I was surfing the internet recently and discovered something that's probably old news by now, but I wanted to comment on it anyway because I found it to be interesting. Interesting enough, anyway, to get me to make my shcoked face and go "Huh?! Rihanna used to look for UFOs?!"
Seriously. I thought it was kind of cool. Apparently her dad used to have her sit out on the front steps of her home back in Barbados and watch the sky for UFOs, and this went on for years.
She admits that “I didn’t see any but I saw a falling star once and I was like, ‘Yessss, Dad! Come and see, it just darted’.”
I don't know why I found that to be so interesting; I just did. Maybe because it's kind of hard to see any stars at all where I live 'cause there are so many lights and stuff, so I've been denied, really, the chance to sit on a step--which I also don't have--at night to look for UFOs. Am I living vicariously through Rihanna's childhood memories or something? Werid....
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. After all, the more you know...
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
LandWatch: Unicorns and the Bible
Because I only realized as I started this post that I never explained to you guys what LandWatch is, I figured I'd do it in true style--and in a way that involves unicorns. Because unicorns are true style.
LandWatch is the cryptzoo part of my blog, where I'll write about things like Bigfoot and well-meaning politicians and other strange, possibly nonexistent creatures that are rumored to exist or once existed on land (and soon-to-come SeaWatch, my intelligent readers, will, yes, be about things like Nessie and creatures such as her).
They called me crazy. Well, my dad did. But I found them. In the Bible. Just like I said.
Unicorns. Beautiful rhinos. Whatever you call 'em, Job talks about them. Don't believe me?
In the King James Bible, in Job 39:9-12:
"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?
Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?
Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"
God talks about unicorns like they were any other animal, trying to show Job the awesomeness that He had wrought by creating all of these animals with their various talents and abilities. The unicorn shows up in a few other passages as well.
In Numbers 23:22:
"God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn."
In Deuteronomy 33:17:
"His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh."
In Psalm 22:21:
"Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns."
In Psalm 29:6:
"He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."
In Psalm 92:10:
"But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil."
In Isaiah 34:7:
"And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness."
Uh-huh. Unicorns. In the Bible. Maybe this isn't hard-hitting journalism or ways to survive a demon attack (hint: Super-Soaker filled with Holy Water), but it can't be death and government conspiracies all the time, can it? Sometimes I need to blog something to lighten the mood--and what's lighter than unicorns? I'm not asking for a literal answer. Just enjoy the unicorn-awesomeness.
And Dad called me crazy.
LandWatch is the cryptzoo part of my blog, where I'll write about things like Bigfoot and well-meaning politicians and other strange, possibly nonexistent creatures that are rumored to exist or once existed on land (and soon-to-come SeaWatch, my intelligent readers, will, yes, be about things like Nessie and creatures such as her).
They called me crazy. Well, my dad did. But I found them. In the Bible. Just like I said.
Unicorns. Beautiful rhinos. Whatever you call 'em, Job talks about them. Don't believe me?
In the King James Bible, in Job 39:9-12:
"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?
Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?
Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"
God talks about unicorns like they were any other animal, trying to show Job the awesomeness that He had wrought by creating all of these animals with their various talents and abilities. The unicorn shows up in a few other passages as well.
In Numbers 23:22:
"God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn."
In Deuteronomy 33:17:
"His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh."
In Psalm 22:21:
"Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns."
In Psalm 29:6:
"He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."
In Psalm 92:10:
"But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil."
In Isaiah 34:7:
"And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness."
Uh-huh. Unicorns. In the Bible. Maybe this isn't hard-hitting journalism or ways to survive a demon attack (hint: Super-Soaker filled with Holy Water), but it can't be death and government conspiracies all the time, can it? Sometimes I need to blog something to lighten the mood--and what's lighter than unicorns? I'm not asking for a literal answer. Just enjoy the unicorn-awesomeness.
And Dad called me crazy.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
DeathWatch: Where Have All the Good Men Gone?
Well, not just men, because the women were pretty good, too (Donna, Lisa, Paula, etc.), but it's a figure of speech, all right? From a Bonnie Tyler song.
A while back, I got the DVDs of the first few seasons of SyFy's Ghost Hunters and watched them; I just finished season three and am waiting to get season four. I also jumped into the second half of season eight once they put them up On Demand, and the differences between them are pretty startling. I mean, it almost seems to be a completely different show and, to a point, it does bother me, for several reasons. I mean, I know that change happens and all that, but not all change is good and, so far, this doesn't seem to be.
TAPS, in the beginning, was all about debunking a haunting, not proving it, and that seems to have completely gone out the window. Now almost everything found by the new investigators is considered "paranormal," and when you're used to TAPS's old way of doing things that can get annoying pretty fast. Most of the time, sitting on my couch at home I can see explanations for the weird noise Britt is hearing or the weird shadows Adam is seeing--one of the worst instances of that was when they were down in Louisiana investigating the Alexandria Zoo and Adam was getting a really high EMF spike, so he and Britt were freaking out over it, when asked about it later they said they thought it might have been something paranormal. The problem with that? At the time Adam was picking up the EMF spike, he was standing on old zoo railroad tracks (metal)...during a thunderstorm (lightning). And it was never once suggested that the high electric field was caused by the reaction of metal to lightning. Not. Once. Not cool, guys.
Most of the crew seem to go into a place expecting it to be haunted, completely in contrast to the "old days" at TAPS. And, half the time, they focus on one reported haunting while barely mentioning another, like up at Fort Ontario. The fort reportedly houses the ghosts of both American soldiers and Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, and yet throughout the entire episode, most of the investigators asked the spirits if they had fled World War Two or if they were refugees, even if they were in places where the soldier-ghosts had been seen. This is the part where I give props to Amy, which I really didn't expect to be doing, because she usually asked if they were a soldier or refugee, and then continued asking questions about refugees once she felt she got a response in the positive. If only most of the others had done that, maybe I wouldn't have been screaming at the TV so much during that episode (although I feel like I have to yell at Amy a bit for investigating even though she is pregnant, because there are factors on investigations that can both physically and spiritually harm you and I don't feel she should be exposing her unborn child to that).
