Nexus - 0218 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

spring and a cold water spring came up THE MUTANT MICE OF side by side, and human-size tubs had been carved into the rock floor for bathing in TURKEY these various waters. An intriguing item from Turkey has it Forrest said he then came upon an_ that residents of Gégkiin, Doyran and immense underground lake. Where the Yenice villages near the town of Alagam in main passage came to the lake, a large Samsun province, have mounted round-the- canoe was chained with silver links to the clock armed watches because of attacks by wall. Removing the canoe, he explored the _ giant white mice. lake for a mile and a half in each direction The vicious vermin have webbed hind without reaching the shore. legs and weigh in at 4-6 kg apiece. They He came upon a row of vaults ina side first tumed up around two years ago and passage. One of the vault lids was slightly their numbers have increased steadily ever askew, and Forrest went in to investigate. since. They've been attacking and eating He discovered the bodies of two people, .10-20 village chickens every day, and have a woman who he said was seven feet tall, even attacked cats and dogs—though local and a man, who Forrest claimed was 7-10 domestic pet numbers have dwindled to nil feet tall. Both were laid out on slabs of ice, _ since they've now all run away. and were perfectly preserved in acomplete- 4 vijjager, Mr Behram Pekgéz, was ly frozen state. They wore gold jewellery -eoorediy attacked and bitten by one of the with engravings of antelope and other char- vanGt "Wikies monger rene barelebided acters. 4 H n ture so far, despite ed food bei Near the bodies were the dismembered a a a ek ~e remains of two children. Other bones were - Warri F , scattered around the vault, according to (Source: Hilrrives, 6 Ap 2 ine ty Forrest. Limes #/1, Forrest reported tremendous amounts of white ndilasion quartz and copper in the FOR SALE—HAUNTED HOUSE! huge caves. The slump in the European property mar- Forrest disappeared 16th March, leaving ket has meant that some estate agents have his outfit at the hotel. He was not men- taken ingenuity to new dimensions to beat tioned again in the Chehalis Bee-Nuggett. the recession. The latest selling point? Forrest's caves have been elusive as well. Ghosts. A friendly one can sometimes They have never been rediscovered. But make a property more attractive and even there are famous ice caves, near Paradise add value to the house—but a house with Point State Park on the south side of Mt ‘bad vibes’ is often difficult to sell. Rainier. The ice caves are huge, and fan- A Jacobean manor house, Boys Hall, in tastic to see, but have few of the special Kent, south-east England, with a £650,000 features Forrest described to his enthralled (US$975,000) price tag, has as its key sell- — audience. _ cle. Centralia, 8 Point the ghost of a young woman said (ource. The Daily Chronicle, entraa, io walk through the house on a certain Washington, 10 March 1976) night of the year. TURKEY H. F. Forrest kept the town of Chehalis buzzing for two weeks near the turn of the century with an incredible story about a huge cave on the south side of Chehalis. His story was so unbelievable that almost everyone believed it, feeling Forrest could not possibly have made it up. Although some townspeople waited for him to try to make money off the tale, he left town mys- teriously two weeks after he arrived, never getting any of the Chehalins' money. Nor did he ask any. He received front page attention two straight weeks in the Chehalis Bee- Nuggett, the editor of the newspaper so caught up in the story that when The Oregonian, having read the first week's fan- tastic account, published an article casting doubt upon Forrest's observations, the Bee- Nuggett chided The Oregonian for having no trust. On 10 March 1901, 75 years ago today, Forrest spoke to the "children at the reform school". He said he had been prospecting when he came upon a large flat rock "which had been hewn by human hands". He removed it to find the cave entrance on the south side of Mt Rainier. He entered to find huge caves and a mine of vast wealth. The cave was reported to be 12 feet high and eight to 60 feet wide. The walls were “polished", and con- tained “hieroglyphics and figures made by human hands". He explored the main passage five miles deep. Side passages contained ice caves, and other side passages contained boiling water, according to his tale. He said that at one place a sulphur spring, a hot water The slump in the European property mar- ket has meant that some estate agents have taken ingenuity to new dimensions to beat the recession. The latest selling point? Ghosts. A friendly one can sometimes make a property more attractive and even add value to the house—but a house with ‘bad vibes’ is often difficult to sell. A Jacobean manor house, Boys Hall, in Kent, south-east England, with a £650,000 (US$975,000) price tag, has as its key sell- ing point the ghost of a young woman said to walk through the house on a certain night of the year. Since April 1993 the UK Properties Misdescriptions Act has been in place, requiring estate agents to comply with strict guidelines for describing house par- ticulars. It is unclear, however, whether agents are now legally bound to disclose information about ghostly residents—pre- suming they have been informed by the vendors. Mr Tom Perrot, a former chairman of the Ghost Club and author of several books on haunted houses, has warned estate agents to be careful about what they say. "If a house is described as haunted without its owner's consent, he or she could sue for slander of goods,” he said, because the description could reduce the house's value. (Source: The European, 17-23 December 1993) 62 NEXUS 7 MORE MYSTERIOUS CAVES THE MUTANT MICE OF FOR SALE—HAUNTED HOUSE! FEBRUARY - MARCH 1994