Shrieking Jack-O-Lanterns of Salisbury
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Contents
Overview
On the night of Halloween in 1963, the predominantly Unmagical city of Salisbury, UK, was faced with the terrifying sight of dozens of floating jack-o-lanterns. Not only did they hover above parts of the city, but some even seemed to chase Unmagicals through the streets and alleyways. To this day, despite there being numerous suspects, no one has ever been charged and the true culprit(s) has never been caught.
Crime
Not long after Halloween festivities began, the first jack-o-lantern took to the sky. At first people thought that it was just a decoration or a stray balloon, but then more began to rise up. Unmagicals below them gawked and stared in disbelief. What started out as just a couple of jack-o-lanterns turned into at least three dozen. Eventually, people began to feel scared and unsettled by the sight of them but still believed that they were simply part of an elaborate decoration for the town to marvel at.
When the first jack-o-lantern began to float lower to the ground, a young boy approached it and tried reaching for it. Chaos descended upon the streets when the jack-o-lantern’s carved mouth began to move as if it were biting something as it chased the young boy through the streets. More and more jack-o-lanterns dropped closer to the pavement and followed the frightened crowds as they ran away screaming. Despite the mouths of the jack-o-lanterns chomping and biting, no one was harmed by them, but some Unmagicals were injured after falling while sprinting away.
Many reports from that night state that the jack-o-lanterns were shrieking and howling as they chased people through the streets, though many attribute the screams to the terrified people themselves. A conclusive answer has never been decided upon, but the incident was forever known as the ‘Shrieking Jack-o-Lanterns of Salisbury’. The entire spectacle lasted less than twenty minutes, but it made a lasting impression on the town. The following year, many feared that the jack-o-lanterns would return, but they never did.
Aftermath
Reports of the incident reached the Ministry within minutes of the first floating jack-o-lantern. Despite the quick response and a lengthy investigation, no one was ever charged with the crime. Roughly two dozen suspects were brought in, but none were proven guilty. Many in the magical world pointed the finger at the infamous Three Wandering Warlocks who had left a trail of chaos behind them as they travelled across southern England pulling pranks on Unmagicals, but they were proven to have been hundreds of kilometres away at the time committing an entirely different crime. Auralocks heavily investigated three wizards named Joni Pannikar, Rassiel Bola, and Herman Shumpert, all of whom had criminal records with a history of targeting Unmagicals.
All three wizards were within twenty kilometres from the city at the time of the incident and none of them had a solid alibi. When Joni Pannikar was found, he was in the midst of carving pumpkins in his backyard whose faces were similar to those of the jack-o-lanterns that had been seen earlier that night. When Rassiel Bola was found, he had been preparing twelve pumpkin pies in his kitchen, which made the Auralocks wonder if he used what was left of the pumpkins to make the jack-o-lanterns. Finally, when Herman Shumpert was found, he was destroying multiple jack-o-lanterns on his property, a few of which had similar carved faces to those from the incident, leading the Auralocks to believe that he was destroying the evidence of his crime.
Despite the in-depth investigation of the three men and their seemingly damning evidence, none of them could be proven guilty and formally charged with the crime. To this day, some still believe it had to have been one of the three men, though many believe that one man alone could not have pulled off such an elaborate crime. Were they working together? Did one of them somehow manage to pull it off on their own? Or were the three of them part of a much larger group? Many decades later, both the magical and Unmagical worlds have never caught the mastermind behind the now infamous Halloween crime. The Ministry was able to smooth things over with the Unmagicals by making it look like an elaborate Halloween prank with wires and mundane crafts, though it took a few memory-altering spells to fully clean up the mess.
Trivia
- You can learn about the shrieking jack-o-lanterns of Salisbury and other crimes in Magical Crime Studies classes taught by the Academics team.
