The Skeleton Key Chronicles

14 hours ago

Imagine lying down for an afternoon nap and having a rock from outer space come through your roof. That actually happened to Ann Hodges.

On November 30th, 1954, the 34-year-old Alabama woman was asleep on her couch when a meteorite came through the roof of her home, hit a large wooden console radio, ricocheted across the room and bounced off of Ann, leaving an enormous bruise along one side of her body. And somehow, that was only the beginning of the story.

Word spread fast. Police came to the house, reporters and curious onlookers began showing up, and of course, everyone wanted to know exactly what this thing was. The rock was turned over to authorities, and the Air Force eventually took possession of it so experts could examine it and make everything official. Sure enough, the thing that had just come through Ann Hodges’ roof and bounced off of her really was a meteorite.

Then came another problem. Ann and her husband rented the house, and their landlady, Birdie Guy, claimed that because the meteorite had landed on her property, it belonged to her. The dispute dragged on until the two sides eventually settled and Ann kept the meteorite. By then, however, much of the excitement surrounding it had faded. The Hodges had once hoped the meteorite might be worth something, but nothing ever really came of it. For a time, the famous chunk of space rock apparently served as a doorstop.

Meanwhile, another piece of the very same meteorite was discovered nearby the following day. And in a rather ironic twist, the man who found that fragment actually did manage to make some money from his.

Ann eventually donated her piece to the Alabama Museum of Natural History, where it remains today. The museum also has the old Philco radio it struck before ricocheting into her.

More than 70 years later, Ann Hodges still holds a distinction no one else has managed to claim. She remains the only confirmed person in recorded history to have been directly struck by a meteorite.

Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges
February 10, 1920 ~ September 10, 1972

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

17 hours ago

In the summer of 1988, teenagers Shane Stewart and Sally McNelly had recently gotten back together after spending several months apart. That July, the two headed to Lake Nasworthy in San Angelo, Texas, where they spent the evening watching the annual fireworks over the lake.

By the following morning, neither of them had made it home. Shane's copper-colored Camaro was eventually found at Isabel Harte Park near O.C. Fisher Reservoir, several miles from where the couple had watched the fireworks. The keys were still sitting on the dashboard and fast-food wrappers were scattered across the front seat, but there was no sign of Shane or Sally.

As investigators began piecing together where the couple had gone after leaving Lake Nasworthy, they learned something else. Close to midnight, a lake ranger had seen Shane's Camaro inside Isabel Harte Park. A young man and woman were sitting inside, believed to have been Shane and Sally. By the time the car was found the following day, however, it was sitting in a different part of the park. At first, investigators considered the possibility that the two had taken off together. But neither Shane nor Sally contacted their families or friends, and as the days turned into weeks, that explanation became harder to believe. The search continued through the rest of the summer and into fall.

Nearly four months after they disappeared, hunters came across Sally's skeletal remains in a remote area near Twin Buttes Reservoir. Three days later, investigators searching nearby found Shane. And with that discovery, some of the things Shane and Sally had said in the months before they disappeared suddenly carried a very different weight.

Apparently the couple had become involved with a group of teenagers that friends described as participating in "occult or ritualistic" gatherings. People who knew them said Shane and Sally had decided they wanted out and were trying to distance themselves from the group.

A few months before they disappeared, Sally had even contacted a Tom Green County sheriff's deputy and told him that she and Shane were frightened. The deputy met with the couple and began looking into what they had shared with him. Then, only weeks before that night at Lake Nasworthy, Sally apparently confided to a friend that she believed someone was going to try to hurt her.

Beyond thet information, investigators had very little to move the case forward. Then in 2017, the investigation took another turn when authorities searched the San Angelo home of John Cyrus Gilbreath. Gilbreath was later publicly identified as a person of interest. According to court records, investigators found writings that mentioned Shane and Sally, cassette tapes marked “SS” and other material they believed could potentially be connected to the case. Even with all that, Gilbreath was never charged.

To this day, no one has been held responsible for what happened to Shane and Sally that summer. And investigators have never been able to determine whether the fears the couple expressed before they disappeared were connected to their deaths.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

There are roughly thirteen hours in Dr. Sneha Anne Philip's life that no one has ever been able to explain. And twenty-five years ago today, the clock started ticking.

It was September 10th, 2001. Sneha was a 31-year-old physician living with her husband in Lower Manhattan. That afternoon, she was captured on surveillance shopping inside Century 21. At 7:18 that evening, several purchases were made with her credit card at the store. No one knows where she went after that.

And her shopping bags disappeared with her. Sneha's husband came home around midnight to an empty apartment, and by morning, there was still no sign of her. But there may have been one.

At 8:43 the following morning, the security camera inside Sneha's apartment building captured a woman entering the lobby. She lingered near the elevators for several minutes before walking back outside. Sneha's husband thought the woman resembled her. But investigators couldn't really see her face enough to make a positive identification. And three minutes later, everything changed, at 8:46 a.m., the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

In the confusion that followed, Sneha's family began to believe she may have gone toward the World Trade Center to help. She was a doctor and lived only a few blocks away, so the possibility wasn't difficult to imagine. But no one could actually place her there.

And as investigators dug deeper into Sneha's life, they found other reasons to wonder whether her disappearance had begun the night before. She had recently lost a medical residency and was dealing with legal and personal problems. Her husband also told investigators that she sometimes stayed out overnight.

Then came another complication. Sneha's brother initially told reporters that he had spoken with her on the morning of September 11th and that she was helping people near the World Trade Center. He later admitted that wasn't true. He had made up the story because he believed connecting Sneha to the events of that morning would keep attention on her disappearance.

Years later, another curious piece was added to the story. An anonymous postcard appeared on PostSecret, a website where people mailed in secrets to be published without their names. Written across the front was a single sentence. “Everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I’m dead.”

There has never been anything connecting the postcard to Sneha, and no one knows who sent it. But the timing of her disappearance and the possibility that she could have vanished into the enormous confusion that followed on September 11th have made that little postcard part of the conversation surrounding her case ever since.

In 2008, a New York appeals court officially declared that Sneha had lost her life at the World Trade Center on September 11th. Her name now appears at the National September 11 Memorial. But the ruling couldn't account for those thirteen missing hours.

Maybe Sneha returned home that morning and the woman caught on camera really was her. Maybe she went toward the towers to help. Or maybe something entirely different happened after she walked out of Century 21 on September 10th, and the events of the following morning obscured her trail forever.

Twenty-five years later, we still don't know what happened to Dr. Sneha Anne Philip.

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