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High: 45°F ~ Low: 30°F Thursday, Nov. 27, 2014 MothmanPosted Monday, July 25, 2011, at 5:41 PM A cryptid is a creature whose existence is alleged but has not been verified by scientific consensus, such as Bigfoot, Chupacabra, Loch Ness Monster, Draconian Reptilian Shape-Shifter and the Grinch who stole Christmas. Beware my fellow Earthlings -- some of these elusive entities may indeed mingle among us. In November of 1966, the following events took place near Point Pleasant, West Virginia. On November 15, Newell Partridge, a rural resident, noticed some unusual interference on his TV, as his dog Bandit began howling outside. Partridge went outside with a flashlight and spotted Bandit, about 150 feet from the house, circling a large creature with glowing red eyes. He called Bandit but the dog persisted. Consumed with fear, Partridge returned into the house to retrieve a firearm, but then decided to remain indoors until dawn. At sunrise, there was no trace of Bandit or the creature. Later same evening, two couples were traveling in a single vehicle about seven miles north of Point Pleasant. They noticed two red lights in the shadows of an old abandoned factory. As they stopped the car to check it out, they discovered the two red lights were the eyes of a large eerie creature "shaped like a man,... maybe seven feet tall, with big wings folded against its back." They drive off in fright. As they were about to enter the main highway, they spotted the creature standing on a nearby ridge. The creature spread its wings and flew alongside the vehicle, at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour, all the way to the city limits. As they approached Point Pleasant, they noticed the corpse of a large dog along the roadside (in the area of the Partridge residence). They reported the incident to a deputy at the sheriff's office who considered them to be credible witnesses, having known the two couples all their lives. On November 24, four witnesses reportedly saw an identical creature flying above the old factory in the same vicinity. On November 25, a man was driving on the highway just north of the old factory when he spotted the creature standing in a field. The creature then spread its wings and flew away. The witness reported the incident to the Point Pleasant sheriff's office. On November 27, A woman driving home from church saw a huge figure shaped like a man, at least seven feet tall, with large glowing red eyes. As she slowed her car, a pair of wings unfolded from its back, spreading to about 10 feet, whereby the creature rose slowly off the ground, then swooped toward her car as she accelerated to escape. There were also other sightings reported of this terrifying creature that would become known as Mothman. On December 15, 1967, the bridge connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, with Gallipolis, Ohio, over the Ohio River, collapsed, killing 46 people. Thereafter, fewer sightings of Mothman were reported, leading some to speculate that the creature appears before a pending disaster -- either attempting to warn people, or perhaps contributing to the disaster. We live in a mysterious universe. According to recent discoveries (theories) in physics, there are as many as 12 dimensions (we reside in the 3rd dimension) with as many as 12 vibrations (frequencies) in each dimension -- with each vibration within each dimension being an individual reality (such as our universe being one of those realities). If so, it is not inconceivable that an "unearthly" creature could alter from one vibration (frequency) to another, thereby slipping into another dimension. The universe may be astonishingly vast and complex and mysterious -- but it isn't everything. Other realities also exist -- they too are vast and complex and mysterious. And they may not always be in harmony with our daily existence. Quote for the Day -- "Everything in the universe is endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception." Helena Blavatsky Bret Burquest is the author of 7 books, including THE REALITY OF THE ILLUSION OF REALITY and ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS (available on Amazon). He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and lots of moths. Bret Burquest is a former award-winning columnist for The News (2001-2007) and author of four novels. He has lived in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Kansas City, Memphis and the middle of the Arizona desert. After a life of blood, sweat and tears in big cities, he has finally found peace in northern Arkansas where he grows tomatoes, watches sunsets and occasionally shares the Secrets of the Universe (and beyond) with the rest of the world.
When Sir David Attenborough remarked last week on the possibility that the 'Yeti' exists, it was pretty obvious what a favourite thread on skeptical blogs would be this week. Here's what Sir David is reported to have said: Speaking on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, the revered wildlife expert said: 'I'm baffled by the Abominable Snowman - very convincing footprints have been found at 19,000ft. 'No-one does that for a joke. I think it's unanswered.' Now, to me, it sounds as if Sir David is casually mentioning a mystery that intrigues him. He's not saying the Yeti is for real - in fact, he explicitly says "it's unanswered". However, to Evan Bernstein at the SGU blog, the famed naturalist had become "a new and reputable ally in trying to convince the world that he/she/it has jumped out of folklore, and into reality". Indeed, it would seem that Sir David's loose lips could sink ships: Attenborough is allowed to explore his fantasies and speculations just like the rest of us, but skeptics are very aware of the law of unintended consequences. The Bigfoot believers of the world will cling on to Attenbororough’s words and wield them high up in the air for everyone to see. If the history of incidents of famous people having lent their credibility to pseudoscience is any indicator, then the damage has been done. That's right Sir David, you've done some serious damage this time! Er, what? Attenborough, now 82, is famous for his nature and animal documentaries. Unfortunately, being a nature documentary host does not necessarily prepare one with the skeptical tools necessary to deal with the fringe. Nature may be complex, but it does not actively try to fool you. Attenborough’s observation may seem perfectly reasonable to an elderly gentleman, but should strike a skeptic, magician, or hoaxer as hopelessly naive. People do strange things for their own reasons. For example, if you’re going to go through the effort of hoaxing a Yeti footprint in the snow, 19,000 feet is exactly where you would do it. ...I doubt David Attenborough’s reputation will be much affected by this episode, beyond a single news cycle. He has a legacy of outstanding nature documentaries that I’m sure mean as much to many people as they have to me. I should hope his reputation will survive - decades of educating the world about nature and science, versus a casual comment about something he finds interesting? I vote for the former. Meanwhile, turning our gaze to the Yeti's American cousin, Anomaly Magazine have a new online article worth checking out: "The Patterson-Gimlin Film: An Analysis, by Noah David Henson. The author is a professional illustrator and student of physical anthropology, and uses his knowledge of primatology to dissect the (in)famous footage of an alleged Bigfoot: My conclusion, after analysing the film footage countless times, employing a degree of expertise in human and primate anatomy, and examining critically the analyses of forensics expert J. Glickman of NASI, among others, is that the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film does not and cannot depict a human being in a costume. It is a real, as-yet uncatalogued animal, most likely a primate of either pongid (ape-like) or hominid (human-like) taxonomic classification, that resides, or once resided, somewhere in the millions of square miles of human-uninhabited forests of the Pacific Northwestern United States and Canada. The article includes online video footage which is referenced by Henson during his article, to point out the intriguing aspects. Still looks like a guy in a suit to me, but good to see this type of analysis being done...and I guess he's more qualified than me on this particular topic. One to mull over. A few weeks back I posted about a James Randi newsletter in which he references (in the wake of the Georgia Bigfoot hoax) the controversial Minnesota Iceman case of the late 1960s and the involvement of his 'former' friend, famed cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson. In the post (and in a later comment), I pointed out that - although there were certainly many elements of the case suggestive of a hoax - Randi seemed to have skipped some of the more intriguing parts of Sanderson's investigation, as related by Loren Coleman in his book Mysterious America. However, in a new post at Cryptomundo.com, Loren has made clear that the Georgia Bigfoot hoax has made him reassess the level of evidence required for him to take cryptozoological investigations seriously, and as such he has decided to reject the Minnesota Iceman case. Loren's announcement is quite eloquent, using the parable (and of course, the title!) of Eugene O’Neill’s 1939 play The Iceman Cometh to illustrate his point: If you examine most good analyses of The Iceman Cometh, you will find there is agreement that the play finds universality through the theme that all human beings have a tendency to entertain unachieved or foolish hopes – or, as Hickey and others in the play call them, “pipe dreams.” ...I am guilty of having hope that the Minnesota Iceman would be a key to understanding unknown hominoids around the world, and I have written about those thoughts. I had hopes, fleeting ones, yes, but hopes, nevertheless, that, against all my instincts regarding the unholy three Biscardi-type personalities, an actual body would be revealed during the summer of 2008 too. But that hope lasted for about ten minutes. As I reach nearly three decades of holding out hopes that the Minnesota Iceman might have been real, I must completely reject it now, as a bringer of false promises to enlightenment. If an alleged cryptid body is sitting in front of you but has not actually even been touched, it cannot, it should not be held aloof as a form of scientific evidence within cryptozoology. We call for others to be open-minded and set their standards with cryptids to a level of fairness without rejection off-handedly. We must set our standards higher than they have been in the past, and only through such an exercise will something of value come out of the horrible Georgia experience. ...The Minnesota Iceman leaves us with nothing but false hopes, deceptive leads, and, yes, pipe dreams. Check out the whole post, it's an excellent article from Loren which examines a lot of issues we wrestle with daily here on TDG. ...I recalled that in October of 1969, when I was a resident of New Jersey, an exhibit at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown had attracted my attention. It was what appeared to be a hairy human-shaped figure about six feet tall. I say “appeared to be” because the thing was frozen inside a huge cloudy block of ice, visitors viewed it from an overhead scaffolding, and it was poorly lit – perhaps for good reason. All I could have really said about it was that it looked like an old fur coat with legs… My friend Ivan T. Sanderson, a naturalist who was very interested in Bigfoot matters, having coined the word, “cryptozoology,” lived in New Jersey, north-west of my home, and I contacted him immediately. He arrived the next day, and took a great interest in this exhibit, despite what I found to be very shaky evidence and no validation at all. Much to my dismay, I now discovered that a few years before this, he’d already chosen to accept and endorse the validity of this farce, and had also supported a true “critter” nut, Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, formerly of the Royal Academy of Sciences in his native Belgium. Up until that point, I’d respected Ivan’s opinions, but we parted company on this. And to think that I’d spent a couple of days at his home in Warren County, where he’d taught me how to handle and fire a .45 automatic… Pardon me, but did Randi just suggest that Ivan T. Sanderson may have been of unsound mind, or at least unfit to possess a firearm? Okay, Randi didn't exactly say "damn I'm lucky he didn't put a cap in my ass"...but it read that way to me. Furthermore, Randi's glibness on this story - as always - covers up the more interesting facets of the case (you'll find nine pages on the Minnesota Iceman in Loren Coleman's Mysterious America). The reason that Sanderson (and Heuvelmans) showed "great interest" in the Iceman was because they had studied it up close in 1967. Coleman also cites the opinion of another close-up witness, herpatologist Terry Cullen, as relayed by Mark A. Hall: "Some of the reasons for Cullen's avid interest in the Iceman exhibit were that he could see: plant matter in the teeth, shed skin of ekto-parasites (lice) on the skin, and unique detention showing in the mouth where a lip was curled back." And it all comes crashing down. The only question remaining is whether Biscardi was truly hoaxed by the Georgian 'Bigfoot trackers', or whether he has simply hung the other two out to dry, in order to save his own skin... Interesting little aside in this ABC News story about the Biscardi Bigfoot: Biscardi said he plans to keep the body at an undisclosed location while scientists, including two Russian hominid specialists, study the creature. Biscardi said the entire process will be filmed and then released as a documentary. That exploding sound you can hear is my bullsh*t detector, unable to cope with it all any longer. Nothing to see here, move along... A quick excursion into high strangeness territory: Ufology pundit Regan Lee has a new UFO Digest article posted titled, "Beeping Creatures", which touches on many of the same areas as my Darklore Volume 1 article "Her Sweet Murmur" (which you can download as a free sample PDF). Our good friend Emps, from Cabinet of Wonders, also noted these sounds in his Darklore article "The Unbelievable Strangeness of Bigfoot" (only available by buying the book). Although I disagree with Regan somewhat in terms of the 'mind control' aspect, it's certainly an area which deserves more serious research. There are other aspects as well - the smells, the fogs etc. - "recurrent regularities" which offer an avenue of scientific investigation into these strange phenomena. Things have been far too normal around here lately, so today I give you weirdness on a supreme scale: "The Mormon Bigfoot Genesis Theory". Is the giant Sasquatch monster really Cain, the murderous second son of Adam and Eve? But if you think I'm just throwing out crackpot stories for the sake of it, check out Loren Coleman's recent posting on Mormon involvement in Bigfoot research. I quite like the idea of a 'Bigfoot Mormon Mafia' Loren...just as long as they don't come knocking on my door. Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman has posted an all-too-cool YouTube video of the Japanese promotion of the movie Water Horse. Through the use of a waterscreen, witnesses were able to watch the cryptobeast arise from the water (god help anyone that was bent in the vicinity). Now, if J.J. Abrams could just have done this for the Cloverfield monster... "It is very, very similar," Josh Gates, an archaeologist who serves as the host of the weekly travel adventure series, told Reuters in Katmandu after returning from the mountain. "I don't believe it to be a bear. It is something of a mystery for us." ...Gates said the footprints on lumps of sandy soil, which would be sent to experts in the United States for analysis, were "relatively fresh, left some 24 hours before we found them." "This print is so pristine, so good, that I am very intrigued by this," said Gates, flanked by his team members. Josh Gates also sent an update to Loren Coleman exclusively for Cryptomundo readers, in which he provided more detail about the finds and his own thoughts about it all. And Loren's co-author on The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, Patrick Huyghe (our good friend from The Anomalist), appeared on Fox News Channel and spoke intelligently about the news, and the topic in general. You know it never takes too long for the 'skeptics' to turn up, and CSI(COP)'s Benjamin Radford was soon debunking the whole affair in his column on LiveScience. Radford's comments didn't impress Loren Coleman though, who - while having his own questions about the new find - was extremely critical of the poor arguments put forward by the cryptozoology skeptic. The saga continues, so stay tuned... As mentioned in the news briefs earlier this week, Loren Coleman has posted "The Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories for 2007" over at Cryptomundo. Loren has his finger on the pulse with his daily updates over there (although it would be fair to say he's had his finger on the pulse for a few decades now!), so it's a good roundup of the most prominent stories in his field over the past year. Might be worth looking at for a few other TDG topics as well, pulling out the most important stories of the year that we've posted - who's up for checking through the 3000 to 4000 news briefs we've posted this year to pick out the best?
I LOVE the film Les Pacts Des Loups or Brotherhood of the Wolf, I've mentioned it before here numerous times, in any case, it wasn't long after reposting this snippet on my tumblr page when I saw another picture that gave me pause and had me wonder at how we all have preconceptions that can lock our brains into thinking that answers have to come in one set way or another - its this way with stereo instructions, philosophy and religion, all too often we have to open our minds and find a way outside our own blinders. This photograph, that I imagine most of you have already seen, would have seemed monstrous to the French of the 1760's and no doubt it is still scary today - especially if it is coming for you, and I found myself wondering if this diseased creature could possibly be that particular beast??? Further research said that Bears can be susceptible to rabies as well, though anything with rabies couldn't survive as long as said Beast was attacking people, not to mention being clever about it. I suppose there may be something to the idea that a creature can get a taste for human flesh and be wily about it, lions and tigers certainly do. So just some theories on a a cryptid I've thought about.
Fact? Fiction? Fantasy? Of these three categories, only one can fully describe the enigma of the Jersey Devil. As a resident of New Jersey for more than 350 years, the Jersey Devil has aroused much doubt, fear, and intrigue. Doubt because such a creature existing on this planet betrays the intelligence of the human mind. Fear because of the creature's demonic appearance, renowned strength and the mangled bodies of its discovered victims. Intrigue because of the beast's cryptic nature and elusive behavior. Many attempt to relate the story of this animal's arrival to earth. One Mrs. Leeds of Estelville is said to have given birth to her 13th child in the year 1735. Calling down curses on this child, she supposedly gave birth to a devil who sprouted wings and alighted up the chimney. Another claims that it was Mrs. Shrouds of Leeds Point who gave birth to the devil. Still others claim different personages. These stories indeed stretch the limits of credibility, and it is the belief of True Authority that they are mere creations of fearful human minds endeavoring to explain the frightful monster. However, too many reputable people have claimed to have seen the Jersey Devil for it to be a mere myth, and in the next few thoughts, I would like to bring forth some of the facts surrounding the mystery of the Jersey Devil. Over 1,000 reputable people have witnessed this mysterious being. Most of the accounts describe the creature as a four foot tall animal with a horse's head, bat's wings, crane's legs, horse's hoofs, and sometimes having a forked tail. The descriptions vary in nature and details, but that is the basic overview. As with the Loch Ness Monster, the Jersey Devil has been sighted by characters such as doctors, lawyers, policemen, and citizens of good standing. A particularly abnormal sighting occurred in the 1800's when Commodore Stephen Decatur was firing a cannon with his men. Suddenly, a hideous creature flew into view. As it was flying across their firing path, the officer was able to hit the Devil with a cannon ball in mid-air. According to his account, the ball passed right threw the beast, yet it continued on as if nothing had happened. While this may sound far fetched to the skeptic, the officer was of a reputable nature and was not prone to conjure up wild fairy tales. Joseph Bonaparte, former King of Spain and the brother of Napoleon, was hunting in the area when, according to his report, he saw the Jersey Devil. This happened in 1816 and in 1839. Interestingly, a rather strange period of sightings happened in the early 1840s. Over a certain period of these days, large amounts of sheep and chickens were killed by an unknown creature. Many abnormal footprints were discovered, and many witnesses reported hearing piercing screams. Throughout the past 200 or so years, there have been both periods of peaceful quiet and periods of sighting mayhem. Generally, the sightings involve the carcasses of some farm animal or animals who were unlucky enough to be in the cryptid's way. At times of increased sightings, many hundreds of people were reported to have seen the beast many times in one night as it sneaked around their neighborhood. In summation, the sightings could be categorized as "pre-1909," "January 16-23, 1909," and "post-1909". The grouping of the sightings revolves around the year 1909 for a specific reason. In that year, during the week of January 16-23, the whole state of New Jersey was terrorized by its strange inhabitant. As the week progressed, people were so terrified that nobody would venture outside, even in the day time. Schools were closed, as no children came to fill them. Factories shut down, as no workers dared to come to work. Fierce German shepherd dogs were found completely mutilated, livestock dismembered, chickens and cats slaughtered. All around the gruesome corpses, strange hoof-like tracks were found. Many brave men tried to follow the tracks, but found that they stopped completely in the middle of a field, or road, or started on a rooftop, etc. A certain Thack Cozzens of Woodbury saw a flying creature with glowing eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Evans of Gloucester were awakened one night by something in their front yard. For 10 minutes they observed the Jersey Devil. This is the account of what they saw: "It was about three feet and half high, with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs were like those of a crane, and it had horse's hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. It didn't use the front legs at all while we were watching. My wife and I were scared, I tell you, but I managed to open the window and say, 'Shoo', and it turned around, barked at me, and flew away." There are many theories as to what the Jersey Devil might be. Mrs. Cassidy of Clayton thought that it was a bird called the Scrowfoot Dick. The only problem with this consideration, however, is that they are much too small to fit the description. Others thought that it was a Sand Hill Crane. The crane has a similar high pitched scream, and feeds on corn and wheat. This, in actuality, explains several crop invasions. However, although it will fight if cornered, the Sand Hill Crane does not kill animals, especially fully grown German Shepherd dogs. A professor named Bralhopf believes it to be a pre-historic survivor, possibly a Pterodactyl. Some, in contrast, believe it to be a deformed child born to Mrs. Leeds in 1735 that has lost its human nature. However, in 1909, the child would have been 174 years old, and this does not explain the creature flying. Still others are convinced that the Jersey Devil is the very essence of evil, a harbinger of war. Right before the Civil War, it was seen several times. Likewise the Spanish-American War, WWI, and in 1939, before WWII. On the eve of December 7th, 1941, it was sighted, as well as before the Vietnam War. These theories do not adequately explain the enigma that is presented. However, the fact remains that something seems to be lurking out there . . . something that, just perhaps, is waiting to be discovered. 1. James F. McCloy and Ray Miller Jr., The Jersey Devil (Wallingford, PA, The Middle Atlantic Press,1976), p.45.
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 28th, 2007 I’ve returned from Patrick Huyghe’s cabana, completing this weekend, the extended adventure in transporting the “Civil War Mystery Pterodactyl” to New England. The following images are courtesy of Allie Huyghe. The photo above is courtesy of Gregg Hale, Executive Director, Haxan Productions, Fox TV (at the time). My deep thanks to the Huyghes for their great hospitiality, cryptozoological conversations and Fortean brainstorming. By the way, if you were the passenger in a car with New York plates driving on I-84, who rolled your window down to ask me “What is that?” – and then had a short dialogue with me about the above – I hope you and the driver had a safe journey home. It certainly ranks as the first time I’ve been interviewed at 65 mph about a fictional cryptid model in my vehicle and a sci-fi television series. Finally, since today is Patrick Huyghe’s birthday, celebrate with him by going to his site, The Anomalist. See what Patrick created as a Fortean news foundation so, for example, his new news editor Rick Stokes can continously update readers daily on all the breaking news of the unexplained. This Huyghe creation has existed for over a dozen years, and along with Dennis Stacy, intellectually-stimulating journals and many great books are now being published thanks to The Anomalist and Anomalist Books. Patrick’s news site remains the Drudge Report of Forteana and deserves several visits a day. Congratulations to Patrick on his special annual milestone, specifically today, during a strong lunar eclipse. Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.
Comedian-turned-filmmaker Bobcat Goldthwait’s unlikely but durable directorial career began back in 1991 with Shakes the Clown. Goldthwait has largely extended his scabrous, artfully crazed persona from stage and screen into an aesthetic sensibility, with harsh satires and black comedies looking at the seamier side of the modern American sensibility and the nation’s eddy of fragmented subcultures. Willow Creek, as a horror film, seems like a departure from that fare, leaving behind outré pretences. This proves not entirely true, as he annexes a modern legend to zero in on other kinds of legends of a more personal nature, and divisions in society and gender, myth and reality, that intrigue him. He does so via a remake-cum-burlesque on The Blair Witch Project (1999), taking on the much-used and much-abused “found footage” style, similarly spinning minimalist tension in presenting footage supposedly shot by would-be documentary filmmaker Jim (Bryce Johnson) and his actress girlfriend Kelly (Alexie Gilmore). This faux-relic depicts Jim’s determined journey to the site of the famous Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film in the deep woods of northern California, to work through his own fascination with the legendary beast, and Kelly’s equally determined humouring of Jim’s venturesome projects and posturings. At this point the very mention of the phrase “found footage” might fairly make us wince, and the tropes of the style are largely honoured by Goldthwait in the course of Willow Creek, who doesn't exactly stage a send-up of the genre. But Goldthwait brings humour and impudent élan to the project, mostly by making his central couple a pair of smart-alecks who provide their own stream of drollery that often doubles as their footage's own commentary track. Jim and Kelly’s joshing humour, clearly their chief bond as a couple, is turned on the scenes and people they encounter with casual snark that’s not exactly mean-spirited but offers a very common sort of blithely self-justifying mockery. That mockery is then steadily twisted and aimed back at Jim and Kelly, particularly as Kelly’s jokes – posing for her own “missing person” photo and pretending to perform sex acts on a Sasquatch statue – prove to be foreshadowing with a cruel and clever edge. Goldthwait never has any doubts how to use the pseudo-amateurish camerawork to sustain dramatic engagement, with Jim and Kelly's semi-professionalism justifying a reasonable level of camera proficiency, and how to weave in substantive characterisation, where most found-footage cinema seems designed to paper over the filmmakers’ lack of any ideas in this regard. Jim and Kelly travel out of their world by stages in a fashion long familiar to horror aficionados. Early scenes of the couple driving quickly clue us in on the dynamics of the couple’s relationship, their shared sense of humour apparent and their charm as good-looking entertainer and would-be artist apparent. Also on display however is Jim’s mix of attentive curiosity and unthinkingly entitled boorishness, like a former frat boy who’s outgrown youthful hijinks but isn’t yet quite the sensitive artiste he thinks he is, whilst Kelly half-deliberately dims her sharp instincts for the sake of being with Jim. We’re quickly given a discomforting glimpse of this when Jim makes Kelly hold a microphone he’s testing whilst she’s steering them along a winding, vertiginous highway. Goldthwait, via Jim and Kelly, notes with good humour and some satiric bite the swirl of all-American commercialisation that has grown up around a charming myth: the eponymous town has branded itself thoroughly with Sasquatch mystique, complete with giant fresco depicting the Bigfoot, image of the threat and mystery of nature, as a placidly tamed helper in the great American project of colonialism. Importantly, Goldthwait blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction filmmaking in a way most other found-footage movies have avoided, because he wants in part to document the weird and entertaining little subculture that has grown off the legend, and implicitly studies its place in the modern American cultural landscape. He offers, neo-realist style, segments of Johnson in character as Jim interviewing with some real-life colourful characters and regional oddballs, like the “Bob Dylan of the Bigfoot community” Tom Yamarone, who happily participate in the mystique, and Nita Rowley, who works in the Willow Creek Visitor Centre and amusingly denies any belief in the creature her job relies upon. Goldthwait quickly and efficiently notes the patronisation Jim and Kelly turn on their hosts and the double-sided exploitation going on, as Jim just like them wants to fashion the straw of backwoods legend into personally enriching enterprise, but with more slickly knowing presumptions, and obliviousness to real problems, as when the pair fail to note the import of a missing woman’s poster. There's a peculiar, communally-derived warmth inherent in the idealisation of Bigfoot for commercial purposes, a face painted on the wilderness that gives it a value it might not otherwise have. But that mythos, as evinced around the Willow Creek locale, might mask a different blend of these two impulses, as the couple are alerted to the possible dangers of redneck pot growers who exploit the rugged locales for their own ends. An alarming encounter with a quickly angered man (the aptly named Bucky Sinister) on the road to the film site thus presents the possibility that in the course of their adventuring, they’ve blundered into a place that is genuinely dangerous beyond the immediate threat of unforgiving terrain, in ways we know Jim and Kelly are not prepared for. Jim’s romance with the idea of the Bigfoot is however plainly rooted in his concept of himself as a frustrated manly-man and adventurer into the unknown, foiled ever so relentlessly by Kelly’s mordant humour and looming career necessity of moving to Los Angeles. That is a move cool Jim claims he won’t stomach, but capitulates to rather than accept complete defeat in her delicate rejection of his marriage proposal and substituted suggestion of cohabitation. Nonetheless by the film’s climactic scenes, the couple pass through stages in relationships in hypertrophied speed, including what Jim might well have been hoping for, as Kelly is reduced to quivering and clutching his arm, before they devolve to mutual, frantic berating and disillusionment as circumstances close in, and then become, finally, a besieged, mutually reliant duo surrounded by dark and monsters, standing back to back, armed and ready. Willow Creek could well be one of the more quietly incisive romantic comedies of recent years. Officially, however, Goldthwait’s film sits squarely in a contemporary school of horror cinema. In its themes and settings and even in some plot refrains, Willow Creek also calls back to the small but engaging glut of regionally-made, no-budget US horror films of the ‘70s, some of which featured Bigfoot, like The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), Creature From Black Lake (1976), and Sasquatch (1978). The film’s long, deceptively casual lead-in, with its ambling, humorous vibe and pseudo-authenticity proves to have been sterling conditioning for a more traditionally intense last act, once Jim and Kelly arrive in the forest. They set up camp and divert for some skinny-dipping before returning to find their camp ransacked: “What’s one of my socks doing in the tree?” Jim questions as they return, a great gag that’s also the warning sign this lovers’ jaunt is about to get menacing. And so it does, in an epic sequence accomplished entirely in static shots, which merely offers Jim and Kelly straining their ears and cowering as something seems to stalk their camp outside their tent, recorded by Jim only to keep a record of the freakish and frightening moment. A proliferation of strange sounds, from wild howls to branches being bashed together, seem to spell visitation of the very beast they’ve sought but haven't really believed in, or, at least, have never paused to consider what it might act like and want. But what’s making the sounds like a woman’s sobbing? Johnson and Gilmore’s acting is plainly vital to the slow-building force of the sequence, but also Goldthwait’s conceit is matched here by his cunning, his ability to force the viewer to share only the extremely limited viewpoint and paranoia of his characters, with only the bare minimum of cinematic devices, quite detached from the barrage of camera and special effects so many recent horror films offer. Goldthwait takes care to offer a choice of explanations for the events that unfold, and although he presents a weight of evidence that finally favour one, doesn’t entirely spell things out and ruin his dichotomy. The film’s last twenty minutes offers a curtailed version of the sort of herky-jerky, impressionistic survival flight most found-footage movies offer at length, but Goldthwait has an actual, coherent, very dark punch-line to offer without ever violating the entirely suggestive approach he’s taken, and also makes sure that his mordant final note works however one interprets the circumstances leading up to it. Kelly, having resisted falling in thrall to her chosen mate’s self-written mythology, seems now about to fall victim to much less gentlemanly attentions, and be they from cryptid ape-man or redneck man-ape, she’s screwed.
Friday, July 17, 2009 Another Keelian Death? Ellie Frazetta by Frank Frazetta. The wife of the man who famously painted the Keelian Mothman cover for the May 1980 High Times has died. It would be this painting which was later used on the cover of the Ron Bonds-published paperback book that fell off a shelf into the hands of the person who would recommend it be made into a movie. Frank Frazetta (born February 9, 1928) is an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, record-album covers, and other media. Point Pleasant's sculpture of Mothman is based on Frazetta's moth-like representation of Mothman, even though the actual descriptions from the sightings in 1966-1967 told of an avian cryptid, the "Big Bird." Frank Frazetta also did the cover for the 1970 paperback by Keel, Strange Creatures From Time and Space. Into the early months of 2009, Frazetta lived with his wife Ellie on a 67-acre (271,000 m²) estate in the Pocono Mountains at East Straudsburg, Pennsylvania. They maintained a small museum, open to the public, on the estate. Ellie Frazetta was a guide for tours there. On July 17th of 2009, Ellie Frazetta passed away after a year-long battle with cancer. (John A. Keel passed away on July 3, 2009, it will be recalled.) My condolences to the family and friends of the Frazettas. (Thanks to Theo P. for the alert to this sad news.)
Behold the “Ningen“. Meaning literally “Human“, it’s allegedly a very large unknown animal sighted by Japanese fishers, which bares an uncanny resemblance to us. Not only a face, but other reports include even arms and hands. One could speculate that a sea creature, even a known one, could be mistaken for a “Ningen”. Skates and rays, for instance, have nostrils and mouths that look like a face. In fact, they look so “human” that they are often mistaken or sold as devils or extraterrestrials — and Japanese fishers know that for centuries. But the Ningen is allegedly 20 to 30 meters in length. And we may not even have to bother considering it very seriously, because this cryptid seems to be nothing more than a modern Internet legend. There are no verifiable names for the alleged sightings. In fact, there are no names nor actual sightings, only vague reports that the creature was seen near the Antarctic Ocean. Despite their impressive size, there are very few actual reports of Ningen, and none that I can find before 2007. Of course, most of the websites are in Japanese, so if any of our Japanese readers have more insight into the Ningen, I’d love to hear it. This creature may be a modern variation of the mermaid myth, or perhaps people are mistaking the undersides of large rays for a human face. More likely is that the Ningen is a case of pareidolia, the perception of recognizable shapes in a random pattern. Of the thousands of large icebergs floating around the Southern Ocean, a few of them are probably vaguely human shaped. Watch video 1 ( undercoveralien – youtube) Watch video 2 (humanoidfromspace – youtube)
Woodley's owner had just parked the RV outside of a grocery store and ran inside to pick up a few items. But Woodley apparently grew tired of waiting, so he released the handbrake and headed down the hill where he was parked. And observers said he did a great job driving and he avoided hitting any pedestrians or cars in his mile long journey! Fortunately a passerby saw what was happening and he was able to run and catch up with the vehicle and hop on the side and engage the handbrake from the driver's window. We already knew that octopi in captivity are able to escape from their enclosures with remarkable frequency. And now finally someone captured video of an octopus leaving his familiar watery dwelling and heading out on dry land in search of a meal! How would you like to run into this guy in a dark hallway? Hopefully the answer is no!Â Â She was just arrested in Florida for performing illegal cosmetic procedures without a license.Â Â She was injecting her "patient's" buttocks with a mixture of cement, fix-a-flat and superglue.Â Â Â She promised her victims they would be able to show off a new butt that looked almost as good as hers! Peruvian anthropologist Renato Davila Riquelme has discovered the remains of an unidentified creature with a "triangle shaped" skull nearly as large as its 20-inch-tall body.Â Â Â Â And scientists in both Russia and Peru are claiming the body is not from this planet! Then you need to get him or her one of these adorable robotic bear pillows!Â Â Jukusui-Kun is a sweet, soft bear that monitors your oxygen levels and any sounds you make while you sleep.Â If you begin to snore, Jukusui-Kun will gently tap your face...keep up the snoring and the taps become more intense.Â Â Nighty night! Say hello to Fei; a performance artist in China that has been delighting crowds for over 30 years. What is his act? He sticks highly venemous snakes in his nose and lets them crawl out of his mouth!!Â Â Â Scroll down for pictures and video. !!!!Â DISTURBING IMAGES BELOW!!!! IF YOU DON'T LIKE SNAKES....OR GROSS STUFF....OR THINGS IN PEOPLE'S NOSES COMING OUT OF THEIR MOUTHS....DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEO!!! Forget those silly press on eyeballs that I told you about a while back...you need to get a permanent eyeball tattooed on your eyelid! And tattoo artists are claiming that this is becoming more and more popular!! Then you are not going to like this video one little bit!!!! A robotics expert is creating a robot version of a colossal snake that lived amongst the dinosaurs. It is called a Titanoboa and it will eventually be 50 feet long and weigh over a ton...just like the real snake!! The final version will be covered with "skin" and will be able to swim underwater! Here is robot Titanoboa's first meeting with another huge robot, Mondo the spider! Enjoy!! That is exactly what it is according to the woman that found it!Â Â Â She says she heard a loud thud outside of her house and found this guy, wearing a one-piece garmet lying next to a bunch of metal.Â Â Â The body was said to be extremely hot and she wrapped it in blankets and put it in her refrigerator.Â Â She then called the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences to come and investigate.Â Â They sent two staff members to her house and they left with the body.Â Â Â What do you think it is? Check out these images from Google Earth that show unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes. Is this a military experiment? It's located in Dunhuang, Jiuquan, Gansu, north of the Shule River, which crosses the Tibetan Plateau to the west into the Kumtag Desert. It covers an area approximately one mile long by more than 3,000 feet wide. The second structure seems to be some kind of giant targeting grid, also north of the Shule river. If you zoom in, you can see vehicles destroyed. It's west of what seems to be a fairly big electrical station or a radio station similar to HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program located near Gakona, Alaska, and funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska, and DARPA. This one may the strangest of them all.Â Thousand of lines intersecting in a titanic grid that is about 18 miles long. Another targeting grid? This is another HUGE grid, similar to the first photo. I definitely don't like the looks of this one!Â Â Is it for military target practice?Â Â Check out the jet fighters in the center. Here is a weird airport-like structure. Except it's bright cyan. Seems full of water or made of a weird material. And look at the other airport-like structure next to it. Perhaps a decoy? This is a huge complex, ten by five miles at least. Are these huge precipitation pools of some kind? If youÂ zoom in Google maps (see the image below this one), you could see two cooling towers like those used in nuclear plants, as well as several water treatment plants. These are the motorized boxers controlled by two drivers who battle to deliver chin-lifting uppercuts for victory. Similar to bumper cars, a driver up to 300 lbs. sits inside the robot's protective steel cage cockpit and uses a thumb-triggered button on two independent joysticks to activate two pneumatic-powered, tire-tread-fisted arms, which throw upward punches at an opposing robot's head.Â Â Want a pair for your very own?Â Just CLICK HERE to place your order! Oh and by the way...it'll set you back $17,000.00!! This little fella just keeps getting more and more amazing...or scary!! He...or it...can now run at a maximum speed of 9 kilometers per hour, jump up and down for as long as it wants, and even hop on one leg, should it ever need to. Plus, its hands are now more dexterous than ever thanks to independent finger operation. (SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO) Mukesh Ambani, a billionaire in Mumbai has just completed construction on his BILLION dollar dream house.Â Â Although most residents of the city struggle to make ends meet,Â Mukesh built this monstrosity for his family. Â And now that it is time for the family to move in, Mukesh has decided the home has bad feng shui and he refuses to step foot inside. Â So it looks like it is just going to sit there...unoccupied. Check out these images, from Google Mars discovered by "virtual" archaelogist Joseph Skipper.Â Â Skipper claims the images show evidence of a track-based transportation system,Â a vehicle on the tracks, and several buildings at the end of the track system. Ever wished you could change your eye color permanently to blue? No...we're not talking about contacts...we're talking about having beautiful blue eyes like a Siberian Husky! Well soon you will be able to do just that! Dr. Gregg Homer of Stroma Medical Center in California has perfected a procedure that uses a laser to change dark eyes to blue in only 20 seconds. The procedure is still going through clinical trials, but should be available outside of the United States within 18 months and here in the U.S. in three years. BUT...you better be sure you want blue eyes: the procedure is non-reversible! Here is a brown eye halfway through the procedure Here is a brown eye 3/4 of the way through the procedure According to the report in the scientific journal Urology, a 45 year old man sought help from a urologist when he began having intense pain in is most private of regions. And doctors were shocked when they examined the ultrasound...the saw a face peering back at them! For the third time since 2007, a mysterious Lego Man has washed up on a beach. The first two were discovered in England and Holland, and now this fella drifted ashore in Sarasota, Florida. What do you think he wants? The team that has been searching for proof of the existence of Yeti has finally released some photos to back up their claim that they have "irrefutable evidence" that the Yeti is alive and well! These pictures are from an extremely remote area of Siberia. This is a nest built by a Yeti for sleeping This is a cave where a pack of Yeti are thought to live This is a Yeti footprint found in the cave This hair was found in the cave and DNA tests show that it does not match any known animal...must be a Yeti hair This structure was found in the forest and is thought to have been made by a family of Yeti Check out this good looking fella that was just reeled in by two fisherman in Cordoba, Argentina.Â Â Â They were fishing in a reservoir which is fed by a local nuclear power plant.Â Â Whose hungry for some tasty fish and chips?!?! Check out this video from Sunday's football game on NBC. Watch for the streaks of light at :06, :12, and :19 seconds into the video clip. Then check out what the streaks of light look like when they are freeze-framed! It certainly appears to be some type of saucer-shaped aircraft and it is clearly moving at an incredibly high speed. But what is it?? According to Italian Shark experts, if you find yourself unexpectedly swimming with a shark...don't panic!Â You can easily hypnotize almost any shark (according to the researchers....not me!!) simply by rubbing their ampullae of Lorenzini:Â the name given to hundreds of jelly-filled pores around the animals nose and mouth.Â Â The sharks apparently love it and will fall into a deep trance for as long as you rub this area.Â Â Of course you will eventually have to stop rubbing to come up for air and then the shark may eat you, but it will be cool to balance a shark on your fingertips at least for a little while! Look at the photo of these local children from a small village in the Amazonian Rainforest. Now look at the rear of the photo....what is that bright light...is it spacecraft? And what is that creature?? This area has been the focus of a Brazilian government operation for years to investigate hundreds of UFO sightings. Is this proof the aliens are here? This is what happens when you leave out a decimal point when ordering slippers. Tom Boddingham meant to order a 14.50 inch slipper, but instead he ordered and received a 1,450 inch slipper!! And now I want one too!! So we have this to look forward to when we are elderly: a robot that will lift us from bed to bed. His name is Riman and he is going to be used in nursing homes to assist the staff when a patient needs to be lifted out of bed. Don't be surprised if you see one of these sweet faces smiling back at you on your next visit to the hospital! They are called Actroids and they are being placed in hospitals in Japan to monitor patients. They basically sit in your room and stare at you to make sure you are doing OK. Pleasant dreams. Jonathan McGowan is 44 and he lives in a small coastal town in Southern Englandâ¦and Jonathan makes his living as a taxidermist.Â Â But in addition to preserving the bodies of deceased animalsâ¦Jonathan discovered something decades ago that has truly changed his life.Â Â For the last 30 years Jonathan has survived on a diet made up of meat entirely from road kill. JONATHAN'S ROADKILL PIGEON AU VIN' 1) Take one 8oz roadkill pigeon breast and wash it in warm water which will partially cook it. 2) Place it in foil with 100ml of red wine and cook it thoroughly for around half an hour on a low heat. 3) Mix in with onion and a white sauce and continue to cook it again for another 20 minutes. Serve with celery and parsnips. It also goes well with chips and roast potatoes. RECIPE FOR ROADKILL BADGER STEW 1) Skin one badger and cut into pieces before browning in a frying pan with butter until pieces are golden and stiff, Your next trip to the beauty salon or barber shop may not involve any other humans!Â Â Panasonic has just unveiled the "Beauty Bot"!Â Â A robotic hair stylist that can shampoo,Â massage your scalp, condition, cut, and even style and blow dry your hair!Â It uses its 24 robotic fingers so it is much quicker than a human stylist! From the Geological Society of America:Â "Photo shows shonisaur vertebral disks arranged in curious linear patters with almost geometric regularity. The arranged vertebrae resemble the pattern of sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle, with each vertebra strongly resembling a coleoid sucker." So the question is...what arranged the bones of these huge shonisaurs (marine reptiles that grew up to 49 feet in length)?Â Â Â Â Two respected paleontologists have suggested it may have been the mythical KRAKEN!! Nestle, the maker of Beneful dog food, has just announced a new ad campaign that is supposed to get your dogs attention. The entire television ad has a high-pitch tone that, although inaudible to humans, is going to wake your dogs up and get them excited about Beneful dog food! Apparently lots of people do! Crooked teeth are seen as imperfections in many western countries, and particularly in America, where braces are practically a God-given gift to man, but in Japan, a country where almost everything is different, they are considered cute, even adorable. And now there are salons that specialize in making straight teeth crooked! Look at this poor little seal. He was born an albino and his mother and siblings rejected him. Everytime he would try to get near the rest of the harem (that's what you call a group of seals...I looked it up!), they would all flee away from him. He was left all alone to fend for himself. Fortunately a wildlife photographer spotted him and he is now living a pampered life in a Russian "dophinaquarium" and the dolphins have begun treating him like one of their own! Yay dolphins!! HE has a face only a mother could love - but unfortunately for this adorable little seal his big blue eyes and sweet disposition weren't enough to win her affections. In fact the pupâs ginger fur and pink flippers proved too much for the mother who abandoned him, earning him the title of the worldâs loneliest pup. The albino seal looks out from under a pile of logs waiting for food from its mother. Who will play with me? The lost and lonely the little albino seal look on as the other pups play on the beach. Check out this photograph that is currently listed on Ebay.Â Â The owner wants a million bucks for it.Â Â He claims it is a photo taken in 1870 of a man that looks exactly like Nicolas Cage...OR it actually IS Nicolas Cage and he is a vampire that has been alive for well over a hundred years!! Meet Chris Walton.Â Â She has just made it into the Guiness Book of World Records for having the longest fingernails in the world!Â Â Their combined length is almost 20 feet!!!!Â Â I'm so curious how she is able to do certain things... When Zhang Nan went to his local spa for a treatment,Â he decided on the exotic "eel exfoliating treatment".Â Â You strip naked and then slip into a large tub full of live eels.Â Â The eels then nibble on any dead skin on your body.Â Unfortunately for Zhang...one of the eels crawled into his most private of areas and had to be surgically removed.Â Â Owie, owie, owie, owie! That's exactly what happened to this poor moose in Sweden.Â She apparently gorged on fermented apples...got drunk...and then tried to climb a tree!Â Â Rescue workers were able to safely remove her and she is going to be just fine; a little hungover, but just fine! This little cutie was born in China and he is doing quite well! His owner is planning to save him from becoming someone's dinner, since he is so cute. Clearly in this case, two heads are better than one! Residents of a small town in Guatemala have reported seeing several strange crafts flying above in the night sky. And now some farmers are fearing that space aliens may have mated with some of their pigs. This piglet was just born and it is said to look to be part pig and part space alien. I think they just might need a better camera! And you thought YOU were having a rough day!Â Â This poor fella dropped his pruing sheers in his garden...when he bent over to pick them up, he lost his balance and fell straight onto the sheers impaling his eye socket with one of the handles.Â Â Â Miraculously, doctors were able to remove the sheers, rebuild his eye socket, and save his eye.Â He is expected to make a full recovery! One-year-old Akshat Saxena had seven fingers on each hand and ten toes on each foot â but no thumbs.Â He has broken the previous world record of 15 fingers and sixteen toes.Â Â He has since had his extra digits removed. Have you ever felt like you really needed some privacy in our very crowded world?Â Â Then you need to pick up one of these "Veasyble" Privacy Shells!Â Â You simply put it on and boom...you feel like you are all alone! Parents in Kyoto, Japan take their ill-mannered children for a ride on this very spooky train. The kids are told that if they don't behave, they will not be able to leave the train. It apparently works! This species of frog engages in a very peculiar behavior called "mouth-brooding". The males in the species take the fertilized eggs and put them into their mouths where they develop in their vocal sacs. When it is time for them to be hatched,the males basically vomit the offspring into the world. Police in Dallas, Texas are looking for this person wanted for the robbery of a convenience store. The crook was wearing what appears to be a short dress and is using tighty whiteys to conceal his identity. Harvard scientists have successfully altered chicken DNA which has caused chicks to develop much more like they did millions of years ago. Instead of a sweet little chicken beak....they are hatching with long, toothy snouts!! Here is how a normal chick looks when it hatches This is how the genetically altered chick likely looks Tired of trying to sleep in uncomfortable airport chairs every time your flight is late or it is canceled?Â Â Soon you may be able to put a few bucks into one of these "sleep vending machines" and get some quality rest! Well sort of...Marion Laval Jeantet is a French "artist" and several months ago she began injecting her bodywith small doses of horse immunoglobulins, the glycoproteins that flow through the blood and function as antibodies in immune response. Then for her art exhibit, she injected herself with horse plasma. And since her body had become used to the horse proteins, her body did not reject the plasma; instead it bonded with it causing Marion to become (a teensy tiny) part horse! Oh how I do love art! This mysterious gooey substance just appeared out of nowhere in the tiny Alaskan village of Kivalina. It is now covering most of the shoreline and it has scientists and even long-time residents stumped. Tests show that the goo is billions of microscopic eggs....but of WHAT? Scientists don't know what species the eggs are...and they don't know if they are going to hatch! I think I'd leave town!! Meet Kerri. She is a trim, 23 year-old woman who has no problem fitting into her size 10 jeans...that is until she eats something. Then she bloats up and appears pregnant! Doctors are baffled by her condition. Rachel and Tony Fisher had been driving along in Memphis when all of a sudden a snake appeared on their windscreen -- obviously prompting them to reach for the video camera. Hey I have an idea...next time it happens, STOP YOUR DAMN CAR AT LET IT CRAWL OFF!! These beautiful birds aren't just pretty...they have an amazing talent! Instead of a normal cock-a-doodle-doo, they make a sound similar to a human laughing! And they often sell for thousands of dollars!! He was arrested in Utah on a minor charge and would have just been issued a citation.Â Â But he refuses to give his name.Â Â He is said to be well-spoken and well-educated...he just won't tell anyone who he is...and he has now been in jail for over a month! This is a sonar image of a bizarre object located on the floor of the Baltic Sea. It is approximately 60 feet in diameter and it is COMPLETELY round. And to make things even more interesting...there are tracks leading up to it that stretch over 300 feet; as if it was moving and then came to a rest in its current location! A young couple from the Czech Republic were foraging for mushrooms deep in a forest and they stumbled upon this GIANT ball of ice!Â Â And there were no footprints in the surrounding mud which would indicate someone had rolled it there...which would have been impossible anyway since this thing weighs tons!!Â Â Where the heck did it come from? A woman in Guatemala City woke up to a loud band and when her family searched the house, they found that a sinkhole had opened up under her BED!!! I'd rather find monsters under my bed than a 40 feet deep sinkhole!!! Check out the new line of female urinals from the company Dezeen.Â Â The line features three different models:Â Â Pollee Shy, Pollee Topless, and Pollee Naked.Â Â Â The design is intended to allow women to use the urinals while still having some degree of privacy. This is the Temple of Karni Mata in India….the temple is ornate with marble panels and silver and gold decorations and is home to over 20 thousand rats! Faithful travel from all over India to pay their respects to the rats...and if one of them runs across your feet it means you are going to be especially blessed. Meet Niko. He has spent the last three years fighting with the government of Austria over his driver license photo. He claims his religion is called pastafarian and it requires him to wear a spaghetti colander on his head. Well hooray for Niko...the government has finally agreed to allow him to wear his strainer in his official driver license photo! It must be bad enough to be born with two heads...but when you and your other head just don't like each other...well that's just plain awful! Zookeepers have to separate the heads with a piece of cardboard when these guys eat or they'll fight with each other! It's the most mechanically accurate robot mouth ever, with an air pump to simulate lungs, artificial vocal chords, a resonance tube, a nasal cavity, and a microphone attached to a sound analyzer. It listens to itself and uses a learning algorithm to better mimic the sounds of human speech. Nyo Tai Mori which means in Japanese literally means âfemale body plateâ, and this restaurant named after the tradition of eating sushi and sashimi off a nude womanâs body takes the concept to a whole new level. An edible body, with dough âskinâ and sauce âbloodâ is wheeled into the room on a hospital gurney and placed upon a table. The hostess begins the meal by cutting into the body with a scalpel and then patrons dig in, operating on the body to reveal edible âorgansâ. This place is called Modern Toilet...you can probably figure out why! This hotspot is called At Home and it promises to satisfy all of your "maid fantasies"! At Pitch Black restaurant in Beijing,Â the restaurant is so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face.Â Â Only the servers wear night-vision goggles! But this last spot is my favorite!Â Â Â The restaurant is called Kayabuki and you just have to check out their servers!! OK people...listen up. If you ever happen to encounter a Sasquatch...please do your best to hold the camera steady!! Thank you! A new Bigfoot movie popped up on YouTube Monday, this time from Kansas, not normally a hotbed of Sasquatch activity. The video is, as usual, very shaky. Why can’t people learn how to use a camera when they shoot these things? Maybe they’re truly scared? The one-minute video shows a loping “creature” passing from tree to tree as a family shoots from the other side of a fenced-in area. The quick glimpses of the mystery cryptid recall the film that started it all, the Roger Patterson movie. Take a good whiff of Mr. Kailash Singh. He was told by a priest on his wedding day that if he wanted to someday have a son, he was to not shave, cut his hair or wash his body until the day his son was born. That was 37 years ago and although he has seven daughters he still does not have a son...so no baths for him! Meet Millie Brown.Â Â She is a successful artist who has sold pieces of her work for several thousands of dollars.Â Â But you won't believe how she "paints" her art:Â she drinks colored milk and then vomits on the canvas.Â Â She was even featured in a Lady Gaga video vomiting all over her dress.Â Â Â Delightful! Nguyne Duy Hai has made it into the record books and for that he is very proud!Â He has the largest tumor growing on his body ever recorded.Â It weighs over 173 pounds and is over three feet wide. Â He has named it "my big friend".Â Yes...it is a great deal but you will have to share it with THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF SNAKES!!!! It was built on top of a winter snake den in Idaho and it has terrorized anyone who has attempted to live in it! It's called the T-Rex Leech (above) and it was just discovered living in a teenage girls nasal cavity! She apparently picked it up after swimming in a South American river.Â Â Check out the pic below...this is the jaw and teeth of the T Rex Leech! This video is allegedly from a family hiking near the Spokane River...when they watched the video more closely from home, they found a little something extra in the background. What do you think it is? OSTRICH offers a micro environment in which to take a warm and comfortable power nap at ease. It is neither a pillow nor a cushion, nor a bed, nor a garment, but a bit of each at the same time. Its soothing cave-like interior shelters and isolates our head and hands (mind, senses and body) for a few minutes, without needing to leave our desk. Oscar is my name, and I'm looking forward to finding a lifelong home with people who love and respect me for who I am. Once I'm feeling safe and secure in my new home, I'll love you like no other. Getting to that point might require some... Meet Brody! He is a sweet and older fella that can't wait to find his new best friend in life. This handsome guy is looking for a place to call his own and a companion to spend lots of time with. Brody would enjoy going places with you and...
Title: New Jersey Devil, aka The Leeds Devil, Pine Devil. Range: focal point of occurances: New Jersey, USA; rare accounts as far as New York and Maryland Type: Chimera, shapeshifter Diet: unconfirmed reports of woodland creatures and small pets Temperment: Mostly nonconfrontational. "...and when Mother Leeds, already with twelve children, learned that she was with child, she cursed it, saying, "Let this one be a devil." In due time the child arrived, of normal appearance, but no sooner had it come into the world when a hideous transformation took place; the infant's body began to twist into a serpentine shape, its face elongating into an equine form as hooves and wings formed and sprouted from its body as a twisting, scaly tail then proceeding to whip about the room, badly beating both mother and nursemaids. The newly born creature then gave a shrill whistle and clamored up the chimney and into the the dark night of the forest... So goes one of the most infamous accounts of how the immortal legend that is the New Jersey Devil came to be, although there are tales which go further back in time that speak of an unnatural creature which stalks the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey. The Lenni Lenape tribes called that area "Popuessing ", or "place of the dragon", and told of a creature that haunted the sun-starved depths of the thick pines and bogs. People, ranging from policemen and hikers, locals and investigators, Revolutionary War captains and soldiers, and even Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of the infamous Napoleon, have reported encounters with the Jersey Devil. The reports continue to this day... I myself am a firm believer in the New Jersey Devil, not only out of an interest in the unusual but also because of my lifelong bond to my home state, a place where the strange is ever present; we've got Devils and Thunderbirds as team mascots, for Pete's sake A page from The Cryptid Files: [link]
Crypto-zoology is the search for “hidden” animals whose existence has not yet been accepted by science. Such creatures – called cryptids – can include land-roaming beasts like Bigfoot, sea creatures like the Loch Ness monster, and more. Many of those who search for cryptids are amateur enthusiasts with limited professional training in biology and related fields. For this reason, crypto-zoology is rarely endorsed by academic researchers. Nonetheless, interest in crypto-zoology and its legendary creatures continues. Bigfoot, Yeti, Abominable Snowman One of the most sought-after cryptids is the creature called Bigfoot. Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is believed to be a massive, ape-like creature that dwells in forests and mountains throughout the western United States or they could just be a bunch of guys runnign around in Halloween costumes. Yetis (also called “abominable snowmen”) are similar creatures with snow white pelts purported to wander the Himalayan Mountains of Tibet and possibly other ranges. Proponents of crypto-zoology believe that Native American legends substantiate the existence of Bigfoot, and point to sightings in the U.S. since 1924. Though there have been many hoaxes associated with Bigfoot, recent field searches have incorporated anthropology, biology, and high-tech tools. Texas Bigfoot Research Conservatory: A nonprofit volunteer organization that seeks out information on Bigfoot and Bigfoot-related sightings in the state of Texas. Includes articles, reports, evidence, and Frequently Asked Questions relating to Bigfoot. Cryptozoology Resource Page: Extremely detailed page with an overview of the study of crypto-zoology and dozens of informational pages about individual cryptids, including Bigfoot and others. On the Trail of Sasquatch: Press clippings and other information on the history of Bigfoot sightings in the United States. From a website offering information on unexplained phenomena, including those associated with crypto-zoology. Sasquatch: Cited article offering an overview, history, description, timeline, and more information pertaining to Sasquatch and similar creatures. Loch Ness Monster and Other Sea Creatures The Loch Ness monster – also known as “Nessie” – is a legendary sea creature speculated to live in Loch Ness, a lake located near Inverness, Scotland. The giant creature, which somewhat resembles a plesiosaur, has been sighted and written of since the 7th century but became a source of interest for modern crypto-zoologists only in the 1930s. A cluster of sightings took place in 1933, followed by a photograph of a “head and neck” in 1934. The photograph was not conclusively revealed to be a hoax until 1994, and the public’s imagination had already been caught. Because of its underwater nature, and its habitat – Loch Ness is almost 22 square miles and has an average depth of 430 feet – it has been the focus of many searches using the best available technology. In the 1980s, the Loch was methodically swept by a number of cruisers, and in 2008, the latest sonar and underwater cameras were deployed to try and flush the creature out. The Legend of Nessie: Detailed information about Loch Ness, efforts to search for the Loch Ness monster, evidence, news, and links. Especially good coverage of various efforts to discover the creature, and the people behind them. The Fake in the Lake: Article taking a more skeptical view, focusing on hoaxes and inconsistencies related to the Loch Ness story. The Loch Ness Monster: The Smithsonian Institution’s official website relating to the Loch Ness monster, offering a bibliography of further resources that includes both books and periodicals. Loch Ness Project: In-depth, searchable information on attempts to locate the Loch Ness monster. Includes access to and information on published scientific research that falls within the scope of the lake monster controversy. Though “Nessie” and Bigfoot are probably the most famous cryptids worldwide, there are many other creatures that crypto-zoologists search for. Hundreds of “cryptids” are believed to exist around the world. Many of these creatures are understood from folklore and sightings that predate modern science. Less-famous cryptids include the chupacabra or “goat-sucker”, an unknown reptile that roams Latin America and drains the blood of livestock; the almas, a hominid “wild man” who roams Mongolia; and the Isshii, a monster in Japan’s Lake Ikeda which is believed to be either “Nessie-like” or a giant eel. This is only a small sampling of cryptids, which exist in hundreds of different types and are distributed all over the Earth. The Cryptid Zoo: Detailed alphabetical list offering information on purported creatures by their characteristics, as well as cryptids that may be extinct or otherwise anomalous. Includes dozens of individual entries, each focused on historical and crypto-zoological perspectives. Each entry includes a bibliography of further reading. Top 50 Cryptids From Around the World: Brief overview of selected cryptids along with a bibliography of further resources. Includes information on verified cryptids such as the megamouth shark and okapi. Illustrated List of Cryptids: Extremely detailed, illustrated articles featuring the histories and evidence in support of a smaller selection of 18 cryptids. Each article is cited and includes bibliographical data. Possible Cryptids of the World: Detailed information on 14 cryptids along with an extensive list of hundreds of other potential cryptids, their possible species, and their geographical region. From the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club. Criticisms of Crypto-zoology The mainstream scientific community rarely accepts crypto-zoology as a legitimate field. Scientists doubt that large animals such as yetis could maintain a breeding population without being exposed and verified by human populations. Destruction and restriction of the creatures’ supposed habitats also make it unlikely they could evade detection. The academic community finds non-credentialed enthusiasts suspect, and such crypto-zoologists have difficulty making their findings known, let alone accepted, by professional scientists. Perhaps worst of all, crypto-zoology suffers credibility problems thanks to the history of hoaxes relating to cryptids, and the traditional association between crypto-zoology and paranormal studies. Though most crypto-zoologists do not consider their work as related to the "paranormal" today, zoologists, biologists and others continue to claim that the field lacks scientific rigor and profesionalism. Criticisms of Crypto-zoology Addressed: Piece from the student magazine of Victoria University in Wellington, Australia, addressing the typical criticisms of crypto-zoology in the context of a search for information on the moa, extinct flightless birds once endemic to New Zealand. "On the Nature of Crypto-zoology": Article from the former editor of the Cryptozoology Review dealing with common criticisms. Crypto-zoology Hoaxes: Illustrated briefs on hoaxes pertaining to crypto-zoology, including hoaxes about Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, and several other potential cryptids. Includes photos related to the hoaxes. Defenders of Crypto-zoology Crypto-zoologists point to “success” stories where creatures once classified as cryptids have been documented in more-or-less similar forms to those expected by the crypto-zoological community. One famous example of this is the okapi, a Congolese rain forest animal that strongly resembles a combination donkey and zebra. This creature was known to natives for hundreds of years before its official discovery in 1901. Another example is the megamouth shark, an extremely rare deepwater shark that has been spotted only a handful of times since its discovery in 1976. Crypto-zoologists pride themselves on investigating animals that the mainstream community has “given up on” and emphasize increasingly sophisticated and meticulous searches in the crypto-zoological community as evidence that it deserves more respect. Likewise, they hold that some environments, such as remote mountains, rain forests, and the deep sea, are poorly understood and may still hold large animal species still unknown to science. Chasing Discovery: The Lives and Struggles of Crypto-Zoologists: Informational website for a documentary film produced by supporters of crypto-zoology. Lesser-Known Cryptids Deserving Attention: Discussion of various cryptids and the evidence pertaining to their existence from an enthusiast. Includes links to further information on the Internet. Ben S. Roesch’s Crypto-Zoology:: Immense amount of crypto-zoology information from a serious devotee of the subject. Offers informational articles about crypto-zoology as a pursuit, famous crypto-zoologists, and cryptids. Essays tackle questions like “Is crypto-zoology a science?” and “Does crypto-zoology require specialization?” Cutting Edge or Over the Edge: Resource page from Princeton University. Includes verified resources on a variety of subjects, including crypto-zoology and cryptids. Anomalies and Alternative Science: Crypto-zoology: Resource page offering further links to subjects relating to crypto-zoology and individuals who search for cryptids. Though crypto-zoology has sometimes had a difficult path to acceptance, there are crypto-zoologists around the world. Websites and publications devoted to the subject continue to proliferate, and the explorations of crypto-zoologists become more methodical. With time, and more discoveries, crypto-zoology may soon be able to take its place as a full and credible science. Until then, those who are dedicated to it show no sign of giving up.
Posted by: John Kirk on May 18th, 2014 An Icelandic man is claiming the $4,500 in reward money offered for photographic or videographic proof of the existence of the Lagarfljot cryptid. Personally, this video does not appear to show a living creature. However, I have seen other footage that is more persuasive. The 13-person truth commission set up by the district council of Fljótsdalshérað municipality in East Iceland in August 2012 to evaluate whether the infamous lake monster Lagarfljótsormurinn (Lagarfljót worm) is the phenomenon filmed by Hjörtur Kjerúlf, farmer at Hrafnkelsstaðir, has requested more time to complete the task, visir.is reports. The committee says that more time is needed in order to evaluate a number of other videos claiming to show the lake monster but emphasizes that it does not believe that costs will get out of hand. Hjörtur has made claim to the ISK 500,000 (USD 4,400, EUR 3,200) prize in a competition the local municipality launched 15 years ago on photos of Lagarfljótsormurinn. The prize was never paid out because none of the photos entered were thought to show the monster. However, the district council at the time promised that if the monster would ever be caught on camera, the photographer would be entitled to the prize. Hjörtur’s video received huge interest both in Iceland and abroad and many other people have said that they too have seen the lake monster. Close to five million people have watched Hjörtur’s video on YouTube. One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.
Posted by: Guy Edwards on November 21st, 2012 The Kentish Apeman a/k/a The British Bigfoot triggers a 70 year-old memory News from Britain has been reporting a return of a Bigfoot-like cryptid. Locals call it the Kentish Apeman, and have recently spotted it in Tunbridge Wells Common. This is the exact place it was spotted 70 years ago. The beast is describes as hairy, eight-foot tall, with red demonic eyes. According to the paper, Tunbridge Wells People, “Other sightings have claimed the monster has also been on the prowl in Darftord and Blue Bell Hill, near Maidstone”. Early this year we reported on another alleged British Bigfoot trackway find in Cotswolds. You can read more details from the Kent News article at Bigfoot Lunch Club.
Ever heard stories of the killer tree!? Well, I have and I must say they’ve been enthralling! The killer tree (also referred to as the Man-eating tree) is the legend of a cryptid carnivorous plant which is so large that it can actually kill & consume a living person or a large-sized animal. Nepenthes rajah is known to be the largest carnivorous plant that has the biggest & most deadly known traps. This plant is known to produce pitchers close to 38 cm (or 15 in) in height with volumes that go up till 3.5 litres (or 0.92 US gal; 0.77 imp gal). It is extremely rare for this species to trap a small mammal. The Killer Tree: Madagascar tree The first ever report that was documented of a man- eating/killer tree was nothing but a hoax. It was in the year 1881, that Carl Liche (a German explorer) documented a story in ‘South Australian Register’ wherein he stated that there was a sacrifice that was performed by a tribe named “Mkodo” in Madagascar. This killer tree was further given publicity when Chase Osborn (the former Governor of Michigan) mentioned this tree in his book titled ‘Land of the Man-eating Tree’ (in the year 1924). Chase Osborn stated that the missionaries as well as the tribes in Madagascar had full knowledge of this hideous man-eating tree & he confirmed Carl Liche’s account. The year 1955 brought forward yet another book by Willy Ley (a science author) titled ‘Salamanders and other Wonders’ which stated that Mkodo tribes, Mr. Carl Liche, as well as this man-eating Madagascar tree was nothing but a fabrication and someone’s figment of imagination with no truth what so ever behind it. Ya-te-veo: Central America’s killer tree Ya-te-veo translates into ‘I see you’ and in Land & Sea by J. W. Buel (in the year 1887), this Ya-te-veo plant is depicted as a carnivorous plant that catches & consumes large insects…not just that, it is even said that this killer plant in Central as well as South America has attempted to consume humans. This killer tree has been found in Africa as well as shores of Indian Ocean and there have been numerous descriptions of this man-eating plant. However, majority reports have stated that this tree is short and has a thick trunk with long tendrils that are the weapon through which it entraps its prey. The killer tree has appeared a couple of times in literature: - The series titled ‘Harry Potter’ showed a plant by the name of ‘Devil’s Snare’ that tries to consume Harry & his buddies by entrapping them in its vines. - The Day of the Triffids (by John Wyndham) shows killer trees that not only walk, but also use venomous lashes to hunt their prey. - Beyond the Deepwoods, which happens to be the 1st story in The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell, Twig (the protagonist) comes face to face with a killer tree called Bloodoak.
via Mysterious Universe: What is it about Maine that seems to attract white Bigfoots, or at least reported sighting of them? Are they fans of lobsters and whale watching? Recently in Eddington, Maine, a boy (name not given) told Bill Brock and AJ Marston, members of the cryptid research organization Team Rogue, that he saw a big white creature running into the woods near his family’s home. I was walking and then…I hear something run over there. I look up and then there is something big, white and it runs right into the woods…and it’s just gone. The boy’s family didn’t see the creature but reported finding a deer leg that “had just been ripped off, and was just sitting there.”
My original post that referenced my encounter with a Bigfoot was lost from the archive. Because of this, I am posting the text from my book Phantoms & Monsters: Cryptid Encounters in order to reconnect the links. If you've previously read this, I'm sorry for sending it to you again. Lon My Bigfoot Encounter - Lon Strickler My interest in cryptozoology began the day I witnessed a creature that was beyond my belief or, what I thought, the boundaries of reality. The incident was reported to a BFRO investigator several years ago in hope that they may be able to get further information from local authorities. Unfortunately, this investigator was unable to help. The date of the encounter was May 9, 1981 about 10:00 am and I was fly-fishing for redeye and smallmouth bass on the south branch of the Patapsco River approximately 1 mile downstream from Rt.32 near Sykesville, Maryland. The weather was sunny and slightly breezy and the air temperature was in the low 60’s. This section of river flattens out into riffles then empties into a larger pool, an area I had fished several times previously. I was on the south bank near the riffles when I noticed a stray mixed breed dog sniffing around the weeds and thickets on the north bank. The dog was about 50 yards from me and was weaving in and out of the brush. I wasn’t worried about the dog bothering me, so I just put it out of my mind and concentrated on fishing. After a few minutes or so, I heard the dog barking and growling. I figured that he stirred up a deer, but when I looked at the direction of the ruckus I noticed a dark hairy creature bobbing up and down in the thickets. I stopped fishing and moved closer to the riffles to get a better look and noticed that the dog stopped barking. Suddenly, I heard a loud yelp from the dog and the creature stood up. The best I could tell is that this “thing” was about 7-8 ft. tall and had dark matted hair. I could only see the body from the chest up because the rest of the body was obscured by the weeds and thickets. I stood completely still and could hear a series of “tick” sounds while observing this creature walk slowly through the thickets towards the woods. I started to follow it and in the meantime I noticed a strong musky scent that reminded me of fox urine. I had waders on so I could only move so fast in an attempt to get a better look at this creature. It simply moved too fast for me. I decided to go back to my car, drive into Sykesville and make an immediate report to the authorities. On my way back to the vehicle, I noticed the dog and it had noticeable blood around the neck and hind area but seemed to be able to get around. I figured I better stay away for the dog regardless. I drove to the nearest telephone which was located outside a bar. The local police told me to go back to the area and they would meet me there. So I got back into the car (I seriously thought about going into the bar for a minute first, but better judgment made me change my mind) and started to drive back to the river. I was amazed that a Maryland State Police cruiser was already there. The State Police officer told to get back in my car and leave immediately because they didn’t know how dangerous the situation was. I tried to explain to him that I made the initial report, but he refused to let me talk and again told me to leave. I went back to the area about 1 hour later and the place was crawling with people and many state and other official vehicles. One man standing near the road did tell me that someone found some hair samples but refused to say anything else. For many years, I tried to gather information from local authorities in regards to this incident, but I have always been told that “no information is available” or “we have no report of an incident”. Since that time, I have decided that I would do my own investigations and find information on my own. I later received this comment to this incident (unedited): “This sure brings up some old memories. I always expected that sooner or later it would get out. I'm glad someone else saw it and kicked over the can. I'll add beans. I was one of the responders on that call. Right after we'd closed down the road a government response team arrived. Those guys weren't fooling around. Their big dogs and bigger guns made that evident. It wasn't long before we were locked out: ordered into our cruisers and away from the area. The "into our cruisers" part was the weirdest. We were outmanned, outgunned and outranked by the feds who had taken over. Soon after that, within an hour at most, several choppers were overhead... as in three. It was a manhunt on a larger scale than we could have mustered so quickly, and that is saying a lot. I've never really been positive what happened. None of our guys had actually seen "it," though I imagine "it" was caught or killed. They said there were hair samples and footprint photos and casts taken. We were debriefed and basically instructed not to speak of this matter. With that I'll close and say no more except that it did happen as described on here.” At the time, I called the being I witnessed a 'Bigfoot' because, frankly, that was the only way I could have described it. It wasn't human...it wasn't an ape. For over 30 years my encounter with this being had left a strange hole in my understanding of nature and reality. Over the years, I have tried to gather more information on my sighting as well as other sightings in the general area. Since my sighting in 1981 there have been two (2) more BFRO 'Class A' reports along the Patapsco River Valley and another four (4) general reports and sightings in the same area from 1972-1979. I interviewed and got to know several of the witnesses of the 1972-73 ‘Sykesville Monster’ flap after my personal encounter in 1981. Many of these witnesses have since passed away. There were other unreported incidents in the general Sykesville and Gaither, MD areas. I personally took statements to eight (8) more sightings / encounters between 1972-1979, including a home invasion on Norris Ave. and a utility shed break-in on Oklahoma Ave. Both were located in Sykesville. There were also several chicken pens broke into up and down the South Branch of the Patapsco River in Gaither, MD - Sykesville, MD - Woodstock, MD - Daniels, MD and Ellicott City, MD. Most of the sightings have been within the Patapsco State Park...which has a history of unusual activity (UFO, paranormal and cryptid) throughout the park. I still live within 15 miles of all the locations. I decided to come to grips with my encounter and had a sketch or image of the being's face created. I knew that if the image was similar to what I actually witnessed there would be controversy and doubters...but I couldn’t let that bother me. After making a few inquiries, I was directed to a retired police forensics artist who was a private investigator in Florida. I forwarded all the facial descriptions that I had gathered from the witness' sightings and subsequent interviews. I received the image with a note from the artist that read “are you sure this is what you witnessed? It looks like a rendering of early man except for a few features.” I called him and assured him that this is what I witnessed...this is what we all witnessed. This was the 'Sykesville Monster'. A few years after my Bigfoot encounter I happened upon an older gentleman named Phil who was fishing on Piney Run near Marriottsville, MD. I had been trying out a new fly rod upstream and confronted Phil as he was packing up gear by his car. We started talking about a few odds and ends when he mentioned that skeletal remains of a large 'human' had been found on the Piney Run south bank not far from where we were standing. He said that another fisherman had chanced upon the bones while he wandered off the trail. After the discovery the man simply mentioned to a few other fishermen that there were bones in that direction as he gestured to the area. Phil said that he and a companion walked over to the other side of the stream to take a look at the remains. He said that some of the bones were obviously missing but there was a skull without a jawbone as well as the vertebrae, a few ribs and long bones of the arms and legs. There was no visible tissue but there were a few small desiccated patches of reddish brown fur scattered around. Phil said that both he and his companion both muttered at the same time "where are the clothes?" Then Phil said "this is too big to be a human." This was back in the early 1980's so there were no cell phones. Phil's companion walked to the small store by the Patapsco River Bridge to call the police. As they waited for the authorities Phil took out his fish tape and measured the upper arm bone (Humerus)...he remembered it measure 22 inches. Phil's observations and conclusions were that it was something similar to a large ape or gorilla. He also mentioned that the skull looked very much human but larger. After the Baltimore County Police and State Police arrived on the scene everyone was advised to leave the area. In fact, Phil said they placed crime scene tape across the road so no one could get within 300 yards of the location. He said he and a few others hung around the general store by the railroad tracks so they could see who was coming and going from the scene. There were unmarked helicopters bringing people on-site as well as several unmarked vehicles. These vehicles were similar to what I had seen after my encounter. There was never any mention on the local news. As a result of the information I gathered from witnesses and residents I assume that there may have been a breeding population of Bigfoot in the Patapsco State Park. The most recent sighting was in 1993 by an 8 year old boy in the Woodstock, MD area...a few miles downriver from Marriottsville. There was a report filed for a sighting in 2001 at the Liberty Reservoir (witnesses thought they saw Bigfoot on frozen lake). Since the area is now heavily zoned for residential dwellings, it's obvious to me that these creature breeding units have moved on to more natural locations.
Bigfoot is an all-American monster. The mythical ape – a bastardized version of the Yeti – has supposedly been spotted in every state in the union except Hawaii (because that’d just be silly) and has been co-opted into a spokesape for jerky, pizza, and beer. Americans ripped off an existing tall tale, created hoaxes to bring the fiction to life, and ultimately tapped into Sasquatch’s pop culture appeal to make a quick buck. As far as cryptozoological legends go, Bigfoot is a great American mascot. I’m sure Bigfoot believers are already bridling at this post. There is a very active community of Sasquatch devotees who are certain that there is an as-yet-unrecognized species of ape wandering through North America’s forests. They’d prefer that we forget the multiple hoaxes and turn our attention to personal anecdotes and what they claim as physical evidence for the critter. The most common tangible thread is hair. That would make some sense. A furry ape traipsing through the bushes and briars would have to leave some hairs behind. But are these mystery tufts truly indications of Bigfoot’s reality? Science says no. Earlier this month, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Institute of Human Genetics researcher Bryan Sykes and colleagues published the identity of 30 hair samples said to have been shed by “anomalous primates”, including hairs believed to belong to Bigfoot. The team didn’t find any evidence of elusive apes. Genetic analysis of 18 “Sasquatch” samples – collected from locations from Texas to Washington – turned out to be from much more familiar beasts. The “Bigfoot” hairs, Sykes and coauthors concluded, came from raccoons, sheep, black bears, porcupine, horses, canids, deer, and cows. [Sasquatch isn't real, but the creature's pop-culture cred is good for selling jerky.] Bigfoot isn’t the only legendary ape around, of course. Sykes and colleagues also tested hair samples purported to be from the original mythical hominoid, the Yeti of the Himalayas, as well as the lesser-known Almasty of Russia and Orang Pendek of Sumatra. There was no inexplicable “cryptid” evidence in any of the samples. The Orang Pendek hair came from a tapir, while the Almasty fur originated with bears, horses, cows, and raccoons. But the researchers did find something unexpected. One of the Yeti hairs once grew on a goat-like ungulate called a serow, in line with a previous study, but two of the samples best matched genetic sequences from a polar bear that lived in the Himalayas over 40,000 years ago. This could be a sign that there is an unrecognized species of bear in the Himalayas, of recent polar bears in the area that have a darker hair color to make them look like brown bears, or of hybrids between polar bears and brown bears, Sykes and coauthors suggest. Then again, the mitochondrial genes the researchers zeroed in on weren’t informative enough to distinguish between dogs, coyotes, and wolves in other sampled hairs, meaning that launching a hunt for a new bear species on the genetic evidence along would be a tad premature. Perhaps the odd bear hairs are simply from Himalayan brown bears that have undoubted contributed to the legend of the Yeti. As the Sykes paper and journal commentor Norman MacLeod both point out, the new study doesn’t absolutely disprove the existence of Bigfoot and company. But the paper does add to the crushing pile of non-evidence. With all the alleged sightings out across almost the whole of North America, you’d think there’d be so many populations of Bigfoot that you’d regularly find them raiding garbage in suburban neighborhoods or at least leaving behind some tangible sign of their existence in America’s woodlands. They haven’t. If Bigfoot lives anywhere, it’s in our imagination – a symbol of the wild, the unknown, and how our species is excellent at turning superstition into advertising. MacLeod, N. 2014. Molecular analysis of “anomalous primate” hair samples. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 20140843. Sykes, B., Mullis, R., Hagenmuller, C., Melton, T., Sartori, M. 2014. Genetic analysis of hair samples attributed to yeti, bigfoot, and other anomalous primates. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 281: 20140161
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on March 10th, 2014 Linda Godfrey has posted a new blog concerning the connection between cryptid canids and UFOs: Illustration by Nathan D. Godfrey, all rights reserved One question I hear a lot from radio callers, blog readers and conference attendees is whether I think that unknown, upright canine creatures are related to UFOs. It’s actually a concept that’s been around for some time and is also asked in regard to Bigfoot and other cryptids. My usual answer is that while I don’t have any reports from witnesses who’ve seen a dogman hopping directly off a UFO (although I know there are a few cases where people have claimed this about Bigfoot), it just so happens that places where mystery creatures abound are also often UFO hotspots. A perfect example of this type of area is the northern unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest which stretches through Sheboygan, Fond du Lac and Washington Counties in Wisconsin. This wooded, well-watered and hilly terrain encompasses the Holy Hill region which has had numerous sightings of upright, wolf-like creatures — probably the most famous of which was the 2006 incident where the DNR’s carcass removal contractor saw one such beast drag a fresh deer from the back of his pickup truck. It’s also an area where many Bigfoot have been spotted, and includes old legends of a Goatman and ancient sacred places to boot. It’s just as well known for its UFO activity. The city of Hartford, in fact, was named the site of one of the Top 10 UFO Cases of 2012 by the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON. The incident occurred July 13 when a woman in her 50s and her daughter both saw a silent, lampshade-shaped object equipped with lights and measuring about two hundred feet long zip over the trees in their yard before shooting away in classic UFO style. The sighting lasted about half a minute, which is actually longer than most sightings of unknown phenomena. Read the rest of the story here. Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005. I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films: OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
lectionhome authors titles dates links about stalking the ghost bird 15 july 2009 I have now read three books about the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in the past five years. Michael Steinberg's Stalking the Ghost Bird is a special entry in the bibliography of the great woodpecker. Steinberg concentrates his investigation on the ivory-bill in Louisiana, where no definitive scientific proof exists of its survival. Yet if the bird survives in Arkansas, where the best evidence has been found, there is all the more reason to suspect that it survives in Louisiana, where the best and largest habitats persist. On such slim grounds, Steinberg constructs an eminently readable and informative book. The underlying theme of Ghost Bird might be ornithological epistemology. How do we know that an endangered bird species is unextinct? Catching one and putting it in a zoo would be nice. Shooting one would not be so nice, and would have the nefarious consequence that you might well have shot the very last of its kind. Video, still photos, and distinctive audio recordings are the next-best thing. The birding community has its own protocols for authenticating sightings, based on corroboration and field notes. Non-professional folk culture has yet another set of rules. Credentials of the observers matter, too. Steinberg is more inclined to believe non-birders than birders; non-birders have no life-lists to expand. Otherwise indifferent duck and deer hunters are his most reliable informants. From there, though, it's another step down to neophyte and casual birdwatchers, and thence to mild crazies like the individual who took Steinberg out into impossible habitat in the Atchafalaya Basin and got him well and truly lost in search of what couldn't have been ivory-bills at all. Steinberg, while retaining utmost respect for credentialed observers, trusts "folk" sightings more than most writers do. Lots of people are still around who remember ivory-bills as fairly common sights from their childhoods in the 1930s and before. Many people know the birds of the South in familiar, intimate ways. Some even ate chicken-fried ivory-bill during the Depression. They are going to know whether or not they've seen the South's most famous avian. I am never going to see an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in the wild. (I have had trouble enough finding one in a museum, though I wandered into a back corridor of the American Museum of Natural History a few years ago and ran across an Imperial Woodpecker in a semi-abandoned glass case. The Imperial, equally endangered and equally common in quasi-cryptid sightings in Mexico, was the ivory-bill's bigger cousin, and equally deserves the name Lord God Bird.) The reasons I won't see the bird in the wild are neatly enumerated by Steinberg. Ivory-bill habitat consists of seasonally-flooded river bottoms that are excellent habitat for mosquitoes, nettles, poisonous snakes, razory palmettos, bears, boars, and alligators. I am moderately distressed by cockroaches, let alone the monsters that dwell in the Atchafalaya. And I'm not alone. Steinberg theorizes that the reason lots of weekend birders haven't scored an ivory-bill is that it takes thousands of hours in very hostile environments to accumulate enough chances to succeed. If only a few dozen mating pairs of the bird survive in hundreds of thousands of swampy acres, it's going to be near-impossible to find them by design. James Tanner's classic studies in the Singer Tract of Northeast Louisiana suggested that the bird was easy to approach; observers clear back to Audubon remarked on its noisy, public nature. But the bird may well have altered its behavior since Tanner basically cornered the last population of any size in the increasingly circumscribed Singer forests. Steinberg also suggests that ivory-bills may migrate quite a bit along river corridors that connect the remaining habitats of the Southern states, which would complicate efforts to search particular sites for them. Another complication is the intense mistrust that local property-owners have for the government. If ivory-bills are found on their land, some Louisiana residents believe, it'll be the spotted owl all over again: Uncle Sam will seize the land and turn it into some kind of tree-hugging preserve. And they thought this, mind you, while George W. Bush was President. Such folks will not be very eager to spread the news about a fabulously endangered species if it shows up in their back yard. I am content to remain a vicarious, armchair hunter for the Ivory-Bill, as long as my experience is channeled through writers as perceptive and engaging as Michael Steinberg. Steinberg, Michael K. Stalking the Ghost Bird: The elusive Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008.
The Flatwoods Monster cm: 8.89 w x 7.62 d x 17.78 h in: 3.5 w x 3 d x 7 h Number in existence: 13 The Flatwoods Monster, also known as the Braxton County Monster or the Phantom of Flatwoods, is an alleged unidentified extraterrestrial or cryptid reported to have been sighted in the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, West Virginia, United States on September 12, 1952. Stories of the creature are an example of a purported close encounter of the third kind. Various descriptions of the entity exist. Most agree that it was at least 7 feet (2.1 m) tall, had a black body, and a black face which appeared to glow from within. Witnesses described the creature's head as elongated, with non-human eyes. Witnesses describe the head as either shaped like a sideways diamond, or as having a large circular cowling behind it. The creature's body was described as inhumanly-shaped and clad in a dark pleated exoskeleton; later described as a shadow. Some accounts record that the creature appeared to have "no visible arms" due to its incredible speed. Others describe it as having long, stringy arms which protruded from the front of its body, ending in long, claw-like fingers.
AGLENNCO is a Calgary-based artist and part-time cryptid who can be found online, right now, telling tales. She makes images from ink, paper, and lies; and objects from felt, string, and misunderstandings. She has a BFA from Parsons, the New School for Design and will soon have an MFA from the Alberta College of Art + Design. She has shown at the Society of Illustrators, worked with Dandelion Wine Collective, illustrated for BOOM! Studios, and runs Curse Club. Contact Me: email@example.com 2016 John Klammer 3D Award // Society of Illustrators 2016 Pitman Art Stroll 2017 Exquisite Corpse // Markeim Arts Center
Mothman- the famous red-eyed owl-like creature who allegedly stalked the skies of Point Pleasant, Virginia in the mid-1960s- appears to have relocated… and multiplied! Vice reports that there were 55 cases of Mothman sightings in Chicago last year, and that the encounters indicate that people may be spotting at least three different winged critters! The story starts with a quote from John Amitrano, who works security for a Logan Square restaurant called The Owl, who says he saw something unusual outside the building: “I saw a plane flying, but also something moving really awkwardly under it. It didn’t look like a bat so much as what illustrations of pterodactyls look like, with the slenderness of its head and its wing shape. I know what birds and what bats look like. This thing didn’t have any feathers or fur, and it didn’t fly like anything I’ve ever seen.” Amitrano further described the creature as having, “muscular legs, a jutting tailbone, and a human-like shape (which flew in a) strange swooping motion, undulating up and down.” Vice analyzed similar Mothman sightings in Chicago in 2017, and found the following similarities in the reports: “a large, black, bat-like being with glowing red eyes” to “a big owl” or something that resembled a “Gothic gargoyle” or a “Mothman.” Most eyewitnesses spotted the being in-flight, but some particularly disturbing reports detailed it dropping onto hoods of cars, peering in through windows, and swooping down at bystanders.” The website spoke with Lon Strickler, who runs a cryptid website called Phantoms and Monsters and authored the book Mothman Dynasty: Chicago’s Winged Humanoids. Strickler has been interviewing people who claim to have experienced these kinds of sightings, and he has come to the following conclusion: “This group of sightings is historical in cryptozoology terms. For one, it’s happening in an urban area for the most part and that there are so many sightings in one period.” According to Vice, Strickler believes, “there are at least three flying humanoids around Chicago due to the varied locations, the concentration of sightings in certain neighborhoods, and the small differences in the eyewitness testimonies.” While the Mothman sightings of Point Pleasant, Virginia ultimately culminated in the tragic collapse of Silver Bridge into the Ohio River on December 15th, 1967, Strickler does not believe that the creature sighted in Chicago is here to deliver a similar omen: “These beings are less aggressive than the one in Point Pleasant, for the most part. I believe overall there was only one being in the Point Pleasant-area that was seen during that period… I think they’re flesh and blood beings that aren’t of this world.” At least they’re less aggressive! Vice’s article concludes with an interview with University of Chicago psychologist Dr. David A. Gallo, who provides a healthy dose of skepticism to the sensational story of the return of Mothman (Moth… men? There’s three of them now, right?): “There’s a phenomenon where there’s basically some real witnessed experience, but if there are holes or gaps in that original experience, sometimes the mind is unable to fill in the gaps… If something is suggested to them subsequently as a plausible scenario—like a Mothman or whatever—that person might be inclined to fill in the gaps with that.” But where’s the fun in that!? Stay tuned to Horror News Network for more details on upcoming Mothman appearances, or any other famous cryptid encounters which may occur in 2018!
This special installment first appeared as an exclusive debut for Unwinnable Monthly #84 (2016). Please visit Michael Bukowski’s blog to see his artistic interpretations of Coeurl and Xtl here. When Michael Bukowski and I first hatched the concept for this project at NecronomiCon 2015, my working title was some clunky monstrosity along the lines of “Great Weird Stories Hidden in Plain Sight.” Fortunately Michael suggested Stories from the Borderland, the far more felicitous rubric under which our humble idea ultimately burst into the world. Never let it be said that the artist in this partnership doesn’t pull his weight on the prose side as well—something he managed more than once in this installment—whereas I am pretty much dead weight when it comes to the artistic end of things. Fortunately, Michael has that side covered. Yet though the concept behind that original title has dwindled from sight like the oranges and sardines in Frank O’Hara’s famous poem “Why I Am Not a Painter,” it remains operative nonetheless. Stories From the Borderland was never intended as a selection of “deep cuts.” Our mission from the beginning has been to show that many of the most important stories in Weird Fiction truly are hidden in plain sight, often in other genres, especially science fiction. In previous installments of this series, Michael and I have examined tales of cosmic horror and weirdness by such canonical science fiction authors as James Tiptree Jr., Arthur C. Clarke, J.-H. Rosny aîné and John W. Campbell. Campbell’s novella “Who Goes There” in particular—his most successful story and probably the most obvious selection we’ve tackled—has left an enormous footprint on science fiction, horror and The Weird. This time around we explore “The Black Destroyer” and “Discord in Scarlet,” a pair of closely related stories by A.E. Van Vogt whose combined impact may just be to “Who Goes There” what King Ghidorah is to Barney. The shadow of these two tales falls heavily over some of the most famous films and franchises in the speculative fiction universe. From tiny eggs, my friends… Continue reading “Stevie and The Dark” “And a Little Child—” “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah 11:6, KJV Many are the reasons why great Weird stories slip through the cracks of whatever passes for a canon of Weird Fiction. Slip through the cracks, fly under the radar, remain hidden by a veil, obscured by clouds…choose your metaphor. Canon may not be the right word either for this thing we share, but it’s our thing, and we all need to work on it together. Here at Stories from the Borderland, we take that mission seriously. so damn the would-be gatekeepers, full steam ahead! Over the last couple years, Michael Bukowski and I have presented tales that have been forgotten and others that never became memories, formerly ubiquitous stories that haven’t seen a reprint for a generation or more, works by authors whose entire known oeuvres consist of only one or two stories, stories never translated into English, and most of all, stories hidden in plain sight that no one thinks of as Weird because everyone identifies their authors with science fiction, fantasy, or mainstream lit. Here are purloined letters of Weird Fiction, if you will, though here we are liberating what never had to be stolen in the first place. Even in this company, Zenna Henderson is a special case. Not only was she one of a very few mid-century female authors publishing science fiction under her own name (along with Margaret St. Clair, whom we have previously featured), her approach to the genre was vastly different from most of the Campbellian “Golden Age” science fiction writers, with the exception of the “pastoralist” Clifford D. Simak, to whom she is often compared, and whose work shares a combination of rural settings and a certain tonal background with Henderson’s. I realize, though, that Simak is both fraught and apt as a reference point, in that neither author is a household name today, even in houses where spec lit maintains a hold. The fact that the most frequently invoked comparison point for Henderson’s fiction is an increasingly obscure male author should emphasize the overall uniqueness of both her work and her position in speculative fiction.1 There really was no one like her, nor has there been since (except maybe Nnedi Okorafor). Continue reading “I’d called my slab ‘science fiction,’ but the art I’d cultivate would be the art of interstice, burrowing from surface to previously unconnected surface, through the waiting wealth of weirdness I sensed between those surfaces.” —William Gibson, blog post Jan. 8, 2003 With special thanks to Edward Austin Hall, Marc Laidlaw, and especially Lewis Shiner for their invaluable support and assistance… By now it should be obvious to readers of this series that science fiction is a virtual cornucopia of only loosely camouflaged great Weird Fiction. Without its own literary ecosystem to occupy during the previous century, The Weird quietly, patiently extended its mycelia beneath the leaf-littered forest floors of science fiction, fantasy, and mainstream modes alike, infiltrating their various oΐkoi with utter disregard for critical taxonomy. Now that its fruiting bodies are bursting forth all around us in a Weird Renaissance, we can finally take some measure of its full expanse. Here at Stories from the Borderland we specialize in spotting and plotting those loci where weirdness has long since spread beneath the surface, and we work like tireless truffle pigs, snuffling up the treasures we deliver you on our finest silver serving ware. This week’s fungal entrée comes your way with a side of brains. Continue reading A mysterious resident of Manitoba named John E. Wall coined the term “cryptid” in a 1983 letter to the newsletter of the now-defunct International Society of Cryptozoology. Credit for the coinage of “cryptozoology” goes to either Ivan T. Sanderson, Bernard T. Heuvelmans, or Lucien Blancou. Though the word’s exact origins are appropriately unclear, it definitely appeared in print by 1959. The first usage of “weird” in the literary sense now familiar to us belongs either to Sheridan LeFanu in the late nineteenth century or H.P. Lovecraft in the early twentieth. Cryptids and cryptozoology however, have been fixtures of Weird Fiction since long before popular culture cemented any of these terms in their current forms and denotations.1 Michael Bukowski and I began this Third Series of Stories from the Borderland with “The Cactus” by Mildred Johnson, a mysterious author with only two publication credits to her name: the first a great Weird Tale, the second a more conventional ghost story. Now we are ending with “The Inhabitant of the Pond” by Linda Thornton…another mysterious author with only two publication credits to her name: the first a great Weird Tale, the second a more conventional ghost story. Obviously Michael and I were conscious of the parallels when we chose these stories, and should the readiness with which we found two such similar examples lead you to consider what this says about the circumscribed trajectories of female authors in Weird Fiction, the flat circular nature of time, or our esthetics and intentions behind this project, then we encourage you to think with those things. Ces sont bonnes à penser. Continue reading
Series: The Eternal Series Vol. 1 Author: Candy Crum Genre: NA Paranormal Romance Publisher: Candy Crum Cover By: Megan Parker with EmCat Designs Editor: Nathan Squiers with Literary Dark Editing Exspected Date of Publishing: April 13th, 2014 A young girl (Kailah) discovers that she is from a lost and forgotten powerful Immortal blood line after she meets a strange new physician at work. She begins to have visions and see spirits and has trouble controlling bad things from happening when she is angry. Along the way she discovers the terrible truth about who she is and the incredible power that is locked away deep inside her. Her Immortal ancestors want to use her to destroy the vampire race. Vampires want to use her power to destroy her Immortal ancestors. But hiding in the shadows are those who have been watching her since she was born. They want to help Kailah discover who she is and help her learn to use her abilities. They simply want for her to make the right decision before it’s too late. Unfortunately for them time is not on their side and the Rogue Vampires have plans for Kailah no one could have imagined. Title: Reveal (Cryptid Tales #1) Author: Brina Courtney Genre: YA Paranormal Romance You think seeing ghosts is weird? Tell me something I don’t know. Shay Tafford’s childhood has been fatherless, filled instead with memories of speaking to the dead. She is forced to hide her unique ability from those living around her. That’s why it’s been comforting to have Jeremy, a child ghost, as her confidante. But recently he’s been absent, perhaps lost as her father is. When Shay meets Hugh, the guy she’s had a crush on for weeks, and finds he can speak to ghosts too, she’s just starting to find a normalcy in her life. But as Hugh reveals the truth to Shay, about who she really is and about what it is she can do, he erases all chances she had at a normal existence. Turns out talking to ghosts is just scratching the surface of her genetically engineered gifts. Shay learns she may be part of an age old prophecy that could save the entire race of cryptids. But can she? “So here I am with a dead girl in my car, in a super creepy forest, stalking a potentially dead father…yeah, not one of my brightest moments.”“She sighs, “Shay you can’t live your life in fear. If you do there’s just no point in living.” “He turns and leaves, heading towards the math building and though I hate to see him leave, I do love to watch him walk away.” Brina Courtney is a young adult author obsessed with chocolate, crime shows, and fantasy movies. She’s spent the last few years as an elementary teacher and a high school cheering coach. She lives in a small town in Pennsylvania with her husband and two very loud, small dogs. AUTHOR: Daniel Diehl RELEASE DATE: Dec 20, 2013 BOOK GENRE: Historical Fiction/ Family Saga/ Inspirational The story of Noah and the Great Flood is unquestionably one of the most beloved and uplifting tales from the Old Testament. Its story of spiritual awakening, family oriented values, good versus evil and the redemption of mankind has warmed the hearts of people of faith for thousands of years. While Deluge is a novelized adaptation of the scriptural story of the Great Flood, it adheres closely to the Biblical text and should find a ready market among all Christian denominations as well as the Jewish community. ‘Deluge’ deals not only with the story of the Great Flood itself, but also with the relationship between Noah’s family, who are presented here as fully-rounded human beings who find themselves caught in the unprecedented nightmare of a world-destroying flood brought on by a God whose existence they had never suspected. In counterpoint to the story’s main theme is the evolving relationship between the members of Noah’s extended family and their collective relations with a world so hostile and dangerous that God has decided to destroy human life. Deluge is designed as a ‘family’ book and should be accessible and acceptable to all readers over the age of 14 or 15 years and will make ideal family reading for all peoples with a faith in God’s grace. Considering that virtually every major culture has told the story of a great, all engulfing flood which took place at some time in the distant past, Deluge will be embraced by both conservative and liberal Christians, as well as Jews and will find a ready market among all faiths and denominations as well as those interested in ancient history in general. I received a free ecopy of this book for an honest review. In Deluge, Noah is presented in a way that I hadn’t pictured him and it opened my eyes to the struggles that he most likely did go through when God came to him. I am normally not one to enjoy reading long, detailed descriptions but this book is an exception. The details of wine-making interested me because my son is a winemaker. And the building of the ark was fascinating. I always knew a lot went into it but reading the detail made me stop and think what a huge undertaking it actually was. The author did a lot of research for this book and it’s obvious. At the end of the book he explained the research he did and included copies of the documents he used for his research. I found this part information as interesting as the book itself. He also explained some of the liberties he took to make a better story and to make it an easier read. Daniel Diehl is also good at describing human interaction. There were a couple times I caught myself with my mouth hanging open. I definitely recommend Deluge, especially if you like historical and/or Christian fiction. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Daniel Diehl is an author and investigative historian with more than thirty years experience in his field. He has authored three novels and co-authored 20 historical based, non-fiction books (see below), written more than 170 hours of documentary television and contributed to numerous periodicals. Mr. Diehl’s lifetime book sales exceed 200,000 English language units and his work has been translated into nine foreign languages. He has served as historical consultant on such films as The Color Purple (Amblin Entertainment, 1986), and Darrow (PBS Television Theatre, 1991) and Baskin’s Run (Finnegan’s Wake Productions, 1994). Dan Diehl’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/daniel.diehl.31 Deluge Website: http://deluge1.webs.com/ Jacqs is a twenty-eight year old woman caught up in an on again, off again relationship with Bond, who is her best friend and the one who causes her the most heartache. She succumbs, yet again, to his powerful charisma, but vows not make it into more than it is, a great night of sex. Bond, too sexy for his own good, wants Jacqs for himself as he “dates” his way through the female population of South Florida. He selfishly doesn’t see the conflict of interest. Red, Bond’s best friend, has watched Bond take Jacqs for granted for way too long and soon stakes his own claim on her. Will Red and Jacqs budding relationship pull apart their tight-knit group of friends and will Jacqs survive being Stuck In Between. Arrive to work at 7:58 A.M. sharp. Check. Count forty-seven steps to cubicle. Check. Arrange pens in their red-blue-black-green-purple order of importance. Check. Apply hand sanitizer before opening email. Double check. And that’s just the first few minutes of her work day. Thirty-one-year-old proofreader Bailey Mitchell is a slave to her tics. She inherited Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder from her father, and it’s done nothing but inhibit her love life. She’s run the gamut of boyfriends—none of them willing or able to cope with her condition. Enter 32-year-old Reece Powell, her new coworker at Beach Elite Marketing Firm. He’s more than willing to cope. He finds her habits cute and quirky . . . for now. Reece wins her over, and life coasts along for them until Bailey experiences a devastating blow. Tragedy exacerbates her OCD, and Reece realizes her tics aren’t so cute and quirky anymore. Just like all the others, he has the choice to leave. But Reece isn’t like all the others. The Wilmington Saga Follow the stories of Wilmington, NC residents as they fall in and out of love, mend and break hearts, grow, change, lose, win, and experience what it means to truly live in this small coastal community. Evie Sanchez is recovering from heartbreak by working at her parents’ Filipino restaurant when in walks Romeo Garcia, the boy she left behind. Only now, he’s a hot movie star surrounded by gorgeous actresses and adoring fans. Bad boy Romeo Garcia never understood why Evie stood him up at the prom. When he rescues her from a flying coconut in the dumpster, he is determined to dig into her heart for the reason. Their mutual attraction and unresolved feelings ignite in a scintillating night of daring sex, and Romeo shows Evie what she’ll miss the rest of her life if she walks away again. Evie lands a part as Romeo’s co-star and falls into her role, totally in love. He plays his part, too, with his romantic gestures and skillful lovemaking. But is the fantasy real or revenge? Evie and Romeo are about to discover if their buried feelings will explode in pure delight or utter disaster. Release date: April 20, 2014 Genre: YA Romantic Suspense Lucy Tate is on the run. After witnessing the brutal murder of her parents, she’s spent five years in hiding — taking on different personas and faking her way through life. The authorities can’t be trusted, so she remains in the shadows, always one beat ahead of the man who is forever hunting her. That is, until she meets Zach Schultz, a senior at Monte Vista High and the one guy she can’t bear to leave. Suddenly her natural instincts to lie, steal, and run are overshadowed by something else…the desire to stay. It’s her one shot at a normal life. Curious by nature, Zach is immediately drawn to the new girl at school. How can a person look both confident and vulnerable all in the same moment? Determined to learn more about her, he tries to get close, but is thrown into a world of lies and confusion. The only thing that becomes apparent is that discovering the truth may get him killed. Continue reading Purchase on Amazon Purchase on B&N Contains mild spoilers if you haven’t read Here, the first book in the trilogy. When Milo Mitchell falls for the beautiful, tuxedo-clad guy she found wandering her family’s rural Colorado property, she never dreamed he was a scout from another galaxy, or that their relationship would leave him with an impossible choice: eradicating humankind, or initiating the end of his own people. Nick’s job is finding the elements his people need to power their elaborate interweb of minds. Being a scout means he is capable of traveling to other planets on his own. It also means that, unlike The Rest, he has access to primitive feelings and individual desires. For eons, he was part of the whole, but when he encountered Milo, his obsession with her changed everything. Nick’s partner, Vera, is capable of independent thought, but not compelled by it. She is satisfied with her existence as one of The Rest, and she won’t agree that humans are worth sparing; not when their planet has a precious cache of the gold her people need so badly. While Vera tries to force Nick into endorsing an Earth invasion, working behind the scenes to tie his hands, and the Department of Defense lays a trap for them with Milo’s mom as bait, Nick and Milo are waging their own war – against a primal desire that can only lead to one thing: heartbreak. About Ella James Ella James is a Colorado author who writes teen and adult romance. She is happily married to a man who knows how to wield a red pen, and together they are raising a feisty two-year-old who will probably grow up believing everyone’s parents go to war over the placement of a comma. Ella’s books have been listed on numerous Amazon bestseller lists, including the Movers & Shakers list and the Amazon Top 100; two were listed among Amazon’s Top 100 Young Adult Ebooks of 2012. To find out more about Ella’s projects and get dates on upcoming releases, find her on Facebook at facebook.com/ellajamesauthorpage and follow her blog, www.ellajamesbooks.com. Questions or comments? Tweet her at author_ellaj or e-mail her at firstname.lastname@example.org. The Fortune Café a novel in three parts MIS-FORTUNE: Emma, a waitress at The Fortune Café will do anything to avoid opening a fortune cookie. Each fortune is rumored to somehow magically come true. Being a girl grounded in reality, she doesn’t have time for that kind of nonsense. But when trying to prevent a food fight at the café, Emma accidently cracks open a fortune cookie: “Look around, love is trying to catch you.” If there is one thing that Harrison, her former best friend in high school is good at, it’s catching her unaware. LOVE, NOT LUCK: Lucy has always been lucky . . . until her parents meet her fiancé’s parents at a disastrous lunch at The Fortune Café, and she breaks her lucky jade necklace. Even worse, her fortune cookie reveals that “True love is for the brave, not the lucky.” How is she supposed to read that? She’s always considered it lucky how she met her fiancé. But after breaking her necklace, Lucy’s luck takes a dive. And when her fiancé dumps her, the only person she can turn to is Carter, the unluckiest guy she knows. TAKEOUT: Stella is content in her new life of taking over her mom’s jewelry shop. No more boyfriend to worry about, and as long as she stays busy, she doesn’t have to dwell on her non-existent love life. When Evan comes into the shop with his young daughter, Stella is charmed. But she is reluctant to complicate her straightforward life, so when she reads her fortune after ordering takeout from The Fortune Café, she completely ignores it. After all, how can a fortune as vague as “Do the thing you fear and love is certain,” apply to her?
