A – Z Cities with Mysteries – Real & Fictional

 

San Jose, CA

Winchester Mystery House

 

San Jose is the home of the Winchester Mystery House which is a Victorian mansion crafted by Sarah Winchester over a span of 36 years from 1886 to 1922.

Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune, moved to San Jose after the deaths of her husband and infant daughter.

 

Sarah Winchester

A medium, Adam Coons, told her that she and her family were being haunted by the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles, and that she had to build a house for these ghosts and must never stop contruction.

The house became known for its odd architectural features, including staircases leading to nowhere, doors that opened onto walls, and rooms with mismatched windows and doors.

  

The Winchester Mystery House has 160 rooms including 40 bedrooms, 47 staircases, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 10,000 window panes, 2,000 doors, 52 skylights, 47 fireplaces, three elevators, two basements and just one shower.

Some of the staircases in this home are truly peculiar. Instead of taking you to another floor, they lead right into the ceiling.

 There is a vast network of secret passages twisting throughout the property. One cabinet door opens to a hive of 30 additional rooms.

 

A – Z Cities with Mysteries – Real & Fictional

 

Rachel, NV

Rachel, Nevada considers itself “The UFO Capital of the World”. The delightfully oddball town is the nearest town to the secret aircraft testing facility at Groom Lake which is about 25 miles south of Rachel better known as “Area 51”. In 1976, the Governor renamed Nevada’s Route 375 to The Extraterrestrial Highway.

The military built their facility there and in the 1950s it was the perfect place to test experimental spy planes which some locals mistook for alien spacecraft—or so they say.

 

A – Z Cities with Mysteries – Real & Fictional

Quapaw, OK

The Spook Light

 

The Joplin Spook Light or the Tri-State Spook Light, is actually in Oklahoma near the small town of Quapaw. However, it is most often seen from the east, which is why it has been "attached” to the tiny hamlet of Hornet, Missouri, and the larger, better-known town of Joplin.

In the heart of the 4-States, a legendary phenomenon has captured the imagination of locals for centuries — the Joplin Spooklight. This mysterious light, discussed since the 1800s, continues to be a source of fascination and intrigue. To delve into the heart of the mystery, I met up with a 4-State resident, Dean Walker, who has personally witnessed the Spooklight over 50 times since childhood. Walker guided me to the elusive location, and I also consulted a local folklore expert, Lisa Martin, to uncover the rich history behind this enigmatic phenomenon.

Encountering the Spooklight

"Go across the creek, go around a house, come into Witches Holler, three miles, and you're here," says Dean Walker explaining how to get to the Spooklight from I-44 and the Missouri-Oklahoma state line.

The ball of fire, described as varying from the size of a baseball to a basketball, dances and spins down the center of the road at high speeds, rising and hovering above the treetops, before it retreats and disappears. Others have said it sways from side to side, like a lantern being carried by some invisible force. In any event, the orange fire-like ball has reportedly been appearing nightly for well over 100 years. According to locals, the best time to view the spook light is between the hours of 10:00 pm and midnight and tends to shy away from large groups and loud sounds.

Though many paranormal and scientific investigators have studied the light, including the Army Corps of Engineers, no one has been able to provide a conclusive answer as to the origin of the light.

A – Z Cities with Mysteries – Real & Fictional

 Philadelphia, Pennyslvania

Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum holds a unique treasure: slices of Albert Einstein’s brain. After his death in 1955, Einstein’s brain was preserved for scientific study, and several slices found their way to the museum, where they are now displayed for public viewing.

 

 Philadelphia has trees from the moon

Philadelphia has an otherworldly claim to fame with its possession of trees grown from seeds that journeyed to the moon. In 1975, as part of the Apollo 14 mission, astronaut Stuart Roosa carried hundreds of tree seeds to lunar orbit, later germinating them back on Earth. Today, these “moon trees” stand as a living a symbol of our spectacular human and scientific achievements.

 

A – Z Cities with Mysteries – Real & Fictional

 

Oymyakon, Russia

Oymyakon's history as a settlement dates back to the early 20th century. The village’s name translates to “unfrozen water”. Omymyakon served as a stopover for reindeer herders drawn to the area's thermal spring,  

The residents are primarily Yakuts. They have adapted to the harsh climate through activities like cattle farming, hunting, and fishing, with Yakut cows and reindeer being a cornerstone of the local diet.  

 It’s one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth:  -71 degrees to  -96 degrees.

Indoor plumbing is virtually nonexistent because pipes freeze easily in the permafrost, leading to the use of outhouses.

 So to me, the mystery is: Why would people choose to live there???

A – Z Cities with Mysteries – Real & Fictional

 

No Name, Colorado

How the town got its name:

 According to Visit Glenwood Springs, there are a few variations of how the town got its name, but one rendition is most widely accepted.

The city said that as the widely accepted version goes, the state sent out a questionnaire about the town’s name to its residents, to which the majority answered with “No Name” under the section asking for the name of the town.

“The state took them at their word and officially recorded ‘No Name’ into the state records, sealing the town’s fate. Despite attempts to change it, the name stuck,” Glenwood Springs said on its website.

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