ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Ghoulish figures coming down at Central Texas cemetery

TEMPLE, Texas

Some ghoulish decorations at a Central Texas cemetery are coming down after complaints about Halloween-type figures set up on a grave.

The Temple Daily Telegram reports that officials at Hillcrest Cemetery in Temple say the items violate cemetery decorum rules. The display includes two masked figures with skull themes, flowing garments and fake spider webs.

Authorities are not sure who decorated the gravesite.

Cemetery director Brenda Coley on Monday planned to contact relatives of the person whose grave was targeted, to coordinate removal of the items.

Coley says the site “looks like a house of horrors” and there needs to be more respect. She’s also received calls and other complaints about the decorated grave, which Coley first noticed Friday.

Polish army checks site of alleged tunnel with Nazi train

WARSAW, Poland

The Polish military Monday deployed chemical, radiation and explosives experts to a site in southwestern Poland where a Nazi train reportedly missing since World War II could be located.

Tomasz Smolarz, the governor of Lower Silesia, said the aim of the work in the town of Walbrzych is to exclude any danger for residents. He said the experts will continue their technical checks through Saturday.

The military’s efforts come after two explorers claimed to have found a Nazi train trapped in a tunnel that they say could contain both armaments and precious minerals. The explorers’ claim awaits confirmation, but it has sparked hopes it could be a Nazi train laden with treasure that local legend says went missing at the end of World War II. The train was reportedly booby-trapped with weapons.

During the war, Walbrzych was still part of Germany. Called Waldenburg, it was in an area where Adolf Hitler was building a system of secret underground tunnels. The legend says the so-called “gold train” entered one of the tunnels while fleeing the advancing Soviet army in 1945 and was never seen again.

Though there’s no evidence the train even existed, news of the possible discovery has sparked global fascination in the case and a local gold rush.

The two explorers, a German and a Pole, say they used ground-penetrating radar to locate the train. The men want a reward of 10 percent of the value of the train’s contents.

But it’s not clear how things will turn out, even if a train is found. Last week prosecutors said they were investigating whether the men committed a crime by conducting a search with radar equipment without official permission.

Associated Press