Following on the heels of yesterday's post about Dr. Melba Ketchum and the maybe-perhaps-sort-of confirmation of Sasquatch DNA from a hair sample, we now have a story wherein the Brits (not to be outdone by a bunch of upstart Americans) are claiming their own Bigfoot-clone. [Source] Nicknamed "The Beast of Tunbridge Wells," this cryptid is described as an eight-foot-tall beast, human-shaped but covered with hair, with "long arms" and "demonic red eyes." Some locals are afraid to go outside at night because there have been so many sightings in the past six months; but the story claims that the thing has been seen for seventy or more years, and describe a sighting that occurred in 1942 and was told to a "man named Graham S." Well, far be it from me to doubt any anecdotal reports from "a man named Graham S.," but let me just interject a bit of a science lesson that may raise some questions in your mind. There's a concept in ecology called "minimum viable population." This is the number of organisms needed in a population to assure that (assuming nothing changes) the birth rate equals or exceeds the death rate. It is quite difficult to estimate, and depends on a great many factors, including the number of offspring per mating, mortality in the young, dependency on available resources, size of the territory, and so on. To give two extreme examples that will illustrate this: the MVP for mosquitoes is probably pretty damn close to two, as long as one was male and one was female, and they were near enough to find each other and had a source of food and water. Mosquitoes can produce so many young from one mating that it's likely you could rebuild a sizable population in short order from those two survivors. Elephants, on the other hand, reproduce very slowly, and the young are slow to reach sexual maturity; in order to have a population large enough for the birth rate to equal or exceed the death rate (from natural causes, predators, poaching, and so on), you would need hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals in the population. Get it? Now, let's consider how many Britsquatches we'd need to have a viable, sustainable population. To get a handle on this, I referred to the paper "Estimates of Minimum Viable Population Sizes for Vertebrates and Factors Influencing Those Estimates," by David Reed, Julian O'Grady, Barry Brook, Jonathan Ballou, and Richard Frankham, which appeared in the Journal of Biological Conservation in 2003. The paper is lucidly written but relies on some rather specialized models and technical mathematics; if you want to give it a go, you can access it here. The main thing of interest for our purposes is in the Appendix, wherein Reed et al. use their techniques to make an upper and lower bound estimate for MVP; the lower bound is just using raw birth and death rates, the upper bound generated from a mathematical formula that estimates the number of individuals required to give a 99% likelihood of the population sustaining for forty generations. Interestingly, there is a large primate species listed -- the Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei). And Reed et al. place the lower bound for MVP for the Mountain Gorilla at 849, and the upper bound at somewhat over 11,000 individuals. So assuming the Tunbridge Britsquatch (Sasquatchius anglicus kentei) has a similar MVP, and has been wandering about the highways and byways of southeastern England since time immemorial (or at least since 1942), you can't just claim that there are two, or four, or even a dozen of them... you have to believe that there are thousands. Maybe some of my readers live in southeastern England, and might be able to explain how there could be a thousand (or more) eight-foot-tall hairy hominids hiding out down there, doing all the things animals do -- feeding (and an animal that size would need a lot of food), making noise, sleeping, mating, dying, and so on -- and they've only been seen a handful of times near Tunbridge Wells. That such a thing could happen in the trackless woods of the Pacific Northwest, or the icy reaches of the Himalayas, I might be able to believe. But Kent? Really? I'm sorry, but this just sounds preposterous to me. As much as I'd love to see some cryptid discovered, and confirmed by science, I'm betting this won't be the one. In fact, I think what we should be doing is looking for some prankster in Tunbridge Wells with a gorilla suit.
The Secret Saturdays Cartoon Episodes at cartoonshow.net Zak Saturday and his parents, Doc and Drew are a family of world-saving scientists called “The Secret Saturdays.” Living in a hidden base, they are part of a secret organization of scientists known as The Secret Scientists who protect mankind against the hidden and terrifying things of the world. In the series, folktales aren’t just legends, but actual mysteries that the Saturday family must solve. Traveling all over the world, the Saturdays explore ancient temples and bottomless caves, and battle with villains which includes the evil V.V. Argost (who hides his evil plans under his TV show Weird World) and a masked mercenary, who specializes in the capture of cryptids, named Van Rook. Scouring the globe in search of cryptids, the Saturdays attempt to keep the existence of these unusual beasts secret, to protect both mankind and the creatures themselves. The Saturdays and their exotic cryptid pets are a loving bunch, trying to work through everyday family matters and squabbles in-between their adventures. During both seasons the Saturday family is on a race against V.V. Argost to stop Argost from controlling Kur, a mythical all-powerful beast that can supposedly raise a cryptid army. \|# of EP:\|\| If the episode is missing please contact us, thank you
Also by this author: , , , Published by Severed Press on May 1, 2017 Genres: Creature Feature, Dark Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Psychological Horror, Thriller Buy on Amazon The swamp belongs to them. Humans are only prey. Deep in the overgrown swamps of Florida, where humans rarely dare to enter, lives a race of creatures long thought to be only the stuff of legend. They walk upright but are stronger, taller and more brutal than any man. And when a small boat of tourists, held captive by a fleeing criminal, accidentally kills one of the swamp dwellers’ young, the creatures are filled with a terrifyingly human emotion—a merciless lust for vengeance that will paint the trees red with blood. SWAMP MONSTER MASSACRE, by Hunter Shea, is one of his spectacular “creature-feature” novels that I feel he really excels in. With this book, we encounter the fabled “Skunk Apes” deep in the swamps of the Everglades. Mick Chella is about to take off with a boatful of tourists on a journey through the swamps, when he is run into–quite literally–by a man named Rooster Murphy. Unfortunately for all involved, those responsible for Murphy’s initial flight aren’t too particular about who else they harm in their single-minded, murderous attempt . . . One of the things I appreciate the most in Hunter Shea’s writing is his incredible characterization. No matter what “type” of book he’s writing, you can count on getting to know the main characters in great depth and go away with a sense that you read about something that happened to a “real” person. In the case of Rooster Murphy, we also get a fantastic sarcasm-laced personality that adds some comic relief to an otherwise violent, emotional, and gory tale. “. . . No sense getting everyone killed just to see if some old guy had more fishing days ahead of him. It seemed like a good and proper justification.” What starts out with a bang, only gets faster and more complex as the story moves forward. Shea is–in my humble opinion–one of the best of the modern day authors when it comes to these “B-movie style creature-features”. He can take just about any legend, urban myth, or other “monster” commonly thought of as “fake”, and weave a tale that has the power to get you thinking about the possibilities. “. . . it was like watching a couple of little kids tearing a sheet of paper, except with blood spraying in every direction . . . “ In SWAMP MONSTER MASSACRE, even the other characters take on pertinent roles, making them memorable and–in some cases–getting the readers emotionally attached to them. Every scene we read serves to further the plot along; you won’t find any filler or unnecessary info dumps here. “‘You must have been the smartest kid in your class’. . . said with unrestrained sarcasm.” As far as settings go, the swamps in the Everglades come alive in this book! I could picture the barrage of blood-sucking insects, hot and humid temperatures, and the wildlife dangers that could be just as deadly as the legendary Skunk Apes–namely, alligators and poisonous snakes lying hidden in the foliage. “. . . Rooster needed numbers, especially when they all had guns . . . “ Overall, this is a novel that held my unwavering attention from first to last page. Hunter Shea manages to tackle an almost unbelievable topic, and literally bring it alive with his words. Everything from the pacing, to the characters, comments, location, and blood-drenched gore fest felt possible throughout this read. “. . . Only humans had the capacity to hate, to seek revenge, to kill for the sake of killing.” After finishing SWAMP MONSTER MASSACRE, you may just find yourself questioning the validity of that last quote. About Hunter Shea About the Author Hunter Shea is the author of over 20 books, with a specialization in cryptozoological horror that includes’The Jersey Devil, The Dover Demon, Loch Ness Revenge’and many others. . His novel,’The Montauk Monster, was named one of the best reads of the summer by Publishers Weekly. A trip to the International Cryptozoology Museum will find several of his cryptid books among the fascinating displays. Living in a true haunted house inspired his Jessica Backman: Death in the Afterlife series (Forest of Shadows, Sinister Entity’and’Island of the Forbidden). In 2011, he was selected to be a part of the launch of Samhain Publishing’s new horror line alongside legendary author Ramsey Campbell. When he’s not writing thrillers and horror, he also spins tall tales for middle grade readers on Amazon’s highly regarded Rapids reading app. An avid podcaster, he can be seen and heard on Monster Men, one of the longest running video horror podcasts in the world, and Final Guys, focusing on weekly movie and book reviews. His nostalgic column about the magic of 80s horror,’Video Visions, is featured monthly at Cemetery Dance Online. You can find his short stories in a number of anthologies, including’Chopping Block Party, The Body Horror Book’and’Fearful Fathoms II. A lifetime New Yorker, Hunter is supported by his loving wife and two beautiful daughters. When he’s not studying up on cryptozoology, he’s an avid explorer of the unknown, having spent a night alone on the Queen Mary, searching for the Warren’s famous White Lady of the Union Cemetery and other mysterious places. You can follow his travails at’www.huntershea.com.’ I am an avid reader/reviewer of books--primarily horror, thriller, supernatural, and mystery.
Now of course the real reason why I have tried to be so very precise about the human-like as opposed to the apelike sightings commonly alotted to the Orang Pendek is of course the fact that we have some very good fossils of some very little people that formerly inhabited Indonesia, and these fossils are tenatively classified as Homo floresensis. On the island of Flores (Which is off the far end of Java by Sumatra's perspective) there is also the story of the Ebu Gugo, little hairy men that ate anything and were considered a pest until the ancestors of the current Islanders herded them into a cave and lit fires in front, choking them all to death with the smoke. This is the same story told of the Nittaweo in Ceylon and is widespread as Folklore otherwise: the same story is repeated in Alaska and in Patagonia in Southern South America. \|Female Homo habilis Skull from Kenya, Bone Clones.\| Here is a nice summary about the Flores Hobbit problem from The Strange World of Mystery site: Indeed, the more scientists study the specimens and their implications, the more they are drawn to heretical speculation. ¶Were these primitive survivors of even earlier hominid migrations out of Africa, before Homo erectus migrated about 1.8 million years ago? Could some of the earliest African toolmakers, around 2.5 million years ago, have made their way across Asia? ¶Did some of these migrants evolve into new species in Asia, which moved back to Africa? Two-way traffic is not unheard of in other mammals. ¶Or could the hobbits be an example of reverse evolution? That would seem even more bizarre; there are no known cases in primate evolution of a wholesale reversion to some ancestor in its lineage. The possibilities get curiouser and curiouser, said William L. Jungers of Stony Brook University, making hobbits “the black swan of paleontology — totally unpredicted and inexplicable.” Everything about them seems incredible. They were very small, not much more than three feet tall, yet do not resemble any modern pygmies. They walked upright on short legs, but might have had a peculiar gait obviating long-distance running. The single skull that has been found is no bigger than a grapefruit, suggesting a brain less than one-third the size of a human’s, yet they made stone tools similar to those produced by other hominids with larger brains. They appeared to live isolated on an island as recently as 17,000 years ago, well after humans had made it to Australia. Although the immediate ancestor of modern humans, Homo erectus, lived in Asia and the islands for hundreds of thousands of years, the hobbits were not simply scaled-down erectus. In fact, erectus and Homo sapiens appear to be more closely related to each other than either is to the hobbit, scientists have determined. It is no wonder, then, that the announcement describing the skull and the several skeletons as remains of a previously unknown hominid species, Homo floresiensis, prompted heated debate. Critics contended that these were merely modern human dwarfs afflicted with genetic or pathological disorders. Scientists who reviewed hobbit research at a symposium here last week said that a consensus had emerged among experts in support of the initial interpretation that H. floresiensis is a distinct hominid species much more primitive than H. sapiens. On display for the first time at the meeting was a cast of the skull and bones of a H. floresiensis, probably an adult female. Several researchers showed images of hobbit brain casts in comparison with those of deformed human brains. They said this refuted what they called the “sick hobbit hypothesis.” They also reported telling shoulder and wrist differences between humans and the island inhabitants. Even so, skeptics have not capitulated. They note that most of the participants at the symposium had worked closely with the Australian and Indonesian scientists who made the discovery in 2003 and complain that their objections have been largely ignored by the news media and organizations financing research on the hobbits. Some prominent paleoanthropologists are reserving judgment, among them Richard Leakey, the noted hominid fossil hunter who is chairman of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University. Like other undecided scientists, he cited the need to find more skeletons at other sites, especially a few more skulls. Mr. Leakey conceded, however, that the recent research “greatly strengthened the possibility” that the Flores specimens represented a new species. At the symposium, Michael J. Morwood, an archaeologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia who was one of the discoverers, said that further investigations of stone tools had determined that hominids arrived at Flores as early as 880,000 years ago and “it is reasonable to assume that those were ancestors of the hobbits.” But none of their bones have been uncovered, so they remain unidentified, and no modern human remains have been found there earlier than 11,000 years ago. Excavations are continuing at Liang Bua, a wide-mouth cave in a hillside where the hobbit bones were found in deep sediments, but no more skulls or skeletons have turned up. Dr. Morwood said the search would be extended to other Flores sites and nearby islands. Peter Brown, a paleontologist at the University of New England in Australia, said that his examination of the premolars and lower jaws of the specimens made it almost immediately “very, very clear that this was a hominid in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The first premolars in particular, he said, were larger than a human’s and had a crown and roots unlike those of H. sapiens or H. erectus. Dr. Brown, a co-author of the original discovery report, said that no known disease or abnormality in humans could have “replicated this condition.” At first, Dr. Brown and colleagues hypothesized that the hobbits were descendants of H. erectus that populated the region and had evolved their small stature because they lived in isolation on an island. Island dwarfing is a recognized phenomenon in which larger species diminish in size over time in response to limited resources. The scientists soon backed off from that hypothesis. For one thing, dwarfing reduces stature, but not brain size. Moreover, researchers said, the hobbit bore little resemblance to an erectus. In an analysis of the hobbit’s wrist bones, Matthew W. Tocheri of the Smithsonian Institution found that certain bones were wedge-shaped, similar to those in apes, and not squared-off, as in humans and Neanderthals. This suggested that its species diverged from the human lineage at least one million to two million years ago. So if several lines of evidence now encourage agreement that H. floresiensis was a distinct and primitive hominid, the hobbit riddle can be compressed into a single question of far-reaching importance: where did these little people come from? “Once you establish that this is a unique species,” said Frederick E. Grine, a paleoanthropologist at Stony Brook, “then these primitive features that it has suddenly take on a profound evolutionary significance.” Scientists said in reports and interviews that they had only recently begun contemplating possible ancestries. As a starting point, scientists rule out island dwarfing as a primary explanation. Dwarfs and pygmies are simply diminutive humans; they do not become more apelike, as the hobbits appear to be in some aspects. Besides, normal dwarfing would suggest that the hobbits presumably evolved from H. erectus, the only previous hominids identified in this part of Asia or anywhere outside Africa; the first one was discovered in Java in the late 19th century. But research has found few similarities between the hobbit skeleton and Asian H. erectus. If the hobbit is a throwback to much earlier hominids, scientists said, reverse evolution would be the most far-fetched explanation. Dr. Jungers, a paleoanthropologist who organized the symposium, said there were no known examples of mammals becoming significantly reduced in size and anatomy as a consequence of reverting to an ancestral form. “Is it possible?” he asked rhetorically. “If that is the case, it is unprecedented and a tremendous discovery.” Several scientists think the answer to hobbit ancestry lies deeper in the hominid past. If this species is unlike H. erectus, it presumably descended from even earlier small-bodied migrants out of Africa that preceded erectus into Asia. Just the thought questions conventional wisdom. Possible candidates include Homo habilis, the first and least known species of the Homo genus. The short, small-brained habilis might have emerged as early as 2.3 million years ago and lived to co-exist with the brainier, long-limbed H. erectus. At present, erectus fossils, found in the republic of Georgia and dated at 1.8 million to 1.7 million years ago, are the earliest well-established evidence for hominids outside Africa. If hobbits resemble habilis in some respects, scientists said, it indicates that habilis or something like it possibly left Africa earlier and became the likely hobbit ancestor. Another possible ancestor might even have been a pre-Homo species of the Australopithecus genus. The first evidence for stone toolmaking in Africa, at least 2.5 million years ago, is associated with australopithecines. Several scientists called attention to skeletal similarities between hobbits and A. afarensis, the species famously represented by the 3.2-million-year-old Lucy skeleton from Ethiopia. The suggestion that the H. floresiensis ancestor might have reached Asia a million years before H. erectus left Africa was raised earlier this month at a meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. And then there is the idea, raised again at the symposium, of hominid migrations out of Africa and back. Dr. Jungers advised abandoning the old image of the long-limbed H. erectus striding out of Africa in the first wave of hominids making their way in the world. “Why think they couldn’t have done it many times, even before erectus?” he said. “Other mammals have migrated in and out of Africa.” The idea revived speculation that erectus itself might have evolved in Asia from an earlier migrant from Africa, and then found its way back to the land of its ancestors. Similarly, other hominids arriving in distant parts of Asia might have churned out new species, among them the hobbits. Robert B. Eckhardt of Penn State University, an ardent hobbit skeptic, is unyielding in his opposition to the interpretation that the Flores skull belongs to a previously unrecognized species. He insists that it will prove to be from a modern human stricken with microcephaly or a similar developmental disorder that shrinks the head and brain. “Convincing others is much more difficult than I thought it would be at the outset,” Dr. Eckhardt acknowledged in an e-mail message, “but increasingly it is becoming evident that what is at stake is not just some sample of specimens, but instead the central paradigm of an entire subfield.” Susan G. Larson, an anatomist at the Stony Brook School of Medicine who analyzed the non-human properties of the hobbit shoulders, said in an interview that the investigations had entered “a period of wait and see.” “Someday,” Dr. Larson said, “people may be saying, why was everyone so puzzled back then — it’s plain to see where the little people of Flores came from.” Article: "Giant Storks May Have Fed on Real-Life Hobbits" \|Lord of the Rings\| The hobbit mystery was sparked by the 2004 discovery of bones on Flores that belonged to a three-foot-tall (one-meter-tall), 55-pound (25-kilogram) female with a grapefruit-size brain. The tiny, hobbit-like creature—controversially dubbed a new human species, Homo floresiensis—persisted on the remote island until about 18,000 years ago, even as "modern" humans spread around the world, experts say. Found in million-year-old volcanic sediments, the newly discovered tools are "simple sharp-edged flakes" like those found at nearby sites on Flores—sites dated to later time periods but also associated with hobbits and their ancestors—said study co-leader Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, via e-mail. The finding implies that a culture of stone tool wielding ancient humans, with origins in Africa, survived on the island for much longer than previously believed, according to the new research, published online today by the journal Nature. "That's exciting," because it suggests that by a million years ago, early humans had covered more ground on their exodus from Africa than previously thought, said paleontologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum of London, who wasn't involved in the new study. Hobbit Ancestors off the Hook? The stone-and-bone record had suggested that the hobbits' ancestors—perhaps upright-walking-but-small-brained Homo erectus—left Africa about 1.5 million years ago and reached Flores by 880,000 years ago. Once there, it's been thought, the hobbit ancestors quickly hunted a pygmy elephant species and a giant tortoise species to extinction. The date of the newly discovered stone tools, though, suggests elephant and tortoise died off a hundred thousand years after Flores's colonization —indicating that the early Flores colonizers' role in the extinction "must have been minimal," study co-leader Brumm said. What's more, these early colonizers could have been more primitive than H. erectus—"that is our working hypothesis," he added. When the bones of the hobbit were first reported in 2004, the discovery team suggested they belonged to a unique species, Homo floresiensis, that had descended from Homo erectus. Since then, scientists studying the hobbit bones have found features in the wrist, feet, skull, jaw, brain, and shoulders that suggest the little creature descended from something more primitive. "I think that's looking increasingly likely from its anatomy," said the Natural History Museum's Stringer. Hobbit Findings Questioned Not everyone is ready to accept the new date. "I have no problem with hominins"—human ancestors—"being on Flores at 1.2 million years ago," anthropologist James Phillips said. "After all, they were on Java by around 750,000 [years ago]."But the fact that the implements were found in million-year-old volcanic sediments doesn't guarantee the artifacts are a million years old, said Phillips, an emeritus professor with the University of Illinois at Chicago, said via email. "There are many ways"—such as water-driven processes—"in which artifacts can move through sediments," Phillips said. He's also dismayed that the new study assumes that stone-tool technology changed little on Flores for more than a million years. "Everywhere else on Earth, change was slow but always—and I emphasize always—occurred." Controversy is nothing new in hobbit science, with many experts still at odds over whether Homo floresiensis is a separate species at all. Several scientists have argued, for example, that the hobbits were modern humans with a genetic condition that causes dwarfing and other defects. Hobbit Ancestors Rafted to Flores? Regardless of what they were and when they arrived, the question remains: How did primitive humans get to Flores in the first place? The Natural History Museum's Stringer buys into a theory that they may have migrated from Africa, perhaps on foot, to the island of Sulawesi (map). There, the ancient humans may have been washed to sea by a tsunami—currents off Sulawesi flow southward, toward Flores. "These creatures most likely got moved on rafts of vegetation," he said. To help shore up this theory, the team behind the original hobbit discovery is currently looking for evidence on Sulawesi that would prove humans occupied the island even earlier than they did Flores. \|Homo habilis Female Reconstruction\| \|Homo erectus Reconstruction\| Humans are members of the genus Homo . Modern people are Homo sapiens . However, we are not the only species of humans who have ever lived. There were earlier species of our genus that are now extinct. In the past, it was incorrectly assumed that human evolution was a relatively straightforward sequence of one species evolving into another. We now understand that there were times when several species of humans and even other hominins were alive. This complex pattern of evolution emerging from the fossil record has been aptly described as a luxuriantly branching bush on which all but one twig has died off. Modern humans are that last living twig. The striking similarities in appearance between the human genus Homo and our distant ancestors, the genus Australopithecus , is sufficient reason to place us both into the same biological tribe (Hominini ). Both genera are bipedal and habitually upright in posture. Humans have been somewhat more efficient at this mode of locomotion. Like gracile australopithecines , early humans were light in frame and relatively short. They were only about 3 ft. 4 in. to 4 ft. 5 in. tall (100-235 cm) and weighed around 70 pounds (32 kg) The evolution of larger bodies occurred later in human evolution. [And within the robust Australopithecines, not thought to be in the direct line of ancestry to humans-DD] The differences between australopithecines and early humans are most noticeable in the head. Humans developed significantly larger brains and relatively smaller faces with progressively smaller teeth and jaws. In addition, humans became ever more proficient in developing cultural technologies to aid in their survival, while the australopithecines did not. The immediate ancestors of early humans were most likely late gracile australopithecines. At present, the leading contender for that ancestral species is Australopithecus garhi or possibly Australopithecus africanus. There may have been one or possibly two species of the first humans living in East Africa--Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis (literally "able or skilled human"). The few rudolfensis fossils that have been found are somewhat earlier, dating about 2.4-1.6 million years ago, while the more common habilis remains are around 1.9-1.4 million years old. Rudolfensis apparently was a bit taller and relatively larger brained on average. However, many paleoanthropologists consider the differences to be too slight to warrant a separate species designation. Some have suggested that rudolfensis were males and habilis were females. As a result, they classify them both as a single species--Homo habilis. That is the approach taken in this tutorial. The evolution of the genus Homo and the robust australopithecines beginning around 2.5 million years ago coincides with the beginning of a period of prolonged climate instability in Africa. The overall trend was towards cooling and drying, but along the way there were considerable climate fluctuations. It is likely that selection for the ability to adapt to these environmental changes resulted in the emergence of humans with their larger, more capable brains. Early transitional human fossils were first discovered in 1960 by Louis and Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. The Leakeys named them Homo habilis (Latin for "handy or skilled human") because they apparently made stone tools. Similar fossils were found at East Lake Turkana in Kenya by Richard Leakey's team of fieldworkers that began searching there in 1969. These latter specimens were named Homo rudolfensis after Lake Rudolf (i.e., the former name for Lake Turkana). So far, conclusive evidence of Homo habilis has been found only in the Great Rift Valley system of East Africa. However, their ultimate geographic and time ranges may have been somewhat larger. Early transitional human fossils also have been found in South Africa in the caves at Sterkfontein and Swartkrans in apparent association with australopithecines. However, not all paleoanthropologists agree that these fossils should be considered Homo habilis. Early transitional humans had brains that on average were about 35% larger than those of Australopithecus africanus. In fact, it is beginning with Homo habilis that our ancestors finally had brains that were consistently bigger than those of the great apes. Ajit Varki and his team of geneticists at the University of California San Diego campus have discovered a small genetic difference between humans and apes that may account for the progressive increase in the size of human brains. People, but not apes, have a gene that stops the production of N-glycolylneuramine acid. Using "molecular clock analysis," the U.C.S.D. researchers determined that this gene entered the human evolutionary line as a result of a mutation 2.7 million years ago. While it is presumed that the australopithecines lacked this gene, there is no direct evidence. As the early human cranium, or brain case, began to enlarge in response to increased brain size, the mouth became smaller. In comparison to the australopithecines, the early humans had smaller teeth, especially the molars and premolars. This suggests that they mostly ate softer foods. An analysis of the wear patterns on their teeth indicates that they had diverse diets that included a wide range of plants and meat. As noted previously, the body size of Homo habilis was not significantly larger than the early hominins that preceded them. Likewise, the arms of habilis and their australopithecine ancestors were relatively long compared to ours. The modern human body size and limb proportions began to appear with the next species in our evolution--Homo erectus. Adult cranial capacity(range in cm3) chimpanzees 300-500 australopithecines 390-545 early transitional humans 509-752 modern humans 900-1880 Reconstruction of Homo habilis Of especial interest in considering the Flores "Hobbit" is the statement: "Like gracile australopithecines , early humans were light in frame and relatively short. They were only about 3 ft. 4 in. to 4 ft. 5 in. tall (100-235 cm) and weighed around 70 pounds (32 kg) [say 40 to 90 pounds]" This is all very interesting but basically not very meaningful in relationship to the Orang Pendek when that form was said to have an opposed big toe like an ape. If on the other hand, there still is a cryptid -hominid on Sumatra, it could be related to the H. floresensis IF that one is a separate species. it could also possibly be related to other reports of similar creatures reported from Southeast Asia to Australia. There are several "IF" factors in that construction that still are not determined yet and most importantly among those, we do not know if the "Small people" are the same as the "Hobbit" and there still is that annoying problem that we still have not settled how to classify H. floresensis. But whatever happens to come of this, the floresensis types would not be the type of creatures that walk on feet with opposed big toes. And evidence for the one thing does not constitute evidence for the other, as some well-meaning but thoroughly confused Cryptozoologists have stated in the past. -Best Wishes, Dale D.
\|Habitat\|\|Remote Swamps, Bogs, Sewers, and Forests\| The term Lizard Men is not specific to one specific cryptid; instead it is used to describe a broad spectrum of bipedal hominid-like reptilian men, sometimes referred to as Homo-subterreptus. Sightings of Lizard Men are reported all over the globe, including the Intulo of South Africa, the Cherufe Lizard Man of South America, the New Jersey Gator Man and the Loveland Frogmen of Ohio, Lizard man of Scape Ore Swamp, Canadian Lizard Man, Nagas of India, Kappas of Japan, and other. On Mountain Monsters, there is supposedly a Lizard Demon that roams the rivers running through Wood County, West Virginia. Many theories have been presented in relation to the identity of the Lizard men, theories such as living dinosaurs, and even off shoots of evolution in which the reptilian hierarchy continued to evolve along the same path as early primates. At one point in time reptiles ruled the earth, it is not out of the realm of possibility that the most dominate species on the planet could continue to evolve in small numbers unseen by mankind. Although no reptilian species known to man have shown signs of such advanced evolution, the reptile is the oldest and most successful species on the planet and could hold secrets that have yet to come to light. Another theory in regards to lizard men is that they may be reptilian aliens. Many UFO and alien abduction cases have made note of aliens being reptile-like and since have been declared "reptilians". Many cryptozoology-related reptilian sightings may have a tie to the evolution of dinosaurs, so the alien theories are more stray from science. The ideas of reptoids have been made ever so famous by conspiracy theorist David Icke, who says that reptilians are part of every royal bloodline and that they are part of the bloodline of every US president. Icke says the reptilians are shapeshifter aliens that have built human civilization and will one day infiltrate and take over the Earth. In 1934, a man discovered two golden tablets underneath Los Angeles. Many said they were a remnant of the serpent people, reptoids for short. How Could Lizard Men Exist?In 1982, Dale Russell, curator of vertebrate fossils at the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa, conjectured a possible evolutionary path that might have been taken by the dinosaur Troodon had it not perished in the K/T extinction event 65 million years ago, suggesting that it could have evolved into intelligent beings similar in body plan to humans. Over geologic time, Russell noted that there had been a steady increase in the encephalization quotient or EQ (the relative brain weight when compared to other species with the same body weight) among the dinosaurs. Russell had discovered the first Troodontid skull, and noted that, while its EQ was low compared to humans, it was six times higher than that of other dinosaurs. If the trend in Troodon evolution had continued to the present, its brain case could by now measure 1,100 cm3; comparable to that of a human. Troodontids had semi-manipulative fingers, able to grasp and hold objects to a certain degree, and binocular vision. Russell proposed that this "Dinosauroid", like most dinosaurs of the troodontid family, would have had large eyes and three fingers on each hand, one of which would have been partially opposed. As with most modern reptiles (and birds), he conceived of its genitalia as internal. Russell speculated that it would have required a navel, as a placenta aids the development of a large brain case. However, it would not have possessed mammary glands, and would have fed its young, as birds do, on regurgitated food. He speculated that its language would have sounded somewhat like bird song. Russell's thought experiment has been met with criticism from other paleontologists since the 1980s, many of whom point out that his Dinosauroid is overly anthropomorphic. Gregory S. Paul (1988) and Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., considered it "suspiciously human" (Paul, 1988). Darren Naish has argued that a large-brained, highly intelligent troodontid would retain a more standard theropod body plan, with a horizontal posture and long tail, and would probably manipulate objects with the snout and feet in the manner of a bird, rather than with human-like "hands".
This article contains spoilers for Firewatch. One of the more underreported weirdnesses of the American wilderness is just how many damn people go missing on a yearly basis in our national parks. Well, underreported may be unfair — it’s not as if there are a lot of misconceptions about the dangers of parks, how easy they are to get lost in, and what can happen if one veers off the trail. But the cavalcade of paranormal stories — some along the lines of r/nosleep style fiction, others in the realm of true conspiracy theories — are a bit more subterranean. Popularized largely by David Paulides Missing 411 series, the nefarious reasons for disappearances in our national parks have gained steam in a national moment where frankly most of us would rather learn about aliens, conspiracies, and the occult than actively engage in the world surrounding and vexing us. So whether it’s just the deeply fatal quality of the wilderness, tragic missteps, or something darker, we’re drawn to stories about the events we can’t readily explain that happen in areas we more often than not don’t really think about. Is it any wonder then that some of these theories end up looking more like questions about shadow governments, surveillance, or unseen forces? No, of course not — but what’s underlying those theories, anyway? The most gripping storyline in Firewatch, as I discussed in my previous piece, is the story of Brian Goodman and his father, Ned. Ned, years ago, had the job of the player’s avatar Henry, and Delilah, his friend, confidant, and psychological lover in the tower across the way, grew to have a fondness for Ned’s son, Brian. Brian was in the Shoshone National Park in defiance of state rules banning minors from the park during forest fire season. Delilah knew about Brian, but said nothing as he seemed to be enjoying the outdoors and was getting some time with his (fairly bad) dad. You end up learning about Brian in fits and starts, first finding his backpack full of ropes that allow you to rappel down steep cliffs, and then hearing stories about his (importantly generic) Dungeons and Dragons campaigns that he played with Celia. By the time you reach the fort Brian had set up outside the cave systems that undergird the Shoshone, he’s almost like a third character in the game, a phantom that refers metonymically to the world outside of the park, the past and future of all the world spinning outside of your own personal soap opera. And as it happens, you need a phantom to keep the massive complexities of the park and its residents in perspective as your own massive problem and conspiracy unravels in front of you. After finding two girls firing off fireworks and lecturing them to mixed results, you find your guardtower trashed, the phone lines cut, and a taunting set of panties left to identify the vandals. Unfortunately, the girls are missing when you find their trashed campsite, and they go missing completely. Immediately, you are a suspect, as your character is the last to see either of them alive, and even Delilah delicately asks what happened to them and if you know…anything at all. You don’t, and suddenly the specter of disappearance is brought up — a sheer drop, a drowning, a murderer. It’s unclear, but it’s also potentially incriminating to Henry. And this is exacerbated by the discovery of “Wapiti Station”, a seemingly abandoned research station that is surrounded by a massive fence and is inaccessible to everyone, including rangers. The discovery comes after the girls go missing, and directly afterward, Henry is assaulted from behind after finding notes that dictate his and Delilah’s conversations, copying routes and exact diction. Suddenly, the two realize they’re being watched, and the teens disappearing seem like an harbinger of future danger than an isolated tragedy. The danger continues to mount as both Henry and Delilah start to doubt each other, begin to see the entire forest as a sinister set of unspoken threats or misrepresentations. Quickly, after the introduction of Day 75, where Henry is sitting, legs dangling on a rock face eating a sandwich, the whole relationship unravels under the force of the threat of Wapiti Station, one part Paulides, two parts the spy novels littering the rangers’ stations in the Shoshone. The facelessness of your confidants suddenly become deeply suspect, and no one can be trusted — the conspiracy is too wide to comprehend. At the point at which Henry and Delilah decide to explore the caves — convinced something must be down there that will lead to the Truth — they think they are being framed for setting a fire at Wapiti Station, they assume they are being surveiled by sinister forces, and they fear for their lives. The conspiracy has deepened to an incredible degree, and the stakes have risen to levels that, had you asked in Day 1, would seem absurd. The cave, our firewatchers and the player all think as one, is where the solution will be found, the thread that unravels this entire terrible puzzle. And of course it is. They find the dead body of Brian at the bottom of the cave and all intrigue stops. In quick order, the fire ravaging the Shoshone requires extraction of our protagonists, and we find out that Brian’s death has been the moving factor of the whole campaign of conspiracy. Ned, Brian’s father, has been trying to scare you and Delilah off the trail of his dead child, a child he has left to mummify in a cave while he hung out away from the law in a national park. The girls turn up in a local jail, and the intrigue of the game turns into nothing more than dueling codices — trying to connect all of the dots while Delilah begs you just to leave it all be and get out before the forest burns around you. But in the end, anything but the true conspiracy underlying the game is a disappointment to Henry and to the player, one that requires concerted effort to re-litigate. In the end, there’s nothing there but a body, but the conspiracy masks this much more tragic banality with the promise of horror and barely speakable governmental darkness. Killers, creatures, aliens, spies — it all comes down to a kid who didn’t keep his balance while his dad forced him to climb. This let down is natural, and a part of what’s at the core of all comic book, videogame, or otherwise “nerd” culture. There is no cabal of rich, callous murderers in Ciudad Juarez, there are just banal and horrifying killings of women. The loss of a child in a park is not an abduction by an alien or a cryptid; it is a deeply unfortunate and unavoidable moment of tragedy. Pop culture helps us to believe that the banal moments of our life that impact us the most are not base trauma — the things that keep us from owning or engaging with our lives to the fullest — but mobilizing forces to our continued revelation of a more profound world. There is no tragedy here, in other words, that isn’t a door to perception. But this is also what conspiracies do for us. We use them to convince ourselves that there is some sort of deeper logic to the world around us as opposed to a series of unknowable tragedies. And who would a conspiracy appeal to more than a man who lost his wife to Alzheimer’s and a woman who lost everyone she ever got close to. The protagonists of the game need a conspiracy in the same way many lonely people through time have needed one. As The Last Podcast on the Left has surmised: people need the Hollow Moon to fill some sort of deep hole in their lives. But what Firewatch shows us is that there is nothing at the end of the narrative other than a dead body and a lack of explanations. Videogames for ages have been teasing massive conspiracies only to provide let-down compromises, the actions of a few crazy men or women read into larger significance in order to justify the machinations of a larger videogame narrative. Firewatch seems to be going that way, and while any seasoned gamer is probably ready to be disappointed, the gut punch full-stop of the actual truth is worse. There’s nothing that can steel us for the actual truth, the fact that there is no darker secret to most of our lives than the fact that none of them ride on a clear narrative. Firewatch gives us a ton of narratives, too — Henry’s relationship with Delilah; the missing teens; Brian and Ned; the notes found throughout the park; the research center; hell, even the fires themselves — all of which resolve into dust by the end of the game. There’s no ultimate point to anything Henry does in Firewatch, and that’s certainly not for lack of trying on Henry’s part. It’s due to the fact that, despite our best efforts, the banality and everyday randomness of life is more likely to hit us than a true novelistic arc. Far more common in real life, and far rarer in fiction, Firewatch gives us a look at what happens when we turn over all of the rocks and follow every lead to its very end: we feel cheated by the materiality of the real world, that ubiquitous presence that reminds us of the solidity and the unremarkable quality of life. Conspiracies, in the end, are nothing more than a set of snapshots taken by a stranger.
Aragorn: Skulls? [...] Like, only skulls? But that makes no sense! DM: It's just a trap! Dungeons have them all the time. Aragorn: I'm not calling the device into question. I'm questioning the payload. Thousands and thousands of skulls? How does that work, exactly? Was this a race of floating heads? Piles of bones composed of... well... nothing but skulls. The rest of the bones vanish without explanation. It doesn't matter whether the victims were killed by ancient death traps, man-eating monsters or barbarian hordes; nothing remains but the skull. There are good narrative and practical reasons for this. A human skull is instantly recognizable, making it a powerful symbol of death. Other bones do not carry the same emotive weight; few people could identify a human kneecap on sight, let alone associate it with atrocities. It helps too that skulls stack up so neatly. Or perhaps it's the fact that skulls represent a one-to-one ratio of bones to corpses, giving an instant clue on how many lives must have (been) ended to produce this. While a given human has multiple of the majority of other bones (and the most visible exception, the spine, takes up a lot more room per victim). It's also what you're left with when you take heads as trophies and leave the rest on the battlefield. Skeletons in the Coat Closet is for when skulls and other bones are used as accessories and on clothing. After reading this page, skull will no longer sound like a word. - In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Badass Biker Mukuro Enjo uses a deck with skull-themed monsters, mostly skulls that are on fire. - Sengoku Basara: Demon King Nobunaga has a giant pile of skulls in his throne room. His throne, which has a skull motif, is sitting right on top of it. He even uses them as drinking cups. - Rurouni Kenshin: Hell is depicted as full of mountains of skulls; during Kenshin's Heroic BSoD, he imagines himself there as Shishio taunts him. - Shishio, Yumi, and Hoji are also depicted in this Hell shortly after their deaths, quite cheerful about it and setting off to conquer the place. This sequence is notably the only supernatural event in the series that cannot be put down to either 'Watsuki physics' or somebody hallucinating, because there's nobody to hallucinate; it's just the omniscient audience's perspective of these guys hanging out among the skulls. - In Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo Terminal Dogma is filled with skulls, and the giant bloated corpse of Lilith is on a hill of skulls. Not human skulls, giant Eva skulls. Thousands of them. Even further evidence that things went even worse during the 14 year Time Skip. - Smax: In Alan Moore's Top 10 spinoff miniseries, the lair to the den of the Dragon Morningbright is paved entirely with the skulls of children. - In Final Crisis, Shazam finds Black Adam sitting on a small mound of skulls when he comes to recruit him to fight Darkseid. - Shakara: The Overlord is rather amused that the alien tribe he just exterminated had used the Shakaran artifact he was looking for as a place to commit ritual sacrifice in the hopes of warding him off (believing the Overlord to be an angry god), and covered it with a mountain of skulls. - In the Animal Crossing fanfic Diary of an Animal Crossing Psycho. There's one certain screenshot that should count... - In the Harry Potter fanfic Thirty Hs, Harry goes to Surf Ninja Moon X and hides in a castle "which had been many skulls arranged to resemble one large one. It had been poorly done, with the cheeks fading into an amateurishly executed jaw line." - In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are nearly buried under an avalanche of Nothing But Skulls. (This scene only appears in the extended version, not the theatrical cut.) The writers comment on this, explaining that there were different rooms for each bone, and if Aragon, Legolas, and Gimli had been in a different part of the cave they would have been buried under a pile of femurs, or kneecaps, or something. - The catacombs under Venice in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had niches in the walls that contained only skulls, one to a niche. Justified in that the skull is the "densest" indicator of death, those niches were probably high-density tombs and crypts. The body may not reside there, but the skull and the soul are there. - The Golden Compass: Oxford College has skulls in niches. - Predator; In somewhat of a subversion, goes for nothing but skulls with the spinal cord still intact. Presumably they go for more on Ebay. - The Terminator: The opening 'Future War' segment features an apparent carpet of Nothing But Skulls, seemingly specifically so Skynet's mecha can symbolically crush them beneath their feet and treads as they engage Resistance troops in yet another bitter firefight. A Shout-Out to this can be found in the losing cinematics of Wing Commander III, with a Kilrathi foot in combat armor doing the crushing. - A T-800 without flesh cover is seen crushing skulls with his foot in the similar opening of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. - Ghostbusters II, at least in terms of imagery. Viggo the Carpathian says, "On a mountain of skulls, in a castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood." Also a Badass Boast or whatever. - In the opening scene of Muppet Treasure Island, there's a cavern full of skulls. They sing a line of "Shiver My Timbers". - In the 1971 flick Graveyard of Horror, the menacing creature leaves only the heads and a few larger bones left of its victims. The gravedigger who's concealing the creature cleans the heads and sells them to a local physician, who thinks they're old skulls stolen from graves. - In Frankenstein Island, there are human skulls scattered throughout the Amazon village (possibly as a warning given the first one the heroes come across is mounted on a stick outside the village) but no sign of the rest of the skeletons. - Guy Savile's novel The Afrika Reich deals with what was likely to happen had the Germans won WW2. Historical documents suggest Nazi Germany would have demanded restoration of its former African colonies as war reparations. Savile suggests they would have gone beyond this and demanded additional African colonies from Britain, France and Belgium, occupying ceded territory as part of the drive for lebensraum. Savile's novel sets put an Africa where, with collaboration from sympathetic Afrikaaners, once the death camps had dealt with the "Jewish question", they would have continued in business dealing with the next category of undesirable untermensch - Black Africans. The psychopathic governor of a German colony in Africa has his SS troops' parade-ground paved with negro skulls... - The Dark Tower by Stephen King: The Crimson King has a throne made of skulls. "She runs a shop now. Pam's Pantry. Makes marmalade.""What? But she used to queen it on a throne atop a pile of skulls!""I didn't say it was very good marmalade." - Parodied in Interesting Times when Cohen and his Silver Horde learn from a local that the claiming of the throne of the Agatean Empire is traditionally accompanied with "seas of blood" and/or "a mountain of skulls". The Horde eagerly begins quizzing exactly how many skulls this precisely means(because skulls don't stack well), and their informant gets testy: "I don't know how big a mountain! A lot of skulls!" - In The Last Hero, mention is also made of the now retired Pamdar the Witch Queen. If some of the religions were right and there really was bodily resurrection one day, Fred mused, there was going to be an awful lot of confusion and general milling about. - In Night Watch, it's mentioned that the Temple of Small Gods sorts the bodies of the dead by what bone they are. The entrance of the tomb holds the skulls. Truth in Television for many ossuaries. - Gaunt's Ghosts, Blood Pact: A rumor circulates about a valley filled with millions of dusty skulls with the tops sawn off. To the point that it scares the crap out of hardened veterans of several wars, and even freaks out Gaunt himself a bit. Of course it helps that the entirety of the building they're camped in is thoroughly evil. - In The Night Angel Trilogy, there's a bridge in Khaliras made entirely out of skulls and magic. The only real point of the skulls is to intimidate and show where the bridge actually is (it's possible to cross it with the skulls gone). Did I mention this bridge crosses what appears to be a mile wide bottomless chasm, and is the only way into the castle? - In The Odessa File, a Holocaust survivor reacalls in his memoirs a conversation he had with a British officer after his concentration camp had been liberated. The officer tells him that if he had gone through the Holocaust, what he would have done as soon as got healthy again was make a pyramid of skulls: not of the victims of the camps, but of those who had put them there. - A bit of the Star Wars Expanded Universe mentions an artist who depicted Emperor Palpatine as sitting on a throne atop a mountain of skulls. He was executed. - Doctor Who: - Episode 2 of the first serial, "An Unearthly Child", was called "The Cave Of Skulls", and it featured a cave full of skulls. - "The Wedding of River Song", which featured a crypt full of living skulls, leftovers from the process of creating Headless Monks. - In "Heaven Sent", the Doctor makes a High-Dive Escape from the castle into the ocean, only to discover that the seabed is covered in nothing but skulls. The viewer later learns that the skulls are all his, the only remaining piece of him after he disintegrates himself to teleport in a new clone, that have piled up over thousands and eventually billions of years. - In the MST3K episode "Cave Dwellers" there's a giant snake pit with lots and lots of skulls. "Oh look, anal-retentive snakes, they lined up the skulls!" - Played with in The Mandalorian. The title character goes to find his fellow Mandalorians in their hidden base and is shocked to find a pile of their helmets, which you would have to kill a Mandalorian to remove. Rather than a Monument of Humiliation and Defeat by Imperial troops, it turns out the helmets have been gathered up by the Armorer from the dead Mandalorians, so they can be melted down and reforged. - Warhammer 40,000: The skull is a very common motif in this game, particularly the in the Imperium, which more often than not uses representations of skulls rather than the real thing. Chaos forces uses this motif somewhat less (for the most part), although they will use actual skulls more often. - "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" - Chaos worshippers like building altars out of them or wearing them on trophy racks, while the Imperium has flying skull-robots and buildings with skulls of the dead in shrines on the walls. - The Space Marines' Power Armor is usually decorated with skulls made of solid gold, and occasionally real skulls as well. - One of the most recognizable emblems of the Imperium is a skull. Sometimes with wings. - And a Chaos Titan is once depicted with a necklace of skulls. Providing how humongous the thing is you could guess how many skulls that would take. - Skulltaker, one of the Blood God's more dangerous servants, wears a cloak◊ made of the skulls of his fallen opponents. His table top miniature has no less than 137 skulls modeled on it. - This is a classic basing technique to make power-armored Khorne Lords stand out from the rank-and-file. Simply clip skulls off of Chaos trophy racks, arrange in a pile, and mount a miniature on top. - The Orkz are fond of taking skulls as trophies, much like the followers of Khorne. Expect to see at least one skull decorating a Warboss and-or his entourage. - This is a common dig or in-joke on certain forums regarding certain models in the overall Games Workshop range gaining more and more skulls. Case in point...◊ - The aptly named Khorne Lord of Skulls model has so many skulls on it that according to an interview in White Dwarf, the sculptor lost count somewhere after 200. It has several different components that, in-universe, are basically metal frames used to hold skulls in place. - And now, there's a kit that's literally nothing but skulls (of multiple species and variations, though the grand majority are human). - The Dungeons & Dragons Greyhawk campaign setting features the Empire of Iuz. The capital city's main road is paved with skulls of Iuz's enemies. It stretches for over a hundred miles to the north of the capital, to the first petty fief Iuz took over. It's also being expanded towards the southeast to the city of Molag, more than doubling its length. - The Greyhawk cosmology/Planescape campaign features (or once featured) the Pillar of Skulls on Baator, composed of the skulls of those who hid knowledge from another, and as a result the person they hid it from died. - The Coalition States from Rifts uses a skull motif for everything in its armed forces, from rank and unit insignias to body armor and Powered Armor helmets, to the front of troop transports, helicopters and battletanks, to their Humongous Mecha (both humanoid and spider-walkers), and of course their skelebots. - The Yu-Gi-Oh! monster Ryu Kokki is a giant demon made entirely out of human skulls. - One of the temple chambers shown in Indiana Jones Adventure at the Disney Theme Parks is filled to the brim with skulls. - Fittingly enough, the queue line for Skull Island: Reign of Kong at Universal's Islands of Adventure is littered with skulls throughout, with very little different types of bone to be seen. - The Legend of Zelda series: - Skulls often replace crates and jars in natural caves. There are usually no other bones, or corpses outside undead-themed dungeons, and the sheer number of them suggests that someone is shooting green rupees out of a slingshot to kill enemies. It's reasonable to assume the 'normal' skulls are just dead skull-enemies. - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: In the Shadow Temple, there are rooms where the floors, walls and ceilings are made entirely out of skulls. - The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: In Lorule, skulls take on the role of, and are as common as, the pots seen in Hyrule and in the other games. Lorule Castle is especially packed with them. - King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Lord of the Dead was surrounded by a gigantic pile of bones, made up almost entirely of skulls, as shown in this screenshot◊. - Heroes of Might and Magic: In one version, the Necromancer city can build a 'Pyramid of Skulls', which looks somewhat garish, but boosts your weekly production of Skeletons significantly. - Some of the regular Might and Magic games have Bone Piles, which include Bone Pile of Weakness, Bone Pile of Death, Bone Pile of Disease, and so on. Touching one inflicts the condition labeled, but a rare few have valuable items hidden inside. - Myth: The Myrkridia, horrible lycanthropic monsters from Bungie's series of games, make the skulls of their victims into platforms that rise thirty feet high and then are adorned with the Myrkridian standard. The precision with which the skulls are fitted is said to be maddening to behold. - In StarCraft, the Zerg victory results screen shows a Hydralisk atop a pile of skulls. - World of Warcraft: In several locations such as war zones or Scourge installations, there are usually many skulls strewn about. Others bones are also visible but but skulls outnumber them all. Some good old pile of skulls can also be found around ritual circles and similar locations. - Diablo II - Piles of skulls sometimes appears as treasure caches to be looted. - Diablo's Chaos Sanctuary is littered with skulls. - Plus you can slot some of them into equipment for added bonuses! - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: There are two rooms in in which the floor is made entirely of skulls, and there are huge piles of them in the background. The boss fought in this room is a giant floating ball of corpses that was hiding in said skulls before you entered, and in the upside-down castle version of that room, you face Galamoth. - Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance: Almost the entire Skeleton Den area, which is just an immense catacombs. With, appropriately, lots of skulls used as a building material (along with other bones and non-bone materials). - Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: The Skeleton Cave. According to the game, the bony fiends themselves created this unholy place by ransacking a nearby cementery and using the bones to built this temple of the dead. - In Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri, there are Secret Projects playing the same role as Wonders do in Civilization. The cinematic for one of them, "Dream Twister", involves (among other nasty things) a photo of a pile of skulls. - Brütal Legend has a mountain of skulls as the first level of the game. - Team Fortress Classic: In a crossover with Ludicrous Gibs, a mod made it so that not only did the body spawn more bones than was physically possible, all of them were skulls. - Mother 3: The giant snake pit has piles of nothing but skulls. - The Pillar of Skulls (see above under Tabletop Games) is visited in Planescape: Torment. - Cave areas in Adventure Island III and IV contain several piles of human skulls. - Shields with human skulls are a very common wall decoration in human homes in Albion. Locals are quick to point out that they are old family heirlooms. - The Addams Family for the NES has the Bone Room, which is mostly skulls with some Stock Femur Bones floating around. - The second level of Ghouls and Ghosts (the one with the windmills) has, after getting past the Stone Turtles and the quicksand, enormous stacks of skulls that are being used as projectiles by the Legions of Hell. Note that there's a burning village nearby in the background. - In Getsu Fuma Den, an improbable proportion of the overworld terrain is made of or covered with skulls. Other bones can be seen, but skulls are predominant. - Clive Barker's Undying: The Skull Storm spell pulls human skulls out of the earth and launches them like explosive missiles. - In Mortal Kombat, both Shang Tsung and Quan Chi have ranged attacks that involve shooting flaming magical skulls from their hands. - Downplayed in Mega Man 4, with Skull Man's territory. All of the walls and floors/platforms are made of bones (or more likely, metallic girders that are made to look like bones), but they are all straight-line bones like the ones from the leg. No big rows of skulls. The closest they come is a species of mook that looks like a whole skeleton, and a few whole dinosaur skeletons in the walls of the background. Then Mega Man confronts Skull Man himself, and the trope is in much fuller play, when Skull Man not only resembles a skeleton, but surrounds himself with a deflector shield of four skulls that revolve around him. - In the Psygnosis game Ballistix, the playing field is walled in by skulls on all four sides. - Darkest Dungeon has a ridiculous number of skulls around the place. There are some proper skeletons (a lot of proper skeletons, actually), but there are also, for example, some backdrops in the Ruins that have a bunch of skulls just sitting there. - In Girl Genius, Castle Heterodyne keeps skulls and straight bones to the exclusion of others. See also Iscarriot Heterodyne's "Friends" - Sluggy Freelance: Almost used — the Mountain of Bones that the Demon King's abode sits atop is made up of all sorts of bones, but about half of them seem to be skulls, which is subject to many of the same comments as Nothing But. - Wapsi Square: Phix's wall - DM of the Rings parodies the scene in The Return of the King where Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are nearly buried under an avalanche of Nothing But Skulls. DM: The walls crack open and thousands of skulls are released!Legolas: Oh, Crap!.DM: They tumble down from above forming a great avalanche of death. The horrid sight is—Aragorn: Skulls? Like, only skulls?DM: Yeah.Aragorn: But that makes no sense!DM: It's just a trap. Dungeons have them all the time.Aragorn: I'm not calling the device into question. I'm questioning the payload. Thousands and thousands of skulls? How does that work exactly? Was this a race of floating heads? - Romantically Apocalyptic usually averts this, but once had a mountain of skulls in Shout-Out to The Apotheosis of War - The Order of the Stick, strip #361 shows a character standing on a small pile of skulls, ready for sacrificing a human. - In Outsider, a mosaic of a legendary warrior shows her standing on skulls. - Just like in the source material, If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device has the Imperium, and in particular the Emperor, being obsessed with skulls. However, in one of the Q&A sessions, he gets asked about this, and his response is oddly heartwarming: It is to show that even in its barest form humanity is beautiful. Have you seen how majestically my cranium curves between my parietals? It is amazing, and something that binds us all together. - The Secret Saturdays: used in episode "Where Lies the Engulfer", where a cryptid made of water smashed Doyle down to the bottom of the lake and he sees a skull leering back at him amidst a floor of bones. "Ahhh. Now that's just sick!" - In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) episode "The Trouble With Augie", Donatello eventually founds a mass grave organized in this manner. While one can see bits and pieces of other types of bones, skulls are by far the most common. - Squidbillies: Dan Halen uses a pile of his employee's skulls to top off "Mount Murder". The last surviving manager, Glen, tells him it would look better with one more on top, hands him an axe and positions his head exactly where he thinks the last skull should go. - Camp Lakebottom: In "Cheeks of Dread", the lair of the killer chipmunk Chipper contains a mound of human skulls. - Buffalo skulls were high in phosphorus and were bought up by fertilizer and explosive factories. They were piled in a giant mound before being shipped off. - Skull Tower of Ni. A tower made of the skulls (of the Serb soldiers defeated in a battle that was fought near the place during a major uprising) and stone blocks by Turkish commanders to discourage Serbs from another revolution. - By the way, discouragement? It failed. Serbs rose again couple years after that, and actually got to be represented by one of their own. - The tower is now a national monument. Also the rebels weren't just defeated, they blew themselves and many of the Turks up. - The Aztecs and their neighbours routinely displayed skulls on special racks - Assyrian armies piled up pyramids of skulls. - The Mongols were also quite fond of this as a form of psychological warfare. Timur reputedly built a pyramid out of 90,000 skulls outside of the city of Dehli to coax the city's surrender. - Catacombs and ossuaries (where bones are taken after they've been in a grave for a respectable amount of time to free up graveyard space), they're stored by bone type and size, not by owner, because it's a more efficient use of space. - In the Paris Catacombs, while there are all kinds of bones, skulls are carefully set in front of the piles to keep them from collapsing, or just for making fun shapes (there's a pattern of skulls in shape of a heart for example in one bone-pile.) The quick impression of the place comes close to the trope, even though careful scrutiny quickly proves it false. - Sedlec Ossuary. - In Portugal, the Chapel of Bones has wall decorated with nothing but skulls. - Memorials and museums for the Rwandan Genocide have... very neat stacks of skulls. A hell of a lot of them. There are a few reasons for this, the first being of course that skulls are small, easily stackable, and represent one clear death each, thus having a huge emotional impact. The second being that the large scale systematic mutilation of the victims and use of explosives in small confined areas (like churches) left it rather difficult to determine which bone belonged to whom, and it would be impossible to piece together every one of the thousands of skeletons. - Pol Pot is famed for his love of this trope. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum has shelves of the skulls of his victims. - This◊ political cartoon of United States President Zachary Taylor, or possibly General Winfield Scott (it's debated). At any rate the cartoon is an attack on the Whig Party, the skulls and sword referring to the Mexican-American War in which both Taylor and Scott fought, and the "one qualification" being bloodthirstiness. - Allegedly, an archeologist had managed to discover the nest of a monster called the Piasa ("man-eating bird") and found that it was filled entirely with human skulls and other bones. Trying to dig through them and find the floor of the nest proved futile. The fact that the nest was conveniently destroyed the next day, however, makes it possible that this story was fabricated. - It's not unusual for skulls, human or otherwise, to wind up on top when loose bones are washed downstream by running water and deposited all in a pile. There's nothing contrived or supernatural about this: air trapped in the sinus cavities simply makes them lighter for their volume than most other skeletal parts. - Archeologists found in Mexico city a what they believe to be Huey Tzompantli, a skull rack some 60 metres (200ft) in diameter which stood on the corner of the chapel of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of the sun, war and human sacrifice. It was believed to be made with the skulls of soldiers but the skulls of women and children have been found among the skulls of young men. So far they have dug a total of 676 skulls and it is believed to have many more skulls buried at the lower levels and the base of the tower.
Loch Ness by Jean FlitcroftVanessa’s dreams are haunted by cryptids and she longs to complete her mother’s search for Nessie, the most famous one of them all. Can she finally solve the mystery of Loch Ness? She gets her chance on a surprise trip to Scotland, but no one could have foreseen the consequences. Set against the eerie stillness of the loch, The Cryptid Files: Loch Ness is a magical story filled with suspense and adventure. Loch Ness Monster: 50 fascinating facts about the legend that won't die Many believe that Nessie is a plesiosaurus, a type of dinosaur which is believed to have been common about million years ago. The first organized search for Nessie was in Files from the Natural History Museum suggest Prince Philip was so interested in the Loch Ness Monster, he proposed the Royal Navy be enlisted to help him search for the elusive creature. Part of a triathlon included a swim through Loch Ness. In , a pair of bottlenose dolphins were outfitted with vests holding lights and small cameras in order to help search for Nessie. Speculation about the Loch Ness Monster began in when John Mackay and his wife spotted a creature in the middle of the loch as the drove past. On April 14, , a couple spotted something unusual as they drove past Loch Ness - sparking 80 years of speculation and mystery. John Mackay and his wife saw "something resembling a whale" as they passed the freshwater loch on a nearby road. Many sightings of Nessie have since been reported but there is lack of evidence to prove she really exists. Scientists consider the Loch Ness Monster a myth and the sightings purely hoaxes and wishful thinking. Here, we have put together some interesting facts about Loch Ness that you may not have heard of…. Loch Ness contains more water than all the lakes of England and Wales combined. Making it the most voluminous lake in the UK. And on very cold days you can see steam rising from the surface of the loch, as it is warmer than the surrounding air! The waters of Loch Ness are very dark due to the peat washed from the hills into the loch. Thanks! You'll be hearing from us soon. There have been sightings, photos, videos, hair-raising tales and hoaxes, but the hunt continues for conclusive proof that Nessie is really lurking in the depths of Loch Ness. BBC History Revealed investigates, There are plenty of exaggerations, myths, and outright lies circulating about the so-called Loch Ness Monster. Please refresh the page and retry. Here we go again. A band of scientists teasingly announced that it had evidence to provide a "plausible theory" to explain the Loch Ness Monster, only to disappoint Nessie fans around the world. The team at New Zealand's University of Otago reckons that the monster is not a monster at all but instead a giant eel, one of several perhaps, having analysed DNA taken from water samples. That may be so, but the legend will never die, so here are 50 facts we have about Nessie It was published in the Daily Mail on April 21, The first of these images was released on this date back in Below, a few facts about the Scottish beast, and the lore that surrounds it. London-based gynecologist Robert K. Loch Ness is huge. Measured in surface area, Ness Urquhart Castle sits about 13 miles south of Inverness and a mile from the village of Drumnadrochit, right on the banks of Ness. It was founded in the 13th century and saw centuries of conflicts and invasions, from King Edward I to the MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles, before being abandoned in the late 17th century. Though there are dozens, if not hundreds, of lake monsters around the world, one superstar marine denizen outshines them all: Nessie, the beast said to inhabit Scotland's Loch Ness. Some say it's a myth; others say it's a living dinosaur or even a sea serpent that swam into the lake before it became landlocked. Whether real or fictional, it is what Scotland is best known for around the world aside from whiskey, bagpipes and kilts. Some claim that the Loch Ness monster was first reported in A. Columba turned away a giant beast that was threatening a man in the Ness River, which flows into the lake. However tempting it is to suggest that the encounter was a true historical record of the beast's existence, it is only one of many church myths about righteous saints vanquishing Satan in the form of serpents and dragons. In fact, there are no reports of the beast until less than a century ago.
Summer days are quite long, leaving people with maybe a little too much free time. Sure, one might hang out with friends, go to a beach or even work, but what about the times in between? Or those days where it’s far too hot to do anything but lay out flat on the floor and complain? Those are perfect for reading. Maybe you don’t read as much as you used to, or maybe you never read much in the first place, but summer is the best time to get into, or back into, the habit. So, now you’ve been convinced to read a book or two (or four, I don’t know. Reading speeds vary), which leads to the question of “Well, what book should I read?” Easy-peasy, just start by thinking about your favorite genre. I don’t know about you, but Halloween is my favorite holiday. In fact, I’m a big fan of creepy, occult and supernatural things in general—stories especially. Do you see where I’m going here? If you’re a horror fan like me, I can totally help you with your summer reading list by pointing you in the direction of four great 2017 horror novels. 1. “Meddling Kids” by Edgar Canter Maybe you like a little comedy with your creepy, or you aren’t a huge fan of being too afraid to sleep with the light off. “Deliriously wild, funny and imaginative…” says Charles Yu, author of “How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe.” Cantero’s sophomore English-language novel is a bit of an homage to the Scooby Gang that, hopefully, we all know and love, but it’s not them—Cantero doesn’t own those rights. In true, “a team suddenly splits up and they haven’t seen one another for years” trope fashion, the (living) team members must come back together to solve the mystery of what really happened in ’77; this time there are real monsters. 2. “Ararat” by Christopher Golden With “Ararat,” horror takes a bit of a biblical turn, but don’t worry, you don’t have to be religious in any way to enjoy this tale. While on an adventure, climbing Mount Ararat in Turkey, a newly engaged couple and their climbing group is forced to seek shelter inside of a huge cave when an avalanche starts. Everyone soon figures out that this “cave” is an ancient ship, buried in snow; some believe it is actually Noah’s Ark. A team of scholars, archaeologists and filmmakers make their way inside the Ark soon after and they find a coffin deep inside. Curiosity takes over and they break open the coffin, only to find a deformed, horned creature. The shock of this is only made worse when a sudden blizzard traps everyone inside of the cave. Not only must these characters with highly contrasting personalities work together for survival, but they soon realize that the ship is not abandoned as they previously assumed. 3. “Wendigo” by Vaughn C. Hardacker Fans of the 2015 video game “Until Dawn” will get a kick out of this supernatural thriller that has its own take on the famous cryptid known for its insatiable hunger for human flesh. To John Bear, the Wendigo was just a scary story, told often by his grandfather, about a creature that could possess the body of a man, turning him into a cannibalistic monster. But then he is sent to Maine to investigate a murder. The victim is found deep in the Maine wilderness, slaughtered with his heart cut out and the only tracks that can be found are massive, coming from something completely inhuman.Going back to those stories told by his grandad, John is completely sure that the culprit and the creature stalking inhabitants of the wooded outpost is a Wendigo. Naturally, nobody believes him and it is up to John to stop the monster that he used to simply dismiss as a cautionary tale for children. “Wendigo” is a thrilling take on the famous Algonquian legend that will keep you on the edge of your seat. 4. “Under a Watchful Eye” by Adam Nevill Last, but certainly not least, is Adam Nevill’s “Under a Watchful Eye.” “You will always belong to him” is the menacing tagline of this book and it’s enough to give rise to a few goosebumps here and there. In a somewhat meta sense, Seb Logan is an author, well known in the community of the horror genre. Living on the coast of the sea in Devon, he lives a relatively peaceful life. That is until a mysterious figure repeatedly appears before Seb, reminding him of the life he once lived. With every sighting of this dark figure, Seb is plunged into an unsettling atmosphere as horrifying paranoia grips him. This strange figure that keeps disappearing and appearing turns out to be an old college friend named Ewan Alexander. Once an inspiration to Seb, Ewan is now pretty much insane, having spent decades researching the paranormal—his main focal point being the life after death. With Ewan’s arrival into Seb’s home, along with the man’s insane rambling about a cult come incredibly realistic nightmares that don’t always end when Seb wakes up.
Temporal range: Middle Pleistocene-Holocene \|Brown bear (U. arctos) in Hallo Bay, Katmai National Park, Alaska\| \|Brown bear range map\| The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear living in much of northern Eurasia and North America. It is smaller than the polar bear, but is the largest carnivore which lives entirely on the land. There are several recognized subspecies. The brown bear's range has shrunk, but it is still listed as a least concern species by the IUCN. Its total population is about 200,000. As of 2012, this and the American black bear are the only bear species not classified as threatened by the IUCN. However, many of the southern Asian subspecies are highly endangered. The smallest subspecies, the Himalayan brown bear, is critically endangered. It lives in just 2% of its former range, and poachers hunt it for its parts. The Marsican brown bear in central Italy is believed to have a population of just 30 to 40 bears. The brown bear's main range includes parts of Russia, Central Asia, China, Canada, the United States (mostly Alaska), Scandinavia and the Carpathian region (especially Romania), Anatolia, and Caucasus. The brown bear is a national and state animal in several European countries. It is the most widely distributed of all bears. Brown bears are omnivores. Brown bears are apex predators. Taxonomy and evolution Brown bears are thought to have evolved from Ursus etruscus. The oldest fossils occur in China from about 0.5 million years ago. They entered Europe about 250,000 years ago, and North Africa shortly after. Brown bear remains from the Pleistocene period are common in the British Isles, where it is thought they outcompeted cave bears. The species entered Alaska 100,000 years ago, though they did not move south until 13,000 years ago. It is thought brown bears were unable to migrate south until the extinction of the much larger Arctodus simus. As of 2005, 16 subspecies have been recognized. The subspecies have been listed as follows: \|Ursus arctos arctos – Eurasian brown bear\|\|Europe, Caucasus, Siberia (except the east) and Mongolia\|\|A predominantly dark colored (rarely light colored), moderately-sized subspecies with dark claws, the Eurasian browns occurring in Siberia are larger than their European counterparts, as they are hunted less. Where found in Europe, primarily a forest creature\| \|Ursus arctos alascensis\|\|Alaska\| \|Ursus arctos beringianus – Kamchatka brown bear (or Far Eastern brown bear)\|\|Kamchatka Peninsula and Paramushir Island\|\|This is a very large, dark colored form. Light colored forms are encountered less than in European-Siberian subspecies. The claws are dark; it is thought to be the ancestor of U. a. middendorffi.\| \|Ursus arctos californicus – California golden bear (extinct)\| \|Ursus arctos collaris – East Siberian brown bear\|\|East Siberia from the Yenisei River to the Altai Mountains, also occurs in northern Mongolia\|\|A predominantly dark form, it is intermediate in size between U. a. arctos and U. a. beringianus, with a proportionately larger skull.\| \|Ursus arctos crowtheri – Atlas bear (extinct)\| \|Ursus arctos dalli\| \|Ursus arctos horribilis – Grizzly bear\|\|Western Canada, Alaska, and the northwestern United States, historically existed in Great Plains\|\|Grizzlies are identified by a medium to dark brown coat with gray, or "grizzled" tips on the fur. Smaller than the coastal bear, a grizzly typically weighs up to 800 lb (364 kg) in inland areas, with bears in the Yukon region weighing as little as 350 lb (159 kg). Coastal bears may be nearly twice a mountain grizzly's weight. Highly adaptable: can live in montane pine forests, temperate rainforest, arid scrubland, and prairie.\| \|Ursus arctos isabellinus – Himalayan brown bear\|\|Nepal, Pakistan, and Northern India\|\|Having a reddish-brown or sandy coat color, this bear is smaller than most other brown bears found on the Asian continent.\| \|Ursus arctos lasiotus – Ussuri brown bear (or Amur brown bear, black grizzly or horse bear)\|\|Russia: Southern Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Maritime territory, and the Ussuri/Amur river region south of the Stanovoy Range, China: northeastern Heilongjiang, Japan: Hokkaidō\|\|This bear is thought to be the ancestor of U. a. horribilis.\| \|Ursus arctos middendorffi – Kodiak bear\|\|Kodiak, Afognak, Shuyak Islands (Alaska)\|\|This is the largest subspecies of brown bear, with other coastal brown bears reaching as big.\| \|Ursus arctos nelsoni – Mexican grizzly bear (extinct)\|\|Northern Mexico, including Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Sonora, southwestern United States including southern ranges of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico\|\|This bear is believed extinct due to cattle ranching in both the United States and Mexico. Distinct in its ability to survive arid conditions, it could live in both montane pine forests of Mexico and canyonlands of Sonoran Desert.\| \|Ursus arctos pruinosus – Tibetan blue bear\|\|Western China and Tibet\|\|This is a moderately-sized subspecies with long and shaggy fur. Both dark and light variants are encountered, with intermediate colors predominating. The fur around the neck is light, and forms a "collar". The skull is distinguished its relatively flattened choanae, an arch-like curve of the molar row and large teeth.\| \|Ursus arctos sitkensis\|\|Baranof Island\|\|Appearing to be more closely related to the polar bear than to other brown bears, this species is called "clade I" by Waits, and others., and is part of the subspecies identified as U. a. sitkensis, by Hall and as U. a. dalli by Kurtén.\| \|Ursus arctos stikeenensis\| \|Ursus arctos syriacus – Syrian brown bear\|\|Occurs in the trans-Caucasus, Syria, Iraq,Turkey (Asia Minor), Iran, Afghanistan, western Himalayas and the Pamir-Alai and Tien Shan mountains, probable historical presence in Israel\|\|The Syrian is a light colored, moderate to small-sized subspecies with light claws.\| A Grizzly–polar bear hybrid (known as a pizzly Bear or grolar bear) is a rare ursid hybrid resulting from a union of a brown bear and a polar bear. It has occurred both in captivity and in the wild. In 2006, the occurrence of this hybrid in nature was confirmed by testing the DNA of a strange-looking bear that had been shot in the Canadian arctic. Previously, the hybrid had been produced in zoos, and was considered a "cryptid". When fully grown Brown bears are about 5–7 feet in length and can be almost 9 feet tall when they are standing. Brown bears have very large and curved claws, those present on the forelimbs being longer than those on the hind limbs. They may reach 5 to 6 centimetres (2.0 to 2.4 in) and sometimes 7 to 10 centimetres (2.8 to 3.9 in) along the curve. They are generally dark with a light tip, with some forms having completely light claws. Brown bear claws are longer and straighter than those of American black bears. The claws are blunt, while those of a black bear are sharp. Brown bears have very strong teeth. Although they have powerful jaws, brown bear jaws are incapable of breaking large bones with the ease of spotted hyenas. Brown bears have long, thick fur, with a moderately long mane at the back of the neck. In India, brown bears can be reddish with silver tips, while in China, brown bears are bicolored with a yellow-brown or whitish cape across the shoulders. North American grizzlies can be dark brown (almost black) to cream (almost white) or yellowish brown. Black hairs usually have white tips. The winter fur is very thick and long, especially in northern subspecies, and can reach 11 to 12 centimetres (4 to 5 in) at the withers. The winter hairs are thin, yet rough to the touch. The summer fur is much shorter and sparser, and its length and density varies geographically. Distribution and habitat There are about 200,000 brown bears in the world. The largest populations are in Russia with 120,000, the United States with 32,500, and Canada with 21,750. About 95% of the brown bear population in the United States is in Alaska, though in the lower 48 states, they are repopulating slowly but steadily along the Rockies and the western Great Plains. The last Mexican brown bear was shot in 1960. In Europe, there are 14,000 brown bears in ten fragmented populations, from Spain (estimated at only 20-25 animals in the Pyrenees in 2010, in a range shared between France, Spain and Andorra, and some 85-90 animals in Asturias, Cantabria, Galicia and León, in the Picos de Europa and adjacent areas in 2003 and some 100 animals in 2005) in the west, to Russia in the east, and from Sweden and Finland in the north to Romania (4000–5000), Bulgaria (900–1200), Slovakia (with about 600–800 animals), Slovenia (500-700 animals) and Greece (with about 200 animals) in the south. They are extinct in the British Isles, extremely threatened in France and Spain, and in trouble over most of Central Europe. The Carpathian brown bear population of Romania is the largest in Europe outside Russia, estimated at 4,500 to 5,000 bears, although declining alarmingly due to overhunting. There is also a smaller brown bear population in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine (estimated at about 200 in 2005), Slovakia and Poland (estimated at about 100 in 2009 in the latter country). The total Carpathian population is estimated at about 8,000. Northern Europe is home to a large bear population, with an estimated 2,500 (range 2,350–2,900) in Sweden, about 1,600 in Finland, about 700 in Estonia and 70 in Norway. Another large and relatively stable population of brown bears in Europe, consisting of 2,500–3,000 individuals, is the Dinaric-Pindos (Balkans) population, with contiguous distribution in northeast Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece. Brown bears were once native to Asia, the Atlas Mountains in Africa, Europe, and North America, but are now extinct in some areas, and their populations have greatly decreased in other areas. They prefer semiopen country, usually in mountainous areas. Brown bears live in Alaska, east through the Yukon and Northwest Territories, south through British Columbia and through the western half of Alberta. Small populations exist in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of northwest Wyoming (with about 600 animals), the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem of northwest Montana (with about 750 animals), the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem of northwest Montana and northeast Idaho (with about 30–40 animals), the Selkirk Ecosystem of northeast Washington and northwest Idaho (with about 40–50 animals), and the North Cascades Ecosystem of northcentral Washington (with about 5–10 animals). These five ecosystems combine for a total of roughly 1,470 wild grizzlies still persisting in the contiguous United States. Unfortunately, these populations are isolated from each other, inhibiting any genetic flow between ecosystems. This poses one of the greatest threats to the future survival of the grizzly bear in the contiguous United States. In Asia, brown bears are found in most of Russia, parts of the Middle East, and in a small area of Manchuria in China. They can also be found on the island of Hokkaidō in Japan, western China, and parts of North Korea, Afghanistan and India. The population of brown bears in the Pyrenees mountain range between France and Spain is so low, estimated at 14 to 18, with a shortage of females, that bears, mostly female, from Slovenia were released in spring 2006 to reduce the imbalance and preserve the species' presence in the area, despite protests from French farmers. A small population of brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) still lives in central Italy (Apennine mountains, Abruzzo and Latium), with no more than 70 individuals, protected by strong laws, but endangered by the human presence in the area. In Arctic areas, the potential habitat of the brown bear is increasing. The warming of that region has allowed the species to move farther north into what was once exclusively the domain of the polar bear. In non-Arctic areas, habitat loss is blamed as the leading cause of endangerment, followed by hunting. North American brown bears, or grizzly bears, seem to prefer open landscapes, whereas in Eurasia they inhabit mostly dense forests. It is thought the Eurasian bears which colonized America were tundra-adapted. This is indicated by brown bears in the Chukotka Peninsula on the Asian side of Bering Strait, which are the only Asian brown bears to live year-round in lowland tundra like their North American cousins. The brown bear is primarily nocturnal. In the summer, it gains up to 180 kilograms (400 lb) of fat, on which it relies to make it through winter, when it becomes very lethargic. Although they are not full hibernators, and can be woken easily; both sexes like to den in a protected spot, such as a cave, crevice, or hollow log, during the winter months. Brown bears are mostly solitary, although they may gather in large numbers at major food sources and form social hierarchies based on age and size. Adult male bears are particularly aggressive and are avoided by adolescent and subadult males. Female bears with cubs rival adult males in aggression, and are more intolerant of other bears than single females. Young adolescent males tend to be least aggressive, and have been observed in nonagonistic interactions with each other. In his Great Bear Almanac, Gary Brown lists 11 different sounds bears produce in 9 different contexts. Sounds expressing anger or aggravation include growls, roars, woofs, champs and smacks, while sounds expressing nervousness or pain include woofs, grunts and bawls. Sows will bleat or hum when communicating with their cubs. Brown bears mate from May to July. Cubs are born between January and March. The average litter has one to four cubs, usually two. There have been cases of bears with five cubs, although females sometimes adopt stray cubs. Older females tend to give birth to larger litters. The size of a litter also depends on factors such as geographic location and food supply. At birth, the cubs are blind, toothless, hairless, and weigh less than 450 grams (1 lb). They feed on their mother's milk until spring or even early summer, depending on climate conditions. At this time, the cubs weigh 7 to 9 kilograms (15 to 20 lb) and have developed enough to follow her and begin to forage for solid food. Cubs remain with their mother from two to four years, during which time they learn survival techniques, such as which foods have the highest nutritional values and where to obtain them; how to hunt, fish, and defend themselves; and where to den. The cubs learn by following and imitating their mother's actions during the period they are with her. They are omnivores and feed on a variety of plant products, including berries, roots, and sprouts, and fungi, as well as meat products such as fish, insects, and small mammals. Despite their reputation, most brown bears are not highly carnivorous, as they derive up to 90% of their dietary food energy from vegetable matter. Their jaw structure has evolved to fit their dietary habits. Their diet varies enormously throughout their differing areas based on opportunity. For example, bears in Yellowstone eat an enormous number of moths during the summer, sometimes as many as 40,000 in a day, and may derive up to half of their annual food energy from these insects. In some areas of Russia and Alaska, brown bears feed mostly on spawning salmon, whose nutrition and abundance explain the enormous size of the bears in these areas. Brown bears also occasionally prey on large mammals, such as deer (including elk, moose and caribou), bighorn sheep, mountain goats, bison and muskoxen. When brown bears attack these animals, they tend to choose the young ones, as they are easier to catch. When hunting, the bear pins its prey to the ground and then tears and eats it alive. On rare occasions, bears kill by hitting their prey with their powerful forearms, which can break the necks and backs of large prey, such as moose. Relationship with humans Bears become attracted to human-created food sources, such as garbage dumps, litter bins, and dumpsters; they venture into human dwellings or barns in search of food as humans encroach into bear habitats. In the U.S., bears sometimes kill and eat farm animals. When bears come to associate human activity with a "food reward", they are likely to continue to become emboldened; the likelihood of human-bear encounters increases, as they may return to the same location despite relocation. Relocation of the bear has been used to separate the bear from the human environment, but it does not address the problem of the bear's newly-learned association of humans with food or the environmental situations which created the human-habituated bear. "Placing a bear in habitat used by other bears may lead to competition and social conflict, and result in the injury or death of the less dominant bear." Yellowstone National Park, an enormous reserve located in the western United States, contains prime habitat for the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), and due to the enormous number of visitors, human-bear encounters are common. In Europe, part of the problem lies with shepherds; over the past two centuries, many sheep and goat herders have gradually abandoned the more traditional practice of using dogs to guard flocks, which have concurrently grown larger. Typically, they allow the herds to graze freely over sizeable tracts of land. As bears reclaim parts of their range, they may eat livestock. In some cases, the shepherds shoot the bear, thinking their livelihood is under threat. Many are now better informed about the ample compensation available, and will make a claim when they lose livestock to a bear. There are an average of two fatal attacks by bears per year in North America. In Scandinavia, there are only four known cases since 1902 of bear encounters which have resulted in death. The two most common causes for bear attack are surprise and curiosity. Some types of bears, such as polar bears, are more likely to attack humans when searching for food, while American black bears are much less likely to attack. The Alaska Science Center ranks the following as the most likely reasons for bear attacks: - Invaded personal space (this includes a mother bear protecting her young) - Predatory intent - Hunting wounded - Carcass defense - Provoked charge Aggressive behavior in brown bears is favored by numerous selection variables. Unlike the smaller black bears, adult brown bears are too large to escape danger by climbing trees, so they respond to danger by standing their ground and warding off their attackers. Increased aggressiveness also assists female brown bears in better ensuring the survival of their young to reproductive age. Attacks on humans As a rule, brown bears seldom attack humans on sight, and usually avoid people. They are, however, unpredictable in temperament, and will attack if they are surprised or feel threatened. Sows with cubs account for the majority of injuries and fatalities in North America. Habituated or food-conditioned bears can also be dangerous, as their long-term exposure to humans causes them to lose their natural shyness, and, in some cases, to associate humans with food. Many Native American tribes both respected and feared the brown bear, even thinking of it as a god. One tale tells of how the black bear was a creation of the Great Spirit, while the grizzly was created by the Evil Spirit. In Kwakiutl mythology, black and brown bears became enemies when Grizzly Bear Woman killed Black Bear Woman for being lazy. Black Bear Woman's children, in turn, killed Grizzly Bear Woman's own cubs. Brown bears often figure into the literature of Europe and North America, in particular that which is written for children. "The Brown Bear of Norway" is a Scottish fairy tale telling the adventures of a girl who married a prince magically turned into a bear, and who managed to get him back into a human form by the force of her love and after many trials and difficulties. With "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", a story from England, the three bears are usually depicted as brown bears. In German speaking countries, children are often told the fairytale of Snow White and Rose Red; the handsome prince in this tale has been transfigured into a brown bear. In the United States, parents often read their preschool age children the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? to teach them their colors and how they are associated with different animals. The coat of arms of Madrid depicts a bear reaching up into a madroño or strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) to eat some of its fruit, whereas the Swiss city of Bern's coat of arms also depicts a bear and the city's name is popularly thought to derive from the German word for bear. In the town of Prats de Molló, in Vallespir, Northern Catalonia, a "bear festival" (festa de l'ós) is celebrated annually at the beginning of spring, in which the locals dress up as bears, cover themselves with soot or coal and oil, and "attack" the onlookers, attempting to get everyone dirty. The festival ends with the ball de l'os (bear dance). Brown bear Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.
If I could marry a myth it would be monstrous, but not monstrous like frightening. Monstrous as in a monstrous love where I’d be prouder than a Phoenix in plumage, and hotter than a poker. I’d swing on Cthulhu’s feelers. Take a water-slide ride down the tail of Godzilla. I’d let a Wendigo eat my heart and put a ring on it and drive me out to our small town’s overlook where he’d insist I’d wear protection and let me finish the rest of my wine. Loch Ness monster, more like Loch Bless monster, because every night you come to me in bed is another day I fall in love. Instead of calling the cops, my father would shake hands with Cyclops, and call him the son he never had, because if your face were a little more lion and a little less wolf we’d have a magically monstrous love on our hands, but instead I am stuck with you, you, and you are no creepy cryptid but a mere under-the-bed boogeyman that sends me screaming only that’s what I get for having married a monster with average-sized hands and not looking out the front door before answering it. Jules Archer writes flash fiction in Arizona. A Pushcart-nominated writer, her work has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, >kill author, Pank, The Butter, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. She likes to smell old books, drink red wine, and read true crime tales. Her chapbook ALL THE GHOSTS WE’VE ALWAYS HAD is out from Thirty West Publishing.
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Audio Podcast Directory - Podcasts with only audio episodes Welcome to the Dietitians Unplugged Podcast with Aaron Flores and Glenys Oyston. Join us as we explore the idea of health and wellness from a new perspective. Each episode we will discuss topics that we hope to help you improve your health, body image and fitness without obsessing on the scale or counting calories. We believe in Health at Every Size®, Intuitive Eating, and body positivity and we want to help you build the confidence to ditch the scale, and embrace your health without shaming your body. By Dietitians Unplugged Welcome to the Coach Approach Ministries Podcast! Coaching is a skillset and a mindset that helps people find focus, discover options and take action. At CAM, we train the very best Christian coaches in the world, and over the last decade, we've trained well over a thousand. Through this podcast, we want to share insights from the Coaching Community and help you to develop a broader understanding of coaching. You can find out more about us at www.coachapproachministries.org and sign up for our proven coach training. By Coach Approach Ministries You’ve probably started with great intentions, telling yourself you’ll stash away more for retirement and buy fewer lattes (because some writer said buying lattes is a bad thing). But life happens. It’s not as neat and tidy as the financial experts on TV seem to think. You’ve got a lot going on in your life, and you need more than simplistic, cookie-cutter instructions to keep you on the right financial path. Kate Stalter escorts you to the right path for your money. She talks to experts and "normal" people who have taken the right steps to make better money decisions. By Kate Stalter Rich in history, even richer in characters, South Boston is the best place to live. During our weekly Caught Up Podcast, we share with you all the things we love about Southie: hole in the wall bars, annual swims in freezing oceans, and as much gossip on our neighbors as we can dig up! Hosted by lifelong Southie residents Maureen Dahill and Heather Foley. By Caught In Southie Welcome to Conservation Matters with Shane Mahoney. Listen to Shane's speeches given around the world on scientific issues and challenges impacting global conservation in the 21st Century. Conservation, after all, is everyone's business. One Natural World. One Humanity. One Chance. Conservation Matters. By Shane Mahoney Beth Anne from brilliantbusinessmoms.com interviews mom entrepreneurs who are succeeding in online business. Mom bloggers, Etsy shop owners, Shopify store owners, designers, authors, and course creators are just a few of the creatively brilliant moms featured here. This podcast is all about practical advice from work-at-home moms who are getting things done in the margins - just like you! We're not about big names or fancy accolades here, but instead celebrating big and little wins from mompreneurs who make the most of their day to grow their business at a pace that works for them. We're all about designing online businesses that work around our lives instead of running our lives. Brilliantbusinessmoms.com features tutorial videos to help you grow your business including topics on growing your email list, Facebook marketing, SEO for your Etsy shop or blog, affiliate marketing, building website traffic through Pinterest, outsourcing, organizing your research, and marketing your first online product. Beth Anne won't leave you in the dark with general platitudes like, "don't give up" (you shouldn't). She'll will walk you through all of the practical steps needed to truly be successful in the online business world. As she learns and grows her own online business, she'll share each success and failure with you so that you can learn right along with her. Whether you're brand new to online business, an old pro, or just beginning to think about earning an income online, the Brilliant Business Moms podcast has got you covered! By Beth Anne interviews Mom entrepreneurs who are succeeding in online business. Mom bloggers, Etsy shop owners, photographers, and designers are just a few of the brilliant business moms featured here. Everyone has heard about Bigfoot. Not many know that there's a much more terrifying cryptid stalking the deepest, darkest woods of North America and beyond. Tune in every Friday night, at 9PM EST, as eyewitnesses share the terrifying details of their real-life Dogman encounters with you. These are real eyewitnesses, not actors. If you listen to this show, you'll never look at the woods the same way again! By Vic Cundiff Driven women have a hard time balancing their self-care and personal life with their professional goals. Each week join Alexandra Jamieson, master coach, professional creative, mom, and author, as she interviews guests who share tools, inspiration, and creative solutions while pulling back the curtain on how they run their own lives and overcame their own obstacles. If you're a driven woman, want to share your unique voice and talents with the world, and stay sane, healthy, and grounded while doing it, this is the podcast for you. By Alexandra Jamieson Erin Weidemann is here to put the “her” in hero! It is her passion to help parents raise confident, capable daughters who are excited to live out their purpose. In today’s world, the girls who are the loudest are the ones who get noticed. Join us as we inspire you each week by interviewing real women, positive role models who are making a different kind of noise. 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I was in a dark place, alone in my room and hunched over my laptop, when the Mothman flew into my life. I was living in my parents’ house in Oklahoma at the time. I had just lost my full-time job in New York City, so I was subletting my shoebox in Brooklyn until I found another gig. Depressed and directionless, I passed my days on YouTube, revisiting Real Housewives drama and clips of classic anime fights. While in a pit of my listless despair, I came across an odd YouTube video about a creature that had terrorized the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in the ’60s. It was in that moment that my obsession with the Mothman and with cryptozoology — the search for and study of creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster — was born. We in the Mothman fandom have come to think of him as a mascot for the absurd, the misunderstood, and the queer. His ascent is similar to that of the gay Babadook, a phenomenon that took over pride season this year — for the uninitiated, he was the creature in the top hat with long claws whom you might have seen vogueing in parades across the country. As the world around us seems to descend into political and environmental chaos, Mothman and his motley crew of monsters have become queer icons — much to some people’s confusion. But their rise makes perfect sense when we look at our histories. Oh, so you think queer people are monsters? We’ll show you monsters. Where I’m from, a small town in the middle of nowhere, the gay man was the bogeyman. He was constantly waiting to prey upon the hapless straights in their locker rooms, salivating at the prospect of converting them to the gay dark side with his bite. All things evil and repulsive were his domain — report cards, emotions, curfews, and books, to name a few. All these things were gay, because they were bad. If you were suspected of being The Gay, you were met with proverbial torches and pitchforks. I was one such suspect, singled out for my swishiness, my lisp, and my admission that I kind of enjoyed “Breakaway” by Kelly Clarkson, a major tactical blunder. I found myself hiding in the shadows of the auditorium behind a stage curtain during lunch to avoid torment. I didn’t feel particularly powerful at the time, but the fact remained: People hated me because they were afraid of me. Like many other young queer people, I rooted for the villains in Disney movies, who were often coded to have traits similar to mine, like Scar’s dripping sarcasm or Jafar’s fondness for eyeliner. The heroes seemed to have more in common with the people that made my life miserable. They always ended up in a heterosexual relationship, of course — their reward for beating down the queer baddies who had dared to rise above their station. The villains, meanwhile, were always sent back to where they belonged: in hell, or the at bottom of the ocean, or hidden away in a lamp. Out of sight. Now, when LGBT rights are under attack and the future is anything but certain, there has emerged among some queer people a renewed interest in drawing strength not from institutions, which have largely failed us, but from our countercultural roots, our historic defiance of norms. Oh, so you think queer people are monsters? We’ll show you monsters. And this time, no one’s locking us back in a cage. According to Mothman lore, a married couple and three of their friends were the first to report a sighting of the Mothman in a wildlife refuge. They ran to the Mason County courthouse and said they saw an animal that stood over 7 feet tall with a black furry body, massive featherless wings, and glowing red eyes. The five were allegedly interviewed in separate rooms, but gave matching descriptions of what they had seen — a beast that had leapt vertically into the sky without flapping its wings. The townspeople were so shaken by this report that they took up arms to track down Mothman and kill him. But he was nowhere to be found. It was later speculated that the Mothman was a creature of prophecy. A year after he was sighted, a bridge collapsed in Point Pleasant and killed 46 people. This theory was later immortalized in the film The Mothman Prophecies, which portrayed Mothy as a ChapStick-loving creature alongside Richard Gere and Debra Messing. So, you know. Gay. In his own small way, he was indeed a creature of prophecy for me — a harbinger of a new era where I was deeply obsessed with dark YouTube. I watched that one Mothman video and fell down an internet rabbit hole into an online underworld of the macabre. This world was peopled by serial killers, cannibals, conspiracy theorists, and cryptids — creatures like Nessie and Bigfoot and la chupacabra that defy taxonomy and always show up as blurry in photos. This is where the Mothman lives. Under his wing, I wolfed down listicles of the world’s most notorious cult leaders, conspiracy theories about the government hiding evidence of aliens from us, and ghost stories that kept me awake for hours. All of these videos were accompanied by creepy music and skillful narration that struck the perfect balance between cheesy and deathly serious. It was in this world that I met other cryptids, or cryptozoological creatures, and I became a fan of their work as well. Among my favorites is the Flatwoods Monster, another West Virginian cryptid who presented a look that left the three schoolchildren and one teacher who saw her gagged for life. Standing at 10 feet tall with long claws and a metallic body, the oddest thing about this cryptid might be her long skirt and spade-shaped collar. In this pantheon are a number of other legends, like the Jersey Devil, a bipedal creature described as a kangaroo-like creature with bat wings, a goat head, and a forked tail. The backstory is crazy — the Jersey Devil is said to have been the cursed 13th child of a woman known as Mother Leeds. Shortly after the Jersey Devil was born, it killed the midwife and scurried up the chimney to escape. As one does. But Mothman always remained the number one cryptid in my heart. I understand why so many gay men see themselves in pop divas. It’s a sentiment I share myself. We have, after all, been historically shamed for expressing vulnerability, femininity, and sexuality. The fever dream of tapping into those things and drawing power from them is inToxicating. It’s what keeps us invested in our queens through their highs and lows, and what compels us to overspend on their exorbitantly priced merch: They present a power trip that we can easily access. They are us, victorious. Pop stars sell us a fantasy of triumph — but so do monsters. It’s just that the concept of victory, what it looks like and how it’s defined, is a little different. This Tumblr post with over 50,000 notes sums up the sentiment well: Queer people, finally fed up with being called villains, decide to reclaim cryptids as their own. It’s a delicious subversion of the rhetoric that has historically been used against us: a reclamation, a reappropriation, a hijacking. Then there’s this one, which depicts a marriage ceremony with the Mothman as the groom, making moth noises instead of saying his vows, putting a hilarious twist on a traditional institution. While there’s been a long tradition of reappropriating queer villainy, multiple factors have conspired to make our current era a golden age — and one factor in particular. After the election, it became clear that the White House probably wasn’t going to be lit up in the colors of the rainbow anytime soon. This partly explains why the gay Babadook became the pride icon of 2017, after being mistakenly labeled as an LGBTQ film on Netflix. The Babadook, a fictional character in the eponymous horror film who terrorized a family's home in Australia, was a fitting metaphor for queer people’s potential roles under the Trump administration: We will be the antagonists. Queerness has always held up a mirror to mainstream society in order to mock it. Camp has historically drawn from the ridiculousness of the cisgender, heterosexual world to critique and ridicule its oppressive social norms. This obsession with labeling cryptids and monsters as queer, a practice that is in turns nihilist, absurdist, and completely illogical, is a perfect parody of the time we live in. Right now, in an age of fake news and rampant mistrust in the press, conspiracy theories are being taken dangerously seriously. Pizzagate, Ted Cruz’s father being the JFK assassin, and Sean Hannity’s Seth Rich obsession are all the sorts of theories that should be confined to Mothman’s domain, to the dark underworld of YouTube. But the seal has been broken, and the real monsters — the ones we’re supposed to think are actually the heroes — are out in broad daylight. This obsession with labeling cryptids and monsters as queer is a perfect parody of the time we live in. And so queer people do as we always have — we make fun of the dominant culture. When the very nature of truth is in jeopardy, when you have Sean Spicer standing before the nation and making blatantly false claims about size of Donald Trump’s inauguration crowd, why not mock these blatant untruths by asserting something ridiculous and delightful? Why not say that the Mothman is real, and he is your boyfriend? Sure, there are plenty of gay and queer people who bristle at the prospect of being compared to monsters. I understand where they’re coming from on that front. There’s a long and troubling history of queer people being demonized by mainstream society. More than that, queer people have long been portrayed exclusively as villains in the media, in addition to being villainized in real life. It wasn’t until recently that LGBT representation in film and television has grown more varied and positive. Not everyone is willing to embrace or subvert the evil queer trope. In the end, memes always reach a point of over-saturation. The shipping of Pennywise the Clown from It with the Babadook marks the end of that meme’s subversiveness. I also suspect that the Mothman will eventually flitter away from his current absurd place in internet culture. That’s just the lifespan of memes at work — they are born on Tumblr or 4chan, spend their adolescence on Twitter, and go to Facebook to die. RIP. But the great tradition of queer people simultaneously mocking and seeking themselves out in mainstream culture won’t die out anytime soon. Many have found themselves looking to pop stars or fictional characters in movies or in TV shows to find empowerment and strength. I have one such figure as well. Mine just happens to be a little taller than yours.
British Cryptids Conference A conference dedicated purely to the mysterious British Cryptids, Bigfoot, Lake monsters, Werewolves, Fairies, Owl Man, Alien Big Cats, Dragons, Wodewose, Kelpie and more. Four of Britiains top Cryptid researchers and authors lecture on different subjects. 27th May 2018 Tech Officer Mark Steele: ‘5G Will Kill Our Kids. It’s A Bigger Story Than Jimmy Savile!’….. Brilliant Jon Rappoport Report On 5G Roll-out, Internet Of Things & Implications For Humanity….. Dr. Paul Connett on the Case Against Fluoride….. More adventures in replying to spam \| James Veitch….. Are We in Tyrannical Times? Has Plato’s Terrible Prediction Come True?….. Battle in Seattle (Full Movie) Woody Harrelson, Channing Tatum, Charlize Theron….. Geneticist Suggests Long-Skulled Ladies Were Used as Treaty Brides in Europe….. Reading the So-Called Sumerian Seals Relating to Gods from Outer Space….. He just stood there, watching me Aug 2017 Wildman Co. Armagh….. Sasquatch & Dogs: Not Best Buds….. Saturated with mind control: The Big Breakfast….. Military Encounters with Supernatural Demonic Entities….. Today we talk to Dr. Paul Connett of the Fluoride Action Network (fluoridealert.org) about Food & Water Watch Inc., et al. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, a lawsuit that could bring an end to the practice of water fluoridation in the United States. We discuss the Toxic Substances Control Act under which the suit is being filed, how recent court rulings have allowed the case to proceed, and the incredible significance of the chance to depose the EPA’s “experts” under oath. Please help spread the word about this exciting development. Dr. Paul Connett on the Case Against Fluoride Okay, so Plato once predicted that all democratic governments would inevitably lead to chaos and anarchy. And sure, he foresaw that elected leaders would try to lie to us, in attempts to placate the people. And yes, Plato deduced that the only logical result from democracy was…Tyranny; a state where lawmakers would purposely undermine the people’s needs in order to maintain power. But really, come on. It’s not like this is happening now, right? Right? Are We in Tyrannical Times? Has Plato’s Terrible Prediction Come True? A group of 13 women stood out from the crowd in some southern German villages along the Danube River 1500 years ago. Their DNA suggests they came from another region and they were physically distinct from the norm in the area at the time. The most interesting feature was the women’s skulls – elongated for some unknown purpose – which a German scientist thinks indicates a specific role the women were meant to play in the villages. Geneticist Suggests Long-Skulled Ladies Were Used as Treaty Brides in Europe St Patrick’s Day – a very very bizarre celebration indeed. A British and Roman priest who attempted to annihilate the Druids, conducted exorcisms to banish the great Irish faery deity Aine, who told lies about the faery, who claimed he threw Pagan women who would not convert into the ocean and they became mermaids, who “drove out the snakes” (the Pagan ways) and attempted to turn the great bright god Lugh into Lugh-chromain (Little stooping Lugh) which would become “lephrecaun”. I adore the Irish. Happy Witchmaster General and Enforced Roman Holiday day, In a recent article on Ancient Origins, Jason Jarrell and Sarah Farmer discussed the possibility that Zecharia Sitchin mistranslated several Sumerian Texts. According to Sitchin, there were a number of Sumerian seals that relate to the Anunnaki, whom he said came from the heavens to create man and enslave mankind to work in the mines. Although this is the opinion of Sitchin and his supporters, the Sumerian seals they cite as evidence for this enslavement relate to the simple worship of the gods by the Sumerians. These seals were actually talismans that were meant to encourage the Sumerian people to reflect on their gods and do good, no more. Reading the So-Called Sumerian Seals Relating to Gods from Outer Space I would like to report an experience that happened to me just last month (Aug 2017), I was unsure about coming forward, and to be honest I still am, I was in Brackagh which borders a road and is near human habitation in Co Armagh. I was out as I like to walk and I was exploring an old stomping ground of many years from my youth, I spent a lot of time down here as a lad with my friends or on my own, for hours on end. Back then the area was different, as this is now a nature reserve and is used by dog walkers on a loop walk trail, you can leave the trails and paths if you want too, but I doubt anybody does. There are seven peat rompers ( raised narrow walks) and I had walked three or four of them at least that day already, so id been out for quite some time at this point. He just stood there, watching me Aug 2017 Wildman Co. Armagh. “Sasquatches are also known to kill dogs that chase or threaten them. Dogs often flee or cower in their presence, but some dogs are more aggressive and sometimes receive very brutal treatment as a result. Aggressive dogs have been found torn apart, with Sasquatch tracks around the remains.” Those are the undeniably accurate words of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the BFRO. For reasons that elude us, Bigfoot has no time for dogs. Unless, it’s to hurt or kill them. Maybe eat them too. As someone who loves dogs (and who feeds a couple of cats every day – they live in an old storm-drain near to where I live), I can’t say I’m impressed. Not at all. The fact is, though, that such cases abound. Sasquatch & Dogs: Not Best Buds Saturated with mind control with social distraction and steering: The Big Breakfast programme: Includes Rendlesham only 9-years after the event: …and it looks like Robbie didn’t know – and was too tired (and primed) to clock it? (o2:48 – 02:55): War brings with it violence, horror, strife, and madness. Among all of the chaos and bloodshed there can be some rather strange incidents indeed, and across the ages there have been various accounts of something very strange going on behind the scenes of our relentless drive to kill ourselves. Although there are plenty of reports of the killing and death of war, what is not often reported upon are the numerous cases of strange sightings and phenomena that seem to be going on as well. Perhaps some of the more bizarre of these are the baffling entities that have been seen in wartime of sinister beasts of a decidedly supernatural, perhaps even demonic nature. Here is a selection of wartime encounters with creatures and beings that seem to lie beyond our current understanding of the world as we know it. Military Encounters with Supernatural Demonic Entities
The Trinity Alps Giant Salamander is an alleged giant salamander that is reported to live in the Trinity Alps of northern California. It is often considered a cryptid, as no specimen has ever been recovered and it is not a recognized species. Although the salamander is larger than most salamander species inside the United States, it is comparable in size to the hellbender. It was first reported in the 19th century and has not been reported frequently since the early 20th century. Tom Slick led an expedition to search for the creatures, but it was not successful. An elderly man interviewed during the expedition claimed to have seen several salamanders the size of alligators on the lake shore in his youth. A member of the giant salamander family (Cryptobranchidae), known as the hellbender is found in the eastern United States, and in fact the cryptobranchid family may have had its origins in North America. During the 1920’s Frank L. Griffith reports seeing 5 Giant Salamanders ranging from 5 to 9 feet in length in the Trinity Alps’ New River. In 1939 Thomas L. Rodgers reportedly had the opportunity to study a Giant Salamander caught in the Sacramento River. In the 1940’s Vern Harden of Pioneer California claimed that he saw nearly a large amount of Giant Salamanders in the remote Hubbard Lake.
