In 1936 Captain Hubert C. Provand was taking photos of the picturesque Raynham Hall, a country house in Norfolk, England, when he snapped this picture.

As Provand was setting up the shot, his assistant called out for the photo to be taken 'now', as something was descending the staircase. The result is this world famous ghost photo, said to be that of Lady Dorothy Walpole.

September 19, 1936: Photographer, Captain Hubert C Provand and his assistant, Indre Shira were taking pictures of Raynham Hall, Norfolk, England for the December issue of 'Country Life' Magazine.

Little did they know that on this day they would capture the ghost that has said to be haunting the old country house since the mid 1800's. The ghost is better known as the 'Brown Lady', as the spectre has been described as wearing a brown silk brocade dress.

On Dec. 8, 1895, the Boston Sunday Post published an article titled “The Wonders of Modern Science” that presented astonished readers with reports from the so-called “Royal Scientific Society” documenting the existence of “marvels and monsters” hitherto believed imaginary.

The “human freaks” supposedly cataloged by the British scientists included a mermaid, a terrifying “human crab,” and the unfortunate Edward Mordrake, who would soon become an enduring urban legend.

As the Post reported, Edward Mordrake (originally spelled Mordake) was a young, intelligent, and good-looking English nobleman, as well as a “musician of rare ability.” 

But with all of his great blessings came a terrible curse. In addition to his handsome, normal face, Mordrake possessed a terrifying disfigurement: another face on the back of his head.

In the early 1960s, Michael Rockefeller vanished somewhere off the coast of Papua New Guinea. His disappearance shocked the nation and prompted a manhunt of historic proportions. Years later, the true fate of the heir to the Standard Oil fortune has been uncovered and it’s more disturbing than anyone at the time imagined.

Michael Rockefeller was born in 1938. He was the youngest son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and the newest member of a dynasty of millionaires founded by his famous great-grandfather, John D. Rockefeller — one of the richest men who ever lived.

Though his father expected him to follow in his footsteps and help manage the family’s vast business empire, Michael was a quieter, more artistic spirit. When he graduated from Harvard in 1960, he wanted to do something more exciting than sit around in boardrooms and conduct meetings.

His father, a prolific art collector, had recently opened the Museum of Primitive Art, and its exhibits, including Nigerian, Aztec, and Mayan works, entranced Michael.

Imagine a beam of energy that could bring down planes from miles away with nothing but electricity. Imagine an invisible wall of energy protecting a country from invasion, acting as an electric fence that could vaporize enemy soldiers the second they step foot inside. 

Sounds like something most militaries would love to get their hands on, doesn’t it? The dream of this kind of “death ray” has inspired weapons developers for decades. But one brilliant inventor, Nikola Tesla, claimed to have actually created one.

Tesla was born in what is now Croatia in 1856, where he received an education in engineering before immigrating to the United States. There, he got a job working for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own as an inventor.

Many of Tesla’s inventions in this period were revolutionary. He primarily focused on improving systems for generating electric power and transmitting electric currents. In addition, he also made important innovations in the field of radio technology.

Over the years, people have disappeared and are never seen again. Stranger yet, their disappearance may remain a secret until that person is forgotten completely. One of the strangest disappearances took place in the year 1974.

In November, a 39-year-old aristocrat known as Lord Lucan vanished. He had left behind the bloody, gruesome mess of his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett. Apparently, he mistakenly killed the nanny, thinking she was his wife.

The most successful detectives from Scotland Yard still had no idea where Lucan went; the mystery is still talked about today. With the body of Lucan still not found comes the countless conspiracy theories as to what may have happened to him.

Lord Lucan standing outside with his future wife, Veronica Duncan, 14 October 1963. Many believe he skipped the country and lived abroad undercover for the rest of his life. Even today, there have been many sightings of Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, reported around the world. 

Evelyn McHale’s dying wish was that no one sees her body. She wanted her family to remember her body the way it was before she jumped off the 86th-floor Observation Deck of the Empire State Building.

Evelyn McHale never got her wish. Four minutes after her body landed on a United Nations limousine, parked at the curb, a photography student named Robert Wiles ran across the street and snapped a photo.

The photo that the student snapped shows Evelyn McHale looking almost peaceful, like she could be sleeping, lying cradled in a mess of crumpled steel. Her feet are crossed at the ankles, and her gloved left-hand rests on her chest, clutching her pearl necklace.

Looking at the image without context, it looks like it could be staged. But the truth is much darker than that, but the photo became famous around the world.

Since being taken on May 1, 1947, the photo has become infamous, with Time magazine calling it “the most beautiful suicide.” Even Andy Warhol used it in one of his prints, Suicide (Fallen Body).

Born to a Corsican family of modest means in 1769, by 1811 Napoleon Bonaparte ruled 70 million people and dominated Europe. Four years later, his dynastic, political, imperial and military dreams were shattered and he was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena under British guard. There, until his death he and his cooped-up, fretful household lived in a rambling villa called Longwood House.

That death did not come suddenly. For months Napoleon suffered from abdominal pain, nausea, night sweats and fever. When he was not constipated he was assailed by diarrhea; he lost weight. 

On September 19, 1972, in Springfield, NJ, a dog returned to its owner with something far more gruesome than a stick in its mouth. To the owner’s shock, the animal was carrying around the decomposed remains of a human hand and forearm in its jaws. 

The authorities were contacted right away and began a search with bloodhounds of the nearby Houdaille quarry, which was in a wooded area where the dog’s owner claimed it liked to roam around. 

It was not long before the rest of the arm’s body was found sprawled atop a wooded bluff in the quarry that had the rather foreboding name of “The Devil’s Teeth,” since the rocks jutting up from the ground gave the impression of jagged teeth in a skull.

The body was that of a young woman lying face down, was fully clothed, and so badly decomposed that the cause of death could not be readily ascertained. The body required dental records to identify, which revealed that the body was that of 16 year-old Jeanette DePalma, a local girl who had been reported missing from her home on August 7 of the same year.

Around the year 1826, a boy named Joseph Bolitho Johns was born in Cornwall, England, the third of a blacksmith’s six children. After his father had died, Joseph went to Wales to earn a living as a miner.

For unknown reasons, in 1848 he and a friend stole three loaves of bread, some ham, cheese and a few other things. The two were then sentenced to ten years of penal servitude – a combination of prison and hard labor. 

While serving his sentence he was shipped to Western Australia, where he arrived on 30 April 1853 and was released two years later for good conduct.

So he went to live in Avon Valley – a region called Moondyne by the Aborigines. There, he built a new life for himself and earned money by catching runaway animals and collecting the reward. 

One day in May 1901, the attorney general of Paris received a strange letter declaring that a prominent family in the city was keeping a dirty secret. 

The note was handwritten and unsigned, but the attorney general was so disturbed by its contents that he decided to investigate immediately.

When the police arrived at the Monnier estate, they must have had some misgivings: the wealthy family had a spotless reputation. Madam Monnier was known in Parisian high society for her charitable works, she had even received a community award in recognition of her generous contributions. 

Her son, Marcel, had excelled at school and now worked as a respectable lawyer. The Monniers had also had a beautiful young daughter, Blanche, but no one had seen her in close to 25 years.