Thursday, November 29, 2007
The History Behind A Sighting?
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Mysterious Flying Cryptid Buzzes San Antonio
More sightings of a huge flying creature, originally reported by KENS, have prompted an investigation to determine if it is a monster or myth. "Even though it was dark, the thing itself was black. The blackest I'd ever seen," said Frank Ramirez.
Years ago, Ramirez thought he was after a prowler in the back of his mother's Southwest Side home. But what greeted him on the garage rooftop still gives him goosebumps now.
"That's when the thing up there turned to me, and it was in a perched state, and it started to turn," he said. "It started to move its arms and this giant blackness was just coming out. At that point, I dropped the stick and I ran."
Ramirez sketched a drawing of the large, bird-like creature. The image is disturbing, and similar to dozens of sightings across San Antonio and South Texas.
"If you were to take a man's face and pull his chin down, just like a stretched face," said Ramirez.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
When NOT to investigate
Ghosts on Video
While at times cheesy, and most likely faked, it is nonetheless a rather entertaining video to watch. I love all the creative things you can find on YouTube. As you may know from my previous posts, I feel YouTube is best taken with a HUGE grain of salt and should never be considered a scientific forum for presenting evidence. There are just too many 17 year olds with a camcorder.
Friday, November 16, 2007
In Celebration...
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Dubious Nature of Orbs
Orbs are considered by some paranormal investigators to be the spirit in its purest form. When you don’t actually see a ghost, it is thought to be in this invisible or near invisible, spherical form. An apparition, on the other hand, is the spirit adopting a recognizable shape, often the one it held during life (this is, of course, based upon the belief that the apparition is the sentient soul and not a psychic anomaly). This vestigial form is what we actually see with our eyes when we observe the “phantom down the hall” and can identify it as a person, if only in the loosest sense. However, according to orb proponents, the spirit can also shed this residual appearance and return to its pure, orb state.
Orb Classification There are, in my opinion, two classifications of orbs: True Orbs, which may or may not be a spirit or psychic-based phenomenon, and Refraction / Reflection Orbs. Since even the “experts” cannot seem to agree on what constitutes a True Orb and no definition or models exist for one, we will concentrate on what an orb is not.
The Controversy As you have read, this misidentification of ordinary contaminants poses a serious threat to the integrity of photographic orbs. Their prevalence alone gives one pause and many photographs, devoid of any paranormal activity, will exhibit this same phenomenon. Yet a proponent will simply argue that it actually was an active site or they may equally dismiss the anomalies as not truly orbs. This is done sometimes by claiming a distinction in the morphology of True Orbs. Some will claim that in True Orbs, faces can be seen or there is a three dimensional aspect to the orb. Still others will “analyze” their images by running them through filters available in common digital image editing software available for your personal home computer – software designed for specific, artistic effects and not for scientific inquiry. This software, like photography itself, is based upon values, shades and hues of color and cannot actually tell you if an object is three-dimensional or not. It is still your mind that makes the final determination and, as anyone knows, the mind can be easily fooled.In this age of digital manipulation, the danger of someone creating convincing, extraordinary orbs is simply a mouse click away. The biggest problem with this is that, aside from common sense, there is no conclusive, arbitrary way to determine that the image data has been manipulated. Although, it may seem obvious to most that a certain object as been rendered in a photo-editing program, to prove such a thing becomes more difficult.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Like A Moth To The Flame?
What prosaic explanations can we present for this anomaly? Given the height at which this camera is mounted, it is logical to assume it is near the light sources overhead. Could this image be a moth, fluttering past the camera? Its color could indicate some type of bluish moth, perhaps a gypsy. Although more a bluish-green, Gypsies are common in Ohio and if one factors in the color distortion caused by the overhead florescent (or perhaps mercury vapor) lamps, color might not be represented accurately in the video. The object appears extremely blurred - beyond the point of even discerning the most nascent of features. However, if this "video" is, as it appears on the website to show, taking a still digital image every few seconds, then this could explain why the object appears so indistinct. If these shots were at a higher frames-per-second rate, then we might have glimpsed a clearer shot of the anomaly.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Former pilots and officials call for new U.S. UFO probe
Ghostly Archetypes in Urban Legend
These tales are modern Grimm and serve the same needs in the human psyche. They warn us of the evils in the world while preparing us for their eventuality. In that sense, we find absolution from responsibility in the understanding that there was nothing we could do about it.
But these urban legends also extend beyond the natural (if improbable) to the supernatural. There are many urban legends about ghosts and within these we can find repeating motifs, or archetypes. By examining the psychology behind these tales, you will come to a greater understanding as to why – unless presented with further evidence – you should not bother to investigate these legends.
This is an old tale that folklorists have had a hard time pinning down. Its origins are unclear but the earliest accounts can be traced to Maryland and Ohio. Since then, nearly every state and every town has a "Cry Baby Bridge." This tale usually involves a young mother who is crossing a dangerous (rainy, icy, dilapidated) bridge in the night (the time of fear and darkness) on her way to someplace (often a boyfriend or such) when her car loses control and falls off the bridge, killing both mother and child. It is from there that the stories arise of how if you go to the bridge at night you can hear the pair’s plaintive, ghostly wailing.
