The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

To continue with the seasonally-appropriate spookiness that's occupied us all week, today we're going to look at one of the more curious ghost stories I've heard -- the tale of the "Brown Lady," named after her drab clothing, who has been allegedly seen many times in Raynham Hall Manor in Norfolk, England.

I first ran across the story in a collection called 50 Great Ghost Stories by John Canning, which from the inscription inside the front cover -- "October 29, 1977 -- Mon cher ami -- mieux vaut tard que jamais -- Amélie" -- I received three days after my seventeenth birthday from a family friend.

It's a pretty cool book, although (like many of this ilk) it mixes myth and folklore with stories that actually have some historical veracity.  The tale of the Brown Lady is one of the second type, because the people involved are actual historical figures, although the evidence for the haunting itself is still a little on the sketchy side.

The facts of the case are pretty well documented.  Lady Dorothy Walpole (18 September 1686 - 29 March 1726), who was the sister of Robert Walpole, the first prime minister of England, was married to Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend.  Townshend had been married before, to one Elizabeth Pelham, by whom he had five children; he and Dorothy Walpole had seven more, the youngest of which was the mother of Charles Cornwallis, who signed the surrender at the Siege of Yorktown and ended the American Revolutionary War.

Dorothy Walpole wasn't happy, however, partly because Charles Townshend was more interested in growing turnips (I shit you not) than in devoting himself to his wife and family, and also because supposedly he had a nasty temper, which I would too if I had to eat turnips.  Be that as it may, Dorothy Walpole Townshend sought solace elsewhere, but unfortunately for her, she chose Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton, as a lover.

Well, the story goes that either Townshend or Wharton's wife (the legend varies) caught Dorothy and Thomas in flagrante delicto, and Townshend decided the only proper response was to lock his wife up in Raynham Hall to prevent her from cheating on him again.  She stayed there for the rest of her life, dying in 1726 at the young age of forty, possibly of smallpox -- although if she was never allowed outside her room, you have to wonder who she caught it from.

Be that as it may, once Dorothy Walpole Townshend's sad and short life had ended, people started to report the presence of a specter haunting Raynham Hall.

The most famous of the encounters was with novelist Frederick Maryatt, who was a friend of Charles Dickens.  Maryatt's daughter, Florence, wrote in 1891 about her father's meeting with the Brown Lady :

…he took possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung, and in which she had been often seen, and slept each night with a loaded revolver under his pillow.  For two days, however, he saw nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay.  On the third night, however, two young men (nephews of the baronet), knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over to their room (which was at the other end of the corridor), and give them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from London.  My father was in his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was.  As they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver, "in case you meet the Brown Lady," he said, laughing.  When the inspection of the gun was over, the young men in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father back again, "in case you meet the Brown Lady," they repeated, laughing also.  The three gentlemen therefore returned in company.

 
The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished, but as they reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the other end.  "One of the ladies going to visit the nurseries," whispered the young Townshends to my father.  Now the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned houses.  My father, as I have said, was in shirt and trousers only, and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped within one of the outer doors (his friends following his example), in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by.

 
I have heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer, through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognised the figure as the facsimile of the portrait of "The Brown Lady."  He had his finger on the trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, and holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner at him.  This act so infuriated my father, who was anything but lamb-like in disposition, that he sprang into the corridor with a bound, and discharged the revolver right in her face.  The figure instantly disappeared -- the figure at which for several minutes three men had been looking together -- and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor, and lodged in the panel of the inner one.  My father never attempted again to interfere with "The Brown Lady of Raynham."

Now, to be fair, Florence Maryatt isn't exactly what you might call an impartial witness.  She was heavily into spiritualism, and was the author of books with titles like There is No Death and The Spirit World.  So I'm inclined to take anything she says with a grain or two of salt.

Which, of course, I would have anyhow.

