Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.
If we were forced to pick a paranormal entity to fight to the death, we’d pick a ghost. Our logic is that it doesn’t have hands with which to throttle us, and we’re pretty sure we could suck it up with a Wet Vac. Should that fail, we’d try to spin so fast as to disperse the spectre’s ghostly particles. If at the end of that we found ourselves dressed exactly like Wonder Woman, so be it.
Yes, we’re pretty sure we can beat up a ghost. The Hopping Phantom of Calch?n, however, well we’d rather not find out if we’re stronger that it.
Do you remember Spring-Heeled Jack? He’s one of our favorite stories from the Hecklerspray archives. He used to hop around England a little over 100 years ago. He’d scratch you with metal claws and then jump over walls to make an escape. There have actually been more recent sightings of him, as the original article states – and the most recent of these sightings are from just a few months ago.
At least it sounds like Spring-Heeled Jack is back at it anyway. Granted, he’s changed his name to The Hopping Phantom of Calch?n (we assume to escape creditors), and he’s moved to South America. That’s different, we’ll give you that. Also he doesn’t seem to have scratched anybody – but other similarities are quite evident.
Similarities, like say – jumping about two meters into the air with what looks like no effort at all. Another hobby Jack appears to have kept is pounding on people’s doors in the middle of the night.
A caller to a local radio station gives details of some of the encounters – as found on Paranormal.About.com:
?This person… he hops beside you as your car is driving into Calch?n…he appears out of nowhere in front of you, and according to some, he can jump two meters in the air.?
Posses have formed to catch the thing. One such mob stumbled upon a large bonfire with what looked like a man kneeling before it. As they approached, the man saw them, and then ran away at a great speed. No word as to whether or not he left behind a shopping cart full of all his filthy belongings.
If so, dibs on the brown banana peels.