Company

In 1907, historian Reginald Hine, photographer Thomas Latchmore, and artist F.L. Griggs took a camera to Hertfordshire’s Minsden Chapel hoping to photograph the ghost of a murdered monk whose spirit was said to haunt the place. Hine published this photo in his 1929 History of Hitchin, pointing out “the cowled apparition whose form can faintly be discerned” in the image:

In 1930 Latchmore admitted that the image had been a hoax, created with a double exposure; the ghostly figure may be Hine himself.

While we’re at it: In 1963 by the Rev. Kenneth Lord took this photo in the Church of Christ the Consoler on the grounds of Newby Hall in North Yorkshire:

Ostensibly the figure is another ghostly monk, this one wearing a shroud over its face. If it’s not a double exposure then the figure stands as much as 9 feet tall; make your own judgment.

And a reader sent this image in to the Strand in July 1897:

Taken at Scale Force, the Lake District’s highest waterfall, “It is a perfect representation of a stately, long-bearded old man, clothed in a flowing robe, with a crown and sceptre. … The form is perfect natural. I did not notice it until after the photo was developed.”

Interestingly, as recently as 2006 the old man was still there:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scale_Force_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1557757.jpg — Image: Wikimedia Commons

Whatever he’s looking for, he hasn’t found it yet.

January 25, 2026January 24, 2026 | Hoaxes · Oddities

A Dudeney Square

From Lee Sallows:

“In his book Amusements in Mathematics, H.E. Dudeney presents a method of classifying 4×4 magic squares based on the distribution of their 8 complementary pairs 1 & 16, 2 & 15, .., 8 & 9. There are just 12 distinct such distributions or ‘graphic types’, which he labelled I to XII. The square above is an example of a type X square.”

(Thanks, Lee.)

January 24, 2026 | Science & Math

Dead Center

In a shooting match, Andryusha, Volodya, and Borya each fired 6 shots, and each totaled 71 points.

Andryusha’s first 2 shots earned him 22 points, and Volodya’s first shot earned 3 points.

Who hit the bullseye?

	Select Click for Answer
The only way to partition the 18 shots into 3 equal sets of 6 is: 25, 20, 20, 3, 2, 1 25, 20, 10, 10, 5, 1 50, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1 The first row must be Andryusha’s, since it’s the only one that contains two numbers totaling 22. The score 3 appears only in the first and third rows, so the third must be Volodya’s. Thus he hit the bullseye. From Boris Kordemsky’s The Moscow Puzzles, 1956.

January 23, 2026January 23, 2026 | Puzzles

Vivid

The manuscript for Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-Flat Major, K. 495, is written in inks of four colors, red, green, blue, and black.

It’s not clear why. Possibly the composer was teasing his friend Joseph Leutgeb, the intended performer. But possibly it’s a code meant to inform the performance.

January 23, 2026 | Art

Sum of Squares

The sum of the first n square numbers is n(n+1)(2n+1)/6.

These sums comprise the square pyramidal numbers — each corresponds to the number of oranges that can be stacked in a square pyramid whose base has side n.

This visual proof, for n=3, shows that six square pyramids with n steps fit in a cuboid of size n(n + 1)(2n + 1).

(By CMG Lee.)

January 22, 2026January 22, 2026 | Science & Math

Credential Envy

In June 1936, when the University of Wisconsin bestowed an honorary doctorate of letters on actress Katharine Cornell, she received a telegram from Noël Coward:

DARLING DARLING DOCTOR KITTY,
THOUGH QUITE REASONABLY PRETTY
THOUGH UNDOUBTEDLY A STAR, DEAR
PLEASE REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, DEAR.
WHY, IN LIEU OF ALL YOUR BETTERS,
SHOULD YOU HAVE DISTINGUISHED LETTERS?
THIS COMES FROM THE JEALOUS SOEL
OF YOUR SOMEDAY DOCTOR NOËL.

January 22, 2026 | Entertainment

Uh-Oh

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Circle_staircase_paradox.svg — Image: Wikimedia Commons

January 21, 2026 | Science & Math

Body Heat

London doctor Thomas Ellerby had strong feelings about the disposal of his remains — in his will of February 1827 he threatens to haunt his doctors if they don’t follow his instructions:

I bequeath my heart to Mr. W., anatomist; my lungs to Mr. R.; and my brains to Mr. F., in order that they may preserve them from decomposition; and I declare that if these gentlemen shall fail faithfully to execute these my last wishes in this respect I will come — if it should be by any means possible — and torment them until they shall comply.

The Lancet records that “[t]he gentlemen named — eminent in their day — rightly renounced the legacies left them, and it never appeared that they were, like St. Dunstan and other medieval saints, tromented by visitations from the other world.”

January 21, 2026 | Death

A Roman New Year

George Sicherman, of Sicherman dice fame, has designed a puzzle to welcome the new year: Print out the PDF, cut out the letters MMXXVI (the Roman numerals for 2026), and fit them into the tray provided so that no pieces with the same shape touch one another.

Sicherman’s website has a whole range of puzzles, most of them geometric.

(Thanks, William.)

January 20, 2026 | Puzzles

Succinct

In November 1943, as they planned a summit meeting, FDR wired Churchill to suggest that Cairo might be too dangerous a location. Churchill responded:

SEE ST. JOHN, CHAPTER 14, VERSES 1 TO 4.

These verses read:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

They met in Cairo.

January 20, 2026January 19, 2026 | History