Maryatt, however, wasn't the only one to claim seeing the Brown Lady in person.  In 1936, a photographer named Hubert Provand, who worked for Country Life magazine, was taking photos of Raynham Hall for a feature article.  They were setting up for a shoot of the wide interior staircase when Provand's assistant, Indre Shira, pointed at "a vapoury form gradually assuming the appearance of a woman moving down the stairs towards us."  Provand took a photo of the apparition, which has since become one of the most famous ghost photographs ever:

The incident was investigated by Harry Price, a noted paranormal researcher whose reputation for accepting questionable evidence led to his leaving the skeptical and science-based Society for Psychical Research, and founding his own rival organization, the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, because the obvious answer to skepticism is to start a group that will see things your way.  (One of the more famous examples of Price's dubious approach to investigation was the debacle of Borley Rectory, the "most haunted house in England," the evidence for which subsequent inquiries found was almost entirely fabrication.)

For what it's worth, which is probably not much, Price declared the Brown Lady photograph authentic, saying "the negative is entirely innocent of any kind of faking."  But like Florence Maryatt, he's not exactly the most reliable source of information.  Further analysis showed that the image is most likely a double exposure (note the pale lines above the stair treads, and the double reflections on the bannisters).  The ghost figure itself shows a lot of similarity to a traditional Madonna statue, down to a foggy impression below the face that appears to be hands folded in prayer.

Even if the photograph is a fake, of course, it doesn't mean that the other accounts aren't true.  But at the moment, the story doesn't have much to recommend it -- other than a second-hand and probably biased account, and a famous photograph that is almost certainly a fake, the Brown Lady doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

It's still kind of a cool story, however, and I'd love to visit Raynham Hall myself.  If I ever get to go, however, allow me to reassure Dorothy Walpole Townshend that I plan on being entirely unarmed, and even if I were to bring a gun for some reason, I'd never dream of shooting her in the face with it.  I mean, it's all very well to get scared in those kinds of situations, but that kind of breaches the rules of etiquette even so.

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The demons of Dudleytown

There's a general rule that if you have to lie about the facts to support a claim, you might want to reconsider your stance.

That was my general response to a link sent to me by a loyal reader of Skeptophilia about the "Dudleytown Curse."  Dudleytown is an abandoned village in Litchfield County, Connecticut, which is a favorite of the "haunted places" crowd.  Here's the basic idea of the legend:

The area was first settled by people of European descent in the 1740s and 1750s, by Thomas Griffis and a cluster of either brothers or cousins (the records are uncertain on that count), Barzillai, Abiel, Martin, Obijah, and Gideon Dudley.  Presumably because of the strength-in-numbers principle, it was named Dudleytown even though Griffis had gotten there first.  Allegedly, the ancestor of the Dudleys was  disgraced English royal administrator Edmund Dudley, who had lost his head on Tower Hill in 1510, and the story goes that Edmund's kin had fled England because of some sort of curse the family was under.  (Which in itself is an odd claim.  The family certainly didn't suffer greatly from Edmund's disgrace; they remained wealthy and influential, and his grandson, Robert Dudley, First Earl of Leicester, was a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth I.)

Anyhow, the curse supposedly followed the Dudleys across the Atlantic, as curses are wont to do.  Abiel Dudley went mad and had to be confined to his home.  Gershon Hollister, who lived next door to Abiel in a home owned by William Tanner, was murdered.  Tanner himself also went insane, babbling about wild animals and demons attacking him.  After Abiel Dudley's death, his home belonged to Nathaniel Carter, who died along with his wife and three children when the settlement was attacked by Natives.  Heman Swift, a general in the American Revolution and a native of Dudleytown, lost his wife to a lightning strike and shortly afterward lost his mind as well.  The wife of Horace Greeley, unsuccessful candidate for president in 1872, was also a Dudleytown native -- when visiting her home town, she hanged herself for no apparent reason.