Our supposition is often that she is a young, unwed mother and therein lies the tale’s ultimate theme: teen pregnancy or pregnancy out of wedlock will lead to tragedy. We can break the tale down and see the key components more easily. The dangerous bridge is the biggest physical feature of the story and symbolizes the treacherous crossing into adulthood and responsibility; her adult relationships and motherhood lie on the other side. However, the young, unwed mother has fallen from that path with her new child. She has crossed the bridge (or journey into adult responsibility) too soon and has paid the ultimate price. The child’s ghostly cries are an ever-echoed warning of taking on those adult responsibilities before you cross the "bridge."
Variation: La Llorona (the Weeping Woman) of Hispanic lore is well known in Latino communities and serves the same essential archetype. La Llorona is often said to be weeping for the child or children she had foolishly drowned in a well. Although sometimes, she weeps for a lost love.
This tale often involves some rundown and abandoned house on the outskirts of town where it is said that a satanic cult once performed black magic and bloody rituals involving the slaughter of infants. A demonic spirit or presence is said to still pervade the bloodstained walls, upon which pentagrams and other occult symbols can be found.
This tale really took off in the 1970's and 1980's when Satanism hysteria swept the nation. Claims of ritual killings and other criminal enterprises were attributed to Satanists. The FBI investigated much of this in the 1980’s and found these tales to be without merit. But fears die hard and even today whenever a drunken kid spray-paints a pentagram, the local papers will decry how Satanic cults have taken a hold of our children.
The tale can be broken down quite easily to a warning: stray from your Christian beliefs and you could die. It is a feel good moment, to be sure, but it expresses the fears of many Christians who believe demonic spirits can posses the weak. Therefore, they feel fortifications must be built to protect their children from things such as ouija boards, roleplaying games, and certain music, which they see as the stepping stones toward satanic worship. The Satan House (a dilapidated structure, suffuse with dark iconography) is often a trope for the decaying soul of one possessed by the devil.
The Lady in White
It is a vague yet ubiquitous legend and nearly every city from China to Chinatown has some version of this tale. It is the color of her dress that tells you the real story. Sometimes a bride, the lady in white represents purity and her forlorn presence after death is attributed to a fall from grace and innocence. If she were truly pure, she would have ascended to heaven (even if she was murdered). This forlorn image compels us to face the fact that tragedy can strike when least expected – even in moments of pure bliss. Perhaps it exists as a warning to cherish each moment or perhaps simply as a macabre reminder that none of us is safe.
The Vanishing Hitchhiker
These emerge usually during shifts in cultural paradigm, such as the newly liberated women of the 1920’s (Resurrection Mary) or the Hippie movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s (The Vanishing Hitchhiker). Resurrection Mary was seen by many as a raucous and "thoroughly modern" flapper girl of the 1920’s, reveling in a new-found freedom for women. Her tale of woe is most likely a warning to young girls of the time that this new liberation would lead to ruin. The Hippie version echoes the same sentiment but for a later generation, a generation that saw hippies as shiftless, lazy, drug addicts who would demoralize society with their "Free Love."
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Hayden Hewes - Oklahoma's Paranormal Pioneer
And, going back to my earlier post regarding the media blindly regurgetating the erroneous tale that Augusta Houghton haunts Guthrie's Stone Lion Inn, I present this for your examination.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Catch Monster Quest on the History Channel
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Danger Will Robinson, Danger!!
Well, just today, as I was trying to corroborate a mention of a haunted high school in Chickasha that I found mentioned in a The Oklahoman article from 1912, I once again found myself on ghostsofamerica.com. And, as before, I read through these sketchy blurbs devoid of any details. However, as I read, I began to feel the oddest sense of deja vu (deja boo?). I swore I had read these exact same accounts just recently and the only other time I could recall having visited this site was when I researched Arecibo. So, on a hunch, I pulled up that page again as well and began an account-for-account comparison of the two pages.
Below are excerpts of what I discovered. I believe the results speak for themselves and there is no need for me to draw any further conclusions. It is obviously a site replete with fraudulent accounts and I urge EVERYONE to ignore this site 100%. In no way should these tales be taken seriously - even as urban legend.
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A man with a large hole through his torso has been seen on a few occasions hanging out in an abandoned building in Arecibo
A man with a large hole through his torso has been observed on a few occasions on a Chickasha street around midnight.
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The ghost of a young woman dressed in a bloody wedding dress has been seen on a few occasions late at night running after a passing car on a dark road outside Chickasha.
The ghost of a young woman dressed in a bloody wedding dress has sometimes been seen hovering in the air like a balloon in Arecibo.
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The ghost of a young air force pilot has often been witnessed trying on shoes in a Chickasha house.
The ghost of a young air force pilot can be seen very often in an Arecibo house. AND A female shape can often be observed trying on shoes in an Arecibo house.
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The ghost of a young woman with a rope around her neck was observed looking at people in a Chickasha home through an air vent. There have been other reports involving this ghost in the vicinity.
The ghost of a young woman with a rope around her neck can be witnessed very often searching for something under parked cars in an Arecibo parking lot late in the night.
