Supernatural Abductions of People
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For the research that I've been doing, I was wondering what role the paranormal could play in disappearances of people.

And I came across an article that had been written back in the 1930s in the American Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.

This featured a case of a farming family who were living in a small rural location of Sandfeld in East Germany in the 1700s. So this took place in 1722 and it seems that they became terrorised by what could only really be described at the time as either a poltergeist or a demon.

But it tied into disappearances. So the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology of Friedberg, Germany, as well as the Journal for Society for Psychical Research, both looked into this case. And it's a relatively unheard of one, really. But a diary was kept.

about this poltergeist or demon. In the Psychology of Frontier Areas journal, they said, "...a curious and true diary has been kept about a ghost or poltergeist or demon which has shown his apish antics in such strange ways by the ruining of windows, doors and furniture and has finally shown his powers of strangulation as well as the ability to make children disappear on the farm."

Well, so it goes that occurring at the Dutso farmhouse with a foreword by the parson of Rodgendorf, you can actually read all about the case. And surprisingly, there were at least 27 witnesses, including people of the family, those who worked at the farm, including the watchman and the administrator of the local town.

The case is now housed in the National University Library of Hamburg.

Well, the incidents took place in this farmhouse owned by Hans Joachim. He'd been given orders to make such a report by the head of the aristocratic farming estate of Dutzau, to which the farms and the nearby village of Sandfeld belonged to at the time. And the order was made so as to document and investigate these curious occurrences at the farm.

Well, as with most cases of poltergeists or hauntings, or perhaps demons, there were at the farmhouse the usual banging at night, crashing doors, smashing of kitchen crockery, and the sighting of fleeting black shadows. But what was most disturbing for the family at the time was that an invisible entity seemed able to literally lift their children up in the air and leave them dangling mid-air.

or even more baffling, could make the children completely disappear. The children would emerge sometime later in a completely different location on the farmland.

and the case was not based on folklore or made-up stories. It appears to have been researched and well documented at the time. Witnesses who saw these incidents occur at first hand were documented, and those included not only the parents, but the farm workers, neighbours, and people who acted in authority. But no rational explanation for the disappearances of the children and their reappearances in the fields or the woods could be given.

And looking further, for more cases perhaps that might exist like this, another incident which was described by the Society for Psychical Research occurred in 1928, and this time in the Pune district of rural India. It was recorded by a well-known historian at the time, and the story revolves around events in the household of a Dr. Kethkar.

The young sons of the doctor were apparently suffering from poltergeist persecution and were being teleported. In April of that year, the boy's governess wrote a letter to her relatives describing what was taking place. She describes how she witnessed the youngest boy rematerialising in front of her very eyes after he had disappeared some time earlier.

she described how his body appeared to her as though his posture seemed to indicate that he had been gripped tightly around the waist and carried off when he rematerialized in front of her he appeared to be bent forward with both of his arms hanging up and away from his sides

the young boy himself would say that he felt as though when these incidents occurred he was being lifted up and transported by someone but whoever or whatever it was they were completely invisible

I also found an article that appeared in Pravada News, a Russian newspaper, in 2009, in which a woman named Lydia Nikolevy from Novy Boyt village in Russia claimed that she had been out picking mushrooms in the forest when she felt a sudden stabbing pain in her chest.

when she came to she found herself deposited at an abandoned church approximately three miles from where she had been bravada news also spoke with the paranormal researcher irina tazarev a member of the phenomenon committee that studies anomalies in russia

and she told the following story of how three friends had gone fishing in the countryside outside of St. Petersburg. En route, their car was struck with lightning, and they careered into a ditch, hitting a pine tree. On escaping from the crashed vehicle, the friends saw a house in the distance that they could not recall having seen before when they'd been driving to go fishing, but they set off toward the house anyway to ask for assistance.

When they reached the house, an old lady answered the door and let them in. She gave them a hot meal and said they could sleep on the floor for the night, which they decided to do. When they woke the next morning, they were lying on cool grass and there were no houses to be seen. Their car was in the ditch beside them.

