The Winchester mystery house

There exists in San Jose, California, an architectural curiosity so strange in it's appearance that efforts have been made to ensure its protection by listing it on the National Register of Historic Places. While in terms of scale, it differs very little from other such mansions in the area. what separates it from traditional buildings is it's bizarre style with seemingly little symmetry, as a result of it's owner having no overall blueprint or grand scheme with which to work towards a final design from. When initially observed, it's enormity makes it almost impossible to believe that this large, sprawling building began life as a humble, unfinished farmhouse and yet, through the financial muscle and sheer tenacity of a prosperous widow, it gradually manifested into one of the strangest and most infamous architectural wonders in America.

Sarah Winchester was the wife of William Wirt Winchester who, at the time was the treasurer of the famous Connecticut arms company of the same name, which was owned by his father. This thriving business proved extremely profitable for the family and allowed them the privilege of a very opulent lifestyle, amassing them a small fortune in the process. As a result of the companies vast success, the family name is now synonymous with firearms and is still mentioned in nostalgic terms to this very day. After William's premature passing at the hands of tuberculosis, Sarah inherited a vast fortune of £20.5 million and a weekly salary of £1000. This may sound like a relatively small amount by today's monetary standards, but at the time it was a huge wage to be receiving on a weekly basis and provided her with with the luxury and comfort with which she had become accustomed to.

Sarah was an individual well acquainted with the psychic world and had an unshakeable belief in the prophecies of mediums and fortune tellers. After employing the services of one such person in the Boston area, she witnessed the psychic's ability to channel her deceased husband, upon which she received a message from him stating that she would leave her home in New Haven and purchase a new property to the west of this location. There was nothing outlandish or curious regarding this statement as many people have been given similar prophecies by psychics in the past, but what would be relayed to her next was truly remarkable. She was instructed to engage in a project of endless construction on her new residence, building continuously with no seeming conclusion to the task. The reason for this being that she would not only have the room to house herself, but all those unfortunate enough to have fallen victim to the shots of weapons manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, as a means of providing atonement for the sins of the family. With a firm belief in ghosts from the offset and perceiving grave ramifications if she decided to resist such a demand, she decided to comply with it. 

In 1984, she set about this daunting task and purchased an unfinished farmhouse in Santa Clara Valley. Due to her financial standing, she had the necessary means to put this vision into reality. Over a period of 36 years, she committed herself to the undertaking completely, employing what constituted a small army of carpenters to carry out her construction desires, adding room after room to the ever enlarging building. By the time of her death in 1922, the building had reached a total of 160 rooms in all, with an extensive array of corridors and extensions. Although in a position to employ the services of a professional architect and formulate a proper design to adhere to, she neglected this option and embarked on a series of rash, haphazard building decisions, which manifested into a building which looked uneven and unsymmetrical in nature.

Originally, the mansion grew to reach a grand total of seven floors, but after an unfortunate earthquake in 1906, it was damaged and had it's height reduced to just four. It remains as a tourist attraction to this very day and displays a wealth of curiosities in it's construction which display proof of Mrs Winchester's inept design plans, including staircases which lead to ceilings, and doors which open to reveal solid walls behind them. Evidence of her belief in superstition is also engrained into certain design elements, with everything from the number of stairs on staircases to windows in certain rooms adding up the number 13. Aside from it's odd appearance, it boasted a whole series of sophisticated luxuries which were seldom seen in standard premises, such as state of the art, forced air heating, indoor plumbing allowing her the luxury of an indoor shower which was unheard of at that particular time and also, three lifts utilising unique, horizontal elevator pistons. Whether this grand gesture had the desired effect of making amends for the supposed sins of the family is questionable, but it left the world with one of the most unique buildings ever constructed.

America and the impending megatsunami

In terms of potential natural disasters that America will have to deal with in the not too distant future, the infamous Yellowstone caldera tops their list of hazards due to it's colossal scale and the amount of damage it will inflict the next time it decides to release the contents of it's vast magma chamber. This huge natural phenomenon is relatively well known due to it's media exposure and numerous documentaries dealing with the ramifications of such an event. Admittedly, it would induce a severe amount of destruction to both wildlife and the surrounding area, but there exist one other potential crisis which could eclipse even this, as hard as that may be to imagine.

It is known as a megatsunami, which consists of a giant wave of water, larger in comparison to regular waves by many metres and is created as a result of water displacement. Usually, this is manifested through tectonic plates, which lie on the ocean bed, pushing against one another, with one suddenly breaking free and flying upwards at pace due to the release of the stored energy. But they can also be brought about by earthquakes and large land masses sliding into the water as well. In relation to a regular tsunami they are infinitely larger, with the tallest tsunamis attaining heights of up to ten metres which pales in comparison to their larger manifestations, which can easily rise up hundreds of metres above the ocean surface.  One would not envisage the location for America's next great natural catastrophe to be situated at a volcano on La Palma, which lies within the Canary Islands in Spain, but this will inevitably happen one day and the only question that remains is when?

Despite the curious location for such an episode considering it's distance from America's shoreline, there exists a plausible explanation. In 1949, three of the volcanic sites vents erupted which at the time, seemed a perfectly normal event with no strange side effects attributed to it. However, the following day, a geologist by the name of Juan Bonelli Rubio travelled to the site and was shocked to discover that a giant fissure, measuring 2.5 kilometres long, had opened up along the sites east bank. As a result, the western side of the volcano had descended 2 metres into the water, raising concerns that the next eruption could release it altogether, resulting in it crashing into the ocean at free fall and subsequently sending a gigantic megatsunami, unrivalled in it's magnitude, travelling towards America's east coast and inflicting untold damage.

