The Halloween Window Cleaner

A Halloween story: The mystery of the ghostly handprint By John R. Schmidt - April 18, 1924 was a Friday. At 7:30 in the evening, a passerby noticed smoke coming from Curran Hall, a massive four-story brick building at 1363 South Blue Island Avenue. The man ran to the corner fire-alarm box and pulled the lever. Two miles to the west, at Engine Company #107, fireman Francis Leavy was washing a window. The call came in and Leavy rushed out with the rest of the company. He told the captain he’d finish the window when they got back.

Chicago firemen at work, 1924.

Five squads converged on Curran Hall. The blaze seemed to be minor. The firemen were getting it under control when one of the outer walls began buckling. Then it collapsed, trapping eight men. The falling wall knocked out electrical power at the site. Portable lighting was brought in, while firemen combed the wreckage for their comrades. But all eight men had been killed. Among the dead was Francis Leavy. It was later determined that Curran Hall had been deliberately torched for the insurance. The building owners were tried and convicted of the crime.

Now for the rest of the story . . . The day after the fire, one of the men at Engine Company #107 noticed the window that Leavy had left half-washed. In the middle of the window was a handprint. The man tried scrubbing it out, but the handprint stayed. From that time forward, so the legend goes, every fireman assigned to Engine Company #107 attempted to remove the handprint. They used water, soap, ammonia and acid; they scraped it with razor blades. Nothing worked.

(Chicago Daily Times)
The ghostly handprint in 1939.

The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company was called in. My dad was a glazier at PPG, though years later. The way he heard the story, PPG applied their strongest chemical solvents to the handprint–and still couldn’t remove it. Was the handprint a ghostly souvenir of the dead fireman? It’s said that Leavy’s thumbprint was obtained from his personnel records, and compared with the print on the window. They matched perfectly. The end of the tale is prosaic. A newsboy threw a paper through the window and broke it. Most accounts say this happened in 1946. But one version claims that the window was broken on April 18, 1944 – 20 years to the day of Francis Leavy’s death.

The face in the window of the White Hart in Ironbridge.

Mystery face appears in 'haunted' pub's window: Drinkers in one Shropshire pub have been left scratching their heads after a series of spooky goings on - including this face appearing on the bar's window. Drinkers in one Shropshire pub have been left scratching their heads after a series of spooky goings on - including this face appearing on the bar's window. Staff and punters at the White Hart pub in Ironbridge might have been accused of drinking one too many ales until one customer snatched this picture on his mobile phone. Bar manager Mike Herbert said there have also been spooky goings on upstairs in the pub's restaurant. The mystery face was only noticed on the window on Wednesday and since then, staff have noticed other peculiar things happening. Mr Herbert said: "We just don't know what it is. "It was noticed on Wednesday and everyone has been trying to guess who it is. One person said it looks like Elvis Presley. "It just appeared on the window and we don't know if it is on the inside or the outside.

We don't want to touch it incase we disturb it either. "Then on the same day, upstairs in the restaurant we noticed something weird on one of the seats. It was only a short time after we saw the face on the window. "It was a strange triangular indent on the seat and when the housekeeper when to clean it off it just disappeared. "Then we went back later and it was there again, so we went to get the camera, but it disappeared again. No one can explain any of this, it's very strange." Mr Herbert added the pub has never seen anything like it before. "No one knows who the man in the window looks like and we have not come across this kind of thing in the past." Mr Herbert had to intervene yesterday when it appeared the face might be destroyed. "We had the window cleaner around and I had to stop him from cleaning that window," he added.

No such thing as ghosts – except the spitting kind: Do you believe in ghosts? The tales of otherworldly events that I am about to relate are not for the faint of heart. If you read any further, it may take you at least five extra minutes to get to sleep tonight. You have been warned (CATHERINE FORTE).

Do you believe in ghosts? The tales of otherworldly events that I am about to relate are not for the faint of heart. If you read any further, it may take you at least five extra minutes to get to sleep tonight. You have been warned.

I was on my first summer home from college. My sister Karen, five years younger, and I were bored, so we took a drive. We headed out into the nearby countryside with no particular destination in mind. After awhile we neared the top of a hill where a small cemetery stood.

“Let’s stop!” Karen said, so we did. It was about 8:30, just starting to hint at getting dark. We started walking around, reading headstones, when Karen spit on a grave. “Karen, don’t spit on graves, that’s disrespectful!” I said in my best big-sister tone of voice.

After walking around some more, we went back to the car. It wouldn’t start. So, we walked down the road about half a mile to where our dad’s friend Mr. Willander lived. He came back with us, and we were all standing outside of the car with the hood up, when suddenly the car started on its own. Then it died again (pardon the expression, ghosts).

Needless to say, we were more than a little spooked. Finally we got it running again, and Mr. Willander followed us home for safety’s sake. Back at home, Karen confessed, “All the kids at school say that cemetery is haunted.” “Well, why did you spit on a grave in a haunted cemetery?” I asked incredulously. We said our prayers with extra sincerity that night.

The kids at school also used to tell stories about hauntings in the school building itself. In the hallways of my small, rural high school were pictures of all the graduating classes dating back to when the school was first built, around 1916. Rumor had it that a kid was helping clean up after school one time, and when he sprayed window cleaner on the picture of the Class of 1918, one of the pictures spit back at him. Clearly, ghosts don’t like you spitting at them, but they feel that they can do it to you. Perhaps ethereal beings feel they have the lock on that particular form of rudeness.

19th century depiction of ball lightning. A new scientific paper, and has also given the first mathematical solution explaining the birth of ball lightning and how it is capable of passing through glass.

Scientist Claims To Have Theory On Mysterious Balls Of Lightning: CSIRO scientist John Lowke thinks he has the mysterious balls of lightning thing figured out, despite himself never witnessing one. Lowke has written a new scientific paper, and has also given the first mathematical solution explaining the birth of ball lightning and how it is capable of passing through glass. Documented sightings of ball lightning have been made across the world for centuries, but no explanation of how it occurs has been universally accepted by scientists. These balls of lightning have been known to form on glass, appearing in homes and even in airplanes.

Previous theories of ball lightning include microwave radiation from thunderclouds, oxidizing aerosols, nuclear energy, dark matter, and even black holes as causes for ball lightning, but Lowke disputes all of these theories. He proposes that the ball lightning is caused when leftover ions are swept to the ground following a lightning strike. After lightning strikes the ground, it leaves behind a trail of charged particles, or ions. In most cases, these positive and negative ions recombine in a split second, and any remaining ions travel down to the ground.

He says this is a result of a stream of ions accumulating on the outside of a glass window and resulting electric field on the other side excites air molecules to form a ball discharge. He said the field gives free electrons on the inside of the window enough energy to knock off electrons from surrounding air molecules, as well as release photons, which creates a glowing ball. “This is the first paper which gives a mathematical solution explaining the birth or initiation of ball lighting,” Lowke told Discovery News.

He said the next step is to use the theory to replicate ball lightning in the laboratory, which could prove to be difficult. One account of ball lightning comes from the 1960s, when a C-133A cargo plane was flying from California to Hawaii. Former Lieutenant Don Smith says he saw two horns of Saint Elmo’s fire appear on the planet’s radar cover, followed by ball lightning inside the cockpit. “It looked as if the airplane had bull’s horns…they were glowing with the blue of electricity,” Lowke told Discovery News. “(It) was driven by ions from the aircraft radar operated at maximum power during a dense fog.” He said about a third of the sightings end in a bang, which may be because the electric field tends to heat the gas making it hotter and hotter.