The Skeleton Key Chronicles

11 hours ago

A movie about a power plant malfunction hit theaters and 12 days later, life imitated art. It was March 28, 1979, when a partial meltdown occurred at the Three Mile Island Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Here’s where it gets strange. Two weeks prior, a movie called The China Syndrome opened across the U.S., starring Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Wilford Brimley. The film followed a fictional situation at a facility that echoed parts of what would soon unfold in Pennsylvania.

At the time, it was just a story. Then March 28th happened.

When it opened, the movie had already drawn pushback from people in the industry, calling its premise unrealistic. Twelve days later, that take was a lot harder to stand behind.

Not the same situation, but close enough in timing, and close enough in how it unfolded, that people have been linking the two ever since. One event imagined, the other one real and both separated by less than two weeks, with just enough overlap to make that timing hard to ignore. … See MoreSee Less

The Skeleton Key Chronicles

15 hours ago

On the morning of August 8, 1994, Shaylene Marie Farrell left her home in Piqua around 10:00 a.m., driving her mother’s silver 1981 Chevrolet Malibu. She told her family she was heading to the Pick-N-Save grocery store along Route 36, where she had recently started working. The plan was to pick up iced tea and return home before her scheduled 7:00 p.m. shift later that evening. But she never came into work or made it home.

Shaylene arrived at the store at some point. That much is clear because the car she was driving was later found parked in the Pick-N-Save lot later that same day.

Shaylene was reported missing after she did not show up for her 7:00 p.m. shift. What made the situation even more unsettling was how little there was to go on. Shaylene reportedly had no money, no identification, and no belongings with her that day. For someone expected to return home quickly and head into a work shift, nothing about that made sense.

In the hours after she disappeared, there were reports of her car being seen driving around Piqua, which only added to the confusion early on. Police looked into those sightings, but none of them were ever confirmed in a way that clarified where she had gone or who may she may have been with.
Even now that parking lot is still where the trail ends.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

Florida has no shortage of quirky landmarks, but few compare to the stone courtyard built by Edward Leedskalnin. Working entirely on his own, Ed carved and moved enormous blocks of coral rock, some weighing several tons, using methods he never explained and never demonstrated publicly. You see, Ed only worked under the cloak of darkness, seriously, with no one ever witnessing how he managed to move such heavy boulders.

Leedskalnin didn’t just build it once, he built it twice. He first created his stone garden in Florida City during the 1920s, then later relocated the entire layout to a new property in the 1930s, transporting the blocks and rebuilding each section by hand one by one. The version near Homestead is the one he rebuilt in the 1930s, and it still operates as a landmark today.

The story takes a turn when you get to his inspiration. Ed’s entire project was tied to his unrequited love for a girl named Agnes Scuffs, who ended their engagement the day before they were supposed to be wed. She moved on, and he kicked rocks, well, in this case, moved rocks… for the rest of his life. Decades later, Billy Idol used Ed's story as inspo for his song Sweet Sixteen and even filmed his music video there at Coral Castle giving the landmark a place in pop-culture history.

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