Have you ever experienced something that you couldn’t explain? Here are 9 paranormal stories and mysteries from famous creatives to scare and mystify you this Halloween season.
No matter the field, creatives share the same elements of creative living. These elements include curiosity, openness to experiences, mindfulness, and more. So when paranormal and mysterious events happen naturally, the creative will explore the unknown or even seek it out.
These famous creatives known for their influential creativity have all experienced something strange and mysterious that sometimes even sparked creativity.
Find more interesting stories from this list of some of the best memoirs and biographies about famous creative minds.
Joan Rivers Lived in a Haunted Apartment with Paranormal Activity
Everyone knows the creative pioneer Joan Rivers, an American comedian, actress, writer, producer, and television host, but few know about her paranormal experiences when she lived in a haunted apartment in Manhattan. Rivers was convinced her home was haunted by a former resident named “Mrs. Spencer.”
On a 2009 episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories, she shared ghost stories about the apartment and even brought in a voodoo priestess to rid the home of her ghost, who was supposedly J.P. Morgan’s niece and an original resident in the building.
Dan Aykroyd Has Had Many Paranormal Experiences With Ghosts and UFOs
You might know Dan Aykroyd as the actor, comedian, producer, musician, and writer behind such classics as Ghostbusters, SNL – Blues Brothers, Coneheads, and more, but he’s made quite a name for himself for his paranormal experiences and extensive research.
He claims to have had many paranormal experiences throughout his entire life, ranging from ghost to ufo sightings, and it runs in the family. In 2009, his father published a book called, A History of Ghosts. Aykroyd wrote the introduction and accompanied his father on a series of promotional activities.
He first became interested in the paranormal after seeing the 1952 photograph of strange lights above the US Capitol Building in Life magazine. Since then, he’s claimed to have had four sightings and said that he’s been contacted by the mysterious “Men in Black.” In 2005, Aykroyd opened up more about his interests and beliefs of aliens in his documentary, Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs.
While living in upstate New York in the mid-1980s, he said that he woke up in the middle of the night and said to his wife, “They are calling me. I want to go outside.” When asked who was calling to him, he responded that “something” was urging him. On the news the next morning, he saw others in the area had claimed to have similar experiences.
Jackie Gleason Claimed That Richard Nixon Showed Him Alien Corpses
There are many conspiracies theories involving US Presidents and aliens, but few also involve creatives. In an unpublished memoir of Jackie Gleason’s second wife, Beverly, in 1973, American Actor Jackie Gleason claimed he was given a secret tour at Homestead Air Force Base by Richard Nixon (his friend and golfing partner) and shown multiple corpses of extraterrestrials. He described the aliens as 0.60 meters (2 ft) long with large skulls and elongated ears. Beverly says when he told her this story and swore her to secrecy, he was noticeably disturbed.
Jackie Gleason never shared the story or his interest in the paranormal publicly. So who knows if it’s true or not.
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) or near-death experiences (NDEs) can be either positive or negative experiences triggered during life-threatening episodes. The study of these experiences is still relatively new. One 2017 study at the University of Virginia found that people who have experienced this had heightened states of awareness stating, that they remembered their NDEs as being “realer than real.”
One famous creative who experienced multiple close calls and near-death experiences was Ernest Hemingway.
During World War I, a young Ernest Hemingway was badly injured by an exploding shell on a battlefield and wrote that “dying is a very simple thing. I’ve looked at death, and really I know. If I should have died, it would have been very easy for me. Quite the easiest thing I ever did.”
He also survived two plane crashes during a vacation in Africa. In one instance, his plane caught fire on the runway. With the plane door jammed closed, he used his head as a battering ram to open the door and escape.
Hemingway remained deeply affected by this out-of-body/initial near-death experience throughout his life would use his own experiences—that of the soul leaving the body, taking flight, and then returning—for his famous short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” about an African safari gone disastrously wrong.
He also used the experience in “A Farewell to Arms,” which contains a passage where the character Frederic Henry undergoes the same confrontation with death that Hemingway did:
“I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. Through the other noise, I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh – then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind. I tried to breathe, but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind. I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated, and instead of going on, I felt myself slide back. I breathed, and I was back.”
Agatha Christie, an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, experienced her own mystery in 1926 when she vanished for 11 days.
People from all over joined the search party, including famous authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy L. Sayers. There was even a reward of £100 reward (approximately equivalent to £6,000 in 2019) offered for finding her. Doyle, who believes in the paranormal and mysterious himself, brought her glove to a medium, but this, of course, failed. Sayers put on her detective hat and investigated the house and car but didn’t find anything.
