Member Request – Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe is one of America’s favorite poets and authors of several short stories. He is best known for his dark romantic works. However, he was also one of the most mysterious authors, who was surrounded by problems. He lived and died in a strange way.

The breadth of Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on our culture is incalculable. He invented the detective story, contributed to the development of both science fiction and the horror genre, and wrote about the only American poem anybody knows—certainly the only one popular enough to have an NFL team named after it. His aesthetic and themes have influenced such cultural figures as Salvador Dali, Charles Baudelaire, and Alfred Hitchcock, who credited Poe’s works with inspiring him to make suspense films. A century and a half after his death, Poe still makes appearances on television shows like The Following and South Park as well as movies The Tell-Tale Heart starring Rose McGowan and Stonehearst Asylum with Kate Beckinsale and Michael Caine. In addition to numerous Poe societies (including ones in Denmark and the Czech Republic), there are museums devoted to him in Richmond, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Bronx. Opened in 1922, the Poe Museum in Richmond boasts the world’s largest collection of Poe’s personal items and memorabilia.

Edgar Allan Poe lived for only 40 years, and throughout his adult life, he was known for his gambling and wayward lifestyle. His father abandoned his family when he was only 3 years old and his mother died immediately thereafter. He grew up with foster parents in Virginia. Poe married his younger cousin called Virginia, but she died at a young age. Poe was considered mysterious because of his works and the dark and chilling nature.

Poe went to the University of Virginia and dropped out due to the lack of money. He had a gambling addiction and always got into debts. His father bailed him out several times and eventually gave up.

When Poe joined the army, he did not tell the truth about his age. He was dismissed later by court martial.

Poe died in 1849, but his grave was unmarked. A stone was ordered for him, but it got destroyed in the train it was arriving in. There was a lot of gossip about him before and after he died. A few days before he died he was found on the streets of Baltimore in a delirious state.

His death was as enigmatic as his work

In 1849, Poe (pictured right in 1848) went missing for five days and was found “worse for the wear” and delirious in Baltimore. He was taken to the hospital where he died soon after at the age of 40. No autopsy was performed, the cause of death was listed as a vague “congestion of the brain” and he was buried two days later. Experts and scholars have proposed everything from murder and rabies to dipsomania and carbon monoxide poisoning as the reason for his demise, but to this day the cause of Edgar Allan Poe’s death remains a mystery. Could there be a more befitting legacy?

After Poe’s Death

In the 1860s, the medium Lizzie Doten published some poetry she claimed had been dictated to her by Poe’s ghost. His fiancée Sarah Helen Whitman (after his first wife’s death but before his engagement to Elmira Shelton) hired a medium to move in with her because she thought Poe’s spirit was trying to communicate with her, too.

Even today we find a bottle of cognac and some roses left on Poe’s grave. People have always wondered who left these things and why.


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RMS Queen Mary, Long Beach

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Aside from a brief stint as a war ship in World War II, the RMS Queen Mary served as a luxury ocean liner from 1936 to 1967. During that time, it was the site of at least one murder, a sailor being crushed to death by a door in the engine room, and children drowning in the pool. The city of Long Beach purchased the ship in 1967 and turned it into a hotel, and it still serves that purpose today—although the reported ghosts of the deceased passengers get to stay for free. (For an extra dose of spine-tingling experiences, see if you can visit the ship’s engine room, which is considered by many to be a “hotbed” of paranormal activity.)


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The Tombstone of Stonewall Jackson’s arm

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Whilst most of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was buried in a Lexington, Virginia, cemetery that now bears his name, he was so famous at the time of his death that his amputated left arm was buried in its own separate grave.

On May 2, 1863, General “Stonewall” Jackson and his army had just launched a devastating attack against Union forces at Chancellorsville. Returning to his own lines with several staff officers, Jackson, ever the aggressive soldier, decided to conduct reconnaissance in the area. As he and his men through the woods near Confederate lines, a North Carolina regiment, unable to see who was riding up on them, opened fire. Jackson was struck by three bullets, two of them shattering his left arm. The general was evacuated from the area and given medical treatment, but the arm couldn’t be saved and was amputated. Pneumonia set in, and on May 10, 1863, the South lost its most effective tactician. While Jackson’s body would travel to Lexington, where he had taught before the war, his severed arm would receive its own burial.