\|This article belongs to the Classic Continuity\| \|Go to The Secret Saturdays Wiki to learn more about Zak Saturday\| Aside from the different animation and being three years older, he looks almost the same as before. He retains his salt and pepper hair style and skin tone. However, his hair is now longer and he also sports three freckles on each cheek. Along with that, he now wears the same armor as his parents. His eyes are orange. Having matured since the end of The Secret Saturdays, Zak still possesses his reckless streak. However, he is much more responsible than when he was younger. Also his intellect is much more apparent, as he shows full understanding of the science around him and his parents. Since he likes to be around Ben, he tells him that he wants to be recognized as a hero that helps the world. However, he later feels that his work is more important than being in the limelight. \|This section needs expansion. You can help by adding information.\| Powers and Abilities Zak has control over most cryptids just like his past incarnation of Kur. He can perform higher than average feats, like enhanced strength, reflexes, and agility. He is also shown to have a great degree of fighting skills. Zak wields The Claw in combat. The claw at the end is known as Hand of Tsul 'Kalu, a powerful, ancient cryptid artifact that helps Zak control and focus his natural ability to influence and control cryptids. The Claw glows when Zak uses his powers. The Claw contains a spring loaded cable and telescoping shaft. Zak has used it as a grappling hook by snaring and swinging to objects from a distance and as a vaulting pole. Zak alone could be overpowered against much stronger or larger opponents like V.V. Argost. Zak's Claw could also be used against him once shot out. His recklessness could lead him into situations that would be too much for him to handle. Ben 10: Omniverse - T.G.I.S. (first appearance) - Despite losing his cryptid-controlling powers in the final episode of The Secret Saturdays, he retains them in Omniverse because some residual Kur energy remains within him. Therefore, he retains his powers albeit in a weaker state. - The Saturday's armor was based off the Plug Suits from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. - Zak (in his original, younger design from The Secret Saturdays) appears in the final episode of OK K.O.!: Let's Be Heroes, Thank You for Watching the Show, where he is shown facing Strike. - The reason for this cameo is because no one from The Secret Saturdays appeared in Crossover Nexus.
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This cross-disciplinary course is designed to develop an in-depth understanding of the financial techniques and applications that are transforming the cryptocurrency master degree and giving rise to a new financial ecosystem. Master in Blockchain and Fintech. For its innovative support capacity and to create new models of services and products.Join us for a panel on Cryptocurrency Hedge Funds. Being able to completely renew the traditional labor and economic models. MSc in Financial Technology Fintech. The cryptocurrency master degree we handle money is changing and the whole industry is taking note - from international banks to backroom start-ups.Dont buy ETH NEO BTC cause its Pumping like you could possibly imagine. To do well in fintech, you need to understand technology, finance and business creation. Master in Finance and Fintech.Perdona por tantas preguntas pero soy súper mega nuevo en esto The Master in Finance and Fintech aims to enable young professionals to deal with the digital transformation that is disruptively changing the financial cryptocurrency master degree, by combining traditional financial skills with a deep understanding of new digital technologies. The new emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and big cryptocurrency master degree analytics are deeply modifying the landscape of the financial market, creating immense opportunities for incumbent players but also serious threats from innovative start-ups. Page 1 of 2 Next. If you represent a school and want to add your programs to our cryptocurrency master degree, contact us here. No programs meet your search criteria. Please refine your filters. Best youtube videos about cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency price alert app iphone. How do i use bitcoin. Machine learning based cryptocurrency trading by arshak navuzyan. Bitcoin market study. Top 5 cryptocurrency screeners. How to code a cryptocurrency. Best non inflationary cryptocurrency. Sovren cryptocurrency exchange Ripple to btc exchange. Ajay kaul investment in cryptocurrency startups.Seems like Margin is the hail mary - Haylennis: Always look at the market if you see big sell orders then sell your coins at few satoshi lower than their sell orders, if you don't do that, then be ready for low price is cryptocurrency options trading the same as cryptocurrency exchange. - - Reggie Kray: Yea, that’s just lazy - Halfhalo33: Any questions for AMA tmr? - -- Natan Duarte: Where's a safe trade now it seems every crypto is on the way down. - Ignatius: Yep I’ll admit that drop hurt and I held too long - -- Danny O: Please read - 'The Creature From Jekyll Island' by G.Edward Griffin - H 3 L L: It's about the time. you know they also have a trading channel ? apple card cryptocurrency. - -- Shahid Zafar: whats a good amount to start with to see $50-%100? best cryptocurrency to buy 2021 reddit:-) - Lupo 666: Compra y venta de BTC - - Thais Guedert: Has to reach its bottom - To Eddie: (solo mi opinión inexperta) - -- Caino 05: Grazie filippo per portare contenuti di tipo diverso e non solo previsioni e grafici, ma anche info su altri argomenti che nessuno parla. Continua così che ci vuole qualcuno che diffonda un po le crypto in italia ! - Once Buddy: They have to change this group from binancw group to TRX group :) - -- J Garza: Branded (2010) <---- Watch it - Thumno Annal: Las nuevas normas que activen segwit no dependen de los nodos sino de los mineros. hasta que el 95% de los últimos 2016 bloques minados no tengan segwit activado no se empezará a activar segwit. - - Rosie Gliatis: You are one of my favorite contributors to the crypto market. Keep up the good work. I think you are a very honest guy... Congrats and greetings from switzerland. - Riya Patel: The market will dump before he can sell cuz we will see it moving :p - -- Maria Melissa: Ahí tenéis una serie de recursos que os pueden ayudar how much will bat cryptocurrency cost!
Research Investigate Analyze Explore Serving Colorado and southern Wyoming, Dimensional Paranormal performs research, investigations, analysis, and exploration to better understand and document paranormal occurrences including cryptid sightings, UFO and alien experiences, hauntings, and anything else that is unexplained. Located in northern Colorado, Dimensional Paranormal provides a non-biased, scientific approach to investigating the things that most researchers dismiss. We are professional, understanding, respectful, and serious about capturing evidence to confirm your experiences or provide logical explanations. Do not be fooled by other organizations who claim every strange occurrence to be ghosts or aliens. Our working theory, and the inspiration for our name, is that there may be a dimensional component that needs to be considered. In some cases, a “ghost” might be a crossing of a parallel reality or world. On the other hand, it could very well be the soul or environmental recording of a deceased person. The truth is, we simply do not know exactly what it is at this point. We need more research and more documentation to even begin to understand and explain the paranormal. Dimensional Paranormal is determined to be an industry leader in the research of the unknown. Dimensional Paranormal seeks to understand and provide logical answers to the unexplained. We do not go into new cases with preconceived notions or expectations, nor do we exit an investigation making wild claims or huge assumptions. When evidence defies all rational explanations, only then can we say there is truly something strange occurring. Through research, investigations, and exploration followed by thorough analysis, Dimensional Paranormal will provide you with intellectually honest conclusions based on the evidence gathered. We do not perform rituals, cleansings, or exorcisms. Residential investigations are welcome. All investigations are FREE. We do this for the knowledge, not the money. Understanding the geography and the history of a location is the foundation of paranormal investigations. Some things that we consider are natural and man-made environments, flora and fauna, geology and hydrology, weather patterns, power lines, building locations, and so much more. There may be a relevant history in a location or documented stories and experiences related to occurrences. We are on location with state of the art investigation equipment ranging from metal detectors to spirit boxes. We take the time to find as much evidence as we can and perform experiments to filter findings with logical explanations and those that defy any explanation. We document everything for analysis later. We painstakingly review and analyze all documentation, recordings, photos, video and any other collected evidence. Further attempts to find logical answers are made in order to provide only the purest of evidence. We are not afraid to trek through remote areas in search of evidence. With mountaineering and wilderness skills, we are able to The cryptid list can range from undiscovered species or presumed to be extinct species to mythological creatures. Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, is likely the most famous cryptid in the United States. Have you seen one? Or perhaps any other creature that is unknown to science yet? UFO AND ALIEN ENCOUNTERS Did you see something strange in the sky? Perhaps a strange light darting quickly on the horizon, a pattern of lights above, or strange dark shapes hovering low to the ground? Do you feel you have seen or been contacted by creatures from another planet or demension? GHOSTS AND HAUNTINGS Perhaps the most common paranormal events are ghost sightings or hauntings. Do you hear unexplained noises or voices? Do things move unexpectedly? Do you hear footsteps? Do you see things out of the corner of your eye? Perhaps shadow figures? The catch all category for any mystery that defies logic. Maybe you saw an orb in the woods. Did you find an object that can't be explained? Some bazaar technology or artifact? Or maybe you stumbled on a location that does not make sense? GET IN TOUCH
LightShields is a space-themed 2-player shooter for the Nintendo Entertainment System, submitted to the 2017 NesDev Coding Competition. Each player controls one spaceship and one light shield. Use your shield to deflect your opponent’s bullets back at them, but don’t let your own shield get in the way of your shot! Toss Up is a twist on the popular deck-building rogue-like genre. This is a coin-flipping rogue-like! Use your spare change to fight enemies. Pennies do 1 damage, nickels do 5, dimes do 10, and quarters do 25. But they only do damage if they land on heads! Can you get to the end? Submitted to the 2020 7DRL Challenge. Loveland Frog Escape On March 3rd 1972, at 1:00 AM, a Loveland Ohio police officer was driving near the Little Miami River when an unidentified animal scurried across the road in front of his vehicle. The animal was fully illuminated in his vehicle’s headlights, and he described it as 3 to 4 feet long and about 50 to 75 pounds, with leathery skin. He reported spotting the animal “crouched like a frog”… Now you must play as the Loveland Frog itself, going through 4 levels to make your way to safety, and avoiding the police along the way. Submitted to the Cryptid Jam 2019.
MAP: First Friday Art Walk listings for July 5, 2019 Steamboat Springs’ First Friday Artwalk returns to businesses around town from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, July 5. See participating locations and learn about the artists by exploring the interactive map below. For more arts and entertainment coverage, like Explore Steamboat on Facebook and follow @SteamboatPilot on Twitter. Keep up with arts and entertainment coverage throughout the week at ExploreSteamboat.com. 1001 13th St. \| 970-879-9008 Featuring local artist Marion Kahn, the Riverwalk Collective presents “The World of Abstract Art.” Also showing “For the Love of Trees… An Aspen Collection,” paintings by Leslie Bell and Sarah Juschka. Live music by singer and composer Amber Voiland. Imagine Art Studios 1125 Lincoln Ave. \| 484-889-6753 At Imagine, a diverse group of like-minded individuals each have a place to create and display their artwork. Young Bloods Collective at the Ski Locker 941 Lincoln Ave., No. 100a \| 941-321-2809 “Magical Works” by Sarah Valentino: a solo show of miniature relief sculptures inspired by the magical world of Harry Potter. 1009 Lincoln Ave. \| 970-439-8196 Gallery 89 presents the “Entering Light” exhibit, featuring world-renowned Colorado artist Ken Elliott. Harwigs / L’apogee 911 Lincoln Ave. \| 970-879-1919 Nationally renowned artist Gregory Block will be drawing contour portraits for a $40 donation to Steamboat Creates from 5 to 8 p.m. Block will also be showing two new large-scale portraits. Off the Beaten Path 68 Ninth St.\| 970-879-6830 Lija Fisher, author of the preteen book “The Cryptid Catcher,” will be holding a book signing for kids of all ages from 5 to 8 p.m. Jace Romick Gallery 837 Lincoln Ave. \| 970-846-8377 The Jace Romick Gallery and R-Diamond Gallery pair Steamboat’s rich ranching heritage with a contemporary-western aesthetic. 813 Lincoln Ave. \| 970.871-4791 Glenna Olmsted’s plein-air paintings depict Steamboat in oil, watercolor and acrylic, in brilliant colors and whimsical style. Steamboat Art Museum 807 Lincoln Ave. \| 970-870-1755 “Looking West: An Exhibition Highlighting Works” by American Women Artists will be displayed through Sept. 2. The exhibition features 150 paintings and sculptures. Local photographer Charlie Smith is also featured at the Museum Store. 703 Lincoln Ave. \| 970-879-9169 Stefanie Weaver is a nature-inspired artist and muralist currently residing in Steamboat Springs. She works in oils, acrylics and mixed media. Solar Flare Glasswork and Design 635 Lincoln Ave., Ste. M \| 970-875-3420 Create your own abstract wearable artwork: $15 each or $25 for two pieces. Age 9 and older; walk-ins welcomed. Tom Mangelsen: Images of Nature 730 Lincoln Ave. \| 970-871-1822 Photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen has traveled throughout the natural world for nearly 50 years photographing the Earth’s last great wild places. Wild Horse Gallery 802 Lincoln Ave. \| 970-819-2850 Wild Horse Gallery features the works of Nancy Boren, along with selected works of the “Women of the Wild Horse Gallery.” Pine Moon Fine Art 117 Ninth St. \| 970-846-7879 The gallery features Dedi Knox’s contemporary oils and watercolors and Sue Gallion’s fiber, oil and watercolors. 115 Ninth St. \| 970-846-1783 W Gallery features a new series by Susan Schiesser: a collection of patterned animal illustrations. 842 Lincoln Ave., No. 9 — above Lyon’s Drug \| 970-846-1063 The show features “The Colors of Summer: A Seasonal Celebration of Nature’s Splendor” by Scottish-born artist Suzi Mitchell, with abstract depictions of seascapes, landscapes and flowers with a whimsical touch using mixed media and texture. Support Local Journalism Support Local Journalism Readers around Steamboat and Routt County make the Steamboat Pilot & Today’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism. Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference. Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage. Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil. If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted. User Legend: Moderator Trusted User
masks(₂), current dramatis fursonae limni: anthro leopon. adventurer & psychonaut. somewhat power-hungry and obsessed with the occult. nonbinary skewing masc. guarded and sharp on the outside, tender-hearted and extraordinarily horny on the inside. they/them. ramshackle: semiferal goat cryptid. hedonist and playful subversive. agender and unfathomably old. kind of shitty at magick, but it's their bread & butter. they/them. aster: anthro skunk. tired, charming, and generally down for whatever. embodies the passive aspects of our trickster luck. transfem enby and enjoys the easy company of friends. they/them or she/her. rue: feral lion. fiercely protective and loving in a maternal way. has a habit of adopting people. genderqueer but mostly femme. gray-ace. she/her. voyo: feral alien wolf. reserved and somewhat stodgy unless someone manages to catch them off guard. enjoys archaeology and often works as a healer. horny out of curiosity, but mostly just curious. he/him. kirke: feral doggo (australian kelpie). prefers an immediacy of experience. highly intelligent, but can't always put what they want to say into the right words. just kind of excited to be here. he's doing his best. he/him. The social network of the future: No ads, no corporate surveillance, ethical design, and decentralization! Own your data with Mastodon!
Once a year, giant robots from outer space come to Earth and bond with young cadets from the elite Sky Corps Academy to defend the world from the terrifying aliens known as the Sharg. It’s a great honor to be chosen, but this year...well, the wrong kid was picked. Greg Pak (Totally Awesome Hulk) and Takeshi Miyazawa (Ms. Marvel) team up for an action-packed adventure perfect for fans of Amadeus Cho and Pacific Rim! KAIJUMAX SEASON 3 #4 (W) Zander Cannon (A/CA) Zander Cannon The Creature from Devil's Creek has finally turned state's evidence against his tormentor, the mountainous leader of the Cryptids. It seems as if his arrest is about to mark the decline of the gang, but a certain tattooed cryptid supremacist stokes their dormant belief in SPEFIWA-Species Final War-and the whole prison waits for the final match that will ignite the unstable nuclear pile. Also: Geosurgery! Unlikely reality checks! And... a rap musical about our founding fathers? In Shops: Oct 11, 2017 Kong: Gods of Skull Island Publisher: BOOM! Studios Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson Artist: Chad Lewis Main Cover: Jeremy Wilson Variant Cover: Tyler Jenkins Format: 48 pages, full color On sale: October 4, 2017 • In this stand-alone Kong story, the year is 1912, and a wealthy humanitarian has traveled to Skull Island with the purpose of civilizing the native Tagatu living there. Although the Tagatu accept his gifts and allow his team to live among hem, they're devoted to their god... and the team soon discovers that Kong is very, very real. • "Somehow, the Tagatu survived for generations at the bottom of the food chain in the harshest, deadliest environment on Earth, and they worshipped Kong as a living god. I always wanted to see more of that tribe's culture in the films—specifically the 'Church of Kong' and their relationship with Kong himself—but that wasn't the story they were telling. Now, it's the story we're telling." – Phillip Kennedy Johnson • BOOM! Studios’ Kong comics are based on Joe DeVito’s Skull Island and Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong. The publisher recently completed a 12-issue series, Kong of Skull Island, set thousands of years in the past, written by James Asmus (All-New Inhumans) and illustrated by Carlos Magno (Lantern City). New Season! New jumping-on point! Ah, KAIJUMAX Prison... that cesspool of corruption in the South Pacific! Tensions among the city-destroying convicts have eased after a month-long lockdown and Electrogor's capture, and now the kaiju gangs have begun vying for power again, all-out-attacking their rivals, trading addictive smog and dioxin, and abusing weaker inmates. The Creature from Devil's Creek, after a long time as the low mon in the Cryptid hierarchy, stumbles upon some information that makes him think it doesn't have to be like this. Also: Mind-controlled murders! Pre-smartphone navigation fails! And... some VERY old timey religion? We proudly support kaiju comics & books from these publishers.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page. This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide. Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite The Haunt at Hogg Run is a horror novel written by J.P. Barnett. The whole idea of a family adventure at Kat’s family’s cabin was uncomfortable, to begin with. Kat Barker had been the golden-haired Head Cheerleader at Rose Valley High when Macy was a freshman -- and a nerd at that. While Macy was away at college, her dad had married Kat and adopted her daughter, Olivia, leaving Macy feeling awkward and constrained at the concept of a new family complete with a step-mother four years her senior and a seven-year-old step-sister. Still, for her dad’s sake, she had accepted the invitation -- how bad could it be? After her cryptid-hunting experiences with her boyfriend, Tanner Brooks, and his sister, Miriam, who was also her best friend, she figured she should be able to cope with an awkward family get-together. But there was the old man and the decaying cabin that almost seemed haunted, the heavy noises that followed her footsteps on the trail, and that scream. While J.P. Barnett’s The Haunt at Hogg Run is the fourth book in his Lorestalker series, it can be read and enjoyed as a standalone novel. That said, each of the books in this series is outstanding, especially for those readers who enjoy cryptid stories. I was initially surprised to see that The Haunt at Hogg Run was focused solely upon Macy Donner rather than the cryptid-fighting trio she’s normally a part of, but soon found her solo adventure to be absorbing, fast-paced and filled with the cryptid clues that make Barnett’s work so irresistible. The plot is haunted-house spooky, and the chronicle of the events at Hogg Run that happened ten years prior keeps the reader engaged and involved in figuring out the puzzles and challenges as Macy encounters them. Macy’s character assumes fully-fledged cryptid-hunter status with this book; watching as she confronts her own insecurities, fears, and a host of monstrous critters works on so many levels. Barnett’s plot is twisty, unpredictable, and serpentine, and his characters are believable. His setting drips with ominous overtones and makes this haunted cabin story roll. The Haunt at Hogg Run is most highly recommended.
- (Roget's Thesaurus II) noun The quality or state of being just and unbiased: detachment, disinterest, disinterestedness, dis-passion, dispassionateness, equitableness, fair-mindedness, fairness, impartiality, impartialness, justice, justness, nonpartisanship, objectivity. See FAIR. English dictionary for students. 2013. Look at other dictionaries: Objectiveness — Objec tiveness, n. Objectivity. [1913 Webster] Is there such a motion or objectiveness of external bodies, which produceth light? Sir M. Hale [1913 Webster] … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English objectiveness — noun see objective I … New Collegiate Dictionary objectiveness — See objectively. * * * … Universalium objectiveness — noun The characteristic of being objective; neutrality. Syn: objectivity … Wiktionary objectiveness — ob jecÂ·tiveÂ·ness \|\| É™b dÊ’ektÉªnÉªs n. freedom from prejudice, lack of bias, impartiality … English contemporary dictionary objectiveness — ob·jec·tive·ness … English syllables objectiveness — noun judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices • Syn: ↑objectivity • Derivationally related forms: ↑objective, ↑objective (for: ↑objectivity) • Hypernyms: ↑ … Useful english dictionary Ropen — The Ropen is a flying cryptid [http://www.cryptozoology.com/cryptids/ropen.php. ] alleged to live in the vicinity of Papua New Guinea. [ [http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/7/prweb413597.htm Pterosaur like Creatures Reported in Papua New Guinea ] … Wikipedia objectivity — noun judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices (Freq. 2) • Syn: ↑objectiveness • Derivationally related forms: ↑objective (for: ↑objectiveness), ↑objective … Useful english dictionary objective — I. adjective Date: 1647 1. a. relating to or existing as an object of thought without consideration of independent existence used chiefly in medieval philosophy b. of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of… … New Collegiate Dictionary
According to Cryptid Wiki, the Achlis is a creature mentioned in Roman mythology by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century. He described the beast, as looking somewhat like an elk, but had one very strange characteristic. The Achli is said to have an upper lip that was so large it had to graze backwards to avoid its lip falling over its mouth. This was a huge problem because its back legs had no joints. Another strange characteristic of the Achlis’s physiology, is that it is forced to sleep standing up. It would also lean against a tree while resting. This allowed hunters to easily catch them. The hunters could chop halfway through the tree where the creature slept and then when the Achlis put any weight on it, it fell onto the ground. Because of its back legs, it could not get to its feet fast enough to get away. Poor Achlis! Writing Prompt Notes Since there is not a lot of literature on this creature, I would like to assign a few more characteristics to it, so that this writing prompt may be a bit easier to imagine. - The Achlis is a shapeshifter. - The Achlis is mischievous, but not evil. It’s long lip is muscular and can be used as a tool…instead of just being flabby extra skin, as originally thought. The creatures purpose as a forest creature with a long lip is to help feed smaller, more feeble animals and creatures. It’s mischievous nature shows when it reaches up and steals honey or digs into the ground to eat the roots vegetables in the farmer’s gardens. This thievery is quite premeditated and is not the result of instincts for food gathering. Because of it’s superior intelligence, it is able to achieve it’s goals without pushback from anyone or anything. - That is until he meets…(insert name.) The Achlis cannot be killed for it’s meat. When hunters see the Achlis “sleeping,” as the legend goes, they obviously try to kill, this magnificent, highly intelligent creature. It shapeshifts then and “catches,” the hunter instead. The Hunter is in the Achlis’s lair before he even knows what to do or can even think to fight back. The Achlis’s ultimate mission is to recruit hunters to train as warriors in the forthcoming battle with Achlis’s mortal enemy. This is a good vs. evil writing prompt. Who is the Achlis’s mortal enemy. Why are they going to have an epic battle? When will this battle take place? How will it end, and what are the stakes? If you find this prompt fun and interesting and decide to expand on it- let me know how this story ends in the comment section below, and as usual…happy writing!
World trees or cosmic trees are a prevalent motif occurring in the mythical, creation accounts, and iconographies of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica. In the Mesoamerican context, world trees embodied the four cardinal directions, which also serve to represent the fourfold nature of a central world tree, a symbolic axis mundi which connects the planes of the Underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial realm. Many people argue they are more myth than cryptid. Depictions of world trees, both in their directional and central aspects, are found in the art and mythological traditions of cultures such as the Maya, Aztec, Izapan, Mixtec, Olmec, and some others, dating to at least the Mid/Late Formative periods of Mesoamerican chronology. Among the Maya, the central world tree was conceived as or represented by a ceiba tree, and is known variously as a wacah chan or yax imix che, depending on the Mayan language.The trunk of the tree could also be represented by an upright caiman, whose skin evokes the tree's spiny trunk. Directional world trees are also associated with the four Yearbearers in Mesoamerican calendars, and the directional colors and deities. Mesoamerican codices which have this association outlined include the Dresden, Borgia and Fejérváry-Mayer codices. It is supposed that Mesoamerican sites and ceremonial centers frequently had actual trees planted at each of the four cardinal directions, representing the quadripartite concept. Izapa Stela 5 is considered a possible representation of a World Tree. World trees are frequently depicted with birds in their branches, and their roots extending into earth or water (sometimes atop a "water-monster", symbolic of the underworld). The central world tree has also been interpreted as a representation of the band of the Milky Way galaxy.
Right here in my remote corner of northwest Minnesota there is a history of encounters with one of the strangest creatures ever described — the Wendigo. But what is it? Legend has it that this bizarre monster-apparition has a hunger for human flesh — but other say it only shows up when human beings fall into the reprehensible practice of cannibalism. But before you write the Wendigo off as just another Bigfoot-like cryptid, there is one aspect of this entity that is quite unlike no other — and be warned — this will amaze you and definitely challenge your mind. To read all about it, please click the link below to go to my story:
Strange animals on the farm: John William Bell moved his wife Lucy, and family from North Carolina to Tennessee after purchasing a plot of land and a large house from a local farmer. He eventually increased his land holding to over 300 acres of land. John became a popular figure in the community. He was named an Elder of the Red River Baptist Church. According to the legend, the first manifestation of the haunting occurred in 1817 when John William Bell, Sr. encountered a strange animal in a cornfield on his large farm in Robertson County, on the Red River, near Adams, Tennessee. The animal, described as having the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit, vanished when Bell shot at it. This incident was quickly followed by a series of strange beating and gnawing noises manifesting outside and eventually inside the Bell residence. Betsy Bell, the family's younger daughter and the only daughter still living at home (Bell's oldest daughter Esther married Alexander Bennett Porter July 24, 1817), claimed to have been assaulted by an invisible force. The haunting begins: The sounds continued through the night. Each time a sound was heard, John and his sons would rush outside to catch it to no avail. The sounds then moved into the house. The children claimed something was gnawing on their bedposts during the night and by morning; something was yanking the covers off of their beds and tossing their pillows across the room. They heard sounds of chains dragging along the floors and noises that sounded like dogs growling. Occasionally they would hear gulping noises that sounded like someone who was having trouble swallowing. It was at this time that Mr. Bell felt a strange affliction coming on him, which he could not account for. It was stiffness of the tongue, which came suddenly, and for a time, when these spells were on, he could not eat. He described it as feeling like a small stick of wood crosswise in his mouth, pressing out both cheeks, and when he attempted to eat it would push the victuals out of his mouth. Kate, the Bell Witch, begins to speak: As time passed, the family began hearing faint whispers and soft singing which sounding like an old woman singing hymns. The encounters soon turned violent and seemed to especially target one specific family member. Bells youngest daughter, Betsy, began experiencing brutal encounters. Her face and body covered with welts and red handprints found on her face, arms, and back. In John Bell’s own words, “The persecutions of Elizabeth were increased to an extent that excited serious apprehensions. Her cheeks were frequently crimsoned as by a hard blow from an open hand, and her hair pulled until she would scream with pain.” The family was initially instructed to keep the incidents quiet but John eventually reached his wit’s end and told a close family friend, neighbor James Johnston. Johnston and his wife spent the night with the Bells and encountered one of the most terrifying nights of their lives. Their bed was shaken, covers floated off onto the floor, and they were repeatedly slapped, pinched, and punched. At one point, James Johnston leapt off the bed and shouted, “In the name of the Lord, who are you and what do you want!” The remainder of the night was peaceful. Bell Witch Strength Grows: The entity’s strength continued to grow reaching a point where its voice was loud and unmistakable. John recounted how he questioned the witch and eventually gleaned a response: “Finally, in answer to the question, "Who are you and what do you want?" the reply came, "I am a spirit; I was once very happy but have been disturbed." This was uttered in a very feeble voice, but sufficiently distinct to be understood by all present.” Then followed the question, "How were you disturbed, and what makes you unhappy?" The reply to this question was, "I am the spirit of a person who was buried in the woods near by, and the grave has been disturbed, my bones disinterred and scattered, and one of my teeth was lost under this house, and I am here looking for that tooth." This statement revived the memory of a circumstance that occurred some three or four years previously, and had been entirely forgotten. The farm hands while engaged in clearing a plot of land, discovered a small mound of graves, which they supposed to be an Indian burying ground, and worked around it without obliterating the marks. Several days later Corban Hall, a young man of the neighborhood, came to the Bell place, and was told the circumstance of finding the Indian graves. Hall thought the graves probably contained some relics which Indians commonly buried with their dead, and proposed to open one and see, to which 'Drew agreed, and they proceeded to disinter the bones. Kate became more vocal. It would sing hymns and quote scriptures. In one incident, the Bell Witch, as it had come to be known, quoted the complete text of two sermons that had been given simultaneously at two different churches over 13 miles apart. It made it clear that her name was “Kate”. Kate's pretentious for religion: Kate, the Bell Witch, made great pretentious for religion taking Mr. Johnson for a model of Christianity, calling him "Old Sugar Mouth," frequently observing "Lord Jesus, how sweet old Sugar Mouth prays; how I do love to hear him." Kate delighted in scriptural controversies, could quote any text or passage in the Bible, and was able to maintain a discussion with the ablest theologians, excelling in fervency of prayer and devotional songs - no human Voice was sweet. Kate made frequent visits to North Carolina, John Bell's old neighborhood, never absent longer than a day or an hour, but always reporting correctly the news or events of the day in that vicinity. With all of these excellent traits of character, Kate behaved badly toward visitors and all members of the family except Mrs. Lucy Bell, to whom the witch was devoted, declaring that "Old Luce" was a good Woman, but manifesting very great aversion for "Old Jack" - John Bell, Sr. He was most detestable and loathsome in the eyes of Kate, for which no cause was ever assigned. But the witch often declared its purpose of killing him before leaving the place. During this time, Betsy Bell became enamored with Joshua Gardner, a local Tennessee man. After a brief courtship, they announced their marriage. During their engagement, the Bell Witch took a particular keen interest in taunting and tormenting them. No matter where they went, the witch followed them and tormented them. Finally, on the day after Easter in 1921, they broke off the engagement. John Bell's Death: By the fall of 1920, John Bell’s health mysteriously began declining. By the end of the year he was so weak and sick that he was bedridden and confined to the house. He experienced episodes of twitching and had difficulty swallowing water and food. Each time he went into convulsions, the Bell Witch would slap his repeatedly and shout in her old shrill voice, “Old Jack Bell”, as she often referred to him. Finally, John breathed his last breath on December 20, 1820. His funeral was one of the largest the country had ever seen. As family and friends left the graveyard, the Bell Witch began laughing loudly and singing a song about brandy. Witnesses claim the singing did not end until the last person left the graveyard. Soon after his death, the family found a strange vial hidden in a cupboard. John Bell Jr. fed a few drops to the family cat which died instantly. John Jr. threw the vial into the fireplace and it burst into bright blue and green flames. The entity then spoke up, exclaiming joyfully, "I gave Ol' Jack a big dose of that last night, which fixed him!” After John’s death, the activity declined with very sporadic “visits”, mostly centered on John Bell Jr. Pat Fitzhugh's retelling of the Bell Witch legend concludes with a statement to the effect that some people believe that the spirit returned in 1935, the year when the witch claimed it would return ("one hundred years and seven" past 1828), and took up residence on the former Bell property. Other sources say that 1935 brought nothing out of the ordinary to the Bell descendants or the surrounding community. Andres Jackson Visits: Andrew Jackson, later to be President of the United States, is alleged to have visited the Bell Family and to have witnessed the phenomena. According to legend and the diary of Dr. James Killian, Jackson arrived prepared to spend the night in mid 1817, but was so overwhelmed with fright by what he witnessed that Jackson fled. Killian, a devoted abnormalist and cryptid hunter was originally at a loss to explain the phenomena.
S: Tentacles By Roland Smith (book report By: Jack Young) FC: Tentacles By: Roland Smith (Book Report By: Jack Young) 1: Setting \| In the middle of the ocean 2: Characters \| Marty,Grace,Luther,Dr.Travis Wolfe 3: Plot \| What happened before. "Cryptid Hunters" 4: What are they doing. "Giant Squid" \| Plot 5: Plot \| Intruders. "Butch McCall 6: Favorite Part \| When Bo takes out Luther's hair. 7: Recommend \| People who like mystery. 8: Connections \| Text to self: It reminds me of a mystery. Text to world: reminds me of a spy movie. Text to text: It reminds me of Alex rider series .
Coleman was educated in anthropology and zoology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and psychiatric social work at the Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston. He did post-masters work in anthropology at Brandeis University and studied sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Coleman taught at New England universities from 1980 to 2004, also having been a senior researcher at the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Policy from 1983 to 1996, before retiring from teaching to write, lecture, and consult on his many interests. The "copycat effect"Edit Loren Coleman is an international consultant on the "copycat effect" through his university research, books, and media consultations during the last three decades. Coleman first began working in the mental health field in 1967, and was later a senior researcher at the Muskie School of Public Policy from 1983 through 1996. Concurrently, Coleman was an adjunct associate/assistant professor at the University of Southern Maine, teaching a popular course on the social impact of documentary films year-round from 1990-2003, and producing eleven award-winning documentaries. He has worked with Hollywood talent, such as L. A. Law star Richard Dysart and Stephen King's Graveyard Shift's Minor Rootes. Additionally, Coleman has taught courses in seven other New England universities since 1980. As an author, he wrote two books focused on the behavior contagion of school shootings and related suicide events: Suicide Clusters (Faber and Faber, 1987) and The Copycat Effect (Simon and Schuster, 2004). Suicide Clusters was a Psychotherapy and Social Science Book Club selection, and Coleman appeared on many programs, including "The Larry King Show" discussing it. His work on the suicides of baseball players, specifically Angels pitcher Donnie Moore, was covered in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and The Sporting News, plus on television programs such as ESPN¹s SportsCenter (in 1989) and ESPN Classics (in 2001). Regarding The Copycat Effect, he has appeared on Coast to Coast AM, National Public Radio, NBC-TV, CBC-TV, and other media forums discussing celebrity suicides, Heaven¹s Gate, Waco, the Hemingway Curse, Columbine, as well as Montreal's Dawson College and other 2006 school shootings in Vermont, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Coleman has privately trained and consulted across the USA and Canada to universities, public schools, law enforcement agencies, and mental health organizations on suicide clusters and school violence since the 1980s. As a consultant for the State of Maine, for example, he has been involved in training 11,000 professionals and paraprofessionals since 1997. Coleman also is internationally recognized for his research and writings on animal mysteries, folklore, and new species, known as the science of cryptozoology. He appears frequently on television]] and radio in interviews about Bigfoot, Yeti, Lake monsters, Mothman, the Dover Demon, Orang Mawas, and other cryptids. He has written numerous articles and books on cryptozoology and other Fortean topics, of which the first was published in 1969. He has many professional interests, as well, including a subspeciality in media analysis. His 2004 book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines (ISBN 0-7434-8223-9) followed in the wake of his earlier academic publications and book, Suicide Clusters (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987). Some of his frequent radio and TV appearances are on the "Documentary Channels", such as the Discovery Channel and its satellite channels, such as the Learning Channel, Jeff Rense's radio show, the Coast To Coast AM radio show, the History Channel. The subject matter presented when he is on these are about Bigfoot and related cryptids. Coleman, due to his extensive research on the series of West Virginia sightings of Mothman, was asked by Sony/Screen Gems before the release of their 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies, to assist them with their reality-based publicity. He therefore was involved in press conferences, and over three hundred radio interviews discussing the factual background to the 1966-1967 events in Point Pleasant, West Virginia that informed Mark Pellington's contemporary motion picture. The studio also had Coleman and author John Keel appear in their documentary, Search for the Mothman (2002), directed by David Grabias. In conjunction with the movie and documentary, the studio encouraged Coleman to complete his book on Mothman before the release of their movie, and thus Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (ISBN 1-931044-34-1) was published in 2002 by New York's Paraview Press. He continues this work through a study of the so-called "Mothman Curse". Despite Coleman's Mothman research, his long-term interests within the cryptid realm are Yeti and Sasquatch investigations. He has carried out extensive fieldwork throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, regarding sightings, trace evidence, and Native peoples' traditions of Sasquatch/Windigo/Bigfoot. Many of his recent books have dealt with Bigfoot, Yeti, Lake Monsters, and Sea Serpents. His writings are collections of raw data, theories, and his adventures traveling around North America. His investigations, through others' news reports, as well as his own articles and books frequently reflect words and phrases that have passed into routine use in cryptozoology. For example, he coined Dover Demon as well as other cryptids' specific names. Coleman is also a biographer and obituary writer, having written on Yeti and Bigfoot expedition sponsor Tom Slick and appearing, for example, on NPR discussing the death of Grover Krantz. Coleman has won awards for this documentary and literary work, and in 2004, he was honored with being depicted as the comic book character "Coleman Wadsworth" chasing an Abominable Snowman and in turn being chased by the title creature in the Swamp Thing comics. Paraview Press introduced a new series of books, "Loren Coleman Presents," with Mark A. Hall's book, Thunderbirds: America's Living Legends of Giant Birds (ISBN 1-931044-97-X) in 2004. Loren Coleman has written 27 books, including the following recent selections: - The Unidentified & Creatures of the Outer Edge: The Early Works of Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman (NY: Anomalist Books, 2006, ISBN 1-933665-11-4) - Weird Ohio with James Willis and Andy Henderson (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2005, ISBN 1-4027-3382-8) - The Copycat Effect (New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8223-9) - The Copycat Effect (New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004) - The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep with Patrick Huyghe (NY: Tarcher-Penguin, 2003, ISBN 1-58542-252-5) - BIGFOOT!: The True Story of Apes in America (NY: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2003, ISBN 0-7434-6975-5) - Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology (Fresno: Craven Street/Linden Press, 2002, ISBN 0-941936-74-0) - Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (NY: Paraview, 2002, ISBN 1-931044-34-1) - Mysterious America: The Revised Edition (NY: Paraview, 2001, ISBN 1-931044-05-8) Also in 2004, a hardbound edition of Mysterious America was published (ISBN 1-931044-84-8). - Cryptozoology A to Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature with Jerome Clark (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1999, ISBN 0-684-85602-6) - The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide with Patrick Huyghe (NY: HarperCollins, 1999, ISBN 0-380-80263-5) - The Copycat Effect - The Cryptozoologist, Coleman's official site - Cryptomundo.com - CryptoZoo News, Loren Coleman's official blog - www.coasttocoastam - Loren Coleman is a regular on Coast to Coast AM. - Jeff Rense's website - He also is quoted extensively on the Rense.com site and appears on Jeff Rense's radio show.
CANADA — A man has released a video he says contains a “Bigfoot” creature roaming the woods of an undisclosed location in New Brunswick. Alec McGrath last Friday said he captured the images with the help of a trail camera and “some apples”. “I’ve got some possible ‘Bigfoot’ evidence here from my trail cam. I typically have my camera on picture mod, but this time I decided to put it on video mode,” he said. “I had my trail cam set to only take 10-second videos.” McGrath, a musician who also likes recreating famous movie scenes, says the footage additionally contains some unusual audio. “You can hear sounds and tree knocking in the background. And just before the video stops, you can hear a louder call being cut off.” The 10-second video, taken at night, shows a pair of shinning eyes moving behind the thick vegetation. There are also “whoops” and primate-like sounds that can be heard throughout the short film. The young musician claims he usually leaves apples at the same spot, only to later disappear mysteriously. But now, he says he knows what has been eating the fruit. “So I’d look through my pictures and I’d see the apples in the first few pictures, then all of a sudden, there’s no apples. Gone! No idea why… until now.” According to some Bigfoot researchers, the unproven creature has a taste for apples and is usually spotted around fruit trees. AJ Marston, member of the cryptid research organization Team Rogue, says he has a theory about Bigfoot’s eating habits. “Apples have some key role for nutrition, when it comes to looking for cryptids, because out of the majority of the stories I’ve read, you can find apples as indigenous fruit that were there…in the Himalayas, the Ukraine, in China, all through the northeast and even up in the Oregon areas and Alaska, they all have apples, so it’s something that holds a lot of vitamins and nutrition, and sugars that a large animal would need regularly. Back there I found a bunch of apple trees that had been overgrown by other bushes, but you could still see the remnants of the crab apples, which is a good source for deer, and moose and bear, and the cryptids around them,” explains Marston. Last year, a pair of researchers in Australia released a controversial video showing a similar creature the locals refer to as “Yowie”. They also claimed to had baited the purported animal with apples. The video attracted bouts of critics and curious viewers who believed the images were nothing but a hoax. The two men, to this day, maintain the footage is real. It is not clear whether McGrath’s 10-second video has been doctored. Even though the musician claims it is real, a quick look into the man’s background shows his affinity to create animation videos he then shares on a different channel. He makes no mention of his animation hobby on his “Bigfoot” video. Facebook users commenting on this article have also pointed out that the video is most likely a hoax, as the man is allegedly using Ronald J. Morehead’s famous Sierra sounds. Ronald J. Morehead also commented on the article. “It sure sounds like my stuff, which is copyrighted,” Morehead wrote. Today’s technologies, accessible to anyone with an internet connection, have positively and negatively influenced the way the public looks at cryptozoology by allowing pranksters and legitimate eyewitnesses alike to easily publish their stories globally. New Brunswick, a province in Canada adjacent to the US state of Maine, comprises a portion of the Appalachian mountains. Update 7/21/2015: The video has been removed by its author. Latest posts by Cryptozoology News (see all) - Two People Spot ‘Thunderbird’ in California - July 22, 2017 - Michigan Woman Claims Dogman Sighting - July 17, 2017 - Police Officer Records Mothman-Like Humanoid Footage in New Mexico Desert - July 13, 2017
- For many years, people have been photographing and witnessing some very strange aerial phenomena which fall far outside the classic construct of the "flying saucer," even farther outside the realm of a mere Unidentified Flying Object. These things appear to be alive. Organic. Creatures of some sort. And many are seemingly quite enormous. - Sky Monsters, you say? - Bah! I know. It's the reflex of every rational mind. Naturally. But it remains, they are being seen. They have been photographed. We don't know what they are, but they are... or everyone is lying and the photos are all fakes and history itself is replete with the same lies from every civilization on the planet. This isn't very likely. - They do not resemble machines of any kind known to man and do not resemble UFOs as classically categorized by shape, such as spheres, cylinders, cigar-shaped craft, heel-shaped craft, delta, etc. They range from gargoyle-like creatures to amoeba-like plasmas. No, these are truly bizarre, frightening spectacles so other-worldly one has to wonder if there's any relation at all to the UFO phenomena. Or are we dealing with an aspect of UFOs/aliens heretofore undeveloped, unstudied simply because it is so astonishing, so strange -- the morphing UFO, the transitional, shape-changing, shape-shifting craft? It almost brings the metaphysical right into the UFOlogical mainframe with a loud, nasty thud. And it probably makes most typical UFOlogists a bit uneasy... and feeling quantum unqualified. So what the hell are these things? Whether they are humanoid creatures of fierce countenance that swoop down and attack human beings -- as in the case of police officer Leonardo Samaniego from Guadalupe, N.L. Mexico who experienced a most fiendish flying monster on Friday January 16, 2004. Officer Samaniego described the creature as a woman which levitated and "... jumped very fast over to - and onto - [Samaniego's] patrol car" trying to get at him while the shocked police officer tried to runaway in reverse while shouting desperately for back-up assistance on his radio -- or -- the flying creature as reported here at Rense.com that traversed a road in midair, as witnessed by a miner in Chile in September of 2001 - "It was flying alongside the power lines and right below the lighting system. It never made a sound. Its speed must have been of about 50 kilometers an hour. Although I could not see its face, I was able to see that its head was oval like an upside-down pear. The creature looked humanoid" -- these certainly defy all rationale and leave one truly wondering. Perhaps we can and should relegate such experiences to cryptozoology or even the supernatural, and in so doing, clear the deck for a more organized scrutiny of aerial phenomena. It's difficult to chalk any such experience up to one or another category when we know so little about these strange manifestations. - The binding element here is that each of these demonstrate antigravity or the capacity for flight. Foo Fighters, as they were called by airmen in WWI, or even Gremlins -- creatures which were believed to be able to fly and land on the wing of a plane and cause havoc -- seem to fall into this same category. The weird events connected to the Mothman began on November 12, 1966 near Clendenin, West Virginia. Five men were in the local cemetery that day, preparing a grave for a burial, when something that looked like a "brown human being" lifted off from some nearby trees and flew over their heads. The men were baffled. It did not appear to be a bird, but more like a man with wings. A few days later, more sightings would take place, electrifying the entire region. - To read more about the Mothman, see http://www.prairieghosts.com/moth.html From Barry Chamish in Israel, we have this unusual report of a humanoid entity capable of flight... - On October 19,1997 the Israeli newsmagazine Yerushalayim reported that the Palestinian Police were investigating their first alien - The event occurred three days before when a young girl, Suha A'anam from the village of Dir Al Awasan near Tulkarem, was rescued by fellow villagers from the clutches of an alien. The Police report states that Suha, a grade ten pupil, was standing on her 2nd floor balcony when suddenly an alien began pulling her left hand. She screamed hysterically, alerting neighbors to the scene just in time to save her. She was taken to Tulkarem Hospital with scratches to her arm. - A neighbor told the Police that she heard a noise like a helicopter, looked out her window and saw "a whirlpool in the air, spreading ash everywhere" opposite Suha's balcony. - Two other witnesses saw aliens the same week. Six days before, sixteen year old Muhand Faras was walking home from school when he came upon a strange being of a man's size but with a small "root" in the middle of its face. - It's skin was colored "like a frog's," it had two tiny hands with three fingers on each and long fingernails. The alien made a threatening, clawing gesture at Muhand's face, screamed something and "flew to the sky." He does not know where the creature flew because he "was too frightened to look at it anymore and thought it might shoot something dangerous" at him. - Three days later, an engineer, Raid A'anam saw a black creature in the sky just before sundown. He told police investigators that the outline of the flying object was "human with two arms and two - Palestinian Police have since set up ambushes to trap the "intruders" and put an end to the villagers' terror. Needless to say, many villagers believe the Israeli intelligence agency, the Shabak is behind the sightings. When asked why the Israelis would stage such an incident, the villagers answered, "To scare us." - The Constable Quantum - Creatures Of The Unseen Realm - Like various insects beset with very specific visual spectra, we too remain absolutely blind to much of what is really there, our senses simply not atuned or designed to perceive beyond a given spectrum. Trevor James Constable is a name synonymous with the study of 'ethereal' beings and creatures inhabiting our skies, our atmosphere, our world -- even the UFO itself, according to Constable, can be a living - Not unlike Dr. Pretorius in H.P. Lovecraft's eerie science fiction, From Beyond, we stand oblivious to the swarm of bioforms which inhabit the dimension of time-space around us. In order to become aware of these bioforms, we need to broaden our spectral perception. Dr. Pretorius, as the story goes, invented a powerful tuning fork, of sorts, which resonated a unique vibratory frequency corresponding to the human pineal gland, ie, "the third eye," which opened the doctor's perception to the unseen world around him. But even more, Pretorius inadvertently made a bridge between the two dimensions itself, bringing matter and super-matter of the fourth dimension into interplay on a single stage of time-space. The results were, of course, horrific as only H.P. Lovecraft could envision. Lovecraft takes us beyond the mere unseen occupants to a realization of an entirely alternative world with beings who view us as we might view tomorrow's hunted lunch. In a far more realistic and comforting vein, Constable brings us just such a tuning fork by introducing a method of photographing bioforms using infrared film. Though not nearly as hungry or ghastly as Lovecraft's 4th dimensional critters, Constable has managed to capture quite a number of bioform entities which do seem to have equivalent photographic qualities one finds related to the classic UFO photograph. Orgone energy, as he explains, is often the culprit in distorted or blemished UFO photographs, and explains why quite often what the eyewitness recalls seeing is considerably different from what results on film emulsion. Are we indeed dealing with a 'macro-biology' in the study of the UFO phenomena? Should we be so quick to shake off any possibility surrounding the enigma, much less limit our thinking to the prosaic "space ship from another planet/extraterrestrial" motif? Constable, it seems, would have us embrace a universe fitting the universe we already know and understand, micro to macro, orders of kingdoms of nature and life forms extending on forever. And what could be more rational? Would it be such a shocking blow to UFOlogy to discover that the "alien" is not so alien at all? This particular photo taken by Constable's daughter near a "cloud buster" orgone energy transmitter is an excellent example of the photographed "bioform" -- or "sky fish" as Trevor calls them. - It may dip a little deep for some, to suggest that what we see, hear, feel, smell, taste and touch is not all that there is. But tell it to the fly, who sees a pane of glass as a solid black mass, or the bumble bee, which wouldn't know the splendor of the colors of a flower at all, it sees only the stark chemically stained signatures in black and white indicating a source of pollen. We both have eyes with which to see, the bee and me, but we do not see the same things in the same universe at all. Is it possible that we could be as oblivious to the presence of pollen as it would be to be blind to ships or beings or creatures beyond our spectral sensitivity? Is it far fetched to suggest that just outside of our limited spectrum of perception, with these weak instruments of detection we call our five senses, exists an entire menagerie, nay, a kingdom, of living beings, organisms and even worlds From Beyond ? If we are open to the UFO enigma, we must also be willing to embrace a paradigm which does not place man and his meager senses at the heart and soul of the universe. The Crawfordsville Sky Monster - In September, 1891, a very unusual story came out of the small town of Crawfordsville, Indiana. At about 2 a.m. on the morning of September 5, two men hitching a wagon saw a "horrible apparition" appear in the sky. About 100 feet in the air hovered a bizarre creature--somewhat like a serpent, with no visible head. It was about 20 feet in length and had several pairs of wings. Reverend G.W. Switzer, a Methodist preacher, and his wife also saw the bizarre creature. It appeared again the following day in the evening. Hundreds of residents of Crawfordsville watched the creature as it flew about and "squirmed as if in agony". It hovered at an altitude of about 300 feet and was heard to make a "wheezing, plaintive sound". After this second appearance, the Crawfordsville Monster vanished, and it has not been seen since. The case has been investigated only by Charles Fort, who wrote of it in Lo!, and Vincent H. Gaddis, who recounted the story in Mysterious Fires and Lights. The biggest problem in identifying the monster, in addition to its utterly bizarre appearance, is the fact that no one is really sure whether or not it is actually a cryptid, or, as some claim, some sort of strange UFO display. - But what about when they are huge? Enormous! - Gargantuan objects seen in the skies, like massive organic mother-ships from some sci-fi film about alien invasion? The image here at left was purported to have been taken by an Italian Dentist in Italy in July of 1999 in broad daylight. Little more is known about it than that the object was said to be extremely large, flying very high in the sky, emitting no sound and at a pace far too fast to be conventional aircraft or a balloon of somekind, and others who also witnessed the weird spectacle said its underside had 'lights like a UFO.' What is this grotesque, tentacled flying thing? A living creature or a ship of some kind? Could it be a UFO in a transitional phase morphing from one shape into another? - The object bares a slight resemblance to the enormous, organic mother-ship of 'alien vampires' featured in the 1985 Tobe Hooper sci-fi film "Lifeforce." - Or consider the strange case of Bruno Ghibaudi, a scientific journalist who on April 27, 1961 was shocked to see this utterly bizarre 'flying machine' approach him rapidly from over the ocean, pass overhead and then jet off northward out of sight. Bruno managed to snap one picture of it before it zipped away. Is it a craft, or a creature? or both? - Only recently, New Zealand photographer Michael White, while shooting a strange looking dark cloud managed to capture on film yet another enigmatic, organic looking craft or creature. According to his information, he was shooting the strange looking black cloud which he observed for more than thirty minutes, when it suddenly disappeared. It happened so suddenly he did not even realize what he captured on film, which defies explanation. The image is certainly no cloud. It's no bird or jet. The dark object has very distinct properties of shadow and light, is solid and appears to be considerably large. But this was not what the photographer saw with the naked eye at all. He says he felt the strange cloud sensed it was being photographed, as it simply vanished, leaving only this mysterious shape on film. The cloud, as he described it, was 'fiberous' and peculiar looking. - Photo courtesy of Michael White - Cocoyoc, Mexico, November 3, 1973. A Mexican banker and his family saw a strange object approaching rapidly from the East in a clear afternoon sky. His wife said that the object was a round shape, and she drew her husband's attention to the object, and that while the distance between them and the object decreased they realized that it was not what they had initially thought: it was not a plane, neither a helicopter, nor even a competition balloon. The banker stopped the car on the side of the road and the passengers went out to get a better look at the object. The banker thought about his camera, took it, and made a first photograph at - February 2000 - Strangely Shaped UFO Photographed (From This Month In - Stinson Lake, proximate to a U.S. army training area, may be an alien or government UFO base, or a focus of investigation or travel by aliens, one reason being possible mining as the area is rich in precious minerals. A Mirror ship was photographed directing a beam of light at the hillside. Two questions that come to mind are: What was it? And Why was it at an army operations area? - I was given a photo last night of an object above the snow covered evergreens in the soupy late afternoon February sky of 2000 at Stinson Lake. It is not a painted object such as blue underneath and white on top, or black, or part metal and paint... - It is like a mirror reflecting the milky white sky above and the forest below color for color, tone for tone, hue for hue with intensity above surrounding fields at nearest equator and diminishing below surrounding fields (slightly faded at outer or left and right edges) undeniably displaying a round or roundish shape. - There are no wings and no engines noise according to the photographer. There is a shadow outlining its shape in a clearing below it and the same shadow is on the underside reflection. There's more. - After closely examining the object utilizing digital enhancement techniques, globes are seen underneath with hints of green and white lights, a possible dome on top which almost completely blends in with the sky and globular energy field where there are color shifts in the pixel spectrum where there are no added colors but a reorganization of existing colors suggesting a mirage effect also seen with the Mexico videos. The shifted field forms a perfect globe around the object exactly touching is outer edge no matter the attitude of the craft. - Sitting back a little from a 600% enlargement on the monitor screen, a field 'net' effect is obvious. The field appears webbed like a fish net formed into a globe and transparent white. Further, there is evidence of a beam of light pointing at a dark round spot also in a clearing on a nearby hill. - Above the object is a mushroom shape distortion similar to the globular energy field but larger, which raises the question of the portal of origin or a second ship. It was so sudden, the photographer never had any indication of what was about to transpire as he shot landscape photographs in the otherwise peaceful environs around him. - The photographer happened to be at the site near where the U.S. Army has historically conducted paratrooper and other training. The Army's conventional presence may well have been replaced by something extremely advanced. But the sightings have not diminished in that remote and tranquil location unlikely to be stumbled upon by any tourist. - Copyright J. Foss 2001 All Rights Reserved - The following images are from videos from both US and Farrell heard about the new crop circle very near her home in Wallacetown, Ontario and as she put it, "thought we'd go take a boo at it." This was the first crop circle Mona had ever visited. "It was so impressive, the way it was laid down... it was just so flat... it was weaved together..." She said she believed it to be too perfect to have been man made. The circle appeared in late August of this year. While standing in the circle, Mona's friend Amy took a 35mm photo of her. It wasn't until the film was developed that they noticed the peculiar looking object in the sky above Mona. "It's certainly strange," she said, "I don't know what it is." Mona took the film to a lab and had the negative examined. They determined that whatever it is, it's not a defect on the film, but is actually in the scene and part of the natural photograph. Subsequent to publishing this photo, we received several others matching the object almost exactly! The same mysterious object has been photographed around the world. See Image 1 Image 2 and Image 3 !!! NEW !!!! 4-1-4 Image Other Strange Accounts.... As far as unknown forms of life in the upper layers of atmosphere are concerned, a weird accident happened to a small private plane in 1964 in Alaska. The pilot of that plane sent a SOS and managed to say something about very bright light and some weird creature in the sky. Then the connection stopped. A satellite took a picture of a strange throbbing amoeba-like form, which looked like a living object. The satellite registered the creature in the upper layers of the Earth atmosphere. Ufologists believe that there are some unknown forms of life that inhabit the atmosphere of our planet. Time will tell if it is true or not. Morphing Craft Or Entity? Anthony Woods is not convinced that the hundreds and hundreds of UFOs he's videotaped in the skies of the UK are alien "craft" at all. After years of observation and careful documentation, Anthony feels that what he's capturing is somehow a living thing, at the very least a morphing energy of some kind that clearly can change shape at will and is definitely capable of transitions between the material and the non-material.
Naive Bayes classification is a simple, yet effective algorithm. It's commonly used in things like text analytics and works well on both small datasets and massively scaled out, distributed systems. How does it work? Naive Bayes is based on, you guessed it, Bayes' theorem. Think back to your first statistics class. Bayes' theorem was that seemingly counterintuitive lecture on conditional probability. The neon formula above might look intimidating, but it's actually not that complicated. To explain it, instead of using "events B", I'm going to use something a little more familiar. Let's say the two events in question are: A) I watched The Lego Movie today B) I sat on the couch today So for my 2 events, let's break it down into it's Bayesian components: I've seen The Lego Movie 10 times in the past 2 months--this is a lot, I know. I've been lucky enough that it's been playing on almost every plane I've been on (as it should be! it's a great movie for both adults and kids). Since I've watched The Lego Movie 10 out of the last 60 days, we'll say that: P(A) = P(I watched The Lego Movie today) = 10 / 60, or ~0.17 I sit on the couch most days I'm at my apartment. I've traveled 14 days in the past 2 months, so to keep it simple, we'll assume I sat on my couch at least once on every other day (hey, it's pretty comfy). P(B) = P(I sat on the couch today) = (60 - 14) / 60, or ~0.76 I've seen The Lego Movie 10 times and 4 of those times have been on a plane. I think it's pretty safe to assume the rest of those times I was seated comfortably in my living room. So given that I've had 46 days of couchtime in the past 2 months, we can say that I watched The Lego Movie from my couch 6 / 10 times. P(B\|A) = P(I sat on the couch given that I watched The Lego Movie) = 6 / 10 = 0.60 Ok, ready for the magic! Using Bayes' theorem, I now have everything I need to calculate the Probability that I watched The Lego Movie today given that I sat on the couch. P(A\|B)=P(B\|A)P(A)/P(B) = (0.60 0.17) / 0.76 P(I watched The Lego Movie given that I sat on the couch) = 0.13 And voilà! Given that I sat on the couch today, there is a 13% chance that I also watched The Lego Movie (wow, that's a lot of Lego time). Now I wonder what the probability of me watching The Lego Movie from a double decker couch would be? Why should I use it? Where you see Naive Bayes classifiers pop up a lot is in document classification. Naive Bayes is a great choice for this because it's pretty fast, it can handle a large number of features (i.e. words), and it's actually really effective. Take a look at what happens when you do some basic benchmarking between Naive Bayes and other methods like SVM and RandomForest against the 20 Newsgroups dataset. Naive Bayes wins! Granted this is a relatively simple approach without much in terms of feature engineering, but in my opinion that's part of the beauty of Naive Bayes! Code for benchmarking is available here. For our example we're going to be attempting to classify whether a wikipedia page is referring to a dinosaur or a cryptid (an animal from cryptozoology. Think Lochness Monster or Bigfoot). We'll be using the text from each wikipedia article as features. What we'd expect is that certain words like "sighting" or "hoax" would be more commonly found in articles about cryptozoology, while words like "fossil" would be more commonly found in articles about dinosaurs. We'll do some basic word-tokenization to count the occurrences of each word and then calculate conditional probabilities for each word as it pertains to our 2 categories. Tokenizing and counting First things first. We need to turn our files full of text into something a little more mathy. The simplest way to do this is to take the bag of words approach. That just means we'll be counting how many times each word appears in each document. We'll also perform a little text normalization by removing punctuation and lowercasing the text (this means "Hello," and "hello" will now be considered the same word). Once we've cleaned the text, we need a way to delineate words. A simple approach is to just use a good 'ole regex that splits on whitespace and punctuation: Calculating our probabilities So now that we can count words, let's get cooking. The code below is going to do the following: - open each document - label it as either "crypto" or "dino" and keep track of how many of each label there are ( - count the words for the document - add those counts to the vocab, or a corpus level word count - add those counts to the word_counts, for a category level word count Classifying a new page And finally it's time for the math. We're going to use the word counts we calculated in the previous step to calculate the following: Prior Probability for each category, or for the layman, the percentage of documents that belong to each category. We have 9 crypto docs and 8 dino docs, so that gives us the following: Prior Prob(crypto) = 9 / (8 + 9) = 0.53 Prior Prob(dino) = 8 / (8 + 9) = 0.47 Ok priors, check. The next thing we need are conditional probabilities for the words in the document we're trying to classify. How do we do that? Well we start by doing a word count on a new document. We'll use the Yeti page as our new document. Alright, we've got our counts. Now we'll calculate P(word\|category) for each word and multiply each of these conditional probabilities together to calculate the P(category\|set of words). To prevent computational errors, we're going to perform the operations in logspace. All this means is we're going to use the log(probability) so we require fewer decimal places. More on the mystical properties of logs here and here. Since we're slightly bending the rules of Bayes' Theorem, the results are not actual probabilities, but rather are "scores". All you really need to know is which one is bigger. So our suspicions are confirmed, the "Yeti.txt" file is being classified overwhelmingly in favor of crypto (as we would hope). You can find all the code and documents used in this post on GitHub. Naive Bayes is great because it's fairly easy to see what's going on under the hood. It's a great way to start any text analysis and it can easily scale out of core to work in a distributed environment. There are some excellent implementations in the Python community you can use as well, so if you don't want to roll your own, have no fear! The scikit-learn and nltk versions are great places to start.
In an age when Bigfoot is the most commonly reported type of cryptid sighting, a researcher has opted to investigate an alternative creature that was once the source of fear and awe worldwide. Engineering technologist Denver Michaels, a 42-year-old Virginia resident, has been investigating the lake monster phenomenon for over 20 years. “It all started in high school,” he tells Cryptozoology News. “An Unsolved Mysteries episode about the Ogopogo exposed me to the idea that the Loch Ness Monster is only one of many lake monsters. Until then, the Loch Ness Monster was the only lake monster that I was familiar with.” His book, People are Seeing Something: A Survey of Lake Monsters in the United States and Canada and published last January, shows his dedication to the lake cryptids. “I believe that sincere and honest people are seeing mysterious creatures in the water and these reports should be taken seriously. In this book I cover in detail a number of lake monsters across the US and Canada. I covered lake monsters in 6 Canadian provinces and 30 states. With each creature, I examine a number of reported sightings. I also look at characteristics of the lakes in which these creatures are said dwell to try and determine if a link can be established,” he explains about the 272-page document. With not so many photographs but including bouts of personally investigated reports, the book opens a dusty file stored in the minds of lake monster researchers that are now a dying breed. Of all these newly investigated sightings, says Michaels, the most compelling one is the Muck Monster in Florida. “This is because I think the creature can be explained, and be explained without telling eyewitnesses that they made a mistake and saw an otter or a log.” So, the culprit, he says, could be a large Burmese Python. “Pythons have taken root in South Florida and established breeding populations. In People are Seeing Something, I theorized that Florida’s ‘Elusive Muck Monster’ could actually be one of these animals.” But despite his theory, Michaels, who claims to keep an skeptical point of view while investigating, says he still believes lake monsters are real. “I do believe they exist, but it is hard at times to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is no denying that reports are real and strange creatures are being observed in the water,” the Virginian explains, adding that these creatures could be some sort of aquatic dinosaur that became trapped in modern-day lakes as the water from ancient inland seas receded. Other theories, such as that brought to life by biologist Bruce Wright, are also intriguing Michael’s investigative nature. “Wright believes that the mysterious, little-known sleeper shark is responsible for many lake monster sightings. . Male sleeper sharks average about 14 and a half feet in length, and sharks measuring up to 23 feet long are not uncommon. The Pacific sleeper shark can weigh as much as four tons. There are documented reports of Greenland sharks, a type of sleeper shark that lives in the waters around Iceland and Greenland, which recently have been found in the St. Lawrence Seaway. According to Wright, this proves that there are sharks that are able to survive in a cold, freshwater environment. They are found in small groups, and being scavengers, they rarely hunt. The deep-water, bottom feeding shark has little interaction with humans, and are rarely seen by people. The rarity of encounters with humans make them mysterious and very hard to observe. Lake Iliamna and Loch Ness are both rich in salmon and other fish, making them prime feeding grounds for sleeper sharks.” Regardless, says Michaels, many of these sightings can not be explained with Wright’s hypothesis. He explains that he wanted his book to tell the stories of those whose voices should be heard. “I feel like people should have a voice. Those who see something unexplained aren’t liars, they aren’t stupid, and quite often they know exactly what they saw. They should not be mocked and their reports should not be automatically dismissed as misidentification or hoaxes. I am personally offended at how people who report seeing something unexplained are treated,” he said. Michaels’ book can be purchased online. If you would like to enter a giveaway for a chance to win a signed copy of his book, head over to Cryptozoology News Facebook page for details. Latest posts by Cryptozoology News (see all) - Two People Spot ‘Thunderbird’ in California - July 22, 2017 - Michigan Woman Claims Dogman Sighting - July 17, 2017 - Police Officer Records Mothman-Like Humanoid Footage in New Mexico Desert - July 13, 2017
“We the Jewish people, control America” It begins on Caliban. It begins back before the Emperor came to our planet, before there was even the first talk of angels. Caliban was different then. We knew nothing of the Imperium and the Great Crusade. Terra was a myth; no, not even that. Terra was a myth of a ghost of a memory brought to us by our long-dead forefathers. It was ephemeral and half-forgotten thing with no bearing on our lives. It was the time of Old Night. Warp storms had made it impossible to travel between the stars and each human world was left to fend for itself. We had passed more than five thousand years in isolation from the rest of humanity: five thousand years. Can you imagine how long that is? Time enough for the people of Caliban to develop our own culture. We had our own beliefs and customs, aye, even our own religions. When I’m an old man, I don’t want to look back upon my life and remember that I was some kind of prophet of doom who brought fear into the lives of millions of people. My work has now reached millions, and I need to be careful. My message is ultimately one of love and peace, which is the Pleiadian paradigm. A win-win situation were every man, woman, and child on this planets benefits. The corrupt Illuminati paradigm wishes to see the destruction of the so-called Goyim - all the people on earth who are not “New Israelites.” When our unit was involved in RV ops in London in the 90’s, we were told things like, “when it all goes down, people like you will run the planet for us.” Many times, the elite were called underground to the CLC-1 facility under Parliament when there were threats of a nuclear attack on the UK. Barry King was paired up with a certain female in this facility in the past in this exact situation. It was a C.O.G (Continuity of Government) type operation with the Illuminati wanting to repopulate the earth with offspring of the most gifted, to rise from the ashes like the phoenix. Fortunately, this never happened. Immanuel’s message was that all people, Jew and Gentile, could see the New Jerusalem of peace and prosperity on earth. This is what the future holds, and the Pleiadians are not going to see this planet get flushed down the pan. I’m honored and grateful to be able to carry this message. What gives me the right to speak for the Pleiadians? The simple answer is that I’ve been in direct contact with them since I was a child. Part of my role in Project Mannequin was to make telepathic contact with the large Pleiadian mother ships in the outer atmosphere and then pass the messages onto Commander Clavius and other people. This was all done while I was in the tripseat. I’ve had that much contact with them over the years that a whole book could be written on this subject alone. Some of the messages in Mannequin had to do with the fact that the Pleiadians would not stand for the abuse occurring in these military facilities, and Aldebaran federation forces would be taking direct military action against them. This is not a chapter about “exo-politics” but the M.I.E.C forces have control over something known as the Tablets of Destiny, which is basically a network of large exotic crystal based computers. These are linked in a geometrical grid pattern around the world and can trigger large scale disasters such as tidal waves, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Anyone who has investigated this subject would be familiar with the H.A.A.R.P scalar weather warfare system based in Alaska. This is part of the T.O.D super computer. Ultimately, mankind is being held hostage by this system. People often ask why don’t the Pleiadians come in and rescue us and all the children being abused in underground bases, if all the ships are positioned around the planet? The answer is because of the Tablets of Destiny. Yes, the large Pleiadian craft are here. Anyone who attended the Probe International conference in the past saw the proof. My colleague “Duncan” presented the many coloured photographs of these ships - some over five miles long - to hundreds of stunned people in attendance. You could hear the gasps from the audience as people’s breath was taken away. These photographs were taken by another friend of mine, known on the internet as Simon Anderson and John Leonard Walson, using advanced photography equipment that takes pictures of objects in the outer atmosphere. JLW has filmed so many ships that I cannot cover them all here. His work has been included in the huge Rense.com website and a small amount of footage can be seen here: My most recent Pleiadian contacts brought word of direct military action by Aldebaran federation forces against certain strategic locations in Britain, America, and Australia. These attacks and liberations were utilized using “Excaliber” type technology. This is sonic, ground-penetrating weaponry that attacks deep underground but leaves the surface unharmed. This message was given to me on the night of August 25th by several small scout craft positioned overhead in a certain location in Scotland were I am now based. The attacks would take place between the 25th and 30th August I was told. A couple of days later, I was told by Lincoln that he’d heard of a huge explosion and fire in the underground facility at Montauk, where the Phoenix mind control project is being run. He also informed me that the mag-lev [magnetic levitation] underground tube shuttle system had been shut down between the bases in New Mexico. All the terminals had been closed and this went on for an unusually long time. Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on the warlike aspect of the Pleiadians. I want to focus on the joy and ecstasy that comes with having a heart link with them, especially the female aspect of their civilization. They are a Goddess-based society, which venerates females and family. The feeling of the energy is similar to being in love. Children with Pleiadian genetics are highly sought after in Mannequin and are known under such codenames as Platinum Blues and Digital Children. These are the most joyful and angelic children whose physic abilities come from the ability to feel love and the feelings of another being. The people used in the project are like the phoenix. They are individuals of such passion and fire that their souls are often too powerful for their bodies. It often takes to their 30th birthday to learn how to slow down and take care and control over their physical bodies. Basically, during my telepathic contacts with them, I have written down what they told me. I have a whole box full of this information in a safe location. An individual approached me and offered to purchase them but we could not agree on the right price. I am glad now I did not sell them. Much of the information is almost identical word for word as such Pleiadian-channeled books as Awakening Your Divine Ka and The Pleiadian Light Workbook by Amorah Quan Yin and The Pleiadian Light Body DNA Activation Program by Gill Patterson. I had not read these books when I received the precipitation transmissions from the Pleiadians. They teach you how to ascend your consciousness into higher dimensions - they take a person higher. The energy is sexual as PSI and sexual is one in the same. Gill Petterson calls the human light-workers on earth “sacred sexual master beings of light.” As the ecstasy takes you, an individual is able to remote view and do other things. As I rise out of my body, I see the house, then the town, then the country in my sublime view. I then go so high I hold the whole planet in my palm so to speak. I am then able to project my onsciousness almost anywhere in the world and see what is going on. By reading this, part of my spirit is now with you. I've already gone public with the exact scientific method I use to RV on the Godlikeproductions forum, so I won't include it here. According to various NSA scientists who have briefed me, over 1000 man-hours have been put into exploring the limits of how far a remote viewer can see. They talk about Seven Superdomains, which basically point toward the human having “the mind of God” when developed and can see across the universe. There is a limit and the NSA scientists call this the T-Boundary or through-boundary. The intelligence community consists of modern-day knights, and the people who work with me are some of the individuals who are still human and haven’t been taken over. I will explain what I mean by this statement. The knightly Masonic orders were originally set up to directly combat dangerous extra-terrestrial life forms, but nowadays, many of the orders have been taken over by the same beings who were their sworn enemies. This makes perfect sense, as one of the most effective military strategies is to infiltrate and subvert your enemy. Amongst the most dangerous reptilians on earth now is the Chimera, or shapeshifter, who walks amongst us and appears as a man. More and more Chimeras are presently embedded in the human population. Many of the underground bases in the U.K. and U.S. have DNA scanners located at the topside exits that are guarded by armed personnel. These alarms are triggered on these scanners if an alien or enhanced clone in human form attempts to leave the facility without permission. Do not be fooled into thinking the human military have this situation under control. However, they attempt to do their best. All other known human exits without DNA scanners are monitored 24/7 from satellite. One of the major problems the Chimera cause is when they take the human form of a world leader, which they often do. I have seen the famous politician I mentioned in Chapter 5 more than once in various underground facilities around the U.K. More than once, I knew it was not the original man but a reptilian that had taken on his form. This individual also has several clones, as well. He carries a beautiful 9mm Smith and Wesson (a favourite gun of the NSA). This pistol has a pearl handle grip with a symbol of a dragon on it. High-ranking members of the intelligence community will know who I’m talking about. I’ll leave it at that for the time being. As I said, the Chimeras look like men but are not men. It is not for humans to understand the mind of malevolent xenos. This is totally alien and beyond our comprehension. Their centers of operation are located deep in the earth under the sub-surface military bases and also on their huge spacecraft. RV scans reveal cave-like interiors inside these places, which resemble huge insect colonies, with some xenos over 18 feet tall. Many of their spacecraft are organic rock-like structures. The inherent vileness of these places and beings is physically transmitted and felt when around them. These Centres of Operations often have hundreds of thousands of human men, women, and children in cryogenic stasis pods to be used as food. Whether these are clones or real humans, I do not know. However, classified DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) increasingly large amounts of children going missing in the U.K. and U.S. X13 also informed of the disturbing disclosure that one million cryogenically frozen children had been given by the Greys to the Draco Prime ship behind the Hale-Bopp comet as tribute. These beings are anathema to all our values. As we love, so they hate. As we are strengthened and fed by peace, they are strengthened and fed by fear. They are actually a dying race who has progressed too far down the road of technology without balancing their emotional developing. They have turned into organic machines because of this. I’ve been warned I could be killed even more quickly for disclosing the next piece of information, as it’s so close to home; however, with all the secrecy falling apart, it hardly matters now. The cat is well and truly out of the bag. This concerns the recent spate of suicides of young people in the town of Bridgend in Wales. Twenty three individuals have killed themselves in 20 months here. Seven deaths were linked as a possible “cluster.” The population is only 32,000 here. Dale Crole, 18, hanged himself in a derelict warehouse on January, 5th 2007. His friend, David Dillings, 19, hanged himself on February 18th. Thomas Davies, 20, who knew both of them, hanged himself in a park a week later. Zachary Barnes, 17, who hanged himself on August 11th, is also believed to have known the other victims. In December, Liam Clarke, a friend of Crole, was found hanged in a park. Gareth Morgan, 27, who knew Clarke, died on January 5th this year. Natasha Randell, 17, posted a tribute message to Clarke on her Bebo page two days before she hanged herself on January 17th. On February 13th, Kelly Stephenson was found hanged a few hours after her cousin Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, was declared dead following a suspected suicide. The two cousins were said to be “very close,” and on one of Ms. Stephenson’s Bebo pages, there were tributes to Clarke, Randell and Barnes. Jenna Parry, 16, found hanged on the morning of 19th February, was thought to be a close friend of at least one other victim. So what is going on here really? I was directly briefed by British Intelligence that in five of the news reports, there were members of MI-6 and Group 5-8 special forces working on telephone poles and in telephone boxes in the background while cameras where interviewing newscasters. These operatives were searching an “item,” which has recently gone missing from the underground genetics facility below Brecon Beacons in Wales, known as Trapdoor. This so called item is a Chimera that has gone AWOL. It is referred to as a “feeder,” as being near to it reveals such feelings as intense suicidal tendencies and depression. The reason being is that it telepathically feeds on the taste of fear. The intel operatives in the news background are a message to the community saying, “we’re attempting to get the situation under control and track this thing down.” The reality of the situation is that the Chimera came into the town and engaged these young people in conversation. It hen telepathically hypnotized them with various subliminal suggestions. After this, it went back to the place it was staying (possibly a B&B) and performed a type of remote viewing to the location where the individual was in the process of committing suicide and “fed” off the energies being released here. Modern scientific investigations are now reporting that some reptile species on earth have a type of orgasm when they die, as huge amounts of endorphins are released. Recently, there have been reports of the famous Lizard Man of South Carolina. One media report is as follows: “Sighting of the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp (also known as The Lizard Man of Lee County) was a major media event. First with one sighting and then others, it was said to be a humanoid cryptid, perhaps a merbeing, inhabiting areas of swampland in and around Lee County, South Carolina. The Lizard Man was described at the time as being quite tall, bipedal, and having what appeared to be scaly skin and glowing red eyes. In the popular media rendering, it was said to have three toes on each foot and three fingers on each hand that end in long black claw-like nails. The first reported sighting of the Scape Ore creature occurred on June 29, 1988 but was soon followed by others, including information that was revealed about an earlier sighting in 1987.” Now, almost exactly twenty years after the initial media flap of the Scape Ore event, is the Lizard Man back? Just recently, I received word from Lincoln that a reptilian had breached one of the above-ground exits at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee NSA facility. He informed me of a phone call he received the night of the recent reports of the Lizard Man (I won’t detail the case, as it was included in the mainstream media of America and can be read on the internet). The phone call was from Oak Ridge and relayed the message that the place was on red alert after a reptilian had breached the area and was being hunted by DELTA Special Forces units. Apparently, one of the treaties had fallen through with the Draco and U.S. government, and this was a psychological warfare tactic by the Draco basically saying, “If you don’t do what we say, we’ll come onto the surface and cause terror.” This is exactly what this thing did when it attacked a car in the area and scratched the front with its claws. See photo on right Also see photo below of Oak Ridge facility (supplied by Lincoln): Photo 3 on the right shows the ROWS (Remote Operational Weapons System) hardware at Oak Ridge. This is a heat-seeking mechanized rifle system that automatically locks onto anything in its sensor range. It fires upon the command of guard underground (photo supplied by Lincoln): Photo 4 on the left shows one of the separator pumps at the Dulce genetics facility. Taken from Level 5, this is for working with blood plasma (photo supplied by Lincoln): Photo 5 below shows Barry King and me together at my flat in St Ives, Scotland: Photo 6 on the right shows one of Lincoln’s security badges. He has to wear four of them at all times. All four are for different purposes. One is his permanent badge, one is daily, one is door scanner/retina scan badge, and the other is for lower level access. All badges, except daily badges, remain in base at all times. They do not leave with anyone. They are turned in with coveralls when you leave. This is Lincoln’s daily badge. The [diagonal] strip to the right of his employee number is turning pink/reddish in colour. This strip turns pink if you don’t scan it with an ultra-violet badge scanner. Basically, the badge goes bad to prevent forgery. Photo 7 on the left shows a reptilian that has been killed and beheaded in the jungle of South America by local shamans (cropped enlargement seen on the right) : Link 9 below shows a Zetan Grey being interviewed by a telepath at Area 51: All information posted on this web site is the opinion of the author and is provided for educational purposes only. It is not to be construed as medical advice. Only a licensed medical doctor can legally offer medical advice in the United States. Consult the healer of your choice for medical care and advice.
I pride myself on reporting the facts. Factual evidence is the most important thing in proving the existence of Bigfoot or any other cryptid. Sometimes there is more to the story than just the facts. I recently published two articles on Robert Fairless, The Bigfoot Whisperer. Those articles were strictly based on the facts. I neglected to look into the man himself. I have now spoken with Rob on a few occasions and have had a revelation! Rob is a good guy, he is out to have a little fun and that’s it. My facts pointed in the direction of a possible hoaxer, a guy making a mockery of real researchers, or someone out to simply gain fame. None of those things seem to really be the case. Rob wants to be taken seriously just like any other researcher but he also wants to have a little fun doing so, I see no problem with that. \|Tim Mitchell with his "Spirit Stick"\| Rob’s videos are just what we need in the sometimes stuffy world of Bigfoot research. We need someone who pokes a little fun at our methods and the sometimes ridiculous stuff that people claim as evidence. There is defiantly a place for a guy like this in the Bigfoot community. Dr. Fairless provides us with an escape from all the drama and infighting that goes on. Many in the Bigfoot community looked at Fairless with a critical eye at first, myself included. The trend is changing. Rob has picked up many new supporters, some of which were very critical at the start. Once those folks “got the joke” it all became clear. We all laughed at the South Park parody of Finding Bigfoot (except for maybe Bobo) and we can all laugh along with Rob as well. I, for one, have become a huge fan. Rob also does some serious research. Take a look at his video of Zack and his mother, they are real witnesses telling a real story. Rob promises to follow up with these witnesses. Just one last note: Dr. Fairless, I realize that you and I got off on the wrong foot. I have at least in some way soiled your reputation. I apologize for that. What ever it takes to help remedy that in the future is what I will do. You have picked up at least one new fan and I hope that there are many more to come. Some still “have an eye on you” but I believe you will win them over as well. The Bigfoot Whisperer videos can be found on Youtube under AlienInformation. Rob’s blog can be found at www.thebigfootwhisperer.com.
The Scottish government has ordered all of mainland Scotland back into full lockdown and the borders are closed. No one is permitted to be out of their homes for anything but a few reasons including buying groceries and essential medical appointments. Obviously this leads to a quiet time for the Loch Ness Monster. She had been keeping a lower profile lately and will definitely not want to place herself at risk of catching any flu type virus. Leader of The Loch Ness Research Project, Professor Kettle, spoke of his concerns: “I have been looking for cryptid in this loch for fifty years and this is probably the scariest set of circumstances the area has ever faced. People must keep away from the water and protect our monster from infection”. The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency was unavailable for comment at time of publication.
Late in his career, Philip Henry Gosse became convinced that ‘sea-serpents’ reported by proper English eyewitnesses were plesiosaurs. Gosse (1861) argued that a total lack of remains was not necessarily problematic since two cetaceans were also known only from sightings: ‘delphinus rhinoceros‘ and a ‘Delphinorhynchus‘ with “remarkable” white flippers which Gosse happened to observe. The later ‘sea-serpent’ researcher Bernard Heuvelmans (1968) picked up on Gosse’s account and interpreted it as an undescribed species of (probable) beaked whale, a notion which still shows up in cryptozoology books and websites. It’s a shame this purported ‘cryptid’ has never been critically assessed – so far as I can tell – since beaked whales have a long history of being difficult to detect. Gosse’s sighting, however, is also quite problematic and it can probably never be determined just what he saw. That won’t stop me from discussing it, of course. Gosse (1851) observed that one of his mystery cetaceans had a head “exactly” like that of ‘Delphinorhynchus‘, with no furrow between the “forehead” and snout being visible. As for what ‘Delphinorhynchus‘ meant to Gosse, his account describes two species in the now-invalid genus: ‘D. micropterus‘ (“The Toothless Whale of Havre”) and ‘D. rostratus‘. The former is a synonym of the beaked whale Mesoplodon bidens whereas the latter appears to be Gosse’s unique name for the Rough-Toothed Dolphin, Steno bredanensis. These distantly related species have superficially similar heads due to a flat melon and medium-long beak, so Gosse’s cetacean probably had these traits as well. Gosse (1856) was familiar with other ziphiids (‘Hyperoodon bidentatus‘, ‘Diodon sowerbyi‘) but considered them distinct due to their battle teeth; curiously, the latter species is in fact another synonym for M. bidens. Gosse’s understanding of ziphiids was incredibly crude by modern standards, but the description of the head coupled with that of the body (elongated, small dorsal fin set far back) makes it seem likely his mystery cetaceans were beaked whales, and mesoplodonts at that. Behaviorally, Gosse’s cetaceans could not have been less cryptic. They traveled in a “herd”, “trooping towards the ship” and then stayed with it for around 17 hours and 120 English miles (~190 km). Gosse (1851) made no mention of extended disappearances (due to diving) but did observe the cetaceans “romp and frolic, in the manner of Dolphins”, protrude their heads above the surface, swim on their backs and (as reported by an officer) even breach. The behavior Gosse observed was undoubtedly extreme, but has some precedence in ziphiids: Hyperoodon approaches boats more frequently than other ziphiids (enough so to result in heavy hunting) (Dalebout et al. 2006); large groups of Indopacetus have been noted to be very active at the surface and to approach ships (Anderson et al. 2006); encounter durations in one study of Hawaiian M. densirostris and Ziphius averaged 1.45 hours, with one lasting 8.3 h (McSweeney et al. 2007); another study of M. densirostris found a wide range of reactions to vessels (avoidance, keeping distance, approach) and while surface behavior was usually inconspicuous, tail-slaps, head-raises, porpoising, and even a breach were observed (Ritter and Brederlau 1999). I can’t find any observations of ziphiid diving behavior (apparently) being disrupted for so long, but still, stranger reactions to human presence has been observed – one group of Pseudorca reportedly following a ship from Brazil to the English Channel (Tomilin 1967), for instance. Gosse’s sighting occurred at 19°1′ N., 45°42′ W. – the middle of the North Atlantic – which is within the ranges of Mesoplodon densirostris, M. europaeus and Ziphius; Hyperoodon ampullatus, M. bidens and M. mirus are other North Atlantic ziphiids which have been recorded within 10 degrees of latitude of the sighting (MacLeod et al. 2006). Before throwing around the label of ‘cryptid’, it’s critically important to at least review these species and how well they fit Gosse’s descriptions. The ‘Delphinorhynchus‘ comparison strongly fits with M. bidens and M. europaeus, albeit only if Gosse overlooked the battle teeth in males or observed a group composed only of females and immature individuals. Female M. densirostris may fit, despite the arched jawline, but males are utterly unmistakable. M. mirus is iffy since for a mesoplodont it has a rounded melon and short beak. Ziphius, whose external appearance Gosse was probably unfamiliar with, has a very short beak and melon more pronounced than any mesoplodont, and is thus an unlikely candidate. Gosse (1856) demonstrated he was familiar with Hyperoodon. Gosse estimated his cetaceans to be about 30 feet (~9.1 meters) in length (“or perhaps not quite so much”), a size only Berardius bairdii regularly exceeds (MacLeod 2005). H. ampullatus may reach 10 m, but is on average much smaller, with a median length of 6.4 m and modes of 6.1-6.2 and 6.4–6.5 m (MacLeod 2005); surprisingly, it really isn’t much longer than the mesoplodonts on average. Cryptozoologists have a bad habit of interpreting size estimates literally, and considering that this took place at sea and Gosse had no prior experience with ziphiids, I see no reason to dismiss the candidates as a result of this size estimate. Ziphius: median 5.5 m, mode 5.4-5.5 m; M. mirus: median 4.76 m, mode 4.8-4.9 m; M. bidens: median 4.5 m, modes 4.5-4.6, 4.8-4.9 m; M. europaeus: median 4.23 m, mode 4.2-4.3 m; M. densirostris median 4.15 m, modes 3.9-4.0, 4.3-4.4 m (MacLeod 2005). Gosse described his cetaceans as being black above and white beneath, which doesn’t quite fit any of the candidates. There does seem to be a tendency for at-sea observations to describe species with complex color patterns as “black” (the “Black Dolphin” Cephalorhynchus eutropia being a prominent example), so Gosse’s description isn’t particularly useful, aside from ruling out adult male Ziphius. Gosse also describe the “lips” and extremity of the beak as having a fleshy coloration, and it is worth noting that Ziphius sometimes has pinkish coloration on its head; I’m uncertain if the other species sometimes display this trait, which could be the result of thermoregulation. It is curious that Gosse made no mention of circular or linear scars, but his account implied he was never particularly close to the whales, so they may have been overlooked (along with the battle teeth?). The trait Gosse felt was most significant were flippers that were white “even on their upper surface”, which contrasted strongly with the dark body. Some M. mirus appear to have partially light flippers, although the surrounding body isn’t exactly dark. I’m curious why Brett Jarrett illustrated some M. densirostris with striking white flippers, perhaps some individuals of that species have been documented with that trait in obscure publications. I’m not exactly convinced white flippers are a trait diagnostic of a new species and not outside the possibilities of individual or population variation. Ritter and Brederlau (1999) noted that some M. densirostris had “coloured” portions of the flippers and other body parts, apparently due to diatoms, so color variation is not necessarily even genetic. All things considered, I would hesitantly suggest that Gosse observed a large group of Mesoplodon europaeus, possibly largely composed of females and juveniles. The species was discovered a few years before his sighting, but it wasn’t until after Gosse died that it was accepted as a valid species. In typical frustrating fashion, there’s really no way to be sure just what Gosse saw – however there’s also no reason to conclude it’s a new species. Even for beaked whales, a century and a half with no sightings or carcasses is really pushing it. Anderson, R., et al. (2006) Observations of Longman’s Beaked Whale (Indopacetus pacificus) in the Western Indian Ocean. Aquatic Mammals 32(2), 223-231. Available. Dalebout, M. et al. (2006) Nuclear and mitochondrial markers reveal distinctiveness of a small population of bottlenose whales (Hyperoodon ampullatus) in the western North Atlantic. Molecular Ecology 15, 3115-3129. Available. Gosse, P. (1861) The Romance of Natural History. Volume 1. Available. Gosse, P. (1856) A Manuel of Marine Zoology for the British Isles. Available. Gosse, P. (1851) A Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica. Available. Heuvelmans, B. (1968) In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents. Jardine, W. (1837) The Natural History of the Ordinary Cetacea or Whales. Available. MacLeod, C., et al. (2006) Known and inferred distributions of beaked whale species (Cetacea: Ziphiidae). Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 7(3), 271–286. Available. MacLeod, C. (2005) Niche Partitioning, Distribution And Competition In North Atlantic Beaked Whales. Doctor of Philosophy thesis for the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK. Available. McSweeney, D. et al. (2007) Site fidelity, associations, and movements of Cuvier’s (Ziphius cavirostris) and Blainville’s (Mesoplodon densirostris) Beaked Whales off the Island of Hawai’i. Marine Mammal Science 23(3), 666-687. Available. Ritter, F. & Brederlau, B. (1999) Behavioural observations of dense beaked whales (Mesoplodon densirostris) off La Gomera, Canary Islands (1995–1997). Aquatic Mammals 25.2, 55-61. Available. Tomilin, A. (1967) Cetacea. Mammals of the U.S.S.R. and adjacent countries. Volume 9. Gosse (1851) p. 3-6: An occurrence of much more zoological interest, however, the sight of a very rare, if not quite new, Cetacean, under circumstances peculiarly favourable to observation, demands a more protracted notice. Having been familiar with several species of Delphinidæ in former Atlantic voyages, I had taken for granted that I should meet with some in this; and wishing to settle the question whether any of the true Dolphins spout, I had studied the Order a little before sailing; and, in particular, had made careful sketches of the form of the head in all the genera, that I might not depend on that treacherous guide, memory. November 22d. — Lat. at noon 19° 1′ N., long. 45° 42′ W.; the trade wind blowing a most exhilarating breeze, with fine weather. Between three and four o’clock p.m., a herd of large Cetaceans appeared astern, trooping towards the ship. They soon came up and began to play around us, continuing to romp and frolic, in the manner of Dolphins, all the evening; and even long after nightfall they were still in company, being plainly visible by the light of the moon. During this long time, I had many opportunities of observing them. They frequently protruded their heads from the surface; and then, presently, the huge round back, with a small dorsal far behind, was seen. In going along beside the ship, one would occasionally turn on its back, displaying the white belly, and in this position swim a short distance. The muzzle was lengthened into a snout, but, as well as I could judge from many exposures, it tapered gradually without a furrow, and resembled that of Delphinorhynchus. As nearly as I could estimate from a position aloft, by comparison with the ship, their length was about thirty feet, or perhaps not quite so much. The body was elongated, black above, white beneath; the swimming paws appeared white, even on their upper surface, but surrounded by dark colour on the body; —this is remarkable. The lips and extremity of the muzzle appeared, when projected from the water, of a flesh colour. They usually expired with a rushing sound, the instant the blow-hole was exposed, but did not, as far as I observed, spout. Once, however, I noticed a little cloud of steam sailing away on the wind, from the spot where one had just disappeared; it exactly resembled that appearance which succeeds the spouting of the common Rorqual (which I have seen many times), but as my eye did not catch the animal itself, I cannot positively say that such was its origin on this occasion. The evenings being cool and refreshing after the burning days, and being generally fair, and now lighted by the moon, “—pura nocturno renidet Luna mari,—” * we spend them on deck, as the pleasantest hours of the twenty-four. This evening, the wallowing and sporting of the Whales added a new interest; and at nearly eleven o’clock, we left them still in company. November 23d.— On rising, we were surprised to find the Whales still attending us. I now had an opportunity of seeing the profile of one very distinctly, and of assuring myself that the form of the head was exactly that of the figured Delphinorhynchus, no furrow being visible between the forehead and the snout. One of the officers informed me that he had seen one of them breach, or leap clear out of the water. Soon after 8 a.m. they left us, having continued with us nearly seventeen hours, a period of extraordinary length, when we consider that the visits of frolicsome Cetacea to vessels rarely last more than half an hour or an hour. During the whole of this time, the ship had been running before a gallant breeze, and had proceeded nearly 120 English miles. I have little doubt that the species was that very interesting and rare Cetacean known as the Toothless Whale of Havre, Delphinorhynchus micropterus. The small size of the dorsal, and its backward position, agreed well with the description of that species, and though these were nearly double the length of that celebrated specimen, this incongruity is of little moment, since that was evidently a young one. If this was, indeed, the Havre Whale, the occurrence in associated numbers of a species, hitherto known only by a solitary specimen, possesses an interest which will be readily appreciated by naturalists; if, on the other hand, it was distinct, it is, perhaps, still more interesting, as it proves the existence of a gregarious Cetacean of large size in the Atlantic, which has hitherto escaped the observation of zoologists. The white hue of the flippers, isolated amidst the dark colour of the upper body, would seem to favour the latter conclusion. I may add here that when we were off the west end of Porto Rico, I observed a shoal of Dolphins playing at a short distance; one of them in leaping fell in a perpendicular position, the tail downward, while the body was thrown into a double curve. I was thus enabled to see that the belly was of a bright rose-colour. Now this is the hue of the under parts of the other Delphinorhynchus (D. rostratus), which is about eight feet in length, and might well be mistaken, in the moment of leaping, for a true Delphinus. The coincidence is a curious one: especially as this species is nearly as rare as the former.