In the end, she was found at a spa in Harrogate, Yorkshire, under the name Mrs. Tressa and claimed to have no memory of the last 11 days.
Some say she disappeared during a fugue state sparked by the revelation of her husband asking for a divorce after an affair. The author Jared Cade believed that Christie planned the event to embarrass her husband but did not anticipate the resulting public melodrama created from the tabloids. Biographer Laura Thompson believes Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in emotional control of herself. It’s difficult to say, and self-care and mental health wasn’t a topic of conversation during this time, so neither was treatment well researched and available.
Charles Dickens Was a Paranormal Investigator and Mesmerist
Charles Dickens, one of the most famous writers in history, who despite being a critic of the spiritualism that was popular during the Victorian era, was part of one of the first paranormal investigation and research organizations and was a huge proponent and practitioner of mesmerism.
Paranormal Investigation and Debunking
Founded in London in 1862, The Ghost Club traditionally investigated ghosts and hauntings but later diversified into UFOs, dowsing, and cryptozoology. Not only was Charles Dickens a member, but also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One of the club’s earliest investigations was challenging and revealing the Davenport Brothers, who claimed they could contact the dead with their “spirit cabinet” hoax.
Mesmerism – The Power of Mind Over Matter
Not only did Dickens believe in Mesmerism, but he considered himself to be an expert and even practiced it occasionally to “help” people. Mesmerism, which is a belief in “mind over matter,” involves people into a hypnotic trance to heal their ailments.
Here are a couple of examples:
- In 1845, Dickens traveled to Italy and conducted mesmerism experiments to help Augusta de la Rue, the wife of a banker who suffered from insomnia, headaches, and other unpleasant conditions.
- In 1849 John Leech, the illustrator for A Christmas Carol, was injured. The accident left Leech with concussion-like symptoms that wouldn’t disappear despite all the work of his doctors. Dickens says he used mesmerism to heal the illustrator when doctors failed to treat his pain and symptoms.
Nikola Tesla Missing Files, Talking With Aliens, and Time Travel
Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest scientific minds of all time, has several mysteries and conspiracy theories about his life and work.
- When Nikola Tesla died in 1943, the FBI seized his 80 trunks containing his work and files, and to this day, many of those trunks, files, and inventions are missing.
- Among the inventions of Tesla, one of the most mysterious ones was the Death Ray.
- Many believed Tesla’s knowledge came from extraterrestrials, and in In 1899, Tesla even claimed to have received unknown signals from mars from a magnetic transmitter he had built. Although, it has been hypothesized that he may have intercepted Guglielmo Marconi‘s European wireless transmission experiments.
- Tesla reported that he could see the past, present, and future while doing experiments with electricity and magnetic field. Some conspiracy theories point to secret time-travel experiments.
- He claimed to have nearly created an earthquake in Manhattan.
Did Stanley Kubrick Work for the Illuminati and Help Fake the Moon Landing?
The famous filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has been accused of multiple conspiracy theories. From putting subliminal messages and warnings about the Illuminati in his film, Eyes Wide Shut, to helping the US government fake the moon landing after the success of his famous sci-fi film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick has always been a mysterious creative. There’s even a documentary called Room 237 that explores various interpretations and theories hidden in The Shining.
Did Da Vinci Hide Secret Messages in His Art?
It’s no question that the polymath, Leonardo da Vinci, was one of the greatest creative thinkers of all time but did he hide secret messages in his artwork for the future?
Some researchers claim Da Vinci put tiny numbers and letters into the eyes of the Mona Lisa, and if you’ve seen Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, you’ve seen the speculation about secret messages, music, Mary Magdalene, and other theories about his painting of the last supper.
If there are secret messages in his artwork, what are they, why did he put them there, and what do they mean?
- Some mystic theorists believe he put secret messages about the nature of the cosmos.
- Heresy theorists believe da Vinci was involved in some sort of religious cabal.
- Geo theorists are trying to solve the mysteries of where his background landscapes are located. Like the Mona Lisa.
- Attribution theorists are trying to find secret pieces of artwork that da Vinci hid his name in.
- Drag theorists believe the Mona Lisa painting depicts either Leonardo or one of his pupils dressed as a woman as researchers are finding possible references pointing to the probability that Leonardo was homosexual.
- And of course, alien theorists believe he had connections with aliens.
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