Thinking that the limb of such great a solider was too precious to simply throw on the regular body part trash pile, Jackson’s unofficial company chaplain, Reverend Tucker Lacy wrapped the arm in a blanket and took it to his brothers home that was nearby. The reverend gave the limb a standard Christian burial and placed a marker above the site.

But Stonewall’s arm would not get the peace it deserved.
Union soldiers apparently exhumed the arm in 1864. Although they apparently reburied it, no one knows if it was in the same spot or somewhere else. Many years later in 1903, former Confederate soldier James Power Smith set a stone in the cemetery, marking the graveyard as the resting place of Stonewall Jackson’s arm. If there was anyone who knew the true whereabouts of the arm in 1903 it would’ve been Smith, who had served as Jackson’s aide-de-camp during the war and had then married into the Lacy family. Still, some suspected that he may have intentionally mismarked the location of the arm to protect it from treasure-seekers.

The Grave marker for General “Stonewall” Jacksons arm can be found at the Lacy family graveyard at Ellwood Manor in Orange County, Virginia.


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Back from the Dead

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Back from the Dead is a scary story \ urban legend about a young wife who is stalked by an old man and disappears under mysterious circumstances.

So legend says there was a young woman named Esther who lived in Letcher County, Kentucky, in 1934. Her boyfriend was a young man named Ezra Jackson and the couple were very much in love.

However, there was an old man who had become obsessed with Esther. He was pestering her all the time and and asking her to marry him. She found him repulsive and didn’t want anything to do with him, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t get him to stop. He was stalking her and she was scared to death.

Eventually, she decided that if she had a husband, he might give up and leave her alone, so she married her boyfriend Ezra.

After the wedding, as the couple were driving home, the old man suddenly stepped out into the road in front of them. Ezra had to hit the brakes to avoid hitting him. The old man came up to Esther’s window and glared in at her.

“I’m going to die soon,” he growled, “but I’ll be back for you, and when I return, you’ll go with me…”

Ezra floored the accelerator and drove off at top speed, but Esther was freaked out and couldn’t stop thinking about what the old man had said.

A few days later, the old man was found dead in his home. His body was buried in the local cemetery. He had no friends or relatives and anyone who knew him had been afraid of him, so nobody mourned his passing.

A year after his death, on a snowy night in December, Esther was sitting in her living room, reading a book, when there was a knock at the front door. Her husband and his two brothers were in the kitchen.

“I’ll see who it is,” she called to them.

The three men heard her open the door, but they didn’t hear anybody come in. There were no voices, just an eerie silence.

After waiting for a few minutes, they went into the living room and found the door standing wide open. Esther was nowhere to be seen. When they looked outside, they found the tracks of her bare feet in the snow.

The three men quickly grabbed their coats and flashlights and set off in search of her. They followed the footprints for two miles, along the rough, snow-covered country road, until they came to the local cemetery. The footprints led through the gate and right up to the old man’s grave, where they vanished.

While his two brothers waited in the cemetery, Ezra went to fetch help. He came back with seven men from the village. It was midnight and the weather was freezing. Together, under the light of the flashlights and lanterns, they began to dig up the grave.

When they dragged out the coffin and opened it, they were horrified to discover it was empty.

Although a thorough search was made, no trace of the young wife or the old man’s body was ever found. And according to legend, to this day, the disappearance of Esther Jackson remains an unsolved mystery.


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The Adze – Firefly Vampire

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In southern Togo and Ghana, the Ewe people have a myth of such a vampire, called the Adze. The Adze is a type of vampire creature who turns itself into a firefly or other insect to feed before returning to its human form. They can transform themselves into any number of common insects which are seemingly harmless, and very difficult to capture.