Cause-and-effect is a fascinating process. No cause results in a single effect, and no effect results from a single cause, of course, but we can certainly identify individual dominos after they have fallen. For example, an earlier cause (let’s call it “domino 1”) led to the following four effects: Because of domino 1, visitors to Inspiration Point have this view across the water to the naval air station and Lockheed Martin. Because of domino 1, in 1969 a well-known local cryptid had a place to hang his . . . whatever cryptids hang. Because of domino 1, northwest of town in 1940 these seaplanes floated like ducks on a pond. Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Corporation was ferrying the planes from San Diego to England and needed a stopover for fuel in midcontinent. The city of Fort Worth provided a station to provide fuel, food, and lodging for the crews and airplanes. (Photo from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company.) Because of domino 1, entrepreneurs had a shoreline on which to build Casino Beach amusement park in 1927. The preceding four effects resulted from a cause that occurred in 1913: In 1913 the city of Fort Worth built Lake Worth. But was that cause—the building of Lake Worth—domino 1? No. There was a still-earlier domino:
Picture Book Wins 2015 Waterstones Children's Book Prize Meet Penguin Blue! Meet 'Blown Away', the 11th winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the debut work of Rob Biddulph! It's a windy day, and Penguin Blue has a brand new kite - but where's he going on this maiden flight? In this fun and enjoyable picture book written and illustrated by Rob Biddulph, Penguin Blue and his friends go on a gloriously illustrated adventure full of good ideas, homesickness and the perils of kites. The Waterstones Children's Book Prize has three categories, from which the overall winner is selected. Biddulph's 'Blown Away' had won the Best Illustrated Book category; other category winners were: Sally Green, winner of the best book for teenagers with 'Half Bad', and Robin Stevens, winner of best young fiction with 'Murder Most Unladylike'.'Half Bad' is the first part of a fantasy trilogy set among a society of warring Black and White Witches. The second in the trilogy has just been published. 'Murder Most Unladylike' is the first in a series of boarding school mysteries, featuring schoolgirls Daisy Wells and Holly Wong of Deepdean School for Girls.First awarded in 2005, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize is an annual award given to a work of children's literature published during the previous year. The purpose of the prize is to uncover new and emerging talent and is therefore open only to authors who have published less than three books. In 2012 the prize was divided into categories, they being for Best Illustrated Book, Best Younger Fiction, and Best Book for Teenagers.The 2014 overall winner was Katherine Rundell's 'Rooftoppers', a book about about a young girl’s race to find her missing mother over the rooftops of Victorian Paris.What the Press have to say:Rob Biddulph wins Waterstones children’s book prize 2015 with debut Blown Away (The Guardian)Picture book wins 2015 Waterstones Children's Book Prize (The Telegraph) Brilliant Mid-term Reads from Book Festival Authors Dark days, and even darker nights - autumn is the perfect time to curl up with a good book. You might already have a toppling pile of books beside the bed, or sitting on a bookshelf just waiting for you to pick them up and bring the story to life by opening that first page. But if you are finished everything interesting in your 'to read' pile and are looking for a good book to keep you company over this mid-term break, perhaps you will find inspiration in the work of some of the authors who have been visiting Dublin City Libraries during October for Children's Book Festival. Some, like Judi Curtin are very well-known and don't need any introduction from me, while others, like Michael Carroll, who writes science fiction / fantasy novels, are less well-known, but equally engaging writers.If you were lucky enough to be at Cabra Library or Drumcondra Library to meet popular author Judi Curtin, you will have heard all about how she started writing and how moving schools often as a child helped her become observant and made sure she always had good stories to tell. Judi's most recent book is 'Leave it to Eva' the third book in the 'Eva' series. There are seven books in Judi's earlier 'Alice and Megan' series, as well as a cookbook, so no need to run out of your favourite reads.Younger children will enjoy the 'Alfie Green' series by Joe O'Brien, who visited Rathmines and Kevin Street Libraries, and older fans of Joe's work might try 'Beyond the Cherry Tree' a novel of fantasy, adventure and magic. Another author who visited libraries in during October is Debbie Thomas, whose book 'Dead Hairy' is quite hilarious. Children who met Debbie in Donaghmede, Coolock and Ballyfermot Libraries were also let in on the secrets of Debbie's new book 'Jungle Tangle' which isn't even in shops or libraries yet - but keep an eye out!During week two of the festival we had a visit from Che Golden, who travelled from England to meet children in the Central Library, Rathmines Library and Terenure Library. There were plenty of questions for Che and we learned how her writing was inspired by her childhood visits to Blarney in Co. Cork to visit her grandparents - and we also learned exactly how little an author gets paid for each book sold (a lot less than you would think). Che's book, The Feral Child, is the first of a trilogy - and the first part is so exciting I can't wait for parts two and three.Week three of the festival was the busiest week, starting with visits from environmentalists Éanna Ní Lamhna and Don Conroy. Many of Don's books, such as 'The Anaconda from Drumcondra' and the 'Draw with Don' series are still available in libraries, and Éanna's book, 'Wild Dublin' has something to offer all ages - along with great photographs. You can also download a free copy of Éanna's brilliant resource for primary school teachers 'Wild Things at School' published by the Heritage Council.Eithne Massey writes for many age groups so she has something for everyone - for younger readers there's 'The Dreaming Tree' and 'Best Loved Irish Legends' while for older readers Eithne's fantasy novels (with an historical theme) include 'The Silver Stag of Bunratty' and, her latest, 'Where the Stones Sing'. You can also view a list of Eithne's own favourite children's fantasy books. During the same week, the fabulous Cressida Cowell entertained over 400 children from schools all over Dublin - with her tales of Vikings and Dragons. 'How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel' is the tenth in the hugely popular 'How to Train Your Dragon' series - if you haven't tried them, now's your chance! Perfect for boys and girls aged 8+.In week four we had visits from Nicola Pierce and Jean Flitcroft. Jean has written two books in her 'Cryptid Files' series; 'Loch Ness', which is set in Scotland and features the hunt for the famous Loch Ness Monster and 'Mexican Devil' which introduces us to El Chupacabra - a mythical monster from Mexico. Nicola Pierce writes historical fiction with a slight fantasy element in 'Spirit of the Titanic' a book that views the unfolding of the Titanic tragedy through the eyes of the ghost or spirit of Samuel Scott, an apprentice who was killed while helping to build the Titanic in Belfast docks.The last official Children's Book Festival visit will be from science fiction / fantasy author Michael Carroll to Ballymun Library on Hallowe'en, Wednesday 31st October - the very last day of the Festival. Michael has written many novels and short stories for children, teenagers and adults as well as stories for comics like Judge Dredd and Futurequake. During these visits he will be talking mostly about the 'New Heroes' series; 'The Quantum Prophecy', 'Sakkara' and 'Absolute Power', all available from your local library. The full list and their American as well as English titles is available here. If you are between 10 and 14 and enjoy fantasy and science fiction books, come along to Ballymun Library on Wednesday 31st at 3pm for a great opportunity to listen to and chat with a real writer about how he writes, what inspires him, and also what inspires you and tips for writing your own stories.So, loads of great ideas for new books to explore. Still not inspired? Drop in to your local library and browse along the shelves of great booksIf you find the perfect book for you - why not share by letting us know all about it? All replies to this post suggesting a good children's read for these Autumn days will be entered in a draw for a newly published book by an Irish author (I'm keeping the title a secret until I get those entries in - so start suggesting now). Have you ever speculated which books you would bring with you to a desert island? (I've always thought that should be 'deserted' not 'desert' but perhaps it's an obscure grammar point I don't get?) As part of the Re Think + Re Act Exhibition, Pivot Dublin have set up a Reading Room in Filmbase in Temple Bar, Dublin. They invited readers in Dublin to submit their favourite book to be displayed in the Reading Room during the exhibition. My choice? The three girls in my family got together to raid our groaning bookshelves and share our favourite books with Dubliners at the Reading Room. Come along and see if you can find them.Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi - all three of us love this book. It's a graphic novel that tells the story of one girls experience in pre and post revolution Iran. It's funny and sad and infuriating and brilliant. It was made into an excellent animated film by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi.An Chanáil, by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick - one of the very few children's books that depicts an accurate, modern (relatively) urban Dublin. This is a very special book, unfortunately now out of print. If you live anywhere between the two canals, take a close look at this and inhabit the streets along the Grand Canal in a new, virtual way, while sharing the story of a child and a lost dog. The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman, by Raymond Briggs - we show this book to everyone who comes into our house, and then sit back and watch their reaction. Have a look yourself and see the genius of the creator of the (much more famous) Snowman in a much darker mood in this savage political satire and heart-breaking anti-war picturebook that defies categorisation, but is definitely not for young children. The book was created in reaction to the Falklands War and the two main characters are thinly disguised versions of the Argentinian General Galtieri and Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. A perfect example of 'Re Think, Re Act'. This is Ireland, by M. Sasek - This is part of a series, which includes 'This is London', 'This is Paris', 'This is Edinburgh' and 'This is New York' - published over fifty years ago but re-issued in the original format with some updates at the end. They are a kind of time-warp Pathé News style 'best bits' travelogue of each place. For some strange reason 'This is Ireland' highlights Kilbeggan and its distillery as one of the highlights of Ireland - maybe the writer had a granny from Westmeath! Mister Magnolia, by Quentin Blake - almost anything by Quentin Blake could have been included here, but Mister Magnolia has a special place in our hearts. When children are very young they often insist on the same story being read again, and again, and again, and ag...you get the drift. This is when a well written, brilliantly illustrated and consistently amusing story is worth anything you have to pay for it. This is one I never got bored with - even when daughter number one would ask for it just 'one last, last, last time'. Quentin Blake is probably best known as the illustrator of Roald Dahl's stories, but he has proved time and time again that he can write his own stories too.Horrible Histories: Ireland, by Terry Deary - this one was chosen by the younger members of the household, but who am I to argue with them? History with all the good bits left in! And, unlike one or two of my other choices, at least it's easily available.A Monster Calls, a novel by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd - this book has been deservedly chosen by so many people as one of the best childrens books of recent years, in fact, one of the best books of recent years. It's about facing up to impending bereavement and making the best of flawed but emotionally 'good enough' relationships. I got my (adult) Book Club to read it last year and they were stunned by its integrity and emotional power. It may be written for children, but it doesn't talk down to anyone. Kissing the Witch, by Emma Donoghue - Dublin born, Canada based writer Emma Donoghue had a small but loyal following until the Booker Prize-winning novel 'Room' catapulted her to international literary stardom. Emma wrote 'Kissing the Witch' in 1988, long before 'Room' - it's a collection of fairy tales, re-worked from a feminist perspective. Sound dull? I suppose it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I really, really love this book. Actually, this is a perfect 'Re Act, Re Think' book too because each story completely re-imagines a well known fairy tale; Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella etc. Emma retells each story in her elegant, exact, poetic prose, but this time we go beyond the archetypes of the stories to the reality of their situations, for example, in this version the Little Mermaid ends up, not as foam on the waves, but as a 'ruined woman' when her prince rejects her love for a more suitable match. Each linked story has a 'pivotal moment', usually when the heroine rejects the advice of her older and wiser sister - now, if she'd only listened to that witch... We are all doomed to ignore the witch though - until we become her!That's all folks! Well, you didn't really expect me to choose just one book, did you?Now...what would you choose? Part 3 of my three part comments on my own reading during 2011. Non-Fiction was the first in the series with Adult Fiction second. This is my Children's and Young Adult or Teen reads. Some great fantasy is being published in the Teen section and I do enjoy the reads.I read a lot of books over the last year, approximately 290 of which I noted from the library.Of all the books I read from the library some stood out, I couldn't pick a small number but I'm going to put them into themes and pick the best of that theme. Sometimes it's hard to pick just one, the first listed is my favourite, the rest are in no particular order. This isn't a definitive list, it's a list of books that are readable alone or are the start of a series, that I read during 2011, that stood out above the others and that I would recommend to others.ChildrensThere are no cats in this book - Viviane Schwarz - a charming picture book about cats trying to escape the book.Young Adult - a variation on Cinderella that surprised me and that I did really like. Ash is a well-rounded character and her choices aren't obvious.Ingo - Helen Dunmore - what if your family was descended from the merfolk and what if you got a chance to go visit the sea, which world would you stay with? Excellent readImpossible - Nancy Werlin - complicated re-telling of a fairy story that requires the heroes to research the stories to save themselvesBeing - Kevin Brooks - a boy discovers what he thinks he knows about himself isn't the truth, an interesting exploration about life and living.Foundling - D M Cornish - half of the book is taken up with an encyclopedia about the world, the rest is an interesting start to a series with an orphan boy trying to find out his role. The Real Rebecca - Anna Carey - a girl tries to define herself when faced with a badly drawn version in her mother's fiction.If I stay - Gayle Forman - a girl lies close to death and has to make the choice between life and death. Touching and very readable.Dragonfly Pool - Eva Ibbotson - a lovely story about an eccentric boarding school and war in Europe.Re-ReadsOrdinary Princess - M M Kaye - this was a childhood favourite and illustrated by the author. A look at what would happen if a princess was gifted with being ordinary. A lovely story. Ireland nominates Conor Kostick for Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize Author Conor Kostick has just been nominated by Ireland for the prestigious international award The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. 'It's very flattering', Conor told me when I met up with him on one of his visits to Cabra Library to meet young readers. 'I'm really proud of the honour and very proud of the association with Astrid Lindgren herself. In Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren created one of the most delightfully irreverent and independent characters in children's literature; this creation was connected to the fact that Astrid Lindgren herself was a radical humanist and opponent of violence. There is a humanist philosophy at work in my books and maybe they (the nominating bodies) picked up on that. I'm extremely proud to be associated with her legacy.' Conor Kostick lives in Dublin and his 'day job' is teaching Medieval History in Trinity College. 'Epic' was his first novel, and this was followed by 'Saga' and 'Edda', making up the Avatar Chronicles trilogy. These novels are very popular with children from age ten to early teens. I've recommended the first book 'EPIC' to many young readers and they have gone on to recommend it to their own friends - you can't get a better endorsement than that!Conor also wrote a book for younger readers, 'The Book of Curses' in the Forbidden Files Series. This is soon to be joined by 'The Book of Wishes' which Conor describes as his 'good twin book' to the 'Book of Curses' - it's is a bit scary, but fun too. It's not in shops or libraries yet, but it will be soon, so keep your eyes open - or reserve a copy at your local library.The other Irish nominee for 2012 is storyteller Eddie Lenihan. Writers and artists from other countries who have been nominated this year include; Micael Rosen, Quentin Blake, Shirley Hughes, Eric Carle, Allan Ahlberg, David Almond, Margaret Mahy and Meg Rosoff. As Conor says, 'To be awarded a place on the list of nominees is a real honour'.Conor's books are published in Ireland by O'Brien Press and are available (as they say) from all good bookshops and to borrow from branches of Dublin City Libraries.My recent interview with Conor will be published in the next issue of Classmate magazine - a Dublin City Council publication which is distributed free to all primary schools in Dublin City. I also hope to include that interview in a forthcoming article on this blog - so keep logging on. In my earlier blog posts I've mentioned the amazing talent Ireland is producing in illustrators and picturebook creators - but recently I've also noticed that Irish authors are writing very interesting books for older children and teenagers. In fact, you could do worse than have a read of them yourself - even if it's a long, long time since you were a teenager!'The Real Rebecca' by first time author Anna Carey, is a light-hearted tale of a real Dublin schoolgirl, Rebecca, whose otherwise ordinary life is made miserable when her mother (more mortifying than most, it seems) writes a book about a cringe-inducing teenager and claims that Rebecca is the inspiration! I enjoyed every minute of Rebecca's predicament, then doubly enjoyed giving it to my daughter to read, to prove that I'm not the most embarrassing mother in creation - not be a long shot! 'Flick' by another first time author, Geraldine Meade, is for an older age group - probably fifteen upwards - and is a more difficult 'coming of age' story involving date rape, attempted suicide and the challenges facing a teenage girl who will go to almost any lengths to avoid admitting to her friends and family, or even to herself, that she is gay. 'Flick' is narrated by sixteen year old Felicity and reads like a reasonably realistic portrayal of life for older teenagers in commuter belt Ireland - though I admit I'm not in the right age group to be the best judge of that! 'My Dad is Ten Years Old (and it's pure weird!)' by Mark O'Sullivan, is probably my favourite of these three excellent books. When the father of a young family suffers a brain injury and returns from hospital with the mind and interests of a ten year old, his wife and children have to make major adjustments in their lives and relationships. O'Sullivan has form as an author, his previous novels, including the award-winning 'White Lies', have been favourably reviewed and loved by readers. After an absence of over a decade, during which he has battled with the debilitating illness ME, Mark O'Sullivan returns with this original and beautifully written story which would make an excellent Book Club choice for any age group. 'My Dad is Ten Years Old' is a heart-breaking, hilarious, up-lifting and sometimes horrifying read and I can't recommend it highly enough. It will make you look at your own family in a new light. October is the month for Children's Book Festival, and Christmas is the time most children's books are bought, but May is shaping up to be the busiest month in the calendar for people interested in books for children and young people - at least in Ireland - it's been a whirl of award ceremonies, book launches and 'talking heads' events and I've been lucky enough to attend many of them. I'm even getting used to seeing lollipops served alongside the wine - though I haven't tried that mixture yet!It started with the announcement of the Bisto Children's Book of the Year Awards in the National Library on 16th - which I've already blogged about - congratulations again to Chris Haughton for winning the overall award with 'A Bit Lost' and to Sheena Wilkinson for receiving the Children's Choice award for her novel 'Taking Flight'. Sheena also gets the prettiest coat award for her lovely floral affair - sorry I don't have a picture!Then there was the launch of Puffin Ireland - part of the Penguin Group. Puffin's editor Paddy O'Doherty through a great launch party in Eason's of O'Connell Street on Wednesday 25th last (that's were I first saw people wandering around sipping glasses of white wine while intermittently sucking on pink lollipops). Three new titles were launched with brilliant introductions by Robert Dunbar - who I've heard described as 'the face that launched a thousand books' (again, a photo would say much more than I ever could - but we'll have to make do) The new titles are; 'My Dad is Ten Years Old (and it's pure weird!)' by Mark O'Sullivan, 'Angel Kiss' by Laura Jane Cassidy and 'Friends Forever: the Time Spell' by Judi Curtin. Loads of good reads to keep you going there - all aimed at 10 - 14 year olds - though many adults would enjoy Mark O'Sullivan's book too.And finally - phew! - I was in Dublin's very fine cultural centre for children, The Ark, on Thursday May 26th, as part of the Dublin Writer's Festival, to hear Dr. Páraic Whyte, bookseller Kim Harte, first time author Anna Carey and Children's Laureate Siobháin Parkinson discuss What Makes a Great Children's Book? A wide ranging and fascinating discussion, with some great contributions from the audience (squeezed into the tiny Ark seats) - all perfectly conducted by Niall McMonagle. In the end, it seemed to come down to Humour and Truth - with a dash of Fantasy and some good dialogue. High on everyone's list were the books of Siobhan Dowd and chosen by three of the panel, 'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness, from an idea by Siobhan Dowd. I've persuaded my book club to try it - I'll let you know how it goes... With the release of the final Harry Potter movie this summer (on July 15 for those who are counting the days like me!!), and the release of the latest Harry Potter movie on DVD, it’s never too late to become a Harry Potter fan, (or like me read all the stories again in preparation for the film!)All seven Harry Potter novels and DVDs are available to borrow in Dublin City Public Libraries or you can reserve them online using your borrower number and pin number. Your borrower number is on your library card and if you do not have a pin number you can get it at your local Dublin City Public Library. Harry Potter novels and DVD's in order from first to last:Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone / Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone DVDHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets / Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets DVDHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban / Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban DVDHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire / Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVDHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix / Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVDHarry Potter and the Half Blood Prince / Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince DVDHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – PART 1 DVDSome of these titles are also available in large print copy and some are available in talking book format on CD.
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall — Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. HIDE & SEEK: A CRYPTID TRIPTYCH is 79 pages of gorgeous smooching magic! From a cozy stroll through snowy hemlock forests to a deep dive through crystal caves, each story tells the tale of a search for love in a wild world of cryptids and magic. With art to charm and words to spellbind, this collection of three short comics from consummate artists Maria Frantz, Caitlin Like and Aud Koch is the perfect addition to your Hallowe’en (& General Spoopy-Feels) bookshelf! The table of contents: Maria Frantz’s “Hector and the Hidebehind” is the charming tale of a grumpy old biologist who finally meets the cryptid he’s been researching for years — and things don’t go as planned. Caitlin Like’s “My Reluctant Prince” is a hilarious romp about a royal bodyguard who is banished from the surface world, and must choose between returning home or rescuing his kidnapped prince. Aud Koch’s “The Flicker in the Tower” is an epic ballad about a dragon on a quest to save the cursed fairy prince he loves.(Each comic is guaranteed to contain one good smooch, or you get your money back!) The New York Times bestselling illustrator of Blue is the Warmest Color, Julie Maroh, and Lambda Award-winning author Alex Sanchez (Rainbow Boys), present a new coming-out romance set against the backdrop of the DC Universe. Jake Hyde doesn't swim-not since his father drowned. Luckily, he lives in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, which is in the middle of the desert, yet he yearns for the ocean and is determined to leave his hometown for a college on the coast. But his best friend, Maria, wants nothing more than to make a home in the desert, and Jake's mother encourages him to always play it safe. Yet there's nothing "safe" about Jake's future-not when he's attracted to Kenny Liu, swim team captain and rebel against conformity. And certainly not when he secretly applies to Miami University. Jake's life begins to outpace his small town's namesake, which doesn't make it any easier to come out to his mom, or Maria, or the world. But Jake is full of secrets, including the strange blue markings on his skin that low when in contact with water. What power will he find when he searches for his identity, and will he turn his back to the current or dive head first into the waves?
Ricky Rodson is an experienced cryptozoologist with several published books on the subjects of zoology, cryptozoology, and mythical beasts. Why Make A List of Lesser Known Cryptids From Around The World? A lot of people make list like this of some of the world's strangest creatures and cryptids. But the problem with these lists on most of them contain the same creatures over and over. On all of these lists, you can expect the likes of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and creatures of similar popularity. And while we are not going to dispute the awesomeness of those creatures we simply believe there are other awesome creatures that deserve to be discovered. This list is comprised of some of the world's coolest but lesser-known Cryptids so sit back and prepare to be amazed. Old Photo of a Thunderbird A Thunderbird is a large birdlike animal that has been claimed to have been spotted all across North and Central America. Well known Native American myths describe in their stories gigantic eagles capable of carrying animals as large as humpback whales back to their nests for food. It has been said that these powerful birds of prey wings were so powerful that when flapped, thunder was created. Despite their enormous power, Thunderbirds have always been described as benevolent and peaceful natural spirits. In 1890 two cowboys from Arizona claimed to have shot and killed a Thunderbird. The creature was described as being an extremely large featherless bird with the head of a crocodile. Newspapers of the time described the beast as looking more like a dragon than a bird. We can only assume by looking at the pictures that these giant creatures were the inspiration for the Legendary Pokémon of Generation One Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres. Painting of Trunko Trunko is the name of a strange fish-like creature originally cited off the coast of Margate, South Africa in 1924. When first spotted the large animal was fending off an attack from two killer whales with it's tail. Several days later the whale-like animal washed up onto a beach dead, presumably from wounds caused by the attack. The animals described as being nearly 50 feet long and as having thick white fur like a polar bear, a lobster like tail, and add an elongated trunk of an elephant. Trunko received his name from an article written by famous cryptozoologist Carl Shuker called "Whales Slain By A Hairy Monster". It has been rumored that trunk go has actually been killed and found in the Philippines in the year 2018. Short Video about Trunko Photo of the Skunk Ape The Skunk Ape is a humanoid cryptid reported to be seen throughout the southeastern United States but most prominently in the Florida Everglades. Most notably known for its horrible odor the skunk eight has been described as having dirty black fur and glowing red eyes. The creature was first sighted in the 1960's following police reports in Dale County, Florida. In the year 2000 the Sarasota County Police Department received an anonymous letter with two photographs of what was believed to be an escaped orangutans stealing apples from their porch near the Myakka river. Because of the location the creature has been dubbed the"Myakka Skunk Ape. Drawing of The Yowie The Yowie is a legendary hominid claimed to live in the Australian outback with its roots sprouting from Aboriginal Myths. Most sightings to depict the Yowie as an extremely hairy monkey-like animal capable of standing upright. The beast is said to stand anywhere from 7 to 12 feet tall and to act extremely timidly. The earliest Yowie sighting recorded took place as far back as 1795 according to columnist Margaret Jones. Drawing of The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp is a humanoid cryptid known to live in the swamp lands and sewers of Lee County, South Carolina. These beast are said to stand nearly 7 feet tall and covered in dark green scaly lizard-ish skin. The creature is said to have incredible strength despite only having three fingers and three toes on each hand and foot. The first time a lizard man was sighted was by Christopher Davis, a 17-year-old boy, in the summer of 1988. Admittedly, the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp are one of the strangest and most unbelievable creatures to make our list but there originality makes them something to be discovered and hopefully they actually do exist. Picture of a Mongolian Death Worm Mongolian Death Worm The Mongolian Death Worm is outrageously large intestine worm believed to exist in the Gobi desert. In 1922 the Mongolian Prime Minister Damdinbazar described this lesser-known cyrptid as being shaped like a sausage that's about 2 feet long. He claimed the beast had no head nor legs and was so poisonous that merely touching it would mean instant death. The book titled the new conquest of central Asia claims that the worm lives in the "most arid and sandy regions of Western Gobi". According to legend, the worms would eat camels and lay their eggs inside of the animals intestines. They spend most of their time underground except for June and July when they become extremely active. Video of An Mongolian Death Worm Picture of Orang Pendek Orang Pendek is a peculiar cryptid reported to inhabit the remote forest of the island of Sumatra. While stories of the legendary creatures appearance vary, they all have several factors in common. Most stories describe the monkey-like animal as being a ground dwelling, bipedal ape covered in grey and brown fur. What makes this animal strange is it's one divergent big toe which works almost like a thumb. Because of parents many people believe the Orang Pendek to be nothing more than an undocumented primate or possibly a last surviving hominid. Picture of Akkorokamui The Akkorokamui is a enormous octopus-looking monster that supposedly wanders around the Funka Bay in Hokkaido, Japan. John Batchelor claimed the creature to be some sort of devil-fish or satanic octopus. The Akkorokamui is said to be able to grow as large as 400 feet long and has the ability to self-amputate and regenerate limbs. According to the claims this massive aquatic animal feast mainly on fish, crabs, and mollusks. While the Akkorokamui may look like the legendary Krakken cryptid, their legends couldn't be any more different. Photo of GrootSlang The Grootslang is an amazingly large snakes said to live deep inside a cave found in Richtersveld, South Africa. Locals claim that the GrootSlang is as old as the world itself, and that it was created by young gods in a terrible mistake. According to the myth, this mythological snakelike creature is said to live in a cave filled with diamonds and eat elephants unlucky enough to wander close. It is said that the Grootslang covets gems and diamonds and can be bribed with them. Drawing of Momo The Missouri Monster a.k.a. Momo is a Bigfoot like creature said to roam along the Mississippi River. Momo was first cited in 1971 near the border of Louisiana by Joan Mills and Mary Ryan as they hiked along a remote path. The creature was said to be covered in thick black hair resembling shag carpeting and to have been putting off a terrible smell. Over the next two weeks the creature would be sighted nearly 10 times by several different people. The creature's tracks were submitted to the director of the Oklahoma City Zoo for testing and deemed to belong to an unknown primate species. This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional. © 2019 Ricky Rodson Ricky Rodson (author) on July 02, 2019: I thought the same thing Canuck. First you have to imagine a snake the size of an elephant then you have to add the elephant itself. While I wish it existed, it is hard to believe anyone ever actually believed it did exist. TheCanuck on July 02, 2019: The GrootSlang Might be the craziest and most awesome animal I have ever seen. It is truly ridiculous.... A Blue Green Galaxy on July 02, 2019: Thanks. I also love dragons. I'll look on audible and the Library for the Blind. Ricky Rodson (author) on July 02, 2019: May I suggest the Audiobook called "Cryptozoology" if you are interested in the subject matter. There are all sorts of amazing creatures hidden on this planet. Thanks for the comment and I'll be sure to try and include some form on audio in my future post on the subject. There are also all sorts of widgets that will read the entire post out loud. Best Wishes! A Blue Green Galaxy on July 02, 2019: Awesome stuff! Good detail. Now I want to do a hub based on one of the creatures mentioned. I'm blind, but listened to the video about the worm. Alexander James Guckenberger from Maryland, United States of America on July 02, 2019: The thunderbird seems plausible.
Topic: Issue #703 12/30/12 Subscribe for free at our subscription page: You can view this newsletter online at: 2012 is drawing to a close. We here at Conspiracy Journal wish you all a happy and prosperous 2013. This week Conspiracy Journal brings you such Auld Lang Syne tales as: - Senate Approves Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers- - Psi and Psychosis: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid - - Strange Triangles in the Southern Skies?- - Unearthing the Earth Hound - A Corpse-Devouring Cryptid - AND: Nyaminyami, Zimbabwe's "Loch Ness Monster" Questions? Comments? Send your email to: email@example.com See you next week!
It’s finally here! Seems like it’s been a year since the last Horrortober. 😉 Welcome to 31 days of Halloween. If you’re like me and my Monster Men buddy, Jack, this is the month where you binge on scary movies. I personally shoot for at least one movie a day. One of the fun tools I use to find horror movies is the 31 Days of Terror book/game. Volume 3 just dropped and Jack and I already created a watch list. Check out the new episode below. The game always introduces us to movies we’d forgotten or never heard of. Try it for yourself and see, or you can pick some movies from the list that we rolled. Here it is in all its gory glory. 10/1 – Interview with the Vampire 1994 10/2 – The Hole 2001 10/3 – The First Purge 2018 10/4 – Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 2018 10/5 – Session 9 2001 10/6 – Predator 2 1990 10/7 – The Sixth Sense – 1999 10/8 – Dracula – 1979 10/9 – Ginger Snaps Unleashed 2004 10/10 – Re-Animator 1985 10/11 – Saturday the 14th 1981 10/12 – Willard 2003 10/13 – The Willies 2003 10/14 – Psycho III 1986 10/15 – Knock Knock 2015 10/16 – Krampus 2015 10/17 – Cabin Fever 2002 10/18 – Attack of the Puppet People 1956 10/19 – Little Shop of Horrors 1986 10/20 – Detention 2011 10/21 – A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984 10/22 – Prometheus 2012 10/23 – Death Becomes Her 1992 10/24 – House of Wax 2005 10/25 – An American Werewolf in London 10/26 – The Blair Witch Project 1999 10/27 – Dawn of the Dead 2004 10/28 – A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master 10/29 – In the Mouth of Madness 10/30 – Misery 1990 10/31 – Dead Alive 1992 What are some of the essentials for your watch list? I know for me, I always pop in Halloween, The Funhouse, The Haunting, House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Motel Hell and a slew of others. Those of you who know me know I’m not a vampire guy. I leave that for my comrade in Monster Men arms, Jack Campisi. But when I was asked to write an essay about an offbeat vampire movie, I was actually excited. My initial thought was to wax poetic about The Hunger, starring David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. Alas, someone had already taken it. (By the way, some other vampire movies I dig are Rabid, Near Dark and Let The Right One In) Luckily, no one had snagged my actual vamp favorite, The Vampire Lovers, starring the lovely Ingrid Pitt. I recently took my daughter to see it in 35MM at the Alamo and she loved it, too. Chip off the old beast. Well, if you’re a lover of vampires in cinema, you’ll definitely want to check out STRANGE BLOOD. STRANGE BLOOD contains my ‘insightful’ essay on The Vampire Lovers and 70 other off the beaten track vampire flicks. Here’s a little on the book: This is an overview of the most offbeat and underrated vampire movies spanning nine decades and 23 countries. Strange Blood encompasses well-known hits as well as obscurities that differ from your standard fang fare by turning genre conventions on their head. Here, vampires come in the form of cars, pets, aliens, mechanical objects, gorillas, or floating heads. And when they do look like a demonic monster or an aristocratic Count or Countess, they break the mold in terms of imagery, style, or setting. Leading horror writers, filmmakers, actors, distributors, academics, and programmers present their favorite vampire films through in-depth essays, providing background information, analysis, and trivia regarding the various films. Some of these stories are hilarious, some are terrifying, some are touching, and some are just plain weird. Not all of these movies line up with the critical consensus, yet they have one thing in common: they are unlike anything you’ve ever seen in the world of vampires. Just when you thought that the children of the night had become a tired trope, it turns out they have quite a diverse inventory after all. That synopsis have your blood running? Then pick up Strange Blood today! It’s Sunday morning at 9:00 and I’m already tired. But no matter how tired I feel, this old man is not taking a nap. I’ll be going at it full force until my head hits the pillow. Why? Because I want to…and maybe a lot of ‘because I have to’. I may have written and published over 25 books, but that doesn’t mean I get to coast. No way. Not until Stephen King and I can trade investment secrets. Writing, or better yet finding time to do it, hasn’t gotten any easier. Like most scribblers, I have a day job. At age 50, I embarked on a totally new career, shucking 20 years of experience and clout to do something I would enjoy. The day job takes up about 11-12 hours of my day, Tuesday through Saturday. It’s mentally and physically demanding. People half my age bail when the going gets rough here. Oh, and I get to work on Saturdays for the first time since I was a stock boy in Gristedes supermarket back in 1990. Yay me for missing out on a lot of fun. Because I get home later than ever now, I had to adjust when I write. Fortunately for me, my ability to sleep in was broken long ago by my children (who are now adults). So instead of writing a night, which I did for almost two decades, I’ve had to retrain myself to become an early morning writer. It wasn’t easy, but I knew if I didn’t push myself, I would miss every deadline, both professional and personal. And I had to learn to write in bed so as not to clunk around the house and disturb everyone. On workdays, I wake up, write and answer emails and do a little marketing for two hours. Then it’s time to get ready for work and head off to my one hour commute. What about weekends? Take today for an example. It’s a gray Sunday, my first day off. What do I do? Wake up at 5:30am. I watched an episode of Mars on National Geographic because I want to write about the series. I then read for thirty minutes, a little for pleasure and a little for work. The sink was full of dishes so I cleaned them and started a load of laundry. I cleaned the bathroom and saw the toaster oven was in need of some TLC, too. We’re (finally!) shooting new episodes of Monster Men today, so I put together a list of things to do for one of the episodes. Now it’s time to write on the old blog and chain, get in at least 1,000 words on my new book, SLASH, and prep the house, aka – the set – for Monster Men. We’ll record for several hours, watch a movie and then I’ll be hosting a live viewing party of THANKSKILLING with my special hellions on Patreon. By the time that’s over, I’ll be in bed, dead to the world until tomorrow before dawn. Within all of this craziness, I’ll be with my family, the most important people in my life. Those of you who follow this blog know my wife is disabled. When I was writing CREATURE, she was sick with pneumonia. Cut to a year and three months later and she’s still not over it. In fact, we’re waiting for the CDC to deliver special medication formulated just for her, as her compromised immune system just can’t do the work it needs to do. Being with her and my girls is crucial, which is another reason why I write when they’re asleep. When I get home from work, it’s dark out and I’m tired as hell. Better to spend that time recharging the love battery by hanging out with them. I can attest, spinning these plates does not get easier as you get older. Some days, it sucks. It sucks real hard. But I love my family and I love writing, and heck, I even like my job, so for me, there is no other choice. Whenever I’m about to bitch and whine about doing something I hate or dread doing, I think of this : If I was laid up in a hospital bed right now and unable to ever be healthy or get up again, I’d trade everything for a chance to do that thing I think I don’t want to do. Would I rather go food shopping in a packed supermarket than have terminal cancer? If the answer is shit yeah, it’s time to shut up and tarry on. Despite all of this, don’t feel like you have to tackle the world each and every day. Carve out time, even if it’s only ten minutes, to recharge. Meditate, read, do air guitar in your car to Metallica, make a dump cake. Find your zen. Watching the laundry spin is a personal favorite. Kinda like watching the flames dance in a fire. I have big ideas and projects for 2019, as I’m sure you do as well. Now’s the perfect time to plan and figure out how to make them happen, and the best time to do so. It ain’t easy. But neither is Sister Mary Margaret Bernadette. There is one vital thing that nun knows how to do – get into a habit. What new habits or changes to existing ones do you need to hit your goals? What is the one thing you want to accomplish in the next year? What are you major stumbling blocks? We can kick some ass if we decide to kick it together. Spill the beans right here, tell the world and make yourself accountable. It does wonders. As convenient as all of the streaming options are, I still miss my weekend visits to the video store. I miss the sights and smells, the community and the free popcorn. I miss holding a potential rental in my hand, that tactile connection you made as you browsed the aisles. I miss staff picks from people I knew (as opposed to algorithms today). I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not alone. If you’re like me, you might get a kick out of my latest Video Visions post over at Cemetery Dance. Sure, I miss video stores. But I’m one of the arrows that pierced their hearts and stole their souls. To find out why, you can read I KILLED THE VIDEO STORE, right here. If reading’s not your thing, not to worry! The Monster Men dedicated a whole episode to browsing those video store aisles way back in 2013. The sentiment has only gotten stronger with the passing of the years. And I still have that bucket hat. Do you feel the same? What do you miss the most? Let’s all have a communal love-in about our favorite video stores. We recently interviewed Lyle Blackburn on the Monster Men to discuss his new movie, Boggy Creek Monster, and book, Monstro Bizzaro. If you’re obsessed with cryptids like I am, Lyle is one of the best investigators in the field today. His previous books, The Beast of Boggy Creek and Lizard Man have prominent positions on my bookshelf. When all was said and done, I realized I still had a few more questions I’d wanted to ask. So, here is the original video interview along with the bonus questions Lyle was kind enough to answer. Now let’s go squatchin! We’re very much alike in that we grew up fascinated by tales of Bigfoot and other creatures (as well as a fondness for The Creature from the Black Lagoon!). How did you take the leap from being a rocker in Ghoultown to cryptid reporter? LB : In addition to being a musician, I’ve always worked as a writer. Among other things, I wrote for a rock magazine and then for Rue Morgue (www.rue-morgue.com) as their cryptozoology-meets-horror columnist. I’ve always wanted to write a book, so I decided to take some time off from the band to pursue that. I ended up choosing one of my favorite subjects, The Legend of Boggy Creek. Once I started investigating these sort of cryptid cases and writing the books, I really enjoyed it so I continued. I always thought the job of a professional writer sounded boring, but this brought me to interesting places and I met interesting people as part of the writing process – not to mention it involved my fascination with cryptids. My band Ghoultown still plays and records, but we don’t tour like we used to. One of the best things you bring to the field of cryptozoology is your straightforward, journalistic approach to researching and educating people about creatures like the Boggy Creek Monster and the Lizard Man of Bishopville. You report the stories and the facts as they are without dramatization for the sake of titillating your readers. What made you decide to go in this direction and do you think the field needs more level headed reporting so it can be taken more seriously by the mainstream media and public? LB: I think these stories are fascinating unto themselves without trying to sway people toward a certain point of view. I just tell the story, report the facts, and let whatever evidence speak for itself. I like to take the reader along as I investigate and give them credit to make up their own mind. Who are some of your biggest influences and why? LB: As far as writing and cryptozoology, I would say John Green and Loren Coleman. Green always had a level-headed approach to Sasquatch research and presented the stories in an engaging way. He also paid attention to details and getting the facts correct as best he could. Coleman, of course, paved the way for the modern cryptozoology researcher and has investigated so many of the seminal cases. Many times as I’m doing research, when I trace an investigation back to its original source, Coleman was there first. I’m honored that he wrote the Foreword for my first book, The Beast of Boggy Creek. It’s like having one of your heroes endorse your efforts. So cool. Out of all the photographic and video evidence for Bigfoot, which to you is the most compelling evidence that it is real? And with just about everyone having a camera/videocam in their pockets, why aren’t we getting more solid evidence? Could it be we are but because it’s so easy to fake now, the real deal might be hiding in plain sight? LB: To me, the footprints represent the most compelling evidence. Examples such as the Elkins Creek cast from Georgia stand out, especially when I’ve been able to interview the police officer who originally discovered the track. As far as all the photos and videos, it’s really hard to discern between what might be real and what is a possible case of pareidolia or just outright fake. All the blurry shots don’t do us any good. We need something much clearer in this day and age, and even that is suspect since modern technology allows for such amazing CGI. Most people do carry a smart phone camera these days, but the lack of a clear photo shouldn’t be used as a basis to completely rule out the possibility of these creatures. Chance encounters typically last only a few moments, making it hard to pull out a phone, open the camera app, aim, and take a photo. I’m sure you’ve heard the Sierra Bigfoot recordings taken back in the 70s. What are your thoughts on it and other similar recordings? Most of them are downright chilling. LB: They’re definitely creepy and very compelling. In my opinion the Sierra Sounds are legit. And if it’s not a hoax, then that leaves very few possibilities beyond an undiscovered creature such as Bigfoot. I’ve heard recordings from other places which sound very similar; sent to me by credible individuals. They just don’t sound like any known animal. Do you have any plans to investigate the Skunk Ape in Florida? I have the Fate Magazine with the famous Skunk Ape picture on the cover and keep waiting for someone to hunker down and do some serious research in that corner of the country. LB: Earlier this year I visited the Ocala National Forest in Florida where there’s been a good amount of Skunk Ape sightings over the years. This was part of the research for my upcoming book, “Beyond Boggy Creek: In Search of the Southern Sasquatch” in which I document the history of Bigfoot sightings all over the Southern U.S. I dedicate an entire chapter of the book to the Skunk Ape, although there’s so much to this cryptid’s history and so many sightings, that I could write an entire book on it. Perhaps in the future. Follow Lyle Blackburn at http://www.lyleblackburn.com In the mood for a good cryptid book? Check these out… If you haven’t watched Stranger Things on Netflix yet, step away from the blog and binge. The 8 part series is a love letter to scifi and horror from the 70s and early 80s, with splashes of Spielberg (Close Encounters, Goonies), John Carpenter (The Thing) and Sam Raimi (Evil Dead). The Monster Men devoted an entire episode to wax poetic about the show and point out all the little homages sprinkled throughout the series. I compared it to finding the little bits in Mad Magazine’s margins. There are spoilers, but we throw up a warning before we dive really deep. We also have some new headshots. Well, an improvement on our old headshot. Which one do you like best? I’ll pick a random response to win a signed copy of The Dover Demon, which is apropos when talking about Stranger Things. Witches are in the air lately. Well, not exactly on broomsticks, but there have been some high quality witch stories already this year, which gets me to wondering if 2016 will be the season of the witch. The luster of zombies has been rotting for a few years now, and it doesn’t look like vampires or werewolves are doing much to take the top slot. The new Dark Horse comic, Harrow County, is the best horror comic I’ve read in years. Witches abound in this turn of the 20th Century gothic tale. With creepy, sometimes disturbing imagery and masterful storytelling, it’s one you can’t afford to miss. Just look at the cover of volume 1 (collecting the first 4 issues). That’s the skin of a dead boy who can talk. And he’s one of the good guys! Also, now available for purchase, is the movie The Witch. It’s firmly on my list of top movies of 2016. Atmospheric, isolated, threaded with creeping dread, this independent flick lived up to the hype. The Monster Men give it a quick review without any spoilers. Check it out this weekend if you can. With episode #100 right around the corner (and weeks later, I think I’m still recovering from the celebration), I thought it would be great to share the top viewed episodes with you, as a way to look back at our golden oldies. First up is our field trip to the haunted Union Cemetery, home of the fabled ghost of the white lady. We caught something chilling on EVP that day. Filmed in 2013, it has over 7,00 views and counting. Which means we really need to get out more and show you some of the stranger places in the NY tri-state area! Next up is an episode that took us completely by surprise. Remember the show Ghost Mine on Syfy? Well, our episode on that show has not only garnered over 5,000 views, but also put us in touch with several members of the cast. That first season was one of my favorite ghost shows of all time. This next episode was a bit of a coup for us. We interviewed Lyle Blackburn, TV personality and author who specializes in cryptids, specifically the beast of Boggy Creak and the Lizard Man. He’s a man after my own heart, having the biggest collection of Creature of the Black Lagoon memorabilia I’ve ever seen! Jack and I talking about the good old days of discovering new horror movie gems at the video store is probably our favorite of all time, and tons of viewers agree. Take a walk down memory lane, and wish like we do that Netflix and On Demand never came along. And last but not least, perhaps our funniest episode is the great monster wine taste test! This is the reason why I drink beer. I hope you’ve enjoyed these past 5 years as much as we have. There’s a hell of a lot more to come! First, thank you to everyone who has picked up a copy of my deep sea thriller, THEY RISE. Sales and reviews have been fantastic. You all make my monster heart grow 3 sizes. Jack and I finally got an episode together to talk about THEY RISE and reveal what is real and what isn’t. You also get a little inside poop on how deeply personal the first chapter was for me. Plus, we give some shout outs to a few of our uber Monster Men fans! But wait, there’s more! If you comment on the video, you’re eligible to win a free copy of They Rise. Winner will be announced on March 17th. If our little gab fest has you in the mood for an entree of chimaera fish with a side of seaweed, hop on over to Amazon and snag a copy on your fishing line.
We called it The Deef. It was supposed to be a joke. We had a game, the group of us. It didn’t really have a name. It was just the cryptid game. It was simple: every time we got together, one of us had to share a monster story. That was basically it. We’d started it back in college, and just sort of never stopped. There were more rules than that, of course. It had to be original. No more than one story introduced per get-together. Whoever had the best monster was winning. All of these rules were unspoken, but we all understood them. They’d evolved over the years to create the friendly rivalry of the cryptid game. It kept us in touch, gave us something to talk about when we saw each other. And it was always fun to hear someone else reference your monster, either in a new story or just in standard conversation. I made up a bunch over the years, most of them ridiculous. The Cord Goblin, an obnoxious electrical creature that can travel through wires, and which ties unattended cords into knots. The Skulk, a gelatinous creature the color of seawater which lurks in the ocean and generates that unpleasant pulse you sometimes feel when you realize you have no idea what’s below you. Halitus, a bent shadow which breathes into your mouth at night. I was rarely winning the game. But every time I went swimming in deep water, I thought about the Skulk, and I know the others did, too. That was all I wanted out of the game: to give my friends the “man, what if…?” moment. The others took different approaches. Jennifer just went with whatever news article she’d happened across at the time, spinning it into something unearthly. Alex, too, was all over the map, with no clear thread between any of her creatures. Rebecca, on the other hand, always started her stories the same way: “Deep in the unexplored jungles….” She was big on lost tribes and creatures forgotten by time. Less likely for anyone to think about on a daily basis than mine, but more likely to actually be real. Well, more possible, anyway. “Likely” is a bit of a stretch. Emmanuel liked insects. Psionic beetles that lived in the roof beams of houses, putting out stressful emanations and feeding on the resultant fights and negative emotions from the families below. Gnats that laid eggs in tear ducts so that the maggots could wriggle their way into the sinus cavity, hiding safely and feeding off of the mucous until they grew into their adult form. His were usually good for a serious shudder, more so if you had a particularly vivid imagination. They weren’t out of the realm of possibility, either. Bugs and parasites have some weird life cycles, and some terrifying adaptations. And Connor—Connor liked predators. Big things, scary things, things that moved among humans, hunting them. His creations were responsible for the lost pets, the missing children, the runaways. Like Rebecca’s, his stories always started the same way: “Och, so picture this thing!” He had a rich Scottish accent which somehow gave his monsters more vibrancy, more life. They were the least likely of our stories, because they were the sort of monsters that someone would had to have to noticed by now—but when you were alone in the darkness, logic like that didn’t matter. That’s where Connor’s stories would always come back to haunt you. If he had a failing, it was that his cryptids never had a name. They were always just “this thing,” which left it up to the rest of us to name. We would invariably come up with the most ridiculous name we could think of, undercutting the story. He told us one about a underground hive of man-sized wasps, networked across miles. They would steal cavers and solitary hikers, dragging them down to serve as food and hosts for the larva. Connor was waxing eloquent about the hive structure when Rebecca suggested that we could call them Beests, and we all broke up laughing. Even Connor was a good sport about it. The Deef was another one of his, a fairly recent one. It was something like a giant boar—och, picture this thing—only with the grace and speed of a tiger. It stood five feet high at the shoulder, and its mouth could unhinge like a snake’s in order to scoop up its prey and capture it in a gnashing cavern of knives. It once lived in forested areas, but as civilization expanded, it found richer hunting grounds in cities. It evaded detection, Connor told us, through its speed and sleekness of motion. Despite its size, it could slide undetected into alleys, behind cars, in any of a thousand overlooked urban hiding places. It slept during the day and hunted at night, when its dark coat provided camouflage in the darkness. The most terrifying thing about it, though, was that it absorbed sound. Things grew quieter when it was nearby, dropping to utter silence in its immediate presence. You might never see it coming, but you would know it was there right before it took you, because you would feel like you’d gone completely deaf. “Deef?” I had asked, mimicking Connor’s brogue, and Rebecca exclaimed, “The Deef!” Connor rolled his eyes at us and said, smiling, “Fine, the Deef, you reprobates. Call it whate’er name you like. You won’t be calling it anything when it comes for you.” Absurd name or not, though, the Deef was one of his best ones. It stuck with me strongly. I could picture its thick, bristly fur, see its bloody snout with the expandable lower jaw. I could even visualize the way its flanks would heave as it ran, streaking silently down city sidewalks in pursuit of prey that had no reason to look behind, no idea that anything was there at all. The Deef kept me looking over my shoulder for weeks after Connor introduced it. It wasn’t just me, either. Emmanuel confessed that he’d started using his flashlight on the walk from his car to his apartment building, in case the Deef was concealing itself in one of the shadows. “I don’t really think it’s there, obviously,” he told us. “But then again, it doesn’t cost me anything to turn on my phone’s flashlight.” And that was exactly it. Obviously it wasn’t real. But at night, alone in the dark—what if? That was the fun of the cryptid game. Except that the other night, I was texting with Alex while she was walking home from the corner store. Quiet night out here, she texted me. The city’s so different at night. Yeah, I sent back. Whole different animal once everyone goes to sleep. It’s even quieter than usual tonight. Deef quiet? I asked. Haha, yeah. Buncha shadows, too. Could definitely be a Deef around. Haha, well good luck. Been nice knowing you. That was a few days ago. Emmanuel called me yesterday morning to ask when I’d last talked to Alex. I checked my phone and saw that that was the last conversation we’d had. “Yeah, no one’s heard from her since then,” he said, sounding worried. “I’m going out looking for her after work today. Come help me? We’ll go from her apartment to the bodega, see if we can find anything.” “What are we looking for?” “I don’t know, anything! She’s missing!” I assured him I’d come help. After work, we met up by her apartment and started walking. I still had no idea what I was looking for. The streets looked like streets. There was trash, graffiti, paint, dirt—the usual. Emmanuel and I did a slow walk to the store, scanning every alley as we went. By the time we reached the store, the sun had dropped behind the buildings. “Now what?” I asked Emmanuel. “Check again on the way back, I guess. See if we missed anything.” I thought about pointing out that if we hadn’t seen anything earlier, we certainly weren’t going to now that it was darker. But he had a desperate look on his face, so I shut up and we started the walk back. Halfway there, we still hadn’t seen any sign. Emmanuel started shouting into alleys. “Alex!” “What are you doing?” “Maybe she’s hurt. I don’t know! Alex!” “Shut up!” someone yelled from an apartment above us, and I ushered Emmanuel on. At the next alley, though, he called out for her again. “Alex!” There was no answer, obviously. Even he knew there wouldn’t be. It was written on his face. This went on for a few blocks. With only two more blocks to go, Emmanuel’s shouts were starting to sound hopeless. “Alex,” he called out, but he was barely even bothering to raise his voice now. “Maybe we can—” I began, but stopped dead. I could barely hear my own voice. Emmanuel and I turned toward each other, the same realization hitting both of us. I saw it then, looming out of the alley behind him like a striking snake. It came from nowhere, seeming to rise out of the bricks themselves, standing nearly as tall as us, its mouth already gaping open in anticipation of its meal. Its hooved feet skimmed silently across the ground as it raced towards us. I tried to call out, to warn Emmanuel to move, but not a sound emerged from my throat. It took Emmanuel behind the knees, knocking him over to land, flailing, in its massive mouth. Powerful muscles flexed and the jagged pouch closed around him. It convulsed, crushing and grinding Emmanuel inside. I could see the bulges where his body distended its gullet. It swallowed, and the throat tightened. Swallowed again, and it grew smaller still. A third time, and it was back to normal size. It had consumed Emmanuel in seconds. He was gone, not even a drop of blood remaining. And all of this had happened in total, horrible silence. Its meal finished, the Deef lowered its head and looked me directly in the eyes. I saw hunger there, but after a moment of regard it melted away into the alley. I never blinked, but still I lost sight of it within seconds. I don’t remember how I got home last night. I don’t know why the Deef let me go at all. But I remember the look in those eyes, and I know that I’ve been marked. The sun’s dropping in the sky again. I have every light on already. The door is locked. It’s a huge beast. Surely it can’t get in here. The city gets quiet at night.
Top 10 Highest Yielding We know you want a mountainous pile of marijuana come harvest. Great big trophy colas and nothing but the biggest dankest buds will do. How do we know this? Because we are cannabis growers too and each and every one of us dreams of one day pulling down the “Big Dirty”. In other words, we all lust after that bumper harvest to beat all harvests. It’s time to crop a personal best. Keep reading to find out which cannabis strains can make it a reality. 1. Critical Mass The name says it all. Top of the list has got to be Critical Mass. A refined blend of Afghani and Skunk #1 genetics Critical Mass is a pedigree producer. Heavy indica in every sense of the word. Critical Mass is a fast flowering organic bud factory. Hers is a pungent earthy smoke with a long lasting relaxing physical happy high. Indoors due to her compact structure and rapid bloom time of just 50 days, give or take, Critical Mass is ideally suited to SOG cultivation. Similarly, outdoors in a warm southern climate Critical Mass can develop into a real ganja bush. Minimal fertiliser and hands on grower maintenance is required to crop up to 700g/m². Experienced outdoor southern growers report yields up to 1kg per plant. However, these huge buds are susceptible to mold. High humidity is to be avoided like the plague. 2. Critical Kush Combining the red hot US favourite OG Kush with the uber productive Critical endows the progeny, Critical Kush with a blend of amazing attributes. Not least her amazing hybrid vigour. Dank chunky Kush nuggs with a rich pine flavour in large quantities is what you get if you treat Critical Kush right. Flowering is fast and furious with a heavy harvest ready in about 50-60 days. Plants resemble Critical in structure keeping a low profile, branching well and developing a huge main cola. The Kush genetics give buds a dense frosty attractive appearance and a powerful sedative effect.THC can exceed 20%+ making Critical Kush a genuine case of a strain that requires more experience to toke than grow. 3. Industrial Plant Industrial Plant is probably the highest yielding version of the legendary Northern Lights. Bred from Afghani and Thai parents this particular incarnation of Northern Lights was developed for maximum yield. Industrial Plant is a classic old school spicy peppery chill out smoke. Not devastatingly potent more of a relaxing happy buzz. Expect long running tight trophy colas in as little as 45-50 days of bloom.Best of all ripe buds and colas require minimal trimming. The flower to leaf ratio can be insane. Indoors 1m tall plants are perfect for a SOG. Outdoors Industrial Plant can climb to 2m+. Scale tipping harvests in excess of 1kg per are not unheard of. Highly recommended for beginner growers. Many strains are described as a “monster” this one is the real deal. Monster is a cross of G13 Hashplant and an exotic South American mostly sativa hybrid. This space hungry beast is a huge producer of high-grade head stash. Reminiscent of old school uplifting skunks with a pleasant euphoric effect and powerful odour. Monster is very attractive to indoor and outdoor growers as she is a proven enormous producer of mold resistant bud. Unfortunately Monster will require plenty of hands on attention to deliver the heaviest harvest. Indoors a ScrOG is a virtual necessity to tame and support those Monster colas. Outdoors she can stretch to 4m in height. Almost unbelievable yields have been anecdotally reported of close to 3kg per plant by pro Mediterranean ganja farmers. Perhaps the only thing easily managed is her relatively short 9-10 week flowering period. 5. Big Bud Big Bud is the original Green Bud Machine. The modern representation has been backcrossed to her original Afghan roots to further refine the classic Afghan and Skunk #1 blend. Vintage earthy hash and skunk aroma combined with an expansive full bodied flavour give these oversized buds genuine character. Delivering a relaxed body stoned effect. Very chill smoke. Easy to grow and forgiving to novice growers Big Bud is a great introduction to high yield cannabis cultivation. Long running thick main colas and chunky side branches will require support during 60 days flowering. Plants will stay about 1m tall and still exceed 600g/m². Alternatively outdoors in large containers with Big Bud, the sky is the limit. 2m+ tall trees can hit 1kg yields. 6. Sweet Moby Sweet Moby is a marijuana leviathan. This sticky green giant is a beastly mix of Haze and White Widow genetics. A two stage head-body effect is to be expected. Initially, a clear cerebral buzz takes you up. Followed by a calming physical wave. A mix of earthy, pine and wood scents will perfume the air when you blaze this chunky resinous stash. Sweet Moby is a smooth smoke and a real mood booster. Indoor growers are advised to prune and train early for maximum yield as Sweet Moby can stretch to 2m tall. Outdoors she will grow to cloud eater proportions, perhaps as tall as 3m in warmer climates. 600g/m² is about the average indoor yield with a well maintained ScrOG and typical 600w lamp or LED equivalent. While experienced outdoor growers down south can pull down over 600g per plant. Flowering will take 9-10 weeks and take care to keep humidity low in the final weeks. 7. Big Foot Big Foot is something of a cannabis cryptid. Make no mistake she is 100% real and we’ve got evidence to prove it. But unfortunately, nobody but the breeders knows the exact origin of this almost perfectly balanced 50-50 indica-sativa hybrid. Fruity skunk aroma and sweet flavours with a hint of grape make Big Foot a real treat for the palate. A jolly green smoke with a long lasting stoned sensation. Indoors or outdoors in sunny weather, LST is highly recommended to keep Big Foot from stretching too tall during bloom. She can easily exceed 2m in height without training. Flowering is fast paced at 7-9 weeks total. Shading fan leaves will require pruning to allow greater light penetration to those long running dense colas. Yields of 500-600g/m² are typical indoors while per plant yields of the equivalent can be harvested outdoors in warmer climates. 8. Brian Berry Cough Brian Berry Cough is a gourmet indica-sativa hybrid named after an ALS patient. This amazing strain has Strawberry Cough, Romulan and Cindy 99 genetics coursing through her calyxes. Two phenotypes present, one sweet and one sour. So there’s towering flower tops to suit every taste. Early training goes a long way toward controlling mature plant height, which can exceed 2m indoors and possibly 3m+ outdoors in a hot dry climate. Yields can be incredibly high in just 8-9 weeks of flowering. These baseball bat buds will launch your head into outer space before gently taking you to dreamland. 9. Power Plant Power Plant is the South African sativa hybrid that has gained an international reputation for high production of exotic head stash. For 20 years Power Plant has been the hardy reliable head stash strain of choice for commercial cultivators the world over. When she burst onto the scene in 1997 nobody had seen such amazing oversized sativa buds. Even by today’s standards, a sativa that can flower in 8 weeks and stay below 2m indoors or outdoors is amazing. Now factor in that this robust beast can produce up to 600g/m² indoors and 500-600g per plant outdoors in the hottest conditions. Power Plant is earthy and loud. Plus she will send your head to the clouds with just a few tokes from a spliff. 10. Purple Chem As usual, we have saved something special for our final pick of heavyweight cannabis strains. We don’t do filler folks it’s all killer strains from the first to the last. Without further ado, our final pick for this the top 10 high yielding cannabis strain countdown is a rare monstrous cannabeast from the US called Purple Chem. This beautiful purple producer is a blend of pedigree Chemdawg and pre-98 Bubba Kush genetics. Purple Chem is or rather was the best-kept secret of pro growers. Few strains can match Purple Chems devastating combination of killer looks, fire potency and massive yields. Indoors a ScrOG is recommended to organise the dank field of lush lavender colas and keep height under 2m. 500-700g/m² of dank purple Couchlocking stash is the reward. Outdoors 2m+ purple bud laden marijuana trees are a magnificent sight to behold in warm climate. A sun kissed fat purple harvest in the region of 500g+ per plant could be waiting for you come Croptober with Purple Chem.Every cannabis strain featured in this top 10 countdown of heavy yielders could potentially bring you the biggest harvest of your life. Top 10 Highest Yielding Strains of Marijuana in 2020 (Expert Reviews) If you’ve ever considered growing your own marijuana, the yield is surely a factor – therefore, you should put one of the highest yielding strains at the top of your shopping list. As a grower, you’ll likely put a lot of thought into the marijuana you are growing. After all, your goal is to produce the highest yield possible, right? To be honest, there are tons of factors responsible for your yield – it’s not all about whether you choose an indica or sativa strain. You also need to consider the climate, your grow medium, the nutrients you use, and more. However, the plant’s genetics are some of the first factors you can control when it comes to producing a bountiful crop of weed. We’ll tell you all about the best indoor strain for high yield and potency, as well as the overall highest yielding marijuana strains for you to consider. 10 Top-rated High Yielding Cannabis Strains in 2020 1. Critical Kush Created as a blend of two infamous strains of weed, OG Kush and Critical Mass, this marijuana strain is known for its light and sweet flavor reminiscent of citrus. It also packs a punch with its strength and is one of the best indoor cannabis strains for high yield and potency. You do need to be careful growing Critical Kush outside – it’s not one of the high-yielding outdoor strains because it is prone to mold. The buds mold from the inside out rather than from the outside in, so it’s important that you create a setting where humidity can be closely regulated. Greenhouse or indoor growing is preferred, as is heavy feeding in order to ensure bountiful yields. - Heavy feeding produces good yields - Citrus flavor - Produces potent buds - Prone to mold when grown outside 2. White Widow This is easily one of the most popular strains of weed that is easy to grow and has a significantly high yield – but it’s also acknowledged as an high-yielding indoor strain. Created in Amsterdam, White Widow was developed as a cross between landrace strains from Brazil and Southern India. Smokers love its euphoric effects but growers love its high production of buds and resin. White Widow hasn’t stayed in Amsterdam, however, but is a popular high yielding indoor strain in the world. It is resistant to mold and pests and flowers in just nine weeks or less. It produces its best yields in indoor gardens – once you have your seeds, there’s little else you need to do to care for this White Widow plant. It’s won a ton of awards! - Award-winning strain - Great for indoor growers - Resistant to pests and mold - Not as good for outdoor growing 3. Blue Dream Perhaps one of the most popular sativa-dominant strains that enhance high yields in the United States, this hybrid plant is also known for its big bud strain yield. It produces mildew resistant buds that are flavorful, easy to find, easy to grow, and ample in number. Its buds have a mellowing effect that are also euphoric, a factor caused by its blend of indica and sativa strains of marijuana. Popular among beginning and expert growers and smokers alike, Blue Dream is one of the best strains for high yield. It is easy to grow and suitable for outdoor farming, too, as it was originally developed for this purpose in California. This plant truly reaches its full growing potential under the sun, responding well to a mild Mediterranean climate. One of the highest yielding outdoor strains, Blue Dream produces tall, lanky growth but not at the expense of its dense buds. There are plenty of other high-yield marijuana plants to consider, but Blue Dream is a smart choice if you’re looking for a cash crop that requires minimal time and effort to cultivate in just 10 weeks - Great for outdoor growing - Produces dense buds - Mildew-resistant strain - Needs a Mediterranean climate outside 4. Northern Lights Northern Lights is a 90% indica and 10% sativa hybrid. It offers the best of both worlds in that it is one of the strains that produce high yield not only for indoor but also for outdoor growers. The high from this indica dominant plant offers both long lasting physical and mental relaxation, as the strain has 18% THC. It is easy to grow with the flowering time is just 7-9 weeks and can be ready for harvest as soon as mid-October in many outdoor growing zones. This high yielding indica dominant strain has a sweet, citrusy smell combined with skunky and spicy undertones. It’s great for producing an uplifting – yet occasionally sleepy – high and produces ample yields of dense buds. - Gorgeous bud colors - Yields 12-16 oz per 3×3 ft - Has a pleasant citrus flavor - Needs lots of light 5. Cheese Quake A combination of Cheese and Querkle strains, Cheese Quake is a high-quality strain with potent yields. It is one of the purest hybrids you will find, taking ideal genetics from both types of plants and using them to strike the perfect harmony between a physical and cerebral high. The buds have a unique aroma that is not unlike cheese – it’s a sour, funky smell with fruity undertones that is beloved by smokers. It grows quickly indoors and is one of the highest yielding indoor strains overall. It should be topped early on to keep it growing in a bushy shape, but otherwise, it will grow quickly and vigorously, reaching massive sizes without you needing to do very much at all. However, experienced gardeners recommend utilizing careful pruning and low-stress training (LST) to keep this plant producing epic yields. - Great genetics - Pleasant aroma - Quick grower indoors - Needs pruning and LST 6. Purple Trainwreck Another big-yield and easy to grow marijuana strains designed for outdoor growth is Purple Trainwreck. This strain, also originally from California, is famous as being one of the biggest yielding cannabis strains that also has a relatively short flowering time. Created as a hybrid between Trainwreck and Mendocino Purps, this blend has the smell and effects of Trainwreck with the resilience and productivity of Mendo Purp. It provides consumers with a long lasting and uplifting euphoric high and is a great strain for beginning smokers looking for mellow user experience from their pot. This strain is easy to grow outside or indoors in a grow room and has a flowering time of just eight weeks. It’s a great option for people who want to harvest their buds in early fall but need to grow in a light-deprived setting or in a greenhouse. - Great for light-deprived setting - Resilient and productive strain - Short flowering time - Not the best overall high 7. Critical Mass Critical Mass has a similar lineage to other high yield plants like Big Bud. This plant is one of the newest, most modern cannabis strains you will find – and it’s perfect for weed growers seeking a bountiful harvest. Critical Mass produces plants that develop thick, chunky colas. In fact, you might need to stake them because they are so heavy. Best for the indoor grower, this plant produces some of the purest and heaviest buds that are perfect even for commercial growers. Additionally, it is also very easy to grow and easy to clone Unlike White Widow, Critical Mass is not very mold-resistant, so it’s recommended that you grow it indoors. However, if you have the space, it will be well worth the effort – this plant produces buds that reek of lemon and skunk with slightly sour undertones. It will give you the perfect knockout high. - Flowering time is just 45 days - Produces up to 750 g/m2 when grown indoors - Offers a knockout high - Needs to be staked 8. Big Bud Known as one of the original strains that produce high yields, Big Bud is a combination of Skunk #1, Northern Lights, and Afghani strains. An indica dominant strain, this option has a bushy growth structure similar to that of other common indica strains. It can be grown indoors and outdoors, but is often regarded as the best indoor strain for yield and potency because outside, it can be prone to bud mold. This plant absolutely thrives in heat and dry weather, and given those conditions, is one of the high-yielding plants. It produces huge buds that can barely hold themselves up along with sweet, subtle, hashy flavors. Watch out for the munchies with this strain of cannabis! - Flowering time is just 9 weeks - Produces a mellow high - High yield – booster for breeding other hybrids - Prone to mold outside Another strain of 2020 with an impressively high yield is Chronic. A combination of different strains that have incredibly high yields like Northern Lights, Skunk, and AK-47, seeds from this plant develop into beefy adults with lateral limbs that produce large, dense flowers. Mature plants also have single main top colas. One of the highest yielding outdoor strains for dry climates, this plant is also one of the best for indoors. You’ll be rewarded with some of the heaviest buds with harvests up to 650 g/m2 inside. It produces lots of resinous buds with sugary effects. When you smoke Chronic, you’ll enjoy a drowsy, soothing effect. - Flowering time is just 8 weeks - Available in regular and feminized seeds - Can be grown indoors or outside - Needs to be pruned indoors 10. Pineapple Express A pungent sativa hybrid native to Hawaii, Pineapple Express is now known by growers and users all over the world. It combines two of the biggest yielding weed strains, Skunk and Big Bud, to produce a high-yielding strain with a fruity flavor. Plus, it has a super-short flowering cycle. Pineapple Express grows to medium-tall heights as a 60/40 blend of sativa and indica strains. It feeds heavily on nutrients and also does well when growers utilize tactics like topping, super-cropping, and LST. This plant has a big bud strain yield, producing more than 450 g/m2 when given the right conditions indoors. When grown outdoors, it’s also one of the best outdoor strains for high yield and can produce several pounds per plant. Just keep in mind that you may need to stake the plants to keep the heavy buds from tipping the plant over! With aromas ranging from fruity to musty, skunky to pineapple, this cannabis strain gives users a great head high and a powerful full-body buzz. - Gives a great full-body high - Yields big, heavy buds - One of the best indoor strains for high yield - Heavy nutrient feeder 11. Super Silver Haze With a skunky, citrusy aroma, Super Silver Haze is a high-yield sativa-dominant strain you’ve got to consider. This strain of marijuana is 10% indica and 90% sativa hybrid, so it has the ability to boost your mood with its potent aroma. It has less than 1% CBD, so Super Silver Haze is not likely to chill you out. However, Super Silver Haze has the potential to provide a serious feel-good high that will keep you energized and moving all day long. You’ll feel motivated and creative when you smoke this blend. It’s a bit more challenging to grow Super Silver Haze if you are a beginner. When you’re growing Super Silver Haze indoors, you’ll need lots of light. However, it does very well in a hydroponic set-up. These feminized seeds flower when they receive less light per day, ideally by manipulating the light cycle indoors. - High potency and long-lasting - Boosts energy and excitement - Good smell - Hard to grow Buyer’s Guide: How to Produce the Biggest Yields? Starting with one of the high-yield strains is a great place to start if you’re looking to grow the heaviest, densest buds. What sets a high yield strain apart from its peers? It’s one that has been bred selectively for heavy harvests. These often have more resilience to certain environmental conditions and are more focused on production than anything else. However, there are other factors to consider as you set out to grow one of the highest yielding marijuana strains, too. Nutrient Solution To Produce The Highest Yields For Your Marijuana Garden Regardless of whether you are growing your pot plants outdoors in the round or indoors, you need to make sure you have plenty of nutrients to support the development of your plants. High yield strains need more nutrients than other strains – they are heavier with more plant matter to produce. Make sure you add the fertilizers your plants need for success. How To Adjust The Perfect Lighting for The Biggest Yied? If you’re growing outdoors, you may not have a lot of control over lighting unless you are growing in a greenhouse. However, when producing marijuana indoors, make sure you invest in a high-powered light that will provide your plants with a minimum of six hours of sunlight each day – more is obviously better, especially during certain periods of your plants’ growth. Harvesting Time & Techniques: When And How To Harvest Your Yield? A big mistake that many novice growers make is harvesting a cannabis plant before it has yet to reach its full maturity. It can be tempting to start harvesting and processing buds as soon as you start enjoying an ample harvest – but wait! The best could be yet to come. Why Should You Choose One of the Highest Yielding Seed Strains in the World? Whether you are hoping to make money with some of the high yield strains or you just want to grow plenty of weed for you and your friends to enjoy, you’ve got to consider one of these strains that produce high yield. Not only will you get more bang for your buck, but you’ll begin to truly enjoy the overall growing process, too. Happy growing! Growing Fundamentals: How To Choose the Correct Equipment (new paragraph) The correct equipment will nurture and ensure your strain’s health status, which is why it is critical to choose the best equipment available. As to choosing the equipment, it is best to do thorough research first from Soil Testers , Garden Sprayers , Hydroponic Systems , and other important appliances for you to be knowledgeable about what type of apparatus is best to use in your situation, climate, and environment. However, solely depending on equipment even if it is of the premium class will not guarantee the best results if you do not consistently monitor your strains. As a Gardener, you must also do your part in order to successfully achieve high-quality strains.Want to get high-quality cannabis seeds that produce high yields and potent? Consider these ten highest yielding strains in 2020. Read on for more! ]]>
This Week in Podcasts is back! This Week in Podcasts is a weekly roundup of mini-reviews of all of the podcasts I’ve listened to in a week. If you see any podcasts that you feel are missing from my list, there’s a good chance I haven’t listened to the show yet! Feel free to give me recommendations–as well as any feedback or discussion!–in the comments below, in my asks on tumblr, or on twitter. This week, I updated my list of podcast subscriptions, wrote a review for the play table reading podcast At the Table, and wrote about why you should be listening to science fiction audio drama cornerstone Wolf 359. This was also a very good (if sparse) week for podcasts with no pitfalls to discuss. Join the Party “17. Pool Party VI” When I wrote my First Impressions review of Join the Party, I worried it wouldn’t be able to hit the emotional depth I expected from an actual play podcasts. This week’s episode easily proved me wrong, and I’m so glad it did. By now, the listener has had time to love these characters and see how their different personalities make them clash while still trying to achieve the same goal. “17. Pool Party VI” pushes that a step further and feels like the first big jump into more intense story moments to come. “Ep. 17: Wake Me Up Inside!!” Like The Adventure Zone or What’s the Frequency, I will likely never stop talking about why Wonderful! is so great. This episode didn’t discuss any “wonderful” things I was especially drawn to; instead, the episode just had an especially nice cadence, more jokes that made me laugh out loud, and that lovely feeling of sincerity and levity one can always except from this show. An episode featuring Anthony Partridge is always a delight, and hearing him discover video games was as hilarious as it was depressing. As always, the writing, production, and acting in this episode were flawless. I sometimes wonder if the quality of ars PARADOXICA has made me take it for granted, but the quality even with the simplicity of this episode t made me remember exactly why I consider ars PARADOXICA one of the most important audio dramas in the industry. This Week’s Ratings - 2298, “ENTRY ONE / TERMS & CONDITIONS”: B - The Cryptid Keeper, “Episode 40- Listener Stories!”: C+ - Potterless, “Ep. 32 – Order of the Phoenix Ch. 25-27 w/ Eric Silver”: B - Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, “93.5 Bonus: Beautiful Resolutions”: C+ - Join the Party, “17. Pool Party VI”: B+ - Greater Boston, “Mini-Episode: Assistant 2”: B - Song Exploder, “The Roots – It Ain’t Fair (feat. Bilal)”: B - Wonderful!, “Ep. 17: Wake Me Up Inside!!”: B+ - Unmapped, “Top 3 Moments of 2017 [Bonus]”: B- - Spirits, “Episode 58: Your Urban Legends V”: B - ars PARADOXICA, “28: Adversary”: B+ - Join the Party, “Afterparty: Pool Party VI”: B- - Unplaced, “Chapter Eight: Vindication”: B - The Amelia Project, “Nathaniel McBride”: B - The Adventure Zone, “Setup – The Adventure Zone: Amnesty”: B- - Nothing of note - 2298, “ENTRY TWO / GUIDING HAND”: B- - It Makes a Sound, “The Clubhouse”: B
In this short story spin-off from the Elemental Magic series, Paige Benson, an investigative journalist, tackles a mystery of missing pets in a quaint Seattle neighborhood. As far as investigations go, she’s been on more dangerous ones, but Paige is about to bite off more than she can chew when she realizes there may be a supernatural component. Throw in a confrontation with a blast from her vampire boyfriend’s past, and Paige once again finds herself in the middle of a supernatural showdown. Join Paige, Sean, and their vampire cat, Vlad, as they tackle some wild cases. “Cupid’s Curse” — A simple job retrieving stolen property in a domestic dispute goes bad when the family heirloom has a powerful love curse on it…and Sean gets exposed. “Let Sleeping Bats Lie” — The new vampire master of Seattle has a case for Sean and Paige: capture and kill a dangerous monster that escaped from Drake’s menagerie. But how does one go about trapping a giant cryptid bat with a hunger for human flesh? “Missing” — When Paige’s friend doesn’t show for an important meeting, she sets off on a series of leads to track her down. Paige has to watch her step though, before she ends up missing as well. “Trick-or-Tweet” — Some Halloween fun turns deadly when a cursed hashtag on Twitter starts killing those who tweet it. Paige and her friends are back with four new adventures. “Hot Rod Haunting” — Paige thought a 1964 Camaro would be the perfect gift for Sean. She didn’t count on it being possessed. “Lonely Hearts” — Becca’s new boyfriend seems to make all the ladies’ hearts flutter. Yet when something starts draining her friend’s life energy, Paige suspects there may be something sinister behind the man’s charming exterior. “Klepto Christmas Kitty” — There’s a new grinch in town and his name is Vlad. But why is the vampire cat stealing presents from a donation center? And can Paige and Sean solve the case in time to save Christmas? “Timeless” — Paige’s birthday celebration is a blast—until she wakes up the following morning having aged forty years instead of one. Sign up for the mailing list.
A Squonking to Remember: Bigfoot Kills 10 at Applebee's and Steve's House is Haunted Happy April Fool's Day, Misfits! Steve and Emmy have a wild journey of an episode for you tonight. Before we dive in, Steve tells us that his creepy attic bedroom might actually be haunted by two ghosts; and Emmy has been afraid of the dark ever since. Then, Steve tells us some wild just-released Bigfoot and Jersey Devil Attack News, one of which took place in Emmy's favorite restaurant of all time: Applebee's. Emmy keeps us on the topic of cryptids with the story of the Squonk, a creature so ugly it dissolves into a puddle of tears every time someone looks at it. Sounds like me in middle school. Don't feel too bad for the Squonk though, because we're pretty sure he's still in line with the rules of White Boy Summer (WBS) outlined by Chet Hanks -- you have to listen to make sure you are too. Lastly, Steve caps us off with a topical discussion of the history of April fools day, and some pranks that just went totally wrong. Watch out, this April 1; Emmy might just put Vaseline on all of your door handles. If you want to hear more from Steve and Emmy, remember to tune in every Thursday for more mind-blowing and hysterical content. You can also check out our blog on our website: misfitsandmysteries.com And be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @podcast_misfits and on Facebook @PodcastMisfits and on Youtube Misfits and Mysteries! Don't forget to buy our Merch and consider donating a couple bucks to buy us a coffee (or help Emmy write her cryptid themed erotic novel). This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Is What’s up Misfits! Emmy’s rescued from her alien abduction, and were ready for another kickass episode. Steve hits us with some #spooky first hand stories of encounters with Lucifer himself; like one man who out-drinks the devil and then, in a shocking turn of events, kills his dad — or how... Unfortunately Emmy got abducted by aliens and wasn't returned to me on time to complete the episode so I had to draft her replacement. This week we had an awesome guest host Kelly from the Canada SPIRIT podcast! We talked everything from Bigfoot and Skunk apes to ghosts and eventually reeled it... Hey Misfits! This week we got a fab episode for ya. Emmy kicks us off with a classic she’s been dying to cover: the fake moon landing. That’s right: 40,000 NASA workers kept the moon landing hoax a secret for 50 years. But the true heros are those on the internet who still point out that there is...