I want to point out something good, though, just so this post doesn't seem like one big put-down fest. The three remaining members of what I think of as the "original" TAPS crew (Jason Hawes, Steve Gonsalves, and Dave Tango) still hold the most to the whole debunking thing--although I've seen Jason accept some evidence that I felt he would have glared at Brian for thinking was paranormal a few seasons ago--my, how things change.
Positive, Star Baby. Right.
On the same investigation, up at the fort, Steve and Dave kept hearing a strange noise they couldn't place and eventually managed to figure out that it was something up on the roof blowing in the wind. I screamed "THANK YOU!" because it was like a huge present, seeing that the word "debunk" still lingers somewhere in TAPS's collective subconscious. Jason and Steve also, during an EVP session, also waited until they felt they had received confirmation the ghost they were trying to communicate with was a refugee ghost before they started asking refugee questions and, when a locked door tried to open, made sure nothing else could have caused that to happen before they presented it as evidence.
The Trinity, as I've come to call them to myself (and now to you) still show me the stuff I started watching the show for, although at a much smaller volume than they used to when the whole group was like them. They're doing their best, I guess, and considering the level my blood pressure spikes up to when I watch the newbies do their stuff (and some of them aren't that new, which makes things worse), that's all I can ask for, though I remember when I didn't have to.
And would it be too hard to analyze the evidence a little better? I mean, when I hear some of the EVPs they catch and compare it to what they think it says, it's a Queen Mary-length apart. Of course, back in the "old days" there were EVPs where I heard different things than TAPs did, but those times were relatively few and far between, not every single time they play a dang thing. I know that people can hear things differently, especially when it's encased in static, but sometimes it's ridiculous how differently we hear things, and a lot of the time they don't even hear anything close to what I hear. They've presented things as words when all I heard was laughter, as names when the words didn't even to start with the same sound (for example, once they thought an EVP said "Amy" and I couldn't even pick an A-sound out, and to me it sounded much longer, like they were saying a multi-syllabic word or phrase).
Jason doesn't even seem the same these days. He hardly seems to smile--he doesn't look that happy to be there on most investigations, even. He seems sad and drawn half the time, like all of this is taking a bad toll on him, and combine that with that goatee he's sporting and it starts looking like he's been kidnapped and replaced by an evil Jason from another dimension.
Seriously, though, it bothers me to see something like this happening, because I love Ghost Hunters so much and watching the first few seasons helped to cement my desire to become a ghost hunter myself. It almost hurts watching the old seasons in parallel time with the new one, because it's like watching the TAPS van roll down some giant hill and crash into schlock-soaked nitroglycerine at the bottom. There have been barely any residential cases lately, which makes me doubt the sincerity now of their "We're TAPS and we're here to help" slogan. Who are they helping now? Hotels? Forts? They should be helping normal people, too, just as they did when Grant was there with them. A home potentially being invaded by spirits of some sort or another used to be a large portion of their cases, and now those have all but faded from sight.
Will I keep watching? Yes, I will, but I'll be wishing it was even just a little bit more like the old Ghost Hunters and a lot less every other stumble-around-in-the-dark show on TV.
And I'll always miss the way the shows used to end, with Jason and Grant together in the TAPS van discussing their last case and closing things with a fist-bump, a true ghost-hunting bromance.
Well, on to the next.
A while back, I got the DVDs of the first few seasons of SyFy's Ghost Hunters and watched them; I just finished season three and am waiting to get season four. I also jumped into the second half of season eight once they put them up On Demand, and the differences between them are pretty startling. I mean, it almost seems to be a completely different show and, to a point, it does bother me, for several reasons. I mean, I know that change happens and all that, but not all change is good and, so far, this doesn't seem to be.
TAPS, in the beginning, was all about debunking a haunting, not proving it, and that seems to have completely gone out the window. Now almost everything found by the new investigators is considered "paranormal," and when you're used to TAPS's old way of doing things that can get annoying pretty fast. Most of the time, sitting on my couch at home I can see explanations for the weird noise Britt is hearing or the weird shadows Adam is seeing--one of the worst instances of that was when they were down in Louisiana investigating the Alexandria Zoo and Adam was getting a really high EMF spike, so he and Britt were freaking out over it, when asked about it later they said they thought it might have been something paranormal. The problem with that? At the time Adam was picking up the EMF spike, he was standing on old zoo railroad tracks (metal)...during a thunderstorm (lightning). And it was never once suggested that the high electric field was caused by the reaction of metal to lightning. Not. Once. Not cool, guys.
Most of the crew seem to go into a place expecting it to be haunted, completely in contrast to the "old days" at TAPS. And, half the time, they focus on one reported haunting while barely mentioning another, like up at Fort Ontario. The fort reportedly houses the ghosts of both American soldiers and Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, and yet throughout the entire episode, most of the investigators asked the spirits if they had fled World War Two or if they were refugees, even if they were in places where the soldier-ghosts had been seen. This is the part where I give props to Amy, which I really didn't expect to be doing, because she usually asked if they were a soldier or refugee, and then continued asking questions about refugees once she felt she got a response in the positive. If only most of the others had done that, maybe I wouldn't have been screaming at the TV so much during that episode (although I feel like I have to yell at Amy a bit for investigating even though she is pregnant, because there are factors on investigations that can both physically and spiritually harm you and I don't feel she should be exposing her unborn child to that).