The Adze have a taste only for the blood of the innocent. They are hunters of children, and only children, and they especially like to feed on infants. They can also feed on palm oil and coconut water, and often will raid a village entire supply of these, but they become dangerously weak if they do not feed on the blood of children. An Adze can sustain itself without needing to kill any child. It can take enough blood to survive. However, if the Adze is deterred or thwarted from feeding for a long enough period of time, it will go on a ravenous frenzy for blood. Often when the vampire reaches this stage of hunger, even the victims who survive become infected with a deadly disease which eventually kills them.

The Adze can also have the power to possess a human and become a living vampire. When the Adze is captured, it will revert to its human form. A human sorcerer can also willingly become possessed by an Adze spirit for the abilities and powers they will gain. As an Adze host, they are able to change their form, like a shapeshifter, from human to something else by magic. When they are captured, however, the magic will be lost and they will revert back to their human form. This is the only way to destroy the Adze, but catching them is the trick.

There is no way to protect against an Adze. Nothing will keep them out, or keep a child safe from its attacks. The only measure that can be taken against them is capturing them and destroying their human form. The safest thing to do is keep your supply of coconut water and palm oil up and set a trap.






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Mount Misery and Sweet Hollow Road

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Mount Misery and Sweet Hollow Road are famous scary roads near the town of Melville in Long Island. They say the place is haunted and there are lots of scary stories, legends and myths associated with the area.

According to legend, Sweet Hollow Road and Mount Misery have been haunted as long as anyone can remember. It is a long, narrow, winding and dangerous road and there are a number of chilling urban legends associated with it. I Listed them below.

The Overpass:

The first legend is that three teenage boys killed themseles by hanging themselves off of the Northern State overpass bridge on Sweet Hollow Road in some kind of crazed suicide pact. They say that when you are driving down Sweet Hollow Road and pass under the bridge, if you honk your horn three times or flash your lights three times and look in your rear view mirror, you will see their lifeless bodies hanging from the overpass.

The School Bus:

There is another legend that on a dark and snowy night, a bus full of school children was driving across the bridge. The driver suddenly lost control and the bus slipped off of the bridge, crashing on Sweet Hollow Road and killing everyone on board.

Ever since then, people driving down the road at night have seen a group of faceless children walking along in the darkness. Others report seeing a bus full of children parked at night outside the graveyard. They say that if you drive under the bridge and put your car in neutral, the car will start to roll out from underneath the bridge. Some believe that this is the dead kids pushing your car out of harm’s way.

Mount Misery:

The legend is that back in the 1700s, there was a lunatic asylum on Mount Misery. At the time, care for the insane was very bad. The patients suffered brutal treatment and were abused horribly. They say you could hear their screams for miles around. One night, a female inmate set fire to her cell. Soon the entire mental asylum was in flames and it burned down with all the patients and workers trapped inside.

It is said that at night, you can see the ghostly figure of the woman who started the fire. She wanders down the side of the road, dressed in a white hospital gown, with messy unkempt white hair. Sometimes, she jump out in front of cars when they pass by. Some people claim to have seen burning ghosts fleeing from the grounds and heard their horrific screams and cries.

Sweet Hollow Cemetery:

There was a teenage girl named Mary who was with her boyfriend. They were out driving on Sweet Hollow Road when they got into an argument. Her boyfriend suspected her of cheating on him and in a fit of rage, he pushed her out of the moving car. She landed in the middle of the road and before she had a chance to get out of the way, another car came along and ran her over, killing her instantly.

They say she is buried in Sweet Hollow Cemetery and if you go to her grave at night and shine a light on her tombstone, she will appear. Sometimes she appears next to her tombstone and sometimes she appears in the forest across the road from the graveyard, watching you through the trees. If you see her, you will be struck dead before the morning comes.

