By Tim Binnall
A worker at a South Carolina shopping center stumbled upon a pair of purportedly haunted boots that were later revealed to be a practical joke from three decades ago. According to a local media report, the amusing turn of events came to light when Jason Cooper was fixing a sign from within the attic of a Build-A-Bear Workshop in Myrtle Beach. While making his way through the creepy crawlspace littered with various pieces of trash from long ago, he was suddenly taken aback when he spotted a pair of boots affixed to a wooden beam with a chilling note stuck beside them.
The eerie missive, dated February 24th, 1995, read "these here boots were worn by the famous truss man of 'Broadway at the Beach,' Dave English, his ghost will roam until they are returned." A stunned Cooper subsequently detailed the spooky discovery on social media, where it eventually caught the attention of the 'wandering spirit,' who is very much alive and well. English explained that the strange 'shrine' was created after he had jokingly 'gifted' a pair of then-twenty-year-old boots to a friend who was working in the building back in 1995.
Crafting a second gag out of the peculiar 'present,' the pair cooked up the tale of the haunted boots and left them behind in the crawl space where they remained until Cooper found them thirty years later. A self-described "prankster at heart," English undoubtedly got a good laugh at seeing his decades-old practical joke finally arrive at its intended punchline. For his part, Cooper mused "it seems like the mystery is solved, but I got my Scooby-Doo moment there."