Journal of the Bizarre

According to urban legend, legendary rocker Vincent Furnier adopted the stage name of Alice Cooper after the name was revealed to him during a Ouija board session. In a BBC interview in 2009, however, Cooper revealed that the story was entirely made up for publicity purposes. According to the veteran rock star, the origin of the now-famous moniker was far less spooky; Alice Cooper was a fictional character on the Andy Griffith television series Mayberry R.F.D.

There was, however, a real Alice Cooper. And her story is far spookier than the urban legend.

(Editor's note: The following story is based on authentic news articles. For a complete list of sources, see end of blog post)

Alice Cooper lived in Walkerville, Ontario, during the early half of the 20th century. Awakened from a terrifying nightmare one night in the November of 1924, her subsequent actions led to one of the strangest mysteries in the history of Ontario.

Alice, who shared a home with her son, Jimmie, at 63 Monmouth …

In the summer of 1878, John Dempsey of Staten Island, New York, decided to hunt his fellow man for sport. The following story appeared in the August 17, 1878 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

The above newspaper item from 1925 describes Ms. LaForge, perhaps the most divorced woman in American history. What makes her story even more unique is that most of Ms. LaForge's divorces came at a time when divorces were considered taboo and were, in many cases, extremely difficult to obtain.

It's not every day a conspiracy theorist's death makes headlines in mainstream news outlets; In the past 24 hours, I've seen stories about Max's death everywhere from the New York Post to The Sun to Yahoo News. And, if you happened to click on any of these articles, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Spiers had just died recently, when, in fact, Max Spiers has been dead since the evening of July 16.

Back in July, few people outside of the Alex Joneses of the world reported on Max's death. So, why then, is the Internet suddenly blowing up over the "UFO expert-slash-government whistleblower who was found dead after vomiting black liquid"?

If you ask me, it's all for the sake of profit, brought on by the tens of millions of people around the world who are following Julian Assange and his recent WikiLeaks dump of emails targeting Hillary Clinton. Yes, October of 2016 is a great time to be a government whistleblower. Even if the whistleblower in qu…

A Ramble in Mental Telepathy





On a cold winter night in Chicago in 1894, there occurred an incident most bizarre and remarkable. The authenticity of this event was vouched for by one of the witnesses, a doctor by the name of L.T. Potter, who was employed by the Chicago Health Department. It is a story that seems to prove the phenomenon known as mental telepathy.

On the evening mentioned, Dr. L.T. Potter and a number of his colleagues were sitting in the lobby of the Oakland Hotel, at the corner of Drexel and Oakwood boulevards, when a stranger entered the room. His fine attire suggested a man of means, but he seemed afflicted with depression and anxiety. Dr. Potter and his friends sized him up as a man who had been out drinking and needed refuge from the harsh winter cold. From his worried expression they gathered he had been caught in the storm without sufficient money in his pockets to pay for a room.

The young stranger, growing offended by the stares and speculative murmurs, address…

Stumbled across this interesting story, from the Feb. 21, 1891 edition of the Pittsburgh Dispatch:

The June 19, 1895 edition of the Kansas City Times describes the strange story of the funeral of a young boy who was fascinated with bees.