In June 1947, several ships in the Strait of Malacca, which is located between Sumatra and Malaysia, reported receiving distress signals from an unknown ship. The messages said “All officers including captain are dead, lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This communication was followed by a burst of indecipherable Morse code, then a final message: “I die.”
The signal was picked up by two American ships as well as American and Dutch listening posts. They were able to triangulate the source of the signal and found that it was likely coming from a Dutch freighter, the Ourang Medan. One of the American ships, the Silver Star, was the closest to the source of the message, so it changed course to investigate. It spotted the Ourang floating in the distance, but as they approached, they saw no signs of life.
They boarded the ship to find the entire crew dead, littered about the deck and cabins with wide eyes and a frozen expression of extreme fear on their faces. Many had their arms extended as if reaching out for something. Even the ships dog was dead, it’s face twisted into a snarl.
4. Caroline Walter – A Mystery Of Eternal Love
In 1867, Caroline Walker was living in Freiburg, Germany with her older sister and her sister’s husband. Tragedy struck when she contracted tuberculosis and died in early summer. Her sister was stricken by the sudden death and wanted a memorial to commemorate her sister. She had a life sized and lifelike memorial created as the grave. It is a sculpture of Caroline in bed, looking as through she had just drifted off to sleep.
It was placed against the outer wall of the Alter Friedhof cemetery. Soon after the funeral, Caroline’s sister noticed that the wilting flowers had been replaced. Every time she visited the grave after that, there were fresh flowers under Caroline’s arm. This has continued on every day since 1876, nearly 150 years and 50,000 flowers later. Anyone who would have known Caroline would be long dead. Yet, the flowers continue.
3. The Disappearance Of Sodder Children
On Christmas Eve 1945, George and Jennie Solder and 9 of their children went to sleep in their home in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Around 1 am, a fire broke out. George and Jennie made it outside with their 2 year old Syliva, and they quickly took stock of who else had made it out. He saw 3 more of his children were outside safely. He tried to run back inside to the upstairs bedrooms, but the staircase was now completely engulfed in flames. He ran back outside to grab his ladder, but it was oddly missing. He decided to drive one of his two coal trucks up to the house and climb on top, but neither would start, even though they had both been driven the day before. Because the town was so small, the fire department utilized a phone tree instead of an alarm system. This took so long that no one made it to the house until 8 am that morning. In the meantime, the fast burning fire ripped through the house in 45 minutes, reducing it to rubble.
Ultimately, the Sodders believed that five children had been left in the house to burn. But when they investigated, no bodies were found. Not only no bodies were found, but they found no human traces at all. No bones, no hair, no clothing. After studies were completed, it was found that the house had burned far too quickly for his children to be completely cremated and that something should have been left.
The Sodders searched tirelessly for their children and tried to recall anything odd that might help. They remembered that there was a stranger who appeared at the home a few months earlier, asking about work. He meandered to the back of the house, pointed to two separate fuse boxes, and said, “This is going to cause a fire someday.” George found this very strange, as he had just had the wiring checked and everything had been found in fine condition. Around the same time, another man tried to sell the family life insurance and became irate when George declined. “Your goddamn house is going up in smoke,” he warned, “and your children are going to be destroyed. You are going to be paid for the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini.” George was an outspoken man and had been in arguments in the community, but he didn’t take the threats seriously. Finally, the older Sodder sons also recalled something peculiar. Just before Christmas, they had noticed a man parked along the highway, watching the younger kids as they came home from school.
20 years later after the fire, the Sodder’s received a photo in the mail without a return address. It appeared to be of one of the children who died in the fire Louis. Indeed, on the back was written the words, “Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie. Ilil boys. A90132 or 35.” The Sodders began investigating again, but they found nothing. They died without knowing what really happened to their children, but family members continue the search.
2. YOGTZE: The Unsolved Murder of Gunther Stroll
Günther Stoll was just an ordinary German man living an ordinary life. Well, except that he kept telling his wife that “they” were after him. She must have thought him to be losing it, because she never believed him or even cared to know who “they” were. On the night of his death, October 26th, 1984, he was sitting quietly in his bedroom with his wife when he jumped up and exclaimed, “Jetzt geht mir ein Licht auf!” (“Now I’ve got it!”) and writing YOGTZE on a chair. The ‘G’ might have been a 6, but either way he immediately crossed out the entire line and then jumped in his car and drove off.
He headed to a pub, where he sat down and ordered a beer. Before he even took a sip, he fell backwards off of the stool and appeared to injure himself. He got himself up and headed back into his car. He drove to a woman’s house that he had known since childhood, trying to get inside. She refused and Stoll left, but not before warning of “terrible incident” that would soon happen. Two hours later, Günther Stoll was found in his Volkswagen in a ditch just off the Autobahn. He was completely naked. He told the truckers that found him that 4 other men had been with him but that they had run off. He died before reaching the hospital. Sounds like maybe he had lost it after all, right? Except an autopsy found that he had been run over by a different car at a different location, then placed into his Volkswagon and driven into the ditch.
It appears that “they” were after him after all. Was “YOGUTZE” a clue to who “they” were?
1. Benedetto Supino – The Human Torch
In 1982, young Benedetto Supino was 10 years old. One morning he was sitting in the waiting room at his dentist’s office when suddenly the comic book that he was reading burst into flames. More incidents quickly followed; one morning he woke up to a fire in his bed, and on another day a plastic toy he was staring at burst into flames as his uncle held it.
Just about everywhere he went he seemed to cause fires on objects around him. Furniture, books, and paper would burn near him or as he looked at it. Some claimed that his hands would glow as the items caught fire. The boy famously said, “I don’t want things to catch fire, but what can I do?”
Apparently fire wasn’t the only thing that Benedetto could do. He seemed to have an effect on machines and electronic motors. His father was a carpenter who had a workshop in the community, and when visiting the shop, all of the machines started to fail. He spent over 3,000 pounds on repairs before realizing that he just needed to stop bringing Benedetto around. Not knowing what to do, his parents had Benedetto work with parapsychologist Dr. Demetrio Croce. Eventually, the fires died down and stopped. She claimed that she had taught him to “control and hone his abilities”.
Benedetto was eventually able to blend back into society. Although he is only in his early 40’s today, he seems to have stayed out of the news and away from setting things ablaze.
