Sweden’s Björketorp runestone (center, above) certainly means business. Thirteen feet tall, it bears this threatening inscription:

Here, I have hidden the secret of powerful runes, strong runes. The one who breaks this memorial will be eternally tormented by anger. Treacherous death will hit him. I foresee perdition.

That’s scary, but it’s not very clear. Archaeologists had thought the curse protected a grave, but a dig in 1914 found no remains. So maybe it’s a cenotaph (meaning the body is buried elsewhere), or a shrine to Odin, or an ancient border marker between Sweden and Denmark. Anyway, be vaguely careful.

On Dec. 15, 1900, a passing steamer noticed that the lighthouse on Scotland’s Flannan Isles had gone dark. A relief crew, arriving on Dec. 26, found that the flagstaff was bare, the beds were unmade, the clock was stopped … and there was no trace of the three men who manned the lighthouse.

A chair had been overturned by the kitchen table, but otherwise there were signs of order. The lamps had been cleaned and refilled, the entrance gate and main door had been closed, and a set of oilskins were found inside, which was strange, considering the violent weather.

As they explored further, the relief crew discovered at the island’s west landing signs of damage that were “difficult to believe unless actually seen.” An iron railway was wrenched out of its concrete, a rock weighing more than a ton had been displaced, and turf had been ripped from a clifftop 200 feet above sea level. But the keepers had kept their log after this point.

What really happened? An investigation suggested that the three were swept away while trying to secure a box on the west landing. But no one really knows.

Mr. Zachariah Pearce, aged 21, died at Cranbrook, Kent, October 17, 1786. The following remarkable occurrences are related as matters of fact, which can be attested by many persons in Cranbrook. Mr. W. Pearce, the father of the above Zachariah, died of a frenzy fever, November 30, 1785. Some time before he died, a small bird, of the dish-water kind, came often every day, and pecked hard against the chamber window where Mr. Pearce lay sick. The window was set open, to try if the bird would enter the room, but it did not; and means were used to catch it, but in vain. The bird continued to come and do the same, till Mr. Pearce died, and was buried, and then it ceased to return. Since the above Zachariah Pearce was taken ill, the same bird, or one of the like kind, frequented his chamber window, and continued to do so occasionally to the time of his death. A similar circumstance occurred in the same parish, about two years and a half before. These are real facts.

— Gentleman’s Magazine, 1786

In August 1971, a human face formed on the kitchen floor of María Gómez Cámara in Bélmez de la Moraleda, Spain. Her husband and son destroyed it with a pickaxe and laid new cement, but the face formed again. In the ensuing 30 years, the family says, a succession of human faces, of varying shapes and sizes, have appeared on the cement floor.

An excavation beneath the house reportedly found human remains, but removing them didn’t stop the apparitions. Spanish parapsychologist Germán de Argumosa claimed that the faces continued to develop even when the floor was sealed to prevent fraud, which he said proved their “paranormal origin.”

But, using infrared photography, his colleague Ramos Perera concluded that pigmentation had been added to alter one face, “and even the paint brush bristles could be perceived.” A third parapsychologist, José Luis Jordán, believes that an acid was used to oxidize the cement.

Maybe they should just switch to linoleum.

On Sept. 3, 1873, an inebriated English shoemaker named James Worson wagered he could run from Leamington to Coventry and back, a distance of about 40 miles. He set out followed by three friends in a light cart. The first few miles went well, but suddenly Worson stumbled and fell, “uttered a terrible cry,” and vanished before touching the ground. He was never seen again.

That’s a good tale, but it’s probably fiction, originating with “An Unfinished Race,” a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce.

That explanation would be reassuring … except that Bierce himself later disappeared.