Vadim Chebrov, a member of a Russian scientific investigative society called Cosmospic, also interviewed by Pravada, said, We have found many cases where people encountered invisible obstacles that felt like transparent walls. In old times, such places were called devil's spots. In Russia, they can be found on the bank of the Yuppe River, near the city of Tula.

Some people say that they've encountered dense air pockets and those who dared step inside of them have never come back.

Well, researchers Bob Rickard, founder of the Fortean Times, and John Michelle describe how a writer called Dermot Mechanus, in his book The Middle Kingdom, relates a curious incident apparently involving what's known as stray sod and invisible barriers. In 1935, the writer's aunt, living in Mayo Island, had apparently employed a girl from the neighbouring village to be her helping hand and assistant.

but the girl would often be sent out on errands by the aunt and when she left the aunt's house her route would require her to pass through the forest inside which was the beechwood hill ringed by a fairy fort known as the lizard

The girl would often feel very tempted to climb up the hill into the fairy fort, because to do so would give her a view of her own village, and she was very homesick. Well, one day, as she set out on her errand, she did climb up the hill and enter the fairy fort, and gaze longingly across at her own village.

"'After a while, she left the fairy fort and climbed back down the hill, "'intending to continue on and carry out the errand for her employer, "'as she'd been instructed to do. "'However, as she got to an opening in the bank of the trees at the bottom of the hill, "'she felt a very peculiar jerk inside her body, "'which felt like a muscular jerk rather than something external.'

and before she could understand what was happening she found herself quickly walking in exactly the opposite direction back toward the center of the woods again the same thing happened when she tried to get through a gap in the trees at the foot of the hill a second time she could not go through

She decided to retrace her steps all the way back to the exact spot in the woods where she'd entered the woods. But when she reached there, she felt as if an invisible wall was in place, and she could not pass. She was trapped. For hours, she was trapped behind this invisible wall, which to her felt solid, so solid that she could feel it with her hands.

Meanwhile, her absence had been noted and had become a matter for concern as the evening had passed into night and the woods had become dark. That night, search parties were formed and sent out to look for her, spreading out through the woods. Curiously, the girl later said that one of the search parties had passed within 60 feet of her.

but they could neither hear her shouts for help, nor could they see her, and yet she could see them perfectly well. It was at some time later that night that she became aware that the invisible barrier appeared to have gone, and she was able to get out of the woods, physically unharmed, but exhausted, and her nerves shredded.

Sabine Baring-Gold, born 1834 in Devon, England, was an Anglican vicar, antiquarian, archaeologist, scholar and writer. He was responsible for some of the earliest recordings and restorations of prehistoric stone circles on the moors of Dartmoor National Park.

Among the books that he wrote were such titles as The Book of Werewolves and Devonshire Characters and Strange Events. And it is in this second book that the Reverend Sabine relates the case of what he calls the Demon of Sprayton, in the small rural village of Sprayton, a short distance from the Moors.

the events concerned a servant man called francis fay who was employed by philip furze of the parish of spreaton francis fay was walking across a field not far from the farm of his master mr furze when there appeared to him the resemblance of an old gentleman with a staff in his hand

the resemblance was of his master's father well fay was rather shocked to see a man whom he knew but who also was long since dead next day fay was riding home to his master's farm accompanied by the servant of a woman living in a near-by village when the ghost was suddenly seen sitting behind him on his own horse it clasped its long arms about his waist and flung him from the saddle to the ground

this was witnessed by several persons on the road on entering the yard of his master's farm the horse made a bound of some twenty-five feet to the amazement of all

soon after this a female ghost appeared at the farm seen by faye as well as other witnesses including annie langdon well as for this female spirit she was able to assume various shapes sometimes she appeared as a dog on another occasion she went out of the window in the shape of a horse breaking the glass

were called right once invisible hands laid hold of mr fay and rammed his head into a narrow space in the wall it took several persons to extricate him and what with the fright he was so unwell that a surgeon was sent to bleed him no sooner was this performed than the ligatures were suddenly snatched out and torn off his arm

at other times the poor man's cravat was drawn tight so as to attempt to strangle him on another occasion the man's shoe-laces were seen coming out of his shoes of their own accord and hurled whereupon the other shoe-lace started crawling after its companion