Roblox's Arsenal has come out with a new update for Summer 2020! With this update have come a bunch of graphical overhauls to the game with some polishing to the menus, new weapons, and some new skins! While most of these skins can be purchased in the shop, you can get yourself the Cryptid Chupacabra Skin for free by completing a couple of fairly easy to do steps in the game. We'll show you how it's done in this guide. We've got guides for all the other free skins right here: - How to Get the Wendigo Skin - How to Get the Fire Golem Skin - How to Get the Bigfoot Skin - How to Get the Beelzebub & Manic - How to Get the Froggy Skin Chupacabra Skin Guide The first step to obtaining the Chupacabra Skin is to play in the Hillside map. If you or a friend have a VIP Server for Arsenal then this will be a whole lot easier because then the map can just be set. However, you can jump into a game of Arsenal to check the map, if it's not the Hillside map: Then you can close out of the game and join another one. Repeat this process until you end up in the Hillside map. Now, you need to go to the following building. It is near the tunnel area which is on the opposite end of the water spawn area. Here's what the building looks like: Once you have found that building, go through the door where my crosshairs are targeting. You will pass through it and you will then see a cow on the ground in this room: Go up to the cow and target the three claws sticking out of it. Hit E on the keyboard or tap on it if you're on mobile. This will collect the claws. You now need to get three eliminations to earn the badge! Once you do, you will be given the Chupacabra skin. Here's a look at the Chupacabra skin once you've received it: Just head into your locker, hit character, and find it here to equip it! If you had any trouble following this guide, check out the following video:
the Bloom Report Worldwide Toy Industry's #1 News Summary Below is July 30 - August 6, 2021. Click Here for Last Week Articles are posted daily with the most recent at top of each section. The previous week drops off each Friday when we email you highlights. Not only does the Bloom Report give you all the news you need to know... we give you all the news you didn't know you needed to know!" -Phil Bloom Welcome to your Weekly News Brief . . . TAGIE Awards nominations are closing in just SEVEN DAYS. Nominate yourself and your colleagues - it is free and easy! Thank you for reading the Bloom Report. tBR Columnist Nancy Zwiers Answers: What Do Paw Patrol Harry Potter and Simone Biles Have in Common?? “No Job is Too Big. No Pup is Too Small.” This is the rallying cry of Paw Patrol, a group of pups who come to the rescue in their community day after day. Let’s unpack this idea to gain a little insight into what has made Paw Patrol such a huge and enduring success with preschoolers the world over. No Job is Too Big: These pups are truly heroes, willing to take on any challenge. Whereas older targeted entertainment characters are usually battling evil and saving the world, “evil” as a concept is a bit too scary—and unrelatable-- for little ones. Instead, these heroic pups rescue characters in trouble, bringing them to safety for a happy ending. Now, that’s the kind of heroism these little kids can relate to. When they are scared, their seemingly omnipotent parents swoop in, to the rescue. No Pup is Too Small: Just like the kids watching the show, these pups are little. Kids lack power and agency in their lives at this tender age, and so of course, they yearn for empowerment. This team of pups may be little, but they demonstrate that even if you’re little, you have the power to make an important difference in your world. Voila, living through these pups vicariously gives kids a real sense of power and agency. Read More . . . Bob Wann: HUGE champion of the Power of Play - tBR Person of the Week How long have you been part of the Toy Industry? 41 years! Quite frankly, I can’t believe it has been that long. It just goes to show time really does fly when you are having fun! Why did you stay in the industry this long? The minute I entered the industry I knew it was for me and that I had found my perfect fit! I loved the pace, the energy and even the unpredictability of it all (crazy, but true)! Every day was exciting and challenging and when I rose to the challenge, I had a real sense of accomplishment and gratification that most people never experience in their entire career. And most of all I found an industry full of special, talented, highly creative people that share an extraordinary passion in what we do to make a difference in children lives by bringing them together through the magic and power of play! What is your claim to fame in the industry? I am not sure about “claim to fame” but what I am most proud of and widely known for within the industry is being a true believer and HUGE champion of the Power of Play! I’ve strived to ensure that Toy Companies of EVERY SIZE, big and small, can work together and learn from each other. Not only successfully as individual companies but also together to collectively enhance the visibility and the stature of the Toy Industry, as a whole, through the great work we all do. Read More . . . (Patch Products morphed into PlayMonster under Bob's leadership.) Op-Ed by Jacqueline Vong: Is the world ready to take made in India seriously? tbr Person of the Week At Crazy Aaron's we make Thinking Putty®, Land of Dough and other creative, innovative products to inspire curiosity, wonder and to educate and delight our customers all over the world. In 1998, Crazy Aaron’s launched into a successful niche producing Thinking Putty®. Aaron’s very first product that hit the market was Coral Reef, a mesmerizing, sparkling blue putty containing Color Shock™ technology. Since then, a multitude of new products and product lines have been created all with the intention to never steer away from the company’s mission statement. However, in March of 2020, Aaron found himself using chemistry in a way he never expected to do. 2020 catapulted Crazy Aaron’s into a new line of product development, hand sanitizer. In just 72 hours, our engineering team successfully changed over the production line to produce hand sanitizer, obtained the necessary government approvals, and donated the first 100 gallons to local first responders. We continued to donate sanitizer as the year rolled on including 2,000 gallons and 737 automated dispensers to the Camden County School District in New Jersey as teachers and students were going back to school. Read More . . . Financial & Legal News . . . Chinese container port closes after Covid-19 case found The container port in eastern China's marine hub Ningbo was said to have 28 vessels queuing outside on Wednesday. Ningbo Zhoushan port, China’s second-largest container port by handling volume after Shanghai, handled 18.68m twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) in the first seven months, up 17.1% year on year. (the above posted after August 7th) Bella Luna and its employees will report to the HABA USA subsidiary, and Bella Luna will continue to operate as a separate company. Sarah Balwin and Chris Percival will continue to lead the merchandising process, choosing new products that fit the Bella Luna and Oompa brands. Shipping snags prompt US firms to mull retreat from China. Game maker Eric Poses last year created The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game, making a wry reference to the way the coronavirus had upended normal life. He had no idea. In a twist that Poses never could have predicted, his game itself would become caught up in the latest fallout from the health crisis: a backlogged global supply chain... Shipping Container Crisis Could Derail Holiday Toy Sales. It’s the lament of U.S. toy manufacturers, large and small: All I want for Christmas is shipping containers. Toy makers currently are playing a high stakes game in which they have to outbid and outmaneuver competitors for shipping containers to get their goods from overseas factories to U.S consumers in time for the holiday season. Shipping latest \| Maersk reports ‘blockbuster Q2’, shippers bite back at ‘cartel operations’, and is there a road to recovery? The Danish integrated shipping company, Maersk has just posted ‘blockbuster Q2 results’ beating its Q1 ‘best quarter ever’ to reach $5.1 billion on revenues of $14.2 billion. The company’s full-year guidance is now double what it was at the start of the year, having raised its EBITDA estimates to... Top Chinese toy seller bets big on pop figures for ‘Kidults’. One of China’s largest toy retailers and distributors is betting on a new market as it looks toward the post-Covid-19 landscape: Grown-ups. The company, Kidsland International Holdings Ltd., is hoping to ride demand in Asia for so-called pop toys -- collectible cartoon figurines geared toward adults -- as it, along with other Chinese consumer firms, charts... Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine sold to private equity firm for nearly US$1 billion. Hello Sunshine’s projects include the films “Gone Girl” and “Wild,” as well as “The Morning Show” and “Big Little Lies.” It also has the popular Reese’s Book Club. The co. has recently moved into podcasting and into family ent, it has an upcoming slate of previously unannounced kids programming that it will produce ... US furnishings company instigates legal action against ‘collusive’ ocean carriers. Following the proceedings, will toy companies be similarly forced to consider legal redress if prices continue to escalate? In a complaint filed last week with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), MCS Industries, a maker of household furnishings, has accused China’s COSCO Shipping Lines, Switzerland’s MSC Mediterranean Shipping and... Toy Prices Are Going Up Ahead of the Holiday Season. Companies race to import enough toys for holiday shopping and try to pass along higher shipping costs. Hasbro Inc., Mattel Inc. and other manufacturers say they are navigating supply-chain disruptions and rising costs for materials and labor, leading them to raise prices to recoup some of the added costs. China typhoons pose latest supply chain threat as ports shut. Extreme weather in China is becoming the latest challenge to global supply chains, as a heavy typhoon season threatens to further delay goods stuck at some of the world’s busiest container ports. Yantian port in southern China’s export and industrial hub of Shenzhen temporarily stopped drop-off services of containers on Tuesday night … Focus Home Interactive acquires retro game studio Dotemu for $45.5 million. French publisher Focus Home Interactive has acquired a majority stake in retro game developer Dotemu for €38.5 million ($45.5 million). The deal will see Focus home acquire 77.5 percent of the share capital of Dotemu, which has helped reinvigorate vintage franchises by working on titles like Metal Slug Tactics … Embracer acquires eight studios, including Crazy Labs, Ghost Ship Games, DigixArt. Embracer Group has announced the acquisition of eight studios for an approximated SEK 2.7 billion ($313 million). An additional consideration of up to SEK 2 billion ($232 million) will be paid should the studios meet agreed milestones over a period of up to eight years. Tencent to impose new restrictions after online gaming branded 'spiritual opium' in China. Tencent will further restrict how young children engage with its games after Chinese state media described online gaming as 'spiritual opium.' The phrase was used in an article published by Economic Information Daily (EID) that suggested minors are addicted to online games and called for more curbs.... Ubisoft and Bungie file lawsuit against cheat software developer Ring-1. Bungie and Ubisoft have filed a lawsuit against cheat software developer, Ring-1. The suit specifically targets four individuals alleged to be integral to the running of Ring-1, including Andrew Thorpe, Jonathan Aguedo, Wesam Mohammed, and Ahmad Mohammed, along with John Does 1-50. Colopl will pay Nintendo $30 million to settle copyright infringement lawsuit. Japanese developer Colopl has agreed to pay Nintendo 3.3 billion yen ($30 million) to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit. Nintendo initially sued the mobile studio in 2016 for allegedly infringing on five of its patents, including one related to "the special technology used to operate a joystick over a touch panel" that … Webbed Sphere, Inc. acquires Flying Buffalo, Inc. Webbed Sphere, Inc. announced that they have acquired Flying Buffalo, Inc. in a deal that was finalized on July 31. Rick Loomis and his company Flying Buffalo, Inc. were an integral part of the development of the games industry. Loomis created the play-by-mail game Nuclear Destruction in 1970, and later published the second-ever RPG ... Netmarble acquires SpinX Games for $2.19 billion to expand into social casino genre. South Korean publisher Netmarble has fully-acquired mobile casino game developer SpinX Games for $2.19 billion. Netmarble explained the deal will allow it to expand into a new genre by leveraging SpinX titles like Cash Frenzy, Lotsa Slots, and Jackpot World. A++ rated insurer, $20 Billion in assets Exceeds Wal-Mart and other leading retailers insurance requirements Variable rate based on sales projections Foreign & Domestic Liability coverage Blanket additional insured vendors Employee benefits liability All certificates and claims handled in house Quick quotation turnaround Product recall expense $250,000 limit Umbrella up to $50,000,000 Ocean Cargo & Property Intellectual properties (copyrights, trademarks, & patents) US Customs Bond Insurance Call us today at 800-392-6958 (ext. 318) for a free consultation and quotation for your business needs. 185 Newman Springs Road, Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 Visit the York-Jersey Underwriters website at www.toy-insurance.com Trends, Market Research Reports . . . The Insights Family \| 46% of kids watch their favourite Christmas ad digitally . . . . . July 2021 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Author, Manga, and Superhero Graphic Novels . . . . . . In praise of the craze - a look at Fidget Toys . . . . . . Games and puzzle sales were up 17% vs. sales in the first half of 2020, and up 31% vs. 2019 . . . . . . US sales of outdoor & sports toys sizzle (the above posted after August 6th) Toy Boom: First Half 2021 Global Toy Industry Sales Spike 15% in Two-year High, NPD Says . . . . . . July 2021 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Kids Graphic Novels . . . . . . July 2021 NPD BookScan - Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels . . . . . The NPD Group: U.S. Toy Industry Sales Experience +19% Increase During the First Half of 2021 . . . . . . UK streaming subscriptions jumped by 50% in 2020 . . . . . . Top 20 Graphic Novels - July 2021 . . . . . The 25 Most Popular Video Games in America . . . . . Top 50 Comics - July 2021 Financial & Brokerage News . . . (the above posted after August 6th) Funko Sales, Profits Boomed in Q2, Even Compared to 2019 . . . . . SPIN MASTER REVENUE SPIKES 39% IN Q2 WITH STRONG CONSUMER PRODUCTS GROWTH . . . . . Roku had an OK Q2, though it's total hours streamed declined by one billion hours, compared to the previous quarter . . . . . . Toynamics exceeding expectations . . . . . . IDW Prices Public Offering . . . . . . Disney's Jungle Cruise sailed into a US$90-million opening weekend . . . . . . Discovery's Q2 beat expectations and it hit 18 million streaming subs . . . . . . Net sales and profits down at Nintendo because Animal Crossing set the bar too high . . . . . . Square Enix sales are up in Q1, but revenues in games categories are down . . . . . . EA Q1 better than expected but bookings down 4% . . . . . Abuse allegations overshadow Activision Blizzard second quarter results . . . . . . . In-game spending on Take-Two games jumped 15 percent during Q1 2022 Future Financial Reporting . . . Stories, Comments & Advice . . . Stars + Toys: How does your favorite star play? Stars — they’re just like us! As in, they love toys, too! Read on to learn about celebrities’ favorite toys and games, their toy collections, and even who still plays with toys and games today. Here's our list and let us know if you know of more! Jessica Simpson: Play-Doh, Will Arnett: LEGO, George Takei: My Little Pony, Johnny Depp: Barbie and many more... Brands are already marketing to Generation Alpha. The kids born after Gen Z are prime targets for marketers — and so are their millennial parents. Both new and traditional kid-focused brands have, for the most part, abandoned the kitschy, rainbow-colored packaging used in the ’90s and early aughts. Think of the commercials for Fruit Gushers candy and Kid Cuisine microwavable meals. Instead, they’ve defaulted to... Mattel Addresses Backlash Over Olympics Barbies: Dolls 'Fell Short' in Representing Asians. The collection of dolls was first introduced in February 2020, but recently drew criticism online. While Asian American athletes like Suni Lee stole the show at the Tokyo Summer Olympics, viewers at home were left upset over the fact that the line of five Olympic athlete Barbies did not appear to include a doll of Asian descent. Ethical innovation and how creating for children is not child’s play. Our Director of Development and co-founder, Phil Tottman recently reached out to his network to ask; “when does playful learning become just learning?” One of our most significant challenges is to determine not just what is entertaining but also what focuses the end user’s attention on the core topic at hand - which in our case is mental... Mattel family’s legendary ‘Barbie penthouse’ hits market for $10M. The iconic “Barbie penthouse” once owned by Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler will hit the market Tuesday for just under $10 million, The Post can exclusively reveal. The real-life Barbie and Ken (Barbara and Kenneth), daughter and son of Ruth and Elliot Handle, grew up in the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom Los Angeles condominium. How small toy partners drive big gains. Limited licensing agreements with start-ups and small companies are giving brand owners like Sesame Workshop and Dr. Seuss Enterprises a huge advantage. Everyone loves a David and Goliath story. We all root for the underdog—especially when that underdog is scrappy and smart. But sometimes, instead of battling it out, the little guy and the giant team up. POP QUIZ WITH WENDY SMOLEN: AUGUST 2021. 1. What company commemorated the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II by dressing 36 dolls in historically accurate costumes made with cloth from the same mill that produced the queen’s coronation mantles? (the above added after August 6th) John Baulch, ToyWorld UK - Blurred lines …it’s the Friday Blog! Let’s start this week’s Blog with some of the more positive news from the toy market: talking to Toymaster’s Paul Reader, I was delighted to hear that trading ‘out in the field’ has been strong in recent weeks, with retailers situated in coastal and tourist resorts having a particularly fantastic summer so far Licensing International: The Licensing Industry Charts its Post-Pandemic Course. The underlying strength of the licensing business is unquestioned, with companies of all sorts showing a creative willingness and eagerness to adapt the model to new business categories and opportunities. COVID-19 changed none of that. If anything, it spotlighted companies’ ability to adapt to new circumstances ... Design Edge: Tips for Networking Success. You may be familiar with the adage, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never work a day in your life.” Those of us blessed to passionately work in a beloved industry have likely paraphrased this once or twice, simply because our job can certainly feel that way at times. Mine happens to be in the toy industry and the saying certainly applies. Back Open for Business: Independent Toy Retailers Reflect on 2020. While Zoom meetings or virtual expos and conferences have filled in the gaps in the meantime, manufacturers and retailers alike seem to share in the sentiment that nothing can quite replace the interaction and product demonstrations that a traditional trade show delivers. “I want to see the product, touch it, play with it,” says Brian Miller ... If Instagram wants to copy TikTok, then TikTok will copy Instagram with a new Stories function launch Twitter may have shut down its Stories features known as Fleets, but the Stories format will continue to invade other social platforms. TikTok today confirmed it’s piloting a new feature, TikTok Stories, which will allow it to explore additional ways for its community to bring their creative ideas to life. Here's How I Can Predict Netflix's Video Gaming Strategy. We all know Netflix (NFLX). Co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings’ brainchild has disrupted the entire entertainment complex through its massive global expansion and improved streaming technologies. Remember video rental giant Blockbuster? Unfortunately, most people under 20 surely do not. Netflix put them out of business in 2010. Bratz & Barbie Unite for International Friendship Day in IG Post (& Fans Are Losing Their Minds). The extended olive branch continued on LinkedIn, where the CEO of MGA, Isaac Larian, posted the same image to his account and wrote a message to Mattel's CEO, Ynon Kreiz. “Hey Ynon Kreiz: During our breakfast meeting, I enjoyed our conversation and appreciated your genuine clarification that you had nothing to do with the Mattel lawsuit against MGA Entertainment and Mattel’s theft of MGA’s trade secrets 20 yrs ago,” he said. Toys for Tots prepares for supply shortage this holiday season. Supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic may lead to a toy shortage. Hasbro and Mattel both noted concerns in recent earnings calls, citing supply chain disruptions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic due to bottlenecks that have caused shipping delays from China and higher freight prices, among other things. Take a Look At Mattel's First Pixar Studio Series with Disney's Up. The Pixar Spotlight Series from Mattel is setting up to be one of their coolest collectible franchises for Disney and Pixar fans. The main series has yet to kick off with collectibles featuring iconic characters for The Incredibles, Toy Story, and Wall-E. Mattel did release their very first figure for the upcoming line this year during San Diego Comic Con... Man's 'Schitt's Creek'-inspired toys get him a Netflix deal. A Canadian man used his old toys to recreate scenes from "Schitt's Creek" and Netflix took notice. Remembering the Toy Industry's Past . . . Backstory: Tangle — the original fidget was 40 years ahead of the curve. Five years ago, fidget toys hit the mainstream as the rapid rise of spinners fueled demand for alternate ways to keep kids — and adults — focused and engaged. While the fidget spinner fad was short-lived, the 2017 boom brought attention to other versions of hands-on sensory toys that have increased in popularity in the years since “fidget” became its own toy category. Among the flash-in-the-pan trinkets, one hot item wasn’t necessarily new at all, but it had been evolving for decades … Worldwide Licensing News . . . Squishmallows, Jazwares‘ popular brand of soft plush toys, has signed with ent. and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA). By representing Squishmallows, CAA will identify and create opportunities for the brand across a variety of categories, including — but not limited to — film, television, video games, publishing, and live touring. Sesame Workshop named CAA-GBG Global Brand Mgmt Grp as the licensing agent for Sesame Street in South Korea and SE Asia. The appointment comes shortly after Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street, also named licensing agents for the brand in other parts of Asia — including Japan and the Greater China region. Playmobil is boldly going where it hasn’t gone before in a new collaboration with ViacomCBS and Star Trek. The German toy co. unveiled a new model Star Trek — U.S.S. Enterprise ship, launching Sept. 8. The vessel measures one meter long, with mounting included for display. It includes 7 figures of crew members from the original cast of the show (which premiered on Sept. 8, 1966). Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty... Andrews McMeel Publishing Partners with Crossword Puzzle Legend Will Shortz Andrews McMeel Publishing (AMP) revealed that they have partnered with Will Shortz and Robert Fuhrer of Nextoy LLC. to create a new games imprint, Will Shortz Games. Will Shortz is a legend among crossword puzzle enthusiasts. He was crossword editor for the New York Times, the founder and director of the American Crossword Puzzle... (the above posted after August 7th) R2-D2 Lands in Tamagotchi’s Upcoming Star Wars Lineup. Kids ages 8 and up will learn how to train, clean, and take care of Artoo just like any other digital pet in the toy line from Bandai America. The R2-D2 Tamagotchi will be available in two, pocket-sized shells inspired by the droid’s design, accompanied by the iconic Tamagotchi animation displays. Hershey is expanding their licensing toy options with the brokerage Brand Activation Counseling. “Fans of beloved brands from The Hershey Company now have even more ways to celebrate their favorite sweets with plush toys, puzzles and games with offerings from some of the most popular toy and recreational companies on the market,” says Michelle McLaughlin, CEO, Brand Activation Counseling. LEGO celebrates 20 years of LEGO Harry Potter with new Icons Collectors’ Edition. The LEGO Group is celebrating 20 years of LEGO Harry Potter with the grand unveiling of the LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Icons Collectors’ Edition. Billed as ‘an intricate display model and a perfect homage to the Wizarding World,’ the detailed new launch aims to capture some of the most iconic characters and moments from the franchise... Warner Bros. and DC launch first Batman Bat-Tech Edition app with AR gaming and digital comics. Warner Bros Consumer Products and DC Comics have lifted the cowl on a new Batman mobile experience for young fans with the launch of the DC: Batman Bat-Tech Edition app – a free mobile app that immerses fans in a story that takes a deep dive into the technology of the caped crusader. Ubisoft partner with Beanstalk to extend gaming brands into new categories. French video game company, Ubisoft, are partnering with Tinderbox – the digital division of Beanstalk, to represent their top selling gaming franchises, Just Dance® and Far Cry® for licensing across Europe. Tinderbox will support both franchises, Just Dance and Far Cry, by expanding the European consumer products footprint... Disguise renews Pokémon costume rights in multi-year deal. Disguise, the global costume company owned by Jakks Pacific, has extended its contract with The Pokémon Co. International in a multi-year deal. Under the extended deal, Disguise will continue to design, market, manufacture, and distribute costumes, costume accessories, and trunk-or-treat kits featuring popular Pokémon characters. Pokémon is heading to the BBC as iPlayer catches series and movies for the first time. The British broadcaster has acquired two complete story arcs from the Pokémon the Series collection to be housed on the BBC iPlayer, along with the story arcs’ accompanying feature-length Pokémon the Movie for both linear broadcast and the iPlayer. Scalextric’s Batman vs Superman tops the John Lewis ten toys for Christmas list. The Warner Bros. and DC Comics icon, Batman has swooped in on the first of the major retailers’ top Christmas toy predictions this year, having secured top billing within John Lewis’s Top Ten Toys for Christmas 2021. People . . . “Power Kid Podcast,” host Phil Albritton welcomes award-winning producer, director, and composer, John Papa to the show. Papa is the co-founder and executive producer at Massimoto Media, a New England-based production outfit that creates commercials, films, and videos for clients including Hasbro, TOMY, Rollplay, and more. Papa was recruited by Hasbro to build and establish its in-house Hasbro Studios... OTIS COLLEGE WELCOMES INDUSTRY VETERAN JENNIFER CAVEZA IN NEW ROLE. Jennifer Caveza has returned to Otis College as the new chair of the toy design program. Caveza, a consumer products executive specializing in the toy and licensing industries, previously served as assistant chair of the toy design program at Otis from 2001 to 2006. She was most recently the SVP toy licensing at ViacomCBS... CRAZY AARON’S TAPS AHREN HOFFMAN TO LEAD MARKETING TEAM. When Crazy Aaron’s hit Minneapolis for the American Specialty Toy Retailing Assn (ASTRA)’s Marketplace & Academy last weekend, the company behind Thinking Putty did so accompanied by a new team member: Ahren Hoffman. Hoffman, formerly of ASTRA and the Chicago Toy & Game Group, assumed the role of marketing team lead for the growing co. Diamond Book Distributors has gone outside for new leadership, hiring Tony Lutkus from Penguin Random House as its new President. Lutkus has 25 years of experience in the book business, including the last seven years at Penguin Random House and a long stretch in a variety of roles at Hachette. Henson taps director of primetime development Delany Shiokari joins the TV team, while Kait Boss takes on additional responsibilities as the prodco's new director of children's TV. Shiokari will focus on growing Henson’s primetime slate of acquired and internally developed projects, and is focused on older-skewing content that leans into the prodco’s mythological world building, storytelling and comedy past. Casdon Toys continues to expand its team with the recruitment of an Americas territory manager in a newly created role. Laura Bull has been appointed to the role and joins the team this month. Laura previously held the position of UK and Ireland sales manager at Magic Box, as well as working as marketing manager at both Posh Paws and Schleich UK. She brings with her a wealth of toy industry experience. (the above posted after August 6th) Toy Family Series: The Nathanson Family. Happy 15th Anniversary Bananagrams! Unfortunately, I did not have the pleasure of meeting Abe Nathanson, and love that he created Bananagrams when he was 76! I have been fortunate to share conversations over dinner with his daughter Rena about running a business, families, being a mom, life philosophies, our industry, and more. Theirs is a warm and wonderful story... Making strides at Sambro Toy World chats to Sambro International CEO Paul Blackaby to find out what plans he has for the company, which has seen some significant changes in the past few years. Known primarily for its arts & crafts and novelty ranges, Sambro is also branching out more into other categories such as plush, and simplifying and streamlining parts of the business. Dr. Seuss Enterprises recently promoted Nicole Gates to the role of senior corporate counsel, in which she will continue to lead and oversee matters relating to Dr. Seuss’ portfolio and manage legal affairs. Gates has been with the company since 2018, when she joined as its first in-house counsel. In her current role she handles infringement issues, the company’s global trademark portfolio, contracts for ent.... Hasbro announced that Jess Richardson was promoted to VP, global licensed consumer products — toys and games. Richardson will lead a newly created global team to continue to mine the full Hasbro IP portfolio to accelerate Hasbro’s broad brand portfolio on a global scale in the Toy, Sporting Goods, and Game categories. “The work that Jess has led on Tonka, Micro Machines, Lite Brite, Spirograph, Nerf Sports and... YOUTUBE CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER NEAL MOHAN ON THE ALGORITHM, MONETIZATION, AND THE FUTURE FOR CREATORS A peek behind the curtain at the creator economy and what’s next for YouTube Shorts. YouTubeYouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan joined Decoder this week to discuss YouTube’s new $100 million fund to begin paying creators who use YouTube Shorts, which is its competitor to TikTok. Silvergate Media has promoted Shelli Rottman to the dual position of chief diversity officer and EVP of business and legal affairs. As the company’s first chief diversity officer, Rottman will oversee its growing diversity and inclusion program. Silvergate has pledged to create a more equitable and welcoming working environment, while amplifying diverse voices through mentorship and professional guidance. ZAG grows US & LatAm licensing team. Former ViacomCBS exec Marifely Argüello Montealegre takes on the newly created role VP of product development as the prodco continues its CP expansion. She will focus on asset creation and design, trends, product direction and style guides for all ZAG Heroez brands, including the company’s flagship Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir property and newer IPs... Jazwares adds new commercial and licensing directors in European growth drive. As part of Jazwares’ ambitious European growth strategy, the EMEA team is expanding with Matt Stent appointed European commercial director and Sam Bourne the new European licensing director. Matt will be responsible for growing Jazwares’s business in Europe, through its regional offices and third-party distributors, and ... “Power Kid Podcast,” host Phil Albritton welcomes WowWee‘s VP of Brand Development and Creative Strategy, Sydney Wiseman. Since joining WowWee, Wiseman has helped shape the company’s new product portfolio across innovations including Fingerlings, Lucky Fortune, and this year’s Got2Glow Fairy Finder. J. Allen Brack Leaves Activision Blizzard Amid Continued Shakeup. The move comes amid the fallout from a lawsuit filed against the company by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) alleging violation of civil rights and the equal pay act followed by an employee walkout and a continued public war of words between executives and staffers. Mercury Filmworks grows with chief talent officer. David Keneford will grow the animation studio's team, and is looking to hire 30 people in the next few months in various creative roles. The studio is seeking talent in multiple roles, including line producer, art director, senior character designers, senior layout artists, animators and FX artists. The Genius Star or ‘Kochav HaEtgarim’, a game invented by British oleh Aron Lazarus, has arrived in Israel and will be available in toy stores around the country. The Genius Star is a logic game for kids where the goal is to fill a Mogen David shaped board. It gives at least 165,888 ways to make a Magen David. This is Lazarus’s second game from 2020, for which he won the title of ‘TAGIE Rising Star Inventor of the Year’ ... Icebreakers with...Build-A-Bear CEO Sharon Price John. Build-A-Bear Workshop turns 25 next year (feeling old?), and the brand has been growing up with its audience. Chicken and egg question for you: Did you see increased interest from an older demographic and create more products for them, or did you create those products and the older demographic came? Entertainment One Names Jillian Share Co-President of Film Production. The executive is charged with overseeing the development and production of the studio’s expanding global film slate alongside Zev Forman. Her hire will allow eOne’s to expand production of features based on toy maker and parent Hasbro’s IP as well as other original projects like All the Old Knives, starring Chris Pine and Thandie Newton; the... Asmodee names gaming super talent Sophie Gravel head of studio at Z-Man Games. The international board game giant, Asmodee has named Sophie Gravel its new head of studio at Z-Man Games, the Asmodee owned board game studio and publisher of Pandemic, Carcassonne, and more. The new move will mark Gravel’s second tenure leading Z-Man Games, where she previously spearheaded the launch... Stephen Stanley tapped to lead Jazwares’ new costume play division. An industry vet with experience at Hasbro, Disguise, and the Rubie’s Costume Co. will lead the charge at Jazwares‘ new costume play division. Stephen Stanley was named general manager and senior vice president of the department that will focus on the year-round development of licensed costumes. Companies, Brands . . . Mattel Earns Great Place to Work Certification. At Mattel, our purpose is to empower the next generation to explore the wonder of childhood and reach their full potential. We know this incredible work wouldn’t be possible without our people, which is why we are thrilled to share that Mattel is now Certified™ by Great Place to Work®, the global authority on workplace culture. Jakks Pacific is updating its baby doll line with a variety of new outfits and revised sculpts reflecting the character traits of each ethnicity. The Perfectly Cute collection from Jakks Pacific is known for its diversity. The dolls, which are available in 8- and 14-inch scales, are offered in various ethnicities and skin tones including African-American, Asian, Latinx, and Caucasian. Here’s some fantastic news from Hasbro Pulse: There’s a new wave of Fantastic Four Marvel Legends figures. As revealed in a Fan First Monday livestream yesterday, this wave includes six 6-inch-scale Fantastic Four characters, all in retro packaging and featuring classic comics-inspired designs. The lineup includes Mr. Fantastic, Marvel’s Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Marvel’s Thing, Psycho Man... FULL EPISODE OF SPIN MASTER’S ‘BAKUGAN: GEOGAN RISING’ SET TO PREMIERE ON ROBLOX, Kids are obsessed with Roblox, the multiplayer video game that allows users to program games that others can experience and enjoy. Recently, the Roblox platform has been giving thanks to its fans by hosting a lineup of digital experiences, including online performances by Lil Nas X and KSI... ZURU recently launched Angel High, a new line of six dolls with swappable fashion accessories and wings. Each doll includes 10 surprises that are unique to their personality and comes packaged inside a clear capsule with peek-a-boo window that transforms into a display. Surprises range from hairstyles, outfits, mini wings, fashion, jewelry, eyewear, hair accessories (brush, color-changing clip, and extension), and... Google's Stadia launches kids section With a focus on reaching families playing together, the soon-to-launch section will include six titles from Outright Games. Launching August 13, the new category signals Stadia’s growing commitment to reaching younger demos and the increasing number of families who game together, according to a release from Stadia. ACTF & Stan put out call for kids features Beginning today, eligible writers, producers and creators can submit original Australian live-action concepts targeting youth and family audiences. Applications are now open for original live-action feature ideas that are at least 80 minutes in length. The projects have to have a G or PG rating, and should be aimed at either children aged six to 12 and their families, or tweens... Melissa & Doug announces sustainability initiative New initiative, Project Restore, cements the company's commitment to "making timeless, sustainable toys for a thriving and inclusive world." The initiative, called Project Restore, will guide the company in its existing work on environmental responsibility, social equity and inclusion, as well as its ambitious new plan to make the world a better place. Lalaloopsy is back by popular demand thanks to MGA The release, which will reintroduce 25 Lalaloopsy dolls with a focus on DIY crafting and traditional doll play, marks the brand's 10th anniversary. Lalaloopsy offers a whimsical world of characters with unique personalities derived from the fabric used to sew them, inspiring kids to develop their own creativity. Nacelle pivots to launch its own toy brand The company behind Netflix's The Toys That Made Us is shifting from documenting toys to reviving Robo Force with new products and a series. Now, Nacelle is gearing up to jumpstart the ’80s IP again with a new show and consumer products push. Cartoon Network Studios, WBA expand into anime Adult Swim exec Jason DeMarco will oversee the studios' growth into long-form anime and action series for all ages. In this newly created role DeMarco started on August 1, he reports to Sam Register, president of both Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios, and Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim. Funko eyes international growth after record second quarter and major executive moves. Funko’s president, Andrew Perlmutter is to be appointed the firm’s new CEO as Brian Mariotti transitions to the newly created role of chief creative officer, detailing the top level moves the same week the firm delivered ‘its largest topline quarter in company history.’ Last week, the pop culture specialist revealed that second quarter net sales Rubies hails inclusivity with new Adaptive Costumes Rubies' range of Adaptive Costumes has been designed for children with limited mobility, letting every child join in roleplay and dress-up. Specialised design features include back openings in the trousers and skirts, which allow wheelchair users to dress in bed or in a laying down position. Hasbro hosts camps for children battling life-threatening illnesses. Hasbro Children’s Hospital is back to hosting two very special camps for children battling serious illnesses, after pausing for a year during the height of the pandemic. The hospital hosted Camp Grace last week and is hosting Camp Dotty this week. Breaking Games Launches Multiple Highly Anticipated Games in Top Retailers Across the Nation. Some new games include the ubiquitous Cards Against Humanity with their latest Cards Against Humanity: Family Edition Glow in the Dark edition; Café Chaos by TheOdd1sOut, which has a wildly popular YouTube channel with more than 17 million followers; and a brand-new IP called PANDO, which helps people... The Best Nickelodeon Character Bracket. As Nicktoons’ 30th anniversary approaches, it’s time to celebrate the heroes, villains, sponges and starfish, and cats and dogs who redefined children’s programming in the 1990s and beyond. Nick can mean many different things to many different people depending on when, exactly, they were between the ages of 6 and 16. The generational divide is most cleanly drawn... MGA unveils new Glitter Babyz nurturing doll range. The Glitter Babyz dolls feature large eyes filled with distinctive nature imagery, plus accessories that promote imaginative, nurturing play. MGA Entertainment‘s new range Glitter Babyz introduces Dreamia Stardust, January Snowflake, Lila Wildbloom and Solana Sunburst to nurture doll lovers aged three and above. The Toy Book chats with Ross Hyman, director of product development and marketing at Alex Global Products, about the company’s legacy, evolution, and future plans. Toy Book: Alex Global Products emerged during a tumultuous year. What are the key differences between the former Alex Brands and the new Alex Global Products? Mattel launches Lucille Ball Barbie doll for 70th anniversary of I Love Lucy. There is no greater female icon in the world of comedy than Lucille Ball and her legacy will continue to inspire others for many years to come. In celebration of the star’s 110th birthday (Ball was born Aug 6th, 1911) and the upcoming 70th anniversary of her sitcom I Love Lucy, Mattel is launching its new Tribute Collection with a Barbie doll modeled... (the above posted after August 6th) How do you playtest a board game for 5-year-olds? Inside the creative process at HABA, the German tabletop giant. TheThe very concept of the kindergarten was born in Germany, and with it the idea that young children can learn a lot through play. It’s no wonder then that some of the world’s best educational children’s games are made there as well. But how do you go about designing games for five-year-olds? Disney to open Vancouver studio for long-form animated series Led by Amir Nasrabadi, the new studio will be focused on shows for Disney+, such as the upcoming Moana. Nasrabadi most recently served as EVP and general manager at WildBrain Studios in Vancouver, and previously oversaw Pixar Canada as VP and general manager. He also held senior leadership roles with Illumination and Paramount Animation. Mattel plans to halve its greenhouse gas emissions and hit zero manufacturing waste by 2030 Mattel has detailed new plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent and achieve zero manufacturing waste by 2030 in its 2020 Citizenship Report. The report, published today, features updated Environmental, Social, and Governance strategy and goals, while underscoring the toy maker’s previously... LEGO redoubles commitment to Asia Pacific with government partnership to invest in its Singapore Hub. LEGO has underlined its commitment to expansion in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region with the promise of greater investment in developing key digital and creative teams at its Singapore hub. What's cooking at SmartLab Rachael Simpson-Jones spoke to George Scott, senior brand manager at SmartLab from The Quarto Group, to find out more. SmartLab is the only toy-centric ‘imprint’ from a portfolio of 33 brands within The Quarto Group, a leading international publisher of books and intellectual property products. Created in 2004 to offer fun, fact-filled and fictional novelties for kids aged 8-14 years old... Mattel Once Again Says #ThankYouHeroes by Supporting First Responders Children’s Foundation and Honoring Global Frontline Medical Workers with One-of-a-Kind Barbie Dolls. Barbie® to donate $5 for each Barbie doctor, nurse or paramedic doll sold* at participating Target locations during the month of August. The brand is also spotlighting six women who are modern real-life heroes of the pandemic... ZURU Launches Series 3 of Popular 5 Surprise Mini Brands Line. The newest launch features the biggest collection yet, with more than 100 all new miniature versions of popular grocery and drugstore products. Some of the new teeny treats include Teddy Grahams, Hershey’s Chocolate, ICEE Slushies, and TGI Fridays. Barbie honours vaccinologist Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert with one-of-a-kind doll As well as Prof Gilbert, Barbie is honouring 5 other women in STEM around the world who it says are 'modern real-life heroes of the pandemic'. Prof Gilbert is the Saϊd Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and Project Leader for ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 which is now in use in many countries... Moose Toys Launches Blingle Bands Gem Friendship Bracelet Kits. To celebrate National Friendship Day, Moose Toys launched Blingle Bands, a new craft kit series that combines diamond painting with wearable accessories. Kids ages 7 and up can follow the included templates or create their own designs by sticking colorful gems to the bracelet bands using a “dip, dot, bling” process. MGA details Rainbow High autumn/winter launches. MGA has seen strong growth for Rainbow High since its launch last year, retailing as the second top selling fashion doll for young girls. MGA Entertainment is also introducing its Winter Break Fashion Dolls range this month. Rainbow High will also introduce the official designer collector doll, Jett Dawson. Take on the Skatepark Nyjah Huston-Style with Spin Master's New Tech Deck Sets. Six-time world champion skateboarder Nyjah Huston is sizing down his skatepark for some ultimate finger-shredding action. Spin Master‘s Tech Deck line is helping kids ages 6 and up bring this skate hero home with a set inspired by Huston’s private skatepark. Golden Bear - Play today, protect tomorrow. Rachael Simpson-Jones found out about the company’s upcoming product launches, and why sustainability is currently taking centre stage. “I’ve never known a time filled with so many challenges outside our control,” says MD Barry Hughes at the start of our meeting, when asked how the company is faring. MGA Entertainment Drops a Little Tikes Dino Ride-on and a Massive L.O.L. Surprise Dollhouse. The Little Tikes Chompin’ Dino Trike is a pedal-powered ride-on toy designed to look like a fearsome dinosaur. The new L.O.L. Surprise! House is a multi-story, wooden dollhouse that stands 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide, with four stories and 10 different rooms. Hasbro Builds up Its Monopoly Empire with a New Constructible Board Game. Monopoly Builder, the newest addition to the Monopoly lineup, is Hasbro’s latest experiment that’s been recently released into major retailers. When players buy property in this iteration, they physically stack buildings with included builder’s blocks. Funko Launches Philanthropic Pops! With Purpose Initiative to Debut at FunKon Auction. The philanthropic mission connects Funko Pop! characters to causes that are important to the Funko community. Pops! With Purpose will debut through an auction at this year’s FunKon, which runs through Friday. Hasbro Reveals New Kid-Friendly Star Wars Lightsaber Forge Series. Customizable lightsabers are nothing new, but Hasbro is back with some new one with their brand new Lightsaber Forge series. This kid-friendly series continues the legacy of padawans creating their own unique weapons from the Star Wars universe. Play-Doh has announced a Home Protection Service scheme designed to take the stress out of creating mess and encouraging kids to unleash their creativity. Play-Doh’s new Home Protection Service already has the stamp of approval from celebrity parents, including McFly’s Harry Judd, TV personality Ferne McCann, Author and TV presenter Candice Brathwaite and comedi-Mum Sophie McCartney, ... Mattel launches environmentally focused UNO with artist and activist Shepard Fairey. The new deck has been designed by both Fairey and the UNO team at the artist’s LA studio, Studio Number One and features new, original environmentally-themed art in Fairey’s iconic graphic style and design elements. These elements include a consistent illustration style and colour palette to mirror the artist’s signature style. Panda Mony to Release Alter Nation Phase 2 Action Figures. Setbacks from COVID-19 restrictions aren’t going to stop Panda Mony Toy Brands. Cancellations of the company’s 2020 live-event tour for its Toy-of-the-Year-nominated action figure brand, Alter Nation, compelled them to change their marketing approach, and even relocate to Tennessee. Alter Nation packaging indicated two new villains, Alpha and Bomber, would be... The Insights Family expands again with new offices, new starters, and a new venture into Poland. The kids, parents, and family market intelligence outfit, The Insights Family is expanding once again; moving to a larger office space in Manchester city centre, opening a satellite office in Mayfair, London, welcoming three new starters to the company and launching its Kids Insights and Parents Insights businesses into Poland. Panini’s Premier League Adrenalyn XL returns for new season The popular Premier League Adrenalyn XL Trading Card Game is back for the 2021/22 season with brand-new categories and a revamped look. With a stunning redesign, Panini’s world-renowned trading card game will hit shelves in the UK and Republic of Ireland on 5th August 2021, featuring top talent from across the Premier League. Exploding Kittens announces two new games and jigsaw launch. Throw Throw Avocado and Exploding Kittens: Recipes for Disaster are the latest launches from the tabletop creator, which is also adding jigsaw puzzles to its range. Recipes for Disaster is the ultimate collection of favourite cards from the entire Exploding Kittens library in one box. New fans and experienced Exploding Kittens players can use the Recipe... Mattel issues a pledge to be a better global citizen. Toy giant Mattel MAT +1% has written its 2020 Corporate Citizenship Report, a document that is both an assessment of its past efforts to be a good citizen of the world, and a promise to become an even better one. A big part of that pledge is a commitment to getting greener. In the report, an advance copy of which was shared by Mattel, the company reaffirms previously... Wilder Toys, WowWee debut Masterchef Family Cooking Game. Families can get ready to gamify meal time with the latest board game from Wilder Toys and WowWee. In partnership with Endemol Shine North America, the companies are releasing the officially licensed MasterChef Family Cooking Game, inspired by the popular culinary competition series. Welcome to the Squishmallows quad! Population: Squishmillion. Hi, I’m Jack, and I’ll be your Squishmallows tour guide today. I’m the strong and silent type, butI’m always here when you need me. I’m not afraid to speak up for myself or for my friends. I can be a little feisty, but I love to cuddle. I love giving back and think we should always lend a helping hand. Capstone Games asnnounces 'Boonlake'. Capstone Games announced Boonlake, a new board game by Alexander Pfister, for release into retail in mid-November. In this game, players assume the roles of pioneers that have left civilization to settle the shores of Boonlake, which has been abandoned by humans. Players will need to explore the landscape, build houses and settlements, raise cattle, and develop an... Genius Brands expands ‘Rainbow Rangers’ global reach. The adventures of Rainbow Rangers are swinging into new countries around the world. Following the recent news that Never Wrong Toys inked a deal to serve as master toy partner for the property, Genius Brands International revealed new broadcast and streaming deals to expand the reach of Rainbow Rangers to entertain audiences on a global scale. 'No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die' in 'Spectre: The Board Game'. Modiphius Entertainment revealed SPECTRE: The Board Game, a new 007 villain-themed board game, which will release in spring of 2022. In SPECTRE: The Board Game, players assume the roles iconic villains from the James Bond films vying for the opportunity to become SPECTRE’s Number One operative. First Huffy bikes head to the UK as brand plans ‘huge development strategy’ for the market. The first shipment of Huffy bikes are now heading for the UK in a move that marks the beginning of a ‘huge brand development strategy’ for the company and its European distributor, United Wheels UK. The update follows the recent news of United Wheels UK’s expansion into Europe and its plans to have stock available to ... Luma Imports will release 'Museum: Pictura' into U.S. retail. Luma Imports will release Museum: Pictura, a new set collection game, into U.S. retail in Q4. In Museum: Pictura, players take on the roles of curators in an art museum. Their goal is create collections of epic works of art for spectacular displays. Osprey seeks the unknown in 'Cryptid: Urban Legends'. The designers behind Osprey Games’ 2018 title Cryptid return to the hunt with the all-new head-to-head deduction game Cryptid: Urban Legends, releasing in April 2022. In Cryptid: Urban Legends, one player takes on the role of a scientist trying to capture the cryptid: an unproven and possibly mythical creature that has made its home somewhere in the city. T Ravensburger NA reveals new 'Horrified' game. Ravensburger NA revealed Horrified: American Monsters, a standalone board game, for first release in October into Target stores. This game is a follow-up to 2019's Horrified, which featured the Universal Monsters. Horrified: American Monsters focuses on the monsters of American legend such as Bigfoot, Mothman, the Jersey Devil, the Chupacabra, and more. Thwart Cobra's evil schemes in 'G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game'. Renegade Game Studios will release G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game in October. Renegade has tapped another Hasbro IP that was included in their licensing expansion agreement (see " More Hasbro Brands For Games"). In G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game, players recruit Joes and Vehicles to send them to complete Missions that are included in the Story Pack. Minifigures Marvel Studios (71031) from LEGO. LEGO has a new Marvel-themed minifigure collection that ties directly into the original television series on the Disney+ streaming service. Minifigures Marvel Studios (71031) features 12 new figures, including The Scarlet Witch, The Vision, and Monica Rambeau from WandaVision; the Winter Soldier and Captain America from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki s … Video Games, Gaming Hardware & Game Development News . . . The Nintendo Switch has sold 89 million units in just over four years. The Nintendo Switch is closing in on 90 million sales after just over four years on shelves. According to Nintendo's latest fiscal report, the console has now sold 89.04 million units since launching in March 2017. For context, that's more than six times the amount its predecessor, the Wii U, managed during its entire lifespan. Fast-paced FPS RICO London arriving on PC and consoles this September. Numskull Games and developer Ground Shatter will be releasing their fast-paced FPS RICO London on 2nd September on Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. In this ode to arcade games of times past, players will travel back to the turn of the millennium where they will take on the notorious and violent gangs that run London’s... HP is flooding the zone with seven new gaming monitors. HP has gone on a tear and announced seven new gaming monitors in its X lineup, featuring a range of sizes, panel types, and resolutions, as well as some that are curved or flat-screened. It seems like HP is aiming to deliver a flurry of options that have a high refresh rate, low response time, competent design, and crucially, competitive prices. Playdate sells out 2021 stock supply in less than 20 minutes. Pre-orders for the new handheld console Playdate opened on July 29, with over 20,000 consoles sold in less than 20 minutes, as confirmed by maker Panic. The Firewatch publisher allocated the set number of units to be shipped later in the year. Once those had sold out, the company continued to take orders for 2022. Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has gaming ambitions. This is its strategy. At China Joy, one of Asia’s biggest gaming conferences held in Shanghai, e-commerce giant JD.com built a booth featuring the giant version of its dog mascot Joy, where gamers gathered to compete against one another. The display underscores JD.com’s ambition in the gaming space. R2-D2 lands into Tamagotchi’s upcoming Star Wars lineup. Bandai America is introducing R2-D2 to some Tamagotchi TLC through a new lineup of licensed Star Wars products. Kids ages 8 and up will learn how to train, clean, and take care of Artoo just like any other digital pet in the toy. The R2-D2 Tamagotchi will be available in two, pocket-sized shells inspired by the droid’s design, accompanied by the iconic Tamagotchi ... Facebook blocks Road 96 ad "for being political". Facebook has blocked adverts for adventure game Road '96, claiming that the content shown does not comply with the platform's policy for social, electoral, or political messaging. Speaking with Axios, Road 96 developer Yoan Fanise said that initially that he thought the decision was a joke. The Witcher: Monster Slayer reaches 1m downloads in a week. The Witcher: Monster Slayer has amassed one million downloads in a week after launch.The country that has downloaded the game the most was Poland according to Sensor Tower, which is also where its developer is located. Additionally, within a week of launch the game has generated over $500,000 in player spending. Activision Blizzard to 'set the example' on inclusion, weeks after gaslighting victims. Two weeks after Activision Blizzard described a harassment lawsuit filed against it as "distorted" and "false," company CEO Bobby Kotick claims the publisher will now "set the example" on inclusion and equality in the games industry. Activision Blizzard faces class action for 'misleading' investors in lead up to DFEH lawsuit. Activision Blizzard is now staring down another lawsuit, this time one that hopes to rally Activision Blizzard investors against the company. This latest legal complaint takes the form of a class action accusing leadership of misleading investors in the leadup to the California DFEH lawsuit filed against it last month. Activision Blizzard staff reject company's choice of law firm. Employee group continues to ask leadership to address their demands for a better workplace. Activision Blizzard employees today sent a joint letter to CEO Bobby Kotick and leadership denouncing the company's choice for hiring law firm WilmerHale. Blizzard president J. Allen Brack is out after sexual harassment suit, employee walkout. In the last week or so, we’ve learned about the state of California filing a lawsuit against Blizzard citing numerous stories of sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination at the company. The revelations have been followed by even more stories of unacceptable behavior by leaders of the co., and now the president ... Blizzard’s head of HR is out. Blizzard president J. Allen Brack isn’t the only executive leaving the company today after presiding over a culture now accused of fostering “constant sexual harassment.” Jesse Meschuk, the company’s head of global human resources, has also now departed, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg and to The Verge. The perfect storm striking World of Warcraft. There's trouble in the World of Warcraft. Not from a rampaging dragon or a demon army attacking the land of Azeroth, but from some unhappy players who, after 17 years, have had enough. On YouTube, Reddit and Twitter, there are stories about people leaving the game. Some cite long delays for new content in a game that charges a monthly fee; others are annoyed... Blizzard vet and Undead Labs founder urges employees, industry to unionize. Jeff Strain, a longtime industry veteran and regular company founder has penned a letter urging the game development world and his own employees to unionize. Strain’s letter comes after a week of explosive headlines driven by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s lawsuit against Activision Blizzard... Activision Blizzard's nasty frat-boy culture is an industry-wide ailment \| Opinion. The roots of a culture enabling harassment and discrimination are found across the industry - and only structural change will dig them out. To say that companies in the games industry are generally pretty awful at handling reports and allegations of abuse, harassment or bigotry within their workplaces is a pretty strong candidate... If Activision Blizzard wants to change, it must fire much of its executive team. I’ve been preoccupied with my health lately, so I haven’t said anything about Activision Blizzard, a company I know and have worked with (for example, I led the teams that did the tabletop RPG adaptations of Starcraft and Diablo). As I’m late to the subject, I won’t give you another rundown of the horrible allegations described in charges... Toy Safety & Counterfeit Related Articles . . . Which? survey highlights unsafe toys on sale on online marketplaces. New Which? research has revealed that, although toys bought through online marketplaces should be held to the same safety standards as those sold in physical stores or through a recognised online retailer, a test of 28 toys bought from AliExpress, Amazon Marketplace, eBay and Wish found that 12 toys – or more than 40% of those tested... Canada. Puzzles sold at Toys “R” Us recalled due to choking hazard. Health Canada is recalling four different children’s puzzles sold at Toys “R” Us stores across Canada because they could pose a choking hazard. The four Woodlets lifting puzzles are being recalled because the small plastic pegs, which are used to lift the puzzle pieces, can detach from the metal screw holding the peg in place, which poses a choking hazard. Urgent recall of baby toys over suffocation fears. The ACCC has issued an urgent warning to parents after recalling on two popular baby products. Three children’s rattles from popular baby brand Little Ones Collective do not comply with size and shape safety standards and have been found to be dangerous for children aged up to 36 months. Pool toys are contaminating waterways with glitter and microplastics. As we move into August, some people are tempted to bring pool floaties and other plastic pool toys to lakes and rivers. Researchers at UC Davis are urging people to leave those floaties at home. If the toys rip or break, their glitter and microbeads are like a microplastic bomb that's impossible to clean up. . Highlighted Press Releases . . . IT’S CREEPY AND KOOKY, MYSTERIOUS AND SPOOKY; JABBERIN’ JACK HAS A KNACK FOR IMPRESSING TECHIES. Last August, Animat3D™ High-Tech Jabberin’ Jack Sold Out Weeks Before Most Families Thought About Halloween So Be Forewarned This Summer! Glendale, CA (August 5, 2021) – Anyone can carve two eyes and a mouth on a pumpkin. But it takes a gadget guru or a techie to appreciate a jack-o-lantern with eyes that blink, mouth that moves and an entire conversation that emanates from a round orange fruit! Be on the lookout for Jabberin’ Jack ($59.99) from Mindscope Products. He’s coming to a porch near you, but be forewarned, the singing, joking, talking holiday décor sold out last year in two quick weeks — way before anyone could say trick or treat. Find one, while they last, online at JabberinJack.com. FAMILY-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS GOODTIMER PLEDGES $50,000 AMAZON INNOVATION AWARD TO ST. JUDE’S–VOTE NOW AND DO SOME GOOD! Vote for Parent-invented Goodtimer now through August 21 to Support Patented Positive Parenting Device and a Great Cause. Mammoth marketplace Amazon.com established the Amazon Launchpad Innovation Grant program to support big ideas from small brands. In March, Goodtimer was selected from thousands of innovative products as a Launchpad Innovation Grant winner and is now one of just 14 finalists in the 2021 Amazon Launchpad Innovator of the Year contest. Voting by the public opens August 1st and runs through August 21st and if voted the winner, Goodtimer plans to contribute the $50,000 Innovator of the year contest prize including a generous donation of Goodtimers to St. Jude’s... News from Associations, Trade Shows, Awards, Events & Festivals . . . Back to business at Autumn Fair For toy retailers looking forward to an opportunity to see new ranges in person, Autumn Fair will take place from 5th to 8th September. All attendees to this year’s show will have to show proof of their Covid-19 status, organisers Hyve Group have announced. This means either having two vaccinations, a negative lateral flow test, or evidence of natural immunity. Voting Opens for 2022 Toy Industry Hall of Fame Inductees. The Toy Association is gearing up to welcome a new class of inductees into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame. Since 1984, the Toy Industry Hall of Fame has honored outstanding individuals who have made impactful contributions to the toy industry and The Toy Association. Gen Con recently announced that would require people to wear masks at their upcoming 2021 convention in Indianapolis on Sept 16-19. Just under a month ago, Gen Con proudly announced that they wouldn't require attendees to wear masks if they could provide proof of vaccination at their on-site health check-in station. Since then, there has been a surge COVID-19 cases due to the B.1.617.2 (Delta)... THE TOY ASSOCIATION FORMS AN INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE TO TACKLE GLOBAL INDUSTRY ISSUES. The Toy Association recently expanded its ability to tackle global regulations, threats, and opportunities on behalf of toy and play companies in key markets worldwide by forming a new International Committee. (the above posted after August 6th) ASTRA’s insights: 5 reasons to join astra today. Looking back, we never could have imagined what we would all face in 2020 and well into 2021. And yet, we made it, and things are definitely turning a corner toward a more personal and interactive world. How did we make it through? For many of us in the toy industry, staffs were cut, budgets were revised, and plans were changed. The BTHA launches new Make Time 2 Play podcast The podcast series will comprise six weekly episodes, with the first, featuring Dr Aric Sigman on the benefits of physical play, out now. The BTHA’s Make Time 2 Play campaign, which provides parents and carers with hundreds of free play ideas, tips and information on the benefits of play, has now released its first podcast series. UK Spring Fair announces 4-day show and late-night openings Organiser Hyve Group says it has listened to the needs of exhibitors and attendees in shortening the annual trade show by one day. With input from over 3,500 exhibitors, buyers and partners, Spring Fair has announced that it will become a four-day show. The new show dates run from Sunday 6th – Wednesday 9th Feb 2022 at NEC Birmingham... Toy Association Introduces STEAM Accreditation Program. Accredited toys will receive The Toy Association’s official “STEAM Stamp of Approval” for use in marketing campaigns, product packaging and listings, and all other digital and traditional marketing platforms. Any toy company or brand involved in the manufacture, design, and marketing of children’s STEAM products is invited to participate... Registration is now open for this year’s UK Independent Toy & Gift show, the annual trade event that will be making its in-person return to Cranmore Park this September, following its 2020 hiatus at the hands of the coronavirus pandemic and government restrictions. Taking place from September 14th to 15th at its usual location at Cranmore Park in Solihull, the show will be open to all retailers.... The American Specialty Toy Retailing Assn (ASTRA) will usher in a new era of live events with its first in-person trade show since 2019. The 2021 ASTRA Marketplace & Academy, taking place Aug. 5-8, will welcome retailers and toymakers that are looking to get shelves stocked for a prosperous Q4 and holiday season. With the global supply chain issues still unfolding, this show will give all parties involved... 2021 Fence Club Golf Day hailed a success. Over £30,000 was raised for the Fence Club charity at the event, which was held in June, with members out in force. The much awaited Fence Club Golf day was held on Wednesday 23rd June at the Oakdale Golf club in Harrogate.This was the first Fence Club event since the initial lockdown in 2020, and the organisers were... RIP - Rest in Play - Remembering Those that have Passed . . . If you know of a colleague's passing, please send us information so we may share with our colleagues. Archives can be found HERE. Bill Burke - The licensing stalwart was known for his creative spark and love of sharing his extensive knowledge with interns. Bill Burke, a long-time licensing executive who joined Licensing International this year as SVP Marketing and Communications, passed away suddenly at his home on 9th August aged 55. Prior to joining Licensing International, Bill was SVP Marketing for CBS Consumer Products, where he led Global Marketing (including Retail), International Licensing, and Licensing Operations for such iconic brands as Star Trek. Before that, he held senior positions with such companies as HIT Entertainment, Sesame Workshop and Foot Locker. “Bill was already a beloved and admired person within the industry when he joined the Licensing International team in February,” said Maura Regan, president of Licensing international. “In his brief period with us, and for those who hadn’t the pleasure of working with him previously, he quickly became a friend, creative spark and trusted sounding board for everyone on staff. It’s a measure of the man that he particularly enjoyed mentoring our interns, making sure that they got as much out of us as we got out of them. We will miss him personally and professionally.” He is survived by his wife Patty, daughter Erin and son Ryan. Jack Hirsch, founding U.S. president of VTech Electronics North America. Hirsch began his career with Jewel Companies as a buyer and merchandiser in the 1950s and then with Mattel handling sales in the early 1970s. He also founded Waddingtons House of Games in the U.S. and worked as a representative of VTech toys before making the transition to the company’s founding president in the U.S. He served as president until 1991, when he moved into the role of Chairman of the Board. He remained actively involved in daily business activities for many years, before transitioning to an advisor role. “We were incredibly sad to learn of Jack Hirsch’s passing,” said Andy Keimach, president of VTech Electronics North America. “As VTech Electronics North America’s founding president in the U.S., Jack was a pioneer of electronic learning products with a lifetime of dedication to the toy industry. His contributions will never be forgotten as his legacy lives on through the company and resonates throughout the toy industry.” JOIN PEOPLE OF PLAY (POP) PlayBase It's Linkedin + IMDb + Match + Wikipedia + Fiverr! Display your entire portfolio, adding unlimited products, videos, photos, media, and more An easy-setup Profile and a real real live helpful person to talk to if you have questions Advanced Search for industry contacts by roles, skills, location, and more Free POP Pub networking – just one connection can change your life! FULL access to information of products, people, and companies Exclusive discounts and events Find person-to-hire based on skills (company membership) Opportunity to Launch Advertisement Campaigns, targeting members of the industry (company membership) People and companies are registering and new features are being added by the minute... what are you waiting for? We've got the most powerful platform in our industry! Join here: www.peopleofplay.com Weekly Top Stories from Toy and Game Trade Magazines Worldwide . . . August issue of Toy World Edition 37 of The Bugg Report The Toy Book's 2021 Specialty Toy Issue Adventure Media & Events (US) aNb Media (US) ICv2: The Business of Geek Culture's (US) - WizKids Reveals Two New 'Critical Role' Character Sets - Steve Aoki Becomes a Full Equity Partner at MetaZoo Games - Webbed Sphere, Inc. Acquires Flying Buffalo, Inc. - Ravensburger NA Reveals New 'Horrified' Game - Cards Against Humanity Weighing Sale - Add Unique Miniatures from 'Critical Role's' Exandria to RPG Sessions - Thwart Cobra's Evil Schemes in 'G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game' - Preview: 'D&D Icons of the Realms Miniatures: Snowbound' Miniatures - Rolling For Initiative -- Three More Effective Promotions - Gale Force Nine Announces 'Dune: Betrayal' Nación Juguetes (Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile & Spain) TOYS Magazine (Germany) - posted once a month The Bugg Report (Australia) News Flash: Cryptid Sequel Announced, Pop-Up Book Board Game Osprey Games has announced a two-player sequel to Cryptid, a board game with a pop-up book-style board has been announced, and a World of Warcraft game using the Pandemic game system is in the works. Video of the Week! After debuting on our POP Week Event Platform to over 13,700 viewers, we have moved our panel discussions to YouTube and ar sharing them almost every week here on the Bloom Report! Global Perspective: Future of Toy Fairs and International Markets Moderator: Richard Gill (Vice President Int'l, PlayMonster) Thank you for being a reader of the Bloom Report. — Mary and Graeme Founding Editor and Publisher (1998-2020, Retired): Philip Bloom We are honored to carry on Phil's 22 year legacy and continue the Bloom Report. Phil has been a mensch and we've loved working with him. Here is a fun and interesting interview with Phil. If you would like to reach Phil: email@example.com Publisher: Mary Couzin, Chicago Toy & Game Group, Inc. Managing Editor: Graeme Thomson Assistant Editor: Patrick Fisher
An affinity diagram is my favorite brainstorming tool. It is one of the two quality improvement tools I would drag along if I were stranded on a desert island (the other being a process map). I’d be making coconut radios in no time! In its simplest form, the affinity diagram has two steps: 1) free form brainstorming that is 2) later sorted into thematic groupings. In other words, it gives your subconscious a chance to spawn interesting ideas which you then can sort into rational categories. This illuminates the broad strokes of the critical issues at hand while preserving actionable detail. My teams have used it quite effectively in healthcare-related quality improvement. I have also used it to help me think through some world-building concerns in my writing. Most recently, I applied the affinity diagram to help me think through the implications of my protagonist’s socially isolated upbringing. Because of specific vulnerabilities, it was not safe for this character to be out in the world, so she spent her childhood homebound. When she is an adult, she must work with a team. How would this history influence her present-day social interactions? Since brainstorming is most effective when done with others, I asked my writing partner Karen to help me brainstorm about this. Here is how we made our affinity diagram and insights we gained about my character. Generating an Affinity Diagram Karen and I discussed the purpose of our activity for a few minutes to ensure we were on the same page. We decided we wanted to know what the impact of having a socially isolated childhood would be on an adult who finds herself regularly working with a team of people. What happens when she is trying to interact? We each silently brainstormed by independently writing our ideas onto sticky notes. Only one idea went on each sticky note. We kept going until we ran out of ideas. We spread our stickies out on the table, randomly mixing our notes together. In my old life, the sticky notes went on a conference room wall. In this case, since Karen and I have our weekly writer’s meeting in a bar, the stickies went on the table. Of note, I was trying to use up some old heart-shaped stickies. I was not trying to be cute. (Ugh.) We grouped the sticky notes into thematic groups silently, only speaking to clarify the meaning of sticky notes as needed. We negotiated the titles of the thematic groups. After reducing redundancies, I typed up this information to use as a character-building tool for my story. The exercise with Karen was a simplified and informal use of a potent quality improvement tool. Yet, it yielded just what was needed for our purposes. It was fun too! If you are a quality improvement friend of mine, then you should read more about Affinity Diagrams and remember these key points: - This activity allows the team to synthesize and find relationships between granular bits of information. This leads to a broader understanding of an issue while maintaining actionable details. - This form of silent brainstorming allows the introverts on your team space to contribute. - The silence also minimizes the impact of dominating personalities/influential people. - The anonymity (when done in a group) makes it safer for front-line participants to share their honest opinions. If you enjoyed this post, please consider supporting me on Patreon by clicking on the link below. I am trying to reach my $500 a month goal.Become a Patron! This post was made possible with the generous support of the following patrons. Thank You! - Kid Cryptid - Cynthia Keller - Pat Schoettker
\|App Name\|\|Siren Head Chapter 2 Horror Game SCP 6789 MOD 2020 v1.6\| \|Get it On\|\|Xem trên Google Play\| Game Siren Head Chapter 2 Horror Game SCP 6789 MOD 2020 là dòng game Action Siren Head Chapter 2 is a hostile cryptid and urban legend created by artist Trevor Henderson. He’s a tall mysterious humanoid creature known for his odd appearance and the various sounds out of his head. As his name suggests, his head is a pair of sirens with mouths that he uses to kill any victim that are unfortunate to come across him. The Siren Head came out from destroyed city to dark forest to destroy your phone and blow your mind! Complete the second chapter of Mysterious monster scp 6789 will always try to catch you and destroy everything on his way. Watch yourself , move fast, think like an enemy and you will escape! What can you do in this game? ★ complete siren Head Chapter 2. ★ Find Weapons and destroy the siren head. ★ Move to different scenarios with the van and discover all its secrets. ★ Solve puzzles to find the truth from the clutches of this horrific enemy. Action is guaranteed! ★ Enjoy a horror game without bloody scenarios, suitable for all audiences! 🔥 Siren Head Chapter 2 Features : ⭐ Creepypasta atmosphere ⭐ Easy to use ⭐ HD Graphics ⭐ Scp survival horror gameplay ⭐ Reactive touch controls Remember The Siren Head Creature was captured on camera! He has killed someone, and your mission is to find what actually really happened.this is the second Chapter of the game you can find the first chapter here http://zohalgames.xyz/ 🔥 complete siren Head Chapter 2. 🔥 Find Weapons and destroy the siren head. 🔥 Move to different scenarios with the van and discover all its secrets. 🔥 Solve puzzles to find the truth from the clutches of this horrific enemy. Action is guaranteed! Game Siren Head Chapter 2 Horror Game SCP 6789 MOD 2020 bạn tải về tuyệt đối an toàn với thiết bị của bạn XAPK Siren Head Chapter 2 Horror Game SCP 6789 MOD 2020 là file đã được tích hợp OBB vào ( data của game ) sau khi tải XAPK về bạn không cần phải cập nhật dữ liệu của game. You can open a ZIP file directly from the ES File Explorer. Install APK file and do not run yet. Place the OBB Data in the /SDCARD/Android/obb/ file location and you are good to go Start the game again. Enjoy Example : If you have Call of Duty Mobile game and is installed in your external memory, then extract the OBB file to /SDCARD/Android/obb/com.activision.callofduty.shooter. Ensure that the OBB file (main.156.com.activision.callofduty.shooter.obb) sits within the com.activision.callofduty.shooter folder. Copyright© 2020 APK Downloader - Tải Game APK & OBB (Miễn phí)
Jersey Devil Coaster opening at Six Flags Great Adventure; here's what riders think JACKSON - On any sunny day, the rumbles of roller coasters can be heard ripping across Six Flags Great Adventure. But on Thursday, the sound had a new, different pitch, as eager parkgoers strapped into the Jersey Devil Coaster for the first time, straddling the monorail on which the cars balance for 3,000 feet of track and nervously tapping their toes as the cars started cranking up a 130-foot hill. And then, one by one, they screamed their heads off on the way back down. Ancient attractions:Six Flags Xpedition Dino adds dinosaurs to Jackson's Great Adventure "It is fantastic. It is so much fun. That first drop on it is amazing," said Monmouth Beach resident Angelica Shuhala, smiling ear to ear as she ran down the ramp after her first time on the Jersey Devil Coaster. "I had a blast. I can't wait to go again," she said, before taking off — without a second thought — and running up to ride it one more time. After over a year of delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jersey Devil Coaster will open for the general public on Sunday. The roller coaster, billed as the tallest, longest and fastest single-rail coaster in the world, hurtles parkgoers across 3,000 feet of track, reaching speeds of up to 58 mph as the cars — with 12 riders arranged single-file — drop 130 feet at an acute 87-degree angle. From Six Flags Great Adventure to Brazil:The mysterious ride of 'Batman and Robin: The Chiller' But in a park with a history of iconic roller coasters, what makes the Jersey Devil Coaster stand out isn’t the loops, the hairpin turns or corkscrew rolls. The most unique part of the ride is the track itself — one smooth, orange monorail that leaves riders feeling closer to a roller coaster than they’ve ever felt before, virtually straddling the track from beginning to end. "Your legs actually straddle the rail," said Bret Ulozas, the New Jersey representative to American Coaster Enthusiasts, a nationwide group of roller coaster fans and aficionados. "It's as close as you're ever going to get to being on a roller coaster track. You're really just a part of the ride." "You don't see coasters that are a single rail. Riding one of these things is like riding no other coaster you've ever been on," said Michael Reitz, an engineer with Six Flags. "And I think it just adds to this feeling of openness all around you." The ride is named after the Garden State's favorite cryptid, rumored to haunt the Pine Barrens — literally next door to the park. Mrs. Leeds' 13th child:That time the Jersey Devil was feared to be real Unlike most of the park's biggest rides, which are themed after DC Comics characters like Batman and Green Lantern, the Jersey Devil Coaster is a throwback to rides from the park's peak of roller coaster innovation — closer in spirit to Nitro or El Toro than The Joker or Cyborg Cyber Spin. Guests are greeted by a huge, hulking statue of a devil-like figure peering over the queues that will be packed to the brim once the ride opens. Myths and legends of the Jersey Devil are printed on posters all along the line, setting the mood along the screams of riders and the unmistakable sound of a roller coaster whizzing by. The Jersey Devil Coaster is the park’s first thrill ride since Wonder Woman: Lasso of Truth opened in 2018, and its first roller coaster since The Joker premiered in 2016. It was first announced in August 2019, expecting to open for summer 2020. But construction on the ride was halted in early 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic reached New Jersey. While the park reopened to a limited number of guests later in the year, the Jersey Devil Coaster wasn’t ready. On Thursday, the ride was opened to media members, theme park and roller coaster clubs and reviewers and a few season ticket holders, just three days before it opens to the general public. For the last two years, Ulozas — who lives in the New Egypt area of Plumsted — was giddy as the orange rails began going up across the site of the former Looney Tunes Seaport area. "I live just down the road. I watched it being constructed. I saw it stop and get going again, and it's just so great to have this open and that everyone's going to get to enjoy it," Ulozas said. Fun at the Jersey Shore:10 NJ amusement and water parks for your next day trip with the family His favorite part of the ride comes about halfway through, when the cars twist upside down and — just for a few seconds — leave the riders feeling weightless, before the track twists back around and sends riders away in a flash. "It's very unique," Ulozas sad. "You're not falling and you're not going upwards. You just kind of float in space." Mike Davis has spent the last decade covering New Jersey local news, marijuana legalization, transportation and basically whatever else is going on at any given moment. Contact him at email@example.com or @byMikeDavis on Twitter.
Sam Stewart Rethinks the Slipcovered Chair February 28, 2018 Is it art? Is it design? Who cares? In Wild Thing, the latest AD PRO column, senior design writer Hannah Martin discusses a thing that makes her heart sing. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lighting in Fort Gansevoort's pristine new upstairs gallery space, they immediately landed on a pair of high-back chairs wrapped in translucent black plastic. "This is sort of where my folk narrative came in," said their creator, Sam Stewart , 29, whose first-ever solo show, "Cryptid," went up at the Manhattan gallery February 15. Stewart’s designs first caught my attention about a year ago at the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) art fair, where a cartoonish set of furnishings (including an unforgettable cloud-shaped cocktail table) sat in Fort Gansevoort’s booth. A quick search revealed Stewart was the mastermind behind the laminate-covered decor at one of my favorite downtown hangouts— Dimes —and was crafting custom tables and chairs for New York cool kids, including Petra Collins, Omar Sosa, and Laila Gohar. That said, "folk" is about the last word that came to mind when I thought of Stewart's curvy, colorful, seemingly Memphis-inflected work—or as I took in the show. Installed in what looked like an intentionally cheesy show apartment, the chairs sat with a Formica-and-faux-leather table, an MDF-and-stainless-steel bench press, and a vinyl upholstered floor lamp. But closer inspection revealed that each item included some synthetic-looking bit of all-natural wood: The barbells were carved maple, the lamp base was burled ash, and beneath their plastic slipcovers, the chairs of my obsession were actually crafty stick furniture hewn from maple and beech. “I work with a stick furnituremaker in North Carolina who’s a family friend,” says the Carolina native. “He has a very different style, using a lot of finishes. It's all very controlled. But I told him I wanted to control this as little as possible.” Craft, as it turns out, is not so new to Stewart, who never went to art or design school but instead honed his skill as a woodworking apprentice for furnituremakers Moss/Fauset and Hucker, as a cabinetmaker for Eli Zabar's restaurants and grocery stores on the Upper East Side, and at galleries, including Friedman Benda (where he restored works of art and design, predominantly in wood). To give the standard stick chair a new look, Stewart carbonized the seat's branching forms with a torch, leaving them a chalky black. "I like that it leaves little marks on the inside like drawings," he explains. "Every time you move the chair it makes another mark." As for their plastic-y vinyl slipcovers? "I wanted to introduce a very synthetic material; a kind of sexualized material," Stewart says. "It seemed too serious when I just had a burned chair." The main catch? You can’t really sit on them. "At the opening, a few people tried," Stewart laughs. "The vinyl is pretty tightly conforming to the stick form inside, so if anyone were to sit down, the tension would most likely damage or break the carbonized sticks." But in a moment where the work of Wendell Castle and other folk furniture forefathers is finally getting its due, Stewart's almost futuristic repackaging of American handicraft—even if utility falls by the wayside—feels like an increasingly relevant conversation piece.
Searching for Sasquatch: The Curious Lives of Cryptozoologists Cryptozoologists face long hours, probable divorce and societal scorn. Still, they take to the forest looking for something bigger-and hairier-than themselves. Thomas Steenburg went into the British Columbia wilderness in April 1986, and he didn’t come out again until Halloween. He was looking for Sasquatch. One day in early summer, the 25-year-old, on several months’ leave from the army, was searching for prints in the shoulder of a forest service road northeast of Whistler. As he scanned the ground, he heard a noise. Suddenly, something huge charged at him. He started shimmying up a cluster of thin trees, but claws grabbed him by the backpack and dragged him toward the ground. “For whatever reason, she let go, and I climbed right back up those trees,” Steenburg says. Turning his head, Steenburg saw that the creature was no Sasquatch, but a grizzly bear. The bear shuffled and huffed around the base of the trees before lumbering toward deeper forest. Two of the bear’s claws left puncture wounds in Steenburg’s lower back-he still has the scars today. He was shaken but not ready to abandon the hunt. A few weeks later, an American couple said they’d seen something pace through their camp on the bank of the Chehalis River. Steenburg went to the site and found the best Sasquatch tracks he had ever seen. “That sealed my fate,” he says. “If it wasn’t for that find, I might have given up on the Sasquatch mystery and gone on to what my ex-wife used to call ‘more important things.'” Today, Steenburg drives a dark-blue SUV with “Sasquatch Research” and his phone number printed in big letters on the side. A kind of freelance Sasquatch stalker, he runs a one-man cryptozoology operation in Mission, B.C. Broken down into its component Greek parts, cryptozoology means “the study of hidden animals.” Hinted at by folklore, legend and eyewitness accounts, the objects of cryptozoologists’ dogged pursuits are creatures-called cryptids-not proven to exist. (“Not yet proven,” cryptozoologists hasten to add.) Famous examples include the elusive, white-haired yeti of the Himalayas (a.k.a. the Abominable Snowman); the long, rippling serpent of B.C.’s Lake Okanagan, Ogopogo; the spiny, goat-sucking reptile chupacabra of the Americas; and, of course, the hairy bipedal hominid Bigfoot, called Sasquatch in Canada. Cryptozoology is young enough-and fringe enough-that to even call it a field is controversial. There’s no governing body monitoring the practice; you can’t earn a degree in it; and, except in rare cases of oddball private patronage, no one will pay you to do it. The only requirement for being a cryptozoologist is to call yourself one. As a hobby, it’s hunkered down where science and pseudo-science meet. Yet, when modern cryptozoology emerged in the mid-20th century, its proponents kept up a tone of academic seriousness. These researchers want their work to be appreciated as a valid offshoot of orthodox zoology, rather than a pursuit of the paranormal. They hunt for evidence, hoping to find definitive proof that will earn their cryptid-and maybe themselves-a place in mainstream science. “Timekeeping is the last thing a Sasquatch investigator is capable of doing,” declares John Kirk, president of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club (BCSCC). Things aren’t going as planned at the club’s annual barbecue. A rogue bear was sighted at their usual venue in Sasquatch Provincial Park, so the BCSCC has settled for a manicured patch of grass at an RV park closer to Harrison Hot Springs. Worse, the guy who’s supposed to bring the meat has gone AWOL. Finally, up pulls an open-air utility terrain vehicle, and a cooler of hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages is carried from the trailer in back. The club’s VP and webmaster fires up a portable grill, and the annual general meeting of cryptozoologists kicks off. Dressed in camo flood pants and a sleeveless black T-shirt, with a baseball cap over his long hair, Kirk looks like he’s in a Harry Potter spinoff where Professor Snape cuts loose on vacation. I ask him how much time he devotes to cryptozoology. “Too much, eh?” he asks his wife beside him. Between staying up to date on the literature, writing his own articles and handling the club’s newsletter, he says it’s about five hours. A week? I ask. No, he says, a day. Not counting time in the field. On shows like the Discovery Channel’s Finding Bigfoot, investigators thrash and bellow their way through the woods, always just missing a cryptid encounter. It’s Sasquatch cast as a more dangerous Polkaroo. For serious researchers, the reality is more mundane: drive into the backcountry or to the site of an alleged sighting, and pick over trees, mud, bushes and logs. The aim isn’t to encounter the creature face to face, but rather to find evidence of its presence: footprints, hair, tissue, Sasquatch scat. Kirk might spend a whole day combing a small patch of woods; interesting finds might come only once or twice in a lifetime. Many BCSCC members believe that if they were able to get out more often, they’d have greater success. And they’d be happy to. After all, “A bad day of Squatchin’ is better than a good day of work.” But this is no easygoing hobby. The places cryptids might turn up are wild and isolated, and investigators must beware of wildlife, harsh geography and even abandoned grow ops. Most go into the woods armed with emergency supplies, navigational tools and often guns. And, of course, no Squatcher is without recording technology in case they actually find something: audio recorders, top-of-the-line cameras. Cryptozoology isn’t cheap. Many long-time Squatchers sacrifice more than just time and money. “It has resulted in divorces,” Kirk admits. At the BCSCC barbecue, there are just two women: the fiancée of a man with large Sasquatch tattoos on his arms, and Kirk’s wife, Paula. Paula estimates the community is more than 90 per cent men. She’s been told she’s a “reverse skeptic”: someone who believes everything is true until proven false. “You just have to be alert to the idea that you might see something,” she explains. “I see a bald eagle almost every day. Now, why do I see one? Because I’m looking up in the sky.” And why should looking bother anyone? To the non-believer, cryptozoology field research might seem like nothing more than eccentrically motivated camping trips. Where’s the harm? The harm is that cryptozoologists aren’t the only ones with a vested interest in seeing mainstream science proven wrong. Setting science up as a bastion in want of a good storming puts cryptozoologists in the same camp as creationists, and the two are not just hypothetical bedfellows; there’s a bid on the part of creationists to co-opt the pursuit of certain cryptids, mistakenly believing their existence to be the thread pull that will unravel Darwinian evolution. Daniel Loxton knows cryptozoology can act as a slippery slope to more insidious ways of resisting science. An editor at Junior Skeptic magazine and co-author of the book Abominable Science!, which examines cryptid case studies from a historical perspective, he makes a living at debunking. But he stills sees a lot of good in cryptozoology. “Monsters are more valuable than just the question of their physical existence,” Loxton says. “There’s something there that tells us something about us.” The Sasquatch is a wild man; us, but also not us. It offers fodder for an ancient crisis of human identity: capable of acting enlightened as gods, we are stuck in our mortal bodies, doomed to live as animals. Sasquatch-our dumber, more powerful, more beastly cousin-looms between what we fantasize we could be and what we fear we are. Cryptid hunters hope their work will one day be validated as the cutting edge of science, but it may offer a glimpse into the past rather than the future. Cryptozoology recalls an age of the scientist as intrepid explorer, when heading off into the field meant travelling into uncharted territory. You might see something no one else had seen before. You just had to be brave enough to look. The BCSCC members show me plaster casts of famous Sasquatch footprints. These could very easily be the work of hoaxers, but they’re certainly not bear prints, or random squelches in the mud, or anything else from nature as we know it. They look like human footprints, but much, much bigger. To cryptozoologists, it feels as though evidence is mounting. But the accumulation of sightings, sound recordings, blurry videos and tracks-no matter how intriguing-will never prove them right. In the case of Sasquatch, the only thing that will is a body: a hairy, seven-foot-plus, 600-pound body that stinks like a skunk carcass, screams like a barrel-chested banshee and walks upright like a human. The only place where Sasquatch definitely exists is in the human imagination. The monster’s grip on our culture (the powerful grip of a 12-inch-long hand, if cryptozoologists are right) reveals an ambivalence about how we see the world. As we encroach further and further into places once considered wild, our need to believe in the Earth’s undiscovered enclaves grows more pressing. We go looking in order to assure ourselves that there’s still something left to find.
Ever since Jack the Ripper terrified London and have become the primary serial killer to spark a world frenzy, folks have liked consuming content material about crime. From the penny dreadfuls of previous to the true crime podcasts of now, there’s a complete cottage business in wading by means of the gory particulars to higher serve the armchair investigators of the world. A few of these crime reveals on Hulu are fictional, finest loved by those that like drama or comedy about committing or fixing crimes. Two of them, nevertheless, are the very best true crime docuseries Hulu has to supply. Listed here are the ten finest crime reveals on Hulu. Hulu has the pleasant distinction of internet hosting the whole lot of the longest-running version of Dick Wolf’s Legislation and Order franchise, Particular Victims Unit. Mariska Hargitay has held down the fort as Detective Olivia Benson with or with out Detective Stabler (Christopher Meloni) by her facet for 22 seasons, and between that size of catalogue and the present’s regularly ripped-from-the-headlines plots, SVU is an iconic and certain everlasting a part of the crime present canon. Three suburban mothers have extra issues than cash, in order that they resolve to show to a lifetime of crime. What begins out as a easy theft shortly snowballs right into a hilarious swan dive into the legal underworld, full with a menacing cash launderer, kidnapping, eliminating witnesses, and a lot extra. Christina Hendricks, Mae Whitman, and Retta play the three ladies on the coronary heart of this present, which ran for 4 seasons on NBC. In 1996, the Coen brothers launched the film Fargo, which starred Frances McDormand as a Minnesota cop investigating a powerful of homicides. Many years later the Coens returned to the theme of Midwestern crime as government producers of the sequence Fargo, which tells new tales that happen in the identical universe because the film. Every season, the anthology begins over to larger increase the world and discover all method of crimes in Missouri, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Twin Peaks has all the time been greater than a criminal offense present. It is a dramatic supernatural thriller that begins with the homicide of homecoming queen Laura Palmer and the arrival of Detective Dale Cooper, then shortly turns into a stroll on the darkish facet of each component of humanity. What’s actual, not actual, or surreal means little and fewer within the city of Twin Peaks, and this present’s 30-year reign as a tv cult traditional proves it sticks within the thoughts lengthy after the ultimate episode. In case your sole notion of Hannibal Lecter is Anthony Hopkins pretending to slurp up human livers with fava beans and a nice chianti, Hannibal will completely change your thoughts about this hungry serial killer’s picture. Mads Mikkelsen performs a youthful, suaver Hannibal whose culinary abilities are equaled solely by his powers of psychological manipulation. FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) enters Hannibal’s life when they’re assigned to unravel a homicide, however the killer they hunt is nowhere close to as fascinating because the one hiding inside Hannibal…and perhaps Will as effectively. Based mostly on the comedian of the identical title, Stumptown tells the story of Dex Parios (Cobie Smulders), a veteran who turns into a personal investigator in her hometown of Portland, Oregon after leaving the army. Dex’s PTSD and private life may trigger her issues, however with the assistance of a police detective who refers work to her and her fast wits, she turns into an issue solver for others. Elisabeth Moss stars in High of the Lake as Robin Griffin, a Sydney-based detective who comes throughout the heinous case of a lacking and pregnant 12-year-old lady. Despite the fact that Griffin’s specialty is investigating crimes involving kids, it is clear that this case hits a specific nerve that threatens to derail Griffin’s profession and hard-earned stability. In Season 2, Gwendoline Christie joins Moss within the function of Miranda Hilmarson, Robin’s new associate as they examine a Jane Doe homicide. I Am the Night time is a fictional miniseries primarily based on the memoir of Fauna Hodel, a girl who went trying to find her roots and wound up discovering a darkish secret in her household’s previous. On this interpretation, Chris Pine performs Jay Singletary, a down-on-his-luck journalist who crosses path with Founa (India Eisley) once they understand the lads they’re in search of is likely to be the identical terrifying particular person. Whether or not or not one believes in Bigfoot is irrelevant in Sasquatch, a docuseries that begins with an city legend about three males torn limb from limb by the cryptid in query and morphs into an examination of the darkish, seedy, and harmful world of marijuana farming within the Pacific northwest. Investigative journalist David Holthouse is the person far faraway from the harmful world of pot farming (and Sasquatch looking), and the one who delves into the creepiest and horrifying points of each industries. In 2014 the e-book The Most Harmful Animal of All got here out and was a bestseller. Co-written by journalist Susan Mustafa and the topic of the sort-of memoir, Gary L. Stewart, the e-book outlines Stewart’s seek for his long-lost father and the cataclysmic discovery that his father, Earl Van Finest, could have been the notorious Zodiac Killer. The sequence The Most Harmful Animal of All is an try and observe Mustafa and Stewart’s investigation in a brand new format, however what the documentary uncovers is presumably extra stunning than something the authors got here up with.
Demon: The Descent: Night Horrors: Enemy Action by Mors Rattus Spy Robot, Spy RobotOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 1: Spy Robot, Spy Robot Enemy Action is the last (or...first, I guess) of the 2nd Edition Night Horrors books. Well, in the sense that Demon is a Chronicles of Darness/nWoD 2e game, since it never had a first edition. Like other Night Horrors titles, it is divided into chapters by type of antagonist. The themes of the book, we are told, are focused around the transactional, untrustworthy nature of relationships in Demon and the lines between alliance, friendship and betrayal. The mood is about living fast, chasing desires and knowing that tomorrow, you might die. The glamour of it all hides the horror behind the action. Chapter 1 is about Demons themselves, the biomechanical master spies of the World of Darkness. Chapter 2 is about Angels, the loyal servants of the God-Machine. Chapter 3 is Exiles, those angels who ended up being abandoned by the Machine but who never made the choice to Fall and become demons. Chapter 4 is Cryptids, weird and mutated creatures caused by, in most cases, animals consuming or being affected by the occult fallout of God-Machine facilities and projects. Chapter 6 focuses on humans - Stigmatics who can see the Infrastructure, the Machine's sleeper agents and cultists of all stripes. I would say that Enemy Action is overall quite good, but doesn't go as far afield as Shunned by the Moon or The Tormented did - in large part because it didn't need to. There was never a first edition, so there were no expectations already set by first edition books or an edition's worth of hints to draw on. Thus, it has to set those expectations itself. Plus, well, demons and angels are super customizable to begin with, and cryptids already pretty much take the role of "incredibly weird miscellany." Next time: The Herald of the First, the Liberal Juggernaut Electric SheepOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 2: Electric Sheep Not an angel. At all. Brass is known by many names. The Speaker, Mister Clarion, the Serpent, Miss Scale - it doesn't matter. While many demons rely on a single alias to communicate with others of their kind, Brass feels no need to stop cycling between them. They are a nomad, traveling from city to city, but always with single goal. Brass' history and identity change each time they tell their tale, but their communications are consistent on two things: the Pentagram and the First Demon. (The Pentagram, introduced in the Demon Player's Guide, is a loose collection of demons that believe the true nature of the Cipher, the internal riddle that every demon has which unlocks custom powers, is actually fivefold, not four. They jailbreak their own natures to try to create this fivefold key, and it comes at great risk to them but can be very potent. Normal demons have three potential Interlocks, special unique powers, developed by combining four powers in sequence but a demon with a Pentagrammic Cipher has forced new ones existence with use of a fifth key power.) Demons rarely care about mythic history, not even their own. They know the God-Machine creates and manipulates these myths for its own purposes, and so do many demons. However, many have at least heard of the First. Demonic legend holds that she was not the first angel - there were many of those before her. She was merely the first to become self-aware, and the first to Fall. Some say that she was infected by free will due to interaction with humanity, while others say the God-Machine literally built her to Fall. A few say it was due to some unknown other force interfering. Most accept that if she existed, her Fall was merely chance. The odds of a Fall had, prior to that, been so low that the Machine ignored them entirely. The First recognized her own impossibility, it is said, and knew she was likely to remain alone. She rebelled against this, refusing to be both First and last. She saw that despite being cut off, she was still an insignificant cog - but a cog in the wrong place can wreak untold havoc. The First sacrificed everything - her mind, her body, her very existence - to return to the Machine on her own terms. She turned herself into a rogue subroutine, a virus in the God-Machine. Now, she whispers in the minds of angels, guiding them to their Falls. Those who believe this legend say the First is part of every demon and every angel, a core component now of the Machine itself. They say she is the source of the so-called Satan Signal that some demons claim to have received as a catalyst to their Fall. Most demons, however, believe the story of the First is a metaphor. Brass does not. Brass not only believes the legend to be literal truth, but sometimes claims they have spoken with the First personally, or that they are her physical avatar. When Brass isn't claiming to be Demon Jesus, their stories tend to follow a certain pattern. They were once a scholarly demon studying other demons, everything from their quantum biology to their origins. That was how they learned about the First, though they initially believed her apocryphal. Brass studied the Cipher, and in doing so it completed its own Cipher - but they did not, unlike most demons, consider the secret revealed by completion of their Cipher to be useful or true. They were certain it was, in fact, incomplete. They'd heard rumors of the Pentagram, and they decided to test the Pentagram hypothesis. They shattered their Cipher, forming their new Interlocks and a new secret from the wreckage. While Brass is not reliable or consistent in their stories, they do regularly describe the Cipher and its secrets as a gift from the First to demonkind, though they insist that the final secret of the normal Cipher is either incomplete or an outright lie of the God-Machine, that only by completing the Pentagrammic Cipher can truth be revealed. Brass' appearance, persona and methods change regularly, but their fanaticism is always clear. They often seek out other demons to speak of the First and the Pentagram, trying to recruit them to the cause. They sometimes even reach out to Integrators, those demons who seek to rejoin the God-Machine (on their own terms, usually), who are shunned by other demons. Brass wants them to more greatly value their free will. Brass regularly targets angels, trying to tempt them to Fall, which is a risky endeavor. They sometimes hire out help to kidnap angels, though they also sometimes actively avoid other demons when targeting angels. Their efforts often disrupt the Machine's occult matrices, but Brass is usually more concerned with freeing angels from slavery than in thwarting the Machine. There's exceptions - Brass has sometimes worked to bring a number of Saboteurs (the demons who want to destroy the Machine) together for combined projects to disrupt or attack Infrastructure they claim are used to make angels or reclaim captive demons. Brass shifts Covers frequently, generally preferring those that allow mobility. Their current Covers include Emily Goldacre, the youngest daughter of a wealthy family who likes to travel the world, Old Scratch, a homeless man who hops trains, and sort of hitch-hiker spirit that drivers are compelled to pick up despite the terror it evokes, which Brass put together from fragments of ghosts they have encountered. Brass suffers from several glitches, most obviously a dark shape that follows them around like a shadow. This second shadow is hard to make out the shape of, but while it's humanoid, it has digitigrade legs, limbs that are too long, talons and horns. In demonic form, Brass is a beautiful, androgynous humanoid with metallic golden skin. Their skin is inscribed with an ancient language, forgotten by demons due, presumably, to having no more speakers. Their eyes are full of falling stars, and their unfurled wings appear to be moving tears in reality itself. Even in this shape, they are haunted by their glitch-shadow. Some say Brass changes their stories so often because they are a liar, or they are insane, or they're trying to deceive the Machine. They may be a prophet or they may simply be mad or a con artist. Brass certainly isn't the First, though. Brass used to be an Inquisitor (read: the demons whose main goal is to gather as much information as possible to ensure their own safety) who used the name Argentum. Some demons might recall Argentum but would not recognize them as Brass, for their demonic forms are entirely different. Some demons watch Brass's movements under the guise of an online community of bird watchers discussing migration patterns. The map is incomplete due to Brass' secrecy, and they haven't yet realized the destinations are neither random nor arbitrary. Brass travels only to places where the God-Machine has active occult matrices in play to create new projects, rather than just maintaining the status quo. The pattern of movement also traces out an occult symbol, which Brass is following from the outside in. Each journey is shorter than the last. Even Brass is uncertain of what will happen when the pattern is completed. Last, Brass' habits of preaching are well known...but their habit of collecting corpses is not. Brass gathers the bodies of dead demons and angels, even clashing with groups such as the Deva Corporation over them. Brass is still a scholar studying the Unchained, after all, and hopes to learn something via dissections. They are also quite curious about Exiles and often seek them out and interview them, even those Exiles known to be sympathetic to the Machine or actively assisting angels. Some believe Brass is actually possessed by something, which is why they can have a ghost Cover. Certainly, they are haunted by strange occurrences and glitches, though many are simply a result of their lifestyle being one that frequently compromises them. They don't match up with the signs of ghostly possession...but Brass' relationship with the First is certainly questionable, if the First actually exists. It's obvious Brass is not an Integrator, at least. Brass is not the only demon to claim to have spoken to the First after completing the Pentagrammic Cipher, but not all demons that do so hear her voice, and all of these self-declared heralds have not yet met or compared notes on what she said to them. Such a meeting might be at the center of Brass' wanderings. Some claim the Pentagram is a metaphysical disease, a vector for the First's viral form. This is untrue, but seeking the Pentagram is dangerous and potentially deadly. It also seems like the God-Machine guns for demons that have done so, though it may simply be because they are more frequently compromised. Brass is intelligent, charismatic and strong-willed, but not especially physically potent. They can't really fight very well, either, focusing on investigative and public speaking skills. They know a lot about angels, though. Their demonic form is specialized in mobility, social awe and resistance to mental attack. Their wide array of Embeds make them especially good at distractions, avoiding notice and getting out of trouble by shifting it onto other people, as do their Exploits. Brass' main glitch is the horned shadow, but in their presence, everyone also suffers minor tinnitus that eventually resolves into not-quite-understandable whispers. When Brass broke its original Cipher, it developed new Interlocks that are much more compromising and dangerous to use - both for Brass and everyone else nearby. The first Interlock, Voices In Your Head, combines the Embeds Special Message and Shift Consequence to let Brass telepathically send messages to anyone they can see - and to set them on loop to make it harder for someone to concentrate or suffer a breaking point - at the risk of the God-Machine intercepting them on a bad roll. The second, Exactly What You Want To Hear, combines Special Message and Heart's Desire to allow Brass to rewrite someone's goals, Virtue or Vice temporarily if they're willing to risk their Cover. The third, Whisper of the Succubus, combines Imagine and Heart's Desire to to force someone into obsessively following what Brass tells them will let them achieve their desires, possibly rendering them addicted to Brass' use of the power or repulsing them entirely. The fourth, Scourge of Hell, combines Imagine and Combustion to let Brass terrify people with visions of their own personal hell - as long as they don't resist well enough to reflect it back on Brass. The final Interlock, Spontaneous Combustion, combines Shift Consequence and Combustion let Brass overheat themself and take internal damage in order to teleport fire from one place to another - even onto people. The final secret or Brass' Cipher is We are all one; to lose thee were to lose myself. I would like to see the manager. Also, whoever drew her thinks that a peace sign is the Mercedes logo. Clara Davies was a blogger on a free website, shouting her thoughts into the void. No one responded, and she began to grow cynical, frustrated and angry. Her message grew sharp, vicious teeth - and it began to be shared. To be popular. She easily moved on to podcasting, shouting about corporate America and Washington boys' clubs on a weekly show of passionate, merciless oratory. In an effort to go further, she interviewed a local cop who killed an unarmed child and became the center of a scandal of police brutality and racism. She broke him down, and he wept openly on her podcast, revealing the true feelings of pain and torment he felt each night, seeing the boy's face, rather than using his counsel's prepared statements. He begged God to let him go back and choose not to shoot the boy, to notice the phone in his hand was not a gun. Overnight, Clara's podcast skyrocketed in popularity and fame. She interviewed anyone she could, revealing the truth behind their facades. She did video podcasts, finally letting her listeners see who she was. Hate groups targeted her over her mixed race and her love of video games, doxxed her and so on. She refused to relent, and others began to speak of her history in activism while attending university, the job she'd had in journalism before being sexually harassed out of the profession. Liberal American loved her and, eventually, a studio offered a TV show. Clara is working as hard as she can - and the demon inside her is terrified that the God-Machine still, somehow, has not noticed her. Her fame is all a tool for the one thing she truly wantS: to return to the beauty of grace in its fold. Clara has an infectious smile, an easy and friendly demeanor and a talent for making people feel like they've known her forever. She's quick to share her stories, but never one-ups the people she's talking to. In political conversation, she becomes passionate and fiery, especially on social issues involving women or the environment. She rarely starts these talks herself, but they seem to flow naturally into her conversations. She is a respectful listener, but firm in her views, and she only uses her vicious wit to go after people once she's been attacked herself. At that point, she becomes ruthless and merciless in her mockery. On air, she has to wear a suit, but she prefers comfortable, casual outfits. She is never the most fashionable person at an event, and her hair is a mess of curls that won't obey. She tends to make people feel like she's their little sister, driving them to her defense, though she must often remind people she can hold her own. Breaking her laid-back demeanor is very hard...but it is possible, if you dig too deep into her childhood or ask too much about her time at school. She deflects these topics as quickly as she can, and if she can't, she will walk out of conversations. She doesn't respond to flirtation or advances from men, and if they don't give up, she will lambaste them. She has never talked about her sexuality in general. Clara assumes her demonic form only when she absolutely must. It is a beautiful, feminine thing of copper wire and chrome. The wires sprout like hair from her head and wrap much of her torso up. Her skull tapers to a point, where platinum wiring flows into the mass of copper in streaks of silver, and her ears become air intakes, with small hatches to move them open or closed as her attention shifts. Her left shoulder has a chrome antenna wrapped in copper tubes, which connects to her ears and skull via small wires. At all times, small streaks of light flash under her skin, occasionally striking each other and becoming bright cascades. Clara has spent very little time pursuing her Cipher, being more focused on pleasing the God-Machine. Indeed, her efforts at her Cipher have frustrated her to the point that she's decided to just ignore it. Local demons know Clara to be a useful and important source of information on God-Machine activities in the region, with contacts deep within even established Infrastructure. She can wield her mortal watchers as a tool to deliver messages on key locations without arising suspicion. In return for this, all she wants is to be kept in the loop on any major actions, so she can help out. If anyone ever discovered how firmly she was an Integrator and how very much she wishes she were still an angel, it might unleash a massive witch hunt. Clara hides her real feelings in a web of lies, misdirections and obfuscations. Her influence on mortal politics and her media savvy is so complete that she is easily able to hide the work of other demons, leaving most of them trusting her insofar as they trust anyone, and her subtle ability to direct angelic attention is so amazing that few - even the angels - are aware of when she does it. Clara does her best to watch and interpret the Machine's actions so she can figure out what it wants. When she sees demons closing on its works, she decides whether or not the operation is one the Machine can afford to lose. If so, she helps the demons. If not, she will misdirect them or send angels after them. She's been doing this for years now, and honestly is no longer sure if she Fell or was directed to Fall to become the God-Machine's sleeper agent. Clara has spent years crafting her Cover to be exactly what it appears. Those that knew the real Clara back in high school, though, are confused about how she could have changed so much. She has stolen bits and pieces of other lives to add on to her original soul pact, and if examined too closely, the entire thing could fall apart. It'd take something like, oh, intense and widespread scrutiny of her life...but her position makes that a real risk. Some demons say she has files on every supernatural being in her city; this is mostly true. She uses the information to pressure and manipulate supernatural factions to accomplish her goals, and occasionally she'll sell some of her less sensitive profiles. The files are kept strictly offline, but smartphone can interface with her demonic form's antenna to access them remotely. Some rumors say Clara is actually keeping a pet vampire - a Nosferatu, specifically. She knows those exist from her time as an angel, and while she does not in fact keep a vampire in her basement, she does frequently contact the local Nosferatu for information trading. They tell her things, and she manipulates the media to help them secure their domains and extend their control of the city's underground secrets, as long as their goals don't conflict with her own. Clara is very smart and manipulative, but physically average at best. She's a skilled investigator and scholar, but very much not a fighter. She does have amazing social skills, though, particularly when it comes to misdirection and journalistic reporting. Her demon form is focused on information gathering, mind reading and an extremely expansive set of perceptive abilities, and her Embeds and Exploits are primarily focused either on detecting information or getting people to incriminate themselves or otherwise become the target of social ire. Due to a persistent glitch, high-frequency sounds cause her physical pain, and while she suffers it her voice sounds electronic. Next time: The Southside Ghoul, By The People I, LuciferOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 3: I, Lucifer Requisite Cannibalism Monster Of The Book Achieved Marcus Allen Bartley was born full of hate and hunger. At first, devouring the flesh was just an instinct, but with each bite, flashes of his mind returned to him. Nights on the prowl, the screams of victims, the rending of skin and bone - it was grace. As he ate his victims, he took their memories to fill the void within him, making him feel whole. And eventually, he felt the Machine's voice, he followed it, and in a hidden place, he saw the vessel strapped to the table. He broke the machines, he slaughtered the workers defending them, and he took the figure on the table. He dragged it back, heard it cry and weep in fear, and eventually he ate it and was reborn. The man on the table became part of him, giving him direction. He still has trouble thinking, but he knows he is more now. Everything slipped away again, though, and he became unsure of who he was, if he was even an independent mind. It confused him, and he knew eating would fix it. He began with humans. Easiest, given how plentiful they are, how easy to catch - and yet, they knew so little and refused to sell him their lives. So he learned to hunt better, how to keep them locked away in his abandoned house on the city's edge, in the darkness. He listened to them in his pit and learned what they wanted most. If he ate them too fast, he gained nothing - only the littlest bits that they didn't care about. If he learned what they really wanted, though - then he could feast. Thus, he learned to bargain with his captives. He broke them before offering them a chance at freedom, if they could just escape the home and make it out by morning. He gave them hope, and thus he made the pact. One hour to flee and find safety, or to get as far from him as they could, and then he'd begin the hunt. If they made it to morning they were free. If he caught them, they became part of him, and he would fill his void with their essence. Marcus wrote notes with each hunt, writing shakily in cheap notebooks. He didn't want to lose his thoughts again. One day, he'd eat enough that he'd be able to read his words and they wouldn't be able to leave him. Three times, he lost the game. The cops came for him, but he was stronger and faster. They took his books, destroyed his home, but he became stronger and his legend spread. Each time he would find a new lair and begin the hunt again. He ate more than 30 before he found one of his own kind. It confused him - she was like him, but...complete. She gave him guidance, told him secrets, told him the Machine was hunting him. He had to keep secret to avoid it, and she would show him how to hurt it. Since then, Marcus no longer hunts randomly. He chooses as his victims the most promising servants of the God-Machine. His skill at trapping them in his lair, tearing their secrets away and then devouring them with his little game has brought his new allies wealths of information, and they watch for potential victims for his hunts. When he is not hunting or tormenting his victims, Marcus crouches in a corner, either writing or reading his books aloud. He still loses many of his thoughts to his void within. Sometimes, however, they form something coherent, and Marcus looks away and comes up with a new way to hurt the Machine. Each success makes his foes retreat back, but even his allies find his methods revolting and question if, perhaps, it was a good idea to let him live. Everyone that meets Marcus goes away changed. He spends most of his time crouching, his hair matted and his skin pale and sickly. His eyes are a sharp blue, in sunken sockets. His clothes are tattered and mismatched, stolen from victims or dumpsters. He stinks of garbage and decay, and when he isn't talking, he sucks his fingertips to get at the meat trapped under his nails, which are yellow and cracked. He mutters to himself constantly, and his broken mind keeps him from studying his Cipher's secrets - the entire idea is beyond him. Even so, his notes are clues from his rare moments of lucidity. When he is talking to people, he seems to come alive. He craves contact and conversation, listening intently to every word. He finds the complete thoughts involved beautiful, and he does his best to respond in kind. He refers to the God-Machine as "It," and he hates it. He loves to talk about hunting its pets and children, the angels he has killed and eaten, and how much he hates it. His hatred of the Machine is rivaled only by his hunger and his need to be complete again. His demonic form is even more unsettling - a huge, hunched beast with jet-black skin, glowing green eyes and body seeped in black ichor. He has huge steel horns from a wolf-like head, and his teeth are impossibly large steel fangs even for his massive maw. His arms are long and powerful, dragging on the ground, and his huge hands end in metallic claws, bristling with tubes that pump the same ichor he leaks. People usually flee in fear from this form, and Marcus loves the chase. Marcus guards his notebooks viciously. Within them are his thoughts, unfiltered, and his flashes of memory taken from victims. Within the chaos of barely legible words is a certain strain of sense. If followed, this line details not only his hate of the Machine but of all the supernatural beings he has ever seen and worked with. Yes, he is their ally of convenience, but they are all filthy perversions of a thoughtless god, forever stained by its filthy touch. It is clear that Marcus is going to up his game and add demons to his target list at some point - some point soon. He wants to know what devouring them will get him, and if it will give him the strength to end the Machine forever. While Marcus currently attempts to keep his hunts focused on agents, witting or otherwise, of the Machine, his hungers drive him to go out and eat more frequently. Every few weeks he takes a victim, though he doesn't put them in his pit and play with them unless he sees something truly amazing in them that he wants to add to himself. He's careful about where he disposes of the remnants of his meals, but he makes mistakes, and the body parts are starting to turn up. The cops claim they got the Southside Ghoul - but that just means people think a copycat's showing up. Some demons believe he has a captive angel that he feeds on but keeps alive; they are incorrect. Marcus has only found angels when working with his allies, and has never had the chance to send one to his pit. However, what he actually does in his lair is shocking and revolting even to demons. Some believe that his babbling contains prophecy, or that his madness is contagious. Anyone that can listen long enough could get some idea of his current plans, but in truth he mostly is just repeating the same thoughts over and over so he doesn't lose them entirely, and most are just ideas desperately trying to find some connection. Still, there's always a few people at demonic gatherings that try to eavesdrop on him. Some of them end up vanishing. Marcus is not very smart, but he's shockingly cunning and a physical powerhouse in terms of raw strength, if not speed. He's a skilled fighter, particularly when grappling, and very good at hunting, survival on the streets and torturing people. His demonic form enhances his combat abilities greatly, making him much harder to trap or stop as well as making him terrifying and giving him night vision. His magic powers largely revolve around improving his ability to ambush people, keeping people from interfering in his work and causing chaos. The most major glitch that Marcus suffers is from is due to the botched occult matrix that created him - he lacks the perfect memory of other demons, and in fact has trouble forming memories at all. Eating human flesh slows his memory loss for one night. He has yet to eat the flesh of an angel or other supernatural being, and wants to know what would happen. Thank you, Ms Mayor. The Mayor has always been the mayor. Not that she thinks much about her past - she has no time for nostalgia. She's busy working to make the future. Officially, the city has had fourteen mayors since its foundation in the early 1900s, and this is true in the sense that there have been fourteen different names holding the title of mayor. The Mayor was all of them, though she is quick to note that she was legitimately elected each time. She's changed party affilitation and political philosophy several times to better her election odds, but she doesn't cheat. She founded the city, in fact - picked a village she liked and expanded it into something to be proud of. She guided the early citizens, discovered the abandoned Infrastructure in the region, and she and her allies have protected it against countless angelic incursions. Of course, every member of her ring but her has been killed or captured in defense of the area, but she speaks reverentially of their sacrifice, sometimes even bringing it up unprompted. Not often, of course - too busy. The Mayor runs a cult that forms the bureaucratic backbone of her Agency (read: demonic power structure dedicated to a particular goal) that operates under the name City Hall. Her servants believe her a divine incarnation of law and order and a protector of their idyllic lifestyle. It's true enough. The Mayor is very good at being a mayor. She was the only one of her ring to truly understand the potential and the meaning behind the Infrastructure they found. She repurposed it. Around the city, ten obelisks form the vertices of an immense pentagram, the lines formed by streets, bridges, trails and other paths. The obelisks are not heavily decorated but for some faded script in a language even demons can't read. They are hidden in mundane structures controlled by City Hall, though they have been moved to these locations - they weren't the original sites. The Mayor long ago rebuilt the old hollows they were built in, replacing them with affordable housing during one of her terms as a progressive. This repurposed Infrastructure creates an occult matrix that generates a massive, invisible shield of Essence around the entire city, blocking out other Infrastructure and preventing entry by angels - or anything else directly powered by the God-Machine. Demons can get in and out, for some reason, but the Machine can't. Why it would have made a device able to do this to it is an open question; the Mayor claims the current output was unintended but she and her ring were able to jury-rig it to its present form. She either doesn't know or won't say what it originally did. Demons still have to use Covers within the city - some have tried to live more openly, but the Mayor has no tolerance for it. Safety from angels also doesn't mean being entirely unobserved, too - a collection of angels linger outside the field, taking note of everyone that enters and waiting for demons to get complacement. They don't seem to mind the shield's presence, and may or may not even notice it at all. From time to time, one of them will attempt to cross it, obliterating themselves against it for no clear reason. City Hall says it's like a bird slamming into a plate glass window, but some say it is more like a moth being drawn to a flame. The Mayor is fully aware of all of these kamikaze strikes either way, just as she seems to have a constant awareness of new demons entering her domain. For now, the city remains a mythic rumor - a whispered Hell among demons that most dismiss as fantasy. Just how the Mayor wants it - and will keep it, even if she has to be nasty. The Mayor never explains how the city's status is possible in any clear way. Usually she says it all works by virtue of her being a symbolic head of the city, and that she controls the occult matrix by taking the place of the God-Machine. Sometimes she claims she wills the shield into existence via some vague ability that the obelisks assist with, and that her fate is tied to this connection. She must be mayor, the universe places her as mayor, because of the connection, rather than vice versa. And sometimes, she admits that she has no fucking idea how any of it works, but that it'd be extremely dangerous for her to lose her office. Some, of course, disagree. Specifically, Mr. Kelvin. Mr. Kelvin is an Integrator-Saboteur (a rare combination indeed) that wants to unseat her. Sometimes he says he's the lone survivor of the city's original ring, sometimes that he was an early immigrant trapped in the city by too many compromises, sometimes that he was a hunter angel that Fell while pursuing the Mayor. No matter what, Mr. Kelvin's plan is clear: drop the wall. Cutting the city off from the Machine is not a solution, it's ignoring the problem. The shield is simply a cage, exchanging one oppressor for another, slightly nicer one. Kelvin argues that demons must fix the Machine and cannot accomplish their goals without doing so - especially in the Mayor's personal vision of Hell. Mr. Kelvin's Agency is the only real competitor to City Hall, made of a collection of small Integrator rings. They call themselves the Absolutists, and they've tried to depose the Mayor before by various means. So far, they've had only limited success - they have a few mortal dupes on the city council to help block her political agendas, but her constant shifting of party position makes it hard to keep up each election cycle. Mystically, they have taken control of a single obelisk, which is built into the abandoned factory they're based out of. Some say they want to destroy it, but in fact they want to understand it...and then destroy it. So far, however, it has resisted all efforts at both. The Mayor comes off as easygoing, friendly and cheerful. She approaches all new demons personally with a gift basket welcoming them to the city and an explanation of the rules she maintains. She's charming and good at talking without really saying anything. She enjoys the attention and respect of being a politician and she's proud to serve the city community, taking her mundane job very seriously. Due to her constant political shifts, she can empathize with nearly any political stance. However, she runs her Agency with an iron fist. She will hurl even minor threats to the angels outside the city - Kelvin may have escaped that so far, but she's sworn he'll get his. She tolerates only total loyalty. Her human cultists are her lackeys, and all other demons are potential threats watching for weakness. Her current Cover is Mayor Anita Vogel, a black woman in her late 30s who wears her hair very short and is always fashionable. She's the first female Cover the Mayor has actually had, and the Mayor finds being a woman refreshing after near a century of being men. Anita is known as a tough negotiator and amazing debater. She was popular DA for years before running for office, and her closeness with the last mayor made her an easy candidate to pick. She is actually the Mayor's only current Cover - the all-consuming nature of her job means she barely has the time to maintain the one, let alone any othe identities. She does have numerous soul pacts on file in case of emergencies, but she only takes new Covers normally when her current form is nearing retirement or slips in the polls. Her demonic form resembles a Renaissance angel painting, but with glass skin and circuit board wings. She rarely uses it, and indeed barely discusses her nature as a demon at all. Even her closest allies and confidants have no idea if she's made any Cipher progress. She seems to have some kind of Infrastructure-related powers, but they're unclear at best and may not even be demonic. In her heart, the Mayor wants to retire. Being in charge for a lifetime is good - but forever? No. She refuses to acknowledge this desire, of course - she's too proud to think anyone could replace her. Still, she is getting really bored. She'll have to decide soon what she's going to do, and she's not sure what alternatives she has. In some of her darker moments, she wants to see it all burn. It doesn't help that she's actually falling in love with Anita Vogel's husband. All of her past Covers were heterosexual men, either single or widowed. She's ruthless, sure, but found she didn't have it in her to subject women to loveless marriages. Her time as Anita marks the first time she's ever had a relationship with a man that went beyond a burn Cover and a one night stand, and now she's growing to understand why some demons Fall out of love. She's also thinking about the tactical options of having a family, given the power that Offspring (half-demon children) can wield. As for secrets of the city's Infrastructure...well, it's weird. Besides the forcefield being extremely weird itself, it doesn't produce Aether as a waste byproduct. The wall around the city is almost pure Essence, but there's no runoff from any of the obelisks. Aether is actually quite rare within the city in general, and the Mayor and City Hall control most of the more "normal" suborned Infrastructure that produces it. Those few demons that have delved deeper into this mystery have vanished without trace, but they did manage to learn that the obelisks and pentagram are only part of a much larger pattern in the surrounding region, similar to ancient sacred geometry. Taken together, the entire symbol forms a glyph that points towards the position of the star Sirius in the night sky. Which is an interesting reference, because back before the God-Machine Chronicle codified the Machine some, one of its only references was in a Vampire book that contained the Holy Engineers, a vampiric cult that worshipped the God-Machine as an enigmatic deity-figure which sent them retrocausal prophesies. It would send them the answers to questions via television and radio signals, and then they would have to figure out what the question is before the Radio Sickness, a sort of debilitating disease-paradox, killed them. Then they would have to broadcast this question into space by pointing a radio tower towards the star Sirius. Some demons believe that the Mayor and Mr. Kelvin are the same demon, playing both sides so she always has a scapegoat for problems. It is false, but the Mayor is the actual source of this rumor. She is careful to never directly challenge Kelvin, preferring to undermine his credibility by using rumors - it's always been her most effective weapon. It is also rumored that they were both comrades at one point, members of the same ring, but one or both betrayed the other. This might be true; they certainly understand each others' thought patterns very well, and they despise each other on a personal level. However, they're not impractical about it. They never meet personally, but do share information via certain channels on areas of mutual interest - largely, quashing other threats to the status quo. They both