I want to point out something good, though, just so this post doesn't seem like one big put-down fest. The three remaining members of what I think of as the "original" TAPS crew (Jason Hawes, Steve Gonsalves, and Dave Tango) still hold the most to the whole debunking thing--although I've seen Jason accept some evidence that I felt he would have glared at Brian for thinking was paranormal a few seasons ago--my, how things change.
Positive, Star Baby. Right.
On the same investigation, up at the fort, Steve and Dave kept hearing a strange noise they couldn't place and eventually managed to figure out that it was something up on the roof blowing in the wind. I screamed "THANK YOU!" because it was like a huge present, seeing that the word "debunk" still lingers somewhere in TAPS's collective subconscious. Jason and Steve also, during an EVP session, also waited until they felt they had received confirmation the ghost they were trying to communicate with was a refugee ghost before they started asking refugee questions and, when a locked door tried to open, made sure nothing else could have caused that to happen before they presented it as evidence.
The Trinity, as I've come to call them to myself (and now to you) still show me the stuff I started watching the show for, although at a much smaller volume than they used to when the whole group was like them. They're doing their best, I guess, and considering the level my blood pressure spikes up to when I watch the newbies do their stuff (and some of them aren't that new, which makes things worse), that's all I can ask for, though I remember when I didn't have to.
And would it be too hard to analyze the evidence a little better? I mean, when I hear some of the EVPs they catch and compare it to what they think it says, it's a Queen Mary-length apart. Of course, back in the "old days" there were EVPs where I heard different things than TAPs did, but those times were relatively few and far between, not every single time they play a dang thing. I know that people can hear things differently, especially when it's encased in static, but sometimes it's ridiculous how differently we hear things, and a lot of the time they don't even hear anything close to what I hear. They've presented things as words when all I heard was laughter, as names when the words didn't even to start with the same sound (for example, once they thought an EVP said "Amy" and I couldn't even pick an A-sound out, and to me it sounded much longer, like they were saying a multi-syllabic word or phrase).
Jason doesn't even seem the same these days. He hardly seems to smile--he doesn't look that happy to be there on most investigations, even. He seems sad and drawn half the time, like all of this is taking a bad toll on him, and combine that with that goatee he's sporting and it starts looking like he's been kidnapped and replaced by an evil Jason from another dimension.
Seriously, though, it bothers me to see something like this happening, because I love Ghost Hunters so much and watching the first few seasons helped to cement my desire to become a ghost hunter myself. It almost hurts watching the old seasons in parallel time with the new one, because it's like watching the TAPS van roll down some giant hill and crash into schlock-soaked nitroglycerine at the bottom. There have been barely any residential cases lately, which makes me doubt the sincerity now of their "We're TAPS and we're here to help" slogan. Who are they helping now? Hotels? Forts? They should be helping normal people, too, just as they did when Grant was there with them. A home potentially being invaded by spirits of some sort or another used to be a large portion of their cases, and now those have all but faded from sight.
Will I keep watching? Yes, I will, but I'll be wishing it was even just a little bit more like the old Ghost Hunters and a lot less every other stumble-around-in-the-dark show on TV.
And I'll always miss the way the shows used to end, with Jason and Grant together in the TAPS van discussing their last case and closing things with a fist-bump, a true ghost-hunting bromance.
Well, on to the next.
SkyWatch: Oh, By the Way, Britain...
After I posted my last rant, about the ability of jolly old England's ability to protect itself from aliens, I came across another interesting fact that cast even more doubt on that for me.
Britain once misplaced a 50,000 pound unexploded bomb.
Yes. They lost a freaking bomb. It was part of their strategy in WWI to place bombs in strategic locations and blow the Nazis up to kingdom come, but some of them ended up never being detonated. They then lost track of these undetonated things, and only found them recently using old maps.
And one of those bombs? It was set off by lightning and killed a cow.
Hmmm. Maybe a few of the animal mutilations that happened in England weren't really caused by aliens after all. Maybe they were killed by bombs that the British government lost.
Hey, England, tell your UFO adviser that all the top-notch technology you say you have can't protect you from the grays if you can't find it.
Britain once misplaced a 50,000 pound unexploded bomb.
Yes. They lost a freaking bomb. It was part of their strategy in WWI to place bombs in strategic locations and blow the Nazis up to kingdom come, but some of them ended up never being detonated. They then lost track of these undetonated things, and only found them recently using old maps.
And one of those bombs? It was set off by lightning and killed a cow.
Hmmm. Maybe a few of the animal mutilations that happened in England weren't really caused by aliens after all. Maybe they were killed by bombs that the British government lost.
Hey, England, tell your UFO adviser that all the top-notch technology you say you have can't protect you from the grays if you can't find it.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
SkyWatch: Can Britain Defend Itself From Aliens? Umm...Doctor Who?
Sometimes I'll go off on a tangent about things that I've seen on other websites that are in no way affiliated with mine; this is one of those times.
The article that I'm going to be drawing off of this time is at http://theoccultsection.com/2012/10/18/can-britain-repel-a-ufo-invasion/, if you want to check it out yourself. I love www.theoccultsection.com, because it amuses me to no end and it continually shows me that I am not the only one out there who has aliens on the brain...and sometimes fears zombies trying to get at yours.
No matter what the "British government's former top UFO advisor" says, I don't really think Britain could push 'em back, push 'em back, waaaay back. I keep thinking about the American Revolution, where a bunch of farmers and first-time fighters managed to completely kick Britain's butt by the time the war was over. If they lost to us rebels, how do they expect to be able to repel aliens like the ones who make you do horrible things like go around killing people and rhen forgetting you ever saw them once you look away from them (that reference was brought to you by the basic knowledge of Doctor Who that comes from having two best friends who are obsessed with the show)? I mean, all the fancy-schmancy Taranis combat SUVs in England aren't gonna help the Brits against them. They need a TARDIS and bow-tie-wearing man for that.