People started fleeing the area because of its bad reputation.  Soon there was hardly anyone left.  The place is so haunted even animals don't go there; visitors in the 1960s report not hearing so much as a single bird.  It is currently privately owned by a mysterious group called the Dark Entry Forest Association, and they're determined to stop anyone else from dying or going mad (or, if you'd like a more sinister version, to stop anyone from finding out what's really going on there).  They monitor the property and prosecute any trespassers to the fullest extent of the law.

The remnants of a railway station platform near Dudleytown

So, pretty creepy, right?

There's just one problem.

Almost none of the above is true.

So let's do this again, shall we?

There's no proof that the Connecticut Dudleys are descended from King Henry VIII's unfortunate counselor Edmund.  Abiel Dudley didn't go mad; he lived in relatively good health into his nineties.  Gershon Hollister wasn't murdered -- the records of the time show that he was participating in a barn raising and accidentally fell from the rafters, breaking his neck.  The Carter family massacre didn't happen in Dudleytown -- it happened along the Delaware River, and in fact all three of Nathaniel Carter's children survived (one became a State Supreme Court Justice).  Heman Swift did live in the nearby village of Cornwall, but didn't go mad and lived to be eighty-one.  Horace Greeley's wife, on the other hand, seems to have had nothing whatsoever to do with Dudleytown, and didn't commit suicide.  She died in New York City of lung disease.

Oh, and as far as the birds; the lack of birds in the 1960s had to do with the fact that all the farms in the area had been sprayed with DDT.  Northwestern Connecticut was hardly unusual in that regard (Cf. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.)  And like many areas, now that DDT is no longer used, the wildlife has rebounded nicely, and the area around Dudleytown is as birdy as anywhere else in the Berkshires.

As far as why people left the area, it seems to have had more to do with the fact that the rocky soil was terrible for farming.  Records show that most of the people who left Dudleytown relocated to the Midwest, where there was lots of good farmland for sale.  The Dark Entry Forest Association is hardly mysterious -- it was founded in 1924 by a New York City physician, Walter Clarke, who had bought the property and hoped to reforest it (it had been largely clearcut in a forlorn hope of turning it into farms), and use it both for recreation and for logging.  For a while it was successful -- there were skiing and hiking trails, and organized canoeing and rafting trips on the nearby Housatonic River.

But then in the 1970s a couple named Ed and Lorraine Warren (the ones who did the famous investigation of the Amityville Horror) created a documentary supposedly chronicling all the supernatural terrors of the Dudleytown region, inventing out of whole cloth the various lies and half-truths I've mentioned above.  They said it was "demonically possessed" and "controlled by something terrifying."  It attracted huge amounts of attention from ghost hunters and tourists who wanted to see such an evil region...

... and the visitors proceeded to trash the place.

The residents of the nearby town of Cornwall finally got fed up, and petitioned the Dark Entry Forest Association to do something.  So they did; in 2011, they closed the property to visitors permanently.  These days, even if you ask permission to go, the answer will be no.

Harriet Clark, former president of the Cornwall Historical Society, wrote in her book The True Facts of Dudleytown, "Today’s owners and taxpayers of Dudleytown are professional people who live there for privacy and seclusion.  They do not welcome tourists or those seeking tales of chilling or wild experiences.  Please do not come.  There are no ghosts, no spirits and no curse."

Which, of course, dissuaded absolutely no one.  People are still trying to get in and still getting arrested and fined for trespassing.  And even if there's a persuasive argument that the demons of Dudleytown are entirely of human manufacture, the dismissive words of Clark and others are looked upon as more indication that there is something sinister there that they're trying to cover up.

You can't win with these people.

But to go back to my original point -- you'd think if there was anything to this kind of claim, they wouldn't find the need to make shit up in order to support it.  As always, I'm open to being convinced about claims of all sorts -- but don't expect me to accept what you're saying if the only thing going for it is a boatload of fabrications.

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The haunted forest

Thanks to a loyal reader of Skeptophilia, I now have a new travel destination to add to my list.