The maid girl, witnessing this, drew it back. Then it clasped and curled around her hand like a serpent. On another occasion, the young man's clothes were taken off and torn to shreds, as were those of another servant in the house, while they were both lying on their backs. Then, on the night before Easter, Fay was walking back the two-mile journey from the town across the fields, when he was caught by his coat and carried up into the air...

head, legs and arms dangling down. Later, after being missed by his master and fellow servants, a search was begun for him, but it was not until later that he was found at some distance from the house, plunged to his middle in a bog, and, described as being in a condition of ecstasy or trance, he was whistling and singing.

well with difficulty he was extracted and taken back to the house where he was put to bed all the lower part of his body was numb with cold after having been immersed in the swamp one of his shoes was found near the doorstep of the house another shoe found at the back of the house and his wig was found hanging among the top branches of a tree

on his recovery he insisted that a spirit had carried him aloft until his master's house had seemed to him no bigger than a hay-cob

When he was taken to hospital and left alone in his room, later he was found with gashes on his forehead that had not been there before. He said that a big black bird had flown in through the window and attacked him. He said it had carried a stone in its mouth and had dashed at his brow, causing the gashes on his forehead.

Later, an account of the events was written up to be circulated as a pamphlet. This is the faithful account of the young man, who will be 21 if he lives, 2 August next, and it was called Reflections on Drollery and Atheism and a Word to Those that Deny the Existence of Spirits, dated 1863.

Well, according to a Reverend Robert Kirk, there are also piskeys on the moors of Dartmoor, and they've been known to carry out human abductions. He writes,

when on arriving back at her door she found one missing her neighbors with lanterns immediately set out in quest of the lost child whom they found sitting under a large oak tree well known to be a favorite haunt of the piskys he the child declared that he had been led away by two large bundles of rags which had remained with him until the lanterns appeared whereupon they immediately vanished

Kirk also relates a tale of a man who'd gone out onto the moors on a night of a full moon, to a hill on the moor where he believed was buried a secret stash of gold. He took with him a spade and an axe, and as he reached the hill he began to dig. Soon clouds appeared and covered the moon, and he was plunged into darkness. And the wind came up, and it roared all around the crags.

then came the most fearful crashes of thunder followed quickly by fierce flashes of lightning as the lightning flashed around him he could see that the spriggans were coming out in swarms from the rocks countless in numbers and although they were small at first they rapidly increased in size until eventually they were almost giant in form

looking as he later said as ugly as if they would eat him it is not known how he escaped but it is known that he took to his bed and was unable to go back to work for a very long time so frightened was he by what had happened

Spriggans are said to be grotesquely ugly and often found guarding in old ancient ruins or burrows. And although very small, they swell to enormous size and are said to delight in sending storms to cause travellers to get lost on the moors, leading lone travellers into swamps or towards dangerous cliffs and stealing away children.

Well, a really disturbing and, again, unsolved incident occurred, according to the newspapers in Brazil, on August 26th, 1962, when a small boy aged 12 years old called Raimundo de Eluea Mafra, living in the rural district of Diamantia, testified to the police that his father had been the victim of a kidnapping and he had been kidnapped by two round, ball-like objects.

His father had never returned, the child told them. Well, according to the regional newspapers who reported on the boy's testimony, the event seemed to have begun the previous night when he was at home with his father and brothers in their shack, which had no electricity. They'd all gone to bed when the young boy said he was woken by the sound of footsteps in the shack. Not expecting to hear heavy footsteps in the middle of the night, he called out to his father and woke him up.

his father who cared for the children alone after being widowed quickly lit a candle and held it up and waved it around in an attempt to find the source of the footsteps the boy later described that what appeared to be in their shack was some strange kind of shadow rather like a silhouette but definitely not an actual person he described that it was floating around the room not touching the floor

he said it had four legs and that it had some resemblance to a man crawling on its head the boy described a protrusion which gave him the impression that he was being watched