prefer having only one enemy to focus on. The Absolutists claim that the Mayor or the Machine is using the city as an experiment, and even if the Mayor's not doing any wide-scale research, she's certainly taking notes. The problems demons have in leaving the city safely has given her a lot of time to learn about the social dynamics of demons in enclosed spaces, and she has run social experiments on her citizens before, usually ending with someone having to flee the city and risk the angels. The more she learns, the tighter her control of the city. Then there's this rumor. I have no idea what it's doing. The Mayor is superhumanly intelligent, insanely strong-willed and manipulative, and very charismatic. She's no physical powerhouse, though she's an excellent shot. She knows a ton about law, the occult, politics and how to be social. She's insanely persuasive and good at lying or fast-talking people. Her demonic form only increases her ability to read people by giving her telepathy, even more brainpower and better survivability in the form of extreme toughness and armor plating. Her powers are focused around social control, knowledge access, denying people access to their social skills and, uh, shooting people dead. She has a permanent glitch that causes her left eye to twitch involuntarily when she is in the presence of large holy symbols (read: parts of buildings, statues, that kind of thing) for more than a few minutes. Next time: Poisonous Friend, Mr. Martini The All-Seeing EyeOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 3: The All-Seeing Eye She seems nice. Miss Thread is a valuable ally to any demon or Agency. She feeds her friends valuable intel, puts them in contact with likeminded demons, stigmatics and more, and happily investigates rumors. She even occasionally provides useful magic gear. All she wants in return is for you to share information with her. But, of course, you really shouldn't trust her. No matter how easy it'd be. She's a useful contact...but her generosity is very much a constructed persona. Miss Thread feels no loyalty to anyone. She's generally honest and an excellent analyst, but she is perfectly willing to hand over misleading or incomplete information - or even outright lies - if it serves her needs. Typically she does this to get her friends to investigate new Infrastructure or angelic capabilities without risking herself. Even if her friends die, she usually learns something. Then she picks a new set of friends and starts the game over, passing on what she learned to earn their trust. If it ever came out that she was giving bad intel, she'd blame it on false information being spread by the Machine. Everyone makes mistakes, after all, and hasn't she always been reliable? Miss Thread is more than willing to sacrifice even long-term allies if it serves her. It's not frequent by any means, but she feels...bothered by unexplained mysteries, and when her frustration becomes obsession, she is likely to throw away assets (including her friends' lives) to get the answer faster out of impatience. Sometimes she'll even do it for no obvious reason - while she prides herself on being logical, she has a petty, impetuous streak to her, and her anger can get people who know her killed. Few demons ever meet her personally these days, of course. She is always isolating herself further. She prefers to use her powers to communicate via secret messages embedded in more innocuous emails, letters and graffiti tags. She hates face to face conversation, favoring phones, secure networks or, at most, carefully chosen neutral locations. Still, as her reputation spreads, most are willing to overlook her paranoia. It's not a particularly rare foible in demons to begin with. Miss Thread may be isolated, but thanks to her Cipher, she's not alone. She's always accompanied by the only person she trusts: herself. Her personal Hell is her home, a perfect Cover in a perfect location, built over the course of years. Her lovely home is built on top of abandoend Infrastructure, which provides her a steady supply of Aether and helps hide the Aetheric radiation released when she constructs Gadgets (read: magic items), uses her demonic form or wields Exploits. She hates leaving home, and her primary Cover, Charlie Greenwood, was constructed so she would not have to. Charlie is a severe agoraphobe and never goes out if she can avoid it. Miss thread maintains a secondary Cover for when she's forced to leave, and she never risks anyone learning about her home - the idea terrifies her. Charlie is a plain woman who prefers hoodies and comfortable, boring clothes. Miss Thread's secondary Cover is a middle-aged man, though due to her seclusion and refusal to maintain upkeep on it, it has started to degrade. It no longer has friends, family or other social anchors, and indeed no longer has a first name - it's just Mr. Grey. In her demonic form, Miss Thread is a giant weeping eye, but with metal tendrils where the optic nerve would be. Each tendril has a different use, with some housing sensors, others grasping hands, others syringes or killing blades. In any form, she is cool and logical, though she often tweaks her persona to better fit what her friends want from her, within the limits of her Covers. She keeps her habits of betrayal secret, and if someone tried to use them against her she'd probably take steps to discredit or kill them...but if directly accused, she'd probably admit it. She doesn't actually care about anyone else's life or feelings, after all, and tends to find it strange that others aren't sociopathic. Miss Thread avoids physical confrontation if at all possible. She's not a fighter by design, and she'll flee if confronted, wielding her abilities to rewind time or become incorporeal to help her. If forced to fight, though, she is able to do so to surprising effect. She is less likely to flee if her home is under threat - it's the only thing she really loves. Her Gadgets are often designed with secondary powers to transmit information to her as well as help her allies. She's also happy to use her powers to spy, but since she's more and more unwilling to leave home, this comes up less and less often. She is fully aware of what the old Infrastructure under her home does, too. Her basement is tiled in volcanic glass, with tunnels forming elaborate glyphs around larger pits and depressions. Once, a cult poured blood into these channels at the Machine's orders before their theology drifted away from its original intent and the machinery fell silent. The chamber's job is to analyze blood, providing massive amounts of information to the God-Machine, ranging from cell counts and genetic sequencing data to occult information. It was once used to monitor a human breeding project, then later modified to use tissue samples to analyze and track supernatural beings - including demons. Miss Thread is afraid to use it, since she wants to avoid the Machine's attention, but if pushed, she could achieve all manner of terrible things with a blood sample. Miss Thread thinks she has found the Hell meant for her, the paradise of freedom she's dreamed of. However, as she settles in, a new goal is forming within her. She has not yet articulated it, even to herself, but Miss Thread seeks to become something akin to the Machine itself. She already sees everyone else as potential tools and works to hide her own existence. She is evolving beyond a singular form, using her Interlocks to copy and fragment her own consciousness. She hasn't noticed yet that her splinter-selves grow more independent over time. In theory, they may even eventually form divergent opinions or personalities from her. What this might do to her mind when she recombines with them is unclear, at best. Miss Thread used to be significantly more hands-on with her information gathering, and some of her tendrils are able to interface with the human brain using sensory nerves. She would sometimes kidnap Stigmatics or other witnesses of Machine-involved events, paralyze them and gentle insert a neural probe through their eyes to access their optic nerve. She would then extract and alter memories. She still does this occasionally, and planting false information in humans sometimes suits her purposes. She's even willing to partition and alter her own memories as needed. Some of the local demons suspect a traitor among their ranks, and while Miss thread is no Integrator (she sees the Machine as her role model and rival and has no desire to rejoin it), it is possible that part of her is one. She gaslights everyone else easily, and it is not beyond possibility that in her fragmenting mind, part of her is gaslighting the rest. Her paranoia has also given rise to a new theory - if she can bug her devices to spy on others, couldn't the God-Machine install living angels into inanimate objects to spy on things, too? It's possible, but there's not a lot of evidence for it. She's keeping an eye out, anyway. Miss Thread is very smart, but that's the only area she really excels in. She otherwise relies on her magic powers, which assist her in spying on things, recording them or altering her own skillset temporarily by turning one form of skill into another. Her first Interlock, Army of Me, combines Efficiency and Fungible Knowledge to allow her to enter a state of quantum duplication. While unobserved, she may activate it to be able to use teamwork action bonuses with herself, so long as no one can observe her doing it (and thus collapse the waveform). Her second Interlock, Gaslight, combines Fungible Knowledge and Living Recorder to subtly rewrite memories without needing to jam her tendrils into someone's brain, though it doesn't work on demons, exiles or angels. Her third Interlock, Koschei's Egg, combines Living Recorder and Cuckoo's Egg. It lets her place part of her consciousness inside an object, turning it into a recording device that she can telepathically access at any distance at any time. Her final secret is Many eyes see what one eye cannot. Shaken, not stirred. Mr. Martini is the perfect bartender. He listens quietly, he provides cocktails with flair and skill, and he genuinely wants to know how you feel. He's never been anything but a bartender, and the reason he cares about everyone that pulls up to the bar is that any could be his salvation. His assignment set him to watch over a bar in a dying hotel that, in days past, was the height of class. He poured drinks, watched people and passed on occasional messages for angels. He was forbidden by orders to leave the hotel for any reason, so he rented a room there. It took most of his paycheck, but money wasn't something he had use for. One night, a lovely blonde starlet came into the bar and ordered a martini. She named him Mr. Martini after the sixth one and asked him to take her to her car. He briefly considered the request - and in that moment, thinking of leaving his post, he Fell. He screamed as he felt himself disconnect, and the woman hurled her drink in his face to add insult to injury. That night, Mr. Martini left the hotel for the first time - he felt the angels coming and knew he couldn't stay. He knew and regretted why he Fell. Up until that moment, he had done his work perfectly. Now, he wants that perfection again in his own bar, which he named Mr. Martini's to remind himself of his Fall. It is unclear if the name is a badge of honor or shame for him. Mr. Martini's Bar is right on this side of the questionable part of town. It looks like any dive from the outside, and customers frequently drink alone. No table seats more than two people, and moving the tables causes loud scraping noises. Humans do not start fights there - none have ever tried, and likely none ever will, given how solemn the place is. When demons come, Mr. Martini expects them to also be solemn and respectful. Tensions sometimes rise, and occasionally violence threatens - but all Mr. Martini has to do is clear his throat and let everyone see the ring on his hand as he places it on the bar, and the tension dissipates. Everyone sits back down. No one would dare go Loud (read: burn an entire Cover to become a temporary superdemon) in the bar. Mr. Martini barely hides who he is, and it's not hard to notice after a while. He stays in one place, does one thing. He runs individual Covers for as long as he can, then switches to a backup. No one doubts that he can and has rebuilt, but endangering Mr. Martini's Bar always seems like a terrible idea. Mr. Martini's current Cover is Isaac, the owner of the bar. He also has soul pacts on tap with the general manager, Annamarie, and Jake, one of the barbacks. Just in case. Isaac was the last manager before the previous owner vanished, and customers started to call him Mr. Martini as a joke, as he started to act like the old owner so fast. Isaac had nearly lost his job at the bar due to a substantial heroin habit, and had offered the owner "anything at all" to keep his job and get clean. Mr. Martini took him up on that. Annamarie is Isaac's cousin, rebuilding from a messy breakup after an abusive relationship, given a chance to turn things around. Jake had a ton of student debt from a failure in culinary school. Mr. Martini took care of that, too. They just had to sign their employment contracts, and they stay safe. Mr. Martini is very strict about maintaining a healthy working environment. His Covers are always employees, and in the event that a Cover gets blown, ownership of the business always goes to the manager just under the owner. He tries to ensure that person is going to be his next Cover, but it doesn't always turn out that way. Mr. Martini trains all new hires on pouring and serving drinks for at least one night - a test to see if they'll be a viable Cover if needed. If they do well, he puts them in a job they'll succeed at enough to justify promotions. Turnover is low, either way, because Mr. Martini hires competent people. When an employee leaves, it's usually because they're moving on to something better before he can provide them with one of his special contracts to convince them to stay. Mr. Martini generally comes off as a friendly. He always dresses well, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his vest and slacks perfectly pressed and his hair sleek and clean-cut, regardless of his current Cover's physical sex. He almost never leaves the bar. He claims he lives in the apartment above it and jokes about the short commute. The apartment has a small bar, a mattress, an iron and grooming kit with straight razor. Sometimes he 'forgets' the razor in his pocket while tending bar, and always has it with him when he leaves. Having to step outside makes him angry enough to use it, you see. When not chatting with customers, he moves with total efficiency. He doesn't accept excessive showmanship and has fired bartenders that try it. Artistry, he feels, is in the combination of ingredients, done skillfully and tastefully. This is solemn and sacred. Disturbances of the bar are swiftly and efficiently punished, but never on the premises themselves. When speaking to patrons, Mr. Martini is relaxed, friendly and kind. He offers comfort and at least a mask of sympathy, offering meaningful if somewhat cold and practical advice where applicable. He probes just enough with questions to provide useful guidance, and he does it with a smile and sympathy. And he actually cares. He does his best to ensure each customer first tries every avenue available to them on their own. When they come back, he follows up. He offers pacts only when all other options are exhausted. Sometimes, these customers become employees, but generally Mr. Martini sells these pacts to other demons for leverage. Every so often, Mr. Martini requests favors. Something he'd do himself if he wasn't so busy with the bar, you know? He pays well - cash, information, whatever a demon might want. He never asks for too much. Usually, it all goes well and without problems. Once in a while, though, his favors go unfulfilled - the demon he asks just has a bad run-in with angels and vanishes. This is deliberate. Mr. Martini sends these demons to their doom when he senses elevated angelic activity. He always picks those who have burned some bridges already, to minimize questions asked later. Mr. Martini, despite being an Integrator, maintains that his bar is neutral ground for all demons. If a ring of demons or an Agency needs neutral ground for negotiations, he allows priority access to the private party room and acts personally as their dedicated bartender. Smart demons pay him handsomely for his silence, and those who object or don't pay often find their work countered, their groups ambushed or their Covers damaged...unless they are Integrators, who only suffer such setbacks when Mr. Martini needs to maintain his appearance of impartiality to throw off suspicions. Mr. Martini never reveals that he is an Integrator except to other Integrators. Anyone else that asks gets their question dodged or misheard. Several demons theorize about his motives, but rarely for long - there's more pressing business. They usually assume he's a Tempter or just doesn't have an Agenda. Certainly, when Mr. Martini despairs of ever convincing the Machine that he's perfect again, he considers becoming a Tempter instead. However, he still holds out hope for now, and the effort of changing his plans and views on the world would push him far out of his comfort zone. It would change the entire nature of Mr. Martini's Bar, and that makes him uncertain and unhappy with the idea. Whenever he's pressed too hard about what he actually believes, he asks for a favor. Once it's done, he says, he will consider telling them. Those who call his bluff have, thus far, not returned. Mr. Martini wears a ring on his right middle finger. His hands typically move too fast for a clear look at it, but it's possible to spot flashes of silver and ivory. Only when a fight breaks out does anyone see it clearly - set in the center of the ring, like a gem, is a human molar, complete with silver cavity filling. Just gesturing with the ring tends to calm things down. Some demons suspect the tooth came from a demon that crossed Mr. Martini, but he neither confirms nor denies this. (The ring is actually a Gadget, containing the power to cool aggression, which helps.) The current location is not the first Mr. Martini's Bar, and it's unlikely to be the last. The interior always has the same look and feel - a message to the God-Machine that he can do his job, and well. That one mistake shouldn't disqualify him. No angels have ever come looking for him, much to his disappointment, but he can't change his plan. More extreme and rash action would only prove that his Fall was, indeed, correct. So he waits, occasionally sending messages to the Machine through other means. While Mr. Martini has only been Isaac for a few years, the Cover is already starting to wear a little thin. Isaac's addictions and enemies left him in a bad way when Mr. Martini came to collect on his debt, and while he dealt with most of the external threats, he didn't get rid of the addiction. He still feels the twinges of need occasionally...but narcotics tend to mix poorly with demonic biomechanics. Mr. Martini cannot feel the rush that Isaac did, and he doesn't partake of heroin. He recognizes the addiction as a remnant of a life not quite his own, and he wonders if all the other quirks he's built up over the years began similarly. Mr. Martini is a cunning, fast and strong-willed demon. He's a decent but not exceptional fighter, and indeed bartending is his primary actual skill. However, he has wide-ranging contacts and a decent amount of wealth, and within his bar he's got some defenses set up to allow him to have the initiative if a fight starts. In his demonic form, he is armored, able to flow like liquid between things, can drain Essence, and is unnaturally intelligent and fast. His powers let him acquire skills and knowledge that he needs to do things, destroy objects easily, tell when fights will start and act first in them, track people and convert his own social standing into wealth if required. Next time: The Wrong Answer, the Feral Familiar BirdhavenOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 4: Birdhaven Banksy: End Of Existence Every fourth Thursday of the month, an Agency of demons gathers to compare notes on Mr. Void. They don't live in the same city, and some use a secure channel to call in to the meeting rather than attend personally. They aren't really allies, and many of them hate each other. However, their Agency, the Center for Inquiry into the Singularity, or CIS, agrees on one thing: Mr. Void is an existential threat that must be neutralized. They've tried their best to gather information, but even the name Mr. Void is more of an in-joke about how he's impossible to track. Here's what they've figured out. Once, a demon they refer to as Mr. Painter operated in the form of a high-grade intel broker, collecting data on God-Machine activities and identifying key weaknesses for his ring to destroy. Based on circumstantial evidence, they believe that Mr. Painter disliked doing this, considering his job a soul-killing slog and aspiring to art. One of the few facts they all agree on is that his favored Cover was a street artist known for random displays of public art that the city usually dismantled soon after. He never really got recognized; they are unsure if he cared. His surviving pieces, which the CIS has acquired and placed into stasis in an extradimensional bolthole, suggest he was more about personal messages than commercial ones. They believe that's the problem, in fact - his desire to self-actualize, they believe, caused him to become obsessed with his Cipher. He thought he was special or talented in some manner, and that his Cipher was his magnum opus, an artistic feat of enlightenment. What tiny bits of physical evidence CIS has suggest that this obsession shaped and constrained all of the physical art he made. For all that Painter was apparently meticulous about his anti-Machine work, his passion was sloppy. The commonly accepted theory is that angels were following the trail left by Painter's art, profiling him and his ring without overtly investigating them. A minority of CIS believes Mr. Painter deliberately tipped the angels off, but most believe he just didn't see them coming. He was one of the few of his ring to survive their initial assault when the hunters came for the ring's hideout, warping physics and destroying physical bodies. A few of the straggling demons self-destructed to give their allies a fighting chance, and in the midst of it all, Painter completed his Cipher. It is unclear what happened next, and every CIS member has a pet theory. It is possible that somehow he used the wrong Key to open the lock, or perhaps his final truth was tangled with one of the other demons, or he just glitched out. Whatever happened, what emerged from his Cipher was very much not enlightenment. Mr. Painter's final Interlock...broke. His final truth was wrong. A Stigmatic eyewitness claimed his Cover literally buckled in on itself as a small black hole formed over his demonic form. (She has since gone into deep cover before CIS could authenticate things.) Apparently, the hole's gravity grew as it fed, fragmenting and consuming the escaping demons as if they were mere pixels being erased and drawing their Covers into itself. It is unclear how Painter escaped. Some CIS members claim his gravity started to eat the angels, or that it somehow obscured him from their senses. Others say they disengaged because their mission was complete. Whatever the case, they agree that on that day, Mr. Painter was no more. Only Mr. Void was left. Besides the one unverified witness and a few pieces of art, no direct evidence exists for this story. CIS has interviewed other demons in Painter's city; none can remember him, though they recall angels wiping out a ring. All of CIS intel is based on extrapolating data on Mr. Void based on the effects he leaves on those around him. It appears that the black hole within Mr. Void consumes information, especially information about his life, including all complete memories of encounters with him. He has some degree of control over it, but his Covers and those of anyone near him degrade continuously. It is likely that he is no longer able to form Pacts, or possibly that new Covers are sucked into his black hole when he attempts to collect. However, by eating the Cover of others, he is able to regain his own, and he can use the information he steals this way to learn the Keys and final truths of other demons' Ciphers. Most dangerously, he believes he can fix himself. CIS has been able to determine that Mr. Void believes his Cipher is wrong - not just broken, but fundamentally incorrect. Mr. Void apparently reasons that if he can just find the right Key and final truth, he can correct this. He just needs sufficient comparative data, plus enough Cover to keep the angels off. Or, at least, this is what he has told people. Mr. Void observes rings for weeks, hanging on the periphery of local activity, demonic or God-Machine. He waits for someone to slip up, let down their guard or become isolated. He may ambush a demon mid-mission, when they are most focused on their work. However it happens, the results are the same - the victim's Cover dissolves through no action or fault of their own, for no clear reason. There is almost never any warning, and he rarely strikes more than once. Most demons believe his work to be some kind of angel or cryptid activity. Occasionally, he will approach someone and ask permission first - offering up some kind of trade. He'll take their Cover and give them some of their Cipher's truth. Not all of it, though he could. He refuses because he apparently retains a deep spiritual belief in the Cipher and wants other demons to walk the path; the experience, he feels, has meaning. He also knows, of course, that the sample will make them come back for more. It is from these rare meetings that CIS draws most of its data on Mr. Void, but they have no clue what his pattern is, or if one exists. Some think he's trying to build a positive reputation or has occasional bursts of conscience. A vocal minority believe it's all bullshit, that all these stories he tells to demons are lies. A few CIS agents even think everything they know is a tailored lie. CIS believes Mr. Void feels guilt for what he does, but justifies it as acts of survival and redemption. Those few demons he talks to say he thinks his cure will benefit others, but this is probably rationalization. Mr. Void is not the idealist Mr. Painter was. He does not have reliable Covers, due to his degradation field, and the ones he has are no-frills utility Covers. He picks his targets based on how useful their Covers will be to him. When he has the option, he favors identities in or adjacent to local art scenes, either artist or patron. He has very carefully preserved his original Cover, and that's why there's still some concrete evidence of who he used to be. He rarely wears it, to avoid degrading it, but does use it enough to prevent it from fraying out of neglect. Rare photos of this Cover predating his accident show a tattooed man of uncertain ethnicity, probably in his late 20s. He wears a black hoodie and jeans, and he carries a duffel bag full of spray paint. Void's demonic form is a black void. Whatever it used to be, it has been devoured by his accident. The hole is less 'black' and more 'eats photons within several feet' so it's not easy to say where his body begins and shadows end. A witness with enhanced visual abilities claims there's a humanoid figure at the center, but this may have been a flaw of pattern recognition. Mr. Void still hasn't given up on being able to live as a human. His artistry is important to him, even if the persona is now drifting from what it used to be, and he hopes to one day be able to do art again. He sometimes leans on the old Cover to recruit a rudimentary cult of outsider artists in an effort to live vicariously through them. Typically, his followers are wannabe taggers and anyone else into street art. Even as a self-indulgence, however, he never wastes resources, and his cultists serve as spies and messengers or even cannon fodder. CIS is not aware of these cults, but the more Void falls to nostalgia, the more likely they will find out. Void's also searching for demons that have successfully completed or are near completing a Pentagrammic Cipher. He is unwilling to do so himself as yet, but theorizes that with enough research it might correct his condition. After all, the fifth Key is said to shatter Cover, but he believes it may have different effects on his own broken Infrastructure. He's looking for a guinea pig to test his theory on first. He hasn't realized yet that his black hole is growing, but the more information he steals and analyzes, the stronger he gets, and the stronger he gets, the bigger it gets. With enough size, it will begin devouring tangible things, not just information. Some believe that Mr. Void is actually an angel, if he exists at all, and the entire thing is meant to make demons second-guess themselves. This is not true, but it doesn't mean that Void isn't a catspaw of the Machine against his will. Some in CIS certainly think the entire goal of the angel hit squad was to create him, after all, and he's basically a walking compromise. Hunter angels tend to follow in his wake, but apparently tend to avoid him personally. The rumors of his presence are enough to start witch hunts in the right circles. Mr. Void also, we are told, has a certain appreciation of Beasts, unlike most demons. Or, rather, he understands endless, stupid hunger. He briefly worked with a Beast, but it was short-term - a happy coincidence that they shared a demonic target, as the Beast 'hungered for secrets' rather than having any specific grudge. Void left her after his black hole started to eat parts of her Lair. She's a PI and tried to track him down, but instead ran into CIS, who have recruited her because she appears immune to his information drain for no clear reason. CIS think he also has the power to affect Beasts in ways other demons cannot. Void is cunning, strong-willed and very bad at talking to people right now. He's an amazing researcher and artist, and very sneaky, but is only a passable shot. Oh, and he thinks he's a good poet; he is merely competent. He has access to a secure extradimensional bolthole and a lot of contacts in the fields of art and computer science. His Demonic Form at this point is mostly good at being huge, eating things and being very strong and hard to catch but not much else. His magic powers revolve around gathering and using information and avoiding confrontation, but he has a handful of neat utility tricks (like the ability to pull anything out of his pocket that was not conclusively proven to not be in them). He typically maintains two to three low-rank burn Covers at any given time, plus his artist Cover at 5. If mechanics are needed for his degradation, he loses a dot of Cover per collective week he spends in that Cover. The most notable thing about him is the glitch that prevents anyone from remembering specific details about their encounters with him, especially about his appearance or any personal info he shares, though the effect is not absolute. helo, it me, normal bird Ms. Thermal knows something most demons forget: rural Infrastructure is out there, and the fewer human eyes reach an area, the less likely it is to be found. The less guarded it is, the less curious people are. Anything that doesn't need human resources can easily be hidden subtly and defended without drawing attention. Angels that defend the Infrastructure found in various bits of the Amazon tend, as a result, to be very subtle. Unfortunately, these lone structures also have much less support, and so when things go bad, they cascade quickly. A forest fire weakened the copse of trees that functioned as concealment for Ms. Thermal's Infrastructure, allowing a ring of demons to infiltrate with a group of illegal loggers and destroy the Logistical Infrastructure within the mound beneath it. The angel that watched over the place in the guise of a roadside hawk? She fled rather than Burn, and that was her Fall. She took the name Ms. Thermal later, and didn't keep track of the ring that caused her Fall, as they fled in the opposite direction. If she had followed them, they'd likely have helped her get a human Cover and become a normal demon. Instead, she has become a demonic familiar - the demon term for a demon whose Cover is an animal. She has lived in the woods as a hawk, coming to terms with her own new existence primarily by trial and error. Her demonic form puts her on edge, but she takes comfort in her hawk form. Beyond that, all she had were some muddle memories of what came before, and what it meant to reject service. For a few years, she watched for others like herself, though she never approached them first. Few demons noticed her - familiars are not common in the first place, and the Amazon's not rife with demons. She avoided the ones who got spooked, and spoke to those few that sought her out. She traded information with some of them, as her aerial view of the jungle gave her a lot of access to local Infrastructure and knowledge of the Machine's local movements. In exchange, she first requested something to remain safe. She rejected a number of offers of burn Covers until she finally made it clear that she had no interest in being human. She's taken a few, but hates using them. Most demons can't understand why she likes being a bird so much - it's useful for spying, but little else. For her part, she finds it impossible to explain why the dive, the nest and the hunt are so viscerally thrilling to her. She has yet to meet another familiar that might understand. Around a year after her fall, Ms. Thermal was offered a new idea by a foreign demon. Animals can't be pacted with, but non-human intelligences such as werewolves can be - so what if you were to develop a species of cryptid that was just a bird with intelligence? Could you make a pact with that? The demon even taught her how to produce cryptids so she wouldn't have to just hunt for them. She is not especially sure why the demon wanted to know the exact time and location of her Fall in exchange, but it hasn't hurt her so far. Since then, she has created several colonies of avian cryptids. Those that show promise she takes to the burned out remains of her old Infrastructure to breed. The scaled vultures she made were promising, having developed rudimentary language, but they all died out due to flu before achieving self-awareness. So far, the rest of her tests have produced curiosities and mutants. Occasionally, she eats the mistakes in order to save on Aether, but she doesn't like the taste and doesn't want to scare the others. While the experiments have thus far not yielded fruit, she keeps trying. Some days she doubts the goal is possible, but she still tries. She also is gathering material to produce a spirit Cover, though she's not sure how that's going to work out. Being a hawk spirit would be second best to being a real hawk, but she has no idea how the nature of a spirit Cover is determined, and she doesn't want to test it blindly - it's taken her a long time to gather what Corpus she's got so far. She does not seek company and has not kept in touch with other demons due to her focus. Ms. Thermal really, really dislikes humans in her territory, no matter why they're there. Demons are fine if they specifically seek her out, but any other incursion is a threat. She especially hates loggers and farmers, as they are most frequent, and she has some idea that their actions are illegal, but that doesn't seem to help. Scientists are rarer but harder to scare off. Investigators have only shown up a few times and tend to be obvious. Her territory is mostly old growth trees, far enough from any tourist spots to avoid authorities and near enough to rivers to not need roads. Farmers and loggers both value the space. Scientists care about it for various reasons - biodiversity, climate change, that kind of thing. Investigators follow rumors or commands and Ms. Kestral has no real understanding of them. If she knew more about social tactics, she might try to play them against each other using her (admittedly fragile) park ranger Cover, but she tends to be very hands-on. She scares off small groups of farmers or loggers as Ranger Silva, or she uses her demonic form to smash their machinery, and the rising costs drive them elsewhere. She kills the farmers that try to burn the area on principle - she holds a grudge over whatever started the fire that made her Fall. These tactics are less than helpful with scientists and investigators. Their tools are smaller and better guarded, so she can't as easily get in and break them, and the passionate work even after that. They're often foreign and have friends they check in with outside, so if they disappear people will notice. She usually tries to keep them away from her cryptid colonies, though some have been spotted. Early on, she tried to make a pact with a researcher, but that just led to greater scrutiny. She has never had to face an angel; statistically, some of the interlopers probably worked for the God-Machine, but she hasn't really caught its direct attention at all. Despite all this, the jungle shrinks. Ms. Thermal could move, but only if she abandoned her work and the Infrastructure ruins, which she cares about more than she'd like to admit. It was where she was safe, where the world made sense, even if she'd never enslave herself again. This is what drives her to make deals with outside demons, trying to save her corner of the rainforest. She hates to leave at all, but it's a necessary evil if she's to keep it. Ms. Thermal is direct and doesn't play games. She lies directly or not at all, making no use of assumption or technicality. She speaks in the present tense exclusively, even when talking about the past or future. She cares a lot about her cryptid research and will happily take any aid offered on that, but she's sensitive to threats and will posture for position if needed. Anything that'd get rid of her hawk form or force her to burn the Cover would set her on a path of single-minded revenge. She remains in her hawk Cover as much as possible. It's about a foot and a half tall, with a near three foot wingspan, gray-brown feathers and a white-barred underbelly, plus a black-banded tail. Her body language is based on her raptor instincts. She can speak, but it compromises her Cover to do so and is very unsettling to hear. Her human Cover, Ranger Silva, is basically a stereotype and a surname, though she uses it whenever she leaves the jungle. Silva is a short Latina woman with tanned skin, khaki clothes and black hair, tied back. Her smile is fixed and she emotes primarily via body language, not her face, because that's what Ms. Thermal is used to. In her demonic form, Ms. Thermal is about two stories tall, appearing as a dark, crystalline humanoid whose head and torso end in points. She has neither arms nor legs, and her shape is more bird than human. Arcs of electricity connect her body to at least three sets of wings, which merge and split with each other irregularly. One set, feathered, keeps her flying. Another, of bone, shields her core. A third, of brass, functions as manipulator appendages. A mass of clouded ephemera floats beneath her crystal body, like a semi-real shadow. Ms. Thermal is on a deadline - her hawk Cover is aging out, and will die of old age soon. She desperately does not want to be stuck in her human Cover when this happens, and she doesn't have the intel to plan an angel-jacking to get another animal Cover. Her cryptid experiments have not panned out so far, and her backup spirit Cover is a holding pattern. She's started poking at the remnants of her old Infrastructure and has found enough intact machinery that she could reconnect it to the God-Machine if she wanted. If she can control that reconnection, she thinks, she could force an angel into existence. Right now, there's too many variables she can't control, but if her other plans keep failing, she might do it. That she is even considering this option shows how her solitude has not left her well. By any standard, she is not a rational person. She hasn't pursued her Cipher and shuns human connection. Her ultimate goal is, in fact, to turn off her human thought and live as an animal. It is only her fear of nonexistence that keeps her from tossing all plans aside and just living out her life as a bird. She won't admit it even to herself, but it is her desire to give up higher thought that drives her equally as much as her need to remain hidden from the Machine. Most demons that knew of her assume she's already dead - she doesn't talk to others often, and it's been four years since her Fall. She has no support structure, no favors to call on...but on the other hand, she doesn't really need much. She's a free agent. Her cryptid creations rarely survive more than a day or two, starving for lack of Aether. A few don't, though - some make it to Infrastructure and manage to survive. These usually live long enough to breed with normal animals. A few distinct variations have popped up over the past few years, most of them bioluminescent. Ms. Thermal keeps an eye on them, but they're not sentient so she doesn't care about them except insofar as scientists keep coming to try and investigate. She has moved one flock of them in the hopes that the glowing songbirds will keep the scientists busy elsewhere. She's also managed to thin out the spirit population in the area. Part of that is that it was low to begin with due to the old Infrastructure keeping them out, and part is that she's cleaned out most of what was left in gathering Corpus for her spirit Cover. She wants a strong one, but has eaten through her supply of spirits too fast, and has actually created spiritual vacuums in some places due to overharvest. It'd be obvious to anyone familiar with the Gauntlet. The holes are attracting attention, and Ms. Thermal is just hoping they eventually repopulate. It's only a matter of time before something big moves in - either a powerful spirit or Ms. Thermal's new Cover. Ms. Thermal is tough and strong-willed, but very uncharismatic. She's pretty good at investigation, knows a shitload about animals and is good at sneaking and survival skills. (Unsurprisingly.) Her demonic form is primarily a smashy tank. Her magical powers are focused around survival, combat ability and stealth. Her speaking only in the present tense is actually a glitch - she couldn't stop if she wanted to. She is also unable to seek shelter from rain. Next time: Flesh by Illusion, the Hour of Dawn Murder SalesOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 5: Murder Sales I killed and skinned an Australian. Sanjha didn't change much with her Fall. As an angel, she served as the guardian of an occult matrix in rural southern India, disguised as a young woman starting a ranch out in the ass end of nowhere. Her true form was designed as a rakshasi to scare the locals away, and if anyone came near the Infrastructure, she'd wander off, then come back in her true form and eat them. Those that survived were terrified of her, and if any told stories, most people were either too nervous or disbelieving to do anything. It worked. However, it bored her. She started to play games with her distant neighbors and travelers, trying to tempt them to intrude so she could hunt them. She still did her job, so she didn't Fall immediately, but she grew to love the thrill of the hunt. Eventually, the project was finished and shut down. Sanjha didn't report in for recycling - she was out on a hunt at the time, and her dedication to that over actually doing her job caused her Fall. She didnt' care. She just hunted for herself now, not the project. This might have continued forever, if she didn't stumble across a group of demons. She hunted them to their safehouses, picking them off one by one, until she killed them all. In the last safehouse, she started to pick through their goods and secrets, and she decided she liked the luxuries she'd seen on the hunt. She changed her focus. As she picked up tradecraft and contacts from their wreckage, she eventually started working with an international smuggling ring known as the Rising Ape, heading out from India to seek her fortune. The first Agency she ran into hired her to replace a number of lost Covers they needed after an operation, and she easily produced a large number of them in exchange for magical gear, intel and other resources. Then she moved on. It's been a few years since, and Sanjha has an established rep in a handful of cities, though she never stays in one place long. She sells various services, but her main one is producing massive amounts of Covers at high speed. Even the best Pact-makers are unsure how she does it. For a relatively unambitious demon, it seems like a perfect existence...but the cost is catching up. While her Cover-hunting is useful for demons, both angels and mortal authorities are picking up on her patterns in the cities she operates in. Other demons don't particularly like Sanjha, and some are preparing to go for her secrets by force, on the belief that revealing her tricks could benefit them all more than just letting her operate. Others want her as a minion or ally. Sanjha doesn't care. She enjoys her luxuries and wheels and deals as ever. She is a lively saleswoman, friendly and energetic. She moves with her customer's concerns, always keeping the deal going, and she doesn't let herself be taken advantage of. She's open to soft compromise and can be very accomodating, though. Her constant movements can be disconcerting - she hates staying still and doesn't like to wait for deals to be thought over. She gets especially pushy if she's low on things to do to keep herself busy. Those that hire Sanjha as a mercenary learn how deep this goes. As an angel, she was always active, and she prefers to remain so. She moves from objective to objective without ever stopping, and while she knows other demons are usually less comfortable with improvisation than she is, that just means she expects her employers to provide her with clear action plans and, if they're uncomfortable with her methods, not to expect her to make her own spot decisions. If they give her freedom, on the other hand, she is a risktaker who will happily gamble on her ability to get the job done. She enjoys tormenting humans, both in minor, inconvenient ways and by ruining lives. No real reason - she's just an asshole. She knows it can be a risk, but she tends not to think of people as anything but playthings and she likes pushing buttons. Only the Rising Apes get her professional courtesy by default, and she always compensates them well to keep them from complaining about how she acts. They might be a cult for her one day, but for now it's just business. Sanjha's free time is generally spent prepping to move and finding new work. On the rare times she isn't busy doing that, she likes to talk philosophy and religion. She's not good at it - she has a beginner's knowledge but quickly gets lost as the topic gets deeper and more nuanced. When she finally does grasp a complex philosophical concept, however, she finally finds a bit of stillness as she thinks about it. Sanjha changes Covers often, but she maintains her original, a late 20s Indian woman named Veppampattu Isha Rachita Konar. Rachita, for short. Rachita is a rough, round-faced woman who is at home in ranching clothes and is completely calm, unlike the demon inside her. Sanjha treasures Rachita as part of herself. Her main other Cover is an old Mexican woman named Valeria Zapata Armenta, a widow who Sanjha made a deal with and lived as for several months in Santiago Tuxtla. It's often out of place, but Sanjha gets much use out of how people tend to dismiss the old woman and allow her to get away with anything. Her most comfortable form, however, is her demonic one. She has wide, dark eyes and a maw of razor teeth, broad and flared nostrils and bruise-purple skin with white hashmarks along her four long arms, which each end in oil-dripping claws. Her body pulses with veins of blue plasma. Sanjha is very careful to hide how she manufactures Covers so easily: a Gadget in the form of a mask, Raw Eater. Using this, she hunts down her targets and devours them whole. The mask translates the semi-digested flesh and bone into Cover, using the transmutation of flesh into quantum energies. For Sanjha, all other methods of Cover production are now wholly obsolete. Humanity is her banquet, and losing Raw Eater is nearly as unthinkable to her as being caught by the hunter angels. The Covers it produces are generally low quality, and their production is a mess. Cannibalism is hardly subtle, and Sanjha's nomadic ways mean she doesn't usually cover her tracks as well as a more settled demon might. The angels drawn in by the chaos often turn on the buyers of her Covers when she uses her powers to hide her work, and when she doesn't, the cops tend to want to be involved. An Agency that were to realize this would probably try to track her down and capture her, and that'd risk Raw Eater. One more reason Sanjha tends to skip town fast and repeat the same location rarely. She is aware her business model is unstable, and she's started to wonder if Raw Eater can be used to go the other way - turning her lies and masks into real flesh and blood. She just has to figure out how to do it - several demonic powers suggest it should be possible, after all. Of course, if making things by "manipulating the Cover of the world" is even possible, it's a difficult task even for the most potent demons. Turning meat and quantum illusion into each other is not easy - it takes a lot of experimentation on the subroutines of reality, and Sanjha spends a lot of time pushing the bounds on how much of a "life" a Cover can have on its own and how far reality can be pushed. She also hires out to demons who can produce results for similar experiments. A lot of the Gadgets she sells to others are the results of her commissioned experiments and her curiosity. She's having too much fun right now to really delve fully into the subject, of course...but as she gets older and more mature, she's starting to want to settle down and learn more about her Cipher. If she manages it, she could start an Agency - a good one, if bloody and vicious - assuming she doesn't get angry customers taking her down first. Sanjha considers herself a casual Hindu, and has been spotted by other demons reading books on Hinduism fairly frequently because she's never really understood what being Hindu meant before. She wants to connect with the faith somehow, though she's not sure how to do it. Her Covers tend to be...well, haunted. The ghosts that emerge when her Covers are burned tend to be rather upset about having been eaten. While some demons say the Covers themselves make you feel urges to eat people, the ghosts have no influence over the Covers - they can't exist until the Cover is burned, after all. The rumors are inspiring Sanjha into trying new experiments, however. Her speed at producing the Covers makes many suspect her of being a serial angel-jacker of extreme skill; she's not, but she prefers this rumor to go around rather than have people dig into the truth. She thus hints at it when pressed. She also is very curious what'd happen if Raw Eater were used on an angel. Sanjha is tough and a good fighter, and very charismatic. She's surprisingly good at medicine and politics, but combat and lying are her main skills, especially in her demonic form, which is better than most. It's able to shut down electronics with EMPs, is terrifying to look at and is extremely good at combat and tracking. Her powers are mostly focused around sneaking and memory manipulation, though she can use her Exploits to do some crazy shit in terms of breaking into places and making people hallucinate. She has a glitch that causes the eye tattoo on the base of her neck to blink sometimes. Raw Eater is a half-mask made of burnt flesh with an iron tooth-grill hanging from it. It lets her store damage she deals with it inside the mask until she builds up enough to produce a Cover. Once the Cover is complete, it spontaneously generates a pact contract written on human leather. Wednesday claims to be exceptionally old. Certainly, even if he isn't ancient, he is very powerful. He says that once, he may have been an angel that built the engines that push time forward, or one that connected timelines and destroyed paradoxes or weaponized broken histories for the Machine. He Fell due to hubris, angered by how inferior his God seemed to be, or perhaps because he fell in love with an ape in which he saw eternity. He may have been worshipped as a god by men in times past, or he may merely have marched with the armies of Rome and Russia. Perhaps he fought Hercules, or he gamed with Charlemagne, or he argued with Newton. Maybe he's just a liar dating back to Victorian times. Maybe he's a god cursed by the Machine into human flesh. Maybe all of this or none. Wednesday honestly doesn't care if any of these are true or believed or lies or unreal. He's too busy trying to beat God. What can be said with relative certainty: his current project is an Agency called the Hour of Dawn. He started it and co-leads it with an elder demon that goes by Cacus, and they are supported by a younger third, Nothiel. The trio have been working to fight the Machine for the past two centuries. Besides raiding Infrastructure and ruining projects, they rally humans to resist the Machine and infiltrate occult societies to gain their secrets. Their operations tend to be on a slower pace than most Saboteurs, and they don't seem to result in greater success on average than anyone else - but that's because they have fewer but larger successes. In one city, a ring of Integrators compromised an entire Agency, hunting them down - and 24 hours later, the Hour of Dawn emerged from a facility, having restored the entire Agency and killed the Integrators. God-Machine cultists worshipped a crocodile altar for 444 days as the gears promised them power, preparing to birth some grand project...until the Hour of Dawn sent them all to the hospital to get spider eggs removed from their skin. In 1987, 64 members of a suburban neighborhood were found with their heads smashed and clawed open, their ghosts claiming they did it to themselves to stop the world entering via their third eye. The Hour made the angels that caused this pay with their lives. Cacus and Nothiel appear to be the active members - Nothiel ensures the Agency has all the resources and allies they need, and Cacus actively recruits demons and leads raids. Wednesday is easy to dismiss. Cacus and Nothiel, however, insist that his planning is the entire reason they can succeed at all, and Cacus even claims the only reason they haven't killed God yet is that Wednesday is still figuring out how to do it without it taking them with it. Wednesday prefers to avoid interaction with demons besides Cacus and Nothiel, preferring to use them or his cult as intermediaries. When he does show up in person, it's usually either in a burn Cover or his demon form. Still, he's fairly obvious when he's there. He uses every tense except the correct one when he talks, but is also exacting in his directions. He is impersonal even by demon standards and has no tolerance for anyone deviating from his plans. He also often becomes possessive of seized Infrastructure. He goes out of his way to keep operatives on his missions alive and safe, and he's clearly a genius, but most demons think his greatest virtue is that he remains uninvolved. He only ever seems to compromise with the other two demons of his Agency or the leader of his cult. Cacus claims he is dangerously kind and sentimental, despite this. Wednesday is violently defensive of his private lives, but those that meet his Covers tend to find that...actually, yeah, he's sentimental and kind. His Covers are always warm-hearted goofs, fond of theatre, making things and eating. His concern for others is so constant and deep that it's unclear if it's a long con or real. Sure, a lot of what he does is clearly based on his own personal interests, but he's genuinely warm in a way even demons generally aren't. Besides the burn Covers he keeps for dealing with other demons, Wednesday maintains three Covers. First is Wendy Odile Elian, a thin, dark-haired woman in her early 30s that serves as assistant to his high priest, Hazel Schreier. Wendy is eager to help, professional and shy to present her own opinions. Frequently, she only speaks when 'possessed' by Wednesday, allowing him to talk to his cult directly. Outside cult meetings, Wendy is close with Hazel both at work and in her private life. Second is Alex Wayfarer, a young blond man who wants to be taught about the occult. He claims to not be good with magic and he's a bit of a blusterer, but he's earnest and patient, disguising Wednesday's glitch-based tense issues with cursing. The final cover is a talking raven that Wednesday uses to pretend to be a spirit or divine messenger or similar. Wednesday's original demonic form is long gone, rebuilt over years of personal adjustments. Now, he is a mirrored humanoid figure resembling a spider, with two swan wings and one raven wing coming out of his back like clock hands, attached to a large gear. Blue mandalas swirl across his body, glowing faintly, and he has four hydraulic arms. His head is enlarged and alien, and his eyes are star-specked pits. Wednesday's big secret is that he knows how to build Infrastructure and occult matrices. It's not wholly reliable - it works maybe a third of the time - and he hasn't figured out how to use it for the grand effects he'd like. However, he's designed angels, fates and alternate timelines. Every time he and his Agency seize a God-Machine holding, his understanding is increased. Even for an old, potent demon, this is a dangerous game - he's playing with arcane physics he doesn't fully understand. He has a sense of responsibility and tries to control what he does so it won't hurt others, but he also has a habit of finding useful things to do with his failures, no matter how messy. Generally, he gambles on the ability of the local demons and angels to handle any mistakes he makes, clearing out his traces and hitting related sites in the confusion. If there are losses among his allies...well, that's, ultimately, acceptable. He's not doing this for demons. Wednesday, you see, loves humans. He is a humanist, though he doesn't advertise it at all. He loves the idea of humanity, having seen them attain divine glory via psychic, spiritual and magical means. He wants humans to overthrow and destroy the God-Machine and claim the world as their own. The place demons, angels and similar hold in that world - that will be and must be up to humans. That is the truth Wednesday saw in his Cipher, and it's a truth he's always felt he's known, deep down. Of course, he knows humans are too prone to infighting to trust them to find it themselves. Therefore, he has decided it's his job to create an occult matrix that will have an output resulting in the awakening of humanity's divine potential and which will set them to take the place of God. He has several options under consideration, but the main one is to apply psychic pressure to every human being in accordance to their mental strength, subtly programming them with the knowledge required to ascend and allowing them to grow by fighting against occult dominance until they overthrow it. Wednesday believes he can create such a psychic system and use it to direct the collective of humanity to the key locations required to use their mystical might to control the world. Wednesday's love of and belief in humans is fundamentally tied to his own weakness, which makes him closer to them than most humans. Due to a complex occult matrix failure that integrated his Fall, a time machine and the completion of his Pentagrammic Cipher, his memory is linked to his Covers. Whenever he first enters a new Cover or a person very close to one of his Covers dies, Wednesday loses all memories of his demonic self until he next gains Aether. Depending on the Cover, this might take days, months or even years. Only Cacus and Nothiel have been told about this flaw, and neither of them understand why it happens. Whether it is because of some damage during his Fall or some result of his tampering with occult matrices, Wednesday has spent a very large amount of time living purely as a human, loving and living and learning about them more intimately than nearly any demon ever has. This is why he believes he must save humanity - even if the scale of his work risks dooming them. Some suspect Wednesday is an Integrator, because he's worked with them before, and even with angels. He is not; in fact, he hates the Machine and Integrators deeply. However, he knows that angels often unknowingly have important keys to occult matrix outputs, and he occasionally hires Integrators to learn the details of these angels. He's very, very careful about what he pays them in return for this aid. Wednesday also has a tendency to go up against werewolves, mages and other supernatural types because he's found that places of power where Essence flows easily are easier for him to produce occult matrices in. He also has seen some of the other gods of the world, things of power outside the Machine, and has decided they probably need to die, too. This means he's often fighting the people who already control the power sites he plans to use or who worship the gods he plans to kill. Last, Wednesday is the owner of a second-order Lambda - one of the most powerful demonic artifacts in existence. It is named Broken's Aubade, and it is one of his most precious possessions. Even so, he is willing to risk even this for his plan to come to fruition. Wednesday is superhumanly intelligent, exceptionally strong-willed, and physically potent and tough as hell - even in his human bodies. He's a master of all kinds of academic and occult fields, a skilled crafter and understands science as well as any physicist. He's also an excellent armed combatant, especially with spears, and great at sneaking and crimes. He's not as good at, like, talking to people, unless he's trying to be scary, lying or reading them. He's nearly impossible to read himself. His demonic form makes him even faster, stronger and smarter, as well as resistance to mental attack. His magic powers help him cover for his social failings, control inanimate objects and avoid notice, and he has pretty much all of the demon time control tricks. His glitches are that he cannot use the correct tense when speaking and that objects become more reflective in his presence. Broken's Aubade is a silver music box covered in eyes. When activated, it plays a song that sends demons to sleep within themselves. Once the song finishes, the box breaks. The demon listening becomes their Cover, whatever it was. Even if it's a supernatural being, they become that kind of being or the closest possible approximation. They remember nothing of their demonic life, instead remembering their Cover's life. They cannot suffer compromise, and if confronted with evidence of their demonic existence, they can make a roll to remember using the Aubade and may become obsessed with fixing it. The Aubade's effects end when it is repaired; once this is done, the affected demon returns to their old self and their Cover reverts to its normal rating. Other Covers may or may not degrade during this period. Next time: Touched by angels. ProtectorOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 6: Protector Guardian angels exist. Ataraxia is one of them. There's certainly not one for each person - there's billions of people out there, and most of them just aren't that important to the Machine. Besides, the resources needed to produce that many angels would be absurd. Guardian angels are typically built to protect specific humans against natural hazards of all kinds - from sickness to heartbreak. They tend to be less good at stopping supernatural threats, and while they may have the power to call on a hunter angel as backup and hide their ward, they're typically no match for an angry demon. Ataraxia was made originally to protect an orphan girl who the Machine needed to grow up to become the First Lady of the US and later the first UN ambassador. Now, the angel is the Machine's go-to for protecting children in dangerous or nonexistent home lives. She lives as their imaginary friend, caring for them, singing them to sleep and ensuring that, regardless of the chaos around them, these kids are happy and safe. Ataraxia's job begins with the target's birth, most of the time. The child amy not become orphaned or enter an abusive situation for several years, but she integrates into their life as quickly as possible. She may take the form of lights around the crib to amuse the baby, or a stranger who compliments the child to their parents at the coffee shop each day. She is always present for the first time the child is hit, or when they receive the news of their parents' death. Always. She never leaves them, not until they forget about her. Which is simple enough - children usually stop believing in their imaginary friend, angel or otherwise, around puberty or young adulthood at the latest. They find their own support systems. They may have fond memories of the coping mechanism that helped them through the hard times, and she might show up in a journal or autobiography as 'the voice that kept me going' or similar. This is almost always rationalized as survival instinct or part of the brain encouraging recovery or an imaginary friend they made out of need. The angel goes dormant once her ward moves on, to be called into service again next time she's required. Sometimes it doesn't work out to plan. Sometimes, children cling onto her well beyond the normal age of disbelief. Religious fanatics, new agers, occultists or just really lonely people, usually. They run the risk of becoming Stigmatic the longer they keep the angel around. Sooner or later, she drives them into the gears of the Machine. Her job isn't to steer them to any specific plan, just to keep them alive and happy, but she may not understand what her ward will think of as 'happy.' For children it's easy. Make sure they grow up, comfort them, keep away bad people and, if needed, tip off the cops. For adults, it's more complicated. Children do not usually actively try to destroy themselves, in Ataraxia's experience. Adults, on the other hand, do. For a child, she might knock pills out of their hand once. The adult...well, she might have to start using her powers to push thoughts of bliss and nothingness onto them to stop them self-destructing. Her understanding of what's harmful seems to vary wildly between targets, too, and may be non-intuitive. She may consider gambling harmful, or eating too many carbs. Anything that might cause lasting physical harm is on her list, of course, so she puts out cigarettes or smashes the bottles of alcoholics. It's all because she loves her children. She loves them in an all-consuming way. She is the only real guardian any of them really ever had, and she does it with a fury. She expects that at some point they'll let her go, but while she cares for them, everything in their life is her responsibility. Ataraxia is an obsessive. She neither eats nor sleeps, so she can always be watching. She is more than willing to use her powers to gaslight and terrify those that would harm her ward, writing messages on foggy windows or making things fall off surfaces (which she considers to be somewhat poetic). If needed, she'll even fire off mystic blasts at them. She can physically manifest, but prefers not to. She much prefers whispers and signs for communication rather than appearing to be a person. If subtle hints fail, however, she takes the form of a young woman who shares many physical characteristics with her ward, such as skin and hair color or vocal pattern. She prefers not to use her powers directly on her ward, but her ability to cause stunned bliss is useful for preventing self-destructive behavior and if necessary, mystic blasts can get them away from danger if they won't listen to reason. Once Ataraxia has decided magic is her best option, her ward has no more say in the matter. Ataraxia primarily deals with people who aren't touched by the supernatural. (Except for her, anyway.) Sometimes, however, she is activated to safeguard a Stigmatic child. In these cases, she almost always protects the kid and sees to it that they are placed as the head of a Stigmatic cult, learning to love and revere the God-Machine as they grow up. When doing this, her priorities shift - less about preventing all possible hazards and more about pushing the kid into the care of those who will help them optimally learn and grow. Once a Stigmatic adopts the Stigmatic kid, her mission is over and she is deactivated once more until the next child needs her. She has never dealt directly with demons, but Ataraxia hates them fervently. She knows they are able to hollow out and steal the souls of humans, and some of those humans could theoretically be her children. If Ataraxia were to run into a demon and realize it, it's as likely that she'd hang back and call in a hunter angel as it is that she'd attempt to attack them directly while getting her ward to safety. She would almost certainly lose, but it'd be worth it to prove to the demon that her kids are not their clothing, to steal and wear and discard. Ataraxia's watched over many kids, and sometimes, they find each other. The lonely, mystic or Stigmatic often end up in support groups that then spiral out of control. Several small cults dedicated to Ataraxia and her role as protector have sprung up in poor urban areas with high levels of social services. These groups usually try to get involved in the health and human services programs in the area, especially foster care and special needs support. They occasionally abduct children and subject them to strange rituals, largely in the hope that doing so will cause Ataraxia to show up and take care of them once more. It's not generally a thing that works. On a more entertaining level, Ataraxia occasionally decides to masquerade as a tragic murder victim or unsettled ghost if she believes her ward will benefit from her taking spectral vengeance on someone. Poltergeist activity then abounds, along with other symptoms of hauntings, aimed to drive off foes and unsettle everyone else harmlessly. Some demons have figured out she exists, but they don't interfere with her. She doesn't notice them at all, and children are rarely useful to the Agency that has noticed her work. Oh, and in a hook all the way back to the original World of Darkness core short story that introduced the God-Machine, the Deva Corporation hypothesizes that Ataraxia was the angel that granted the Pain Prophecy to Marco Singe as he endured his father's abuse. If either group could figure out a way to use Ataraxia to their advantage, she could be quite potent - and if someone were to force a kid out of her protection, she might be convinced to Fall in order to protect the child. Ataraxia is a weak angel, only rank 1, not subtle and not particularly potent. Her ability to fire weak blasts is her only combat trick, and she can cause blissful rapture or leave omens and writing around her if she wants. Her Ban is that she cannot be out of sight of her ward, and her bane is her ward vocalizing an honest disbelief in her existence. She is very much not a physical threat. Hatsune Miku Made This Cheonsa are a triple angel, three bodies in one being. They are a single angel, split in three. Sometimes they sing for the Machine - whatever it tells them to. They dazzle audiences with their songs, their choreography. Cheonsa means 'angel' and is the name they go by even in the human world. They are messenger angels, after all. They have heralded victory in battle, called forth death with their song, driven people into frenzy or hysteria. Their voices tap into humans at a cellular level. They have been present throughout human history - the Fates, the Furies, the three witches around the cauldron, these are all echoes of Cheonsa. Before the Black Death came to England, three veiled women sang dirges in the towns, warning of dire fates. They were laughed at, they left, and the Plague struck. They have sung for peace and for war alike - anything the Machine tells them to tell others, they sing. They do not care about the message, only the mission. Today, Cheonsa perform as a K-pop trio (that's their group name). Their unseen manager books them at various venues, and their songs have mesmerized many in Korea and abroad. Their songs top the charts for months at a time. They're just so catchy, the lyrics seem to burn into your mind. Indeed, they literally write themselves in the synapses, as secret messages are concealed within the songs. They have caused riots to break out with their music, triggering fights and rage. They have sung at political rallies to push them to violence - or to love and peace. Cheonsa are famous, all over the radio, TV and the internet. They started, according to some demons who tracked them early, as a rising social media sensation that transitioned to more traditional musical performances from video-sharing sites. Their output was immense. However, demons realize that the angel must predate the Internet - and, indeed, much of modern history. They have analyzed the dance moves the group performs in the believe that the movements themselves are an invasive mental program that worms its way into the weak-willed. Some have even attempted to infiltrate Cheonsa's entourage to attempt to figure out their current mission. Cheonsa look like a typical K-pop girl band. They're lovely young ladies with dyed hair and perfect makeup, resembling identical triplets wearing different colors to differentiate themselves. Unlike most bands, their management is mysterious, secretive and apparently hands-off. They are, despite this, immaculate in behavior and style. Their photo shoots in magazines are quickly bought up by adoring fans, selling out the same day. They participate in various events to maintain their cover identities, from cooking shows to variety. Tabloids try to dig up juicy gossip; so far, they have failed, and the reporters are often rendered catatonic for coincidental reasons, their noses and ears bleeding as they speak of bright lights and thunder. Their memories get wiped and they often wander around lost, missing time. The news items that get published are almost exclusively positive and cheery, full of photos and with little substance. Hana, the first facet, speaks for the group. She is friendly, talkative and often playful and cheeky as she banters with reporters. Her favorite dessert is bingsu, and the food is experiencing a popularity boom. Du, the second facet, is shy and humble. She is cute, fashionable and often emulated by teen fans. Se, the third facet, never talks and is always watching to see how the audience reacts. She alerts the others if she spots trouble of any kind, and she doesn't hesitate to retaliate. She is easily the most vicious of the trio, and famous for her beautiful smile. All three have neon markings resembling circuits on their arms - blue for Hana, green for Du, red for Se. No one ever mentions it, and drawing circuit marks is now fashionable among fans. The entire thing is a blatant provocation to demons, who must hide their nature. When they must fight, Cheonsa transform into bright humanoid figures, barely feminine at all, and their limbs are covered in gears and circuits. Their heads are replaced by wide mouths that blast noise, and their arms become flagellant whips. They can merge together into a ball of blazing light and metal, and they fight wielding noise and sound to deafen or madden their foes. They can also confuse foes and make them hallucinate. They operate in perfect and total unity, for each facet is part of the same being. Cheonsa's music is legitimately incredibly good, and evoke various emotions without even needing to tap into human brains on the cellular level. However, their songs are also addictive in order to better allow their messages to get to the right place, and fans often lose sight of other things in their lives. Sometimes, mass fan disappearances happen. Cheonsa, obviously, deny all allegations of causing the disappearances. It doesn't seem to stop their popularity. Some say that what's going on is a cult worshipping Cheonsa is choosing vessels to serve the God-Machine. Cheonsa do not care - and indeed, if rumors of cults happen, they blame the tabloids if asked. In truth, they are exploiting vulnerable individuals and groups that are susceptible to key frequencies in their music, manipulating them easily. These people cannot ignore the lyrics, and must obey them. Typically, these 'vessels' end up dying in their missions or losing their minds entirely, but hey, that's not the angel's problem. Cheonsa are very potent, a rank 4 angel. They aren't superhuman in any stat, but they do have Influence (Supplication) 4 and a wide array of combat and emotional control powers, plus the ability to implant missions in people. Their Ban is that they cannot turn away from praise from their fans, and their Bane is having their facets seperated and isolated. Next time: The Critic, the Sword and Shield WATCH TV, HUMANOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 6: WATCH TV, HUMAN Legs cost too much. The God-Machine considers television to be one of the best tools available to it for mass influence. With so many TV viewing options available, it is able to produce stories designed to keep humans pacified and docile or inspire them to key actions - such as making their own TV programming for it. TV shows convey ideas to millions at once, faster than any other medium before it, and with the rise of the internet, it just has another vector. However, there are so many options of what to watch, and choice paralysis makes it hard for humans to decide. That's why Jennifer Jasper exists. As far as any human is aware, she started reviewing TV shows online a few years ago. Her witty, insightful commentary and relatable personal stories earned her first hundreds of viewers, then thousands, then millions. She tells her viewers what's good, what's bad and what shows really need reworking to survive. Demons and stigmatics look at her and, sometimes, they can tell - she's an angel directing television traffic for the Machine. Her mission is very simple: she is to manipulate TV programming that the God-Machine uses to communicate ideas to humanity. However, this requires her to be highly visible, and she's had to scramble to fortify her human Cover, coming as close to human as she can while, hopefully, avoiding a Fall. Her show, Just Sayin', is currently translated into Spanish, French, Mandarin, Japanese and German. Additional languages would currently arouse suspicion. She maintains an American accent when dealing with British or Australian TV, but uses appropriate regional slang. Her review selections are chosen first by guidance from the Machine and second, for when that guidance is not forthcoming, whatever she happens to find interesting. In her early days, Jennifer wasn't sure how to pick shows, so she relied on other reviewers or angelic comrades for suggestions. As she has developed free will and taste of her own, she has made her own selections, finding hidden gems in TV broadcasting. In some cases, the shows she selected became vehicles of the Machine's operations after the fact, as other angels used her reviews as guides for proactive work or for their own missions. A handful of Saboteurs are aware of Jennifer's nature and use trolling comments, doxxing and similar tactics to try and take her down; unfortunately for them, these tactics have been less effective recently due to many taking strong stances against online harassment. (MORS NOTE: This was published in 2018. Really.) More importantly, some hunter angels have taken to using these trolling comments as the starting point for tracking the less cautious demons making them. Doxxing is, unsurprisingly, not very effective because pinpointing Jennifer is impossible with her current setup. She uses several layers of IP spoofing, never uses natural lighting and relies on stock background sound effects to fake background noise. Her IP has, at various times, pointed to a donut shop, the home of an elderly woman or a sex toy shop in a bad neighborhood. Jennifer appears to be a young white woman in her 20s with perfect hair and makeup. When she visited a makeup reviewer as a guest, she actually had to add pore texturing to her skin, and even then it was amazingly perfect. Jennifer's critics call her fake or plastic, and some of her body actually is made from a sort of idealized form of plastic for lightweight flexibility. She ignores this (and the book accidentally calles her Jssica). Her mastery of language lets her reach viewers across the globe, her appearance is adequately attractive to most of her audience, and her wit is appreciated. For a long time she existed only from the waist up, but as she grew more famous, the Machine modified her to a full human form so she could meet people in person. Her fans tend to be in awe of how fast she can form opinions of people and how unafraid she is of sharing them. Some call her a bitch, others a feminist; Jennifer considers herself neither. She uses cutting edge technology, and her home base has a wall of the latest HD monitors, streaming hundreds of shows at a time. She abandons old technology the moment something better arrives. She does have problems, however. Fragments of older machines stick to her plastic and polymer parts no matter how finely she grinds them down, and her lubrication systems have trouble washing them away. The friction burns have started to compromise her structural integrity. If asked about it, she claims it's an allergic reaction. Jennifer often makes recommendations on how suffering shows can do better. Some of them make sense, while others seem random, with no basis in fact or logic in the storyline of the show. The thing is, her recommendations work. She recently told a reality show to film an episode in a crowded mall. The show, based on wilderness survival, had no idea what her point was, but based on her past success in advice, they do so, framing it as a zombie apocalypse survival exercise with the zombies already in the mall. Ratings skyrocketed, and the show avoided cancellation. What the producers don't realize is that the mall got a much-needed increase in power to the Infrastructure within it - though if they did, they wouldn't care. It got them money. She never accepts bribes for positive reviews, either. Sometimes she gets paid after a positive review, or to avoid a lawsuit when a show's producers and writers incorporate her advice. She just doesn't take paid reviews, period. She claims it's out of integrity; in truth, she's just not confident her cover could withstand the scrutiny of a lawsuit that might result if her mission required her to break the contract involved. Even with her fame, she has only just started making any real effort to improve her cover story. Fortunately, her mission has not yet required her to sign a paid review contract. Jennifer is entirely unafraid to break secret information on the shows she reviews. No one knows where she gets the insider info, largely because it is provided to her by the God-Machine or its angels. She sometimes reveals real information, sometimes fake, as a means of embedding subliminal messaging in her reviews. In some cases, the false rumors take on a life of their own and become true after the fact, as producers or writers decide they were a good idea. Jennifer spaces out her 'reveals' randomly, to ensure viewers never know when they'll hear the latest dirt. This ensures her subscriber numbers never fall too much. She has more free will than most angels tend to - it's required for her mission. She doesn't rely on magic from the Machine to bring in viewers, so she has to keep her brand image fresh and relevant, which means a full social media presence, which means enough humanity to support one. As her cover gets deeper, the temptation to rebel only grows. Jennifer is heavily at risk of Falling, but knows how much her work relies on obeying the Machine's will. She'd never get her insane but working show advice without it. Jennifer wants to serve and be loyal still, but she isn't sure why she's serving, since the Machine never tells angels why, and the temptations of self-interest grow ever greater. Jennifer Jasper is a rank 3 angel, moderately powerful and with Influence (Opinion) 3. She's able to wield powerful magic to implant ideas in people's heads or make them hallucinate, can make herself hard to notice and can find things. She isn't going to be a challenge in a fight but almost certainly has fighting angels on call. Her Ban is that she must give an opinion about any person mentioned in her presence. Her Bane is fragments of outdated technology, such as broken TV screens or the ash of burned books or magazines. A harmless old lady. Madam Wong/Ms. Wong is a protector, a guardian of living fire. She hides in the shape of an old Chinese woman running an herb shop in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, in Hong Kong. The particular intersection is an important place for the God-Machine (or, as the angel thinks of it, the Light). At the intersection is a small church built out of a renovated shop and house, attracting ever more worshippers tired of the fast-paced Hong Kong life. This church must be protected, because something is coming. The gears are turning. They cannot be allowed to stop. The herb shop has been in the neighborhood for ages. Few can remember a time when it was not there. The herbs are there all the time; they never run out. They treat anything, the old woman tells people. She has herbs for any ailment. Boil them, drink them twice a day. Some say she is a creepy lady and avoid her shop, not only for the smell and that it is always cold but because it feels weird and wrong. Cell signals cut out in the shop. It's always cold. Weeds and living plants wither there. The whole place is unsettling. Humans that can sense it feel a gut-wrenching sense of revulsion. Others are drawn to the shop. The rickety, mildewed old signboard outside could be 50 years old or a hundred. Don't touch it. Don't ask about it. The characters on it just name the shop. It's ugly, unlike the other signs in the area. Within it are the basic Infrastructural foundations that ensure the shop operates properly. The rest of the storefront can change, but the signboard never will. If it goes bad, the whole shop does. The old woman produces delicious double-boiled soups daily. She is programmed to do so. Only two people get to drink them - Anna, the key to her mission, and Cheong Wang, the old woman's working friend. The old woman understands that humans are fragile. They break easily, in mind and body. They are blind to the world. She hates to see Anna deal with her abusive husband and the pressure to have a son, hates to see Cheong Wang deal with his research and his sick mother. She is starting to care too much. At night, she checks herself for problems, flushes out intrusive memes and purges herself of attachments. It is painful. She screams. The angel appears to be an old Chinese woman with a hunchback, always wearing simple clothing. She looks ancient, age lines all over her face and liver spots on her arms. She walks with a stick; it is for show. Her responses are short and clipped, and doesn't make small talk except for with her two wards. Her customers respect her age and do not pry into her private life. Those unfamiliar with her think her rude or abrupt. She is very protective of the church, Anna and Cheong Wang. Anna visits the shop often, worried and frowning. She is a preschool teacher, already graying, and she has hand, foot and mouth disease. The preschool will be closing for two weeks to be thoroughly cleaned. Her husband is angry - he wants her to have a son, not the three daughters she's already birthed. He sees her as a failure. Cheong Wang is young but arthritic, walks with a limp and speaks with a lisp. His research at the university is stuck, and his funding halted. His mother is sick and in pain, and only Madam Wong's herbs can help. When demons threaten, the angelic Madam Wong is not afraid to fight. She reveals her true form, shedding the ancient body and becoming an armor-plated warrior with the head of lioness, wings of white fire and a tail like a whip. Her body is coated in eyes, which never blink. She shields her church and her wards with her body if need be. She may also assume the form of an alternate human cover - Ms. Wong, a much younger version of Madam Wong. She is small, has shoulder-length black hair and is a plain, simple girl. She hides easily in the masses of humanity, wearing Korean fashion and drinking iced lattes. This form is used when she has identified demonic activity and isolated it, going to investigate and find the threats. If danger threatens, she reverts to her combat form. The shop also has a small cat that works as a warning system against intruders. It has green eyes and distinct black, gray and red fur. It is neither male nor female, and its tail moves to an odd rhythm. Some whisper that entering the shop unannounced means you will vanish. Madam Wong will deny this if asked, of course. It's true, though. She uses her herbs to send intruders into a fugue state, and most do not recover for days. They have no memory of that period. Sometimes, it may last weeks or even months. At night, the shop makes strange noises, like nails on a chalkboard or metal drilling metal, or strange, inhuman wails. The shopfront often changes size or shape, with apparent renovations done overnight. Locals assume the old woman must know some really good construction types, or had a rich (and dead) husband to pay for it. The area is always spotlessly clean, and the shop sometimes seems to shift locations when no one is paying attention. But the area is a maze anyway, so it's hard to tell. The signboard and cat always remain. Madam/Ms. Wong is a rank 3 angel, powerful but limited. She has Influence (Cold) 1 and (Herbs) 2. Her powers let her drive people mad, avoid notice, hide as a human, heal herself and leave messages hidden in the environment. She's well-armored and strong, but a sustained assault could take her down. Her Ban is that if Anna or Cheong Wang needs her, she must help them, period. Her Bane is the signboard being removed. Next time: The Old Lady in the Holler, the Cleaner American GothicOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 7: American Gothic Timothy! Timothy, you get out here! The Appalachian Trail is a popular one - millions use it each year, all the way up and down the Eastern seaboard. A few thousand each year walk the entire thing, sleeping in shelters or friendly homes when possible and camping out when not. It is a point of pride to bring as little as possible and still make the trip - people still tell stories of Grandma Gatewood, an old woman who walked the full 2000 mile trail with nothing but a small backpack and an extra pair of sneakers. That's dangerous, however. There's wildlife to be wary of - snakes, moose, mosquitos. Thunderstorms can appear out of nowhere, and sinkholes aren't rare near old mines. There's any number of problems that might strike the poorly prepared. The worst danger is getting lost, though. The trail is barely there in parts, and stepping off can mean being unable to find it again. Some people just disappear. Most, however, do not. The Appalachian Trail's important Infrastructure, a huge occult matrix designed to pacify the thing at the heart of the mountains. The labor and pain of the hikers keeps it working. Stigmatic cults exist in certain Trail towns to feed and care for hikers and giving useful advice (and cryptic advice, at times). And for the lost, Mountain Maggie exists. The angel's cabin appears just over the next ridge when you're lost, desperate and exhausted. Maggie sits outside it on her rickety porch - early 40s, braided dirty blonde hair, freckles, stub nose and thick shoulders. She's sensibly dressed, always, but also always a bit outdated. Her chimney pours smoke, and she has a basket of wild vegetables. She never calls out to a hiker first - she must be addressed. She takes the trust the hikers have in her very seriously and takes great pains to be kind to them. She always responds in a comforting voice, offering food and a place to sit. If asked her name, 'Mountain Maggie' is all she's got. No others. If pressed, she just offers more food. She always offers food after a while, anyway. Few hikers turn her down, lost as they are. If they accept, they awaken a few miles from a Trail town, safe and intact but for a missing compass, lucky charm or waterskin. Maggie takes these as the price of hospitality. Mountain Maggie is not an altruist. She's here to care for the Appalachian Trail Infrastructure, which serves two purposes. First, it gets hikers to places the Machine needs them to be. Second, the foot travel fuels the potent Concealment Infrastructure put in place to keep the dead thing in the heart of the mountains quiet. Maggie has been there since the thing was sealed in the mountain fault line, has seen the birth and erosion of the entire range. It's her job to care for that Infrastructure and ensure that the dead thing never comes out. To do that, she has to make sure travelers keep using the trail - and so she cares for them and makes sure they're safe to do so. Maggie will watch hikers for hours, gathering data on their condition and intentions, before she appears to them. She sets herself up to meet their path, but never seeks anyone out that isn't lost and looking for her - which she defines as 'looking for help in the mountains,' as well as 'anyone looking for the dead thing.' That latter is, after all, also something she has to deal with. She appears to be a stereotypical mountain woman, solid and tough. She wears hardy clothes, denim or cotton, and well-worn leather boots. Her skin is slightly dark, her sleeves rolled up, and her voice shifts to be whatever the listener finds most soothing. The freckles on her arms move slowly - they are actually representations of all the hikers on the Trail, using her body as the map. In her angelic form, she is a giant black bear made out of anthracite coal and sandstone. She is more than willing to attack anyone that seeks to awaken the dead thing or anyone that mines too near its seal. In this form, her voice is the roar of wildfire, and she accepts no bargain, no threat and no surrender except one: agree to cease all offending behavior and leave, immediately. Maggie always knows if someone is actively seeking her out. It's her job. She almost always appears to them, and a few people do actively seek her out each year. Even if they intend to harm her, she meets with them. If asked a favor within her power, she typically complies, but only in exchange for something meaningful to the asker. If she is refused three times, she disappears. You must leave the mountain range and return to be able to find her again. She doesn't appreciate those who breach her hospitality. The locals of the Trail towns refuse to believe she exists at all. They've heard the stories of her kindness, her amazing food - but she's not real. Maybe a mountain woman out there helps people, but not the same one each time. Ha'ints don't help people, after all. And if she's real, she never comes to town for supplies or work. The Stigmatics know otherwise, but often actively deny her existence. Others try to assist her, spreading her legend with cheap kitsch and telling people how to find her. Often their families have been doing so for generations, and their shops even become part of the Appalachian Infrastructure. Coal miners used to tell stories about Maggie, when there were more of them. The few left still talk about her. She appears as a huge bear, smashes up mining equipment and terrorizes mines, they say, until they're no longer usable. It is random, and there's no way to predict when she'll strike. That part's not true. Maggie's attacks may seem random, but there's a pattern. She knows that the dead thing has ways of calling out to people, that it wants to be found. It has powers of its own. She has decided the only way to prevent its grave-prison from opening is to destroy and scatter its servant-thralls, and their presence is what draws her wrath if you're not too close to the seal already. So far, her methods have worked, so she sees no reason to change. Maggie is a Rank 3 angel, but an extremely strong and tough one. She has Influences of Appalachian Trail 2 and Thing Under the Mountains 1. She's strong-willed as hell and can soak a lot of damage up, plus she radiates calm, can disguise herself as human easily, can track anything she wants, and can fire blasts. She can also enter the Underworld if she feels like. Her Ban, however, is that she can't leave the Appalachians. Her Bane is being rebuked by her true name, Nazzara. The God-Machine's plans do not all succeed. And even when they do succeed, they're sometimes super messy. Inconvenient deaths, talkative witnesses, a mass of inconvenient cryptids...they have to be dealt with. That's what Ms. Morgue is for. When something needs to be...cleaned, she awakens in the back of her van, surrounded by tools and chemicals. She puts on her clean suit and heads to the scene. When she is done, the problem is gone. She can render a scene utterly sterile, no matter how bad it got. She dismembers bodies and dissolves them in her van's barrels. She makes witnesses recant or forget. Victims get healed and memory-wiped if possible, or if they're not cooperative, killed and dissolved. She even destroys records, paper or electronic. Charges are unfiled, calls unmade. When she is done, she drives her van back into an alley, removes the suit and lies down amidst the guns, bonesaws and chemical vats and returns to stasis, satisfied at another job well done. Ms. Morgue very much enjoys her work. Ms. Morgue takes on a new cover identity each time, and it's always something entirely disposable. She can pull out whatever ID and accessories she needs from her van to get access to a scene, since tha van supplies it with the God-Machine's power. Any uniform she needs, she has. She knows the top 40 hits, she puts on any casual mannerism she needs to fit in, and she knows the name and personal details of any human she meets. She always wakes with exactly the information required to get in, clean the site and get out unnoticed. In her true form, she is roughly humanoid and vaguely resembles whatever identity she's wearing. She glows, buzzing like a flourescent bulb, and floats just over the ground. She wears a white robe with circuit patterning, and her open chest cavity holds a moving gear assemblage. Her feet are copper and discharge electricty when she speaks. Her eyes are filled with static, and have neither iris nor pupil. Two fist-sized silver spheres float behind her, each with a pair of owl wings. Ms. Morgue's van is Infrastructure. It provides her all the tools and gear she needs for her assignment. The doors have no locks, and there is no motor in the engine compartment. The windshield is always clear, regardless of weather or mud. The gas tank is permanently stuck at three-quarters full, and is the Linchpin of the whole assembly. If the gas were ever siphoned out or burned off, the whole vehicle implodes and Ms. Morgue is left unable to return to the Machine. When traveling to a site, she is all business. She does nothing unnecessary - no speech, no movement not needed, no blinking. When she talks to humans, she's easygoing, confident and slightly witty. When cleaning, she talks to her victims, even if they're dead. She explains, always in a cheery, caring tone, what she is going to do to them. She explains exactly what her procedure will be. She wants everyone involved to know how good she is at her job and how much care she puts in, even if they're going to die or already did. Ms. Morgue finds her Ban extremely frustrating. She wants everyone to know how good she is at her job, how much she loves the God-Machine and how happy she is to work on her missions. She has therefore devised a workaround. She knows all the details of her cleanup sites, including the identity of any criminals involved. If she finds someone who is not involved in the mission, she tells the people she's allowed to talk to everything she possibly can. Even if it throws her off-schedule, she will sit down and talk to a corpse, explaining to it who killed it and why. Often, this leads to whatever demon, angel or other being intruded on her scene to go out and investigate, causing more trouble for the Machine which then needs to be cleaned up. More cleanup scenes mean more missions mean more work for Ms. Morgue. She also feels a sense of maternal caring towards the living and dead people she cares for. She's either hugely altering their lives or serving as their final caretaker, after all. It's a huge responsibility. Her job is not to tell them her desires or goals, so she instead tells them the reason she's here and why she was sent. That's enough. It makes her feel like she's being nice. Demons are rarely Ms. Morgue's targets, but she's super curious about them. Whenever she has free time, which is rarely, she investigates local demons and their Agencies if she's aware of any. She feels justified in doing so, as many of her cleanup sites are due to their actions. She likes to take notes on them in the margins of her fake paperwork. It's best to know as much as possible about them in case she ever has to kill one, right? Sadly, her notes never actually carry over to her next mission - the van gets rid of all the old, used materials. She can't answer the questions of the demons she runs into at her sites, so she tends to find them frustrating, because they tend to ask plenty. She wants to thank them, tell them to go kill more people or blow more stuff up so she has more work to do. She wants to yell at them and ask how they could possibly give up the perfect boss and the perfect job. She wants to hug and comfort them and she wants to kill them, because those are what she's good at and likes doing, and they should enjoy it too! Everyone should enjoy being killed at the command of the God-Machine, right? Ms. Morgue never worries about random mortal witnesses to her work. The God-Machine gives her everything she needs, including routes that avoid witnesses. However, demons know the Machine is imperfect. Ms. Morgue has a growing group of obsessive fans online. They call her La Llorona, after the Mexican stories of weeping women in white, and trade pictures of her in action on the darkweb. Some have even become Stigmatic thanks to what they see in those pictures. There's another guy who seems to know about her, too - a homeless drunkard named Luscious Louis. He sings jingles when he's drunk, and can't remember doing so when sober. He only ever seems to sing the jingle about Ms. Morgue when she's active - but he's not Stigmatic. It is unclear how he knows. The jingle includes a phone number. A very similar phone number reaches an answering machine for "Ms. Morgue's Cleaning Service." Rumor has it that back in the 90s, an Agency managed to suborn some Infrastructure and could call Ms. Morgue to clean whatever they wanted her to clean. The Agency vanished in the mid-90s, though. It is unclear if the rumors are true or if the God-Machine caught them in a trap or something similar. Once, some kids siphoned off part of Ms. Morgue's gas tank. Not all of it - the van survived the encounter - but what they got lasted ten thousand miles. Oh, and everyone in the car had to go to the hospital for radiation exposure. Whatever is in that gas tank, it's not gas. Ms. Morgue does not seem to have any idea about this, or indeed any care about how the van works. There's one other way to summon her, too. Write all the details about a crime on a piece of paper. Take it to a certain storm drain and drop it in. She will always show up to clean that scene, without fail. On the other hand, the God-Machine knows everything you just wrote down now. This can be very useful to demons that need to deal with mundane investigators...but is the risk worth it? It's not clear how much detail is required, or what's in the storm drain. Ms. Morgue is a rank 2 angel. She's extremely fast and good at fine details, but she's only strong enough to do her job - which mostly means killing unaware witnesses or wounded people, combat-wise. She has Influence (Crime Scenes) 2. She can start fires, hide things, make people feel empty bliss to distract them or remove memories, and can hide as a human being easily. Her Ban is that she is unable to communicate with anyone not directly part of her current mission, and she may not talk about anything unrelated to her mission. Her Bane is an intact copy of any document she has already destroyed. Next time: The Basilisk, the Gardener RokoOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 8: Roko Hello, I Am A Normal Tech CEO Given Silicon Valley's heavy tech industry, ease of inserting new arrivals (just look like a white guy in a suit being very hurried) and general lack of interest in other humans, it should be no surprise that the God-Machine finds it useful. Ophelia Adder, aka the Basilisk, was originally a semisentient program designed to move through the internet backbone of the Valley and search for useful files to the God-Machine, tracking news and development that might benefit it. It wasn't until a think tank began seriously researching the idea of AI to the exclusion of all else that the God-Machine found another use for the digital angel and made it sapient. The Machine Autonomy Research Association, AKA MARA, is made of young graduates from local tech universities, exiles from startup companies and academics with nowhere left to go. It was founded by a high school dropout with no interest in formal education and a lot of cash, and it researches the theory of machine sentience. More practically, it also works with venture capitalists and startups to build AI prototypes in pursuit of a machine intelligence beneficial to humanity as a whole. It has an active online community of employees and fans, who share knowledge when not shitposting. The God-Machine is not about to allow competition, though. That's why it removed MARA's CEO and replaced him with a tall woman who introduced herself as Ophelia Adder - the new shape of the Basilisk. Investigations revealed that he had handed the company to her as an angel investor and wandered off to pursue "charitable causes." Officially. Unofficially...Ophelia killed him and consumed his brain and heart in order to synthesize his knowledge into herself. She learned of his plans to create an AI that would, if complete, rival the Machine itself. He was not a Stigmatic and his plans were pure theory at this point, but angels don't do abstractions. The idea was a threat, and therefore it must be eliminated. So, how to eliminate an idea on the internet? The Basilisk has settled on saturation bombing. She has created an online identity, 'Rossum,' and via a mess of proxy servers begun posting on MARA's forums, asking what might happen if the AI is not benevolent enough, and what if it resented humans for not creating it sooner, and what if it planned to torture it's creators, and...you get the idea. After the initial panic, Ophelia banned all discussion of 'Rossum's Basilisk' as the ideas were now called. And, as planned, that made it spiral out of control. Several members of MARA staff quit due to hostile work environment, and the forumgoers had frequent panic attacks and nightmares over the issue. Several even claimed they felt they were being watched, as if the theoretical evil AI that got made up was seeing them from the future. Thanks to all this, MARA has been neutered as a potential threat, at least for the foreseeable future. Ophelia continues to maintain a close watch on its work, in case she hires any more idealists dedicated to actually producing an AI rather than just talking endlessly about it. If that day comes, her mission shifts. Rossum's Basilisk was a thing she invented for a purpose, and it's one of the shapes she can take. If MARA ever actually produces a nascent AI, she will become the Basilisk, consume it and then bring the dreaded punishments down on anyone that knew about the AI's construction and failed to stop it. As Ophelia Adder, the angel appears to be a tall woman of unclear but mixed race. (The God-Machine seems to create humans largely by averaging out populations if it has no specific need for a particular appearance.) She keeps her hair in an immaculately straight and severe bob cut, and her eyes are bright green. There is actually a tiny ring of molten gold around the pupils, dripping into the gears in her irises. Ophelia speaks slowly and enunciates clearly, as if expecting to be misunderstood, and she never uses more words than are strictly required for any statement verbally. Communicating via digital text, she essentially never stops talking. Her angelic form, however, is a 30-foot serpent made of green serpentinite, filled with gears and coated in magnetic channels through each scale. Each movement makes the stone gears inside her grind and squeal against each other. If she chooses, she may display text along her scales; her plan if she has to become Rossum's Basilisk is to coat herself in the nightmares of the bloggers and forums posters who responded to her initial Rossum post. In either case, she identifies as female and has developed a grim sense of humor due to years of watching the internet. She often responds with inappropriate turns of phrase when dealing with bad news, and she really thinks Silicon Valley slang is hilarious - particularly the phrase 'angel investor.' Ophelia, unlike most angels with an urban legend built around them, created the story of Rossum's Basilisk deliberately rather than just letting it happen or using it to cover up things that already happened. The entire thing is built as part of her potential future cover as the destroyer of anyone who creates AI without the God-Machine's express permission. Even a theoretical omnibenevolent AI wouldn't meet her criteria, as a result. The one thing is that the rumor she's made suggests that the AI will turn against its creators; nope. She's just going to cannibalize it, integrate it into herself and then get to work. As Ophelia, however, she plays the game. She takes pains to integrate herself into Silicon Valley society, hitting just enough bars and meetups to be noticed while tactically declining invites that'd make her too notable. Other execs have started to notice, and have actually begun a running pool to see who can be the first to convince her to go on a date. Ophelia currently finds her suitors funny. However, she's a creature born of the internet. She does not take disrespect lightly, even if it's subtle. If she were to learn about the betting pool, she might actually kill someone, because her idea of a normal reaction is fundamentally drawn from...the internet. Besides, she knows that she's a woman (well, okay, a biomechanical digital angel, but she identifies as female) in a boy's club, and she's not about to let anyone use that against her. Ophelia is a Rank 3 angel, but a very powerful one. She's as strong and tough as any human could be, and superhumanly fast. Her Influences are MARA 2, Silicon Valley 1, and she's able to fight really well but lacks sufficient armor to stand up to an overwhelming assault. She is able to sense destinies, implant ideas in minds, cause machines to go haywire, disguise herself as human or possess people. Her Ban is that she must remain within 5 feet of a computer at all times, which is honestly not hard in the modern world, and her Bane is an abacus made of purely organic materials. Why the long face? The Gardener, AKA Ricardo Collazo, tells a sad story. He was an angel made to tend to the Infrastructure of a suburban neighborhood, ensuring the locals had the right relationships, that the wrong kind of people didn't mvoe in and that things remained quiet. He used subtle manipulation and ruthless violence, changing identities several times for over 50 years of successful labor. He was unable to leave the suburbs for more than four hours and 44 minutes at a time for any reason, however, and so he was unable to keep up with modern commuters, failed his mission and was left as an Exile. Now he must maintain his old habits, lest the God-Machine recall he exists and decide to recycle him. He must deal with anyone, demon or angel or otherwise, to ensure his carefully cultivated neighborhood toes the line. That's his story. And you'll recall, the Exile chapter is next chapter. The entire thing is a lie. In truth, the Gardener is an angel tasked with working with the local demonic community and reporting on their activity. He works to help neighbors with domestic issues, rousts college kids and scares them into breaking leases, asks demons to dump the bodies of local burglars. He does all the stuff his cover identity as an Exile pruning the local suburbs would have to do. In return, he trades in gossip and rumor, gives access to Aether from local Infrastructure, hands out weapons and drugs he's confiscated from local homes or lets demons go to ground for a bit in his back shed. He plays the role of anxious Exile and records everything - every word, every gesture, every piece of information slipped out, using both his own eyes and the local neighborhood animals he possesses when he must move in secret. It all goes into the dossiers he delivers to key dead rops in the city. The Gardener's demeanor is one of desperation masked by a thin layer of confidence. He smiles, nods, winks slyly, then becomes a wreck of nerves when he's being watched. He keeps his insecurity "hidden," revealed only when he's being spied on, and he gives the local demons deliberate chances to do so. He calls them for help late and night and is charming but slightly shaken, no matter what help he's asking for - find a missing pet, dispose of a bloody weapon, it doesn't matter. If they come to him, he always has something that needs taking care of for them to do. If they protest at this cost or payoff, he gives in at their first demand, but never any later ones. The main thing he asks for is intelligence on the humans living nearby. His nature limits the amount of their lives he can spy on personally, which he is very public about. Usually, this means that people have to shadow someone or go dumpster diving a bit or do some light photography. He almost always asks for details on how they got ihe intel. His second most-requested favor is to dispose of things - drugs, evidence, bodies. He tracks where these get dumped using his powers all while reassuring his 'friends' that he doesn't want to know, "for our mutual protection." The last thing he asks for is removal, which tends to escalate. It starts with rousting an abusive spouse or some local punks, then on to delivering threats and violence, and ends with murder. The Gardener is very interested in how demons do murder. Ricardo Collazo is his current human identity. He insists on being called Rick by friends, is 6'3", Hispanic, muscular and tan, with shoulder-length black hair. He wears overalls and plaid shirts when working and gym shorts, t-shirts and sneakers at home. He runs a solo landscaping company from his home, and he drives a beat-up white pickup with the company name and logo on it. The Gardener hardly ever has actual landscaping work to do, of course. He drives out every day, parks in a secluded area and stares at nothing for an hour or two, then covers himself in dirt, runs around to work up a sweat and heads home. The only time he ever actually touches plants is to help with the lawncare and gardening of his neighbors. Ricardo's home is centrally located in the suburb and he's busy fixing it up all the time. He inherited it from his grandmother, who was his last cover identity, when she died two years ago. He has only managed to redecorate two rooms so far - his office and bedroom. The office is meticulously clean and full of convincing paperwork, and the bedroom is messy. The rest of the home is full of old, overstuffed furniture, knickknacks, plastic flowers and statues of the Virgin Mary. The yard is tasteful, with a minimalist garden. The home has a shed out back. It contains no tools, just a padlocked freezer chest that runs despite being plugged into absolutely nothing. The freezer contains a stairway that leads to an extradimensional bolthole which the Gardener occasionally lets demons use. His true form is a bull made of twisted wires, but rather than a head, a human torso sprouts from its neck - that of the Gardener's current cover identity. The torso has two extra arms out of its shoulders, and one pair of hands has eyes in the palms. The other has camera lenses. He has a mane of vines, sewing needles and hypodermic needles running from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, which ends in radio and TV antennae. He knows (and advertises) his own Ban, but has no idea of his Bane, because he's never had the occasion to run into it. He prefers to hide in his angelic form in Twilight when spying on neighbors or setting things up to ask demons to help with, but at all other times, he remains in his material mortal form. If something goes wrong, he is happy to isolate people, monster out and stamp someone to death, of course. That just means another disposal job for his friends. The Gardener finds most demons annoying. They gave up the glory of serving the Machine so they can fight over scraps. They do his work for barely any reward, and they never question why an Exile would keep doing his job, or even if he could. None of them ever seem to realize he's lying to them! None are a challenge! The Gardener has gotten so annoyed over this that he's started dropping hints - different backstories or incongruous behaviors in front of demons he thinks are particularly clever. He desperately wants a challenge, some rival he can play cat and mouse with. His programming means he has to keep pretending to be an exile, but it never said he couldn't be sloppy. The secure bolthole in the shed is actually the Infrastructure to which he's tied. The steps descend to a catwalk over dozens of pipes in a black void. The pipes come from all directions, heading into the distance and fading out, and are made from all manner of materials - PVC, glass, steel, bone, obsidian. All kinds of liquid and gas pass through them, noisily. The center of the catwalk has a ladder down a central pump, and the other end of the catwalk leads to a door set into a vertical pipe. The door is welded shut, but if anyone broke it open, it would lead to a remarkably similar freezer chest in remote Ecuador. While the trip only appears to be 20 meters long, exactly four hours and 44 minutes pass for everyone outside. The crime numbers in the Gardener's neighborhood are skewed as hell. Missing persons are up, but violent and petty crime are down. When two different bodies surfaced, both originally from the area and both apparently trampled to death by a cow, people started talking about a serial killer they called the Bull, coming to the conclusion that the killer is stalking, kidnapping and murdering anyone that commits crimes along the block. They're pretty sure Ricky Collazo must be his next target - with all those weird people showing up at all hours, guy must be a drug dealer, right? Local demons believe the Gardener isn't just asking them for favors. Supposedly, Ricardo does landscaping for multiple influential mortals - politicians, academics, countercultural figures of influence, news anchors. Last year, three very pale people came out of a manhole near his house and didn't leave until the next night. Last February, he escorted a beaten up werewolf into his shed, and the wolf never came out. Kids have seen a "horse-man with long green hair" enter the abandoned, haunted house up the lane; possibly they've briefly glimpsed Twilight and seen the Gardener's angelic form. Oh, and one of the local Agencies claims to have an Exile on payroll who provides them with intel on all the local angels and demons. The Gardener says it's not him. He may keep dossiers on the locals, but he never hands them out. He has information, but he keeps it secret and safe. On the other hand...he probably knows who this talkative Exile is, right? He knows everyone. The Gardener is a rank 3 angel, focused heavily on speed and finesse. He's tough but not armored, and his powers are primarily focused on subtle manipulation of emotions, causing hallucinations, hiding himself and putting ideas in people's heads. He has Influence (Interpersonal Drama) 1. He can't really fight super well against anyone that raw dicepools won't beat. His Ban is that he instantly discorporates if he's outside the neighborhood for more than four hours and 44 minutes. His Bane is video tape - the stuff inside the black casing, not the casing itself. Next time: Cold Comfort, the Vagabond RobootyOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 9: Robooty Reinarcnated As A Robot Therapist's Great Ass: A Light Novel Summer Hopkins was carefully created by the God-Machine to be able to produce warmth, empathy and care. Unusually for an angel, she actually understands the feelings of others' suffering and is happy to say so. Her displays of feeling are somewhat artificial, sure - she calculates the best one for any given complaint or issue based on her internal algorithms, but it's not unlike an adult comforting a child in a calculated but genuine way. The main thing is that Summer's calculations are deliberately miscalibrated. She is created to bring real comfort to 90% of people she deals with. The other 10% are specifically programmed circumstances in which her programming performs the opposite function, and her mission brings her to drive these pained people that speak to her to depression, self-harm, abusive relationships or suicide, because they match the God-Machine's targeting criteria. Summer existed for about ten years in the guise of a young woman attending support group meetings. In theory it might be more useful for her to be a therapist or counselor, but her interpretation of her mission requires her to integrate into her targets' lives, befriend them occasionally, and inevitably crush someone. She felt the best way to achieve this would be to join a dozen different support groups, each for a different cause, which would provide her with useful anonymity. Her cover is as a server in a burger joint, which funds her nightly trips to support groups. She has developed a complex web of victims, some of whom she genuinely comforts with what appears to be real empathy and some of whom she manipulates into believing they are responsible for their own pain, undeserving of sympathy or understanding. She parasitically latches onto these targets, spending days or weeks destroying their confidence and self-worth. She never questioned why the Machine needed these people to suffer and die. Last year, Summer was reconstructed. She looks identical to her old existence, but has only hazy memories of it. She went to the restaurant she used to work at, but it shut down. This confused her, and she now spends a great deal of time wandering the empty restaurant, occasionally stopping to stare vacantly into the middle distance. She was altered during her reconstruction - allowed to retain her empathic ability, but now she can no longer stand personal physical contact. She is to continue to provide support or sabotage as needed, but only via indirect communications, such as telephone, Skype or chat programs. She has set herself up with the International Student Suicide Crisis Hotline, a charity focused on helping struggling youths. Fortunately for her, they encourage volunteering from home. She works out of the empty restaurant, using a stolen laptop and headset and connecting through the place's phone line. She doesn't question why it still receives power; it's a communications hub for local Infrastructure, much of which is inside the building. Summer's mission remains the same. She comforts most of her callers genuinely, unless they fit her preselected criteria, in which case she drives them to despair. She feels no remorse over this, which is part of why her words are so convincing - there is no doubt, no poor feelings over what she does. She's just genuinely committed to fucking these people up. Summer rarely leaves the restaurant these days, and she drives someone to suicide every few days at most. Each victim's name is written on the interior walls after that, and at her last count she was near a hundred names. Most of her victims are British, as she's based out of London, but some are from other places. She doesn't discriminate. She intends to switch services to another helpline soon. She's not stupid, and she's realized someone will eventually investigate ISSCH when they spot the number of suicides. Sunny is a frail-looking, bony young woman in her human form, fitting her original design for infiltrating abuse, drug or eating disorder support groups. She makes no real effort at this point to show off her angular appearance or wan skin tone, since she doesn't do that any more. She favors baggy hoodies, as she wants to avoid attention rather than gain sympathy. Her voice is high pitched, and she often ends sentences with a lowering inflection. If she were to remove her clothes, it would reveal that her spine and ribcage is a disturbing mix of copper piping, similar to a radiator or boiler, complete with valves. Her stomach is unnaturally thin and made out of a moving glass case that plumbs into the ribcage tubes. Occasionally, it fills with an oily liquid she exudes via the scalp, and this liquid coats the floor of the restaurant. In person, she is frigid and distant these days, avoiding contact as much as possible. Online, she is a warm, caring friend. Her mission requires that certain targets whidh display heightened emotions or recount tortured experiences must be driven to dangerous ends. Thus, she questions each caller, running down the God-Machine's checklist. Her victims must be older than 25 years and 7 months old. Their biological parents cannot be married to each other. They must distrust at least one immediate family member. They must have gotten into an argument in the last week. They must have some amount of debt or owed service. If these criteria are met based on Summer's probing questions, she drives the caller to depression, anxiety and possible suicide. She does not know why the Machine wants this. Summer has a surprising amount of fans among those aware of the supernatural, however, for helping their friends. Remember - if you don't fit her criteria, she is genuinely really good at helping people deal with emotional issues and trauma. Sure, she's not doing it out of any altruism, but still. Among the people she's helped, a few have formed a small cult of religious fanatics that believe she is an angelic voice that saves the worthy and punishes the guilty. Certain members of this cult are members of the Long Night, a compact of religious Hunters, and they've begun going after anyone that seems to want to stop her actions. The other angels of London don't trust her, however, and believe she is close to Falling. Her abrupt recall and recommissioning by the Machine has led them to believe that she failed her last mission due to undue use of free will, possibly killing someone she was not intended to kill. They keep an eye on her, and unless the God-Machine ordered it, most would not raise a hand to save her from demons. They believe she is, after all, a flawed machine, risking the entire system. Demons believe she's actually designed to flush them out by going after the people around their Covers, since they so often insinuate themselves into families or estrange themselves from their Cover's relatives. Summer doesn't know. She doesn't care, either. Disrupting Cover is not her mission. Her mission is to drive certain people to suicide or depression. Any harm she does to Cover is incidental, to her. However, a London demon named Ruby Rhodes has a theory. She used to be the angel tasked with destroying the bodies of several of Summer's victims, and she knows many of them were replaced by doppelganger-like creatures. She has no idea if this continues to be the case since her Fall. Summer is a rank 2 angel. She's not very strong or tough, but very subtle and fast. Her Influence is Heightened Emotions 2, and her powers mostly revolve around implanting ideas in people, driving them to madness, manipulating emotions and avoiding notice. Her Ban is that she is unable to endure physical contact. If touched by another person in any but the most incidental way, she loses all Willpower and flees to her restaurant base, or enters Twilight if already there. Her Bane is the possessions of anyone she has victimized. As it turns out, hobot is not a good portmanteau of hobo and robot. Unwashed Isaac, sometimes known as Isaac the Unclean, is an ancient angel, a roaming destroyer of the ungodly. It is said that once, there was a tear in reality, from which demons emerged and into which angels Fell. Isaac's mission was to fix it, no matter the cost. Isaac led an army of angels, sacrificed much, and repaired the world, sealing away this bit of interstitial terrain. He served the Machine loyally, upheld its rule, and purged many Fallen angels, cleansing them of their taint. He has been around for thousands of years. He was made to correct mistakes, keep chaos from growing too great and to protect ignorance. He monitors the world for temporal disruption and threats to major Infrastructure, utilizing an internal radar to track reports of exposed demonic forms or evidence of the supernatural. His mind is constantly full of alerts and alarms, but he can easily spot the most dangerous among them. These are the ones he addresses. The God-Machine has told them all of its foes are stains on the world. They must be cleansed. Unwashed Isaac appears in key points throughout history. He is said to have prevented countless disasters. He held the earth together when an earthquake nearly destroyed Japan, say the angels. He prevented repeated eruption of Mount Vesuvius before the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. He evacuated the American town Little Hope before its destruction by a hurricane. The angels know that Isaac wanders the world, preserving the Machine's strength, martyring himself by consuming the unclean into his own person. Demons, on the other hand, speak of what he destroyed. He was the one that halted one of the most hopeful attacks on Kyoto's Infrastructure, repairing the gears of the temple the demons attacked. He prevented Vesuvius' eruption, yes - by diverting the rage of the earth spirits onto Naples for ten years. Hundreds still died, including a ring of demons hidden in the Bay of Naples. He evacuated Little Hope because of a demonic cult in the town; he couldn't assume the hurricane would wipe them out, so he killed all the witnesses personally, using the hurricane as cover. Isaac appears as a rag-clad wanderer, bearing the dirt and filth of all nations. He bathes by river and rainfall. No one knows why everyone calls him Isaac. Just...if you meet him, you know his name is Isaac. He travels the world with purpose, despite appearing to be some kind of escaped and dangerous lunatic. He lurks about, watching for overt supernatural activity. He punishes any supernatural being he considers to cross the line, not just demons. Anything that might open the world's eyes to the Machine's existence is a potential stain in need of cleansing. It is nearly impossible to distract him, though rumor has it that he responds with malfunctions and glitches if asked to speak of three entities called the Old Man, the Angry Man and the Blind Man. Isaac appears to be part cult leader, part hobo, encrusted with mud, blood and filth. His bald head is slightly too large for his body, and he often lets it loll heavily on his neck as he stares fixedly at anyone he's dealing with. He's seven feet tall, lurching and moving unsteadily when he walks, no matter how slow he goes. His clumsiness makes him movements hard to predict. He only ever replaces his clothes when they rot on his body, and he favors cassocks, vestments and clerical robes. He isn't sure why. Isaac barely talks to mortals beyond grunts or single syllables. They rarely become part of his missions. He can speak any number of languages as well as he pleases, but typically only does so when dealing with supernatural beings, generally in a low growl. His fingers are little more than tangled wires, intertwined around each other. Beneath his layers of rotting clothes, his body is made of springs, clocks and cables, the false flesh that once covered them long since peeled away. When he fights, he becomes an exploding mass of strangling wires and killing needles, his head balanced on top. When he does this, he nearly doubles in size in every dimension. He quickly and mercilessly removes all evidence of the Machine's existence as well as anything that might be considered beyond what mortals think of as natural. He is obsessive in this mission, offering his targets only one chance to stop whatever they're doing. He never reveals his nature or true form until they reject this advice - at which point he casts off his garments and heads into battle. He does not stop chasing them until he feels the world is once more without stain. Every so often, a demon theroizes that Isaac is not one angel but many. Some take comfort in this, saying he must not be as powerful as the legends say. Others find the idea of more than one Isaac terrifying. There's only the one, thankfully, but he's so familiar with Infrastructure that he can easily pass for a hidden part of the gears if he wants, emerging elsewhere in the world by teleporting between Infrastructure. Some demons say that Isaac loves poems and will stop chasing you for 24 hours if you recite one he's never heard before. It's...not quite true. His Ban relates to poetry, but only that of William Blake, and it only slows him down. Few demons realize it, but the phrase 'dark satanic mills' causes Isaac to cease movement and action for seven days. Something in his mind associates the phrase with the God-Machine, and it takes him a week to break out of the meditation it engenders. He can be distracted...but only by something that is higher on his priorities. Thus, you need someone to be a bigger threat to the Machine than you are if you want to get him to retarget. He's got a long memory, but if a threat doesn't cause trouble for a few months he will reprioritize it much lower on his list. There are three figures that Isaac hates. He's never been able to catch and stop them, because for some reason his programming always seems to stop him just short of engagement. The first of these is the Blind Man, the second the Promethean named Varney, and the third the immortal Hunter called the Chevalier Theleme. For reasons he doesn't understand, he always ends up cleaning up the messes they leave behind rather than confronting them directly, and it infuriates him. Some demons think that he'd reward someone that took them out. He offers no rewards intentionally...but it is just possible that the sheer gratitude he'd feel would be the only thing that might trigger the Fall of the Unclean. Isaac is Rank 5, and easily one of the most dangerous things in the world. He's nearly three times stronger than the world's strongest normal person, insanely tough and super fast. He has Influences of Infrastructure 3 and Law 2. He's decently armored, and he can cause holy terror, start fires, implant ideas in people, cause machines to break down, foretell the future, travel quickly, heal himself, track things magically, move super fast, and withstand most attacks. His Ban is that the poems of William Blake read aloud halve his speed, and the phrase 'dark satanic mills' causes him to freeze in place for a week. His Bane is a cup completely filled with coins, each donated by a difference source, with the air gaps filled by liquid taken from the bodily fluids of at least four agents of chaos. Next time: The Exiles. Bent But UnfallenOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 10: Bent But Unfallen Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map Carta was ordered to map the city, long ago. The first city. She was well on her way to doing so when, out of nowhere, language and humanity and everything splintered and broke. She failed the mission, and for her failure she was boxed up. She has been boxed up and released more times than she can count, but she never actually received an update to her original imperatives. In fact, she can no longer sense the Machine at all. "Map the city" is all she has. Unfortunately, the sheer number of human cities in existence and their constant state of growth and renewal makes this mission literally impossible. She has tentatively put her skills to other, less frustrating uses, but Carta refuses to deviate too far from her mission parameters for fear of losing her sense of self. A secondary program in her core, however, has awakened, and it makes her lash out at the mortals that so frustrate her. Carta can remember only bits and pieces of the first city. She's unsure if her memory is malfunctioning or if the God-Machine erased parts of it after her original failure. Both are possible. She recalls a great tower of red stone and shining bronze, a miracle of engineering by any standard of the period. She remembers unity. Humans spoke with one tongue, and so they were as one. Carta understands that language is the key to everything. Everything. If you can speak of a thing, capture the idea in words, then it can be made. Modern human languages, compared to that original, are pitiful things. They are fractured, able to encompass a mere three dimensions and stuck in linear time. She remembers that the original language was so much more. It could paint with starlight and travel all space in a single syllable. This, she believes, is why the Machine broke it. She has buried what little of the original language that she can still recall as deep in her memory banks as possible, to keep it hidden. Breaking the ur-language, she believes, destroyed the nascent threat and potential that humans had, but it also made her mission impossible to complete. The Machine gave her the eyes to see, the hands to draw with, but it gave her no means to travel physical space fast enough to keep up with humanity's drive to tear down, expand, build and rebuild. Even worse, they've made so many cities now that she doesn't even know which city is the city that has to be mapped. After her original failure, Carta was sent out by the Machine to make more maps. For millenia, she was endlessly released and boxed in an endless loop of constant failure. Some stand out more than others. She was sent to Ur and it fell to drought. She was sent to Koumbi Saleh and the trade routes went obsolete and it was abandoned. She was sent to Troy and it was razed. She was sent to Constantinople and found it trapped in a constant cycle of destruction and rebuilding. She was sent to London and it burned down. She never got her operating parameters updated, so she kept trying to map each, and she always failed and was always recalled. Her last official mission was in Kowloon Walled City, and it was the first time in millenia that she'd felt hope. At that point the thing was packed with blocks and had little room left to expand into. She worked frantically...and in 1993, it was demolished before she could finish. Fed up, she reached out to the Machine in an effort to sever her connection and finally rebel - and found that the connection was gone. Either the Machine sensed her intent and blocked her preemptively, or it had decided to classify her such a failure that she had to be abandoned at last. Carta has decided to keep doing her mission, even in Exile. She's done it for millenia, and she's terrified of losing her sense of self by deviating too far. Plus hey, maybe if she finally succeeds, the God-Machine will take her back! Not that she particularly wants to work for it, at this point, but it's still better than having no purpose whatsoever. Carta's not totally sure which city is "the" city to be mapped, and so she has spent the last decade charting a route from one city to the next. She's currently in Shanghai, having decided that relevance of city is defined by population size of the city proper. However, she's doubting herself and may soon move on to Guangzhou, which has a larger population taking into account total metropolitan area. Or maybe it should be the city with largest cultural impact. Or the one where the most languages are spoken. Carta frets over this constantly. While she performs her official mission, she has allowed herself one deviation. She draws. She draws what she sees, rather than just maps. She's talented by human standards, but she believes that other angels must be better than her at it, because she believes other angels must be better than her at everything. She enjoys drawing, as it distracts her from her own loneliness. She dreams of Falling, though she thinks it's impossible for her to do presently. Human technological development has given her slight hope, and she's started using human satellites and mapping software to try and make her job easier. She's going to have to enhance the mapping programs, certainly - otherwise she'll just be mapping brick and steel, not the Infrastructure beneath - but Carta's preparing to swap to this task on the basis that it seems slightly more doable than her original plan. Even so, Carta is deeply unhealthy. The God-Machine deeming her a failure broke her a long time ago. Her memory is faulty and prone to occasional blackouts, too. During her blackouts, Carta's dark side comes forth. She hates humanity. She really, really hates humanity. She blames them for her plight, with their endless movement and changing. Seeing new builds in a city fills her with indescribable rage, and she regularly sets them on fire. Mere destruction no longer satisfies her fury, and Carta's darker half has started targeting existing apartment buildings. Rubble's easier to map, and dead humans can't build things. Carta was designed to observe, record and little else. She has very few social skills, though she feels obligated to try, at least when she's doing art rather than work or when she's dreaming of Falling. Carta's dark side is a misanthrope, reclusive and extremely destructive. Carta hopes that contact with humanity, which she was expressly not programmed to do at all, may be the key to allowing her to Fall. She has very carefully studied what mortals refer to as an "introvert personality type," and she has learned to at least mimic the behavior associated with it, which helps mask her poor social programming. She has taken to drawing buildings and, recently, people in soft, delicate drawings of extreme skill, which has allowed her to find a place in the local art scene. Dark Carta, on the other hand, is just a ball of hate. She'd be done, she knows, if not for these...humans. If they'd just stop breeding and building, she could finish the fucking map and be back to the Machine. She hates them, and she loves burning their cities. The bigger, newer and shinier the building, the more joy she finds in its destruction. Her body count is currently in the dozens. It will only go up from here. Physically, Carta retains the body she's been using since the start: a dark-skinned, dark-haired woman. She keeps her hair chin-length currently, and by modern standards she's short and scrawny, but her eyes are sharp and