There are hundreds of unexplained mysteries from every corner of the planet involving cars, drivers, hitchhikers, car theft, and abduction.  One of the most unusual occurred soon after a new section of the Autobahn in Germany was opened to traffic between Bremen and Bremerhaven in 1929.  During the first year alone no fewer than a hundred cars crashed or came off the Autobahn, but the accidents were all happening in exactly the same place, very close to kilometer marker number 239.  On one particular day, September 7, 1930, nine separate accidents took place adjacent to the marker post, in each of which all vehicles were destroyed.

There appeared to be no explanation for the accidents, as the stretch of road in question was flat and straight and no hazards had been reported.  And that day in September had been particularly fine and sunny.  However, survivors told police that when they approached the marker they had felt a sensation in their stomachs as if they had crossed a humpback bridge at speed, and a "strange force then took over the steering and threw their car off the road."

German police were perplexed until a local water diviner, Carl Wehrs, suggested that a powerful magnetic force caused by an underground stream might have been the reason for the mysterious accidents.  Accompanied by witnesses, he walked with a steel divining rod toward the marker.  He was about ten feet away when, all of a sudden, the rod was ripped from his grasp, the sheer force of it spinning his body around 360 degrees, like an Olympic hammer thrower.

Wehr’s solution to the problem was to bury a box of copper next to the marker stone, and the accidents immediately stopped.  To further test his theory, he later dug the box back up, and the first three cars to pass by all crashed.  Once the box was reburied the marker post was removed, the area was sprinkled with holy water, and the accidents ceased and have never recurred.

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One evening in 1974, building workers in Indianapolis employed by the Dowling Construction Company securely locked up the site, leaving a steel demolition ball dangling from a crane more than two hundred feet above the ground. When the operator arrived for work the following morning, he climbed the crane and took his seat in the cab before he noticed the steel ball was missing. It had completely vanished. A thorough search was made and statewide appeals for information were issued. To this day, police officers are puzzle by the theft. No trace of the demolition ball – at nearly three tons in weight, not easy just to slip into one’s pocket – has ever been found.

At 10:30 PM on the evening of March 9, 1929, Mrs. Locklan Smith heard the sound of screaming coming from the building next door, a small laundry at 4 East 132^nd Street in New York. She immediately called the police, who searched the deserted premises until they came across a small, securely locked room at the back. Unable to break in, officers finally managed to gain access by lifting a small boy through a tiny window; he then released the bolts to the door from the inside. In the room lay the body of the laundry owner, Isidore Fink, who had been shot twice in the chest and once through the left hand. Powder burns indicated the gun had been fired at point-blank range, and yet no gun was found in the room.

Isidore had not committed suicide, he had been murdered, although cash in the safe and in Fink’s jacket pocket suggested that robbery was not the motive. At first the police believed the murderer must have made his escape through the window as Isidore always securely bolted the doors from the inside when he worked alone at night. But not only would the window have been too small or awkward to get through (unless the murderer had been a dwarf or a small child), it also did not explain why the killer hadn’t simply unbolted the door and walked out through that instead. Others suggested Fink had been shot through the window, but tests proved the powder burns would only show if the gun had been fired from a distance of a few inches, so unless the murderer had twelve-foot arms, they would have to rule that idea out too. No other clue was ever found, and two years after the death of the unfortunate Mr. Fink, the New York police commissioner, Edward P. Mulrooney, was forced to declare the incident an “unsolvable mystery.”

At some time between June 28 and July 6, 1907, a person or persons unknown walked into the strong room of Bedford Tower in Dublin Castle and stole the Irish crown jewels, said to be worth £250,000 at the time. Whoever stole them must have had keys, as no locks were broken and there was no sign of forced entry. How the thieves could have gotten hold of a set of keys is a mystery in itself, as the sole key holder was Sir Arthur Vicars, the Ulster king of arms, who was out of the country at the time. Staff calculated it would have taken between fifteen and twenty minutes to remove the jewels from their individual cases before the thieves made their escape. During this time, none of the four heavily armed guards on duty noticed anything out of the ordinary, and despite a lengthy investigation by Scotland Yard, no trace of the crown jewels has ever been found.

