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.

Every now and again someone, somewhere finds little stone heads for which gigantic, misshapen wolves always come hunting. Well to be sure, we said ‘every now and again’ – but we meant it only happened once that we’ve heard of. And incidentally – those wolves we mentioned, well they don’t just track you as you and your over-sized Spider-Man backpack walk to school – they angrily plod through your house too. Searching all the while.

There are dozens of reasons why you might encounter a werewolf. It could be because you’re relentlessly pursuing his daytime human girlfriend. It could be because you’ve left one too many roses on the grave of his long-dead mother who was totally vivacious back in the day. Lastly, it could be because you’re at a science fair.

We’ve a theory that werewolves really love science fairs.

As it pertains to this story – another way to meet a supernatural spirit-dog beast is to dig up two stone heads in the back yard. Once you’ve done that, the heads’ protector will show up to track them down mercilessly. It’s quite terrifying, actually. Here’s the story as told on MysteriousBritain.com:

“It was 1972, and at the Robson family home in Hexham, only ten minutes walk away from where the legendary Wolf of Allendale had roamed the woods, the two young Robson brothers dug up two small, carved stone heads whilst they were tending the garden. Several nights after the discovery of the stone heads, neighbour Ellen Dodd and her daughter were sitting up late one evening when both of them witnessed a “half-man, half beast” entering the bedroom. The pair screamed in terror but, the creature seemed indifferent to them and simply left the room, heard to be “padding down the stairs as if on its hind legs”. Later on, the front door was found open. It has been thought that the creature had been in search of something, and had left the house to continue searching elsewhere”

But what could be so important that a freaky demon gets sent up from the depths of hell to collect? The website Profiling the Unexplained gives a great description of the two heads:

“The stones, which were called the Hexham-heads, represent two different types. The first was similar to a skull and seemed to bear male traits; it was called “boy”. The stone was of a greenish grey and glittered with quartz crystals. It was very heavy, heavier than cement or concrete. The hair seemed to run in stripes from front to back. The other head, the “girl” was similar to a witch. It had wild pop-eyes and the hair was tied back to some knot. In the hair, traces of yellow and red colour could be found.

“After they have dug up the heads, the boys took them into the house. Thereby, the whole disaster commenced. The heads turned round without reason, objects broke to pieces without evident cause. When the mattress of one of the two daughters of the Robsons was dotted with broken glass, the girls moved out of the room. In the meantime, a mysterious flower bloomed at Christmas exactly on that spot, where the heads were found. Besides, a strange light was glowing there.”

And there’s the wolf – we already told you about that a bit. Well just after that the heads were given to Dr Anne Ross, who was a Celtic expert of one type or another. She said the heads were around 2000 years old. Almost as soon as the heads arrived – Ross got a visit from the wolf too. Here’s her account according to a site called GoArticles.com:

“In her own account Anne Ross described how, one night shortly after their arrival, she woke up suddenly at 2 a.m. feeling chilled and extremely frightened. At the instant of awakening she saw a tall, jet black wolf-headed figure standing against the faint white of the open door. It then moved out into the corridor and she felt an irresistible urge to follow it. This she did, seeing and hearing the figure clearly as it made its way down the darkened staircase and along the corridor towards the kitchen. Anne Ross described the figure vividly, reporting not only its blackness and tallness but also its distinct part animal, part human appearance. As the creature neared the kitchen the spell broke and Anne Ross felt fear overwhelm her and so she rushed upstairs to awaken her husband. Together they searched the house for intruders but found no-one and nothing disturbed by any forced entry and eventually concluded that she must have suffered a particularly vivid nightmare…

“[Later, as Ross' daughter] recounted, she had returned to the empty house at 4 p.m. and opened the front door with her key. As it swung open she saw something large, dark and inhuman rushing down the stairs (which faced the doorway) toward her. Half way down it had suddenly stopped and vaulted over the banisters, landing with a soft thud like a heavy animal with thickly padded feet…”

So do you believe it? You thinking about throwing out all your Hummel figurines just in case? Well before you rush to judgement and toss your fine collection that might rival that of elderly women everywhere – you should know there are sceptics. No – really there are.  For instance – one man claimed he carved the two heads with his own hands. As proof of this he carved duplicates.

Did he really make the heads? Maybe. But the werewolf makes for a far better story.

