The Modern Antiquarian has provided its extensive (over 7,000) UK & Eire megalithic sites database to Google Earth users. For those of us who can’t hop on a plane to visit Stonehenge or any of the other ancient sites, this is the next best thing.

The Modern Antiquarian Google Earth Plugin

Hollywood has created a slew of movies about zombies whose bodies reanimate so they can kill the living. It’s entertainment, but it’s not real. The most terrifying zombie movie I’ve ever watched was Serpent and the Rainbow, starring Bill Pullman. What made this movie so good was its plausibility. Cases of witch doctors turning people into zombies has happened. I’ll illustrate a true case.

Angelina Narcisse was shopping in a Haitian market on a beautiful spring day in 1980 when a stranger walked up to her. His gait was heavy, and his eyes were vacant. He introduced himself by his childhood nickname of her dead brother, who had passed on in 1962. Angelina screamed in horror because no one else but she and her family knew that nickname. Her brother was alive!

The case of Clairvius Narcisse sparked an intense investigation into the voodoo and zombiism. Narcisse was declared dead at Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti in 1962. Yet more than 200 people recognized him on the day he approached his sister in that market. Narcisse told researchers that his brothers had “killed” him because he refused to help them sell the family land.

Researchers concluded that Narcisse had been poisoned with special herbal toxins that are a specialty of voodoo priests. This slowed his vitals down to the point where they couldn’t be detected by the hospital’s unsophisticated medical equipment. Like many victims of voodoo, Narcisse woke up with a certain degree of brain damage.

According to Haitian lore, zombies have no choice but to follow orders from their new masters, often the witch doctors who created them. Narcisse claimed that his master had him working at the sugar plantation from the time he woke up from his “death” up until he found his sister.

“Zombies lose their will and become mindless slaves,” author Wade Davis explained. “Voodoo practitioners aren’t afraid of zombies; they are afraid of being turned into zombies.”

Thomas Whaley couldn’t have chosen a worse place to build his house–on top of an old public gallows site and a Native American burial ground. While I found no reports of hauntings during that time period, I read the chronological history of this family, who suffered from devastating financial losses as well as the deaths of two children.

Thomas Whaley, Jr. died at 18 months, cause unknown. His sister, Violet, died at 17 from an alleged suicide. An article from Eeeek-net suggests that Violet may have been murdered by her father or her sister, Corinne. I found it interesting that Corinne chose to be buried away from her family’s plot. She also wrote a book about San Diego, but failed to mention her family or their contributions to the city’s growth.

Today, visitors claim that this stately house is haunted by several ghosts. Reports of footsteps, strange odors, apparitions and orbs have been reported. Regis Philban tried to sleep in the house in 1974 while hosting a local TV show, but fled in terror.

Eeeek-net investigators concluded that the ghosts of Thomas (who was abusive to his family), his wife and Violet still reside in that house. For more information about The Whaley house hauntings, visit Viewzone.com.

This movie was exactly what I expected it to be, a cheap sequel with a somewhat interesting plot twist of devil worship and torture. The writers knocked out the infamous Red Room and substituted it with growling vents, which I thought was very stupid and cliche. If I had gone to the movie theater to watch the Amityville Horror remake, I would have been disappointed. The bonuses on the DVD make this movie worth renting.

I enjoyed watching the bonus segment entitled Supernatural Homicide. The former police chief and medical examiner were interviewed, as well as psychic Lorraine Warren. While the police chief refuted Ronald DeFeo’s claim about demon possession and ghosts, he is haunted by the crime scene. Lorraine, on the other hand, believes that the house is possessed by evil and that DeFeo wasn’t solely responsible for the murders.