Like I need one.  I'm always saying things to my wife like, "Honey, can we set aside a little money from each paycheck?  I'd like to go to Madagascar."  Fortunately, having a wife who is amazingly tolerant of my various eccentricities, I've gotten to fulfill a lot of this wanderlust, and have been to places as exotic as Iceland, Malaysia, Trinidad, Ecuador, and Estonia.

But not Madagascar yet.  I'm working on it.

And neither have I visited Romania, home to the vacation site suggestion I received a couple of days ago.  Romania is, of course, the site of Transylvania, of Dracula fame, but is also where you can visit a place called the Hoia-Baciu Forest, which sounds like a must-see.

It's in northwest-central Romania, and was set aside some years ago for recreation and outdoor activities. There are biking and hiking trails, a rugged and beautiful valley called Cheile Baciului where there are picturesque rock formations and a lake for swimming and canoeing, and tracts set aside for paintball games and archery.  The whole thing sounds awesome, and even more so when you find out that Hoia Baciu Forest is...

... haunted.

And not just by ghosts.  This place is home to every paranormal phenomenon you can think of.  There have been UFO sightings, mysterious disappearances, orb-like apparitions, disembodied voices, visitors experiencing time slips... you name it.  It sounds like your one-stop shop for woo-woo-ism of all brands.

Hoia-Baciu Forest and the town of Grigorescu, Romania [Image is in the Public Domain]

According to the tourism promotional site I linked above:

The Hoia-Baciu Forest (World’s Most Haunted Forest) is situated near Cluj-Napoca, Romania covers an area of ​​over 250 hectares and is often referred to as the Bermuda Triangle of the country.  Hoia-Baciu Forest (World's Most Haunted Forest) has a reputation for intense paranormal activity and unexplained events.  Reports have included, ghost sightings, unexplained apparitions, faces appearing in photographs that were not visible with the naked eye, and in the 1970s, UFO sightings were reported.

 
Visitors to the forest often report intense feelings of anxiety and the feeling of being constantly watched.  Moreover, the local vegetation is somehow bizarre in appearance, like something out of a make-believe story with strangely shaped trees, and unexplained charring on tree stumps and branches...  Many of the locals who have been brave enough to venture into the forest complained of physical harm, including rashes, nausea, vomiting, migraines, burns, scratches, anxiety, and other unusual sensations.

Yes!  Unexplained intense anxiety, vomiting, and migraines!  That's what I want in a vacation spot!

But the weirdness doesn't end there:

Some people believe that the forest is a gateway to another dimension.  Within the dark interior of Hoia-Baciu Forest (World’s Most Haunted Forest), people have been known to disappear, strange lights have been seen, the wind seems to speak.  Several stories tell of people entering the forest and experiencing missing time.  Some have known to be missing for quite some time with no recollection of how they had spent that time.  One such story focuses on a 5-year-old girl who wandered into the woods and got lost.  The story goes that she emerged from the forest 5 years later, wearing the same untarnished clothes that she wore on the day she disappeared with no memory of where had happened in that interval of time.

And worse still, through all of this you might get laughed at by invisible women:

People also report hearing disembodied female voices breaking the heavy silence, giggling and even apparitions,  There are many cases of people reportedly being scratched.  All these things happen with no reasonable explanation.

Well, all I can say is these people really need some advice about how to write a travel website.  For one thing, you don't need to tell us every single time that it's the "World's Most Haunted Forest."  We remember, okay?  Also, you might dream up a better sales pitch than, "Please come visit us!  We have archery, paintball, hiking, and disembodied female voices making fun of you!  Spend your days swimming and cycling, when you're not puking!  Try not to disappear for five years!"