The Cop:

Another urban legend about Sweet Hollow Road is that a police officer was shot and killed there years ago. They say that if you are driving on Sweet Hollow Road, sometimes you will get pulled over by the ghost of the dead cop. He comes over to you car, questions you and then lets you go. As the cop turns away and walks back to his car, you can see that the back of his skull is missing – blown out by a shotgun blast.

The Bloody Schoolhouse:

Another urban legend tells of a school that was on the corner of Sweet Hollow Road and Mount Misery Road. The school teacher killed all of his students with an axe, then locked the schoolhouse and set it on fire. When she found out what he had done, his daughter was so ashamed, she hung herself.

The Basket of Heads:

The last legend is that people used to see a man in dressed in rags wandering through the woods at night. In his hands he was carrying a basket of human heads. Apparently, there was a series of bizarre murders in the area and the killer was never caught. Many people believe that this is the ghost of the murderer. Others who have seen him claim he wears a checkered shirt and carries a bloody axe in his hand.


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Lagertha….The Viking Shieldmaiden

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Lagertha’s tale is recorded in passages in the ninth book of the Gesta Danorum, a twelfth-century work of Danish history by the Christian historian Saxo Grammaticus.

Lagertha’s career as a warrior began when Frø, king of Sweden, invaded Norway and killed the Norwegian king Siward…..the grandfather of Ragnar Lodbrok. Frø also put the women of the dead king’s family into a brothel for public humiliation. Upon hearing of these events, Ragnar Lodbrok was naturally furious, and quickly gathered his army to avenge his grandfather Siward.
Many of the women Frø had ordered abused in the brothel dressed themselves in men’s clothing, and were battle ready brandishing their swords and shields, and desperate to avenge themselves and their families from the abuses they had endured from Frø.
Ragnar Lodbrok, with his army, and with his warrior women alongside him, would soon see him get his vengeance for the death of his grandfather Siward. Lagertha played a huge part in this battle which lead them to its success…..becoming a hero in her own right.
Saxo recounts that Lagertha “though a maiden, had the courage of a man and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. All marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back, betrayed that she was a woman.”
This eather small framed women took everyone by surprise through her courage, and Ragnar was instantly attracted to her. Lagartha though was not interested in Ragnar originally, and he courted her from afar, whilst Lagertha feigned interest. Ragnar arrived to seek her hand, bidding his companions wait in the Gaular valley. He was set upon by a bear and a great hound which Lagertha had guarding her home, but killed the bear with his spear and choked the hound to death. Lagertha was so impressed by his actions that she accepted Ragnar’s hand in marriage. They had three children, a son named Fridleif, and two unrecorded daughters.

Some years later however,Ragnar met the daughter of King Herrauðr of Sweden Thora Borgarhjört. Ragnar, still annoyed by Lagertha setting her beasts on him all those years ago, and despite having had 3 children together, he decided to divorce Lagertha and marry Thora Borgarhjört.

Lagertha went back home and remarried. When Ragnar eventually returned home to Denmark he was faced with another civil war. Lagertha, despite being discarded and divorced, still loved Tagnar deep down, and decided to aid Ragnar with 120 ships. She and her warriors would end up saving the day with a counterattack saving Ragnar and his wounded son Siward in the process.
After the battle, Lagertha returned home to her husband. Just like in the TV Show Vikings, she kills her husband with a hidden spearhead after a quarrel. Saxo states that she “Usurped the whole of his name and sovereignty; for this most presumptuous dame thought it pleasanter to rule without her husband than to share the throne with him”.

Lagertha is closely associated with Valkyries and has a Warrior Goddess status.

However, there are no accounts of how or when Lagertha actually died.

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The USS Lexington

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The USS Lexington
Has had a very long history of service to our great Nation. It was one of the major aircrafts carriers during WW11. Many times it was target of kamikazes and torpedo attacks. It got the nickname of “the blue ghost” because Tokyo rose radio broadcasters made constant claims the Lexington had been destroyed. Of course this was not true, prompting the Japanese to call it a ghost ship since it always returned to battle. It was decommissioned in 1947 and sits in Corpus Christi, Texas as a popular tours attraction.