I'm not just saying that because I'm an American and that means I automatically think most Brits suck (well, that's not the only reason). But thinking logically about this, how long do you think a man in a beef-eater is going to be able to resist before being vaporized by an angry Klingon?
Of course, American forces might be vaporized just as fast--after all, aliens who can hop from galaxy-to-galaxy when we can't even go to the moon anymore probably have, um, better technology than any country on Earth. But the difference is that the advisers in our government's UFO department don't come out and say we won't be.
What I'm trying to say, Britain, is that if a Dalek shows up on your street corner, you'd be better off running to your closest blue police call box than your government. If that doesn't save you, not much else can...except maybe America.
The article that I'm going to be drawing off of this time is at http://theoccultsection.com/2012/10/18/can-britain-repel-a-ufo-invasion/, if you want to check it out yourself. I love www.theoccultsection.com, because it amuses me to no end and it continually shows me that I am not the only one out there who has aliens on the brain...and sometimes fears zombies trying to get at yours.
No matter what the "British government's former top UFO advisor" says, I don't really think Britain could push 'em back, push 'em back, waaaay back. I keep thinking about the American Revolution, where a bunch of farmers and first-time fighters managed to completely kick Britain's butt by the time the war was over. If they lost to us rebels, how do they expect to be able to repel aliens like the ones who make you do horrible things like go around killing people and rhen forgetting you ever saw them once you look away from them (that reference was brought to you by the basic knowledge of Doctor Who that comes from having two best friends who are obsessed with the show)? I mean, all the fancy-schmancy Taranis combat SUVs in England aren't gonna help the Brits against them. They need a TARDIS and bow-tie-wearing man for that.
I'm not just saying that because I'm an American and that means I automatically think most Brits suck (well, that's not the only reason). But thinking logically about this, how long do you think a man in a beef-eater is going to be able to resist before being vaporized by an angry Klingon?
Of course, American forces might be vaporized just as fast--after all, aliens who can hop from galaxy-to-galaxy when we can't even go to the moon anymore probably have, um, better technology than any country on Earth. But the difference is that the advisers in our government's UFO department don't come out and say we won't be.
What I'm trying to say, Britain, is that if a Dalek shows up on your street corner, you'd be better off running to your closest blue police call box than your government. If that doesn't save you, not much else can...except maybe America.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
I've Landed on Twitter!
Yep, that's right. Your friendly neighborhood SkyWatcher now has a Twitter account. I'll be tweeting links to posts on SkyWatch as well as other articles I find interesting and that I think my readers will find intriguing too, so follow me if you want to and miss out on everything if you don't.
If you want to follow me, just hop on over to Twitter and follow Star Baby @aubtleaurora. I'll be just as weird there as I am here, so don't worry that I'll have to limit my weirdness or anything. All my strangeness will now be compacted into 140 neat little characters. Enjoy.
https://twitter.com/asubtleaurora
If you want to follow me, just hop on over to Twitter and follow Star Baby @aubtleaurora. I'll be just as weird there as I am here, so don't worry that I'll have to limit my weirdness or anything. All my strangeness will now be compacted into 140 neat little characters. Enjoy.
https://twitter.com/asubtleaurora
Friday, October 26, 2012
DeathWatch: Class is in Session
Before we go any farther into this little fright-fest I'm writing, I thought I'd be a nice person and explain beforehand a little bit about the various types of hauntings I'll be writing about (oh, and just so you know, Blogger just told me I spelled "hauntings" wrong, as I spelled it as you see it now. Great job, spellcheck) so you can understand what the heck I'm saying. I've divided the typical hauntings into classes (sorry, no Class 5A Repeating Phantasms here) and will give a summary of each; more will be described with each corresponding case I cover. If you already know these, feel free to skip over this post.
- Residual--This is quite possibly the least dangerous of all possible hauntings, so if your house has to be haunted (for whatever reason), this is probably your best option. It's not a chain-rattling, throw-things-at-the-wall, possess-your-kids-and-kill-your-dog haunting. It's like a broken record, as it's more trapped energy than anything. This haunting goes on in a pattern or routine: Footsteps down the same hall the same time every night, for example, or the same door swinging open by itself every time. The energy is just doing what it did when it was alive, and nothing will cause it to deviate because it does not recognize its surroundings to the extent that an intelligent haunting does. You could stand in the middle of the hall right as it's walking down and it'll just go right on through. A lot of residuals are connected with a traumatic event, like a murder, rape, fire, etc., that released a lot of energy into the surroundings when it occured.
- Intelligent--This is a dead guy, who either might or might not realize that he's dead, who makes attempts to communicate--or can, at least, try--by talking, moving or throwing things, or reacting to surroundings or changes in them (renovation--does it every time). It may do things on a pattern, but only if it wants to; these ghosts are usually unpredictable, and that can make a dangerous spirit even worse. They're not necessarily automatically dangerous; some just want to pass on a message or watch over their beloved pansy bush or can't cross over for some reason. Then again, some want to kill whoever rearranges their furniture. It all depends on the dead guy.
- Poltergeist--Some people believe this is a mischievous spirit, while others believe that poltie (my term--I really don't feel like typing the word out five thousand million times) activity can be caused by built-up or heavily repressed energy and that's why so many poltie cases center around teenagers (especially us girls--you know how we get) or troubled people, and that's personally where I throw my chips in, because most of the research seems to point that way. That makes it hard to get rid of such a haunting, because often the activity wouldn't stop in a house until the person giving off the energy was removed from the setting. Of course, it would just start up wherever that person ended up, sometimes made even worse by the move. Many times, if the cause was a teen, once that person's hormones settled a majority of the activity would stop, or at least become less severe.
