Beyond the Fringe

In June 1826 in a small settlement outside Sydney, Australia, a local farmer named Frederick Fisher suddenly disappeared.  Two months later a neighbor of the missing man was walking home late at night when he crossed a bridge near Fisher's farm.  Sitting on the railing of the bridge was the ghostly image of Frederick Fisher.  As the neighbor looked on in horror, the ghost raised his hand and pointed to a nearby creek before disappearing.   The next day, the police acting on the report of the spectral sighting went the bridge and searched the creek.  Along the bank the searchers discovered the body Frederick Fisher in a shallow makeshift grave.  Officials quickly arrested another local farmer who confessed to the murder and was tried, convicted and hanged.  It seemed that the ghost of the dead man had returned from the grave in order to solve his own murder.

In the winter of 1848, her majesty's ship HMS Daedalus was making her way from Cape Town to the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic ocean.  On August 6th, 6 members of the crew sighted an huge animal approaching the ship, which then passed through its wake continuing on to the southwest.  The Captain swore to the Admiralty that what they had seen was a sea serpent perhaps 60 feet long.   To date this report remains one of the most credible and well documented sightings of this mysterious and mythical animal ever recorded.  But was this creature what the men claimed it be, or was it an animal known but at the time little understood?  Let's find out!

With tales going back as far as 1770, the townhome at 50 Berkley Square in Mayfair, London has a sinister reputation.  A shapeless, menacing horror is said to haunt the second floor bedroom of the posh Westminster address and is responsible for the deaths of more than one intrepid soul who dare stay the night there.  In this episode we'll take an in-depth look at the facts and see if there is any truth to the legend of the Nameless Horror of Number 50 Berkley Square.

Known since the middle ages, there is a terrifying killer that strikes without warning, killing  its victim and then reducing the body to ash.  Hundreds of reports of this mystifying anomaly have been recorded from around the globe, yet even today there appears to be no clear-cut explanation as to its cause.  On tonight's episode of BTF, we're going to explore the deadly and misunderstood phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion.

A Canadian fur trapper stumbled across an abandoned Inuit village in the winter of 1930.  Though the shelters were still intact and provisions plentiful, there was evidence that suggested the people had left in a hurry and at once.  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation turned up no clues that could explain the disappearance of the people of Lake Angikuni.  It was as if they had vanished into thin air.

In 1920 a Swiss geologist on an oil finding expedition in the jungles of Venezuela snapped a photo of an animal that by all accounts should not exist.  If verified it would prove to be one of the most amazing anthropological discoveries in history and could rewrite the lineage of human evolution.  But was the photo truly of an unknown animal, a simple case of mistaken identity or an outright fraud perpetuated by a huckster and Nazi sympathizer?  Join us as we investigate the weird, wild tale of de Loys' Ape. 

On a summer evening in 1178, monks in Canterbury, England witnessed a remarkable sight.  As they gazed at the moon, fire erupted from the rim sending sparks flying from the slim crescent and turning the lunar surface black.  For centuries this mystery remained just that, until in 1976 a planetary astronomer proposed the radical theory that what the monks saw was an asteroid striking the moon and he had the proof to back up his claim.  We will be taking a closer look at this incredible sighting,  studying all the available evidence and try to figure the origins of the Fire on the Moon.

On a warm spring night in 1997, thousands of people in the greater Phoenix area witnessed what many thought was the first wave of an interstellar invasion.  Lights appeared in the sky from the Nevada border to Mexico that seemed to have no terrestrial explanation.  Join us as we take an in-depth look at the cultural phenomenon that has come to be known as the Phoenix Lights. 

A small stone crypt stands abandoned in a centuries-old churchyard on the Caribbean island of Barbados.  It was once the tomb of the wealthy Chase family, and today is the site of one of the most famous paranormal mysteries in history.  Between 1812 ad 1820, the burial vault was opened 4 times to receive the dead, and each time the crypt was unsealed onlookers found the coffins in the tomb tossed about wildly.  Was is earthquakes, floods, voodoo or something even more sister that moved the caskets about in the tomb?  Join us as we explore the tantalizing mystery of the Dancing Coffins of Barbados on this episode of Beyond the Fringe.

In the wild interior of Tasmania, a creature is seen lurking in the brush.  A predator with powerful jaws, sharp teeth and tiger-like stripes running down its back.  The animal in question in the thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger.  It is a real animal, no mystery there.  The mystery lies in the fact that the thylacine has been officially listed as extinct for almost 100 years.

On Boxing Day, December 26th 1900, the lighthouse supply ship Hesperus arrived at the tiny island of Eilean Mor -- the largest of Flannan Islands off the northwestern coast of Scotland.  She was there to drop off food and supplies as well as relief keeper, Joseph Moore,  who was to begin his 6-week stint at the station.  But when repeated blasts of the horn and even a flare fired over the lighthouse failed to bring the keepers down to the dock, Captain Harvie became concerned.  So he sent Moore up to the lighthouse to discover why the men didn't come down to the landing to greet the ship.  Upon entering the living quarters, Moore found it deserted.   A thorough search of the island turned up few clues, but the bodies of the missing keepers were never found.  It was if James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald McArthur had vanished into thin air.

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In the autumn of 1880, a Tennessee famer named David Lang was walking across his field when he vanished into thin air in front of 5 witnesses.  This story is one of the most recognized and referenced in the "true mystery" genre and has been a mainstay in strange tales anthologies for decades.  But did David Lang actually disappear as the legend states, or is there more to the story?  In this episode of Beyond the Fringe we'll take an in-depth look at the mystery and the legend surrounding the Disappearance of David Lang.