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No, not struck down another member of the cast or crew with the ‘curse’, which is apparently floating around these days. The film has gone and broken the record for the fastest $400 million in box office history, making the money in a frankly ridiculous 18 days.

Imagine making four hundred million dollars in 18 days. How many tricks you’d have to pull to draw in that amount… it’s hard to take in. Though it would also be hard to take in if you pulled $400 million-worth of tricks, let’s be honest here.

But at least it shows that maybe, just maybe, Christopher Nolan’s film is living up to its reputation, even with the extra bits of accidental hype popping up here and there.

The previous record time in which the fabled $400 million mark was crossed – as you should all know too well – was a pathetic 43 days by Shrek 2. More than four hundred million for doing a crap Scottish accent? Ruddy hell.

But in less than half the time it took for a CG ogre voiced by an irritating comedy hack to reach the milestone – just over two weeks – The Dark Knight has taken its place in box office history, climbing up the highest US earners top 10 as fast as it’s cast can make headlines through their exploits, incidents and accidents.

Surely this means Hollywood will adopt the same technique for every new major movie release, pushing their leading stars into compromising positions for the sake of a few extra headlines. It worked very well here, and the world of film is surely cynical enough to see it as a viable strategy to affect the home lives of its stars.

Unless we’re being unnecessarily harsh here. Which we aren’t.

If the movie fatcats aren’t quite that cynical, they’ll probably just adopt a new film-making strategy to rake in the speedy $400 million. Said strategy will probably involve making every single big budget summer movie the most depressing, dark and downright unsettling thing known to man, while at the same time putting a welsh bloke in a weird costume and making him speak in a frankly ridiculous manner when wearing said costume.

It’s a definite recipe for success, if you simply follow the trail of facts staring you in the face.

We do have one real hope from all of this though, and that is to see The Dark Knight overtake Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all time. Meaning whenever we hear about the film that brought home the most clams we won’t have to be reminded of the time James Cameron went mad and made one of the worst films ever. Starring a sprout.

No – Morgan Freeman is the latest to be involved in the so-called ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight, after he was involved in a car accident on Sunday night, which officials referred to as ’serious’.

The 71-year-old actor will require surgery on a shattered elbow, as well as time for other less serious injuries to his neck and shoulder to heal. While initial reports said Freeman was in a serious state, these have since rescinded and he is expected to make a comfortable, if slow, recovery from his injuries.

Morgan was travelling with an unnamed female companion when the crash occurred. Travelling eastbound on Highway 32, Tallahatchie Country, Mississippi, their car flipped several times before coming to rest. The name of the female passenger has not been released, but she is said to have suffered bruises as a result of the crash. The jaws of life were used to good effect and Freeman was airlifted around 90 miles for hospital treatment. He was upgraded from critical to serious condition, and more recent reports have left the actor with an even more positive prognosis.

Fortunately, both drugs and alcohol have been ruled out of the running for what caused the accident, meaning we don’t have to put up with another was-he wasn’t-he situation like young Shiny the Beef has had to contend with in recent weeks. Nor do we have to put up with possible insanity, like we did all those years back with Melvin. Obviously the wily old veteran that is Morgan Freeman would never be brash enough to take part in such an obviously stupid pursuit as driving under the influence.

Those young whippersnappers could learn a thing or three from God Himself.

But it would seem that the lord almighty can’t save himself from the ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight, which wild speculators (hello!) are claiming is the cause of Heath Ledger’s death and Christian Bale’s descent into alleged assault.

Now, let’s be honest here – Ledger’s death was a sad thing, unexpected and unwarranted. Bale’s case may have been his own fault, he may have been coaxed into it. Freeman’s crash is believed to have been as a result of falling asleep at the wheel, swerving and overcompensating. If this is a real curse then it’s a bit rubbish – none of your plagues on the family, eight arms on the first-born or evil gremlins turning up and wrecking your place up.

No, it’s an accidental overdose, some alleged shenanigans and an old man falling asleep at the wheel. These curse-makers really should go back to the drawing board and think up some new cursey goodness – or just stick with the classics. Doesn’t the bible have some good ones? Morgan Freeman should know about that, he is God after all.

Hecklerspray is sending you more get well beams through the internets, Morgan. Also some extra beams to help make sure the rubbish ‘curse’ doesn’t strike again. We have these kind of powers, you see.