Mary Louise Eklund

Category: Unsolved

  • Freaky Friday – Maura Murray

    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    The Maura Murray case is another case of a college aged girl who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. She disappeared in 2004. Like the Elisa Lam case there are people who have become obsessed by it but this more than a what happened that night question, but rather a longer mystery that ended up with a disappearance.  The armchair investigators have become so obcessed that one, James Renner, has written a book about how it consumed him entitled True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself In The Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray.  It is on my to read list and when done will be a Tuesday Thoughts book.   Many of the armchair investigators are adamant that their theory is the right one and much in-fighting is done that just undermines the goal of finding Maura IMHO.   But today let’s just look at Maura and her disappearance not the effects it’s had others even years later.

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  • Freaky Friday – Roman Dodecahedrons

    Roman Dodecahedron By Lokilech - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
    Roman Dodecahedron By Lokilech – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

    It seems we know so much about the Roman Empire. We read many of their works from daily letters to poetry to speeches to architectural design notes. Yet it’s the simple things that stymie us. Take the Roman dodecahedrons found everywhere in all sizes. There is nothing written to explain what they are, why are they so ubiquitous that it seems the average Roman soldier carried a few small ones with him and houses would have containers full of various sizes? This common everyday objects of Roman life remain a mystery to us.

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  • Freaky Friday – American Mad Gassers

    <a href="https://flic.kr/p/ocKp8L">Image from page 99 of "Railway and locomotive engineering : a practical journal of railway motive power and rolling stock" (1901)</a> posted at Flickr by <a href-"https://www.flickr.com/people/internetarchivebookimages/?rb=1"> Internet Archive Book Images</a>. No known copyright restrictions.
    Image from page 99 of “Railway and locomotive engineering : a practical journal of railway motive power and rolling stock” (1901) posted at Flickr by Internet Archive Book Images. No known copyright restrictions.

    In abnormal psychology in college I heard about the Mad Gasser of Mattoon mass hysteria case. It was one where people claimed they were gassed in their homes by something that made them ill. I thought this an odd thing to become mass hysteria but creepy clowns just happened so who am I to just reasonable hysteria? Then I started looking into the Mad Gasser and found there was more than the 1944 case in Mattoon, Illinois. There were cases 11 years earlier in Boutert County, Virginia. some in Lake County, Florida 9 years before Mattoon. These weren’t mentioned in the case study I read so was there something going on? Was it all group madness? Was it a combination of both?

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  • Freaky Friday – Things We’ve Lost

    The Antikythera Mechanism by Tilemahos Efthimiadis on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons Generic Attribution 2.0. Thanks for making this available!
    The Antikythera Mechanism by Tilemahos Efthimiadis on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons Generic Attribution 2.0. Thanks for making this available!

    Being a history buff I’ve still not gotten over the burning of the Alexandria Library by the Romans. I know, I know it’s been a while I should let it go but honestly, I mourn the loss and suppression of knowledge. Where could be be if humans built on what they learned rather than lost or suppressed it? Just as the burned library is a symbol of lost knowledge a touch stone of it is the Antikythera Mechanism. What’s that you ask? I’m so glad you did because there are more answers now than there where 10 years ago but not as many as there were 3,000 years ago when it was used. THAT’S what’s freaky about it.

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  • Freaky Friday – The Monster With 21 Faces

    monster-headz-by-andres-musta-18sep16
    monster headz by Andres Musta on Flickr. He has given license for use via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic. Thanks Andres!

    If you enjoy the Japanese confection Pocky as my BFF Patricia does you might want to know about an incident in 1984-85 where the Monster with 21 Faces threatened Pocky, kidnapped an CEO, threatened another company’s confectioneries, rejoiced in the suicide of a policeman, and actually got ransoms. Apparently two faces of monster were seen then dubbed Video Tape Man and Fox Eyed Man. Honestly the further you go into the stories the far-out it seems. But in the end it’s a true crime very similar to our unsolved Tylenol Murders in the US.  If you want to know how the Monster did all of this keep reading?

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  • Freaky Friday – How Did Judy Smith get there? Who Killed her?

    judy-smith
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    Judy Smith caught my attention when she her remains were found in Asheville, North Carolina. Again it was the connection to an area I was familiar. Then I learned she was from the Boston area and disappeared in the Philadelphia area. How did she wind up on Mt Pisgah? It an odd case that has left everyone wondering since 1997.

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  • Freaky Friday – What Was It?

    frozen-sea-cavern-national-library-of-australia
    On the frozen sea in a cavern eaten out by the waves under the coastal ice-cliffs, Adelie Land [Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914] by Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962. The image was shared by The National Library of Australia on Flickr as a member of The Commons. The image has no known copyright restrictions.
    I chose this mystery because as a kid I viewed it in the Johnson City Mall. It was the mysterious Minnesota Iceman. The story of it and just what it was is so convoluted and twisted in the end I’m not sure what I saw. But dang I’m so glad I convinced my folks to spend the 25 cents for me to view it. Whatever it was I saw left a memory.

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  • Freaky Friday – Dalytov Pass

    dyatlov-pass-hikers_1
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    Honestly I don’t know where to start on this story or what I think of it. I will do my best to relay what I found and my thoughts. I spent the most time yet researching it hoping I’d find an answer I felt was the right one. I didn’t. As much as I like mysteries I don’t like them when it takes nine gifted live loving people’s lives. That’s what happened to these nine Russian hikers in 1959. They set out doing something they loved and wound up dead not from hazards of the arduous hike but from something unexplainable. Why was Lyuda’s tongue removed while she was still alive? How did two of them wind up with radioactive clothes? What removed both eyes from two? What crushed the chest of three? What flailed the chest of one? Why was their tent cut from the inside? What happened? What compelled these highly experienced hikers to do what they did? Why was the region closed for three years after the event? Why were the documents related to it classified until after the fall of the Soviet Union? If after this you favor a theory or have one let me know. The more I found out the less I felt I knew except as the coroner ruled “an unknown compelling force” caused their deaths.

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  • Freaky Friday – Lake City Quiet Pills

    bullets-judge-pera-flickr-22jul16
    Bullets by Judge Pera on Flickr. He licensed use under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

    Okay Freaky Friday folks buckle your seat belts we are really going down a few rabbit holes on the internet. You know when the primary source for the tale is Reddit that it’s going to get strange. For those who don’t know what Reddit is… well it’s a social internet site where people discuss news, stories, topic, and things they find. I’m not a member but am a reader on occasion. It was there that this story started. From there it goes into porn sites that aren’t just porn sites, number stations on the internet, possible mercenaries, one hell of a wake party, possible assassination involvement, Mossad involvement,  fake names, fake passports, Interpol, half hearted international man/woman hunt, a grouchy old man that befriends vets,… what have I left out…  oh an inheritance and a raggedy old cat. Intrigued? I’ll try to explain.

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  • Freaky Friday – Toynbee Tiles

    toynbee-tile-by-matt-flickr-22jul16
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    Imagine one day you are going about your business in a city crossing a street you’ve crossed many times before but here in the middle of the crosswalk that’s so familiar you pay no attention to it something catches your eye. It’s a tile, a tile that’s had letters cut from it and those letters replaced with ones cut from another color tile. You stop to read the message.

    Toynbee Idea
    In Movie 2001
    Resurrect Dead
    On Planet Jupiter

    You walk on puzzling over just what that means. Now that message becomes part of your daily routine. You find a few more over the following years as you move about your city. Then you take a trip to a few other cities and are surprised to find similar tiles there. Then when on vacation in Chile dang if you don’t see one there. What is this? This is the phenomena known as Toynbee Tiles.

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