#Stamding on the eag of instanity windows#

I couldn't be sure of any details because of my near sightedness. As I reached for it, it shot down the drain, gone! I steeled myself and reached for it, determined to show myself its only a bit of hair. Except it sat there in the water wiggling. I startled, and tried to tell myself it was a bit of hair. Except that it started wiggling in the water. My first thought was it was a clip of black hair from the stylist's scissors. I say this because as I started to rinse my hair something black, about 2 or 3 inches long fell from my head into the tub. I need to mention I am terribly near sighted, and so, leaning over the edge of the bathtub to wash my hair my vision is fuzzy.

I'd had a haircut the day before and was still itchy from it. I have a morning routine, like a lot of people, and one morning after having a bit of coffee, went to wash my hair. This one falls outside of the usual categories, i think. The story didn't strike me as all that fortean it did seem moderately idiotic. If the strangers were Indians or French, how is it Babson heard the first intruders (whom he's seen leaving his own house) utter something in English when he caught up with them? If their quoted words were translated, why does the account not mention their original language? They 'disappeared' into the bushes, forest, and / or swamp they didn't literally 'disappear' into thin air before the townsfolk's eyes. Although the townsfolk seemed to have problems chasing down the strangers, I didn't see anything in the account that clearly indicated fortean capabilities. The most common feature attributed to the strangers was blue shirts or coats. The account consistently indicates the townspeople took the strangers to be either Indians or Frenchmen (i.e., members of groups widely feared as imminent threats in that place and time). It's hard to read the story without Monty Python coming to mind.

Except for Mather's own suggestion of demonic involvement, I don't see anything in the account that hints at supernatural events. They took the bullet out, which is still to be seen.' There's no mention of the bullet being of a strange form. The account claims that when Babson returned to the spot with reinforcements, '. The mystery man's shot that barely missed Babson is claimed to have lodged in a hemlock tree. I found no description of them as 'silver'. The original account only claims the mystery men carried 'bright' guns. Ī few points after having reviewed the original account. This text refers to Gloucester rather that Cape Ann. It can be found in Book VII, and describes events occurring circa mid-summer 1692. You can read the original account (in Cotton Mather's _Magnalia Christi Americana_) at Google Books. What on earth really happened there, I doubt we'll ever know, but it's always felt pretty high strangeness to me. Who then vanished completely, and have never been seen or heard from - and certainly never explained satisfactorily - since. Naturally, this caused a considerable amount of panic in the community, until the locals barricaded themselves into a nearby fort and had a small pitched battle with the 'Frenchmen'. These intruders exhibited other curious and disturbing behaviors, like seeming teleportation, moving at speeds much too fast for a human, and imperviousness to bullets.

#Stamding on the eag of instanity windows#

The relevant chapter is up on Google Books ( LINK), but briefly, a small community is harassed for a few weeks by a group of human figures wearing odd clothing (described in firsthand accounts as 'Frenchmen', which was a contemporary euphemism for any strange or foreign individual) who repeatedly came out of the woods in order to stare at locals, peered into the windows of houses, and were overheard to make threatening, cryptic remarks. (Apparently unconnected to the far more famous Salem Witch Trials which took place nearby in the same year.) The case has a lot of parallels to the much later Hopkinsville Goblins, and can be read about in some detail in one of local folklorist Joseph Citro's books. I don't know if it's exactly what anyone is looking for, but I've always been intrigued by the historical account of a band of decidedly bizarre attackers that plagued Cape Ann, Massachusetts in 1692.