He later said to the police that it was half the size of a man, but not shaped at all like a man. He said that this silhouette looked at him, and then turned to look at his father, and then glided from their bedroom into the brothers' bedroom. They did not wake as this strange shadowy apparition entered their room, but the young boy said that it was looking at his brothers for a long time, but he said that it did not touch them. Then it simply disappeared.

the young boy said that it disappeared near their outer door at which point he said he could hear the sound of heavy footsteps again the sound of running and a voice saying this one looks like rivelino the boy said that on hearing this his father called out to the silhouette to which he received no reply but he was asking if he was rivelino when he asserted that he was indeed rivelino the young boy said the silhouette thing left

after this he added that both he and his father could hear voices outside of their home clearly stating that they intended to take his father that night the family spent praying together too afraid to go to sleep

early the next day the young boy went outside to fetch his father's horse and he was extremely shocked to find two bull-shaped objects floating in mid-air parallel to each other and approximately three feet off the ground they were approximately forty to fifty centimeters in diameter

The boy later described them and drew pictures of them too. He said that one of the balls was black and had a strange looking antenna-like thing sticking out of it and also a short tail. He said flashes of light came from their tails. The other ball, floating close by, he described as both black and white with a matching antenna.

and a tail as well the existence of appendages at one end of each object combined with their shape reminded the little boy of the shape of armadillos he said that these two strange objects emitted a low humming noise they of course also terrified him and on seeing them he screamed in horror which brought his father running out from the shack

at the same time as this the boy said that these two odd objects merged with one another becoming one ball and began to rise into the air emitting a yellow-colored smoke and odd noises

Slowly, this merged ball began to make its way towards his father. Then it reached his father and enveloped his father with the smoke until he could no longer see his father at all. He said that the air then turned into an acrid, bitter smell. As he watched the smoke gradually dissipate, he could no longer see his father. Nor could he see the balls. All were gone, including his father.

with hysteria rising inside of him the young boy searched the area then ran all the way to mr joe maddalena de miranda an employee of the mining facility and a friend of his father when this friend arrived at the site of the disappearance a clearing of earth appeared to look beaten and he noticed that it seemed to have been carefully swept in a radius of approximately five metres

The police were quickly summoned and the boy sobbingly told them that his father had been vanished in front of his own eyes. He said they must find his father, that the bulls had taken him and they must get him back. The police quickly spotted a couple of drops of blood, although they could not say that this was his father's blood, but they certainly found no trace of his father.

of course the police looked all around for the father checking the home and the yard and the surrounding fields and woods but they could see no sign of him their search continued for a very long time dogs trained by the military police searched everywhere but still they found no trace of the boy's father

wrapped off lights were then closely monitored as a possible clue to the location of the man's body police went to his work place the diamond mine to see if he had showed up there but he hadn't and so they asked his co-workers if they could shed any light on where he could be

obviously looking for a more rational explanation than the son was giving. But they had no idea where he was, although they did tell the police an intriguing story about what happened to the boy's father a few days earlier. They told the police that the father had been on his way home from work when he'd seen what looked like approximately two three-feet tall men who seemed to be in the process of digging a hole in the ground

in the field, near to the father's shack. The father later told his co-workers at the mine, the Blue Lagoon, that these people did not look human.

"'The father told his co-workers that on shouting out to the two short men, "'they'd both looked up, but run off into the bushes "'when he'd made steps to walk towards them. "'Not only was this very strange, "'but the father had then gone on to tell them "'that from the bushes that they'd run into and hidden in, "'suddenly glowed a red object, "'that he described as looking like a hat, and it rose up. "'He said, "'It shot up into the sky at astonishing speed.'

well naturally his co-workers thought it a completely unbelievable story although they added that the father was not known to be a practical joker at all the police wondered had his son somehow killed him had someone else killed him and the boy made up this story to explain it somehow

but the police brought a psychiatrist in to test the boy and the psychiatrist dr joa atunas de olivera ruled that the boy appeared both sane and innocent as far as he could assess in his professional capacity and the boy's story also did not change or waver no matter how many times he was asked to explain it the boy was firm in his belief that the balls had merged together and taken his father

Very cruelly, the police decided to test this young man and they led him in front of a dead body, which they'd covered from head to toe by a white sheet, and told him that his story was false because this was his father lying dead in front of him. The boy told them that if this was his father, then the balls had returned him. He still insisted that the balls were responsible for his father's death.