Of course, maybe they have the right idea.  Paranormal travel is becoming quite a thing, and I'll bet people go there solely to experience all of the aforementioned attractions.  I have to admit that if I go to Romania, I'm going to make a point of visiting Hoia-Baciu Forest (World's Most Haunted Forest), if for no other reason, to see what all the buzz is about.  I'm still struggling with my disappointment over not getting to visit the ruins of Borley Rectory when I was in England, so I wouldn't want to miss this one.  I'll just make sure to bring along my migraine meds.

So, many thanks to the loyal reader who sent me the link about Hoia-Baciu Forest (World's Most Haunted Forest).  It's now on my list.  Right behind Madagascar.  I'll see what Carol has to say about setting aside a little more money in our travel fund.

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Service station ghosts, haunted wells, and bloodless cows

I get a lot of odd links sent to me, which I suppose I should expect, given that strange claims are kind of our stock-in-trade here at Skeptophilia headquarters.  I hasten to add that I really appreciate the effort my readers make to keep me informed as to what's going on in the Wide World of Weirdness, so as the talk show hosts used to say, "Keep those cards and letters comin'."

In the last couple of days I was sent links to three stories (one of them was sent to me four times), so I thought I should let my readers know what's going on in ParanormalLand.

First, we have a claim out of Mayfield, County Cork, Ireland, that a ghost has been spotted haunting a service station.

Twice, apparently.  The first time was caught on closed-circuit camera from inside the service station convenience store, where the ghost tossed about a package of cookies and a basket of bananas; the second time was on the CCTV outside the station.  The videos are both on the link provided.  The first one was pretty obvious, although I maintain that someone trying to create a hoopla could easily have accomplished the whole thing using a piece of string tied to the cookie package and banana basket.  As far as the second one goes, I'm... unimpressed.  I've watched it through twice, and frankly, I don't see a damned thing.  There's some repeated blurring, but that looks to me like water on the camera lens (this is southwestern Ireland, after all, so it was probably raining), but nothing that looks even remotely like a "figure of a woman."

That hasn't stopped people from acting like it's incontrovertible proof of the existence of the spirit world.

"I started Wednesday morning and saw biscuits on the ground and thought nothing of it," said shop owner Tom O'Flynn.  "Then I went around and saw a large fruit bowl on the ground so we checked CCTV and it looks as though it was pushed off.  I would have been very skeptical with things like this, but I looked at all angles and I'm at a loss with this...  This was at 12:30 at night and both incidents happened about 10 minutes part.  The bowl was full of bananas, oranges, and apples, and it got pulled over and there was no one around...  Jesus, when I saw it my heart kind of pounded.  I didn't know what to make of it, I looked at all angles and couldn't get my head around it."

Suffice it to say I wasn't quite as taken aback, but then, I wasn't there when it happened.

Then there's an investigation of a "haunted well" near Basildon, Essex, England, where people allegedly burst into tears and want to kill each other.

Called Cash's Well, the place is named after one Edwin Cash, who true to his name tried to make some quick money off "healing waters" from the site in the early twentieth century, but went bankrupt when people reported the well water making them sick.  Since then, the area around the well has gotten the reputation for being haunted (aficionados of ghosts claim that's why the water had the ill effects it did -- it was cursed, or something).  A recent investigation resulted in people confirming feeling wonky when they got near the well -- several reported feeling cold, "goosebumpy," or sad, and one reported they had unexplained violent urges.

The group worked with "spirit guides," who fulfilled their duties to the letter when the investigators got lost looking for the well, and one of the guides said, "Turn left."

Being a rather rabid fan of Doctor Who, I'm not sure I would have responded that that positively.

Anyhow, I was intrigued until I heard the explanation given by Russell (no last name provided), of Essex Ghost Hunters, about the nature of the phenomenon.  "We've all got an aura, which is scientifically proven," Russell told a reporter for Essex Online.  "We've all got a two-inch energy bubble that surrounds us all the time.   When spirits come close they will interact with that bubble, something has moved your aura and it's wobbling.  The two energies pull apart and that's what causes the vibration."