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A woman with worms crawling out of her eye sockets has often been witnessed talking into the thin air as if someone else was there.
A woman with worms crawling out of her eye sockets has been witnessed on numerous occasions riding on a horse along a highway outside Arecibo.
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The ghost of a farmer in a straw hat showed up in a deserted area outside Chickasha. The ghost did not care that there was someone else there.
The ghost of a farmer in a straw hat can be witnessed very often in an Arecibo area hospital, walking the hallways.
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A bat that turned into a vampire has often been witnessed hovering in the air like a balloon in Chickasha
A bat that turned into a vampire has sometimes been observed standing along a highway outside Arecibo.
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The ghost of a badly mangled hunter dragging a dead bear has often been seen seated at a table in a Chickasha house. Other sightings of this ghost have also been reported.
The ghost of a badly mangled hunter dragging a dead bear has often been seen in a house outside Arecibo. Being frightened by the onlookers the ghost made it's way into the dark
BEARS IN PUERTO RICO?!?!?!
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The ghost of a civil war soldier is often seen [in Arecibo??] appearing in a bathroom mirror.
The ghost of a civil war soldier can sometimes be witnessed snooping in people's mailboxes around midnight in Chickasha. COMBINED WITH: A black cat that turned into a woman can sometimes be seen sitting in a chair in a house in Chickasha.
A black cat that turned into a woman showed up snooping in people's mailboxes around midnight in Arecibo. The witness fled when she saw the ghost.
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Saturday, November 3, 2007
Red Dirt Book Festival Recap
Friday, November 2, 2007
A Peek At What Lies Inside...
The Gray Lady and The Skull 1
Shadows and Light:
Oklahoma Hauntings 8
Brown Springs 8
The Professor’s Ghosts 11
Fort Sill’s Dying Spirits 12
Fort Washita 15
The Show Must Go On 16
Guthrie’s Ghosts 19
The Overholser Mansion 23
Gilcrease House 25
Hex House 27
The Skirvin 28
The Huber 30
Misplaced Bodies 31
Haunted Churches 32
The Centrahoma Poltergeist 35
The Caretakers 40
Catholic Saints, Native Spirits 41
The Cate Center 41
The Spirit of Phi Delta Theta 43
More Sooner Spooks 43
Haunted Lake 46
The Fairview Phantom 47
Speakeasy Spooks 49
Ghost Video 50
The Wandering Nun 51
Miscellaneous 52
Where the Lights Dance:
The Famed Spook Lights of Oklahoma
61
Spellbound:
Accounts of Voodoo and Witchcraft
69
Take the Money and Run 71
Of Loas and Lawmen 71
Revenge is Sweet 72
The Power of Fear 73
The Standoff 73
Mother Knows Best 75
Burning Times 76
The Perils of Gretel 77
The Devil Made Him Do It 77
Kitchen Lake Witch 79
Witches Tower 81
Witch Slayer 82
Native Witches 83
Pet Psychic 84
Lost Beneath Time:
Ghost Towns and Hidden Treasure
89
Gold in the Devil’s Promenade 89
The Mummy’s Tomb 90
Devil’s Canyon 91
The Iron Door 95
The Outlaw Contract
(the Treasure of Jesse James) 97
Lost Idol of the Aztecs 102
There’s Gold There! 103
Black Mesa 104
Cascarillo 105
Sacred Heart 106
Adamson 107
Bethsheba 108
Keokuk Falls 109
Fort Ferdinandina 109
Sunken 110
Crowded Skies:
The UFO Phenomenon in Oklahoma
114
Flight 655? 118
Summer of ’65 120
Getting the Scoop 125
Not as Easy as Catching Fireflies 126
Independence Day 126
“Tail of Lights” 127
Crop Circle 127
Dancing with the Stars 129
Abduction! 129
Black Helicopters 130
Meteor or UFO? 131
Elvis’ Alien Love Child Found Inside
110 Million Year Old Dino! 132
Elk City UFO 132
Close Encounter 133
Mistaken Identity 134
UFO’s, an Explanation? 135
A World Far Removed:
Oklahoma’s Mysterious Places 141
Chinese Tunnels 141
Spiro Mounds 143
Beaver Sands Portal 145
Dead Man’s Gulch 148
The Moaning Cave 150
The Forgotten 151
Mark of the Vikings 152
Roman Coin 155
Anubis Caves 157
Mysterious Mosaic 161
Colossus of Roads 163
Ancient Fires 164
The Age of Man 168
In the Footsteps of Giants:
Bigfoot and Other Mysterious Creatures
176
McCurtain County Sightings 179
Cherokee County Sightings 182
The Green Hill Monster 184
Nowata County 185
Adair County 187
Bigfootville 188
The Logger Incident 189
Honobia 191
On The Hunt 192
Other Reports 195
The Parry Encounter 197
Gigantopithecus 199
Mysterious Cats 201
The Thunderbird 205
The Cave Dweller 208
Werewolves 209
The Unicorn 211
Conclusion 216
The End is Near 219
Strange Fire 220
Miracles Strike Twice 221
Shadow Upon Shadow 222