In January 1892, Rhode Island farmer George Brown buried his daughter Mercy. She had died of consumption, as had her mother and sister.

Two months later George’s son, Edwin, also became sick, and the farmer decided that one of his dead family members was returning from the grave as a vampire to cause his son’s illness.

So he dug up his daughter’s body, cut out her heart, mixed it into a potion, and told his son to drink it.

Edwin died two months later.

The June 1851 issue of Scientific American reported that a zinc and silver vase had been blasted from solid rock 15 feet below the surface of Meeting House Hill in Dorchester, Mass. The bell-shaped vessel had floral designs inlaid with silver.

Experts at the time estimated it to be about 100,000 years old, which would obviously throw everything we know out the window.

Unfortunately, it disappeared after circulating through several museums. What’s the real story? Who knows?

In 1805, the French writer Émile Deschamps was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger, Monsieur de Fontgibu.

Ten years later, Deschamps ordered plum pudding at a Paris restaurant, but the waiter told him the last dish had already been served to another customer — to M. de Fontgibu, as it turned out.

Seventeen years after that, in 1832, Deschamps was once again offered plum pudding, and he told his friends about the strange coincidence. At that moment, M. de Fontgibu entered the room by mistake.

“Three times in my life have I eaten plum pudding, and three times have I seen M. de Fortgibu!” Deschamps exclaimed. “A fourth time I should feel capable of anything … or capable of nothing!”

Here’s one explanation for crop circles:

This English woodcut pamphlet was published in 1678. It tells of a farmer who swore he would rather have the devil mow his field than pay the high price demanded by a laborer.

According to the pamphlet, that night his field appeared to be in flames, and the next morning it was found to be mowed to supernatural perfection.

Maybe so, but if that’s what causes these things, the devil’s been getting awfully fancy lately:

France’s Michel Lotito, better known as Monsieur Mangetout, eats metal and glass for a living. He began eating unusual materials compulsively as a child and has made it into a career, performing publicly since 1966.

Thanks to an unusually thick stomach lining, Mangetout can safely consume 2 pounds of metal a day with no ill effects. Generally he cuts large items — bicycles, television sets, shopping carts, a coffin — into 1-kilogram pieces, which he washes down with mineral oil and plenty of water.

In 1978 he started eating a small plane, a Cessna 150. He finished it in 1980.

Pareidolia is the experience of “seeing” something in a stimulus that’s simply vague and random.

You’ve felt it if you’ve ever seen images of animals or faces in clouds, or the man in the moon, or heard messages when records are played in reverse. It’s the basis for the Rorschach inkblot test.

This is a portrait of Elizabeth II as it appeared on the 1954 series Canadian dollar bill. So many people thought they saw the face of the devil in the queen’s hair that the bills were eventually withdrawn from circulation.

There’s nothing there — the portrait was adapted from a photograph.

A tremendous blizzard in January 1978 buried a flock of sheep under a snowdrift in Sutherland, Highland, Scotland.

Weeks later, after digging out 16 dead sheep, Alex Maclellan found one ewe still alive. Its hot breath had created air holes in the snow, and it had gnawed its own wool for protein.

It had survived that way for 50 days.