Righty-o.  Wobbly auras and energy bubbles and energies pulling apart.  "Scientifically proven."

Next.

Last, there's the link that's been sent to me (as of this writing) four times, about a rather gruesome situation on a ranch in eastern Oregon, where five cattle have been completely exsanguinated -- and had specific body parts removed -- most bizarrely, leaving no evidence in the way of tire tracks, footprints, or other marks.

The five bulls were all found this summer, missing their tongues and testicles, and -- according to rancher Colby Marshall -- "without one drop of blood."  This is a major loss to the ranch, so it's crazy to assume that the ranchers themselves had anything to do with it; unlike the ghost in the service station, they've got nothing to gain from fifteen minutes of fame, and (again, according to Marshall) lost thirty thousand dollars from the bulls' deaths.  

The Harney County Sheriff's Office has been looking into the incident, and Silvies Valley Ranch -- owner of the dead cattle -- are offering a $25,000 reward for anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator(s).  But the whole thing has the investigators baffled, because it's not like accomplishing this would have been easy.  "[The area is] rugged," Marshall said.  "I mean this is the frontier.  If some person, or persons, has the ability to take down a 2,000-pound range bull, you know, it's not inconceivable that they wouldn't have a lot of problems dealing with a 180-pound cowboy."

So employees of the ranch have been instructed to always go out (at least) in pairs, and never to leave the ranch building unarmed.

Of course, given the nature of the crime, the whole "aliens abducting cattle" thing has come up, but there's no evidence of that.  The problem is, there's no evidence at all.  Andie Davis, who with her husband operates a ranch nearby (and who two years also had cattle die under mysterious circumstances), found the absence of marks the most perplexing thing.

"Everything you do leaves tracks," Davis said.

So of the three stories, this is the one I find the oddest and the least explicable.  I'm still not going with aliens -- not without more to go on -- but I have to admit there's no other ready explanation.  Unlike flying cookies and goosebumpy auras, at least this story has some evidence that it's hard to explain away as a hoax or confirmation bias.

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I am not someone who generally buys things impulsively after seeing online ads, so the targeted ad software that seems sometimes to be listening to our conversations is mostly lost on me.  But when I saw an ad for the new book by physicist James Trefil and astronomer Michael Summers, Imagined Life, it took me about five seconds to hit "purchase."

The book is about exobiology -- the possibility of life outside of Earth.  Trefil and Summers look at the conditions and events that led to life here on the home planet (after all, the only test case we have), then extrapolate to consider what life elsewhere might be like.  They look not only at "Goldilocks" worlds like our own -- so-called because they're "juuuuust right" in terms of temperature -- but ice worlds, gas giants, water worlds, and even "rogue planets" that are roaming around in the darkness of space without orbiting a star.  As far as the possible life forms, they imagine "life like us," "life not like us," and "life that's really not like us," always being careful to stay within the known laws of physics and chemistry to keep our imaginations in check and retain a touchstone for what's possible.

It's brilliant reading, designed for anyone with an interest in science, science fiction, or simply looking up at the night sky with astonishment.  It doesn't require any particular background in science, so don't worry about getting lost in the technical details.  Their lucid and entertaining prose will keep you reading -- and puzzling over what strange creatures might be out there looking at us from their own home worlds and wondering if there's any life down there on that little green-and-blue planet orbiting the Sun.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Invitation to a haunting

If any loyal readers of Skeptophilia live in Texas -- or are willing to take a road trip -- there's an opportunity for you to do some empirical research and report on your findings here.

The destination is the town of Seguin, in Guadalupe County, in the central part of the state.  Seguin is the home to the Magnolia Hotel, which has been nicknamed "the most haunted spot in Texas."  Unfortunately for us paranormal-investigator types, the Magnolia has been closed for extensive repairs since 2013.  The building itself was built in 1840, and started out as a private home, but after renovation and expansion was turned into a hotel, in which capacity it continued until the mid-20th century.