"'Well, it was not his father, of course, under the sheet, "'and it further upset the boy when they told him it was not his father. "'Local opinion on the matter and the fate of the father "'were mostly on the side of law enforcement, "'who, of course, believed that a human hand was at play in his disappearance, "'while some suggested that the widowed father "'may have found rearing three young boys too much for him "'and had run off and abandoned them. "'Others wondered if a criminal gang had come for him for some reason.'

They added that the footsteps and the voices must surely have been a gang coming to abduct and kill the father, and that of course the twelve-year-old had imagined, or perhaps even hallucinated, the silhouette figure he'd seen and described as not human in the middle of the night in his bedroom.

in his shock and fright at the sight of a strange man in his bedroom his imagination must have run away with him or to try to cope with the trauma of his father vanishing with no explanation the boy in a state of shock must have created this version of the story to try to deal with his fear and loss caused by human intruders

Francisco Prater, a friend of the missing man, doubted that this was the case, as he said that Rivalino was a quiet man who had no vices nor any enemies that he knew of. Then, a local man, who'd been fishing close to the shack at the time of the father's supposed abduction by these two bulls, came forward to say that he had seen two small bulls hovering above the man's shack,

cardinal jose avila garcia priest of diamantina said that the man antonio roja an employee of the brazilian post and telegraph company had returned from a fishing trip the previous week after seeing two small fireballs in the air the boy told his story to a multitude of both local and national newspapers

who were of course eager for the details of the most bizarre story they'd ever heard and again his telling of the events never altered or changed at all they were all identical dr juvio brant alexio says that the conventional explanations were reduced to two that rivelino had run away from his family or he'd been a victim of abduction and or murder

Dr Alexia says the story presented by the son would perhaps be an alibi inspired by the father himself to cover his escape, or it would be an alibi for the criminals. He says in both cases, therefore, there would be participation of the son to cover this episode that, strangely, conflicted with his own interests and security because he was left alone with two young sons to look after by himself.

in any case it's strange that his well-known shyness and inexperience did not lead him to hesitate at any point in his continued and repeated testimony about what happened to his father when telling the police judges priests doctors journalists and finally ufologists what is even more strange is that in order to cover up a crime

they would present an alibi so sophisticated and disagreeable from the socio-cultural context so as to draw such attentions of not only the police but the entire state

However, the doctor points out, but if the boy's story is entirely the product of delusion and hallucination, then how did the psychiatric examination not reveal the corresponding symptoms? How can we explain that the boy has projected in the environment intra-psychic contents of technological implications so advanced and relative to a type of phenomena that he'd never heard of?

And another thing to be explained is the presence of airborne objects nearby one week before the man's disappearance, according to a witness, and the sweep of the earth at the spot where his father disappeared. Well, the newspapers run the stories with headlines saying man kidnapped by globes, and they carried the picture that the boy had drawn of these two strange orbs.

But eventually, even the newspaper stories stopped covering it when the trail went completely cold. There was still no sign of the missing father. He was missing, that was certain, but no clues or any other evidence existed to explain what could have happened to him. It appears that at the time, this case also drew the attention of the Brazilian Air Force.

Well, after months of fruitless searches and policed investigations, news broke that the man's skeleton had been found. The newspaper Estrella Polar of Damiantina on March 10th, 1963 wrote, On the third day of Carnival, five hunters found the skeleton very close to the hut of Rivelino. It is now necessary to clarify the rest.

investigator dr alexio says as to the skeleton found if the skeleton was discovered near his shack six months later how was it that his skeleton was not found there after days of meticulous searches of the area where had his body been

The doctor adds, the corpse would not be consumed by animals if it were buried, but then, after six months, the skeleton would not entirely be clean. Then the hypothesis remains that his meat has been consumed in a total and almost instantaneous way by unconventional means.

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