- Inhuman/Demonic--BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD. Let me say it again: BAD. If one of these pops up in your place or residence, be it apartment, rancher, mansion, or RV, get the heck out while you still can. These spirits were never alive to begin with, and come up from Hell (many times summoned by accident or by means that seem innocent to start with) simply to wreak havoc with God-fearing souls. They may appear in other forms, like a child or other innocent shape, but soon reveal themselves--disembodied growls, random burns or scratches, violent events, and the smell of crap or "dirty diapers" are all hallmarks of a traditional inhuman haunting, as well as threatening EVPs and ones that mention demons, the Devil, or have many F-bombs dropped--you hear "F F F F F" and you either got an inhuman or your house is being haunted by Samuel L. Jackson.
- Shadow People--They are not usually considered to be human hauntings. Their most obvious trait is that they do not have many distinct features and instead look like...well, I think you can figure that out yourself, dude. They're usually seen out of the corner of your eye, and act different from your typical "ghost." Usually they don't wear clothes (except for some who are seen in hats or sometimes long coats) and pass through walls and stuff like that. Sometimes they actually do hang out in closets and under beds, so the next time your child complains, don't just brush it off as a nightmare. It might just be all too real.
- Doppelganger-- You know, the "twin" thing. This is where you're standing somewhere and see, out of the corner of your eye, yourself standing down the street. This is probably one of the rarest hauntings that you'll encounter. Some people actually claim to have the ability to control their twin and can call them up at will; there's plenty of stories of professors or workers calling up a double to go to work instead of them. This is also a favorite on The Twilight Zone.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
DeathWatch: Nightmare on Elm Avenue
A couple of days ago, my friend (who I'll call Lily to protect her privacy because she asked me to) and I were talking in the hallway before class when all of a sudden she exclaimed, "I saw a ghost this weekend!"
Of course, that totally made a Monday morning better, so I immediately began asking her for details. She was a bit hyper and so at first she didn't exactly give me the straightest of answers, but I eventually weaseled them out of her, as well as permission to put them up on here for you to share.
This happened on Saturday, October 20th, between ten and eleven o'clock at night (according to Lily, closer to eleven). Lily and her friend Tyler were walking down Elm Avenue, a local street, to meet Lily's curfew, and Lily was the first to notice it. In the front yard of one of the houses there, a decoration of some sort was hanging from a tree, and though there was no breeze or anything Lily noticed that it was swinging.
No. I know that in itself is not a sign of a ghost, so shut up and don't post angry comments, all right?
Lily looked closer, wondering what had caused the decoration to start swinging, and nudged Tyler, wondering if he knew. She looked next to the tree, and then she saw...whatever the heck it was. Lily says she saw it first peeking out from behind the tree and then, when she blinked and looked again, it was, well, out there. The way she described it to me, it was "definitely female," and put her in mind of Samara--you know, the freaky ghost-thing from The Ring. I can't vouch for it, of course, as I wasn't with her, but she said that it was, aside from being "definitely female," it had long hair hanging down over its face and ragged clothing. It was too dark, she said, for her to make out specific colors or features, but she knew what she saw and immediately freaked out, pointing it out to Tyler. Both of them looked at each other and turned and ran--well, Tyler had a skateboard, so he more rolled than ran. But you get the idea.
I wanted to be careful about this; I didn't want to risk my reputation by putting something up here and saying it was a ghost she saw when it turns out it was really another Halloween decoration propped up in the front yard or something. So I asked Lily if it could have been a fake figure, like a scarecrow or prop witch or something, but she assured me it wasn't--after all, what kind of decoration peeks out from behind a tree and then decides to pop out? And she had looked at that spot before, when the hanging decoration was moving, so if it really had been there the whole time, she would have seen it.
I wasn't there, like I said before, so I can't say without a doubt that it was a ghost that Lily and Tyler saw. But I trust Lily and know she wouldn't lie to me, especially about something I would love to build a (nonpaying) career around. And I plan to go down Elm Avenue one day soon myself and check out the front yard myself, just to see what I can see. So what did Lily see? I can't tell you, and unless you know Lily she can't really either. But I can say that I don't doubt her, and unless I can prove without a doubt that it was just some scarecrow she saw, I'll always be looking a bit more carefully when I see hanging decorations start to swing without a breeze...after all, you never know who you could run into out there.
Of course, that totally made a Monday morning better, so I immediately began asking her for details. She was a bit hyper and so at first she didn't exactly give me the straightest of answers, but I eventually weaseled them out of her, as well as permission to put them up on here for you to share.
This happened on Saturday, October 20th, between ten and eleven o'clock at night (according to Lily, closer to eleven). Lily and her friend Tyler were walking down Elm Avenue, a local street, to meet Lily's curfew, and Lily was the first to notice it. In the front yard of one of the houses there, a decoration of some sort was hanging from a tree, and though there was no breeze or anything Lily noticed that it was swinging.
No. I know that in itself is not a sign of a ghost, so shut up and don't post angry comments, all right?
Lily looked closer, wondering what had caused the decoration to start swinging, and nudged Tyler, wondering if he knew. She looked next to the tree, and then she saw...whatever the heck it was. Lily says she saw it first peeking out from behind the tree and then, when she blinked and looked again, it was, well, out there. The way she described it to me, it was "definitely female," and put her in mind of Samara--you know, the freaky ghost-thing from The Ring. I can't vouch for it, of course, as I wasn't with her, but she said that it was, aside from being "definitely female," it had long hair hanging down over its face and ragged clothing. It was too dark, she said, for her to make out specific colors or features, but she knew what she saw and immediately freaked out, pointing it out to Tyler. Both of them looked at each other and turned and ran--well, Tyler had a skateboard, so he more rolled than ran. But you get the idea.