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The weirdly gnarled and misshapen complex of the Rollright Stones, lying 28 kilometers north-west of Oxford, is perhaps associated with more folklore than any other British prehistoric site. Legend has it that a minor king, out marching with his army, met a witch who said he would become the king of all England if, after taking just seven strides, he could see the village of Long Compton up ahead. When the king tried, a mound magically rose up and blocked his view and the witch cackled out a curse, turning the men to stone and herself into a tree. Interestingly, archaeologists in the 1980s found that the natural ridge that cuts out the view of Long Compton from the site does in fact harbor a prehistoric burial mound.

By Standing Stone and Elder Tree: Ritual and the Unconscious (Llewellyn’s New World Magic Series)

A further tradition claimed that if the tree was cut when in blossom, it would bleed, and the King Stone would turn its head. Other Rollright legends say that the stones called the King’s Men go down to drink at a nearby stream at midnight. Fairies are said to come out of a hole in the ground and dance around the King Stone. In the past this stone was also associated with a fertility tradition – at night, young women would touch it with their breasts. At the group of stones known as the Whispering Knights, women were able to put their ears to the stones and hear the whispered answers to their questions.

Circles of Silence

For centuries people have claimed that stones at prehistoric sites have magical powers and can heal, move, or even cause electric shocks. After touching one of the Rollright Stones in 1919, a Mrs. L. Chapman reported that “my hand and arm began to tingle badly and I felt as though I was being pushed away.” In 1980 another visitor to the site “saw a pool of diffuse white light which seemed to be coming out of the ground; it rose a bit above the stones and then tapered off.” While local tradition associates such lights with fairies, the Rollright Stones have also been the subject of serious research.

The Rollright Stones: history & legends in prose & poetry

A British group called the Dragon Project Trust has investigated the Rollright Stones as part of its continuing study of reports of strange energy effects at prehistoric sites. Formed in 1977, this group of enthusiasts includes volunteers from all walks of life, such as surveyors, teachers, artists, geochemists, physicists and electronics experts. At the Rollright site the Dragon Project team found that some stones pulsated with low-level magnetism that could be detected only with special instruments. They also monitored ultrasound – high-frequency sound beyond the human hearing. In January 1989 the team found that a meter-deep band around one stone emitted signals at 37 kilohertz (37,000 cycles per second), but they stopped as mysteriously as they had begun.

Researchers have also found unexplained ground-level radio signals at Bronze Age burial mounds in Ireland’s Wicklow Mountains. And ghostly voices have been recorded inside another burial chamber in the Loughcrew Hills in Ireland. Did such phenomena influence prehistoric people in choosing their sacred places? Old stone structures throughout the world are frequently found near surface faults in the earth, where there can be electrical, magnetic and gravitational anomalies. At such places the mysterious balls of light known as earth lights often appear.

The rollright stones; the Stonehenge of Oxfordshire; with some account of the ancient druids and sagas rendered into English, illustrated with camera and pen

The Dragon Project team also studied the site of Carn Ingli, in the Welsh Preseli Hills, after a bizarre experience there was reported. In 1987, when a young couple was driving through the area, the woman nearly lost consciousness as they passed Carn Ingli, with its rugged sides terraced by the remains of ancient stone walls. After the couple left the area, the woman’s symptoms abated.

When investigating the 1987 Carn Ingli incident, the Dragon Project team were surprised to discover a magnetic anomaly on the peak that caused a compass needle to spin. Magnetism is known to affect the brain. Could this have caused the strange sensation experienced by the young woman? It may also help to explain the visions of angels that Saint Brynach, a sixth-century holy man, is said to have seen at Carn Ingli, a name meaning “Mound of Angels.”

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