Eventually, though, wear-and-tear and poor maintenance shut the place down, and it was on the docket to be demolished, but a wealthy family purchased the place and decided to restore it to its 19th-century glory.

This, apparently, did not sit well with the spirit world.

The Magnolia Hotel, Seguin, Texas

According to the reports, more than one contractor quit after "paranormal activity ramped up."  A psychic was called in, and she found that the place was rife with ghosts, including:

• the original owner, James Campbell, who makes rocking chairs rock back and forth and stinks the place up with his cigars
• a serial killer named Wilhelm Faust, and one of his victims, Emma Voelcker, whom he killed right there in the hotel
• a friendly woman named Idella Lampkins who sits next to people while they're sleeping and strokes their hair and tries to hug them
• two unidentified male ghosts who committed suicide in the hotel
• a weeping woman who evidently is still distraught because her sweetheart told her he was going to come for her and never showed up

In addition -- if that's not enough -- people have seen faces in mirrors, had doors slam suddenly, heard disembodied footsteps and voices, and seen furniture move on its own.

Enticed?  The hotel is reopening on August 12, and since there are only two guest rooms in the place, it's going to be hard to get on the reservation list if you don't act quickly.

Living in upstate New York, Texas is a bit of a hike for me, but if there are any readers in central Texas who would like to do a little first-hand research, I encourage you to book a night or two.  Bring along a camera, not to mention any other ghost-hunting equipment you may see fit to take with you.  (In fact, there are bunches of apps you can get for cellphones and iPads for detecting electromagnetic field fluctuations, which are supposedly a sign that a ghost is near, or possibly the air conditioner just turned on.)

Let me know if you found anything (or even if you didn't), and in fact, if you're so inclined, you could even write a guest post about your experience here at Skeptophilia.  Yeah, I know the plural of
"anecdote" isn't "data," but I'd still love to hear about anything you might have witnessed.  And if lonely Idella strokes your hair during the night, please accept my apologies, because that's some creepy shit right there.

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Richard Dawkins is a name that often sets people's teeth on edge.  However, the combative evolutionary biologist, whose no-holds-barred approach to young-Earth creationists has given him a well-deserved reputation for being unequivocally devoted to evidence-based science and an almost-as-well-deserved reputation for being hostile to religion in general, has written a number of books that are must-reads for anyone interested in the history of life on Earth -- The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow, Climbing Mount Improbable, and (most of all) The Ancestor's Tale.

I recently read a series of essays by Dawkins, collectively called A Devil's Chaplain, and it's well worth checking out, whatever you think of the author's forthrightness.  From the title, I expected a bunch of anti-religious screeds, and I was pleased to see that they were more about science and education, and written in Dawkins's signature lucid, readable style.  They're all good, but a few are sheer brilliance -- his piece, "The Joy of Living Dangerously," about the right way to approach teaching, should be required reading in every teacher-education program in the world, and "The Information Challenge" is an eloquent answer to one of the most persistent claims of creationists and intelligent-design advocates -- that there's no way to "generate new information" in a genome, and thus no way organisms can evolve from less complex forms.

It's an engaging read, and I recommend it even if you don't necessarily agree with Dawkins all the time.  He'll challenge your notions of how science works, and best of all -- he'll make you think.

[If you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds will go to support Skeptophilia!]

The haunted forest

Thanks to a loyal reader of Skeptophilia, I now have a new travel destination to add to my list.

Like I need one.  I'm always saying things to my wife like, "Honey, can we set aside a little money from each paycheck?  I'd like to go to Madagascar."  Fortunately, having a wife who is amazingly tolerant of my various eccentricities, I've gotten to fulfill a lot of this wanderlust, and have been to places as exotic as Iceland, Malaysia, Trinidad, Ecuador, and Estonia.

But not Madagascar yet.  I'm working on it.

