Thursday, October 31, 2013

OddWA #30 - The Singing Barber


Sometimes a couple stories merge and the result just sticks. One classic chestnut from Seattle's Pike Place Market involves a woman who would sing customers to sleep in her barber shop, then lighten their wallets. She met her demise after falling through the floor of her shop, though Market patrons sometimes claim to hear her singing to this day. A little digging turns up a "true" story of a woman who did fall through the floor at Pike Place, though she wasn't a barber and she didn't rob her customers. That seems to stem from a different story. But the tale of the Singing Barber has taken on a life of its own -- and the tale is a firm fixture with "ghost tours" of Seattle.

CK

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

OddWA #29 – The Soap Lake Sighting



Two cars making their way from Grand Coulee to Soap Lake both stalled and stopped in their tracks on December 7th, 1957. Eight witnesses described watching a large, fiery UFO fly over the vicinity. Strangely, the dome lights reportedly came on in both cars as the craft flew overhead. 
Sounds like some hot-rodding alien teenagers could use a good talking to, by golly.
CK

Monday, October 28, 2013

OddWA #28 - Grave Robber Rescue


When times got tough during the Great Depression a lot of people improvised extra income by working outside the normal boundaries of the law and societal norms. Bootlegging was common, but other crimes also saw an increase in those desperate times. A strange example of one crime meeting another happened in December of 1932 when two Seattle grave robbers digging into a fresh grave unearthed a woman who had been buried alive by her underworld compatriots. She was apparently fine, if somewhat disoriented. It seems neither party was eager to take the matter to the police.
CK

Sunday, October 27, 2013

OddWA #27 - Everett's Phantom Trolley



A compilation of local spooky stories from the early 1950’s tells of a motorist who dodged an oncoming car with one headlight during a snow storm late one night in downtown Everett. As it passed, the driver realized it was actually a trolley. The thing is, no trolleys had operated in the city for decades. It’s nice to know there might be decent mass transit in the afterlife.

CK

OddWA #32 - The Atomic Man

On August 30, 1976 a workplace accident at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant exposed plantworker Harold McCluskey to what should hav...