Freak Accidents

In the late summer of 1929 a new highway was opened to traffic between Bremen and Bremerhaven, Germany. Within a year of its opening, more than 100 automobiles had crashed mysteriously on the highway - all at kilometer stone 239, on a perfectly straight stretch of highway. When questioned by police, survivors described feeling " a tremendous thrill " as their cars reached the marker and said that some great force then seized their vehicles and pulled them off of the road. In a single day, September 7th, 1930, nine cars were wrecked at the fateful marker.

The police and other investigators were puzzled, but a local dowser (one who finds underground water through esoteric methods), Carl Wehrs, suggested that the mysterious force was a powerful magnetic current generated by an underground stream. To test his theory he took a steel divining rod in his hands and slowly walked toward marker 239. When he was directly opposite it, about 12 feet away, to the amazement of onlookers the rod flew out of his hands, shot across the road and buried itself into the dirt. Satisfied that his theory was correct, Wehrs applied his own solution to the problem and buried a copper box full of small star shaped pieces of copper at the base of marker 239.

The box remained buried there for a week, and during that time no accidents occurred. The box was then dug up, and the first three cars that passed the marker wrecked. The box was quickly reburied, and since then there have been no accidents at marker 239. Although Carl was a diviner, and presumably knew something about underground streams, local farmers believed that a demon was responsible for the accidents.

"The Breathless Moment" Philip van Doren Stern

"I was turning the corner and saw a bus tearing towards me," the motorist testified before the police: " The lights of the top and bottom deck, and the headlights were full on but I could see no crew or passengers. I yanked my steering wheel hard over, and mounted the pavement
(sidewalk), scraping the roadside wall. The bus just vanished." The motorist who made this report to the local authorities in North Kensington, London, in the mid 1930's may have been drunk, hallucinating or dreaming at the wheel when he had the accident. But if he was, so were hundreds of other motorists who complained of being forced off the road by a phantom bus careening around the corner from St. Marks Road into Cambridge Gardens, near the Ladbroke Grove underground station.

After one fatal accident, the local coroner took evidence of the apparition and discovered dozens of local residents claimed to have seen the spectral double - decker.In fact, there had been many accidents, several of them fatal, at the notorious junction. Eventually, the local council there straightened the road there, and the the accident rate was greatly reduced. Thereafter, there were no more reports of the ghostly red bus.

Frank Smyth, " Ghosts and Poltergeists " p.60

Fisherman Killed After Whale Lands on Boat

MORRO BAY, California 9-03-02 A California fisherman was killed after a large whale unexpectedly breached over his boat, smashing into the deck and hurling him into the water, a Coast Guard official said on Tuesday.

Chief Michael Saindon of the Morro Bay Coast Guard Station said the body of Jerry Tibbs, A 51-year-old restaurant owner from Bakersfield, California, was recovered Monday, more than 12 hours after the accident.

"I've had countless calls where boats hit whales, but this is the first time I've ever had a whale breach and hit a boat," Saindon said. "They were just two big things in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Tibbs, the owner of Mr. Tibb's Ribbs in Bakersfield, and several companions were on a tuna fishing trip several miles offshore Sunday when the whale breached with a spectacular leap out of the water right over their boat, a 22-foot motor vessel named the "BBQ."

Saindon said the survivors reported that the whale crash landed onto the boat deck, damaging the pilot house and throwing Tibbs into the water.

There were no other reported injuries.

"The superstructure crushed and there was damage to the rails and the transom was damaged. The whale came up out of the water, landed on the superstructure, and slid back off into the water," Saindon said. "We found a lot of whale skin on the boat."

The Coast Guard, aided by the Morro Bay Harbor Patrol and aircraft from the California Highway Patrol, mounted an extensive search in the area but was hampered by heavy fog. After about 17 hours, Tibbs' body was finally located and brought back to Port San Luis, Saindon said.

Saindon said the survivors were not able to identify the type of whale, which they described as "very large." Gray whales and humpback whales are often sighted off the central California coast.

"Both gray whales and humpback whales are known to breach quite frequently," said Steven Webster, senior marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California.

"You can't talk to a whale, so we don't know why they do it. It's thought that in some instances, they are just having fun, while breaching. Crashing and tail snapping is sometimes one male either trying to impress a nearby female, or telling the other males to clear off."

Cnn.com