Many stories have emerged from tourists and former crew members aboard the ship. One such story is of a ghost name Charlie who resides in one of the engine rooms many tourist have complemented on the wonderful tour guide while in engine 2 dressed in full navy uniform. But, there is no tour guide as it is a self guided tour through the ship. There has also been reports of smelling food while going through the kitchen or hearing noises and screams while passing through an area where soldiers died. Many paranormal teams have investigated the ship as well finding evidence of some kind of presence aboard the ship. Ghosts or not visit the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi, Tx. You will get some great history from the ship or perhaps your own ghost story.




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Legend of the House of Aramberri : Legend of the House of Aramberri

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Legend of the House of Aramberri :

Legend of the House of Aramberri , this is a scary urban legend about a haunted house in Mexico and the horrible murders that occurred there.

There is a haunted house in Monterrey, Mexico that locals call La Casa de Aramberri or The House of Aramberri. It has been visited many times by paranormal investigators and they say that the souls of two women who were brutally murdered there can never rest in peace.

Today, House of Aramberri is very dilapidated and neglected, but many years ago, it was the home of the richest families in Monterrey. In 1933, a man lived there with his wife, Florinda and their daughter, Antonieta. Little did the happy family know that the house would soon become the scene of a horrible and vicious crime which was caused by human greed.

One morning, the father of the family went to work, leaving his wife and daughter alone in the house. Soon afterwards, three men broke in and attacked the two women. The burglars thought there was a large chest full of silver coins that was hidden in the house and they demanded to know the location. These men tortured the wife and daughter in the dining room and eventually killed them.

When the bodies were found, they say it was one of the most horrific, bloody and cruel crimes ever seen in the area at that time. The housewife and her daughter had been almost completely decapitated. Their heads were hanging on by a thread. The people of Monterrey were shaken and apalled by the brutal murder.

The police were faced with a very difficult investigation because there was no sign that the front doors had been forced and as there were no witnesses to the crime apart from the family pet.

However, the family pet was a parrot and it proved to be instrumental in capturing the murderers. While the police were examining the house, the pet parrot began screeching in Spanish, “No me mates, Gabriel! No me mates, Gabriel!” which means “Don’t kill me, Gabriel! Don’t kill me, Gabriel!”

They realized that the parrot was repeating the last words of its owner. The police then questioned the father and found out that his nephew’s name was Gabriel. They arrested the nephew and under questioning, he confessed to killing the two women. He told police that he had planned the robbery along with two brothers who owned a nearby butcher’s shop.

The three murderers were arrested by the police who gave them a special brand of justice that was supposedly sometimes applied in Mexico many years ago. They called it the “The Law of Flight” or “The Law of Escape”. The police drove the three criminals out into the desert, then allowed them to escape and shot them in the back as they fled. Their bodies were transported back to Monterrey and put on display so that all the people in the area could see.

Ever since that time, this Monterrey house has been plagued by many supernatural events. Many people reported seeing the ghosts of the two murdered women lurking in the dining room. Others said that, at night, they could often hear the terrible cries of the mother and daughter pleading with their murderers and screaming, “Don’t kill me, Gabriel! Don’t kill me, Gabriel!”

The main bedroom of the house contains a portrait of the mother and they say that her face changes and becomes completely disfigured. According to witnesses, a terrible tension can be felt in the house and, until you leave, you will be followed by the strong smell of sulfur.

According to the legend, those who have heard the screams of the two unfortunate women who lost their lives in this place, say that their souls will never rest in peace.

The story of the House of Aramberri has become famous throughout Mexico over the years and recently, the case got even more attention when a couple of reporters visited the house. They were looking for evidence of a haunting and when they left, the reporters were involved in a serious car accident. When recordings they had made were later reviewed, they could clearly hear distant cries and hollow moans on the tape.