I wanted to be careful about this; I didn't want to risk my reputation by putting something up here and saying it was a ghost she saw when it turns out it was really another Halloween decoration propped up in the front yard or something. So I asked Lily if it could have been a fake figure, like a scarecrow or prop witch or something, but she assured me it wasn't--after all, what kind of decoration peeks out from behind a tree and then decides to pop out? And she had looked at that spot before, when the hanging decoration was moving, so if it really had been there the whole time, she would have seen it.
I wasn't there, like I said before, so I can't say without a doubt that it was a ghost that Lily and Tyler saw. But I trust Lily and know she wouldn't lie to me, especially about something I would love to build a (nonpaying) career around. And I plan to go down Elm Avenue one day soon myself and check out the front yard myself, just to see what I can see. So what did Lily see? I can't tell you, and unless you know Lily she can't really either. But I can say that I don't doubt her, and unless I can prove without a doubt that it was just some scarecrow she saw, I'll always be looking a bit more carefully when I see hanging decorations start to swing without a breeze...after all, you never know who you could run into out there.
Monday, October 22, 2012
DeathWatch: When I Grow Up...
I want to be a ghost hunter.
Of course, I want to be other things as well (an author, a UFO chaser, maybe a member of TAPS...which I suppose is technically a ghost hunter...moving on), but I really do have a drive to go hunt ghosts, and as far as I know there is no "season" to hunting ghosts, which means I can hunt them spring, summer, fall, and winter, and I intend to.
But whenever I tell people that, I get the same look and the same question: "Why?" That's usually followed by the blunt statement, "You know you don't get paid to do that, you know." Oftentimes, I get that statement from the same person, even after I've explained it to them a million times. So I've decided to explain to the Internet now; hopefully someone out there will get it.
For me, the "why" and the other statement go hand in hand. Often people ask me why I would want to be a ghost hunter when there's no money in it. My answer is just as blunt, and just as simple. I don't want to be a ghost hunter for the money. If I did, well, I'd be an idiot, because there's really no money in it anyway.
I want to be a ghost hunter because I want to help people. When I watch TV shows like My Ghost Story or Paranormal Witness and see terrified families with terrified kids and terrified dogs (because there are almost always dogs and cats on those shows), I get uncomfortable and, well, sad, because I plan on having a family some day and I don't want my kids growing up afraid to go to sleep because there's a shadow-man in their closet or an ols woman who comes out of the walls the second the lights go out. I want to help the people who think they're going crazy when things move on their own or they hear voices in their hallways or a face looks back from their mirror. I want to help everybody I can because I know that if it were me and my family suffering like that I would want someone to help and believe me.
I also want to help the ghosts themselves, if that's not too hard to believe (then again, you're reading my blog, though, so that's a sliding scale). As much as I hate watching kids get scared, I also hate hearing about kid ghosts trapped on Earth wandering around looking for their mothers, or people who for one reason or another can't cross over. I want to help those ghosts communicate at the same time that I want to help the families they're trying to communicate with. Of course, like people, there will always be ghosts who don't want to be helped, and I suppose Ii can't help that. But I can do all I can, and that's what I want to do.
Maybe there isn't any money in it. But it's not what you do, it's why you do it. I've heard that before, and you probably have, too. If I just go around trying to get ectoplasm samples for the money, for the fortune and glory, people aren't going to buy that--and my conscience isn't, either. But if I go around trying to help all the people and spirits that I can, people will buy that without really buying it, if you get what I'm saying.
No, I won't get rich off of it, so I guess it's good that's not what I'm doing it for, huh? I'm doing it to help. To make some sort of contact with spirits and some sort of difference for living people. I can still turn this into a career, even if it isn't a paying one. I just want to help. That's all.
And that's why I want to be a ghost hunter.
Of course, I want to be other things as well (an author, a UFO chaser, maybe a member of TAPS...which I suppose is technically a ghost hunter...moving on), but I really do have a drive to go hunt ghosts, and as far as I know there is no "season" to hunting ghosts, which means I can hunt them spring, summer, fall, and winter, and I intend to.
But whenever I tell people that, I get the same look and the same question: "Why?" That's usually followed by the blunt statement, "You know you don't get paid to do that, you know." Oftentimes, I get that statement from the same person, even after I've explained it to them a million times. So I've decided to explain to the Internet now; hopefully someone out there will get it.
For me, the "why" and the other statement go hand in hand. Often people ask me why I would want to be a ghost hunter when there's no money in it. My answer is just as blunt, and just as simple. I don't want to be a ghost hunter for the money. If I did, well, I'd be an idiot, because there's really no money in it anyway.
I want to be a ghost hunter because I want to help people. When I watch TV shows like My Ghost Story or Paranormal Witness and see terrified families with terrified kids and terrified dogs (because there are almost always dogs and cats on those shows), I get uncomfortable and, well, sad, because I plan on having a family some day and I don't want my kids growing up afraid to go to sleep because there's a shadow-man in their closet or an ols woman who comes out of the walls the second the lights go out. I want to help the people who think they're going crazy when things move on their own or they hear voices in their hallways or a face looks back from their mirror. I want to help everybody I can because I know that if it were me and my family suffering like that I would want someone to help and believe me.
I also want to help the ghosts themselves, if that's not too hard to believe (then again, you're reading my blog, though, so that's a sliding scale). As much as I hate watching kids get scared, I also hate hearing about kid ghosts trapped on Earth wandering around looking for their mothers, or people who for one reason or another can't cross over. I want to help those ghosts communicate at the same time that I want to help the families they're trying to communicate with. Of course, like people, there will always be ghosts who don't want to be helped, and I suppose Ii can't help that. But I can do all I can, and that's what I want to do.
Maybe there isn't any money in it. But it's not what you do, it's why you do it. I've heard that before, and you probably have, too. If I just go around trying to get ectoplasm samples for the money, for the fortune and glory, people aren't going to buy that--and my conscience isn't, either. But if I go around trying to help all the people and spirits that I can, people will buy that without really buying it, if you get what I'm saying.