And neither have I visited Romania, home to the vacation site suggestion I received a couple of days ago.  Romania is, of course, the site of Transylvania, of Dracula fame, but is also where you can visit a place called the Hoia-Baciu Forest, which sounds like a must-see.

It's in northwest-central Romania, and was set aside some years ago for recreation and outdoor activities.  There are biking and hiking trails, a rugged and beautiful valley called Cheile Baciului where there are picturesque rock formations and a lake for swimming and canoeing, and tracts set aside for paintball games and archery.  The whole thing sounds awesome, and even more so when you find out that Hoia Baciu Forest is...

... haunted.

And not just by ghosts.  This place is home to every paranormal phenomenon you can think of.  There have been UFO sightings, mysterious disappearances, orb-like apparitions, disembodied voices, visitors experiencing time slips... you name it.  It sounds like your one-stop shop for woo-woo-ism of all brands.

Hoia-Baciu Forest and the town of Grigorescu, Romania [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

According to the tourism promotional site I linked above:

The Hoia-Baciu Forest (World’s Most Haunted Forest) is situated near Cluj-Napoca, Romania covers an area of ​​over 250 hectares and is often referred to as the Bermuda Triangle of the country.  Hoia-Baciu Forest (World's Most Haunted Forest) has a reputation for intense paranormal activity and unexplained events.  Reports have included, ghost sightings, unexplained apparitions, faces appearing in photographs that were not visible with the naked eye, and in the 1970s, UFO sightings were reported. 

Visitors to the forest often report intense feelings of anxiety and the feeling of being constantly watched.  Moreover, the local vegetation is somehow bizarre in appearance, like something out of a make-believe story with strangely shaped trees, and unexplained charring on tree stumps and branches...  Many of the locals who have been brave enough to venture into the forest complained of physical harm, including rashes, nausea, vomiting, migraines, burns, scratches, anxiety, and other unusual sensations. 

Yes!  Unexplained intense anxiety, vomiting, and migraines!  That's what I want in a vacation spot.

But the weirdness doesn't end there:

Some people believe that the forest is a gateway to another dimension. Within the dark interior of Hoia-Baciu Forest (World’s Most Haunted Forest), people have been known to disappear, strange lights have been seen, the wind seems to speak.  Several stories tell of people entering the forest and experiencing missing time.  Some have known to be missing for quite some time with no recollection of how they had spent that time.  One such story focuses on a 5-year-old girl who wandered into the woods and got lost.  The story goes that she emerged from the forest 5 years later, wearing the same untarnished clothes that she wore on the day she disappeared with no memory of where had happened in that interval of time.

And worse still, through all of this you might get laughed at by invisible women:

People also report hearing disembodied female voices breaking the heavy silence, giggling and even apparitions,  There are many cases of people reportedly being scratched.  All these things happen with no reasonable explanation.

Well, all I can say is these people really need some advice about how to write a travel website.  For one thing, you don't need to tell us every single time that it's "The World's Most Haunted Forest."  We remember, okay?  Also, you might dream up a better sales pitch than, "Please come visit us!  We have archery, paintball, hiking, and disembodied female voices!  Spend your days swimming and cycling, when you're not puking!  Try not to disappear for five years!"

Of course, maybe they have the right idea.  Paranormal travel is becoming quite a thing, and I'll bet people go there solely to experience all of the aforementioned attractions.  I have to admit that if I go to Romania, I'm going to make a point of visiting Hoia-Baciu Forest (World's Most Haunted Forest), if for no other reason, to see what all the buzz is about.  I'm still struggling with my disappointment over not getting to visit Borley Rectory when I was in England this summer, so I wouldn't want to miss this one.  I'll just make sure to bring along my migraine meds.

So, many thanks to the loyal reader who sent me the link about Hoia-Baciu Forest (World's Most Haunted Forest).  It's now on my list.  Right behind Madagascar.  I'll see what Carol has to say about setting aside a little more money in our travel fund.