Morbid Kuriosity’s Strange and Unexplained Incidents

Sebastian, curator of the Morbid Kuriosity website, presents an ample compendium of 92 enigmas and oddities. All the old favorites are mentioned: cattle mutilations (are space aliens involved?); the Roswell Incident and an array of extraterrestrial abductions; the story of the mysterious plane hijacker D.B. Cooper, who got away with the ransom money and was never heard from again; and, of course, a full complement of tales about cannibals, vampires, and urban legends. The author particularly highlights the work of Ed and Lorraine Warren, founders of the New England Society for Psychic Research and the inspiration for the Conjuring movie franchise. The couple “were instrumental in safeguarding countless individuals from malevolent forces,” Sebastian writes, most notably the always unsettling Annabelle, a rag doll possessed by an evil entity. Other movie franchises’ less well-known inspirations also get a spotlight—readers will be intrigued to learn about the true story that inspired Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, a 1981 article in the Los Angeles Times that described “a young Cambodian refugee” who had escaped that country’s genocide and “harbored a profound fear of sleeping, convinced that his nightmares would lead to his death.” The young man later really did die in his sleep, and researchers found several other such cases among Cambodian refugees. Readers who enjoy bite-size doses of creepiness will be pleasantly disturbed. (June)