"As the articles on Spring Heeled Jack are pretty much long I decided to divide all the information I collect into three posts. "

One of the most curious and persistent of all paranormal creatures is Spring Heeled Jack. Reports of his existence date back to the early 19th century in Sheffield, England, and he has been reported on and off in England and the US as recently as 1995. A similar apparition, called "La Viuda," or "the widow" was reported in Chile in the 1940s and 50s, though he seemed to have been motivated by theft as much as mischief. And while a decent case can be made that the legend of Spring Heeled Jack is nothing more than a series of cruel hoaxes, it would represent a conspiracy of impressive scope and durability. And while his story changes from source to source, it goes something like this…

The Colorado Street Bridge is a historic concrete arch bridge spanning the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, California.

The majestic 1913 Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena, California not only wowed early travelers crossing the causeway, but soon took on a more sinister note when people began to leap from the 150 foot bridge to their death. Within a decade of its construction, locals had begun to call it the "Suicide Bridge,” and as you can imagine, legends began to abound that the bridge was haunted be those unfortunate souls.

The beautiful concrete bridge spans 1,467 feet across the Arroyo Seco, a deeply cut canyon linking the San Gabriel Mountains to the Los Angeles River, and containing the intermittent Arroyo Seco Stream for which it is named. The bridge is often incorrectly referred to as the "Arroyo Seco Bridge."

Box Hill:

According to local folklore, an eccentric sword-wielding officer, Major Peter Labelliere, roams the summit by his grave, where he was buried upside down, as instructed in his will, in 1800.

The upside (down) of death!

The subject of death is not usually taken quite so lightly, but across Surrey and Sussex, folk have been approaching it in some rather unusual ways. Meet the people who didn't take death lying down, as it were!

Major Peter Labelliere - Box Hill, near Dorking, Surrey

There may have been some dispute over whether John Oliver is meeting his maker the wrong way up, but in Major Labelliere's case there's none. 

Had sandwiches been invented by the 4th Earl of, then Major Peter would have certainly been a picnic short of them. Slightly barking, to put it mildly, the officer of the Marines, who lived in Dorking, had lead a somewhat unhappy life.

He had fallen in love with one Hetty Fletcher, at an early age and, according to an early 19th-century book called "Promenade round Dorking" was eventually rejected.... "a circumstance which could not fail to inflict a deep wound on his delicate mind". 

Anson, Texas is a small town located 20 miles north of Abilene on Highway 83/84. It is the home of a well known yet unexplained phenomena that has simultaneously delighted, terrified, and baffled visitors for decades––the Anson Ghost Lights.

Built around 1270, Hever Castle then consisted of a walled bailey, surrounded by a moat. In 1460, a wealthy London merchant named Henry Bullen purchased the castle and converted it to a Tudor dwelling. His son Thomas, changed his surname to Boleyn and later married Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk.

My supervisor radioed me just after sunrise on a warm summer morning in 1929 to report another incident aboard the shipwreckedE.C. Waters out on Stevenson Island. 

“A bunch of drunks were boozing and brawling on the boat last night,” he said in a grumpy tone that clearly indicated his lack of morning coffee. 

The infamous Red Dwarf (Nain Rouge) of Detroit was reputed to be the foul offspring of the Stone God, who only appeared when there was to be trouble. The Red Dwarf was called "The Demon of the Strait" and its appearance heralded disaster. Cadillac, founder of Detroit, encountered the Nain Rouge while sitting on the bank of the Detroit River. The Red Dwarf had jumped down right in front of the French Colonial governor, startling him nearly out of his wits, and thrust a long stick at him as if it were a sword. Harried by the imp's whacks, Cadillac drew his own sword and parried, beating the creature back with the flat of his blade until it ran away, cackling madly. From that moment, Cadillac's fortunes took a down-turn, and he was eventually recalled to France, losing his trade monopoly and all his privileges.

Aunty Greenleaf was a scrawny old woman with a wild thatch of gray hair and a crooked nose. She lived in a hut surrounded by pines just outside Brookhaven, and she sold herbal remedies to the folks in town. Mostly, people avoided her, except when someone got sick because it was said that Aunty Greenleaf was a witch. Her home remedies worked too well to be natural. Folks figured she had to have help from the devil or one of his familiars.