The house had to be closed to the public because teenagers would often break in and trespass, hoping to witness some supernatural event. The authorities erected a big wire fence across the front of the house, but the interior is still visible from the street. Locals say that if you walk past the house at night, you can hear the cries of the souls who are in pai, and sometimes, if you look in the windows, you can catch a glimpse of the shadowy figures of the ghostly tenants who may never leave.


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Urban Legend : Mooney Mansion in Columbus, Ohio

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Urban Legend : Mooney Mansion

The Mooney Mansion in Columbus, Ohio is a legendary haunted house called “Mooney’s Mansion” where a brutal mass murder is believed to have taken place years ago.

Back in the 1950s, Dr. Mooney lived with his wife and three children in one of the old homes in Columbus, Ohio. The family was very wealthy and the Mooneys seemed to have the perfect marriage. People who knew them said the couple were very much in love and when they got married, Dr. Mooney had even erected a statue of his beautiful wife in their back yard.

However, as fate would have it, the family’s happiness would not last very long. Dr Mooney may have been rich, but a series of bad investments on the stock market resulted in him losing all of the family’s money. His bank account was completely wiped out and the unfortunate man sank into a deep depression.

They say that Mooney’s wife and children were embarrassed by his battle with depression. They tried to ignore the problem and refused to bring him to a psychiatrist, fearing that their neigbors would find out.

Left untreated, Dr Mooney gradually descended into madness and insanity. One dark night, the demented man finally snapped and flew into a psychotic rage. He took an axe and murdered his wife and children as they slept in their beds.

But Mooney’s insane act was not yet complete. He chopped off his wife’s head and kicked it like a football, out the bedroom door, down the stairs, out through the front door and all the way down the hill to the Calumet Bridge.

Still seething like a lunatic, Mooney returned to the house, grabbed his wife’s hacked-up body and took her out to the back yard, where he buried her underneath the statue. Then he took the bodies of his three children and brought them down to the Calumet Bridge where he hung them off the side. They say that Mooney’s youngest daughter was still clutching her teddy bear when Mooney tied a rope around her neck and tossed her over the bridge.

The next morning, a couple is said to have been out driving in the area. As they neared the bridge, they spotted a teddy bear lying in the middle of the street. Beside the teddy bear lay a woman’s severed head. They screamed as they recognized the face of Mrs Mooney.

Trembling with fear, they looked up and saw the corpses of three young children hanging from the bridge. But that’s not all, the body of Dr Mooney was hanging right there beside them. It appeared that, when his rage subsided and he realized what he had done, the crazed father had taken his own life.

Today, people say that if you go under the bridge on Walhalla Road at night, and you look in the water to the right of the road, you will see the reflection of the ghostly hanging children.

The old Mooney Mansion is supposed to be haunted too and the husband’s ghost is said to inhabit the upstairs bedroom in which the murder took place. If you pass by, you will see a cold blue glow, visible through the upstairs windows of Mooney’s Mansion.

According to legend, the vicious axe murder is re-enacted nightly and if you go into Mooney’s Mansion at midnight, climb the staircase and knock on the bedroom door, you will see a shadowy figure kicking a phantom severed head all the way down the stairs and out into the street.

Also, as the story goes, the statue of the wife still stands in the backyard of Mooney’s Mansion. If you go there at midnight on Halloween Night, they say you will see the life-sized statue of Mooney’s wife bleeding from all the places where she received blows from the axe.

According to one story, a man was out walking one night on Walhalla Road, when he heard something moving in the bushes by the side of the road. Whatever it was kept rustling and following him as he walked down the street. Eventually, he turned around and called out “Come out and face me!” To his horror, he saw the severed head of a woman rolling out of the bushes. The head tumbled past him and rolled off down the road. The man was so freaked out that he ran all the way home. That was the last time he ever walked home alone in the dark.

The legend of Mooney’s Mansion is probably one of the most famous ghost stories in Columbus, Ohio. However, the popularity of the legend persists to such an extent that if you are caught snooping around Walhalla Road or Calumet Bridge at night, you can be arrested.



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