No, I won't get rich off of it, so I guess it's good that's not what I'm doing it for, huh? I'm doing it to help. To make some sort of contact with spirits and some sort of difference for living people. I can still turn this into a career, even if it isn't a paying one. I just want to help. That's all.
And that's why I want to be a ghost hunter.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
SkyWatch: I Love it When I Make Things Easy for Me
And I bet you guys love it when I make things easy for you, too, huh? I mean, after my last few posts nobody needs a long, sprawling rant about why there's no doubt in my mind (and the minds of many others as well, though no doubt theirs are wrapped in tinfoil at this very moment) that some form of unknown alien life is responsible for at least some of these mysterious mutilations; that information is peppered all throughout the previous posts.
Yes, obviously, in some cases there can be an alternate, earthly explanation, such as disease, predation, random lightning strikes, and the intervention of some seriously sick humans. But what about the truly strange cases that seem to preclude any of these causes? The carcass found in a fresh mud puddle with no tracks anywhere around it? The carcass found in a tree, bones broken as if it had been dropped from a great height, with no clue as to how it could have gotten there without anybody seeing the crane/truck/Satanists/etc. that would have been needed to haul it? These, along with aspects of many other cases, seem to suggest that there are other, stranger forces at work here. Just to recap what was mentioned throughout the other posts:
Or, of course, there's another explanation out there that I don't think anyone has considered yet, the theory of my friend's that I promised to mention in a later post and I know you've all been waiting breathlessly for: vampires with laser vision. I mean, in a weird way, it does fit the profile. Vampires would be able to drain a heifer's blood without leaving any trace except the puncture wounds that have been found, and the laser vision takes care of the "where are these cauterized laser cuts coming from?" question; vampire super-strength would allow them to drag/drop/carry the cow over great distances rather quickly, as well. As for what a vampire might want with internal and external organs, well, that presents a bit of a problem--unless the vampire knows a werewolf with a really great souffle recipe that for some reason calls for cow udders and eyeballs.
Of course, that's probably not what's going on here, but hey. Suddenly aliens seem a little less unlikely, don't they?
Just remember: Never accept the generic explanation, especially if it comes from a man in a suit flying a helicopter. And never poke an elemental spirit with a stick. I've recently learned they don't really like that.
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| Note: Not an actual photograph of events, as far as I know. |
- Many ranchers saw strange lights in the sky either just before or after a mutilation took place, and UFO sightings often increase in an area where mutilations have taken place (or are, considering that they continue today)
- Strange burns, as well as occasional traces of radiation, have often been found around or near the mutilated carcasses, as well as burn/cauterization marks on the carcasses themselves at temperatures that known technology can't reach and without causing cellular damage, which even with modern technology is physically impossible
- Neat, straight cuts of surgical precision have been found on many of the carcasses (maybe "surgical precision" isn't the right term for it, considering that when the marks have been examined by vets and plastic surgeons, they've been unable to replicate some of the marks both in technique and quality)--although who knows, they may be the work of a coyote with a medical degree
- The lack of physical evidence left at the scene, whether it's the absence of footprints or tire treads; no blood left in the body, found on the wounds, or around the carcass at the scene; no bone fragments, which should have been spraying like sawdust as the mutilators took a bonesaw to ol' Bessie; or any clues as to how the carcasses that appeared to have been moved from wherever they were killed had been moved without anyone noticing, especially considering that some seemed to have been dropped from a great height, and even dragging should have left a clear trail--and would no doubt have taken some time to accomplish, heightening the chance that the mutilator(s) might be caught in the middle of the crime, yet none ever were
Or, of course, there's another explanation out there that I don't think anyone has considered yet, the theory of my friend's that I promised to mention in a later post and I know you've all been waiting breathlessly for: vampires with laser vision. I mean, in a weird way, it does fit the profile. Vampires would be able to drain a heifer's blood without leaving any trace except the puncture wounds that have been found, and the laser vision takes care of the "where are these cauterized laser cuts coming from?" question; vampire super-strength would allow them to drag/drop/carry the cow over great distances rather quickly, as well. As for what a vampire might want with internal and external organs, well, that presents a bit of a problem--unless the vampire knows a werewolf with a really great souffle recipe that for some reason calls for cow udders and eyeballs.
Of course, that's probably not what's going on here, but hey. Suddenly aliens seem a little less unlikely, don't they?
Just remember: Never accept the generic explanation, especially if it comes from a man in a suit flying a helicopter. And never poke an elemental spirit with a stick. I've recently learned they don't really like that.
By the Way...
I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. I know most of you probably don't care and only come here for evidence for research for your psychology papers and stuff, but for those of you who do, I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to disillusion you. I wasn't kidnapped and kept in some secret prison with other bloggers by a government angry at me for spilling even more covert secrets than they do; the president has bigger issues to worry about than a teenage alien/ghost hunter with a library computer and a blog. Like Big Bird.
And no, I wasn't abducted by aliens, and the experience did not traumatize me so that I couldn't write for a while. I wasn't attacked by a ghost, possessed by a minion of Satan, or hangin' with Bigfoot, either, as much as I would have liked to have been doing option three.
I've had a lot of schoolwork. Boring, but true. I've been swamped by AP History/English homework, and that's unfortunately kept me from riding Nessie like a Lapras or running around Eastern State Penitentiary shrieking my fool head off.
But I've just found out that my school's computer no longer blocks the "post" feature on Blogger, so the next time I find myself with some free time down in the computer lab....
Heigh ho, Nessie!!!
And no, I wasn't abducted by aliens, and the experience did not traumatize me so that I couldn't write for a while. I wasn't attacked by a ghost, possessed by a minion of Satan, or hangin' with Bigfoot, either, as much as I would have liked to have been doing option three.
