Journal of the Bizarre

Ever since April 6, 1909, history books have recorded Robert Edwin Peary as being the first person to reach the North Pole. Some scholars, however, claim that explorer Frederick Cook bested Peary by reaching the North Pole on April 21, 1908. While the Cook-versus-Peary debate has been going back and forth for over a century, it may all be a moot point-- since it's very likely that the first person to reach the North Pole was neither Cook nor Peary, but a little-known French Canadian trapper by the name of Joseph Zotique La Joie.

In the spring of 1900 a French Canadian fur trapper traveled to Washington, D.C. on a mission to prove to the scientific community that he was the first person to reach the North Pole, and had done so in 1894. This man, Joseph Z. La Joie, checked into the Hotel Raleigh on March 14 and entertained some of the world's foremost experts on Arctic exploration. Those who met with La Joie included famed polar explorer Gen. Adolphus Greely and Admiral George …

According to the UK's Daily Mail, sightings of the Loch Ness Monster have hit a record high, with a Michigan woman becoming the ninth person to spot "Nessie" in 2017.

Diana Turner reportedly spotted the mythical cryptid via webcam during a livestream of Loch Ness in the vicinity of Urquhart Castle, which is said to be a hotspot for Nessie sightings.

"The sighting lasted about two minutes and other than a boat in the distance, she saw no other traffic on the loch," said Gary Campbell, who maintains the official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register. Campbell has recorded over 1,080 various Nessie sightings during his career.

Turner's recording of Loch Ness was made on September 29, states the Daily Mail article.



Interestingly, while the Daily Mail considers this to be a "record year" for Nessie sightings, the very same article states that there were 17 documented sightings in 1996, and several years with 20-plus sightings during the 1960s and 1930s…

Located in north Texas, not far from the Oklahoma border, is the tiny rural village of Valley View. The village was born in the early 1870s when eighteen families decided to settle there, and eventually blossomed into a town complete with a post office, a couple of gristmills and churches, a hotel, and a connection to the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. By the close of the 19th century Valley View boasted five hundred inhabitants. Although the village and the surrounding environs might have appeared quaint and charming to visitors, this sparsely-populated part of Cooke County also harbored a dark secret and a ghastly history.

About three miles west of the village stands a grove once known to the locals as Hangman's Grove. In spite of its name, the location doesn't appear as dreary as one might imagine; birds flitter cheerfully among the branches of stunted elm and walnut trees, while the soothing babbling of Indian Creek evokes a sense of serenity as it meanders toward Sp…

We came across the following article in the November 8, 1907 edition of the Pittsburgh Press and enjoyed the writer's first-person account of a spectacular haunting so much that we decided to reprint the original article.


Galveston, Tex., November 8.-- Thirty years ago, when the writer first visited the Allen Bayou country in the Chickasaw Nation it was as lonely a spot as a man would wish to see. The nearest habitation to our hunting grounds was nine miles distant, the home of an old hunter, Joseph Bozarth, who has long since passed to the happy hunting grounds.

About two miles distant from our cabin was a place said to be haunted. It was a shack without doors, without windows, and the chimney had fallen down. The cabin was situated in dense woods, cut off from any public road. There was an old cow path, but even that had been obliterated by the dense underbrush. A more admirable place for a haunted house could not be conceived of. To stumble on this place in the gloaming was enoug…