Fortunately for the time being, the volcano remains dormant but it is expected to erupt again in the future. Experts have theorised that it would take a series of eruptions to herald such a catastrophic landslide, but it remains a plausible possibility. To put into context how destructive this scenario could be, the western side of the island has an area of 500 cubic kilometres, weighing in at an estimated 1.5 million metric tonnes and if it were to fall free and displace water, it would result in a wave reaching an initial height of 1000 metres, which is beyond the scale of any tsunami previously witnessed. Obviously, some of this energy will dissipate naturally as it travels forward and by the time it reaches America's coast, it will have shrunk to a height of 50 metres, still large enough to force it's way inland, destroying infrastructure and natural formations as it travels, not to mention taking the lives of millions of unfortunate citizens. There exists a multitude of technologies that can be utilized to defend inland sites against rising tidal waves, but unfortunately, against one of such scale they would all prove futile, leaving America defenceless against one of the largest natural calamities ever witnessed, wreaking unparalleled devastation.

The curse of Ho Tei

People are accustomed to hearing stories about cursed relics or objects considered to be unlucky in regards to their unfortunate owner. There are numerous examples of these, such as voodoo dolls cited as having the ability to inflict physical harm on the victim it supposedly represents, to children's toys, where the young owner has met an untimely demise and the bad luck from the event becomes engrained in the object itself, which is inevitably passed on to the next owner unlucky enough to come into contact with it. Despite an abundance of such events throughout history, very rarely have such qualities been evident in a carved depiction of a Japanese deity supposedly connected with good luck. The irony is tragic.


Ho Tei is a Japanese deity renowned for the very same quality, as well as being connected with general prosperity largely as a result of his facial expression which gives the image of an individual with a happy, cheerful demeanor. In terms of physical appearance, he is always dressed in traditional, Buddhist style regalia and is depicted as being large in size, with a pronounced stomach that has become his most famous hallmark, with a Japanese custom related to it which states that when a person gets the opportunity to visit or own a statue which represents him, they should rub his stomach with their finger and they will be rewarded with monetary riches. Could a carved representation of something so inextricably linked with good fortune, be infused with a curse as a result of its creation? The following tale may be evidence of such a possibility.


A certain Mr and Mrs Lambert were in the midst of an around the world trip they had been planning. Upon arriving in Japan, they happened to locate an antiquated curiosity shop and after exploring its many treasures, stumbled upon an ivory representation of Ho Tei. A combination of its inherent beauty and the store owners recommendation that it would bring them good luck, resulted in the couple purchasing the item. The statue was securely placed in Mrs Lambert's case while en route to their next port of call which happened to be Manila. During the trip, she started to experience excruciating toothache and after arriving in Manila, received medication from a dentist, which did little to alleviate the pain. After this unfortunate episode, they travelled towards Sydney, where the statue was transferred to Mr Lambert's case. It was de ja vu as he also succumbed to the same terrible tooth pain. With no doctor being present, he resorted to taking aspirins which proved futile in controlling his symptoms. These persisted for quite some time, culminating in him debarking at a particular port and instructing a dentist to keep pulling teeth until he gave the order to stop. After the extraction of the first, the pain subsided and he believed he had put an end to the sorry saga.


At this point, many sceptics would be forgiven for believing in a theory of coincidence as there were only a few instances of this phenomenon, but never the less, they continued. After arriving in Chile, the home of Mr Lambert's mother, they decided to take the opportunity to visit her. Upon encountering the statue, his mother instantly fell in love with it and so, as a gesture of kindness, they decided to give it to her as a gift. She quickly changed her decision, however, after succumbing to the very same affliction for a number of hours and ultimately decided to give the statue back to it's original owners, providing the excuse that it didn't suit her needs. Curiously, while travelling towards England, neither Mr or Mrs Lambert experienced any further pain, but there existed a specific reason for this as the statue was placed in the confines of the storage room. The perceived curse raised it's ugly head again however, after they arrived in England. While visiting friends, they handed it over to a woman to show her husband. Confusion set in when they didn't see or hear from the woman again for the remainder of the day. When encountering her the next morning, she appeared with a swollen face and a very similar tale in regards to others who had been in close proximity to the cursed relic.


After coming to the conclusion that something was awry, the couple began to realise the inherent connection between the tooth pain and the statue. This was due to their studious examination of the dates and times that people had it about their person. Once they had discovered the pattern and arrived at the answer, they decided that the only way to avoid any further instances of pain was to pass it on to somebody else. They promptly achieved this when handing it over to a Japanese curiosity shop in London. There have been numerous theories put forward for the pain administered by the statue. Some believe in a genuine curse surrounding the item, visiting bad luck on anybody unfortunate enough to come into ownership of it. The most bizarre of these however, states that the intense pain the elephant endured when it's tusks were extracted to provide the material for the statue, left an imprinted memory of the event within it, manifesting in similar pain for each subsequent owner. Whatever the explanation, whether plausible or far fetched, the statue definitely left it's mark on anybody who came into contact with it.