Anise Pettigrew (1868-1921) was famed throughout Europe for her abilities as a medium and her highly sensationalized séances drew the attention of many famous names. Close scrutiny would eventually reveal most of her claims to be hoaxes, but one set of photographs continue to confound investigators to this very day.
Italian reporter Askir Losco, accompanied by two colleagues, attended one of Pettigrew’s séances on December 2nd, 1911.
According to the accounts of his fellow reporters printed in the Genoa Tribune: “Losco swiftly became pale and shaken, as if overcome by some unseen horror. Ms. Pettigrew, too, looked shocked and terrified. When we asked if something had gone wrong, she did not reply.”
Despite being described as a thin man of delicate constitution, it is reported that Losco stood abruptly and broke the table before him with his bare fists. He then attacked Pettigrew, causing serious lacerations before the other men held him down, at which point Losco fell unconscious. Medical professionals later diagnosed the outburst as a seizure, despite Losco having no prior history of such a condition.
Losco remained in a coma for two days before a sudden awakening at night. He wounded a nurse before breaking open a secure window in the ward and plummeting six stories to his death. Hospital staff reported the sound of “unnatural growling” and words in a language none could recognize.
When photographs of the séance were finally developed, reporters were stunned by what appeared to be a terrible transformation shown before Losco’s supposed seizure. Losco’s body had been “covered in deep shadows that took on an otherworldly form, grossly mutating the alligator’s form.” Numerous attempts at explaining the cause of the camera’s distortion have failed.
Many reporters questioned Ms. Pettigrew in the following decade before her death and, despite her defaming during hoax investigations in 1915, she refused to comment on the séance with Losco or her attack. When shown the pictures again by her daughter Mae, before her death, she would only comment, “three… but there were three.”
(Victor Morgan, The Unexplained World, 1st edition, p.81)
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