I've had a lot of schoolwork. Boring, but true. I've been swamped by AP History/English homework, and that's unfortunately kept me from riding Nessie like a Lapras or running around Eastern State Penitentiary shrieking my fool head off.
But I've just found out that my school's computer no longer blocks the "post" feature on Blogger, so the next time I find myself with some free time down in the computer lab....
Heigh ho, Nessie!!!
SkyWatch: The Government!
Ah, yes, so now we've come to that lovely time where I begin accusing the government of things and you have to choose whether to sit and listen or storm off and mutter under your breath about conspiracy theorists (just so you know, I think Oswald was the only one gunning for Kennedy that day, all right?).
Because the government is involved, to some extent, with cattle mutilations, according to the theory behind curtain number three.
What evidence exists of that, you ask?
There is some, although maybe not so much as there is for, say, aliens, but then again, we all know how good the government can be at times at hiding things (and, at times, how much they can absolutely suck...but I digress). However, not to swing you one way or the other, though some may claim that the government officials themselves are the ones chopping up the cows, I don't think that's so. My personal opinion is (and most of the evidence involving possible government involvement seems to point this way) that the government knows about who or what is doing these things and is either trying to investigate for themselves or are actively involved, for some reason or another, in a cover-up (not as dangerous as the one they tired to do over the whole Libya thing, but here I go again digressing...).
Above many of the areas where the mutilations were going on, there were unmarked black helicopters seen flying over, sometimes at altitudes that were strange or even illegal. Most report them as flying away when they were spotted, but sometimes they apparently shot at or "buzzed" witnesses. Evidence for this, however, is scant. Some scared ranchers started shooting at these helicopter when they saw them fly overhead--or, well, really, they shot at any unfamiliar helicopters they saw whenever cows started getting mutilated, which caused local officials all over the place to start ordering their helicopters to start flying higher to avoid getting hit in case they were shot at.
Some also claim that this theory is supported by the fact that in Lincoln County in 1975, a blue satchel was found by a rancher near his mailbox (no word on if it came by certified mail or not--and do you send cow parts by first class mail or just on a regular truck?) that had no prints but contained a bloody scalpel and plastic artificial insemination gloves, along with a cow's ear and part of a tongue. The satchel, which was unmarked, was assumed to be government issue, even though that was never proven. The missing parts, as well, didn't match up with any mutilation reports that the local authorities knew of. CBI chief (wait for it) Carl Whiteside said it was passed on to another jurisdiction without an investigation--because whenever you find a bag of bloody cow parts you don't wanna know where it came from, right? That alone stinks...although it might be the cow's ear, you never know.
Some have also claimed to have seen unmarked vans--the hallmark of covert (well, somewhat) government involvement--near the scenes of the mutilations and helicopter sightings and have reasoned that one and one and one is three. Does the presence of several vans mean that the government is involved? No. But it makes me think they sure are curious about something they claim was just, like, blackleg or coyotes, huh?
There's not much to definitively say right now that the government is or was involved in this whole bloody mess, so for now they won't be the focus of this arc. Instead, we'll be moving on to what I know you kids have all been waiting for: a very different kind of E.T. than you guys are used to. And, corny as it may be I just have to say it: This alien doesn't want to phone home. He wants your cow's udder.
For whatever reason.
Because the government is involved, to some extent, with cattle mutilations, according to the theory behind curtain number three.
What evidence exists of that, you ask?
There is some, although maybe not so much as there is for, say, aliens, but then again, we all know how good the government can be at times at hiding things (and, at times, how much they can absolutely suck...but I digress). However, not to swing you one way or the other, though some may claim that the government officials themselves are the ones chopping up the cows, I don't think that's so. My personal opinion is (and most of the evidence involving possible government involvement seems to point this way) that the government knows about who or what is doing these things and is either trying to investigate for themselves or are actively involved, for some reason or another, in a cover-up (not as dangerous as the one they tired to do over the whole Libya thing, but here I go again digressing...).
Above many of the areas where the mutilations were going on, there were unmarked black helicopters seen flying over, sometimes at altitudes that were strange or even illegal. Most report them as flying away when they were spotted, but sometimes they apparently shot at or "buzzed" witnesses. Evidence for this, however, is scant. Some scared ranchers started shooting at these helicopter when they saw them fly overhead--or, well, really, they shot at any unfamiliar helicopters they saw whenever cows started getting mutilated, which caused local officials all over the place to start ordering their helicopters to start flying higher to avoid getting hit in case they were shot at.
Some also claim that this theory is supported by the fact that in Lincoln County in 1975, a blue satchel was found by a rancher near his mailbox (no word on if it came by certified mail or not--and do you send cow parts by first class mail or just on a regular truck?) that had no prints but contained a bloody scalpel and plastic artificial insemination gloves, along with a cow's ear and part of a tongue. The satchel, which was unmarked, was assumed to be government issue, even though that was never proven. The missing parts, as well, didn't match up with any mutilation reports that the local authorities knew of. CBI chief (wait for it) Carl Whiteside said it was passed on to another jurisdiction without an investigation--because whenever you find a bag of bloody cow parts you don't wanna know where it came from, right? That alone stinks...although it might be the cow's ear, you never know.
Some have also claimed to have seen unmarked vans--the hallmark of covert (well, somewhat) government involvement--near the scenes of the mutilations and helicopter sightings and have reasoned that one and one and one is three. Does the presence of several vans mean that the government is involved? No. But it makes me think they sure are curious about something they claim was just, like, blackleg or coyotes, huh?
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| "For the last time, IT WASN'T ME. Why do you keep accusing me? Why? Just because I'm a damn coyote I'm automatically guilty???" |
For whatever reason.
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