death, or whose corpses become possessed by malicious spirits can all become jiangshi. Daoist priests can also reanimate the dead and turn them into jiangshi.

A jiangshi from the 1985 Mr. Vampire movie.

Jiangshi tend to vary in appearance, an individual jiangshi’s looks depending on how exactly long it had been dead. Some that had just recently died look like ordinary human beings, while others that had died a long time ago look just like rotting corpses. All of them are known, however, for their peculiar way of movement. Because of rigor mortis, a jiangshi’s arms and legs are very stiff, so they’re forced to hop and keep their arms stretched forward to grab victims easier.

Another scene from Mr. Vampire. These jiangshi were put to sleep by a Daoist priest.

In popular culture, especially in Hong Kong movies, they are usually depicted with claw-like fingernails, greenish-white skin, and wide open mouths. They wear the uniform of a Qing official, the period of Chinese history (1644-1912) when the Han Chinese were ruled by the Manchu.

A man wearing a Qing-era costume.

Jiangshi avoid the sun, and because they’re afraid of rooster calls, rest in caves or coffins during the day. Once night-time comes around, they emerge from their hiding places and look for victims whose life force they can suck up. There are many ways a jiangshi can be defeated, including showing them their reflection in a mirror, setting them on fire, or throwing the blood of a black dog on them.

The word “jiangshi” has been used in Chinese literature as early as the time of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), but this early usage referred to a corpse. By the time of the Qing, it had come to denote a supernatural reanimated corpse. Jiangshi stories were quite popular during the Qing-era, and their conventional costume might be a reinforcement of anti-Manchu backlash.

An illustration showing what the method of “transporting a corpse over 1000 li” looked like.

The source of the jiangshi monster might have come from the practice of “transporting a corpse over a thousand li”, a common method of moving dead bodies in the region of Xiangxi. Dying away from home was considered a very big deal in traditional China, and families who were too poor to afford transportation to bring back a relative who died in a far away location would buy the services of “corpse walkers”. Corpse walkers, typically a team of two men, would tie corpses upright upon long bamboo rods that were carried horizontally. When seen from far away, because the rods would bump up and down, the corpses looked like they were hopping. This practice was often done at night, to avoid seeing people and because it was cooler outside.

The “Death to Pedophiles” Skull

August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 / Tristan / 2 Comments

Antibes, France.

On February 10, 2012, a professional diver looking for sea urchins off the resort of Antibes in southeastern France found something far grislier: a human skull. The skull, which was discovered on a seabed that was 10 meters (32 feet) deep into the water, had the words “Death to pedophiles” drawn on it, along with the scribbling of a shooting target.

The diver called the police, and several more dives in the area turned up a pair of arm bones, a leg bone, and part of a jawbone. Forensic tests determined that the bones had belonged to four different people, two men and two women. The skull was estimated to have been that of a 50-year-old man, and the rest of the bones, which were difficult to examine, might have come from people under the age of 30. It’s possible that the bones had been underwater for over a decade.

One of the discovered arm bones.

Authorities have launched an inquiry into cases of murder, kidnapping, imprisoning, and taking and receiving corpses. It’s believed that the bones belonged to the victims of a serial killer. Stephane Bourgoin, a criminologist and expert on serial killers, has suggested that the murderer lives in the area or knows it well.

Stephane Hirson.

Through further DNA tests, one of the arm bones was eventually identified as belonging to Stephane Hirson, a 17-year-old teenager from Paris who went missing shortly before his 18^th birthday in February 1994. Hirson, who suffered from mental problems and had spent time in a psychiatric hospital, left his house without any money or personal belongings.

Some family members, however, were skeptical. One relative said in an interview with French radio that Hirson had no reason to be in southern France, and he had earlier told his mother that he was planning to go to Spain. Another DNA test was conducted, this time from the young man’s father, and the results determined that the bone wasn’t Hirson’s after all.

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The 1965 Maurice Masse UFO Incident

August 9, 2015August 9, 2015 / Tristan / Leave a comment

Maurice Masse.

On July 1, 1965, at approximately 6 AM, Maurice Masse was getting ready for work on his farm in Valensole, France when he heard a strange noise coming from his lavender field. Masse assumed it was one of the military helicopters that would sometimes land on his property. Worried that the helicopter might be crushing his lavender, he made his way over to the field and intended to tell the pilot to park someplace else. Rather than a helicopter, however, Masse stumbled upon an egg-shaped vehicle about the size of a car. It stood on six thin legs, sitting about 200 feet away from him. He noticed two small boys, about four feet tall, standing near the craft, apparently observing the lavender.

Picture by Michael Buhler of the Maurice Masse UFO encounter.

As Masse began to walk closer to confront them, he realized that the two figures weren’t boys. They weren’t even human. Dressed in green one-piece suits, the creatures had abnormally large and bald heads, no lips, pointed chins, pale skin, and small hands. One of the creatures suddenly turned around and pointed a small tube at Masse, blasting him with a light that paralyzed him. They stared at Masse for about a minute, communicating with one another by low, guttural grunts. A door then slid open across the craft, and the two mysterious beings disappeared into it. After the door closed, the craft took off into the sky, out of Masse’s sight.

Masse was paralyzed for 15 minutes before he could move again. After checking to inspect the marks the craft’s legs had made on his lavender, he rushed to town and told a cafe owner what had happened. It wasn’t long before the story hit the media and authorities, and Masse’s farm soon became infested with tourists. UFO investigators took samples of the lavender and soil allegedly touched by the craft, and Masse freely talked to them about his experience.

Picture of where the craft is said to have landed.

He said that he wasn’t afraid at all during the encounter and paralysis, and believed that the creatures had no desire to hurt him. Masse did, however, refuse to elaborate on the psychological and physical effects he felt afterward. He did admit to feeling extremely sleepy during the first few weeks, sometimes sleeping up to 12 hours a day. In particular, there was one big detail of the encounter that he refused to discuss with anybody.“Nobody will make me tell it,” he is reported as saying. His wife later said in an interview that he constantly thought about the creatures, and “considered his encounter with them a spiritual experience”. Whatever else he saw, Masse took it to the grave with him, dying on May 14^th, 2004.

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Sources:

https://books.google.com/books?id=w5giAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA133&dq=maurice+masse+ufo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEgQ6AEwB2oVChMIosP4q5qbxwIVQ1c-Ch3yHQ9a#v=onepage&q=maurice%20masse%20ufo&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=c9zABAAAQBAJ&pg=PT61&dq=maurice+masse+ufo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBmoVChMIosP4q5qbxwIVQ1c-Ch3yHQ9a#v=onepage&q=maurice%20masse%20ufo&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=OBAFLYcVQ_gC&pg=PT68&dq=maurice+masse+ufo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIosP4q5qbxwIVQ1c-Ch3yHQ9a#v=onepage&q=maurice%20masse%20ufo&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=BnQU2Q65lWsC&pg=PA39#v=onepage&q&f=false