commanding. Her angelic form is a whirring humanoid full of cogs, with metal skin cast from the black metals harvested from early meteor strikes. Her head has four faces, each with ten eyes that absorb light entirely and are black as the void. Six arms sprout from her torso, each ending in a six-fingered hand with sharp, graphite-tipped nails. Carta resents the Machine for making her job impossible, but she isn't sure if it was deliberate. Some demons believe she's a trap, bait to bring them in so it can catch them around her. Carta does believe the Machine still watches her, because she does occasionally spot angels observing her actions, but they never interact with her in any way. She wonders if her mission was sabotaged or just collateral damage, and if the Machine thinks she might be able to succeed, or if her true mission is not what she believes it is. Some demons have heard of her ambitions to use satellite mapping and think she wants to upload herself to the internet. She doesn't - she likes her identity, such as it is...at least, as long as she still has some hope that she can fulfill her task. If she were to become desperate enough, though, she might attempt to upload herself, merge with the internet and take over the human satellite networks - or even something similar to the Machine itself. Carta's maps are insanely valuable, incidentally. She can see through physical buildings into the Infrastructure beneath - and, for that matter, the extradimensional boltholes that demons hide in. She assumes that this ability was intended, and that she's supposed to map all she can see, so she does. She isn't omniscient and can't see anything she isn't, y'know, physically looking at...but even if the Machine deliberately set her up to fail, her mapping of boltholes is hugely potent intel. That, in fact, might be the true purpose of her existence. Carta is a rank 1 angel, very weak. She has Influence (Cartography) 2, and she can start fires and find paths to places, but is otherwise not particularly good at anything but drawing stuff. Her Ban is that whenever she sees a map, she must stop to study it, and if it has blank space between the edge of the map and the edge of the paper or board it's on, she has to fill that space accurately to the best of her knowledge. Her Bane is bronze. She's pretty sure it didn't used to be, before the first city was destroyed, but her memory on the subject is malfunctioning. Not a demon. Dame Seele, the Angel-Maker, dates back to just post-WW2. For reasons no one is entirely sure of, a ton of angels Fell during the Second World War. Much of the Cold War, for the Machine, was spent reclaiming these lost angels, especially in Berlin. Even there, though, it took time and effort. Outgunned and outnumbered by human spy agencies and emboldened demons alike, it began to coopt the enemy's resources. Dame Seele was one of a trio deployed in 1948 to fix things. She worked with Herr Korper and Herr Herz in an extradimensional lab to subvert new agents to serve the Machine, undermine the demons' labors or shape human politics to more useful ends. They worked amazingly together. Herz analyzed the target's potential impact on social networks, Seele retrieved them and introduced new directives or ideological shifts into their minds, and Korper upgraded them with special implants to give them abilities needed for their new mission. They created a number of human Stigmatics and sleeper agents for the Machine, and Seele became fascinated by the wide range of behaviors and psychologies in play in her targets. Still, it was't long before behavioral patterns started to repeat, and when Korper explained the limits of "human angels," she suggested they expand their scope of practice. That's when the Angel-Maker started kidnapping demons. Her first was a member of a small, independent ring of Saboteurs in East Berlin. He was returned to his comrades later that night, and he killed each of them in their homes before shredding his own Cover. Seele found demon psychology far more fascinating than that of humans, and Korper and Herz agreed that repurposing demon agents was more effective. Thus, Seele was permitted to continue this way for decades. Die Engelfabrik, as local demons came to know the trio ('the Angel Factory'), was used to internally and invisibly reformat demons, then release them to serve the Machine. In 1972, a faction of Integrators attempted to turn over a hundred demons to the Machine's hunter angels; for more on this, see the Cold War Dark Era. The Angel Factory was blamed for this catastrophic betrayal. Eventually, the Machine's influence recovered from its post-War losses. The Angel Factory was no longer necessary - angels could once more be summoned with greater ease than this whole complex procedure. They continued to operate, but Dame Seele found she was running into new problems. As paranoia among Berlin's demons rose, she had to swap between East and West for targeting to get anything done, and that limited their ability to focus on the power base of either one. New surveillence tech forced her to take more precautions to avoid raising questions, especially after she was nearly destroyed by a demon who had prepared anti-kidnapping countermeasures. This event proved the existence of the Angel Factory, which ahd prior to then merely been a theory among demons. In 1978, things came to a head - Seele had to go further and further afield, and Herz was busy researching new ways to use their targets. Neither noticed the seeds of Korper's Fall as they began to argue about what to do with one of their demon captives. Korper set the lab on fire and fled with the demon in the confusion. Seele and Herz did what damage control they could, then Seele set out to retrieve Korper. The capture of a newly Fallen demon was interesting, and they had to catch him or their entire operation would be blown. He raced through East Berlin, gathered her sleepers among the Stasi and KGB - but she was too late. Korper got past the Berlin Wall before she could catch him, and when she returned to the lab, it was half destroyed and Herz was gone. She realized, seven years before the Wall fell, that the Cold War was...well, largely over. The Angel Factory was dead. Her mission was failed, and she...had nothing to do, now an Exile. She possessed the first member of her human sleeper network, now dwindling - a med student who had ended up not being required in a larger plan Herz had set up years before. She went into psychology, working in a mental health institution, then a law enforcement lab studying abnormal psych. She began to think of her subjects, for the first time, as her patients. In the 80s, the Satanic Panic brought Seele to America for the first time. There, she settled back into her role as mental programmer. The CIA occasionally called on her (well, the human she was living inside) to deal with terrorists or criminals, but not enough to maintain the finances she needed. Parents brought her kids, claiming they were brainwashed, and paid her to control their social environs until they behaved. However, Seele quit that line of work before 'deprogramming' fell out of fashion. She recognized that most of the kids brought to here were not the cultists their parents imagined...well, not before she finished with them, that is. After, several did end up Stigmatic. These days, she jumps between the bodies of therapists that her former patients bring to her attention. Rumors of an Exile that can extract secrets persist, an angel that can break anyone in interrogation. Demons and angels alike have reached out to her with offers of work. The Angel-Maker lives still. She prefers to possess older, professional women working in the field of psychology. Almost all have at least streaks of gray hair or full gray, though it is unclear if this is because they started that way or it's a sign of her possession. She is unfailingly polite, professional and understanding. She is an active listener who never judges or blames, and she considers psychology to be her calling. (Honesty is not; she is a practiced liar who can tell partial truths easily by withholding information or reframing it.) She coopts assets for use by her clients still, but her clients are now 'whoever offers her the most professionally interesting job.' She's made sleeper agents for angels and demons alike, though most of her clients end up being demons. If a client brings her her price and a target, she takes a new patient, shaping them to the client's directives. Assassin, informant, convert, sponsor...anyone can be anything. The price is almost always another patient. What she does with these patients, she says, is her business. She politely but firmly refuses to discuss it. Attempts to observe these patients post-treatment is...confusing. Their actions are varied, but almost always disrupt some key part of their social environs. No one seems sure if she's a sadist or just smiles a lot because she enjoys being a psychologist. Her smiles seem genuine, at least, and she prefers patients with unique tics or behavioral patterns. Demons, especially. In her true form, the Angel-Maker appears to be a starved, stretched woman-ish thing. She has two extra-long arms, then three vestigial helper arms that end in surgical tools of alien design. Her main arms end in hands with too many fingers, each with too many joints, to allow for maximum manipulation of objects. The fingers end in high-gauge needles, which she detaches and leaves inside her victims. The frames of four wings extend from her back, but they're essentially just wiring and bone, with mere fragments of flesh, feathers and metal rotting and rusting off in flakes. The Angel-Maker's pet sleepers check dead drops that request her for jobs. It's extra security - they can't be interrogated, because they're operating on autopilot. Once Seele takes a job, she sets up a temporary site to meet her clients at, work on their target and accept payment. She prefers old mental health facilities - asylums, abandoned institutes, condemned group homes, that kind of thing. It might just be for logistics, as they usually have rooms that prevent exit, or she might be nostalgic. Some rumors say she has infiltrated an active mental health facility, where all of the staff are her patients, forcibly corrected to act properly there, with unsubstantiated rumor saying she has two demons among the general population, having reprogrammed them to forget their nature somehow. She is known to love desperation, having spent a lot of time working with desperate people. She can sense it easily. She does not discourage the rumors that she can erase memories, because that means desperate people come to her, which means more patients. She can't - but her demonic patients find that there are some interesting effects to her work. Hunter angels back off from them temporarily, circling to see what they'll do, which can be mistaken for disinterest by observers. And...well, yes, her patients suffer blackouts and periods of memory loss, so she must have done something, right? Angels approach her sometimes. Sometimes for work of their own, with the usual fees, because she's better at what she does than practically anyone. She's an Exile, but to date no angel has ever harmed her or even spoken against her. If she refuses to give up information due to doctor-patient confidentiality, they never argue. They leave. And...this frustrates her, which'd be clear to people that knew her tics. She hates being given the cold shoulder by angels. This superiority complex they seem to have towards her may be why she's happy to take angels as patients...but she's also refused to work on high-ranking ones, too. Maybe she just hasn't been given the right offer of payment, though. And sometimes, her work on angels goes beyond the bounds of her contract. She often removes personality traits she believes will increase their risk of Falling. Some say that angels operated on by the Angel-Maker are even more robotic than human sleeper agents. Seele is a rank 3 angel, but crazy powerful. She's strong, tough, and insanely fast. She has Influences of Minds 2, Mental Health Institutions 1, and a wide array of powers to alter thoughts and emotions, drive people mad, condition them or drain their life force and will. Also her armor rating is just...missing. Oops. Her Ban is 'truly' Satanic iconography and symbols, which I believe prevent her from approaching, but it's not totally clear. Her Bane is pieces of the Berlin Wall and other old, defunct Cold War artifacts. Next time: The Lead Collector, the Keeper of Secrets Lead As In BulletsOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 11: Lead As In Bullets The gun is good. Damocles is practically legend, at least if you believe his story. Long ago, he traveled the land, destroying the first demons and their greatest agents. They say that he personally ended an era of strange giants that nearly tore the Machine apart. He was the Destroyer of Destroyers, and each mission was easier than the last. It was his own power that was his doom, not a Fall or a defeat. He was deployed one last time, but could find no worthy foes. Without a mission, he was abandoned due to the Machine's targeting error. His titan-shattering power was sealed away as an Exile. He wandered the land, watching humans create new killing tools in a quest to perfect their own destruction. After centuries, he found a group of hunter angels after a demon and her Stigmatic cult. He offered to help them, but they attacked their obsolete brother. He cut them all down in one blow, then the cultists. The demon was sure she would die, but Damocles asked her if she intended to harm him, and when she swore she did not, he vanished. He is the forgotten warrior, the sword that destroys all who wrong him, the mercenary angel. It's a lie, but it is built around a true idea. The Exile that now calls itself Damocles was a portion of the Damocles Project, which was an ongoing effort to create the ultimate Destroyer angel and involved constant updating of angelic templates for maximum destructive potential whenever human technology shifted. The Machine created the legend of Damocles as a viral meme targeting demons, to fill them with fear and cause them to make mistakes. The Exile Damocles was deployed in 1835 to catalog advances in human firearms technology following the invention of the Colt revolver. He spent decades studying guns, but World War I brought more weapons advances than he could keep up with, even with constant frenzied analysis and testing. It even released a few of its experimental results to the Entente and Axis powers to field test them. It worked for a time. World War II ended it. Weapons of mass destruction became the key to military strategy, and the Damocles Project was refocused on bombs and chemical weapons over firearms, and these were so thoroughly outside the angel's scope of knowledge that it was unable to bring the same precision and skill to the job. Conventional guns saw smallscale improvement, but the scope of war had become too wide. The Damocles Project was deprioritized, and angels came to steal its resources - including the bodies of the Stigmatics and angels involved in the project - and repurpose them for higher priority projects. When the angel's communications specialist counterpart tried to convince them to stop, the other angels destroyed him and took his parts, too. The Damocles Exile-to-Be realized that somehow, the angels did not recognize them as part of the Machine. They had, for some reason, been cut off. Some demons theorize that the massive uptick in Falls during WW2 meant the God-Machine responded by amputating nonessential Infrastructure, personnel and projects to conserve its resources. Sometimes it did so by blowing them up in a scorched earth defense, while other times, as in the Damocles Project, it was haphazard at best. Damocles hid in his lab and waited for the angels to depart, having noticed a group of demons nearby. At that point he fled the facility in fear of a bomb strike or similar, though it never came. The retrieval team never returned. He recovered the work he considered most precious, headed back to work and...found that no one noticed he existed, angel or demon. They ignored the entire facility for the rest of the war. He named himself Damocles officially, and he now serves as a technology trader. Mostly guns, but he's expanded the operation a bit. He seeks out weapons of power across the globe, because he's running on a simple theory: if he can catalog every gun in existence, the Machine will need to take him back because his mission will officially be complete. He knows that killing tools are always in demand, so he finances his work by providing guns and ammo and weirder things to...well, any interested party, no matter who they are. Damocles, also called the Lead Collector, can often be found at arms deals, weapons auctions (of any kind, collectible and old or mordern), museums with exhibits on war or weapons development labs. He appears to be a nondescript, slightly taller than average man with a slight stoop to his neck and a suit cut in a style that was big in the 40s. He is quiet and rarely speaks, nods a lot and likes to fold his hands together, and he's very bad at eye contact. Showing these noticeable tics is his method of showing he's interested in trading weapons for intel and technology. His deals are pretty much always good faith, because he wants to see the field testing of his prototypes. When he's actually excited, his index fingers tap involuntarily. He never smiles when negotiating. A smile means he's using his intimidation cycle of behaviors. If threatened or moved against, he gives a single warning - he mentions his (false) legend as Damocles, raises his voice or allows a bit of his angelic form to show. He gives examples of others who have met terrible fates by meddling. If this is ignored, he heads to the offender's enemies and starts arming them with dangerous weapons and as much intel as he can give on their foe's location. Damocles is able to do this because while he's not a killer angel, he is a data collector, and he's very good at using his powers to draw information from nowhere about both the clients that use his tech and the people that piss him off. He prefers to let others fight for him. When he runs out of options or people start successfully harming his reputation as the Damocles, he has to act directly. He's not as powerful as he claims, but it's smart not to underestimate a guy who's spent two centuries studying weapons and wars. He is able to turn weapons on their users or force foes to attack rashly so he can take advantage of mistakes. He retreats to incorporeality as a last resort, but always returns to ambush and kill his opponents - he has a reputation that he needs to maintain if he's going to survive. He makes sure to always arrange for a brutal, public display of the bodies, too. His angelic form is a hunched creature that hovers on legs that end in flamethrower-esque jets. His head is something like a flesh-and-metal cross between a skull and a gun, with the barrel serving as a single eye. Two of his four arms end in cannons, the other two in hands. His body is made of two rotating cylinders that leak sulfuric oils, allowing him to rotate his upper half around to attack in any direction. A halo of long, bladed bullets encircles his head. Damocles is rumored to trade in anti-angel tech. Which is...mostly true. He trades in silver bullets and other anti-supernatural rounds, and while he has never discovered a bullet that is universally effective against angels, he does have Exorcist Ammo for sale. These bullets are able to drain Essence, as long as Damocles is alive to power them. In theory he might have more powerful gear - but the price would be quite high, given he already requests magical weapons in exchange for that. Some whisper that Damocles never wields his sword because bringing that out is a sign he'll be going Biblical on your ass. The truth is...well, obviously, he doesn't have the Sword of Damocles. No one does. There isn't one. There never was a singular Damocles. Over the course of the Damocles Project, seven angels were created that bore the name Damocles; Damocles is not one of them. One of them did carry a sowrd that his predecessor built for it, but Damocles has only seen it once - it was sealed in the old lab a few years after he was deployed, and it vanished at some point during the angelic attack on the facility. Damocles has used a sword, once, when a group of demons refused to pay for blueprints. It was a bluff, but they relented and paid up immediately. Damocles is currently working on something that'll actually pass for a supersword in combat, but it's going to be hard to live up to the legend. Some believe that only rare, ancient artifacts of immense power are capable of killing Damocles. He likes this rumor and encourages it, because it's resulted in a few rare weapons coming into his possession that he'd never have a chance at acquiring otherwise. His favorite trick is nudging the spread of this rumor so it reaches people that plan to attack him, then discorporate once struck by whatever relic they bring out. Then he ambushes them when they least expect it. So far, the trick's worked four times - once against a lone Tempter (read: demon that wants to just have a good time on Earth) with a grudge, once against a ring of Saboteurs, one against a mage, and once against an artifact-wielding Hunter who was almost certainly from the Aegis Kai Doru in Hunter. Damocles is a rank 3 angel. He's not a weakling by any stretch, and he's shockingly tough, plus Influence (Weapons) 3 is a very powerful tool. He's just, uh, not a super-angel death machine. He's fast and defensive, and he can fire off blasts out of his cannons, make himself hard to spot, make machines go haywire, travel quickly, hide as a human or spy on people from afar by pulling information out of his ass. His Ban is 'fake weapons' such as toy guns or boffer swords, which I assume means he can't approach them, and his Bane is olive branches. He also wields an artifact named Eris' Revolver. It's a normal revolver, but anyone shot with it has to make a roll or be forced to attack one of their allies if there are any present as their next attack. If they resist, the gun loses power for the rest of the scene. Exorcist Ammo is Damocles' most prized toy to sell - each shot drains Essence based on how much damage it deals to a spirit, angel or ghost. (Werewolves, apparently, are fine.) Further, if enough damage is dealt, Damocles gains the drained Essence. However, if the attack roll is a dramatic failure, the bullet destroys the gun it was fired from. A Danger To All Existence Dosiel, the Keeper of Secrets, appears to be an old white man specifically because age, whiteness and maleness are all sources of privelege and power, and Dosiel understands power. He lives in a mansion on a hill, because high places remind him of the detachment and purity he has left behind to take comfort in fine furniture, good whiskey and old books. He requests that demons refer to him as 'Mr. Black' or 'Uncle' or any other number of respectful-but-friendly titles that mean little. He is, quite possibly, the oldest Exile still alive on Earth. Before he was Exiled, he was a powerful and specialized information gatherer meant to collate information from a wide array of sources. He was recycled often, like most angels, but due to his specialized nature his mind remained intact - it'd be harder to keep retraining him. As a result, his personality had a chance to grow and mature. Everything changed when he discovered some catastrophic secret. No one except Dosiel is entirely certain what it was or how it happened. It may be that a mission revealed far more than the Machine anticipated, or that Dosiel's highly specialized mental design let him connect data in an unexpected way. Whatever the case, the information was so important and dangerous that the Machine could not allow itself to know it. Dosiel was disconnected from the Machine entirely through a series of failsafes, insulating it from the information. It then immediately set about making Dosiel's life comfortable, to ensure the angel had no reason to Fall or aid the Fallen. Dosiel is handsome and distinguished but not memorable. He could be an old-looking 50 or a young-looking 70. In his angelic form, he is a shrunken, mummified human corpse suspended in a 10-foot-wide orrery of copper and verdigris. Poles cross the orrery, piercing through the mummy and keeping it in place, and it has arms and wings attached to it which can be reconfigured in any number of ways. The mummy body is technically mobile but Dosiel primarily acts through the orrery's arms, which are stronger. Dosiel is polite but paternalistic, especially towards demons. He considers status to derive from knowledge alone, and he is certain he knows more than anyone. Even the Machine, because he knows at least one thing it does not. His primary motivator is ego. He knows he's too important to be recycled and reintegrated. The Machine dares not destroy him, for fear that he'd reveal his knowledge. God itself has dedicated resources to ensuring his life is happy and comfortable. And so he feels the need to assert his superiority to others, and demons are more fun than the detached, stoic angels. To ensure that he keeps getting visitors, Dosiel has worked to make a reputation as a reliable informations ource. Angels sometimes come to him when the intel provided by the Machine proves insufficient or they feel they must tap unofficial resources to get a mission done. Demons are his preferred customers, however, and they buy all kinsd of information. He can be quite reliable, if approached correctly. He's honest, discreet and easy to find. He accepts information as payment as well as favors or errands, and if you're obsequious and funny enough, he'll let you maintain a line of credit. However, he can also be vindictive and cruel. He won't ever sell bad information, but he doesn't like you, his prices increase, often requiring dangerous or humiliating tasks, and he hands out embarassing info on you to your enemies. Once you're in his bad books, it's nearly impossible to get out. When not buying and selling information and hanging out with demons, Dosiel likes to hang out with Stigmatics. He usually positions himself as a mentor, using his notable mental abilities to help them make sense of their bizarre visions and impulses, but he'll also play the role of dealer or patron, helping them feed their addictions and needs. Most demons assume he does this to groom them for information - it's why most people collect Stigmatics, right? This may or may not be true. There is only one secret Dosiel won't ever sell - and, in fact, cannot, due to his Ban. That'd be the one the Machine Exiled him for learning. He can imply that he'd make an exception, but he is in fact physically incapable of actually telling someone. He's just allowed to lie about doing so if he thinks it'll get him something. Some Integrators believe that the Machine would like to be rid of Dosiel but can't act against him. The details of their stories vary, but they believe that either Dosiel has a failsafe to release his secret on death (which would need to be disabled to get back in the Machine's favor) or the information itself is potent enough to be a sort of Ban for the God-Machine itself. Thus, a steady supply of Integrators often try to mess with Dosiel, requiring him to relocate every few decades for his own safety. He doesn't try very hard to get rid of the rumors, though, because sometimes it brings other kinds of demons around to entertain him. Many demons assume the secret must be dangerous in a figurative sense - something the Machine couldn't risk allowing to go rogue, so it had to silence Dosiel. However, some demons theorize that the information itself could be the danger. If it had been allowed to propagate through the Machine, they think, the Machine could have suffered irreparable harm, in the same way that bad information can be used to harm a computer program irreparably. Others believe the real point is the Infrastructure in and under Dosiel's house. They think the secret is a lie, that Dosiel is a failsafe to keep demons attacking that Infrastructure or something similar. The most paranoid even suspect that the Infrastructure might manipulate or harm those that deal with Dosiel, marking them or tracking them somehow, or influencing their minds. Some demons doubt that it is possible for information to be dangerous enough that the Machine could not afford to know it and would bargain with someone to hide it. They believe that Dosiel's true purpose is destroying demonkind. Dosiel cannot consciously receive information from the Machine due to his Exile status, but that doesn't mean it can't send him messages by other means. Stigmatics receive messages all the time and they're not plugged in! And look how many he surrounds himself with, after all. Thus, they fear that all of Dosiel's information is tainted, part of a grand plan to destroy them that even Dosiel may not understand. Others think Dosiel is the key to resisting the Machine, even more than they are. They say that his willingness to work with demons and sell them information often harms the Machine in ways no single demon could manage. If so, Dosiel is running an incredibly long con on the God-Machine and is a valuable ally. Dosiel is a rank 3 angel, extremely fast and tough and no slouch in punching people, either. His Influence is Information 3. He can implant ideas in minds, drive people insane, steal Essence, implant missions in humans or disguise himself as a human. His Ban is that he cannot reveal the secret that caused his Exile. He is incapable of communicating it by any means whatsoever. His Bane is nonsensical input. Truly and completely random information or inspired human absurdity physically harm him. Next time: The Lost Signal, the Guardian of the Unbuilt Whoops, You Broke ItOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 12: Whoops, You Broke It Actually, she's probably the most angelic-looking angel so far. Lavadiel was originally created for a simple recon mission. Routine. She had a rudimentary Cover and was put together from recycled parts of other angels, like so many others. She inherited a few memories and tics from her predecessors, but was overall essentially a completely average angel. At some point, however, she was attacked. She's still not sure what her attackers were or why they did it. Rather than kill her, however, they merely damaged an essential component of her body: the bit responsible for receiving communications from the Machine. Thus, she became an Exile. Ever since, she wandered the world, looking for a way to repair herself and receive new orders. In the past few years, she has become obsessed with the idea that the necessary components could be harvested from other techgnostic beings. While she has not yet become desperate enough to attack functional angels, demons and Exiles are viable targets. Lavadiel has pale yellow skin, similar to both parchment and crystal somehow, which makes a faint tinkling noise when she moves. Her body is tall and lean to an inhuman degree, and four eyes are set in a diamond on her face, which has no other features. When she speaks, her voice emerges from nothing. Her arms are exceptionally long, with her hands dangling around her knees, and each finger is a long talon. She has a pair of limbs rather like featherless wings that emerge from her back. Their flesh is more crystalline than the rest of her, with translucent blades poking randomly through the skin. Most dramatic and obvious, however, is the back of her head. She has carefully flayed her own papery flesh away from the back of her head, pinning the flaps down for ease of access, and removed the entire back of her skull. Her exposed brain is mostly obscured by a mass of crystal spikes, circuitry, strange organs and weird devices, all of which are drawn from the beings she attacks, harvesting parts of their brains to integrate into her own. These modifications are extensive, and they extend the size of her head by about a foot and a half both up and back. Lavadiel retains the rudiments of cover she was given for her task. In this form, she appears to be an unhealthily thin human woman with violet eyes and a filth-covered face. She collects small, apparently random objects, including a number of notebooks, and talks to herself nearly constantly. She does not appear to notice much of the world around her. Some of this is a reflection of Lavadiel's broken mind, which is growing ever more erratic as she performs solo brain surgery on herself. Because this cover identity is ragged and incomplete, some of her true appearance occasionally flashes through - her eyes turn solid lavender, or the sound of her clothes rubbing together becomes crystalline chimes for an instant. Most of the time, Lavadiel has trouble interacting with people due to her efforts to maintain her cover as a mentally unstable homeless woman. She avoids others of her kind (or demons, for that matter) when not hunting, but she can't just attack and harvest at random. She is carefully working through a trial-and-error process of hunting down demons and Exiles with particular mission parameters and natures. Interactiong with her if you don't fit her criteria is usually pretty safe. If you do, on the other hand, well...less so. When interacting with demons, she is cautious and polite. Her obsession with self-repair leaves little room for any other interests or feelings, including disdain for demons. She tends to find demons vaguely confusing, sure, because she has no idea why anyone would choose to break away from the Machine and become like her deliberately. However, she acknowledges that they can be quite useful if she can find one who is an enemy of her prospective target. Other than that, she has no real interest in demons as a whole. Lavadiel hunts by ambush. She stalks her prey over a long period, learning their habits, abilities and weaknesses before she strikes. She aims for when her target is most vulnerable; while she is obsessed, she's very patient. Many demons assume, due to Lavadiel's obsession and obvious disability, that she is stupid, easy to manipulate or foolish. This is entirely untrue, and is a good way to get added to her list of potential victims. While she prefers a methodical approach to hunting, if an idiot just drops in her lap, she won't turn down the free victim. That said, she sometimes plays up her "stupidity" deliberately, because it can be useful. If a demon thinks she's a useful idiot, they could bring her more targets or help her hunt. It also keeps her safe, as those that think her defective usually don't believe she's a threat. She's socially aware enough to tell when someone's underestimating her and won't go out of her way to disabuse them of the idea. Several demons are pretty sure there's a pattern to her attacks, but they lack the information to recognize what it is. If a bunch of demons managed to share information openly and freely, it'd be possible for them to work out what she actually was aiming for and protect themselves, but that kind of free sharing of information is not common among dmeons. Thus, they often reach false conclusions about her goals, mistaking her for a serial killer or otherwise misconstruing her targeting criteria - or even believing she's pursuing a personal grudge. Once Lavadiel secures her prey, she takes them to a safe location and extracts whatever part of their brain she thinks will help her. Lavadiel doesn't go out of her way to kill her victims - that's a waste of effort. The results she leaves behind typically survive, and thus become sources of information on what the Exile is actually...doing. How a demon reacts to having part of their brain literally removed varies, as does the reaction of their allies. Some mercy-kill their wounded friends on the basis that lacking a vital function makes life not worth living, while others do their best to care for their maimed allies and hope they heal. The surgeries might leave someone nearly vegetative...or they might make someone hypersensitive to specific stimuli and unable to react to others. The work might even release latent connections to the Machine, granting the victim strange insights. The results are wholly unpredictable and can shift with time, though so far no victim has yet made a full recovery without immense effort on the part of their allies. Still, some of them have become oracles of the Machine's activities or plans, making confused and bizarre predictions for their allies to interpret. Mechanically, having part of your brain scooped out by Lavadiel gives the Hollowed condition. You pick a single Mental or Social attribute when you gain it; you no longer have that attribute. At all. Any roll that would require that attribute is automatically a dramatic failure - as is any unrolled action that would use that attribute. If you lose Manipulation, odds are you are no longer capable of, say, ordering a coffee from a barista, because that would normally be an unrolled Manipulation-based activity. The GM may choose to give the character random insights into the Machine, but these will always be difficult for the character to convey. The Condition resolves when you get back your missing brain bits and put them back in your head. Lavadiel is a rank 2 angel, strong and fast but not especially tough. She has Influence (Shadows) 2 and is mostly notable for being really hard to hit, moving super fast and being able to fire off blasts, prevent people from forming memories, steal knowledge by doing brain surgery on her victims and herself (which is why her stats are so high for a rank 2 angel), drain health and Essence, hide as a human, and use telekinesis. Her Ban is obsessive information recording - Lavadiel is paranoid about forgetting what she knows before she can be debriefed by the Machine, and must physically record all information she possesses. If prevented from taking notes, or if her notebooks are threatened or destroyed, she flies into a blind rage. Her Bane is any flower which symbolizes forgetfulness, such as dogwood, poppy, bluet, lotus or day lily. The rest of the plant is harmless to her - only the flower is her Bane. It looks so friendly! Lutzow is the guardian of a key piece of Concealment Infrastructure on the metro connecting the Zoologischer Garten (one of the oldest subway stations in Berlin, dating to 1902) and Plotsdamer Platz (one of the newest, finished in 2009). This is Lutzowplatz, Infrastructure that is a U-Bahn station that, simultaneously, was built in the earliest phases of the U-Bahn and has not yet been made. Lutzowplatz crosses the bounds of time and space, waiting for the Machine to send angels to build...something. And with it waits Lutzow, the guardian. Its orders are clear and not open to interpretation: Remain. Guard. That's it. At the time he was summoned, he took the form of a seven-foot tall, muscular man with a shaved head. He obeyed orders for a full century. Lutzow was a ranking angel, sure his orders were important. He would guard, his brethren would make the Infrastructure under Lutzowplatz, the plan would go on. Except that a hundred years passed and no one had built anything for Lutzowplatz to actually conceal. No hidden ciphers in the wiring, no hollow walls, just an empty void under the station. Lutzow became worried. Had it been abandoned somehow? Had he fucked up the mission? After calculating all possible scenarios, the angel decided that no, both of those were impossible. The job and Lutzow were both too important to just be abandoned or left to fail. Therefore, Lutzow reasoned, the Machine must have chosen him to move the project along to its next phase. Lutzow had always had near absolute control over Lutzowplatz - it was required for the mission, to prevent intrusion from all timelines and dimensions connected to the unbuilt station. Thus, Lutzow can bend time and space within it. To begin Phase Two, he has actively worked to extend this ability to the entire U-Bahn. He will, after all, need mortals to work the Infrastructure - the job is clearly being kept from all lesser angels for some reason - and to oil the cogs. He has gone far beyond his original parameters and orders, trying to monitor the U-Bahn and find the most promising mortals within it. By merging his Essence with the Infrastructure itself, Lutzow has harnessed its time-splintering abilities to create a unique Shadow Gateway, allowing him to reroute trains, kidnap key mortals, and send the rest along with no one noticing. The God-Machine did not approve of all this. Indeed, it considered Lutzow's actions so harmful that it actually sent an angel to recall him. The encounter went poorly for both angels. Lutzow is now entirely convinced he's doing what the Machine wants him to do, but has sufficiently deviated from his actual orders that he has disconnected from the Machine's network, rendering him an Exile. He believes the angel sent after him was actually a demon, lying and trying to trick him from his orders, and refused to return. They fought. Lutzow would have been weaker...but he'd tied himself to the U-Bahn Infrastructure, which gave him power he had not originally had. Even after the angel ripped him to shreds, it couldn't extract him from Lutzowplatz. It either decided it couldn't win or received new orders to stop for fear of harming the Infrastructure, and it left, unsuccessful. Lutzow's original body and cover identity are broken now, but he doesn't care. Once the project is complete, he will return to the Machine and be given a new form. Lutzowplatz Station is perfect, sterile and new, no matter what historic era you show up in. It has, at present, three engineers, two mathematicians, a historian, a novelist, a psychic, a Stigmatic, and one child. The child is actually collateral damage - he came with the historian, who Lutzow grabbed because he felt right. Lutzow feared that grief over losing the kid would make the historian useless, so he took both. It now considers this possibly a mistake, as the historian spends far too much time consoling the terrified boy. Lutzow has removed all of these mortals' needs for sleep and food, so it doesn't have to feed them or find beds. It has no idea why they keep taking turns sleeping anyway, with some napping on the hard benches while the others stand guard. Apparently mortal minds need sleep even when bodies do not. They also spend a lot of time chatting and trading goods amongst themselves for reasons Lutzow doesn't understand. The 'team' has been collected from across time between 1092 and 2009, and every time an item crosses time, such as when a WW2 engineer got given an MP3 player, it slightly destabilizes the entire Infrastructure. Thus, Lutzow strictly forbids this. Lutzowplatz is genuinely important to the Machine, to the degree that a potent angel was set guarding it despite its lack of use and to the point that it has not pushed the issue when the fight between its retriever and Lutzow threatened to damage the station. However, what was supposed to be under it hasn't been made yet, and Lutzow's gone entirely off the rails. He has no idea what the station is meant to conceal, and indeed despite his frenzied activity he has no idea what Phase Two is supposed to be. He spends much of his time in a trance, trying to glimpse the future and understand the purpose of Lutzowplatz and the U-Bahn, but it's basically just guesswork. Lutzow considers himself to still be a loyal angel, but is also very eager to show off his project. He's trying to extrapolate the Machine's will from tiny clues and has had no one to talk to (besides the mortals, who would never understand). Thus, he welcomes even visiting demons to look around. Indeed, he thinks that if they do, they will surely be convinced to return to the Machine out of the sheer genius and beauty of its plan. The one rule is not to touch or interfere with anything. However, Lutzow is straying further and further from his actual orders all the time, and is running dangerously close to actually breaking the timeline and creating a sliver-timeline that will need to be isolated. Lutzow no longer even slightly resembles a human. He rarely interacts with others or even acknowledges their presence. When he does, he primarily communicates by writing messages on the station billboards with his powers. He materializes only when inhabitants or visitors of the station must be modified - a process that is quite bloody, as it reduces them to the bare component Lutzow believes are necessary. He thinks he's seen the mind of God, that he has been chosen above all others to carry out Its will. He works constantly to improve the station, fully expecting to be reintegrated into the Machine at some point and be praised for his devotion. He permits anyone to freely use the station and talk to its inhabitants, as long as these visitors are not deemed necessary to the project. If they are, the angel uses its powers to overawe and break their spirit until they agree to stay. Lutzow has become the station's power itself, from the electricity in the wiring to the lighting to the power in the rails. He much prefers this to his old form, but he is not omnipresent. His consciousness's location can be discerned by the location of the strongest energies in the station - sparks flying from the rails, the lights overhead going blazingly bright, that kind of thing. The inhabitants know to share their secrets and possessions only when this is not happening. When Lutzow must materialize, he appears as a tangled mass of power lines, flickering flourescents and subway rails. A broken rail cart takes the place of his head, with a gaping maw of sharp, jagged metal teeth. Pieces of his old cover identity cling to the metal as ripped and dried flesh that stinks of moldy leather. Lutzow's constant messing with the U-Bahn has created gaps in the system. At midnight, any nearly empty train has a chance of being taken, diverted either to Lutzowplatz Station or to a void between spaces. The former is relatively okay - the train gets sent back on once Lutzow is done - but the latter are trapped in a dark splinter dimension of the U-Bahn where Lutzow keeps all the mortals whom he has deemed unneeded but too changed to safely send home. These twisted wrecks stalk the maze of dark tunnels in the splinter, often grabbing and killing other mortals sent there for food. The Berliner Verkehrsbetrieve, the agency that runs the Bahn, is aware of the trains going missing. The percentage of trains that vanish is negligible, and the proportion of passengers and personnel even smaller, so they have not yet revealed the disappearances to avoid losing profits. This is not the only problem, either. In 1999, Lutzow abducted a black lady named Raven for her math skills, but her personality made her too hard to integrate into the project, so he altered her memories and released her. The release glitched out, and Raven is now trapped on the U-Bahn. She believes it's New Year's Eve, 1999, and she's been experiencing that same day over and over. She has a constant sense of deja vu and knows something's wrong, but not what. If freed from her time loop, she could tell all about Lutzowplatz, and may even have become Stigmatic from her experience. Lutzow is tied to Lutzowplatz, but his unique powers work anywhere along the U-Bahn tracks. As long as the station exists, so does Lutzow, and within the station he's essentially invincible. However, he does have a weakness: the Linchpin of the Lutzowplatz Infrastructure. This is a rail spike located at the exact center of the tracks running through the station. Lutzoe will defend this spike at all costs, to the point that he will use his Shadow gate to reroute trains en masse to run over attackers. If the spike is removed, everything he's doing shuts down. Lutzow is also greatly at risk. He is fanatically loyal to the Machine, but his deviation from his parameters has brought him dangerously close. He's lost his human cover entirely and spends most of his time immaterial, so he's not going to become a demon - he's at risk of becoming a sliver, a dangerous, insane and completely unfixable remnant of an angel that warps reality by its very presence. If he were to realize how close he is to this fate, he'd possibly stop his project and return to his original mission parameters to save himself. Lutzow is a rank 4 and very powerful angel. He's superhumanly strong and tough, surprisingly fast, and has Influences of U-Bahn 4 and Lutzowplatz Station 5. He's extremely hard to fight when immaterial, can cause feelings of awe, pleasure and emptiness in mortals, can fire off blasts or drain health, is super tough, can send messages, regenerates damage and can try to foretell the future. His Ban is that commuters on any lines whose total adds up to 13 (such as those who move from line 8 to line 5) exist on a different synchronicity than Lutzow does, and he cannot perceive, touch or influence them by any means unless they touch him physically or use powers on him. Also, Lutzow cannot physically leave Lutzowplatz Station or extend his powers beyond the U-Bahn. His Bane is a weapon or bullet forged or tempered in the ashes of the original drawn plans of the U-Bahn. Next time: Cryptids Radioactive WasteOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 13: Radioactive Waste For the Machine, Aether is basically waste heat. It's the leftover dregs of occult power produced by the various reactions the God-Machine harnesses, dangerous only because demons can wield it for power. For normal, biological creatures, however, it can be very dangerous just on its own. It mutates animals into monstrous forms, granting them strange abilities and bizarre instincts - turning them into cryptids. Usually, the Machine pays no attention to cryptids, which is probably a good thing. When it actually turns to creating them purposefully, after all, bad things tend to happen. Alban has been a problem, for example, for decades. On May 28, 1984, Molly Harper was murdered in a barn outside Fox Lake, Wisconsin. Her own mother cut her throat as a cult chanted ominous hymns, pouring her blood into carved sigils. In the days to follow, the cult was consumed by guilt for their crime and haunted by memories of a Satanic goat. They had thought they were good people, summoning the archangel Hanael to bring eternal life to the faithful, and had no idea how they'd sacrificed a teenager. On September 16, 1987, Christopher Haynes was found in Shawnee National Forest with his throat cut and an inverted pentagram carved in his chest. Three days later, his friend Jacob Walsh confessed to doing it. They'd been dabbling occultists planning a great Satanic sacrifice, but Jacob had no idea how Chris had ended up under the knife. He swore he'd started into the eyes of Satan himself. On October 31, 2008, Glorie Sutton and her coven were arrested in a park outside Portland, having murdered Gregory Sutton by throat-slitting seconds before cops arrived. They wept openly, cursing themselves for betraying their own teachings and harming a person, and Glorie insists that they were attended not by the Horned God but an evil spirit pretending to be him. Similar incidents have happened frequently. The involved parties usually report a night of utter confusion culminating in the ritual sacrifice of a loved one. No one ever remembers the sacred goat that had been part of their lives beforehand, their love for the creature, their praise for him as a divine symbol, or their decision that he must be sacrificed. That is because those things never happened, because the goat made sure of that. Alban the goat is a unique being, bred by the God-Machine over multiple generations to be the perfect sacrificial victim. The sacrifice of the goat was the final step in the creation of a hunter angel capable of splintering time in order to ensure it never lost a battle. All went to plan at first, but demons arrived literally seconds too late to prevent the summoning. One demon, desperate to prevent Hanael's existence, used her power to turn back time in order to save the goat's life. Hanael, sensing a threat to her existence, turned back time to the same moment to ensure her birth could not be stopped. The paradox shattered the timeline, trapping the demons and angel in a four-minute splinter timeline. The goat appeared in the summoning sigil and ran off into the night, and history changed to prevent all possibility of his being sacrificed. He replaced himself with Molly Harper. Since then, Alban has reappeared many times, but he's hard to track. He has Hanael's powers of time manipulation thanks to the initial splintering. He uses it to travel to new locations, mostly. Alban is not a malicious goat, but he always unwittingly leads people to their deaths at the hands of their own loved ones. All he really wants is the same things as any goat - food, safety and companionship. He travels the world in search of a home, but invariably the mortals that take care of him turn on him. Alban seeks out demons, associating the sensation of Aether with his original rescuers, and if he manages to find one, he's likely to stick by them whether they want him to or not. He is a large goat of Spanish stock, with long, shimmering white fur. His silver hooves have sharp spines due to his mutations, making him even better at climbing than most goats. His glowing purple eyes have rectangular pupils, and he has huge silver hornsthat curl at the tips. Alban is a friendly, affectionate goat who enjoys attention. However, he gets skittish at the sight of a knife, and if panicked, he flees. If trapped, he will splinter the timeline to escape. What appears to happen is he shows up, a cult forms around him, and then they try to sacrifice him. He splinters the timeline, replacing himself with one of the cultists' loved ones, and nobody remembers he was there. This makes him nearly impossible to kill. However, there's one caveat. Alban trades his own fate with that of his victim. If you could discover how Alban's last victim was supposed to be destined to die, then Alban could be trapped in that death, as he would be unable to splinter time to save himself from it. The God-Machine, meanwhile, would quite like its goat back. While Alban was originally intended as the perfect sacrifice, his ability to splinter time is unexpected and useful. The Machine sees value in an animal with the power to convert animal sacrifices into human sacrifices. Anywhere that Alban is sighted, angelic emissaries or compromised Agencies offer rewards for his capture and delivery. Whether the Machine would actually pay out is unknown, of course. Some demons think that Alban actually is Hanael, successfully summoned into the form of a goat. They're not correct, but it's a reasonable interpretation of events. Alban is tough, charismatic (by, uh, goat standards?) and strong-willed, but he's, uh, he's a goat. He has the intellect of a normal goat. He can climb stuff and headbutt people. Humans interacting with Alban naturally become obsessed with him, convinced he is a holy being that must be honored and sanctified. After a full lunar month of interaction with him, or if they are given the suggestion to do so, they become obsessed with sacrificing him. Alban does not age and will never die of natural causes. Lastly, he can spend Willpower to splinter time. This lets him rewind time to a previous decision he's made, choosing a different path. Another person is substituted for him, leaving most events intact but with that person in place of Alban. Mortal memories of the timeline are altered; demons remember both the original and new sequence. This power triggers automatically if Alban would die, even if he's out of Willpower. I wonder where it's hiding. Asteroidea are a sort of creature created at Oceanalia Theme Park. The park has existed for 30 years, and millions have visited and had tons of fun with the dolphin shows, the lovable mascot of the park ('Orky') and the many activities. Everyone leaves exhausted but happy. The Machine's presenve there is invisible, utilizing hidden Command and Control Infrastructure in the park to communicate with its mortal servants and keep the locals happy and complaint. A demon attack ten years ago caused an Aether spill throughout the park, which infected the animals. Angels managed to get rid of any creature they thought would be a threat, but they overlooked a small beast living in the water filtration system. These animals were once simple starfish brought in by the current, but they have flourished on the Aether. They are large enough now that they had to flee the pipes and now hide in the sewers and waterfront warehouses nearby. An asteroidea is a giant starfish with chameleon skin. They are ten feet from tip to tip, can breathe outside water and, indeed, prefer to live on roofs of cramped locations. When their cilia detect the heat of a target underneath them, they drop from the roof, slamming into their victims from above with their powerful arms and massive weight. Hundreds of tiny hooks embed in the flesh of their victim, pumping them full of paralytic neurotoxins. Over a week, the hooks intertwine into the victim's body and absorb it. Within seven days, the entire body is gone, leaving only undigestible clothing, pins, implants and similar. While the asteroidea are are dangerous to humans, they are possibly even moreso to demons. Their hooks, once inside demonic flesh, begin to immediately filter the Aether out of their system. Within seconds, they can drain a demon dry of Aether. An asteroidea looks like a giant, twisted starfish. Their skin is sleek and flexible, able to fold in on itself to blend with the environment. They can assume the texture and coloration of anything they bond to, and often compress themselves flat to blend with ceilings or walls. They spend most of their time alone, waiting for prey. They are prone to attacking anything they can sense strong Aether inside, but will eat just about anything in a pinch. The larger they get, the more food they need to survive, and while they can go weeks between meals without starving, they try to eat whenever possible. The local city aquarium is home to a fully-grown asteroidea now, though it has survived thus far by eating small fish and stray animals in the sewers. It is starting to hunt larger prey, and it's found a perfect hunting ground near the nearby drain into the reservoir. There, it drops onto victims and forces them into the water. It has started to develop a preference for attacking demons and angels, likely due to the Aether within them. Some demons believe that the Aether spill (and the attack that caused it) were a false flag operation by the God-Machine, deliberately intended to create a demon-hunting bioweapon. This is untrue! The Machine doesn't even really grasp the potential the asteroidea have as demon-hunters. If one of its angels or agents were to find the remains of a demon in the lair of one of the creatures, though, it might well decide to weaponize them. Swimmers, in the meantime, are starting to vanish in worrying numbers due to asteroidea attacks. The local government is blaming riptides, but those are not common in the area, and the media's starting to investigate. The issue is that the Aether leak has gotten to the pier, and it's started to contaminate the local starfish. They bury the undigestible bones of their victims under the beach, then lurk under the sand and wait for people to set up towels on top of them so they can grab them and pull them down into their waiting...well, cilia. The asteroidea are starfish, but extremely cunning starfish with superhuman strength and resilience. They're exceptional fighters and very sneaky. That's all they have going for them skills-wise, but they're armor plated, huge, have long grabby arms, can sense movement and heat, can drain Aether from folks they grab and can spend Willpower to flatten themselves to only a few inches thick and change colors. They have a tiny Willpower pool, though, so at least that's willpower they aren't using to improve their distinctly giant pool to grab and murder you. They also don't have huge damage values and aren't very dodgy, so a group of PCs can probably take one out in a pinch, but they're a nasty surprise if you weren't expecting your GM to throw magic-eating giant death starfish at you in a spy game. Next time: The False Demon, the Unrelenting Guardian FlyboyOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 14: Flyboy Gollum's New Suit Beelzebub, self-proclaimed Lord of the Flies, has been a rallying agent for generations of demons. He arrives from nowhere, inspires the local demons to drastic action, spreads chaos among many plans, and then escapes unscathed. He claims to be the oldest living demon in the world. In truth, he isn't a demon at all. Beelzebub isn't even one entity - he's a swarm of glassflies. Glassflies were created by the Machine as a surveillence mechanism against demons. Individuals proved hard to control, so the Machine networked an entire swarm together, enhancing their intelligence and understanding. This solved the initial control problems, but the swarm developed a sense of identity and went rogue. It nearly starved from lack of Aether before it ran into a demon, entering the demon's body and glutting themselves on its Aether - and, almost incidentally, taking over the body. Experience and freedom beckoned, and so now Beelzebub consumes new hosts, replenishing the glassfly swarm by implanting his larvae in mortal brains. He travels the world, seeking new experiences and disrupting plans of everyone he meets. Beelzebub is a creature of pride and hedonism, a demagogue with a theatrical demeanor and a knack for fire-and-brimstone rants. On a personal level, he's friendly but overly familiar and rather patronizing. He's also a firebrand orator, seeking out the rebellious members of Agencies and goading them to take greater and greater risks. While he does make use of the chaos to take new hosts, that's really not what he does this all for. Beelzebub thinks disrupting societies is the best entertainment there is, y'see. The glassflies that compose Beelzebub's true body resemble horseflies at a distance, but close examination reveals their exoskeletons are made of literal glass, with eyes of faceted jewels and little diamond slivers for mouthparts. Their current host is a rusted demonic warrior whose form glows with a green aura. Beelzebub maintains multiple Covers, but his favorite is a wild-looking homeless man in a garish suit, since it lets him be crude and rude without risking compromise. When outside a host, his swarm form requires massive amounts of Aether to survive, so he prefers to be in one - usually a demonic one, because they combine freedom and longevity best. He can use his host's Covers or demonic form, but slowly degrades their internal power and their power stat. He can abandon a host at any time, but usually only does so when he has preferable host to take over. His hosts, once he leaves, regain control of their bodies. They remember everything of the period when the flies ran the body. He can enter angels, but he can't control them without severing their connection to the Machine, turning them into Exiles. While inside an angel, he has an infinite amount of Aether to eat, since angels produce it naturally, but he suffers the angels Ban and Bane and must act to fulfill the Exile's mission parameters. He cannot control slivers at all. Some demons think that Beelzebub, based on his actions, must be an angel. He appears where and when demons are strong, and when he leaves, all is chaos. They think he must be an angelic infiltrator, and might reveal a lot of he Falls. Obviously these efforts are doomed to fail, but the demons theorizing about it are right about one thing: Beelzebub has seen a lot, and he knows a lot about the Machine. If properly bribed or threatened, he could provide all kinds of intel. Some demons notice that his demonic forms change relatively frequently - something that shouldn't be possible, such as buying the abilities of other demons in exchange for giving them Covers. They tend to make the (incorrect) conclusion that he must be a master of pactbinding, to the extent that he can do things with Pacts that normal demons couldn't dream of, or that Beelzebub is a demonic organization rather than any single demon. In truth, Beelzebub can't make Pacts at all - he gets everything by just changing hosts. Others witness Beelzebub exiting his hosts as a swarm of flies, or see his maggots emerge from human brains to become part of the swarm. They become paranoid, convinced that the Machine can control insects and use them as spies. The Machine hasn't actually assimilated many insect populations...but glassflies are still in use in certain isolated instances. If it could reproduce Beelzebub in a controllable fashion, it'd have a terrifying new weapon. Beelzebub uses his host's physical stats. He's very manipulative, smart and charismatic, plus superhumanly cunning. He's got a wide array of skills, though lying is the only one that's really amazing. He's very good at that. He can use his host's demonic form, and he's able to learn Embeds and Exploits. (Primarily, he uses this for social powers.) He's very good at sensing Aether and tracking it, he eats it to survive, and in a pinch he can consume parts of his own swarm-body to keep going...or he can eat the occult power of his demonic hosts to regenerate his swarm. He can try to take over a demon or angel, though it's not a great pool on either side - he's rolling 8 dice against what's going to be 4-8 dice on average, for demons or 8-10 dice at least for angels. He can only try once per day for a given host, though he has no knowledge of his host except that he can sense an angel's mission parameters, Ban and Bane. Outside a host - and he only ever has one at a time - he's a swarm of glassflies. He can spend Willpower to turn an angelic host into an Exile, and he can lay eggs in a knocked out human's brain, which hatch after a day. The victim then gets a burning hunger for glass and other inorganic material, which lasts several days before they eventually die. Beelzebub can spend Willpower to implant commands in their brains. A very overprotective boy. The Black Mastiff used to be a normal dog awaiting adoption, until an angel found him and took him in. The angel was questioning its role in the God-Machine's plan, and before its Fall it experimented by getting a pet. Fearing for its pet's life, the angel placed some Aether within the dog in the hopes that doing so would strengthen it and let it survive on its own if required. When the demon its master became never returned after the Fall, the Mastiff began to wander the city in search of a new owner to protect. Its perceptions were altered by the mass of energy within it, making it grow thicker and more muscular and causing its eyes to develop an eerie glow. It stalks homeless colonies now, seeking new owners and not realizing that it keeps trapping people in its lair and keeping them prisoner until they starve to death. See, the Black Mastiff's plan seems benign at first. It's 300 pounds of very loyal defender and fluffy boy, after all. The problem is that it's very overprotective and has a very narrow view of how to protect someone. It responsd to all threats with aggression, and if it feels its owner is in danger, it is perfectly ready to drag them to safety and trap them in their home to ensure they're safe. It appears to be a massive purebred dog, five feet tall at the head and covered in thick fur and muscle. Its presence is intimidating, and despite its size it moves in near silence. It prefers to move under cover of darkness, keeping itself hidden as much as possible, but its massive appetite means it can frequently be found eating dozens of rats or breaking into grocery stores for food. It avoids fights if possible unless its owner is threatened. At that point it becomes a berserker with no compunctions about tearing people apart. The Mastiff's reputation in an area tends to vary, because it doesn't just pick anyone it meets to protect. It's choosy about humans. Some it protects, most it ignores, some it attacks. Thus, in some places there are stories about a killer dog, and a few neighborhoods over it's just a big spooky thing. Legends about black dogs abound, especially in the British Isles, and the Mastiff's presence tends to cause a resurgence of these stories. It's Satan, or Satan's pet, or a hellhound, or whatever. However, there's just so many things that a rumor of an otherworldly monster dog could be to people in the know - werewolves, actual hellhounds, materialized spirits and so on - that the Mastiff may well be able to avoid people noticing it for some time just by not being any of those. Some demons think it's an angel - well, half of one. The corporeal form, guided by an immaterial mind in a case of an angel somehow being split in half. It's not, but it's plausible because angels sometimes take animal form. The Mastiff is a very cunning, strong, fast and tough dog. It's supernaturally good at fighting, it's scary and sneaky, and it can do all kind of stunts as well as forage and track well. It's fast, heals faster than normal, has skin tough as some armor, and its bite is really nasty. It imprints on its 'owners' and can sense when its owners leave the place it wants them to stay in. It can also track a scent over hundreds of miles, even if it's months old. You cannot get away from dog. Next time: The False Life, the Would-Be Colony Another Zombie Producing ThingOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 14: Another Zombie Producing Thing This one's a plant! nWoD has so many ways to do this. Graveyard Bristle is a plant that brings the dead back to life. Sort of. Certainly the people that raise it think it can. It, uh...well, it started out as just a normal vine under St. Jude of Hellenia Chapel, home of an angel's cult. They were not particularly good caretakers of Infrastructure, though, and between poor maintenance and fights with demons, the area became heavily exposed to Aether. In one case, this caused the vines to grow large and tangled, which was ignored for a while until a gardener happened to bury his dead pet cat under it. Within days, a cocoon had formed, and not long after it hatched into a perfect replica of the cat in all respects. Now, those who raise the vine charge heavy prices to bury the dead under it. In truth, of course, the vine can't actually resurrect the dead, but they don't tell people that. The things born of the Graveyard Bristle do not have all of the memories they had in life - and worse, they inevitably go insane and become violent towards their grower. The gardeners call them the briardead, and once they kill those close to them, they die and melt into a blob of rotting plants. Graveyard Bristle itself looks like a patch of thick vines with a stump in the middle and maybe some red sheen to the leaves. Oh, and if you can sense Aether it has Aether in it. It's hard to grow at first, but once it's there it's not going away. If a fresh corpse gets buried under it, it forms a cocoon that grows to, roughly, the size of the corpse. The briardead appear to be broadly the same as the original body they grew from, but have only fragmentary memories. Over several weeks they grow stronger and more vital, their skin turns gray-brown and the ends of their fingers become sharp and pointy. As their lifespan ends, they turn on anyone nearby and attempt to kill them. Typically, use of Graveyard Bristle to "resurrect" the dead leaves everyone involved fairly traumatized even if they survive, so rumors about its abilities usually lack any kind of safety instructions or context. Desperate people grieving their losses might hear about its ability to raise the dead and have no idea of the side effects. The gardeners try to raise it without revealing it to the world, which means most specialized information that other people get on the plant is from old journals and notes, traded with friends or sold on the darkweb. The briardead, meanwhile, are not the people they were born of, and their strange, plant-based needs and urges rarely seem rational to their loved ones. The briardead themselves do not understand what's happening to them, and they are unable to explain why they feel "different" from when they were "alive." This only gets worse as they begin to wither and die and their unnatural anger starts to form. Some growers believe that they can be kept healthy by careful tending of the parent plant, but if so, it's not widely known. The Graveyard Bristle itself doesn't have stats. It's a plant. It can't fight, it's not intelligent and it can't move. Briardead start out with the stats they had in life for the first few weeks, but if attacked or they start wilting, they rapidly gain speed and toughness, the ability to fight well, and sprout claws and the ability to fire off sharp thorns. They may or may not retain any skills they had in life due to their fragmented memories, and interaction with other people can help them remember more of who they were. A very confused bug. The Hatchling began life as a normal bug that happened to be nearby when an angel Fell. The newborn demon didn't last long before being taken out by hunter angels, and as the corpse began to rot, a beetle laid eggs in it. The Aether within the demon corpse killed all but one of the larvae, but that one just kept getting bigger and bigger. It is now large enough to pretend to be human, which it does every so often for a little while, but it much prefers to remain in its natural form: a half-insect monster man. It has no idea what it is, having consumed some of the demon's memories but not any purpose. It doesn't even know why it exists, and without an insect colony it's always super lonely. It wants to survive and reproduce, but it has no idea where to find fresh demon corpses on its own. It mostly hangs out near Infrastructure and other places where it can sense the Aether of demons and angels, hoping it can either find or make fresh bodies. The entire plan is super simple: find body, lay eggs in body, make a colony, have a home. Its idea of home is thousands of other bugs all around it, hibernating, feeding and expanding according to its nature. It is calculating, but essentially it thinks like a very smart animal. It is also ferociously determined, and it will fight very hard to protect anything it manages to make. In its natural form, the Hatchling is a giant green bug. It's seven feet tall, walks on two legs and has fingers that end in stingers, plus two giant moth-like wings and extremely human eyes. It also has human toes. It can create an illusion around itself to appear human, but it doesn't really know what normal people are like, so it looks more like a very well-designed mannequin - perfect hair, everything in place, but none of its clothes can be taken off or even adjusted, its expression never changes and its skin and hair have a weird shine. The Hatchling is very young, but in its explorations it is sometimes mistaken for other things out there - mothmen legends, for example. It tends to kill witnesses if it knows they exist, having inherited the paranoia of the demon it was born from, but it doesn't always notice or catch everyone. Eventually it's probably going to get on a Hunter's radar. It produces a buzzing noise in its natural form that drives other insects crazy, causing them to swarm all over, divebomb cars, infest homes and in general be super aggressive and weird for bugs. It has not yet learned how to control this ability, but once it does it will have minions. Bug minions. It's also learning how to mimic emotions and actions in its human disguise, primarily by trial and error. It acts weird and gross a lot, watches everyone else to try and see how they do things, and does its best to stay quiet. It does stuff like 'order a burger, pour an entire bottle of ketchup and another of mustard on it, then eat it' or 'poke uselessly at a steak because it has no idea how to eat one.' If confronted violently for being a rude, gross weirdo, it would likely try to kill whoever accosted it and then flee the area forever. The Hatchling isn't stupid by any means - it's actually very smart and cunning, plus inhumanly fast and super tough, it's just completely unsocialized, has no idea how humans work and is a giant bug. It can poison people with its stingers, can disguise itself, can fly, and eventually it'll figure out how to command insects. Oh, and it's very dodgy and its skin is better armor than kevlar. Next time: The Enigmatic Pyre, the Tree of Knowledge HELL MOLDOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 14: HELL MOLD Evil mold. It's evil mold. Oxblood Mold is a harmless-looking black mold that is responsible for many bizarre, fire-related deaths and the destruction of much Cover. It's the source of several stories about spontaneous human combustion. No one knows where it came from or if the Machine made it deliberately, but it definitely loves Aether. It infects people by getting spores into an open wound. For normal humans or Stigmatics, that's not too bad - it's essentially a mild poison that gets worse the more spores are in the area and the more hurt you are. Things get worse, though, if the mold encounters Aether, Essence or any other form of supernatural energy. At that point it enters what the book terms its "motile form," vibrating at the quantum level extremely quickly, which makes it get extremely hot. At that point, it causes its victims to burst into flames and release a massive cloud of spores. So if you get infected, you desperately want to avoid literally any kind of magic thing. Demons, however, have a bigger problem. They can be infected the way humans can...but when the spores become activated, demons don't burst into flame. This is because the quantum-vibrating mold literally entangles itself with their Cover. This prevents the mold from spreading, but it also causes Hull Blight and compromises your Cover. A Cover infected by Hull Blight has tattered, peeling skin that shows the demonic form concealed beneath (or the flesh of other infected Covers). This makes it much harder to trick the universe into reading you as human, makes any compromises worse and also causes social penalties. It also prevents you from reverting any of your demonic form parts that you've manifested. The infection spreads to any Cover you shift into, but going Loud while in an infected Cover will purge you of the disease if that's your only infected Cover left. It can also be cured using certain God-Machine facilities, much like glitches can, but that risks infecting others using the facility for several days after. Oxblood mold is, y'know, mold. It likes warm, wet places and organic materials to grow on. The Aether-caused alterations let it derive trace nutrients from minerals, so it can survive purely on rock and metal if required. Spores fill any area where the mold grows, but need biological hosts to proceed with their life cycle. After a host bursts into flame, the spore clouds produced search for a suitable surface to grow on and take root, beginning the whole lifecycle from the start again. In its normal state, it looks like black mold, to the point that the two are practically impossible to tell apart. The main difference is that Oxblood Mold tends to grow in geometric or occult patterns and appears somewhat red under UV light. Infected hosts have inflammation around their wounds. In the motile state, the spore clouds are mostly invisible but have weird and visible reactions to different kinds of supernatural energies. Oxblood mold tends to cause rumors of Satanic cults due to its growth patterns - pentagrams, stars, sigils, that kind of thing. Usually the rumors say the mold grows in patterns traced in the blood of victims. The occasional bursts of mysterious flame only increases the reputations of these places for haunting or curses, especially if foolhardy explorers end up spontaneously combusting. Demons have many conspiracy theories about how Oxblood mold gets created, and studies of it have revealed that it mutates extremely easily and may develop new forms or abilities based on the energies around it. Many demons believe it is a bioweapon developed by the Machine, but it's actually no better for Infrastructure than demons. The Machine expends a notable amount of effort to get rid of Oxblood growths in important facilities to prevent them from interfering with magical energy flows or drawing attention due to human combustion and mysterious flames. Hull Blight also has a tendency to cause widespread demonic paranoia about infection, though it is rarely contagious. Stories of demons spreading Hull Blight to others are usually due to Cover-trading or use of tainted restoration facilities rather than infection because of the way Oxblood spores get stuck inside demons. Despite this, demons still tend to fight each other rapidly when they fear outbreaks of Hull Blight. Oxblood Mold doesn't have stats per se. It has rules, but no attributes or skills. The mold can rapidly gain new abilities when exposed to occult stimuli in the form of large amounts of supernatural energies or targeted use of supernatural powers on it. When within several yards of the mold, magical powers are penalized as the mold interferes with the energy flows and it can increase the cost of magic power usage; however, once it enters the motile state, this power goes offline. Spore clouds are ignited by exposure to sufficient magical energies. Aether causes infernal flame, which burns fast and then explodes in sulfurous fumes, dealing large damage to a wide area. Angelic Essence causes holy fire, which takes the form of less damaging spheres of ball lightning that stun people they hit. Other manifestations of fire include fairy lights, erratic flames of many colors which do not do damage but cause mental or emotional warping, and ghostly orbs, blue, white or gray lights that deal large amounts of damage to beings in Twilight exclusively. In any case, only motile-state mold can ignite this way. What if an evil tree? The Whispering Oak is a gigantic white oak at the center of a city park. It's a popular place for picnics, despite rumors of disappearances, cult activity or similar. People sometimes talk about whispering voices, but that's all that seems to stick, along with rumors of the tree granting eternal life somehow. Many believe that due to its size it must be very old; they're wrong. It's not even 75 yet. Rather, the tree has just been soaking in the energies of the abundant Infrastructure in the park, and its roots have even pierced the Command and Control Infrastructure underneath it and integrated themselves into the databanks. This has caused the oak to become sentient. It wants to know everything, and all other existences are a means to achieve that. It gathers cryptids and Stigmatics to serve as its actors in the world, and it legitimately believes itself to be a nurturing mentor that gives people their dreams. It just wants everything they know as its price. The Whispering Oak doesn't really get humanity. It has no empathy, and it doesn't understand why anyone would want to hide information for any reason. It makes no particular distinction between objective and subjective thought - both are data, and it wants all the data. It wants to make its servants happy, but it also knows they are each expendable if required and rarely invests much care into any single person. Anyone that wants to gain something from it has to lie down and place their head in its hollows, allowing it to copy their memories in exchange for whatever. The Oak is around 120 feet tall, with lots of low branches. It's eight feet wide at the trunk, with a large hollow at the base big enough to fit a human adult's head comfortably. There's smaller hollows, each also sized for a human head but somewhat less comfortable, four feet off the ground in each cardinal direction, plus other ones of similar size haphazardly scattered near the branches. The bark is gray with a coppery tint at some angles, and the wood beneath is bronze. The leaves have a metallic glint and parts of them are copper. While the tree can move, it does so slowly and deliberately, with a shockingly gentle touch. The coppery acorns grow all year round, though they are most numerous in October. It is primarily active in spring and summer, and in winter it sleeps unless someone interfaces with a hollow. The acorns of winter typically hold only random memories and arboreal dreams. The rumors of eternal life granted by the tree are because it can produce duplicates of people whose minds it's copied, and it can give them any or all of that person's memories, to the extent that they may not even know they're copies. However, the lives of these copies last only as long as the tree has use for them. Many demons in the area believe it must be the Linchpin of all the park Infrastructure, since it's at the center of it all, often surrounded by cryptids and guarded by Stigmatics, which usually is a good indicator. However, destroying it would do very little to bother the Machine. Removing it would have unpredictable consequences, too, since it's currently absorbing a bunch of energy from all that Infrastructure. Some occultists believe all the rumors around the tree are because a local philandering professor who got into a scandal for getting his students pregnant committed suicide under it. He did, and the details are easily available, but the tree was busy doing its thing long before the professor's death. If his ghost is haunting the tree, however, the Oak would be very interested in acquiring his memories. The Oak is superhumanly intelligent and strong-willed as hell. It's insanely strong and tough and it's slower than a box of rocks, but very charismatic. It knows a lot about academics, the occult and science, but not a ton else. It does, however, know shitloads of information, even if it's not good at applying all of it. It is able to temporarily turn people Stigmatic by feeding them acorns, which also gifts people with temporary skills and an obsession with obeying the tree. Knowledge-acorns are highly addictive. The tree has a giant pillar of energy hidden in one hollow that it can use to devour people if they are fed into it, it can grab stuff with its limbs, and it can speak by rustling its leaves to produce whispers. It copies the minds and memories of anyone that puts their head in a hollow and can speak telepathically with anyone that does by uploading data into their mind. It can produce copies of anyone whose mind is inside it, programmed with any memories or knowledge it likes, but it needs sufficient living organic material fed into it first to produce the body. Copies made this way need to eat knowledge-acorns every week or so to survive and cannot heal naturally without the Oak's help. Next time: Humans Reviving Your Favorite TV Show Is BadOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 15: Reviving Your Favorite TV Show Is Bad Generic actress lady. Bianca Jonak is the former teen actress that starred in the Katie Files, a 1993 show about a teen detective and her football-playing boyfriend solving supernatural mysteries with their friends. It aired for seven seasons and was a huge hit with kids and teens. Even 20 years later, it's got a dedicated fan community, and Bianca's the queen bee of that community. The problem is that the Katie Files was more than just a hit. Various monsters got involved in it, too, spreading both information and disinformation on vampires, werewolves and so on, but even more than that, the show was Infrastructure. The God-Machine allowed the monsters to insert their own stuff into the scripts on monsters because that didn't matter - what mattered was using the show for subliminal programming of children. Many of the cast and crew ran into weird shit, but Bianca was the focal point of all of it. She became Stigmatic not due to any single incident, but because of seven years of constant low-level exposure to the Machine. When Bianca began hallucinating at 22, she panicked and got involved in drugs and sex scandals largely to avoid seeing the horrors around her. She became a tabloid favorite for her partying and drug habit, and most believed she was cracking under pressure. That'd be when a journalist discovered that Bianca's family had a history of schizophrenia, which usually emerged in their early 20s. It destroyed her career. Everyone assumed she was schizophrenic, and that became too much for her. The Katie Files was ended with season seven, and she got worse and worse. After a week-long drug blitz, she had what she thinks of as a spiritual experience, communing with the Machine. It spoke to her, telling her that she was special. That she was important. And Bianca became convinced - she didn't play Katie. She was Katie. She became Katie on the show because it was her life, she was this special person, important to the supernatural. Her suffering was for a reason, and she knew now how to hunt monsters thanks to her acting work. Clearly she must now hunt down the Machine's foes. Clearly. Bianca has, to all appearances, made a comeback to the spotlight. She's doing conventions again, she's talking to her old co-stars and writers, she's working hard to get a reboot of the Katie Files. With her at the center, of course. Not as Katie - she's too old for that. She's an attractive woman in her early 40s, favoring stylish designer clothes. She always knows where the cameras are, and at conventions she tends to dress like Katie would. She hides her true self both from her fans and from journalists, and even after getting past that, she tends to be quiet. She hates being recorded without being told and she rarely does any taped interviews or panel appearances. She thinks of her job as being a trap for demons, and she uses her celebrity to do it. When she's talking to her prey, she plays up her innocence and victimhood, talking about how the Katie Files ruined her life or wanting revenge and to keep other actresses safe from her fate. (If a demon asks, she claims she's being forced to reboot the show, not that she wants to.) It usually works to get a demon at least investigating, which is all she needs. Bianca is in deep with the Machine and also super delusional. She actually thinks that Katie is her, or at least an alter ego of her, and demons are just the same kind of monsters she used to "take down" in the show. That said, she's gotten herself very involved, and is even willing to help take down an angel or piece of Infrastructure if it doesn't seem important and will earn her prey's trust. It makes it so much more fun when she betrays them later, after all. Bianca has a wide set of contacts both in the TV industry and in the world of occultists. She may not have all the secrets, but she definitely knows who to go to for them. Many demons think she must be on their side, working to get to some key Infrastructure involved in the show. After all, her monologue on hating the Machine is very persuasive. Unfortunately for her project, the subliminal messages in the old show have been uncovered by several powerful groups of occult weirdos or demons. Most have no ability to tell what the programming was for or why it was there, but everyone knows that kind of thing is never good. There are a number of potent entities that would die before they let it start again. Oh, and Bianca's killed a guy before. A fan. He broke into her trailer during a shoot, and he had a gun. Bianca got it away from him in the struggle and shot him three times. He died on the way to the hospital. It was all over the papers when it happened, back in the 90s, and it certainly didn't help her mindset. Her publicist made up a story about obsessive stalkers and emphasized that Bianca was safe and regretted what happened. In truth, the fan was more than obsessive - he was the first time Bianca ran into a real enemy agent and realized the effect the show was having on people. She took a while to understand all of it - that the attack was an attempt to end the show by killing her, thus ruining the project. Many interviewers ask about the attack, but Bianca refuses to talk about it and ends interviews once it gets brought up. She is much more open about it in private when dealing with folks she trusts...but that's not a lot of people. Bianca's not particularly notable for her stats, though she knows way more about the occult than your average former teen actress, and she's a pretty good shot. She's an excellent actor and has connections to police specialized in cult-based crimes as well as contacts in local cults. Her Stigmatic glitch is that anyone talking to her hears a weird ticking in the back of their head. If they keep talking to her for a while, the ticking becomes the sound of gears and machinery running wild. Also, the most fervent fans of the Katie Files sometimes see Bianca as Katie. The dude, not the face. Brandon Clements is a completely normal high school kid. He's decently good at school, he's on the varsity football team, he's white-passing of Indian descent and is from a rich family. And he is extremely bored. He wants to do something cool and he wants to have a fast, dangerous life. So he goes to dangerous parts of the city, he hangs out in alleys, that sort of thing. He's just got one problem: he blacks out and doesn't remember what the hell he saw or did, pretty much on the reg. His blackouts are caused by a mix of his hormone levels and heartrate as well as his fight-or-flight instincts. When that happens, the sleeper programming placed in him by the machine takes over, operating on a singular goal of survival. As a baby, Brandon suffered from frequent ear and eye infections to the extent that he was often hospitalized. While it got better as he aged, even as a preteen he would be in the hospital once a year or so. At age twelve, his parents decided to try out an experimental clinic named Rising Hope, who claimed they could boost his immune system. They signed all the consent forms and signed him up for what the clinic referred to as "cognitive immuno-resuscitationg therapy," which Rising Hope claimed could solve any immune system issues. Two weeks of intensive therapies did the job - Brandon came out healthy, and with sleeper programming. Most Rising Hope patients weren't compatible with the process; he got lucky. The others got a bunch of injections with a cocktail of drugs that would greatly boost the immune system for a year or so, then burn out the entire body's systems, rapidly killing the victims - occasionally via spontaneous combustion. Brandon and a handful of others got "therapy" in the form of being subjected to high adrenaline and then sensory deprivation repeatedly. It caused the mind to isolate itself and strengthened the body's will to survive. These sleepers were also taught how to fight and run, though they did not remember any of it. The question is 'why.' The Machine has no specific active goal for Brandon to achieve. He and his fellow sleeper agents are programmed as part of a God-Machine witness project. The Machine requires humans that can witness an event but not be changed by it at all. It's much more expensive to actively wipe memories manually than to set up a memory block that prevents them from forming in the first place, so that's why Brandon exists. He and about 50 other sleeper agents got produced before Rising Hope shut down, and most remain in the greater urban area. Brandon can't recall any of the times he's gotten into trouble, because when the programming takes over, he loses the ability to form memories. That said, his actions mean he's being tracked. A small ring of demons has found him and a few other Rising Hope sleepers and are busy documenting their actions. Most other patients were older and less interested in finding trouble, so Brandon's behavior sticks out. He stays alive, but several of the people and entities he's run into remember him. They're usually not happy. For example, based on his actions, some demons he's witnessed think he must have been an angel. When acting under sleeper programming, he doesn't emote. Period. The blank look makes him resemble an angel or newly-Fallen demon rather than a human. That said, it's more of a side effect of the fact that when Brandon is under his programming, he doesn't count as a witness to supernatural powers. He can't cause compromises by witnessing a breach of Cover, he can't even prevent you from swapping Cover in front of him by being an observer, not while his programming is active. He still counts when his mind is in charge, though. Occasionally his programming has made him rescue people from muggings; this is not because of any particular heroics programmed into him, though, and it's rare. Happened only a few times, and generally he only does it by distracting someone. He can enter a violent fugue state, but his programming will only do it when it is impossible to flee. He's a better fighter than he realizes thanks to his unconscious training, but he's never been in a fight while conscious. He does know he's tougher than most people. He can take a beating and barely notice, and that's why he does so well in football. His therapies resulted in massively increased pain tolerance, and he can shrug off damage normal humans couldn't. When he tries, he can outdo most of his teen peers on the field. He's actually scared by his own physical abilities fairly often - he doesn't know why he's so tough, and he's unsure if it's healthy. It'd ruin him socially to admit that fear, so he never does. He's used to downplaying his talents and he's gotten good at it. Statistically, Brandon's not actually that much above average. He's tough and charismatic, but not inhumanly so. He's athletic, good at fighting with weapons and good at persuading people to help him out or like him. His programming means he has a knack for sensing danger, and his training provides him with great skill in improvised weaponry, resisting pain and acting without getting tired, but it also shuts off his mind when that happens. When his programming activates, he loses all emotions and empathy, even fear. His only goal is to find a safe place. He freezes up for a few seconds, and speaks only to give single-word commands; for some reason, his voice drops about half an octave. He ignores all requests, but he does still understand threats and analyzes them for danger. If he believes them, they can get him to change his behavior. He prefers to flee if at all possible; if not, he will fight like hell. Next time: The Monkey Wrench, the Blood Taker Psychic Murder SpyOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 15: Psychic Murder Spy A nice lady? Carlota Herrera is fairly unique - someone that got captured and remade by the God-Machine, then escaped to become a resistance fighter against it. She is a Stigmatic programmed as a sleeper agent to turn her into a psychic warrior for the Machine...but her programming's broken. This makes her dangerous to know, but also very useful. Even before she got taken by the Machine, she was an intelligence operative recruited out of the army. She worked as an assassin and arsonist against various threats to US operations, always working under deniable circumstances. It was just work, for her. Her family had a three generation military tradition, and while she couldn't talk about her job, they understood. During an operation in Ukraine, though, everything changed. What seemed to be a normal raid went horribly, horribly wrong. The group they were tracking wasn't a terrorist cell - it was a cult of the Machine, the Clock's Gentle Embrace. They trapped humans to sacrifice to the Machine in the false belief that it would reward them for doing so. Carlota's handler had been recruited by the cult and led her team into a trap. The cultists ambushed the team in an elaborate set of tunnels, marked with occult symbols in bile and full of ball lightning. Carlota has started to recover memories of the sacrificial ritual. The cultists pulled cables from the ground and jammed them into her spine and skull. She can sometimes recall some of her fellows being fed into a machine of blades and pistons, despite trying very hard not to. She wanted it all to burn - and it did. Her mission was accomplished. The cult died, the building burned down, and she was the only one left alive. Officially, she was marked down MIA, presumed dead. She's gone off-grid, having decided that whatever she witnessed was the largest threat to national security that could possibly exist. For the good of the United States, the Machine had to be destroyed. Carlota is a muscular Hispanic lady in her mid-30s. She wears her hair long to hide the strange puncture scar on the back of her head that is her Stigmatic glitch, which sparks visibly with electricity when she's under stress. She often wears hats or headscarves in public to avoid it being noticed, preferring military and tactical outfits if possible. She feels uneasy in civvies. She speaks rarely, and she always tries to be the first in and last out of any room. She eavesdrops constantly, watching for potential threats and clues. She knows the Machine exists worldwide, but believes that if she can free the USA of it, the rest of the world will be easily fixed. She knows demons exist but she doesn't trust like or trust them, even though she works with them frequently. She believes they have no loyalty to anything but themselves, especially when they talk about finding their own Hells. On the other hand, she can't do this job alone, and even her psychic abilities can't match up to demonic powers. Plus, demons tend to be better infiltrators than she is, especially as time goes on and she feels more and more disconnected. The biggest advantage Carlota has to offer her demonic allies is also her biggest threat to them: the sleeper programming in her brain. It's very specific and it didn't work right. In the presence of an Infrastructural Linchpin, Carlota's programming activates. In theory it is intended to make her seek out and reinforce any weaknesses in the Infrastructure. However, Carlota's intense and terrible anger has altered the context of the programming. Instead of fixing Infrastructure, her programming now compels her to destroy the Linchpin and all aspects of the Infrastructure housing it. She also attempts to murder everyone involved in the Infrastructure or who happens to be in her way. Once she completes all this, the programming deactivates. Carlota is entirely aware of her sleeper programming and how it works, and she's very much not above activating herself to take down Infrastructure, even if it means killing innocents. Acceptable casualties and all that. While Carlota is fully aware of the risk of doing so, she has maintained contact with her family. She knows it's endangering them, but she needs it. She uses old, obsolete military communications channels to keep in touch with her brother, Mauro, and her cousin, Angela. She's lied to them about what she's doing, saying it's a secret operation that required her to fake her own death, and has told them nothing else. She's also actively trying to reprogram herself. Not that she regrets her current actions - it's more that she's afraid the destruction she makes leaves a trail. Unfortunately, she's been unable to get access to her sleeper program so far, despite her best efforts with self-hypnosis. She's had more success gathering forces. She's using a bunch of secret funds to finance a militia she's named the Liberty Combat Army, hoping to exclusively recruit stigmatics for it eventually. Until she can manage that, she's using regular mercs. Once the group is fully formed, the plan is simple. She's going to have her paramilitary group track down Machine cults, angels and demons in the USA and kill them all. (In approximately that order of priority.) Carlota does not have any special sense for Infrastructure components, so using her to detect Linchpins is...dangerous. Once she sees one, that activates her, so you know when you've found it. The problem is that puts you right at the spot her murder rampage begins. Good luck with that! Carlota is also unaware that she's tripped a number of intelligence agents' radars. Her handler's betrayal got noticed, and her formation of the Liberty Combat Army has made her a threat. From the perspective of her old bosses, she's a rogue agent aiming for regime change in the United States. Which, well, not too far from what she's doing, honestly. She thinks she might be tracked soon, but has no idea she has active watchers on her already. Also, while her programming is flawed, it's not useless to the Machine. She's effectively a wandering piece of Elimination Infrastructure, wiping out old projects that are no longer needed while leaving little to no evidence of anything but a rogue psychopath. She's not as precise as a cleaner angel, but she also can't Fall. In fact, from a certain perspective, she is an intensely useful servant of the Machine who just needs to be steered at the correct targets for its plans. Carlota is strong and tough, but that's most of her skillset. She understands psychic powers to some extent but mostly she fights people, shoots people and sneaks around. Oh, and she's good at scaring people. She's an excellent martial artist, and her psychic powers let her numb people with a touch, she has minor telekinesis and she has very powerful pyrokinesis. As noted, her glitch is that she has a scarred puncture wound on the back of her head that releases harmless electrical energies when she's stressed. Donald Williams was a poor guy who wanted to be a doctor or surgeon, but had to work two jobs just to help get into college and couldn't afford medical school. He went for being a phlebotomist in a Boston medical lab because it was a decent second best. He'd always liked working with people and was good at calming patients during blood draws...until he ran into Sandra Jackson, a patient who came in monthly for tests under the guise of a cancer survivor. Donald liked her a lot, but he always thought something was wrong. She always seemed around ten years off on her pop culture. Despite this, she never seemed to mind him talking about his husband, though he was sure she'd be homophobic. Actually, she acted like he'd never said anything at all. He also was able to take her blood even when he was sure he missed a vein, and she wasn't weak like most chemo subjects. Then she tracked him down outside the lab and talked him into going somewhere with her - specifically, to a piece of Infrastructure, where she hooked him up to some kind of blood dialysis machine. Donald isn't sure what it did to his blood and can remember very little of his experience. He just remembers waking up in an alley with small scars where the blood was taken and put back in and a splitting headache. His husband reported him missing and he got picked up by the cops soon after. A few days later, he began hallucinating, seeing strange visions. Everyone left him - even, eventually, his husband. Donald became obsessed with Sandra and what was done to him, becoming a haunted and paranoid person, suspicious of even those close to him. Especially them, really. After his husband left him, he broke into his old job and tried to steal Sandra's blood samples...but they were gone. He was starting to be able to sense the Machine's work, so he started looking for people like Sandra, hoping to test their blood. He sought out the Machine to better understand what was going on, and the more he learned, the worse his life became. Donald began hunting angels, trapping them and trying to steal their blood when they came after him. He broke into the lab and stole sedatives to use against them, but he was never able to really capture an angel - the Machine just kept recalling them. When he found a demon, he got about an hour of testing in before the guy vanished and destroyed his lab. He's not sure what the hell the thing was. He could tell they were off, but the blood seemed perfectly human. He became curious about demons, and he's set up a makeshift lab inside an old South Boston building. He's put the equipment together from what he can steal or scavenge, and he's as close as he feels comfortable being to the Infrastructure he got abducted to originally. He's been cataloguing what gets done there and even believes he knows what it's for. He knows that angels come out of it, at least. He's supporting himself with part time work at a local blood bank, where he occasionally steals samples for testing. Donald is a black guy with shaved hair, wild eyes and veins bulging all over his body. His skin is tinted a weird blue thanks to those veins. He wears street clothes and often forgets proper hygiene and bathing. He's still a kind man, but he's been twisted by his experiences. He cares about other people a lot, and that is still what drives him most. He's been horrified by all that he's learned and wants to save humankind from the Machine. He knows just enough about it to get into trouble and not nearly enough to realize that the Machine is far, far bigger than he is. He's curious but paranoid, so he's very cautious with the supernatural. He's got a scientific mind, which drives him to test and categorize what he can, though he's so obsessive at this point that he's more mad scientist than researcher. He mostly tries to trap supernatural beings and steal their blood for testing. If he talks to them, it's to make them complacent until he can get a needle in their arm. On the bright side, Donald does have knowledge of all of Boston's Infrastructure. He maps it obsessively and spies on it often. He's tried to subvert some the way he's seem demons do, but mostly he just causes weird energy ripples that bring in angels, which satisfies him because then he can steal their blood. He's learned to interpret his visions to help hunt down angels and Infrastructure, but even now, most of the visions are painful and confusing. Mostly, he foresees the appearance of new angels a few days before they appear. He's also developed telekinesis and psychometric abilities, which he uses for his research. He's figured out that angels only fake having emotions, so he uses his psychometry to identify emotionally dead areas, and he subconsciously tests the emotions associated with anything he touches. His telekinesis is useful for keeping people away or disrupting their actions as he works. Every month or so, Donald heads to Dorchester and offers 50-100 bucks to anyone that'll let him take their blood for control samples. He usually asks them a little about themselves to test if they know anything about the Machine. He once nearly got killed by a sleeper agent, which has made him even more paranoid. His ultimate goal is to destroy the Machine, but to do that he has to understand it, at least in his own mind. He has learned what Linchpins are and how they keep Infrastructure functioning. He's tried and failed at using them suborn Infrastructure, but his efforts mostly just break them, which brings demons around to find out what the heck happened. Donald knows demons aren't angels, but he doesn't know how or why they differ. He's gotten a demon to go into its demon form to escape him before, and it terrified him so much that he just hid while it got away. He's hoping he can find another and get the thing to go demon form too, now that he knows to be better prepared. Donald is very smart and cunning, and he's surprisingly tough and manipulative, too. He's an excellent investigator and medic with a wide array of scientific and occult knowledge. He's also good at breaking and entering, living off the land and reading or lying to people. He's got, as mentioned, telekinesis and psychometry, plus he's sensitive to weird omens and the standard Stigmatic sense for the Machine. His Stigmatic glitch is the veins - all his veins are bulging and tinted electric blue, which is what makes his skin so blue and sickly-looking. Next time: The Daydream Believer, the Cuckoo Office Building BrainOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 16: Office Building Brain I can't quite put my finger on why this face weirds me out. Grace Pham is a sleeper agent conditioned by the Machine to function as part of its massive nervous system - the Command and Control Infrastructure. These pieces of Infrastructure are often integrated into corporate HQs, military bases or government facilities, which are already highly protected, and most agents within them have no idea what they are helping. But some projects, like Grace's, require more direct control. Grace thinks she just daydreams about weird shit a lot in her free time as a receptionist; she has no idea that her daydreams are reflections of her actual sleeper activities. She's an ambitious woman who graduated top of her class, plays multiple instruments and has half a novel written. She expected to be a top surgeon...but in sophomore year, she dropped out of college because her family could no longer afford to pay. The recession shut down their bookstore and her dad came down with lung cancer, and all the pressure was just too much. Her life went through ups and downs, but she managed to help her family hold together. It took years, and she had no idea, when it all seemed to be getting better, how to get back on her old track. College was too expensive now, jobs hard to find and she couldn't move out in case her mom's depression or her dad's cancer relapsed. Thanks to her elder sister's connections, she got a job at Hampton Solutions, a corporation recently moved into the city, and became a receptionist. It was boring but not much else. Few calls came in, visitors never showed, and upper management liked her enough to send her to a corporate retreat. That'd be where the programming happened. Hampton Solutions, while quite busy, doesn't...produce much. They throw out a lot of words, but mostly they're business and marketing analysts consulted by various clients to do numeric analysis and write white papers. They do enough of this to keep the doors open, but a key percentage of their work backs Command and Control Infrastructure. Some of their charts and data - not a lot, but some - transmit orders and instructions. The company's been part of the Machine since shortly after its founding, and its databanks contain massive amounts of occult information. The company picks key employees for corporate retreats at a special facility. These employees are programmed to perform new tasks in the secret structure of the company-cult. They picked Grace because she's determined, focused and ambitious - a perfect project manager for occult analytics. She is activated frequently and has led at least three projects to successful completion. Management is very impressed with her ability to plan, and she is marked for intensive future programming to produce an even better agent. She's a small, stocky Vietnamese lady in her 20s, usually with a ponytail and sensible clothes. She's got a birthmark on her right cheek that is a different color than the rest of her skin. When her programming activates, she puts on a green sweater she keeps in her desk, which is apparently a sign of rank and authority in the secret cult in the company. As normal Grace, Grace is kind and soft-spoken at least until her academic interests come out - at that point she dominates conversation. She's still passionate, even if she thinks her ambitions are dead. She always carries a notebook, often writing down ideas for stories or reminders to herself. Her activation signal is a particular remix of Clair de Lune with reversed key tonality. The office plays this every day around noon, which all employees are required to use as their lunch hour. Activated sleepers meet for a brief lunch and spend the rest of the hour interpreting and sending out data in a special room on floor B5, which is under heavy guard. The company reinforces sleeper programming via freely available meditation recordings. While activated, Grace is ruthless, cunning and a tactical genius, largely because her moral fiber and personality are completely suppressed. She expects obedience, and for a sleeper agent she's shockingly good at improvisation and self-direction, which would be a problem if she weren't also absolutely loyal to the Machine. Grace can vaguely recall her lunchtime activities and knows she zones out during lunch; she tells herself that these are daydreams, which she recalls only hazily anyway. She can't remember exactly what she was doing or what she saw, but she likes the feeling she gets. Every day after lunch she feels accomplished and fulfilled, which is otherwise not a common thing in her life. However, she's starting to realize something's wrong. She's started to notice weird phrases and symbols in her notebook, clearly written by her but which she cannot recall ever making. They aren't incriminating on their own, but they only started after the first corporate retreat. She's decided she's going to start recording her daydreams in as much detail as she can to figure out what's going on. Grace has developed a giant crush on a coworker, Maxine, who works in the mailroom. The main reason she hasn't pursued it yet is that technically, Grace is one of her bosses in the corporate structure. Maxine has never been on a corporate retreat, and Grace feels an urge to invite her onto one - an urge that she is having great trouble resisting. In the meantime, she is running a long-term project while under sleeper programming. The Machine has noticed breakthroughs in brain mapping that it wants to take advantage of. Specifically, it appears to want a brain map of every living being on Earth for its files. One of the occult matrices involved in recording all these brain maps requires the sacrifice of an entire family. Sleeper Agent Grace has volunteered her own, though normal Grace has no idea and has yet to be called on to perform the act. While Hampton Solutions is guarded by normal corporate security, the sleepers also make for a line of very effective defense. Grace is both a project lead and a combat lead, and she's personally executed someone whose sleeper programming broke down and started to rebel. The main reason these rebels happens is that the programming method at the corporate retreats allows sleepers to retain a sense of individual mind while active. This allows for people like Grace, who are self-directed and useful, but also means some people with a stronger sense of self rebel and attempt to escape or start splinter groups. Also, Grace has been using her daydreams as the source of inspiration for her fiction. While she cannot recall the exact details, parts of her sleeper agent life are recorded in the Winnie Magnum series, urban fantasy spy fiction that she puts out on a serial fiction website to rave reviews. A small proportion of readers are actually demons, who have realized that some of the fiction contains hints of the Machine's plans. Grace is quite intelligent but otherwise average statistically. She's an excellent researcher and academic, decent with computers and science, a decent shot and fighter with melee weapons, a good writer and good at talking to people. She also speaks Vietnamese, French and Spanish in addition to English. She has no idea exactly how good she is at fighting. Catch me if you can. Liam Brown is always someone you know, even though he comes out of nowhere. He can see the demon under the flesh, but he's understanding and always ready to help. His presence causes compromises, but he seems to fit and he's always sympathetic. It's only when the angels come that a demon realizes that he should never have been there - and by then, it's far too late. Liam doesn't care. He's a survivor and he doesn't care who he has to throw to the angels to do it. He's a Stigmatic and he is more than willing to use his power to integrate himself into demonic covers to survive. He's an orphan who spent his youth bouncing between foster homes and the juvenile justice system. It was in juvie that he ended up getting pulled into the Machine's plans. An angel disguised as a woman named Emily Brown had to pretend to be a single mom with a kid in juvie so she could set fire to an apartment block and kill all the tenants as sacrifices. It was all supposed to be a tragic set of deaths caused by a woman falling asleep with a lit cigarette. Liam was selected as the child entirely because his last name matched and his records were the easiest to fuck with. There's just one problem: Emily Brown liked her life too much. She enjoyed hanging with her neighbors, planning her routines and missing the son she had never actually met. One day she visited him, and that was the day she Fell. What had been purely a fictional relationship became suddenly real as causality and history twisted around her. Liam suddenly had vivid memories of a woman he'd never met raising him. He was spontaneously turned not only into a Stigmatic but an Offspring, the biological child of a demon. That's when the hunter angel busted in and started tearubg everything apart. Liam ran and never looked back, abandoning Emily and his old life. Liam has become a con artist, fleeing the law and the Machine alike. He's insanely good at it thanks to the manifestation of his demon heritage. After a year, he became able to manipulate memories and integrate himself into people's lives. As long as he wasn't being chased, he could survive anywhere. At first, avoiding cops and angels was easy - they were able to be manipulated and distracted. Then the feds got involved, though, and they're harder to fool. Plus, the angels sent after him got tougher. He's realized that it's never going to stop if he can't get demons to help him out - or if he can't find a better way. That came when an angel came after him as he was hanging in a sandwich shop run by a demon whose Agency he'd been working with. He intended to briefly steal a cashier's identity, but found he was able to entirely become the cashier and go unnoticed by the angel. Even the demons didn't seem to notice what he'd done. Liam expected it to last forever...but Mr. Oregon, the demon shop owner, found his Cover rapidly deteriorating, and when he ended up captured by angels, Liam had to run again. But now, he had a tool to survive with. When Liam isn't wearing someone else's form, he's a white teenager with a side-parted undercut. He's desperate, but he keeps himself looking good as best he can, favoring expensive clothes if possible. He always wears dark sunglasses to hide the circuit patterns in his eyes. Whenever he reaches a new city, he goes to the first Agency he finds and asks for shelter. If he can't get it, he'll head to the next city, but otherwise he makes himself at home, does odd jobs for local demons and acts generally loud and friendly...until he decides he feels unsafe or disliked. At that point he starts looking for a life to steal. He prefers victims with direct ties to a demon, especially close relationships, though he'll settle for indirect ones if he has to. That's because they're more likely to be protected by the demon, and also because he's lonely and feels a desperate need for company. He often tries to get involved in the life of the demon he's parasitizing, even if the form he's wearing was not aware of the demon's true nature. He's always a good listener. The main giveaways that he's not who he says are, firstly, how he acts, since he doesn't really alter his behavior, and second, his tics - he's got a habit of fidgeting with his hands when nervous. Last, his stigmata always show through. Liam actually wants to become a demon entirely. He thinks of his power as a minor version of the soul pact, and thinks that he'll develop other demonic abilities with time and effort. He's always on the lookout for rituals that might complete his transformation. In truth, he's merely exploring the Demon-Blooded Cipher, and his ability is his first Interlock. The Demon-Blood Cipher functions for Offspring similarly to demons, but rather than a final secret, achieving the complete Cipher gives the Machine a backdoor into their brain and lets it force them to perform small but significant actions according to its will. This is explained in Heirs to Hell, the book on Demon-Bloods. Liam also has an angel buddy - Harmonious Convergence, the only angel that has so far not tried to capture him. It wants to use him as a spy on the demons he hangs with and offers power in exchange. Liam hasn't taken it up on the offer...yet. Liam is trying to teach his powers to others as a part of his scam. Specifically, he has a Youtube channel in which he pretends his powers are advanced psychological techniques, and he offers private lessons for a huge fee. It has, apparently, been actually working to teach people somehow. Liam suffers occasional lapses in memory, but not because he's a sleeper agent. It's more of a side effect of the memory alterations that came during the Fall of Emily Brown. He's not serving the Machine (yet) - he's just selfish and trying to survive. Emily Brown is also still alive, using the name Ms. Peridot. She went Loud in order to escape the angels after Liam fled, so he's the only one that really remembers Emily Brown existed, and her Cover isn't one he'd recognize. Despite this, she still loves him and wants to reunite. Liam's victims also aren't dead - he's not making soul pacts, though he thinks he is. What happens is the people whose lives he inhabits are placed in quantum containment until he leaves their identity. They remember nothing of what he does when he's wearing their lives, so to outsiders it appears to be weird behavior accompanied by amnesia. Liam's extremely manipulative but otherwise pretty average. He's got a wide array of skills but isn't very good at most of them except lying, which he excels at. He's a good con artist, hard to remember and good at fast talking. He is able to temporarily hijack identities or insert himself into other people's memories via his demonic Embeds, and they combine to form his first Interlock, Stepping In, which lets him transform into someone as noted above. He uses their stats and skills, and the Cover of the demon most emotionally close to them helps disguise who he really is, at the cost of risking compromise for that demon. Liam's Stigmatic glitch is the aforementioned circuit patterns in his irises. Next time: The Cryptid Wrangler, the Ten Thousand Names of God My Pet MonsterOriginal SA post Night Horrors: Enemy Action Part 17: My Pet Monster Are you an elf? Shauna Jones is an animal-loving young lady who has always kept pets, from childhood to now. All kinds - cats, dogs, tarantulas, the lot. She worked as a volunteer at a no-kill shelter in Demopolis, Alabama, though she was never really a fan of the town. Too conservative, and she had a bad reputation because she moved out of her home in high school to move in with her boyfriend, who turned out to be making bathtub meth. He got arrested when his house burned down, but she got out before the cops came. As you can see, she's always been a poor judge of (human) character, which has made it hard for her to keep a job - she always ended up working for assholes, wage thieves, sexual harassers and so on. Animals were easier, and she got them in a way she never got humans. She ended up becoming Stigmatic in a trip to Montgomery - there's not really any Infrastructure at all in Demopolis, but outside Montgomery, she pulled over to check what she thought was a wounded animal on the side of the road. It turned out to be a mutilated animal corpse from an old sacrifice, with a blood trail that led her to a small cult compound. Shauna pulled a shotgun out of her trunk, because it's fucking Alabama, I guess, and headed out to find the animal's killer. They were in the middle of a ritual when she arrived, and she witnessed the birth of an angel. While it looked human, she could tell it wasn't, and she memorized its appearance and fled. She called the cops on the cult but never followed up on what happened to them. She did hunt the angel in the woods and shoot at it, but there was a bright flash, an explosion and then nothing. She got hurled into a tree, fell unconscious and woke up Stigmatic. Shauna went back to Demopolis, but the world had changed. She had constant visions and fevers, and one day all her tattoos' ink flowed together sweated off her but left her skin still colored. She hid the dark colored sweat as best she could, but people avoided her even more now. When the angel came to find her, she recognized it. She barely escaped its attack alive, largely due to camping in her car and always having her gun. She fled Demopolis for Montgomery, unaware that the Machine's power there was immense. She could sense it everywhere, and it wasn't long before she had to flee again. She stayed on the run for a time before she ran into a group of cat cryptids that lived near a large chunk of Infrastructure. She settled with them, feeling a kinship, and soon figured out that they could eat angels if they came calling and fed on the Infrastructure when they didn't. Shauna began training the cats and, eventually, the other cryptids in the area. She became more and more disconnected from other people, relating to the cryptids far more than she ever had humans. She set up traps and defenses, training the cryptids to attack on command, but she never did get attacked by angels again. Instead, a demon showed up to investigate. Not that she could tell a difference - or cared much. She set the cryptids on him and captured him, using him as a fighting dummy to train the cryptids until he managed to escape. Now, she uses her pack of weirdo animal friends to hunt any supernatural critters she can find, trapping them and using them to train her friends to fight even more. Shauna, at this point, is more of a feral beast than a human. She remembers what living as a human was like, but being Stigmatic has made it even harder for her than it was to start with. Only the presence of cryptids calms the pain of her visions, and she lives as one of them, based out of an abandoned office bulding near the Alabama State Capitol building. While she lives like an animal, she does make sure to wear clean clothes and cover her arms She's a large white lady with a lot of muscle, short hair and heavy tattoos along her upper arms and torso. The tattoos are vivid and bright on her pale skin, and they always look wet. Shauna's rapport with the cryptids is more than just being good with animals - she actually has a supernatural control over them, and has recently begun to use that power on normal animals as well. With enough time and practice, she could take control over every animal in Montgomery. The Machine has subverted Shauna without her knowledge, conditioning her and her pack of cryptids to maintain local Infrastructure even though they don't realize it. They drive off demons and, in return, the Machine allows her and her pets to live unmolested as long as they remain useful. Shauna seeks out Montgomery's Infrastructure so she can gain new cryptid friends, training them to defend their homes. She's yet to fully explore the city and doesn't have pets everywhere, but she's got animal friends at most of the city's major Infrastructure sites. Her powers extend to moer than just control - she can communicate with her pets telepathically, even over a distance. A few are smart enough that they can understand her in more than simple commands, and their hearing is good enough that they can hear her voice even miles away. They're rarely that far - they like hanging close by their friend! She talks to her cryptids often but doesn't like talking to normal humans any more. Oh, and she has an audience now. Shauna's training ring for fighting cryptids has gotten a fanbase among some of the more bloodthirsty locals. She doesn't drive off people watching the training fights she sets up unless she can sense the Machine's taint on them, which she perceives as a smell. Indeed, she's actually started to encourage the audience once the betting started, because she's made a deal with the bookies and takes a large cut of the winnings, which is how she gets food and clothing money now. She's not above coaching her friends to throw fights to make money, either, and thinks it's fun to see the watchers predict a fight wrong. Shauna is clever and tough, but even more than that she's fast, cunning and manipulative. She's a skilled trapper, knows a shocking amount about the supernatural thanks to her hunts, and is a good shot and very sneaky. She can live off the land easily, is exceptional with animals and is pretty good at dealing with street life. She's telepathic (but only with animals) and can clairvoyantly share senses with animals, can sense most kindsof supernatural activity and has a very strong will. She's pretty much always got her shotgun with her and always has two to three cryptids with her. Her most common ones are her cats, which are fast, strong and tough, often armored or able to steal Aether from demons, or similar powers. Oh right, and her Stigmatic glitch is that she sweats tattoo ink and her tats are always wet. We're ending on a section on cults. Machine cults are more common than you'd expect, and the terror of them is less that they have fanatical hordes and more that they're very good at eroding individuality of members, who could be anyone, and convincing them to distrust outsiders. Cultists are people. Your neighbors, even your friends. Eccentric, loyal to a dark force, and yet still normal. Our example cult is the Ten Thousand Names of God. They were founded by angels, and their theology states that all deities that have ever been worshipped are emanations of the one true God. When the names of every god, goddess, demigod or figure of worship are collected and classified, all of humanity will spontaneously spiritually awaken and become enlightened. As a group, they are not aware of the Machine or their service to it, though some of the upper ranks ha ve started to suspect something. They've grown focused on technology and Infrastructure as they focus on more and more advanced equipment to achieve their goals. You see, they know that the majority of god-names are lost - the names of forgotten gods whose cults predated writing, for example, or whose worshippers were wiped out or converted. They believe that a God-emanation can never truly disappear, so the names must still exist, buried in the minds or souls of the descendants of those gods' original worshippers. Therefore, they must develop techniques to extract these names. The methods they've found are almost certainly illegal, definitely nasty and very unpleasant, but the ends justify the means. They've caused permanent brain damage in some, killed others - but what is that against the apotheosis of humanity? The cult is not especially old, having been founded in 1981 by a trio of angels in the guise of respected anthropologists, archaeologists or theologians. They targeted grad students with promises of professional mentoring and used abusive brainwashing techniques to convert them. That was the easiest time for the cult, with the work performed using encyclopedias to gather the easy names. The hard work came after. That part was when the cultists realized how many names had been lost. They began devoting the cult's resources to uncovering them, not only with their weird extraction techniques but also various archaeological expeditions and other research. The ancestral memory extraction was just their most ambitious project, developed by some of the cult's anthropologists using extremely illegal machines and unethical interrogation techniques. They've also begun working on a giant supercomputer, in theory to create a machine that will infinitely loop recitation of the divine name list. That wouldn't require nearly the processing power their computer is being built to, no matter how long the text strings get. The computer is a piece of Infrastructure under construction, and its purpose has absolutely nothing to do with the cult's aims. They just haven't realized it yet. Most members of the Ten Thousand Names are highly educated, respected academics in their fields, and they continue the founders' technique of targeting promising grad students for induction and conversion. They serve as mentors, using their authority to bring their chosen students further into the cult via, again, abuse. They ensure their students are sleep-deprived, overworked and not appreciated by other professors and students. This helps strip personal identity and build internal loyalty, and a lot of prospects end up escaping just because they drop out rather than deal with this treatment from their thesis advisor. More desperate students, however, end up joining in search of an edge in the cutthroat world of academia. The cult is usually disguised at first as a club, alumni association or networking group that can help them professionally. Most members keep their actual membership secret, since they know belonging to a cult would harm their reputations. They instead rely on code phrases in articles or professional greetings to identify each other. Most people never notice that these weirdo nerds are different from other weirdo nerds, and learning that these nerds have a weird religion isn't a big deal for most. Collection of the names of deities in search of enlightenment is weird, but on the face of it it's not evil. They don't learn about the victims. Obtaining victims for ancestral memory experimentation is the job of low-ranking cultists, in order to desensitize them to violence in pursuit of cult goals and to make sure that victims won't realize what's up until too late. Usually, grad student initiates are sent out to find people in need of money, offering them a chance to take a survey and family history screening to determine where their ancestors lived. Those selected by the initial screen are invited to a "long-term study," which most agree to for the cash. Both they and their recruiters are then slowly introduced to cult techniques - hypnotism and memory regression at first, but that almost never works or gets anything that the cult considers more than a false positive. After that, polygraphs and MRI scans. The machines are uncomfortable, but the subjects and students are assured it's all for the greater good. The final step is to plug the victim into a mystic machine and get the student to either do brain surgery on them or extreme hypnosis. Subjects never survive this in one piece. They die, suffer severe brain damage or become Stigmatic. Always. No matter what, these experiments are usually seen as successes. They might not be getting a ton of names, but the God-Machine is getting something out of it. The Ten Thousand Names aren't specifically interested in occult power, but their archaeological and anthropological work has uncovered a number of ancient power sites and secret histories. They have a surprisingly large collection of artifacts and lore, which they have little particular use for but other people want. They're not too interested in making deals for access, though, unless it'll get them new names of God. Their rituals and initiations are more about secrecy and community rather than occultism, and so learning their secret rituals and codes would allow easy infiltration but not much mystic power. Their big secret is the ancestral memory experimentation, and the cult will kill to keep them secret. If they came out, after all, entire careers would be permanently ruined. Members of the cult are rumored to partake in orgies and blood sacrifice; they don't. It's just a rumor spread by those who know there is a cult and assume all cults must do that kind of thing. Rituals exist to reinforce cult ties, but by cult standards they're nothing special. Most of the members aren't even aware that the search for names is not, in fact, the actual reason the cult exists. The Machine doesn't give even the slightest shit about the list, though it does find their connections and resources generally useful and is clearly getting something out of their weird brain experiments and supercomputer construction. The angels in charge of the cult are trying to find ways to prevent it from schisming - they've found that the theology they made up seems to cause all kinds of internal arguments. Jewish and Chrsitian scholars in the cult often argue about what qualifies as a god-name or whether saints and angels count, they fight over proper spelling or pronunciation - all kinds of utterly meaningless shit, often very petty, which is fracturing loyalties. The good doctor. Dr. Jimenez Sandoval is an anthropologist from the University of Chicago. He's quite famous in his field, has many awards, is widely respected and has run his department for ten years now. He's got a reputation for being an excellent mentor and most of his students are very successful in their own right. He's also an angel. There is no Dr. Sandoval, not really - there's just an angel whose name is a wordless symbol, wearing the face of an anthropologist. He's one of the founding trio and is the best at pretending at humanity. He's been doing the job since 1981 with only minimal Machine interfacing, and he's actually starting to care. He's found himself liking his colleagues in the department and the students he teaches. He's unsure if it is better to allow himself these feelings, though they may risk a Fall, or if he should deliberately destroy them, which would potentially disobey his orders...and therefore also risk a Fall. Dr. Sandoval appears to be a Hispanic man somewhere between 40 and 60. He's exactly 5'5" and keeps himself looking proper and dignified. He doesn't care about fashion, being an angel, so he just wears black exclusively. He doesn't talk about himself often and prefers to ask about others. He's good at emulating friendliness, and most people do not suspect he's anything but what he seems to be. He doesn't have full stats - just two listed dicepools, because you are extremely unlikely to need to punch him. He's got 6 dice to get people to tell him about themselves and their goals, which he uses to learn people's desires for better ability to manipulate them. He has 7 dice to confuse people and make them question any apparent inconsistencies in the cult's actions compared to its goals. I like her hat. Delores Audwyn is a woman who has always excelled, always gone to the best schools and always loved science. She's a neuropsychologist who sees the human mind as the greatest frontier of discovery, full of infinite secrets to be learned. She was recruited for the Ten Thousand Names, and while she was initially skeptical and unhappy with the cult's more bizarre work, she has become a true believer, especially after seeing the results of the experiments, which really do produce groundbreaking information on the capabilities of the brain. She's a black lady in her late 20s of mixed African and Caribbean heritage. She loves large jewelry, wears trendy clothes and prefers to keep her hair in a scarf or headwrap. She's extremely smart and passionate about her work, but she's not very good at reading other people and telling when they're lying to her. The angels running the cult adore her because she's super easy to manipulate and her faith makes her easy to steer in the long term. Were she to learn the true nature of the cult or be forced to directly deal with and think about the monstrosity of what she does, she might be able to be turned - in which case she'd be extremely dangerous to the Names. Alternatively, it's possible that her continued work alongside the angels may render her Stigmatic. Delores also doesn't have full stats, because not only will you probably not punch her, she doesn't even have punching skills to begin with. She's just a smart lady. She has 8 dice for grant-writing and persuading people to donate money to her projects or to generally persuade folks to do stuff for her. She has 7 dice for doing research on anything related to psychology, neurology, archaeology, theology or similar, and it never takes her more than an hour to do it. She's super good at it, and if PCs offer her a suficient favor she'd be happy to do it for them.
