The Watford Pond Reflection, 1966

In October 1966, the surface of Cassiobury Park’s pond in Watford showed the face of a woman screaming, but nobody standing at the water’s edge could see her beside them. Reports started with two schoolchildren who claimed the reflection looked back at them even after they turned away. By November, more than thirty kids described the same sunken eyes and torn white dress, always in the water’s glass, never in the air. Adults dismissed it, until a mother fainted when she said the face mouthed her name from beneath the ripples. Police visits were useless-the reflection appeared only to children and, once, to the parish priest, who swore it began weeping blood when he tried to bless the pond. The park closed for a month after a dog dove in after the image and vanished, leaving just its collar floating. To this day, nobody has identified the screaming woman of 1966 or found where the owner of that collar went.