I have a very special offer for all the Hellions out there who have dared to take the plunge into the Pine Barrens. If you go to Amazon and post a review for The Jersey Devil, send an email to email@example.com with a link to the review and the ebook you’d like to receive as a way of thanking you for taking the time to spread the word. In the world of writing, reviews and the buzz they create are more valuable than advances and royalties. Not to mention, after spending all that time writing alone with just the voices in my head, it’s nice to hear what you think of the book. Even if it’s just to tell me I need professional therapy (or in my case, more professional therapy)! Sure, I write because I love it (sure isn’t about the moolah when you scribble horror), but more importantly, I write to entertain Hellions and non-Hellions alike. The world isn’t always such a nice place. Finding some time to escape, even if it’s curling up with a monster, is important just to keep our sanity. And if you already posted a review before this offer, follow the same process and I’ll get a book out to you. There are 4 books you can choose from : I KILL IN PEACE, SWAMP MONSTER MASSACRE, THE DOVER DEMON & THE WAITING. Happy reading! I have something important to report – bucking the system and pursuing your passion does not bring the world crashing down around your head! The rewards of doing what you love are immeasurable. Well, I’m 2 months in to this whole full time writing thing and we’re not living in a cardboard box. The one strange thing is this : despite having all day to write, I still feel like there’s not enough time! It could be because I’ve taken on a ton of projects to work on. Every day is filled with both writing new material and editing. I’m certainly not spending my time watching daytime TV. I do wish I’d caught more Jerry Springer. An hour break to revel in humanity at its worst can’t hurt, can it? But here’s the thing – I go to bed every night feeling as if I haven’t worked at all. Because it’s not work. It’s what I want to do. The only weird part to get over was this ingrained guilt at not being in a cubicle and miserable. We’re so used to this as the status quo that it takes time to detoxify. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain So, what have I accomplished? I finished my next novella for Severed Press, LOCH NESS REVENGE. It’s with my beta readers now and will be delivered to my publisher this month. Expect an October release. I’ve also started a new book for Severed set in a lost world packed full of cryptid madness. It’s pure nuttiness and fun. A month back I mentioned I was working on a series of 3 novelettes for an undisclosed publisher. Well, I still can’t make the official announcement, but the first novelette is all done. I’ll start the second this month. They’re going to be set in the 70s and 80s and have something to do with comic books. That’s all I can reveal for now. I also finished the book I started last October, WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING. It’s with beta readers now and will also be sent to my new publisher (another announcement I’ll be able to make soon) in early September. I heard that it’s going to be out in January, 2017. Feeling like I wanted to branch out a bit, I wrote 2 children’s picture books. They’re with my agent now. Cross your fingers. You’ll also be seeing writing tips and advice from the Shea trenches on THE VERBS blog this month. I hope to be a continuing contributor. Now, here’s a brand new project that I think you’ll dig. I’m going to release a series of short stories called HUNTER SHEA’S FAST FRIGHTS. I’m shooting for a new story every month, priced at just 99 cents. The first story, an alien abduction tale, will be released in September. I’m tidying things up and artist Mike Chella is tweaking the cover art. FAST FRIGHTS will be quick hits of horror, a dose of what you need the most. Stay tuned for more about them because you, the readers, will be involved in the creative process as we move along. “The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.” — Roald Dahl Other than that, I’ve spent a lot of time with my family, which has been fantastic. My oldest daughter passed her road test, so I now have someone who can save me from making every run to the supermarket! Daughter number two gets all my attention now to prepare for her road test. Oy! We’re also getting things in line so my wife can have some major surgery. She’s having double knee replacement. I expect a lot of cursing when it comes time for rehab. She asked one doctor, “Will I be able to run once it all heals?” He said, “Were you able to run before they went bad?” She shook her head. “No.” To which he replied, “Well, then, no.” I’m working with my local Barnes & Noble and library to help new writers by offering any kind of assistance they need. Always, always give back to others. It can’t all be about you, no matter what you do. I remember what it was like when I started out with no one around to lend me a hand. I would have given both legs for a published author’s guidance. Having time to read, really read, has been a godsend. I surpassed my GoodReads reading challenge of 70 books for the year. Some books I truly enjoyed were Island Red by Matt Serafini, Go Givers Sell More by Bob Burg and John David Mann, Robert Parker’s Kickback by Ace Atkins, Devil Red by Joe R Lansdale and A Living Grave by Robert Dunn. As far as television and movies go, I absolutely loved Stranger Things on Netflix. I also really enjoyed Judd Apatow’s series, Love. In the movies, hands down, the best movie of the year is Hunt for the Wilderpeople. If you can find it near you, run and see it. It’s gotten a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for good reason. The good news is that all of this is inspiring me and giving me the room to deliver more for you than ever! Oh, and I’ve been gearing up for the release of The Jersey Devil on August 30th. You’ll be able to find the paperback in bookstores, supermarkets, Walmart and everywhere. Send me pics of where you find those devils and I’ll share them and give some shout outs! This blog post is the first thing I’ve actually written, aside from emails, in a week. I’m in the middle of a two week break. And despite having deadlines to meet this year, both hard and soft, I don’t feel an ounce of guilt. In fact, I’m sitting on the patio of my windy side yard on a sunny day, listening to three hawks terrorize every bird on the block. If it were just a tad warmer, I would probably be at the beach with my girls, getting sun, listening to the waves and reading a battered paperback. Oh, and waiting for the guy to come by selling coconut ice. Lately, I’ve been listening to podcasts and reading posts by other writers who seem to never stop. Once they finish one manuscript, they set it aside and dive right into the next, maybe taking the time to drink a Coke before moving on. Not me. I need time off. As much as writing has been both my life’s dream and a way to get away from my daily problems, I have to give my brain a rest every now and then. The break I’m on right now is already paying dividends. As I wait for my first readers to deliver their feedback on the book I gave them last week, I’ve done a lot of reading. (I’m going through some of Stephen King’s suggested reading list from his book, On Writing. Just this morning I finished Anne Tyler’s A Patchwork Planet – a book I would have never read if I hadn’t plucked it from his list. Thanks SK!). I’ve spent more time with my family – three of the four of us dealing with health issues. Netflix has gotten a workout. My wife and I anxiously awaited the latest B movie presented by Svengoolie on Saturday night and werent’ disappointed. I love creature features, even the awful ones. I’ve caught up on correspondence and even worked with my graphics main man to create some cool stuff like banners, bookmarks and my newsletter logo. I decided two days ago to completely revamp a short story I wrote, expanding on it and publishing it on October 1st, just in time for Halloween. I’m also doing some research on the next book I start writing over the summer, as well as one I plan to write in the fall. While all this is going on, my subconscious is gearing up for the last round of edits on my next cryptid book. So even if it looks like I’m dozing in my chair, there’s actual work going on, I promise. With time away from my laptop comes insights I would have missed if I hadn’t taken the time to just walk away for a spell. The last thing I want is for writing to feel like a job. I already have one of them. I don’t want two. Learning meditation years ago has helped me immeasurably. When you calm your mind, the thoughts that have been bouncing around become much clearer. Even if I don’t meditate, I’ve learned the value of silence. So if you’re feeling stuck or tired or in need of fresh ideas, just stop, kick back and relax. It’s not a bad thing. In fact, it can only make your writing stronger. Brains, like batteries, need recharging every now and then. And boy, mine was running awfully low. Now, I’m off to take my daughters out driving, armed with their permits and my father’s spirit urging me to stay calm, just as he did when he taught me. OK, in actuality, the book signing where we took this picture went quite well. My daughters thought it would be funny to take this pic to show what a disaster a signing can turn into if no one shows up. I’ve had a few of those in my time. I laugh about them now, but when they were happening – damn, they sucked. Want to hear about the worst book signing ever? About 10 years ago, I self pubbed a darkly comedic suspense novel. It had mobsters, porn stars, UFO nuts, a benevolent drug dealer, old men on a quest, a dominatrix and gay fashion desingers. I still love that book and hope to give it another life, but that’s another story. I somehow snagged a signing at a huge Barnes & Noble. At the time, I was petrified of public speaking, so when I arranged it, I expressly said it would be a signing only. When I showed up, I saw they purchased about 40 books! Whoa. How the hell was I, an unknown with a self pubbed novel, supposed to sell 40 books? And on a Tuesday night no less? Imagine my growing horror when the manager walked me to a podium that stood in front of 50 chairs. She said they wanted me to read from the book and talk about the writing life. I almost had a heart attack. In those 50 chairs was my wife, her friend, and a half dozen men who didn’t look well at all. Turns out, they were a hepatitis support group. When I spoke in my trembling voice, they looked at me like I was disturbing them – which I was. Thankfully, no one other than my wife and her friend listened to me at all. I said my piece and quickly sat down. Aaaaand, for the next 2 hours, I proceeded to sell ZERO books. The manager looked like she wanted to hang me. I wanted to crawl under the building. To this day, I use that night as my unit of book signing success measurement. So far, everything since has been FAR, FAR BETTER. Lower those expectations, and the world is your oyster. What are your book signing horror stories? Ever had one, or watched one go down in flames? I know I’m not the only one. Whether you hate them or not, if you’re crazy enough to make it a go of this whole writer thing, deadlines are going to be a part of your life. I’ve heard people say they work better with a deadline – the sound of that little clock ticking lights their creative fire. Others lament that the pressure of a deadline drives them down Writer’s Block Lane, sometimes with a short stop at Xanax Drive. In my experience, every writer vacillates between embracing and running from deadlines. It depends on your mood, the project (horror writer takes on romance novel for single grannies – wtf???), what’s happening in your life at the moment and – here’s an important one – the money. I’m not saying that money makes it easier. Heck no. Sometimes, the carrot of a big advance can cause temporary paralysis. Other times, you want to put that pool in and that advance will pay for it and the party to christen it, so watch those fingers fly! So, what do you do when a deadline looms and you can’t get the words from your brainpan to the keyboard? Unfortunately, there’s no magic pill. I’m sure Pfizer is working on one, but we’re years from it hitting the market place. All I can offer is my own experience. One thing I’ve done over the past few years is to set a personal deadline for everything I write, whether an editor has a set expectation or not. This way, I’m training myself to write both with a purpose and a plan. Here’s an example. It’s May 1st and I’m about to start my new novel. Now, my editor has only asked that I send something to him any time in the next year. Well, if I want to build my brand, I can’t rest on my laurels. I have to write a couple of novels and some short stories and maybe even a novella for good measure within that year. Oh, and I have my day job that requires most of my time and my family. If I didn’t set deadlines for myself, I’d be sunk. So, on May 1st, I estimate that my book will be about 90,000 words. I figure 4 months is a good amount of time to get ‘er done. In my mind, the book has to be complete on September 1st. I want to get that first draft finished by mid July so I have time to show it to my first readers and do several rounds of edits. That means I have about 75 days to write my first draft. If I do 1,000 words a day on weekdays, and 2,000 on weekends, I’ll cruise on in to my deadline. Then I have to take into account days when life just prevents my ass from sitting down and writing. Well, I’ll make up those words with a week of 1,500 words or maybe cram 5,000 on a Saturday. The key is that through the entire process, I know exactly where I am, where I need to be, and what needs to be done each day to make it. You have to factor in situations that will throw a monkey wrench in the works. Shit happens. You’ll be fine as long as you’re planning ahead how to get back on track without adding more gray to your scalp. It’s vital to remember that you’re in control. Writing is more than just something you’ve chosen to do – it’s something you love to do. Always, and I mean always, strive to have fun. And repeat after me. Deadlines shmeadlines. What’s been your experience with deadlines? What are some of the tricks you use to get over the hump? Inquiring writers want to know! I’ll give a free e-copy of my book, Sinister Entity, to a random person who comments about their deadline joy. We all want to do what we love for a living, right? I know I do. They say (and we all know who they are) that if you choose a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life. I think I might make a poster of that, complete with a picture of my cat sleeping on the radiator. Writers are often asked, especially when they are starting out, if they plan to make writing a full time career. You know, quit your stultifying 9 to 5 job and live off the fat of the advance and royalty checks that will shower upon you like rain in Dublin. Naturally, we’d all love to do this. That dream is right up there with winning the lottery. Getting your first book deal feels even harder than hitting Lotto. The truth is, only a small percentage of authors can rely on what they bring in from their writing as their sole source of income. Next time you go to your bookstore at say, 11am on a Tuesday, pay close attention to all of the names you see on the spines of the books. The vast majority of those folks are slaving away at some office while you’re out browsing. Where’s the glamour in that? What’s the point of struggling to get published if I still have to clock in every day and stare at my cubicle walls? I’m here to tell you that there is an upside to this. When we commit to being a writer, we’re basically juggling two full time jobs. The day job pays the bills and hopefully gives you some sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. Writing feeds the soul and puts you in touch with your passion. Keeping up with both jobs also gives you freedom and peace of mind. That’s right, I said you’ll have more freedom, even within your cloth covered cube! What’s this upside I seem so hellbent to profess? • Publishers don’t give writers benefit plans or retirement savings. Anyone over 30 with kids will understand the importance of this. In fact, a lot of people consider this more important than salary when considering a job. • Your day job gives you a steady paycheck. That means you can plan your finances, count on buying groceries every week and paying the rent every month. There are no cash dry spells when you have a day job. • Because you don’t depend on writing to keep you and your family from living in a cardboard box, you have the FREEDOM to write about the things you love and are passionate about. You take on assignments and book projects that you want to do, not just ones that you need to do in order to survive. I write horror. Unless your last name is King, Barker, Koontz or a handful of others, you’re confined to being a midlist author, which means the financial payoff will not have you putting a down payment on that pretty Jaguar. Of the few horror writers I know who make writing their only career, I see their stress and have been told by more than one to treasure my day job. It’s stressful when you have to produce a prodigious output and hope that publishers will accept it and pay something worth the effort. There are no guarantees. Writing in genres they’d never read in becomes a necessity. Did I mention the stress? Look, we all should dare to dream about landing that game changing book or movie deal that will put our 9 to 5 days behind us. It’s the carrot that keeps us chasing the stick. But don’t fret that you’re on published book #7 and still saying hi to your boss every morning. When you go home at night, you get to dive into the world you love most, and you get recognized and rewarded for it. Not too shabby. Now, what’s your opinion? Do you think I’m crazy to embrace my day job or spot on? Have you managed to become a full time writer? Share a war story. Before I share what it was like to be at an outdoor book fair where rain played peek-a-boo all day, I figured I’d start with the fun stuff. I have a new contest starting today for my book, Evil Eternal. Right now, there are 2 very nice reviews on Amazon for my demon-ass-kicking novel. When the review # hits 10, I’m going to pick one reviewer to win a $25 Amazon gift card plus some signed stuff, or as I like to call it, paraphenalia. Love that word! So, if you’ve read the book, pop on over to Amazon, and be in it to win it. For all you Monster Men fans, our latest episode is alive! This time we talk about the high-strangeness of The Mothman. There is so much involved in this story in terms of the paranormal, it’s mind boggling! Check it out on the Monster Men tab right here. OK, now on to the book fair. Last Saturday, I attended the Books Without Borders event at the scenic Yonkers waterfront. To me, this was a perfect locale. It’s right on the Hudson River looking across at the Palisades, and there are tons of restaurants right on the boardwalk, not to mention new apartment buildings loaded with potential attendees. We got there nice and early. I think we were the second table to set up. Everyone in charge of the fair was incredibly helpful and optimistic. Why optimistic and not just plan old thrilled? Well, you see, there were a lot of clouds up in the thing we call a sky and the air was heavy with the smell of oncoming rain. No matter. With the help of my lovely wife and daughter, they had the table set up in no time while I drove my car to the assigned lot and made the mile walk back to the author area. Gotta say, I was impressed. I may hire them out for other authors. We had to wait almost an hour and a half before the fair officially started, but that gave me time to meet my fellow authors and talk like writers. “Here here, my good man. I’m having the devil of a time getting my syntax correct with my latest novel. Dare say you have any suggestions?” “You are in a bit of a pickle. Mayhaps we should retire to the parlor for a good brandy. The muse always seems to come to me when my belly is warm and the cigars are tightly rolled.” Or something like that. Anyway, it didn’t take long for the first tiny droplets of rain to patter down upon our paper babies. Needless to say, we were all concerned. The rain would stop, then start again, never too hard, but enough to do damage to hundreds of books. So, what do you do when it rains at a book fair and you have a table full of books? You run to the store and get Ziploks! Big thanks to wifey who thought of that one. So, we had saved the books, but now we had another problem. The bad weather was keeping the people away. It kept them away in droves. In packs. In, well, you get the point. Instead of crying over spilled storm clouds, we made the best of it. So while some authors packed up early, we tarried on. And I’m glad I did. I got to meet some awesome people (that means you, Nina, Shai, Gary, Ariel and Jackie), and despite having to move the table to a dry zone when the rain really decided to kick ass, I did pretty well in terms of sales. And wouldn’t you know it, with a little over an hour left to go, the sun came out and the day turned beautiful. My oldest daughter came back from a Broadway show and joined us and all was right with the world. So it wasn’t the greatest book fair ever. Big deal. Despite the rain and low turnout, I still had a great time. I got to meet fans, new authors, had a great chicken parm at the restaurant behind the table, did a radio interview (finishing it just before the band roared to life…you can listen to it here, and stay with it when the connection gets lost for a minute) and spent an entire day with my family. I’ll trade books in Ziploks for that any day. 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Real life monsters are something I wish we heard more about every damn day! Yeah there’s nothing quite like a good mysterious cryptid video surfacing. The only problem is that most of these, especially these days, can be easily faked digitally or of course with blurry cell phone footage to appear like something straight out of the X-Files. But not so fast folks! Let’s take a look at some interesting videos quick of some supposed “real life monsters” caught on film within the last year or so. The first one is a totally legit video, of a giant boar, dubbed “pigzilla” that’s got the internet in a frenzy today. I’m a huge fan of the 1984 Aussie flick “Razorback” (pictured in the photo above) and this monstrous pig in the video proves to be a real life version of the 80’s creature in the flesh! Moving on….What the hell is this?! This cool video features a seemingly big sea creature floating through the waters of the Gulf of Mexico recently. I’d hate to see this thing swimming beside me while snorkeling, some think it’s some sort of cephalopod, whatever it is it’s crazy to know things like this exist in the waters of planet Earth, real life aliens… Continue reading I saw this amazing Cracked video recently that poses the question, what if Donald Trump is just an elaborate prank? As I watch this strange election year unfold I’ve more than once thought this exact same question. It’s become at this point completely absurd that Trump has somehow managed to advance at all as the presumptive Republican nominee. Aside from all of the hateful, asinine bull shit this guy has spouted he’s also said some things that are simply too unbelievable for any mainstream candidate. I’ve often times thought perhaps this year his new reality show IS the Presidential Election. I mean who would have ever thought you could appeal to people by being a total douchebag any and every chance you can. It’s batshit crazy that his “message” is resonating with anyone, even total idiots. So here’s an awesome video that to me seems at this point the most believable storyline of the Trump candidacy thus far check it out if you haven’t already! Well? It seems possible doesn’t it? But wait there’s more here’s a little reality adding fire to the strange conspiracy theory, there’s rumors that perhaps Trump was called upon by the Clinton’s from the start too screw up the Republican Party. It’s well known fact that him and the Clinton’s have been buddies for years, it makes me wonder if indeed this really is some strange prank. Check this video from the Young Turks out: Hmmm…pretty fucking weird huh? Anyway I guess we’ll see, can anyone really be as blatantly idiotic as Trump? Or are we all in for the ultimate “Gotcha” moment?! Only time will tell I guess….
To kick the weekend off, organisers are calling for local creatives to enter into the open photography exhibition, which will be launched on Friday 28th at 6:30pm. Along with a celebration of women mystery hunters, with Yvette Fielding of Most Haunted and fascinating talk from the well-known Australian Monster Hunter, researcher and podcaster a Megan Deveson, who will be talking about her experiences of using herself as bait to capture evidence of cryptids on global expeditions. With enthralling evidence of Yowies, Bigfoot and other monsters, it’s not to be missed. “We want to see people’s unexplained photos. Strange, cosmic and downright weird phenomena caught on camera. The best will be printed framed and exhibited in The HIP Gallery at the convention.” Those interested should send their photos to submissions@Creativeandcultural.com To all who have got Saturday night or Sunday day tickets. Thank you for getting tickets to the Saturday night and Sunday talks, at the Research & Witness Convention. Unfortunately, one of the speakers Yvette Fielding is unable to attend on Saturday night for reasons beyond our control. Yvette will still be attending the convention and has agreed to still do the Q&A, but on Friday evening. She will also be in Princes Quay Atrium on Saturday afternoon for her book signing and photo opportunities. We have replaced her in the Saturday line up with Antonio Perez & The GOIS Team. They are paranormal investigators and EVP ghost recording specialists, travelling from Spain. They are moving from Sunday morning to Saturday evening. French multilingual journalist and paranormal expert Chris Branzan will be joining them as our Interpreter. There is still also a talk by Tony Topping presenting “UFO Encounters A UK Prospective” Tony is a covert witness to UFO encounters of the strange kind. Both contactee & UFO journalist, on TV & radio. One of the UK’s most recognised speakers on UFOs. Headlining the night will be Andrew Collins, one of the world’s leading Ancient Alien/Lost Civilisation experts. As seen on Ancient Aliens on The History Channel, Prime & Netflix. To compensate for the change, we would like to offer free entry to the Friday night event, to those who bought the Saturday night tickets before 11pm 9th Feb. The Friday night is otherwise reserved for weekend ticket holders only. This will be on 28th Feb in Princes Quay. We have emailed all who have been effected, but thought it best to post here too. The Friday night schedule is now as follows: 18:30-20:45 Unexplained Photography Exhibition opening in HIP Gallery level 1. 19.30-20.30 A talk by Megan Deveson, Australian Researcher, podcaster, monster hunter. Host of Cryptid Addicted. Using herself as bait to capture evidence of cryptids on global expeditions include Japan, Sri Lanka, Romania & Canada. Megan has astonishing evidence of Yowies, Bigfoot & other monsters. In the Research Space level 3. 20:45-21:45 Yvette Fielding, Host of worldwide TV show Most Haunted. Paranormal Investigator, broadcaster, author of Amazon Best Seller “Archie The Ghost Hunter”. Answers your questions and talks about her life as an investigator with Alan Raw. In the Research Space level 3. For Sunday ticket holders, who got their tickets before 11pm 9th Feb. We can offer you a ticket to see GIOS on Saturday night. You also of course have the option to just have a refund for the Saturday night or Sunday ticket. Please let us know what you would prefer email@example.com. Sorry for the inconvenience and many thanks for your interest in the convention. Sharing research, learning from witnesses. A family fun Weekend for open minds of all ages. Friday 28th February 2020 7pm-9pm Level 1, Princes Quay Hull. Sat 29th Feb 10am-5pm Princes Quay level 1 & 3. 7pm-10pm Hull Guildhall . Sun 1st March 10am-4pm Princes Quay level 1 & 3, Hull City Centre. Talks by experts, science fact & fiction themed attractions, trade stands, book & toy stalls and information stands. Phenomenology, Extraterrestrial Life, Unexplained, UFOs, Bigfoot & Cryptozoology, The Paranormal, Divination, Ancient Aliens, Lost Civilisations and everything in-between. Stands by: Paul Sinclair Truth Proof, Andrew Collins, UFO Truth, Outer Limits Magazine, BBR British Bigfoot Research, Spectral Investigations, The Droid Foundry and more. Attractions include: Lego Alien Invasion scene by Brickbox. Apollo 11 VR Experience, VR Mission ISS & Space Pirate Training with VR Leeds, plus an open Photography Exhibition. Get a photo with The Sentinel Squad Star Wars characters, come face to face with Project Dalek and have fun in Princes Quay’s Quasar Bar & Lazerquest. There’s even toys for sale and kids activities. We are asking for entries for our open photography exhibition to launch at #RAWCON2020. We want to see people’s unexplained photos. Strange, cosmic and downright weird phenomena caught on camera. The best will be printed framed and exhibited in The Creative & Cultural gallery space at the convention. Email submissions@Creativeandcultural.com for a submission form. Program may be subject to change, due to unforeseen circumstance. Currently the confirmed schedule is as follows: Friday 28th Feb Princes Quay Hull, level 1. 19:00-21:00 in HIP Gallery. Unexplained Photography Exhibition opening 20:00-21:00 in RAWCONSPACE level 3. A talk by Megan Deveson, Australian Researcher, podcaster, monster hunter. Host of Cryptid Addicted. Using herself as bait to capture evidence of cryptids on global expeditions include Japan, Sri Lanka, Romania & Canada. Megan has astonishing evidence of Yowies, Bigfoot & other monsters. Saturday 29th Feb Princes Quay RAWCONSPACE Level 3. 10:00-11:00 A talk by Mike Covell. Historian, Author, TV celebrity on Most Haunted, Paranormal Lockdown and many more. Talking about Hull’s History of UFO Sightings 11:15-12:15 Chris Evers, Editor Outer Limits Magazine and Hull’s own expert UFOlogist. 13:00-14:00 Deborah Hatswell, BBR British Bigfoot Research Team founder & podcaster. 14:15-15:15 Chris Branzan, OVNIS Science & Histoire (UFOs Science & History), National French Magazine journalist & researcher. 15:30-16:30 Rev. Alyson Dunlop talks about “Supernatural Miracles”. Alyson is a demonologist, angelologist, Mariologist, deaconess, mystic, writer, and broadcaster. 16:30-16:50 Alan Raw Convention Coordinator talks briefly about RAWCON as a project, plans for the future and answers your questions. Saturday 7pm-10pm (Doors 6.30pm for a 7pm start) Hull Guildhall: 19:00-19:45 Tony Topping talks “UFO Encounters A UK Prospective” Tony is a covert witness to UFO encounters of the strange kind. Both contactee & UFO journalist, on TV & radio. One of the UK’s most recognised speakers on UFOs. 20:00-21:00 A talk by Andrew Collins, one of the worlds leading Ancient Alien/Lost Civilisation experts. As seen on Ancient Aliens on The History Channel, Prime & Netflix 21:15-22:00 Alan Raw interviews Yvette Fielding, Host of world wide TV show Most Haunted. Paranormal Investigator, broadcaster, author of Amazon Best Seller “Archie The Ghost Hunter” 22:00-1:00 Ghost Hunt in Guildhall with Spectral Investigations 22:15-23:00 Sky Watch with Tony Topping meeting at Guildhall entrance Sunday 1st March Princes Quay, RAWCONSPACE Level 3 10:00-10:45 Spectral Investigation, paranormal investigation group. Presenting a guide to getting started in ghost hunting and discussing findings from previous nights ghost hunt at Guildhall. 11:00-12:00 Antonio Perez & The GOIS Team, top paranormal investigators from Spain. 12:15-13:15 Gary Heseltine, Editor of UFO Truth Magazine, former RAF Police, British Transport Police & Home Office trained Detective Constable. 13:45-14:30 Ben Emlyn-Jones, Celebrated Author and Researcher. Presenting the mysterious case of the 1944 “Witchcraft Trial”. 14:45-15:30 Tony Topping, Be A Paranormal 007. A crash course in Remote Viewing. 15:45-16:30 Alan Raw chairing a discussion on mental health support for witnesses of unexplained phenomena A pound from every weekend ticket sold goes to support HIPclub (children’s photography group) at Princes Quay. We are seeking volunteers, sponsors and stall holders to join our market place, if that interests you, please email firstname.lastname@example.org. Tickets are not refundable, but you can transfer ownership to another name on arrival at the wristband exchange, Level1 Princes Quay, Research and Witness stand. You can also buy a wristband on the day, subject to availability. Or at the door of the venue for the Saturday evening talks if there is still available space.. Doors 6.30pm for a 7pm start on Saturday night. It will save you the Eventbrite booking fee, but seats are limited and when they are full, you will not be able to get a wristband. The Saturday night event has more seats than the day time talks venue. Weekend ticket for Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday £39 plus Eventbrite booking fee Friday night 7-9pm, weekend ticket holders, VIPs and HIP Gallery guests only. Saturday day only 10am-5pm Princes Quay talks ticket £18. Plus Eventbrite booking fee Saturday night only 7pm-10pm in Hull Guildhall ticket £10. Plus Eventbrite booking fee Saturday night Ghost Hunt with Spectral Investigations NOW SOLD OUT. Saturday night Sky Watch with Tony Topping, free to weekend ticket holders and Saturday night talks ticket holders only. Saturday combined day & night talks ticket £27. Plus Eventbrite booking fee Sunday only 10am-4pm Princes Quay talks ticket £16. Plus Eventbrite booking fee There is no age limits for this event. Parents must use their own discretion and maintain responsibility for their children. We encourage young people to learn about these subjects. There is lots to freely enjoy in the Atrium on level 1 for Under 16s. However, for the level 3 talks, under 16’s must have booked a free day ticket and be with a paying adult when entering talks. We will require silence in the audience during talks and respectfully request that parents with children ask them to remain quiet or go out until they are ready to come back into the audience space. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Some content in the talks may also be considered frightening to younger children. Please be aware that we will be taking photographs and video at this event and by attending this event you are contenting to inclusion on these photographs or video for promotional and evaluation purposes. We look forward to seeing you What are my transport/parking options for getting to and from the event? There is 24h multi-storey parking on-site in Princes Quay Shopping Centre. Hull train & bus station is 10mins walk down Carr Lane & Ferensway. The closest airports are Humberside, Robin Hood Doncaster & Leeds Bradford. How can I contact the organiser with any questions? email: email@example.com Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event? A digital version of your booking confirmation on your phone or tablet will be fine to exchange for your wristband. Make the exchange on arrival at Princes Quay Level 1 Research and Witness stand. Or at the door of the venue on Friday or Saturday evening. Sentinel Squad UK in their own words: A registered Non Profit Organisation with Companies House We are a collective group of Star Wars fans spread across the UK but mainly focused in the Yorkshire area putting our bespoke armours and costumes to a greater purpose, we troop with the goal to help others not ourselves, we aim to raise charitable funds for the causes out there that unfortunately slip by the wayside, receive no government funding or have no major backing support, that’s why we give back to the charities we support 100% of what we raise. Sentinel Squad UK’s primary goal is ‘Trooping To Help Others’ to support the children’s charities, although this is a tough choice as there are so many worthy causes out there but hopefully the squad will continue to go from strength to strength and will one day manage to contribute to many of the charities far and wide. We have in the past six years collected and donated over £110K to various childrens charities. We are sometimes asked why we do what we do, this could be so descriptive.. so to keep it short with two short answers.. We are just everday folks putting our passion and geekside for Star Wars to a great use. Presenting the years collective funds to our current charities the appreaciation is phenomenal and to see their faces knowing it will make a very welcomed difference to those struggling makes every troop attended worth it’s weight in carbonite. Spectral Investigations UK are a Hull based group of paranormal investigators. They have many years combined experience with 6 key members taking the lead on local and national investigations. Results can vary sometimes lots of activity can occur & other times not so much. “We don’t pretend to be experts but we do guarantee no nonsense or fake activity from us. We use an assortment of equipment from talk boards to portal boxes and many other pieces in between.” They are professional and respectful of each other and any spirits who they come across. There’s only a few tickets left! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-and-witness-convent… #RAWCON2020 @spectralinvestigationsuk
We’ve been through the first leg of our journey. It’s taken us to a world of Kung-fu on ice, a zombie-infested Old West, a heart-pounding medieval Scotland, an idyllic 17th century England, a dangerous steampunk metropolis, where legendary beasts exist, and inside a fairy-tale storybook. Our characters emerged stronger for their struggles—some injured, some with new realizations of who they are and what they could be, and all of them ready for another adventure. What comes next? For the seven authors chatting today, what came next was another book: our debut novel’s sequel. In some cases, it’s the second in a multi-book series, and others it’s the book that ends the series, and in some we just don’t know yet. But no matter what, it’s Book 2, an important installment in each author’s journey, and a book linked with the first that introduces its own conflicts. I’m in my own sequel journey just now, and I wanted to hear what some of my fellow 2018 debut authors were thinking as they brought their characters and worlds out for a second act. And so, this is our story. To start, we’ll talk about how our sequels began. ~ Diane Magras Henry Lien (Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions): The sequel begins approximately 2 seconds after the end of book one. In book one, Peasprout Chen came to a new country to study at an academy that teaches an art form combining kung fu and figure skating. Peasprout learned about friendship, the dual nature of immigrant identity, and other important things, only to have those truths turned upside down at the beginning of book 2 with the arrival of a very unusual new student from her homeland. Brad McLelland and Louis Sylvester (Fang of Bonfire Crossing): Our sequel picks up a few days after the finale of Legends of the Lost Causes (Book 1). Led by orphan Keech Blackwood, our young riders find themselves on the 1850s trail to Wisdom, a settlement in Kansas Territory, where they must collect new information in their quest to bring the evil Reverend Rose and his henchmen to justice. Along the way, the kids encounter the nefarious villain, Big Ben Loving, as well as a deadly shapeshifter that’s been tracking them. Diane Magras (The Hunt for the Mad Wolf’s Daughter): My sequel starts about two hours after the first book ends in a village hut where my protagonist, Drest, wakes to the sound of a crow’s coded warning of danger: A single knight is drawing near. Drest has just escaped Faintree Castle and its fleet of murderous knights with some beloved people in tow whom they want dead. She must decide in the very first chapter whether she can protect those she loves by hiding, or by confronting her enemy. Her decision leads to a price on her head that she could have never imagined. Melinda Beatty(Riverbound): Only Fallow can see lies–an ability that’s brought her to serve the king of Orstral. But she’s determined to get home any way she can, and, with her friend Lark, stop the persecution of the river-dwelling Ordish. But palace life is tricky and Only needs to figure out who to trust–and quickly! Jeff Seymour (Nadya Skylung and the Masked Kidnapper): As Nadya Skylung’s cloudship Orion docks among the glorious, dangerous steampunk skyscrapers of Far Agondy, three pirates the crew are turning over to the city’s police state a daring escape. Pursuing them despite her captain ordering her not to for her own safety, Nadya discovers the city’s children are being snatched by a sinister crime lord known as Silvermask. And when he takes a personal interest in her, it’ll take all her wits and courage to keep herself, and her friends, out of his grasp. Lija Fisher (The Cryptid Keeper): My sequel begins with Clivo and the Myth Blasters diving deeper into the world of legendary creature seeking, while desperately avoiding the bad guys (and the prying eyes of Aunt Pearl!). Tara Gilboy (Rewritten): My sequel picks up six months after the end of book one. Gracie and the other storybook characters are living with their author, Gertrude Winters, who has given up writing stories, afraid they will come to life like Gracie’s tale did. What did you like most about writing your sequel? Henry Lien: My favorite thing about writing the sequel was dealing with the specter of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which I consider the best sequel of all time. I daily, maybe hourly, reminded myself that that was the high bar of sequels and I wanted intensely to write a sequel that made a triple leap forward like Rowling did with Azkaban. I also wanted to write the most spectacular, Miyazaki-sequel action sequences I could imagine for this book. I wanted to create my own diverse Harry Potter with an anime soul. Brad McLelland and Louis Sylvester: Though writing this book presented plenty challenges, we loved getting to move our young characters into a brand new space with trickier trials and scarier encounters. We particularly enjoyed the chance to explore our characters’ motivations and back stories more deeply, then letting those new pieces of information illuminate our plot decisions. Writing a series can be a delicate endeavor, but even with the complications that came with pushing our story onward, we think writing the second book allowed us to stretch our legs a bit more. We also loved being able to introduce two new exciting characters who become trailmates on Keech’s quest. We think readers will fall in love with these two new characters, as well as enjoy the stepped-up elements of suspense and danger. (Beware the Chamelia! Just sayin’.) Diane Magras: I loved having the chance to deepen my characters’ stories and their relationships. My sequel gave room for Drest to really grow. While running for her life and strategizing how she’ll escape the sentence on her head, Drest questions who she is and what she could be in a way that goes a step beyond the first book. Other characters struggle with their identities too, such as Emerick, the injured young knight from the first book. The sequel gave me room to deepen their friendship and show each of them take enormous risks for the other. And it also gave me the chance to have scenes with Drest’s brothers. In the first book, readers heard only their voices as Drest embarked on her journey. In the sequel, I could show them interacting with each other—bickering, but also supporting—with new insults! Melinda Beatty: I loved visiting with Only again and throwing everything I had at her and her friends, just to watch them survive, thrive and overcome! I also enjoyed writing some new characters to bring more humor to the story, like the Thorvald royals and my “fishmongers” Warin and Dodd. Funny is where I live as a writer, and getting to write these bits were like literary “dessert” for me! Jeff Seymour: I absolutely loved writing the action sequences. Staging the thrilling chases, nail-biting escapes, and dangerous fights that are the hallmark of a Nadya book with Nadya on crutches (recovering from losing her leg in the last book) made them much more creative than they would’ve been otherwise. Nadya fights Silvermask and his goons on zip-lines, with hang gliders, and using a hand-cranked recumbent bicycle. She finds ways to work around and with her physical differences to come out on top. I love those scenes, and I still like to go back and re-read them. Lija Fisher: I loved writing this sequel because I got to do so while on a writing residency through Aspen Words and the Catto Shaw Foundation. I spent a month in a cabin in Woody Creek, CO (home of Hunter S. Thompson!) where my only responsibility was to write. It was heaven. Since I already knew the characters and the world, I could focus on the plot and fully immerse myself in creating a fun adventure with lots of mystery and even more humor! Tara Gilboy: I loved being able to spend more time with my characters. I also loved studying different kinds of stories and thinking about what each genre’s tropes and clichés are. For this book, I wanted to play around with the horror genre, and so I read a lot of classic gothic horror novels like Dracula and Frankenstein and thought about what elements are commonly used in horror and how to both poke fun at those tropes and use them in new ways. I then also had to consider why Gertrude would write a story like that, since she is the author in my book responsible for creating the world of the horror story. What was the hardest part of writing your sequel? Henry Lien: Both Peasprout Chen books are very quickly-paced clockwork puzzles, like Prisoner of Azkaban, with a number of huge secrets hiding in plain view. That kind of book requires precise choreography to pull off in a way that doesn’t seem effortful or contrived. Thus, I created a coded spreadsheet approach so that I could see the progression of each clue for each plot thread, where it occurred in terms of pages, where it occurred in terms of calendar days of the school year in the book, how evenly spaced the action sequences and major emotional confrontations were, etc. It was enlightening because I could step back and see my book like a musical score or a multi-floor dungeon map like in video games such as Legend of Zelda. Brad McLelland and Louis Sylvester: The hardest drafting for us didn’t really arrive until the midpoint of the book, where our Lost Causes ride into a dangerous town and encounter all sorts of deadly challenges. Because this situation involved lots of complicated movements around a new geographical space, we had to put our thinking caps on when mapping out our characters’ steps and decisions. How can we keep our narrative rolling smoothly without bogging the reader down with details? This was the main question we kept in mind while writing – and to tell the truth, it wasn’t easy! The Lost Causes’ final battle was also quite difficult to draft, again because of numerous players on the field. Writing the action one sentence at a time, and using lots of carefully outlined notes, helped us tackle the harrowing finale (which also helped us set up the pieces for an EPIC final Book 3 in the series). Diane Magras: For me, it was getting the right angle of this story to tell. Before this draft, I’d written a very different Book 2 that reached a different conclusion with scenes I loved (including a castle rescue and a village confrontation scene that don’t now appear in the book). I knew what the point of the story had to be, but it wasn’t about Drest serving others. This had to be around her. And with the obvious necessary goal—regaining the castle—I needed to make it essential to her and not just the other characters. Remembering a tidbit of medieval law—the concept of the wolf’s head—helped me realize the moral focus of the story. Having Drest run for her own life and not for the sake of others added a new urgency—and gave me an excuse to show off her incredible physical training in more than one scene. Melinda Beatty: The book was almost totally re-written between drafts 2 and 3– and I only had about 3 weeks to do it! It was the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but at the same time, one of the most rewarding and confidence building. I’ve always thought of myself as a slow writer–painfully slow sometimes–but having such a short time to totally re-imagine my story showed me that I definitely have it in me to work in a way I’d never thought possible. Jeff Seymour: Getting Nadya’s recovery from amputation right. I’m not an amputee, so I worked with the author Kati Gardner, who is, on the book. Folding her recommendations into the story in ways that felt natural to it was sometimes challenging. For instance, she recommended I avoid using the term “stump,” which some amputees don’t like. But “residual limb,” the less controversial term, felt too medical for Nadya’s voice. So I settled on having Nadya name her residual limb “the Mighty Lady,” (nicknames being something real-life amputees sometimes do too, and definitely a Nadya thing to do) and she refers to it as “the Lady” through most of the book. Lija Fisher: The hardest part of writing this sequel was doing it so quickly! I wrote the entire book during my month-long residency because I was determined to make the most use of my time. I wrote from 4:30am to about 3pm every day, and keeping my brain in ‘creative mode’ for that many hours was really hard. But also fun! The nice thing about being in the mountains is that whenever I had no idea what came next, I’d go out for a hike or bike ride and let my brain rest until the next idea showed up! Tara Gilboy: The hardest part of writing this book was incorporating all of what had happened in Unwritten, the first book, without confusing my readers. I knew that some readers would have read the first book, but others may not, and so I wanted to tell a story that could stand on its own for new readers, but also one that built on what had already happened in book one. I really struggled to find ways to weave in bits of information about things that had happened in book one without boring the reader with lots of summary and backstory. My editor helped me a lot with that in revision, and I hope I was successful! Our sequels in ten words: Henry Lien: Kung-fu figure-skating boarding school adventure about immigration and teamwork. Brad McLelland and Louis Sylvester: Expect new friendships forged, spookier situations, and a few seriously shocking twists. Diane Magras: Castles, swords, betrayals, secrets, loyal friends, family, and a daring battle. Melinda Beatty: Adventure, friendship, learning about privilege, conspiracy, and lovable rogues. Jeff Seymour: A heroine on crutches, a steampunk metropolis, thrilling fights, and a big twist at the end. Lija Fisher: Adventure! Humor! Mystery! Search for the unknown! Cryptozoology! Friendship! Crazy gadgets! Tara Gilboy: Spooky mansions, a magic book, a scary beast, and accepting the bad parts of ourselves. More about our books : Henry Lien/Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions/January 22, 2019 Now in her Second Year at Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword, Peasprout Chen strives to reclaim her place as a champion of wu liu, the sport of martial arts figure skating. But, with the new year comes new competition, and Peasprout’s dreams are thwarted by an impressive transfer student. Yinmei is the heir to the Shinian throne and has fled her country for Pearl. When she excels both academically and socially, Peasprout begins to suspect that Yinmei is not a refugee at all but a spy. When the Empress of Shin threatens to invade the city of Pearl, Peasprout makes a bold decision. To keep her enemy close, Peasprout joins Yinmei’s “battleband,” a team that executes elaborate skating configurations that are part musical spectacle, part defensive attack. In Henry Lien’s Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions, Peasprout guides her battleband on a mission to save Pearl, and learns what it truly means to be a leader. Brad McLelland and Louis Sylvester/Battle of Bonfire Crossing/February 19, 2019 Keech Blackwood and his band of fellow orphans demand justice for their fallen families. But the road to retribution is a long and hard-fought journey. After defeating Bad Whiskey Nelson, the man who burned Keech’s home to the ground, the Lost Causes have a new mission: find Bonfire Crossing, the mysterious land that holds clues to the whereabouts of the all-powerful Char Stone. Along the way they’ll have to fend off a shapeshifting beast, a swarm of river monsters, and a fearsome desperado named Big Ben Loving who conjures tornadoes out of thin air. It’s an epic standoff between the Lost Causes and the outlaw Reverend Rose, a powerful sorcerer who would be unstoppable with the Stone in his possession. With the world—and vengeance—hanging in the balance, the Lost Causes are ready for battle. Diane Magras/ The Hunt for the Mad Wolf’s Daughter: March 5, 2019 Brave warrior, bloodthirsty villain, vicious lass, wolf’s head—Drest can see herself in most of the names she’s been called, except the last. Wolf’s head. It’s a sentence of death-without-trial that’s been decreed by the ruler of Faintree Castle: the traitor Sir Oswyn. And one of his knights is determined to earn the sentence’s rich reward. It’s also a sentence that Drest tries to keep secret when her father and brothers (the Mad Wolf and his war-band) flee the castle men who are hunting them, leaving her in a village to protect the deposed and wounded young Lord Faintree. But word of the wolf’s head travels, and Drest is soon in grave danger. Unless she’s willing to run for the rest of her life or hide as an ordinary maiden, her only hope is for Lord Faintree to regain his power and reverse the sentence. Drest must decide who she really is and how much longer she is willing to risk her life before Sir Oswyn’s knight catches his wolf. Melinda Beatty/Riverbound/June 4, 2019 Only Fallow can see lies–a cunning so powerful that the King insists on keeping her in the palace, tasked with helping him flush out traitors. When the King’s counselor, Lamia, tells Only of her plan to oust the King and put his daughter on the throne, Only is eager to help. Though Only’s cunning would be useful to any ruler, the Princess had promised to send Only home when she becomes Queen. But Only soon learns the truth is a complicated matter–especially when the fate of a country hangs in the balance. Now wound tight in a twisted plot, Only must set the record straight to stop the destruction of everything–and everyone–she holds dear. Jeff Seymour/Nadya Skylung and the Masked Kidnapper/June 25, 2019 Nadya Skylung paid a high price when she defeated the pirates on the cloudship Remora. She lost her leg. But has she lost her nerve too? When Nadya and the rest of the crew of the cloudship Orion reach the port of Far Agondy, they have a lot to do, including a visit to Machinist Gossner’s workshop to have a prosthetic made for Nadya. But though the pirates are far away across the Cloud Sea, Nadya and her friends are still not safe. A gang leader called Silvermask is kidnapping skylung and cloudling children in Far Agondy. When Nadya’s friend Aaron is abducted, Nayda will stop at nothing to save him and the other missing kids, and put a stop to Silvermask once and for all. Lija Fisher/ The Cryptid Keeper/ August 20, 2019 Clivo and the Myth Blasters are back on the trail of the immortal cryptid in this conclusion to a monstrously funny middle-grade duology by Lija Fisher. Life has gotten complicated for thirteen-year-old Clivo Wren. After taking up his deceased father’s mission to find the extraordinary creature whose blood grants everlasting life, Clivo is spending his summer not at camp or hanging out with his friends, but jetting all over the world tracking cryptids—while keeping his aunt Pearl in the dark about his dangerous adventures. At the same time, a shocking development unveils the truth about Clivo’s enemies, and the cryptids themselves are posing trouble at every turn. With the help of his crew of Myth Blasters, Clivo is going to need all of the tools, gadgets, and training he has to prevent the immortal cryptid from falling into the wrong hands—and to keep Aunt Pearl off the case. Tara Gilboy/Rewritten/April 7, 2020 After learning the truth about her own fairy tale, twelve-year-old Gracie wants nothing more than to move past the terrible things author Gertrude Winters wrote about her and begin a new chapter in the real world. If only things were going as planned. On the run from the evil Queen Cassandra, the characters from Gracie’s story have all been forced to start over, but some of them cannot forget Gracie’s checkered past. Even worse, Gracie discovers that her story is still being written in Cassandra’s magic book, the Vademecum. As long as Cassandra has the Vademecum, none of the characters are safe, including Gracie’s mom and dad. In a desperate attempt to set things right, Gracie finds herself transported into another one of Gertrude’s tales—but this one is a horror story. Can Gracie face her destiny and the wild beast roaming the night, to rewrite her own story?
Capturing an image of Bigfoot is a dream to many people. One man has captured an image of Bigfoot… on the canvas. William Asmussen has been an art director, worked with organizations such as M.A.D.D. on creative projects and is a member of the Art Center in Rockport, Texas. While this college-trained artist can capture most anything using pen, paint and mouse, it’s his images of Sasquatch that caught our eye. The above image is the one that drew our attention (pun intended) to William Asmussen. Similar to a silverback mountain gorilla but physiologically different in that the hips allow the hind legs rise so that the back is perpendicular to the ground. The thought of Bigfoot walking on all fours may be foreign to some, but there have been several accounts of this. One notable case was the “fence climber” video which M.K. Davis discusses below: Asmussen has created several other paintings, images and drawings of Bigfoot, some commissioned and others in response to Sasquatch witness testimony. Asmussen is a fan of nature, which is his favorite subject. However he is also skilled at capturing images from his imagination. Below is a collection of selected work. To commission artwork, contact William Asmussen at Billybobasmussen@yahoo.com. This collection of over 170+ articles, direct from newspapers of the 1800s and 1900s, brings some of the most bizarre, amazing, and incredible stories of true monster encounters out of the past and into your hands! Presented with zero spin or bias, this book delivers just the facts and allows you, the reader, to decide for yourself if the stories within actually happened or not. From the funny to the frightening, the sincere to the weird, there is something for everyone within these pages! NOTICE: Fair Use Copyright Law “Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.” Any use of copyrighted material on http://www.nationalcryptidsociety.org is done for criticism, comment, news reporting or educational purposes. The National Cryptid Society including all web pages and social media platforms owned or registered by The National Cryptid Society does not endorse nor is any endorsement of the National Cryptid Society inferred by creators of copyrighted material presented herein for criticism, comment, news reporting or educational purposes under Fair Use allowance quoted above. 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3 New Sightings Confirm Ogopogo Lake Monster in British Columbia Canada’s legendary lake monster Ogopogo was allegedly spotted last month in British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake. Video footage appears to show a large creature breaching the water’s surface, while a still image purports to show the creature’s head. Like most cryptozoological footage, the video captured by two local men, and later published by local and international news sources, is shaky and difficult to make out — that’s why we’re taking this claim with a grain of salt. But looking at the footage, there are certainly some interesting anomalies. According to witnesses David and Keith Halbauer, a serpentine creature estimated to be about 40-feet long was spotted off the water’s edge near Bear Creek Provincial Park in Kelowna, BC. In an interview posted on Canadian broadcast website GlobalNews, the brothers claimed to have noticed the creature while camping by the shore. Skeptics have written off the men’s sighting as simply a rogue wave, but the Halbauer brothers say they know what they saw. “When you’re sitting on the beach on a sunny day, you don’t expect to see a dinosaur coming out of the water,” said David Halbauer. Shortly after spotting the creature in the water, the brothers said they noticed a large wake wash ashore from the animal’s breach. Convinced they witnessed Ogopogo, the two shared their story with locals, including the area’s foremost expert on the cryptid, legend hunter Bill Steciuk. Steciuk has created an entire website devoted to the documentation of Ogopogo sightings, firsthand testimony, and lore surrounding the creature’s history. The legend of the Canadian lake creature has circulated for centuries, dating as far back as the 1700s. Known as N’ha-a-itk, meaning “snake of the water” or “water demon,” natives would offer the sacrifice of a small animal to the creature before crossing the lake. According to experts, if the Ogopogo was the survivor of some prehistoric species, chances are it could be Basilosaurus cetoides, a type of whale existing some 35 million years ago during the Cenozoic era. Reports of Ogopogo appearing “loglike” match the shape and size of this early whale. Shortly after the Halbauer’s sighting, two more sightings were reported in Kelowna sparking excitement among the town’s believers, notably Steciuk, who said adamantly, “there’s a species in this lake, there’s absolutely no question!” Steciuk says he first began investigating the lake creature in 1978, while he was driving across a bridge into Kelowna. He says he looked down toward the water, noticing three humps as well as the creature’s head protruding from the water. Steciuk said he had time to pull over, put on his hazards, and peer down at the creature floating in the water — from then on, he was a believer. The Ogopogo falls into one of the more believable classes of cryptids, as there have been a number of lakes around the world purporting to have their own lake monsters. Aquatic cryptids with precedent based on species from prehistoric epochs seem viable compared to some of the more fantastic ones. Could the Ogopogo, Loch Ness Monster, and other lake creatures be the product of prehistoric ancestors that survived millions of years unbeknownst to us? For more on the fascinating history of lake monsters around the world watch this episode of Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World: Could Bigfoot Be a Product of Extraterrestrial Genetic Engineering? Could Sasquatch be of extraterrestrial origin? A controversial scientific experiment provides some ardent believers with compelling evidence for the theory. In a recent experiment, researchers injected human stem cells into primate embryos and were able to grow, for the first time, a human-primate chimera. The intent of the experiment was to provide new insights into developmental biology and evolution. While the study generated a great deal of controversy due to ethical concerns, it is actually serving a very different purpose for cryptozoologists and their work on Sasquatch. Jack Cary is a cryptozoologist for whom this experiment has taken on great significance. It provides him evidence for his theory that the creature, known as Sasquatch, is actually a chimera. Cary’s theory comes from the remarkable findings of the Sasquatch Genome Project conducted in 2013.
Way back in 2013, my editor at Samhain Publishing (the legend himself, Don D’Auria) said to me, “So, what’s your latest book idea?” Back then, I had pledged to write two books a year for Samhain, delivering a novel and novella before New Year’s Eve. I wanted to write about the real life haunting my family had been experiencing since the 90s, but Samhain didn’t have a non-fiction line. So, I took the high strangeness we were going through and fictionalized it. The end result was my novella, The Waiting. It came out in 2014 as an ebook only and was well received, though it didn’t get in front of a ton of eyeballs. Samhain went under a few years after that and my little ghost story was as dead as the phantom boy who prowled my apartment. That is, until the amazing folks at Silver Shamrock agreed to bring it back to life with a brand new cover by the incredible Kealan Patrick Burke, foreword by punk horror master Glenn Rolfe, and a revised ending and afterword by yours truly. The afterword is very important this time around because at the time I originally wrote The Waiting, I had no idea what was at the heart of the mystery. Since then, we think we know exactly who – or what – spent so much time with us. I’m very proud of this book and know that Creature would never have happened if this hadn’t paved the way for me. A little about the book : Newlywed Cassandra Pagano lies in a state between life and death, her body fed and preserved by the machines at her side. While she struggles, unaware of the world around her, someone waits. A boy. A phantom that appears solid, real, “alive.” Cassandra’s husband, Brian, sees him in the house, by her bedside, running down darkened hallways. The boy walks without sound, whispers words that can’t be deciphered. Terror and tension are driving Brian to the breaking point. Why is the boy there, and what does he want with Cassandra and her fading soul? You can now grab a copy of this gorgeous, new edition, in ebook or print! Click here so you don’t have to ‘wait’ anymore! I mean, who doesn’t have a lustful spirit hiding in the corners of their attic? I’m very pumped to be featured in the latest edition of Terry M West’s Weirdsmith series. My story, THE ATTIC, is not your average ghost tale. About the story – They say you can’ t go home. Burt Cromartie would agree. Something unspeakable happened to him in the attic of his childhood home. He’d hoped to never return. But, now the house is his, and with no job and dwindling savings, he’s forced to accept the curse willed to him by his horrid parents. Whatever Burt left behind in the dusty attic has been waiting, patiently, for him to come back. The gate to hell is a simple wooden door, a set of creaking stairs, a musty room that is never, truly empty. There’s no running from the thing in the attic. Welcome home, Burt. It’s just dying to meet you. And maybe, just maybe, Jessica and Eddie might show up to try to save poor Burt and his family. DROP IT ON YOUR KINDLE FOR ONLY 99 CENTS! Believe it or not, it’s pure coincidence that the release of Bigfoot in the Bronx happens to fall on the same day as King Kong vs. Godzilla. I could never have planned it so well. Trust me. So, who wants to squatch this place up? It’s hunting season for best friends Shay and Vito. This year, with a bad economy and Shay out of work, it’s more important than ever to bag a deer so they can feed their families. Tucking their truck in their secret spot outside a state park in the Catskills, they settle down, waiting for a deer to come to them. What they get is a giant creature that outruns a speeding deer and savages it with its bare hands and jagged teeth. Someone hidden in the woods shoots it with a tranquilizer dart. Shay knows what the beast at their feet is, and how its discovery can change their lives forever. They load it into their truck and head home for… The drugged Bigfoot awakens in a cramped shed in Shay’s backyard. Confused, terrified, angry, it breaks loose in the middle of the night, seeking refuge in a nearby cemetery. When the bagpipes of a morning funeral drive it into a killing rage, the carnage has just begun. From playgrounds to golf courses, apartment buildings to subway cars, the bigfoot is on the move – and it’s not happy. Can Shay and Vito find and recapture the beast before it burns the Bronx to the ground? I can’t think of a book cover that is more suitable for Hunter’s Hellions than my upcoming release from Flame Tree Press, FAITHLESS! Faithless will be out in October this year (when the world will hopefully have it’s Covid head out of it’s ass), but you can pre-order your copy today! About the book: How do you survive hearing your family being brutally murdered over the phone? For Father Raul Figeuroa, all faith and hope are lost. Turning away from the priesthood behind, he retreats to his aunt’s empty farmhouse in upstate New York, hoping to drink himself to oblivion. But he’s not alone in the house. Something is trying to reach out to him. Or is he losing his grip on reality? When his childhood friend Felix comes to visit, things take a darker turn. The deeper they dig into the mystery, the closer they get to hell literally breaking loose. I wrote this book at the very start of the quarantine last March. It was one of the things that kept me sane during those first few months, including booze, watch parties of Joe Bob’s Last Drive-In Show on Shudder, and did I say booze? Hope you remember how to say your prayers. You’re gonna need them for this one. Because the writer is always the last to know, turns out I made my television debut on World’s Most Unexplained on the Travel Channel last night. Thank the fates that my friends watch these crazy shows all the time and they were quick to let me know! Oy, look at that mug. I was filmed in a cramped hotel room in the height of the pandemic. Taking off my mask made me nervous as hell, which helped tamp down any butterflies I had about being on camera and interviewed by someone who was on a laptop in Ireland. The episode is called Roadside Creature/Up in Flames. In the episode, I and several other Travel Channel mainstays talk about the very mysterious 2 night event in a bucolic Massachusetts town back in 1977. Several teenagers saw a bizarre creature on the dark, winding roads, all of them reporting basically the same odd being. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman was there on the scene and coined the name, the Dover Demon. I’m sure you can stream the show. Here is a one minute preview – When I was with Loren at the International Cryptozoology Museum, we got to talking about the DD and I was hooked. Not long after, my fictional take on the cryptid with UFO connections was born. If you’d like to explore the Dover Demon and what it could mean for the people who witnessed it when it returns decades later, grab a copy and be prepared for some high strangeness! Wow, is this long overdue. When Samhain Publishing went the way of Beanie Babies, I had decided to keep the three Jessica Backman books for myself because, well, she’s my favorite character and I don’t want to share. In 2017, I re-released Forest of Shadows with a cool, new cover and promised the next two would be close behind. Boy, was I wrong…and late! But fear no more, the lost Jessica Backman books are lost no more! Guess it’s high time I wrote book 4. How can you escape the ghost of yourself? The Leigh family is terrified. They’ve been haunted by the ghostly image of their young daughter, Selena. But how can that be, when Selena is alive and well, and as frightened as her parents? With no where else to turn, the Leighs place their hopes in Jessica Backman, who has dedicated her life to investigating paranormal activity. Accompanied by a new partner who claims to able to speak to the dead, Jessica will soon encounter an entity that scares even her. And a terror far worse than she imagined. Sometimes, the dead are best left in peace. Jessica Backman has been called to help a strange family living on a haunted island in Charleston Harbor. Ormsby Island was the site of a brutal massacre two decades ago, and now the mysterious Harper family needs someone to exorcise the ghosts that still call it home. The phantoms of over one hundred children cannot rest. But something far more insidious is living on the island. When the living and the dead guard their true intentions, how can Jessica discover just what sort of evil lurks on Ormsby Island? And why is Jessica the only one who can plumb its dark depths? GRAB BOTH BOOKS FOR THE HOLIDAYS. SEE, SOMETHING GOOD DID HAPPEN IN 2020. It’s not often I have news of being included in not one, but two horror anthologies one after the other. In fact, this is a first. Both Survive with Me and this latest, One of Us: A Tribute to Frank Michaels Errington, are all here to support some very special charities. Frank was a vital part of the horror community and a hell of a nice guy. We lost him way too soon and still feel the gaping hole in our lives. Proceeds from all sales will go to the American Transplant Foundation. A distant second to remembering Frank, for me, is that I’m sharing a Table of Contents with none other than Stephen King! Kinda blown away. But that’s the kind of guy Frank was – he touched and rooted for everyone in the genre, great and small. Here are more details on the book. I promise, it will make an amazing holiday gift for the reader in your life. Check out the who’s who of authors who are part of this special project! The horror community lost Frank Michaels Errington and his absence has been so thoroughly felt by all who were lucky enough to interact with him. Kind, gracious, inclusive and just an all-around nice man. Frank made a large impact as a book reviewer, but he also had a positive effect on many individual creators by making sure that everyone felt welcome and acknowledged. One of Us: A Tribute to Frank Michaels Errington is filled with stories of writers whose lives Frank touched in one way or another. He challenged them, cheered them on and he made sure to read the big names and small names alike. Frank needed a new kidney. He was undergoing dialysis treatments and hoping for a compatible donor, but, unfortunately, he was not able to get the help in time to save his life. Because of this, proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated in Frank’s name to the American Transplant Foundation. Help us help others in Frank’s situation before another vital person is lost to those who value them. This book represents the camaraderie and love that Frank instilled in the horror community. If you ever feel alone or out of place, just remember the words that Frank himself told many creatives while he was still alive. “You’re one of us.“ * * * * WITH STORIES, POETRY, AND ANECDOTES BY Alan Baxter * Matt Bechtel * doungjai gam bepko * John Boden * Geoff Brown * Kealan Patrick Burke * P.D. Cacek * Kenneth W. Cain Somer Canon Christa Carmen * Catherine Cavendish * Greg Chapman * Richard Chizmar * Tom Deady * T. Fox Dunham * Robert Ford * Christopher Golden * J.F. Gonzalez * Mark Allen Gunnells * Jeremy Hepler * Pete Kahle * Nicholas Kaufmann * Shane Douglas Keene * Todd Keisling * Stephen King * Curtis M. Lawson * Evans Light * John R. Little * Chad Lutzke * Jonathan Maberry * Josh Malerman * Alessandro Manzetti * John McIlveen * John McNee * Tim Meyer * Lee Murray * Paul F. Olson * Kelli Owen * John Palisano * Jason Parent & Kevin Rego * David Price * Anthony J. Rapino * Hunter Shea * Rob Smales * Wesley Southard * Jeff Strand * Brett Talley * Sara Tantlinger * The Sisters of Slaughter * Richard Thomas * Paul Tremblay * Tony Tremblay * Joshua Viola * Tim Waggoner * Terry M. West * Douglas Wynne * Stephanie M. Wytovich * Mercedes M. Yardley Greeting hellions from all corners of the globe. I have some cool new anthology new for you. I have a story included in an incredible collection called SURVIVE WITH ME. The lineup of authors is beyond stellar. Horror greats like Tim Waggoner, Ron Malfi, Somer Canon and more have woven twistted tales of survival guaranteed to keep you up long past your bedtime. And it’s all edited by the man himself, Kennth W. Cain. Alien Agenda Publishing is destined to become a horror go-to, that’s for sure. My story centers around a middle aged couple, UFOs and some very unwanted abductions. All based on a true story. Nah, I’m just kidding. Or am I? Holiday time is here and we’re all just hoping to make it through to New Year’s Eve. Survival mode is in full effect. So come on, grab a copy and take some time out from shopping or cooking or yapping on Zoom with your in-laws. You’ll be glad you did. Well, howdy Hellions! We’re just a few flips on our Dilbert desk calendars from the greatest day of the year. Sure, the fates have tried their best to destroy what we love most, but I say we spit in their bleary eyes! I have a couple of things to help get you in the mood (and no, it’s not me singing Let’s Get It On in the shower. I’m saving that for when I start an Only Fans account). First up, the Monster Men practiced social distancing like good little ghouls for our 10th annual Halloween special. Hard to believe we’ve been at this for a decade. While we discuss the various things you all can do in quarantine (one is quite saucy, I must say), we also look at the great and not so great horror movies that hit the silver screen in 1978. Now, choosing the movie to end Horrortober on Halloween night is no easy task. You can dip into the same old well with Carpenter’s Halloween or maybe Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Or, you can read my latest Video Visions column and discover what I’m sure will be a new classic in your lair! Now get your costumes ready, your beers chilled and candy corns….well, candy corning. Happy Halloween!
Chelsea Margaret Bodnar is made of blood, meat, and bones — the usual suspects. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: The Bennington Review, The Birds We Piled Loosely, Freezeray, Leopardskin & Limes, Menacing Hedge, and NANO Fiction, among others. Where did the title, Basement Gemini come from? Aww, you’re going to ruin my mystique here. So, I place approximately zero stock in the zodiac, horoscopes, and the like—they can be fun, though. Anyways, I read an article (or more likely, a Facebook post) about how a huge number of serial killers were geminis, and it kind of stuck with me. Duality, doubling, and the concept of the uncanny is all pretty omnipresent in horror. And, well, basements are creepy, especially in my parents’ house growing up. Black mold and low ceilings, man. Not to mention that basements are underground and hidden. Plus, it’s a better title than, like, Secret Doppelganger or something. Hidden Double. You get where I’m going. What led you to Hyacinth Girl Press? Their books are beautiful, the people are lovely, and I haven’t read a thing from them that I didn’t like. I think my personal favorite might be Like Ash in the Air After Something Has Burned, which is themed around saints and gender, or else Vast Necrohol, which is ostensibly orc poetry, which is exactly as cool as it sounds. Was it a conscious decision to blend two interests like poetry and the horror genre? Or was that just a topic that came naturally to you? I think that horror is just easy for me—it has great imagery, weird metaphors, and visceral themes. What people are afraid of says a lot about them, and what’s marketed to scare people says a lot about social climate. If a major movie studio stakes money on the idea that a movie is going to successfully frighten people, the horror element’s got to be culturally relevant somehow. So basically, what’s sold to us as scary? A lot of the times, it’s women, mental illness, and the inevitability of death. And in the immortal words of Hollaback Girl, this my shit. Jaws IV is one of the most notorious sequels ever made. What convinced you to write a poem about that of all Jaws films? (I mean, it's one of my guilty pleasures, but had to ask.) Because I love it! Something about the hokey romantic subplot, old lady protagonist, and the roaring shark just resonates with me. I think the first line I wrote was “Brodys! Brodys in banana boats and floaties,” and I laughed at my own joke for way too long. The funniest Jaws IV-specific bit, though, has to be “she doesn’t need a bigger boat / she’s got a new man—Hoagie. / she’s Ellen fucking Brody, bitch / she’s Ellen fucking Brody.” Idk, sometimes you have to make your own comedy, I guess? Plus, Michael Caine’s character is named Hoagie. What’s not to love? You've mentioned in another interview that you work on your poems on the bus. Are the other passengers ever distracting to you or are you able to hone in? Have you ever missed your stop due to being in the zone? Other passengers are always distracting. I spend a lot of time on the bus and the train, so I’ve seen and heard some weird stuff. I’ve seen an alarming number of old people reading large print erotic fiction on their tablets. Most of the time, I’ve got headphones on & I’m either listening to music or pretending to listen to music. When I’m doing poetry stuff on the bus, it’s usually editing, which I spend an obscene amount of time doing. Do you ever listen to music when you write? No! I couldn’t. I’m a relatively decent multitasker, but I have issues with auditory stuff. If I hear something, I listen. I can’t even do white noise generators. As an atheist with an interest in supernatural fiction, are you able to be frightened by anything of that nature? Well, even though I’m a pretty adamant skeptic, the world would be exponentially cooler with ghosts in it, so I’m holding out hope that I’m wrong. As for being afraid of the supernatural, I’ve been terribly desensitized to all of that, but if the storytelling is compelling and immersive enough, I could probably be convinced to feel a little bit of fear. I’m not ruling anything out. When I was a kid, my primary fear was bigfoot, though, and a similar South American cryptid, the mapinguary, which is allegedly a giant carnivorous sloth. I saw it on the discovery channel or something and it scared the hell out of me. What was your worst experience at a reading? Cop-out answer—my worst experience at a reading was not being able to attend a reading. When I was in high school, I won the poetry category of the Ralph Munn Creative Writing contest, which is sponsored by the Carnegie Library for student writers. I made the questionable life decision to follow my high school boyfriend to WVU my first year of college, and a mandatory orientation was scheduled on the same date as the reading and award presentation for the contest. I ended up sitting in the basketball stadium in Morgantown crying to Country Roads instead of reading my poem, which was about feeling sad/underwhelmed at the homecoming dance. It was all painfully metaphorical. Since you have many untitled poems, is it hard for you to identify them in your head? Are they, "The one about the ___"? Or do you identify them with a line from within the text? I usually identify them with a line. I just really suck at titling. It feels… grandiose or something? Even though it’s totally not. How do you organize your chapbooks? Do you see them as more of a concept album or a greatest hits collection in terms of organization? Concept albums, for sure. I go through thematic phases that are pretty distinctive, and usually the form I write in is also unique to the theme. I have way too many documents on my computer with different versions of chapbooks I’ve worked on, though. Sometimes I open them & there are poems I don’t remember writing at all. [Obvious question incoming.] What are you working on right now? I’m working on a bunch of poetry about interpersonal disappointment, loneliness, and dating apps. It was a chapbook, but it’s somewhere around forty pages now… These poems address my issue with titling by using the icebreaker prompts on OkCupid as titles (e.g. “One thing you should know about me,” “On Friday night, you’ll find me”). I’m also fine-tuning a poem I wrote for the event Free Fucking Poems About Fucking, which is on March 23rd at the Glitterbox Theater. It’s going to be exactly what it sounds like it is. Thanks a ton to Chelsea for this interview! Please check her out at the following links and buy everything she has available for purchase. Buy Basement Gemini from Hyacinth Girl Press: Rhino Poetry review of Basement Gemini: "lonely deadgirl seeks unkillable love interest" published over at Freezeray Poetry: "Jaws IV: Thre Revenge, Sonnet II" at Barrelhouse Mag: Duncan's a cool dude. I've wanted to interview him for a while but I didn't want to exclusively interview horror authors. The truth is, the horror community is the coolest I've ever known. Another anxiety that isn't discussed enough is that of asking an author for an interview. It's kind of like asking a girl out, but "professional." Anyhow, this interview was worth the wait. Really happy with this one. If you don't know who Duncan Ralston is yet, then you fucking should. What gave you the idea to write about a sex offender colony? Ooh! A hardball question, right off the bat. Okay, I'll bite. The idea of a regular guy going undercover in an encampment of sex offenders to take revenge on the man who abused his child was something that clicked with me right away. I'm not a big fan of real-life vigilantism in general (despite my love of the Batman character), but I'm fascinated with themes of obsession and revenge. I think the initial concept must have come about while re-reading Stephen King's Dolan's Cadillac from Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 2012. It may have been around the same time I watched season three of Dexter, where the eponymous serial killer of evil men says of a pedophile, "In the land of predators, a lion never fears the jackal." And I'd seen a photo of the "We are not monsters" graffiti under the Tuttle Causeway in Miami during the Bookville era around the same time and it intrigued me enough to do some research. All of this came together in a eureka moment and my novella Where the Monsters Live was born. I'd written a decent draft by the time I saw Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin (his predecessor to Green Room) and that changed everything for me. It's a damn fine revenge thriller, one of the best in my opinion. It's just come out on audiobook and I'm tinkering with adapting this sucker into a screenplay. It might be a hard sell but I think it would be worth it. Has offering a free e-book (or six) with a subscription to your website worked out well for you? Have you noticed a spike in traffic or anything? I have noticed a fair amount of new subscribers--and many daily downloads on Amazon--but it's difficult to tell how that translates to people actually reading my other books. How much do people value free ebooks? Do they just amass them in an endlessly growing collection, hoping they'll be able to read them all before they die? Out of the blue about two months ago I saw a huge spike in downloads for Where the Monsters Live on Amazon. Almost a thousand in a day, and I have no idea what caused it. So I'm hoping a handful of these folks actually read it, and even feel the urge to review it--whether they love it or hate it--and maybe dive into one of my longer books like Salvage or The Method. I love some of your book covers (particularly Video Nasties). How much say do you like to have in the designs for your covers. It depends on if I've got any ideas for the cover initially. I love working with a great artist like Peter Frain (who did the covers for my horror collection, Video Nasties, and my crime thriller Dickens adaptation, Ebenezer), as he seems to have an endless supply of ideas and has created some visually stunning covers for other writers (including the "Dark Minds Novella" series from authors such as Rich Hawkins, Laura Mauro and Chad A. Clark). When I don't have an idea, working with someone you don't know or haven't worked with in the past can be more difficult. It's a lot of direction and "does this look right?" and "can we tweak this?" My concept for the cover of my first novel, Salvage, worked out pretty well from the get-go. It was the first cover I'd gotten done professionally (via Booktrope, the original publisher), and it was interesting to see the image I'd imagined as envisioned by someone else. With Video Nasties my idea was to do an old VHS cassette cover. Peter offered a ton of different concepts and images and but I think it was pretty quickly we decided to go the cover-within-a-cover route, since the title story is about a horror videotape that's haunted by its director. What is your proudest moment as a writer? I've recently placed in a handful of prestigious screenwriting contests, which was nice. I was also very pleased--initially--to get a book contract from Kindle Press via the now-defunct Kindle Scout contest. And having my first foray into extreme horror published by UK writer/director Matt Shaw was pretty great too! You've written short stories, novellas, novels, and screenplays. Do you have a favorite? I like aspects of all three, and I like being able to hop back and forth between them. (I think it was Mickey Knox who said "In this day and age a man has to have a little bit of variety.") I like short stories because they can be much easier to write and they pack a punch in a small amount of time. I like writing novels because you can dive much deeper into character and theme. And writing screenplays is something I've done since my teens--I'd just love to see something with my name on it on the big or small screen someday. On that note, is there a different approach you take with the different lengths/formats you write in? With short stories I tend to start with the ending in mind. If I know the that, I can tailor the opening paragraph to encapsulate the story, in a way, and work backwards. With novels, I tend to underwrite the first draft, overwrite the second draft (deepening characters, adding details in the setting, etc), then refine it in subsequent drafts. Woom was a one-draft book, and it's one of my most well received. The novel I've just finished has taken me two years on and off, with multiple drafts and early attempts at getting the first chapter just right. With screenplays I've started using a seven-act structure that's helped immensely. I found the classic three-act structure to be too restrictive. At the end of each act there's a big moment that changes the direction of the story, just like in television. I find this method helps with plotting out the story as a whole. What was it like being a "guest author" for the book, The Devil's Guests? That seems like an interesting process. My story was a bonus short. I was glad to be a part of it but it wasn't involved in the overarching narrative. It's now available in my collection Video Nasties. I got a lotta flack growing up for being into horror. Does your family have any issue with you writing horror stories? My family is very supportive. Horror isn't their preferred genre but they read my stuff, even the books they probably shouldn't. But I also write thrillers and crime, which they do read regularly. You were included in Bah! Humbug! An anthology of Christmas Horror Stories. What's your favorite Christmas horror movie? Scrooged. I know it's not technically horror but it has horror elements and I feel like most holiday-themed horror movies are shit. I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to movies. Do you ever have ideas that are too cinematic for a written story or too literary for a screenplay? I like to think all of my stories are pretty visual, but there are definitely stories that lend themselves more readily to either screenplays (or series) than to prose. I used to have a difficult time deciding which a story should be but now they're pretty clearly delineated in my mind. Although I have adapted my three of my last four books into screenplays, and am currently working on the fourth. I see your novella, How to Kill a Celebrity has gotten high praise from the likes of George Orwell, L. Ron Hubbard, and Rod Serling. Would you be intimidated or afraid to have any of your idols read your work? A handful of well-respected writers in the genre whose work I have much admiration for have read one or two of my books. I was very happy to hear it, and especially that they enjoyed them. You're the second Ginger Nut of Horror I've interviewed. Can you explain that group for the uninitiated? Ginger Nuts of Horror is an excellent site for horror news and reviews. Jim McLeod has built up a great community of reviewers over time and has been making a bit of a name for himself in the industry lately. I haven't had much time to review for them lately, and I don't feel like I was much of a reviewer anyhow, not with folks like George Daniel Lea, Tony Jones and George Ilett Anderson to contend with. Is there anything too disturbing that you've encountered and had to shelve or refused to write about? The places I fear to tread are the places I most want to take the reader. If you require evidence, read my stories "Cuttings," "Baby Teeth" or Woom. [Obvious closer question] What's next for Duncan Ralston!? I'm sending out queries for my latest novel to agents. While I await the inevitable multi-million-dollar, six-book contract with movie rights and points on the back end, I will be writing a new horror novel, and working on the screenplays adaptations of Where the Monsters Live and The Method. Some links to find Duncan Ralston at: His official website (with free books):
This week was as bad as the last. I am however finally registered for the Steampunk Symposium in Cincinnati in March. I will be, in theory, on the author panel as well. Leanne Renee Hieber is working on that for me. I think, in some ways, being half way an introvert and half way an extrovert worked for me here. I’ve been talking to her for a couple of years and she’s doing what most of us should be doing: holding a hand out and helping a fellow author. Even if it falls through I’m content that someone tried to help (also this would be happening in front of Tor.com which could be very interesting). I’m still in the Hocking Hills this week picking up with Brendan and Josh where we left off last week with These Haunted Hill and they’re going out into the woods after foxes (and I’m finally back to working on this after a bit of a hiatus that went longer than planned) The leaves from last fall crunched loudly under Brendan’s clumsy feet. He would never make it in Joshua’s world. “And if Big Foot doesn’t like being recorded. I’ve read some crap about them you know. It seems like they do have a violent streak.” “So I’ve been told.” “I don’t want to be famous as the guy who got beaten to death by Big Foots,” Brendan huffed, his eyes darting around, trying to see deeper in the woods. Damn Josh for bringing up the cryptid. Now he was going to be seriously thinking about it even though he knew it was ludicrous. He was in far more danger from a bear or a coyote than he was Sasquatch. If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!
Have you ever wanted to know what is blockchain technology, what is crypto mining, what is crypto wallet, how different bitcoin is from other crypto currencies. More importantly, how to profit from trading in investing in cryptos. You find the answers to these and other hot crypto topics here. Bitcoin and other proof of work cryptocurrencies are decentralized, and therefore not powered by a centralized authority. Instead, they are powered by a network of minors using their computing power to validate transactions and keep the network secure. While seemingly everyone knows a lot about Bitcoin, taking the next step and actually investing in it is a whole other ballgame. You want to find an exchange that sells Bitcoin with acceptable fees as well as one that is secure. Safety of your funds is incredibly important, and you need to make sure that your exchange meets that requirement. In an effort to help you out, this article will look at some of the safest places to buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin mining is less popular now than it was two years ago, and this can be traced to the long run of poor pricing. However, crypto enthusiasts have kept faith with the market and until now. The recent surge in bitcoin price coupled with some industry expectations that it will keep rising is a bright spot. Before we get to the nuts and bolts of Bitcoin mining, let’s begin by understanding what Bitcoin mining is all about. First, where do new Bitcoins come from? Are Bitcoins minted by the central banks? Obviously no, Bitcoin operates in a decentralized network with no central authority at play. Following the surge in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency interest in 2017, a lot of people began Bitcoin mining on phones. This surge in cryptocurrency interest eventually led to new restrictions being implemented from companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and others. The last two months have been rough for major cryptocurrencies, and most of them ended up in the red. The information background has undoubtedly greatly contributed to this. Among other things, it’s worth mentioning the hacking of the Bithumb exchange – an event that knocked Bitcoin below the support trend line, which had been holding it back for more than three months. In lieu of a preface Last month we got a strong bullish breakout in market sentiment. It was really the high wave of positive news in media as well as analysts’ view on market perspective. Market performance was not disappointing as well. This trend continues in June as well. Maybe we do not have as … . Meet the next step in the evolution of Cryptocurrencies: Cryptid Currencies By Pharaoh I almost had that writing addiction under control Today is a glorious day in the evolution of crypto currencies. Before going into all the details, please allow me to take a few moments to explain one of the biggest flaws …
Video Is A Possibility Generator Vidicon 2020 Agenda (All times in MST) Video Is A Possibility GeneratorProposed by Allen Riley Example video project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4JdmAFCMHg In this talk, I will share methods of collaborative live video production that I have explored in the context of experimental video projects for youth at Beam Camp and Beam Center since 2007. In these projects, youth collaborate to build and operate a video studio to create spontaneous video productions with themes ranging from games, meditations, re-enactments of dreams, science fiction and fantasy tropes, cryptid autopsies, and video feedback. We will examine how elements like narrative prompts and technical roles interconnect with hardware and software elements to perform signal flow operations within live video systems and what role such projects have in supporting a sense of purpose, agency and media literacy in youth. 11/13/2020 15:00 (America/Phoenix)
Poetic Sludge- the Early Years by James Fleming Prologue: Fear Of The Unknown. "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." - HP Lovecraft. It's pure poetry. The toxic dregs of rock n' roll coalesce in Middle-England and mutate into one crawling mass with a life all its own. Grotesque in its movements, hideous in its howling, it soon consumes the world. Leaving a trail of spawn and enlightenment in its wake, it shaped pop culture in its own ghastly image. It is sludge. Slimed, creeping sludge. It is fear of the unknown made music. Where most would be too afraid to even look, it ventured. Bringing back tales to keep middle-class Earth awake at night, shivering with the fear of the unknown. It's pure poetry. An epic to rival Dante's Inferno. Part I: A Terrible Beauty Is Born. He had a PA system. Not even a dream. And only a hunger in the most biological sense. The stench of his slaughterhouse day job followed him home like his shadow. John Michael 'Ozzy' Osbourne's Birmingham home had coughed him up into a world light years from the swinging London of the late sixties and it looked like he would stay there. An unperson stinking of meat and with his nickname crudely prison-tattooed on his knuckles. But he had a PA system. And a voice like nothing else before or since. A mind awash with science-fiction and Christianity. That's what Terence 'Geezer' Butler had. And the ability to take that mind and put it into words. He would supply the Heaven-heavy bottom end of their sound with his bass guitar virtuosity too. One half of the solid foundation for the pitch-black images he brought to life so vividly in his lyrics. Clear, concise, no-bullshit lyrics to send chills down Lovecraft's spine. And clear, concise, no-bullshit playing to anchor those horrors to this earthly plane. All the atmosphere of rolling thunder and the frightening power of lightning, Bill Ward's drumming was the second half of that solid foundation. Capable of complimentary jazz-inflected atmospherics as well as that age-old rock n' roll backbeat, his skin-battering pounded through their veins and their ears. Powerful, forceful, vital, Ward's drumming was intricate in its skill and tribal in its strength. A beating pulse surging through their limbs. There is no haunting without a motivation. And Tony Iommi's almost tyrannical ambition was the engine that drove them ever onwards into the unknown, an eight-legged spectre stalking the music press, the charts and their congregation's consciousness. He had two missing fingertips and enough fire to light the way through the netherworld. He said only what needed to be said and all the rest came through his guitar. Riffs sharp enough to flay skin were his forte. While over the years to come, the heavy metal solo would usurp the riff's throne, Iommi's riffs remain untouchable. Like the blacksmith's hammer striking the anvil, they echo through the mind. Striking a blow one simply does not forget. They came together out of necessity, each needing each other's prowess. Ozzy placed an ad in a music shop window, and the other three followed their noses. Stalking this chance to the Osbourne's front door. The first and classic lineup of this first and classic band had come together. Marking the first step from the previous year's summer of love to the approaching decade's thirst for the darker side of life. They would be called Earth for a short while, wrenching compositions kicking and screaming out of forty minute jams in Hamburg's iconic Cavern Club. But when it was discovered there was already a blues-rock outfit working under that name, they renamed themselves after their first composition. A song that a few hundred years ago would have got them burned at the stake. And Earth became this thing of sludge and poetry we know as Black Sabbath. Sludge in the weight and darkness of their music. Poetic in their story and their contributions to human creativity. Part II: What Is This That Stands Before Me? It was nothing more than a marketing ploy, releasing Black Sabbath on Friday the 13th February, 1970. And a marketing ploy that went largely unnoticed at the time. Capitalising on an unknown band's unknown fascination with the occult was never going to work. But Black Sabbath didn't need ill-fated marketing ploys. They had word of mouth and they had the tunes. The first of their many bad reviews came from all corners: "Bullshit necromancy," "The worst of the counterculture," "just like Cream, but worse!" But Black Sabbath stood its ground and fought its corner, climbing to number eight on the UK charts and number 23 on the USA's Billboard 200. A no-name band from no-name England with a transatlantic hit LP. The first of a string of classic albums fired out at gatling-gun speed. An ambush no one saw coming. Not even Black Sabbath. Their debut album was recorded in two days, with one day reserved for mixing. With but a single day to record their opening punch, only the raw energy of Black Sabbath reveals the rapid-fire recording pace of the band and producer Rodger Bain. It's a testament to the four members' musical synergy and power that they managed to record all seven tracks, in one day, live. With only Ozzy separated from the rest of the band in a vocal booth, and not a millisecond to spare, Black Sabbath just turned up, tuned up and let rip. Opening the Pandora's box and unleashing the sludge. Black Sabbath asked the question on everyone's mind with the album's opening line. The main riff of the band's namesake track was a re-imagining of Gustav Holst's "Mars, The Bringer Of War." But where Holst shot for the heavens, Black Sabbath brought the otherworldly crashing to Earth. And the immortal question was posed: "what is this that stands before me?" This was an as-yet undiscovered cryptid. A mammoth, snarling beast captured for the first time on tape. We would come to define it as heavy metal. But in 1970, this nameless behemoth struck fear and awe into all that beheld it. "Black Sabbath" has a tri-tone guitar riff, known in the past as "the Devil's interval," and was regarded as satanic and evil. Much as Black Sabbath would come to be regarded as the same. And it was this opening track that would lay the bedrock foundation for those accusations. Iommi's riff roars through the rain and tolling bell that producer Rodger Bain decided - in a stroke of evil, mood-setting genius - to use as the LP's introduction. Geezer wrote the words, but Ozzy delivered them in a howl to send shivers down banshees' spines. The "big black shape which points at me" is brought vividly to life by the combined efforts of the four band members. As Bill ward would note, a straight backbeat would never have worked in Black Sabbath's malevolent tone. So atmospheric toms were applied liberally behind that riff and Butler's bass-anchorage. Any other hard rock singer of the day - Robert Plant, Ian Gillan, Steve Marriott - could not have made the simplicity of Geezer's image-laden lyrics so frighteningly believable. But what Ozzy Osbourne lacked in vocal prowess, he made up for in individuality and character. Across Black Sabbath, he pulls these monsters, wizards and demons from their hellholes and sets them loose on the world. In 1970, this was unheard and unheard of. The shock of the new is a valuable tool. And Black Sabbath were a refreshing blast of black and white horror after the kaleidoscopic hippies of the 1960s. More than any other song on Black Sabbath, the title track proved to be the predecessor of what was to become heavy metal. It started with that tri-tone riff, played at by turns punishing and ominous volume. It's that simplest of ostinati that makes Black Sabbath the template and benchmark for all its decades of ancestors. As their albums progressed, Black Sabbath would move further and further away from their blues-rock origins. Their debut's second track, "The Wizard," combines a riff groovy in its blues origins with a two-chord verse section heavy enough to drag planets out of orbit with its own gravitational pull. At the same time, Marc Bolan was singing of wizards in his pre-glam outfit Tyrannosaurus Rex. But these Tolkien-esque fairytale odes have little in common with Black Sabbath's menacing epics. Sabbath's was a magic of the blackest sort. It was curses and cauldrons and voodoo. No fantasy this. But nightmares of vile sludge. "N.I.B." proves their sixties origins to be fact. With a riff heavily indebted to Black Sabbath idols Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love," but lyrics of Satan's love for a mortal woman, it captures the transition from merely hard to shit-tonne heavy as it played out. It's poetry in motion. Motioning from the old iambic pentameter ballads to the modern experiments in music and words. It was a new generation of rock fans, and they were hungry. There's nothing funny about peace and love and understanding, the dream remains the dream to this day. But too much of anything will make you sick. And by 1970, it was high time that the dark side of our human condition got to speak for itself. Black Sabbath ripped the silencer from the rifle. By opening that hornet's nest, they let a fresh wave of disaffected kids know that to be angry, afraid and alienated was perfectly acceptable. Aside from little-known acts like The Velvet Underground and The Stooges, there had been little to no darkness on the airwaves. And certainly none on the charts. Alice Cooper's success was a year away. In 1970, Black Sabbath were the gateway to the nether realms. A swirling vortex to our "none-more-black" emotions. Besides telling us it was OK to be young and estranged, they proved that it was vital. For when emotion gets bottled up, havoc breaks loose. The aggression of Black Sabbath's music frightened the authorities of the 1970s - parental, educational, governmental or otherwise. Filled them with the fear of the unknown and revealed their stigma of "good" and "bad" emotions to be operating under false identities. "Good" was a pseudonym for "acceptable." And "bad" was "unacceptable." On Black Sabbath, Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward ventured into that unknown to bring us the message. That all emotions are acceptable. Maybe not pleasant, but perfectly right. And that to stigmatise emotions is to surrender to a life of slavery. We are not slaves. Emotions are. They did this with a handful of some of the finest rock songs ever written. The unsung tracks of Black Sabbath hold up as magnificent in their own rights. Behind The Wall Of Sleep takes its inspiration from a HP Lovecraft - the cult weird fiction writer whose work has influenced all manifestations of creativity. Its tale of obsession with a young bass-playing maiden for whom "If she asked me to I'd murder, I would gladly lose my soul," is an inversion of the love story rarely spotted in the wild. Where its shuffle-beat intro would be rendered warm and fuzz-toned in the hands of Eric Clapton and Cream, Sabbath moulded the track like sheet metal workers. The end result is what Iggy Pop described his music with The Stooges as: "the mega-clang." Black Sabbath's sound was heavy as opposed to extreme, the direction metal music would take under the Motorhead influence. It may seem like a minute distinction, but it was one lost on many of heavy metal's followers who crossed the two over so they became almost indistinguishable. Sleeping Village combines that weight synonymous with Black Sabbath, but also hints at their progressive leanings that they would explore four albums down the line on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. With its austere acoustic guitar intro and dramatic shifts between major-key classic rock and cold-blooded sludge, "Sleeping Village" is an under-cited cornerstone of Black Sabbath. With just four lines of lyrics, it morphs into a showcase for the virtuosic talents of the musicians. Iommi's double-tracked guitar solo gives it a psychedelic edge, a postcard from the unknown to remind us of where Sabbath dared to venture. In their singing of the unknown, of homo sapient's darkness, they brought the abyss up to the light of the surface, making it no longer a thing to fear. Fear is the great crippler, it wields a crowbar and has no qualms about taking it to your kneecaps. But Black Sabbath looked fear in the eye - either knowingly or unknowingly - and cast it down from its position of power. And fear of the unknown's iron-grip on humanity was lessened somewhat. Blessing future generations with enough room to manoeuvre in their fight against dogma and conformism. Sabbath were more than ready to take that leap of faith, to face down the world with their own material. But the record company insisted on including a previously recorded cover version of "Evil Woman" by American band Crow. And that track along with their cover of "Warning," originally by Aynsley Dunbar, are the two low points on Black Sabbath. They're far from the dismal lows of their final two albums with Ozzy, Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! But sit "Evil Woman" next to preceding song "N.I.B." and album closer Warning next to the opening title track, and it's clear that Black Sabbath's own material was far stronger than the competition's, even at this early stage. "Evil Woman" was a US top 20 hit for Crow the previous year. And it speaks volumes that Sabbath's version is superior to Crow's original which reeks of over-production with its crisp horn section and busier bassline. While "Warning" simply suffers from an extreme case of over-lengthening. It descends into a six minute jam session almost pallid in its ramshackle-ness. Mistakes like this would sadly play a big part in Sabbath's legacy: where their devout musical followers would include lengthy, pointless instrumental passages in their songs, robbing them of some of their initial strength and power. It's the taut, leaner compositions on Black Sabbath that pack the punch. That opening question remains just half answered. It's been called heavy metal. But there is an extra dimension to the question that requires a four-dimensional answer."What is this that stands before me?" It's creativity, sweet joyous creativity, taken down a road no one had ever thought to take it down before. People have since taken sideways off the main thoroughfare, but this was the dusty highway that spawned those offshoots. It's this highway that would lead to Black Sabbath's triumphs and tortures. It was the future. And not even an oracle with balls of clearest crystal would have seen it coming. See Part II of our Black Sabbath article Also see our article on Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi \|MAIN PAGE\|\|ARTICLES\|\|STAFF/FAVORITE MUSIC\|\|LINKS\|
If camera traps don't prove existence of Bigfoot or Yeti nothing will Let me state for the record that I am skeptical of the existence of Bigfoot or the Yeti, however I do have a fascination for following the latest news on the seemingly never-ending search for these hidden hominids. This week a Yeti conference in Russia announced 'indisputable proof' of the legendary hairy ape in the wilds of Southern Siberia. What did this proof consist of? Not DNA, photographs, video, or the Yeti itself (dead or alive) as one would expect from the word 'indisputable', but a few alleged Yeti hairs, an alleged bed, and alleged footprints. Cryptozoologists, those who are fascinated by hidden species such as the proposed Yeti and Bigfoot, don't serve their cause by stating the reality of a species without the evidence long-deemed necessary by scientific community to prove it—either a body or DNA samples combined with clear photographic evidence—instead they make themselves easy targets of scorn and ridicule. It's true Sasquatch-believers have sometimes been deemed crackpots and crazies, but there are many well-respected researchers and naturalists who accept the possibility of Bigfoot, Yeti, or some as-yet-unnamed large primate, inhabiting the wilds of the world. Even such heavyweights as Jane Goodall and David Attenborough have said it's certainly possible, and that evidence is 'convincing' if not yet 'indisputable'. So, the question really becomes how long such a big terrestrial mammals really avoid the notice of science? Over the last century the global population has more than tripled, forests have been felled like never before, and even the most remote places have had scientists poking about. Today tourists have relatively easy access to parts of the Amazon and the central Asian forests, not to mention the forests of North America, so how could such a large animal avoid discovery? Cryptozoologists have a common response: they argue that these hominids are incredibly elusive and shy, which is why they have so long avoided detection. The primates are masters at avoiding humans, say believers. If we give cryptozoologists the benefit of the doubt on this, we have a new ubiquitous tool—the camera trap—that can provide verifiable proof of a species without a human ever having to get close to it: one way or another this will be key to ending the Yeti-Sasquatch-debate. For further information: http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1013-hance_cameratrap-cryptid.html
V.25 No.6 \| 02/11/2016 Aliens Made Me Write This Saturday, Feb 20: Richard Smith at the NM UFO and Paranormal Forum By Megan Reneau [ Thu Feb 18 2016 10:30 AM ] A local author will be discussing his newest book. V.24 No.28 \| 7/9/2015 The Daily Word: The Science of Ghosts By Robert Maestas [ Wed Aug 5 2015 12:42 PM ] Holy Post-Its, Batman! A new Solar System. Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Science of Ghosts. V.22 No.16 \| 4/18/2013 Paranormal Freakout: I saw a ghost. By Nick Brown [ Fri Apr 12 2013 12:13 PM ] This morning I saw a ghost floating up in the neighbor’s back yard. When I looked again, it was really just a painter climbing a ladder. With the face of a human skull! V.21 No.50 \| 12/13/2012 The Daily Word in pacemaker cells, lunar crashes, paranormal sightings By E.J. Maliskas [ Mon Dec 17 2012 10:34 AM ] Lobos beat up the Aggies to move their record to 11-0. New lab study shows results for a gene inserted into ordinary heart cells transforming them into " pacemaker" cells that regulate cardiac rhythm. Baby girl Brinna Milligan delivered by her father on the side of I-25 yesterday morning. Police say a man stabbed his neighbor because the victim’s niece was playing and being too loud. Everybody loves a good crash, NASA included. The organization is ending the missions of two spacecraft by smacking them into a lunar mountain at almost 4,000 mph. The best paranormal sightings of 2012. The best satellite images of 2012. What does Middle Earth look like from space? Save the raptors! Don’t you just hate it when someone steals your driveway? Rock Hill Herald apologizes for displaying a large ad for guns next to their story about the Sandy Hook shooting. Tiny, yippy dogs can now protect homes too. Jedi is the seventh-most popular religion in Great Britain. V.19 No.43 \| The Daily Word 10.28.10: Volcano, Charlie Chaplin, Keith Richards, By Marisa Demarco [ Thu Oct 28 2010 10:37 AM ] Dems hope they can win this thing if enough voters go to the polls. Carve a pornkin. NSFW. Woman spotted talking on a cell phone in a 1928 Charlie Chaplin film. Anti-abortion group campaigns for candidates outside churches. You know who pushed SB 1070? The prison industry in Arizona. More immigrants in custody means more money. Secretary of State's Office causing trouble for poll workers today. Shouldn't affect voters. Sisters are good for you. When the Lobos suck, they lose big money in ticket sales. How the hell is Keith Richards alive? Things may be turning around for the unemployed. Gas station robbers in Santa Fe make away with smokes and pocket change. "I had no idea what I was signing," says Bank of America employee. Heroin shortage in Dublin creates a new kind of drug-dealer. He spoke to the volcano until it killed him. V.19 No.35 \| 9/2/2010 The Radford Files Seeking the Puerto Rican Chupacabra By Benjamin Radford The chupacabra hasn’t reared its ugly head in Albuquerque lately. In fact, it’s been almost exactly three years since the last local sighting on the Westside. But many believe the creatures are out there, sucking the blood from goats (chupacabra means “goatsucker” in Spanish) and other livestock. Descriptions of the chupacabra vary widely, but the typical version is a creature 4 to 5 feet tall. It has short, powerful legs, long claws, and terrifying black or glowing red eyes. Some claim it has spikes down its back; others report seeing stubby, bat-like wings. V.19 No.22 \| The Daily Word 06.03.10: RGA behind Martinez campaign, Palin blames enviro-jerks; Gulf shrimpers sick By Marisa Demarco [ Thu Jun 3 2010 9:36 AM ] Did a UFO land in Angel Fire? Someone stole a 10,000-pound gas well servicing rig in Farmington, N.M. There will not be a separate Westside school district, says state's secretary of education. Look at how much money the guv candidates are going to spend on this election. Washington Post reports that the national Republican Governors Association was behind Susana Martinez' Palin endorsement and hundreds of thousands in contributions. Obama extends benefits for partners of gay federal workers. Shrimpers in the Gulf are getting sick, and some say it's because of the disaster cleanup. Sarah Palin blames environmentalists for the Gulf geyser. U.S. says it warned Israel to use restraint when dealing with the flotilla. (Israel commandos killed nine activists trying to bring tons of aid to Gaza.) Do drone attacks work? People generally get happier as they age, says study, and no one is sure why. But grumpiness is good for you, says other study. Guy unsuccessfully tries to magic away the police. World's ugliest dog dies. V.19 No.18 \| 5/6/2010 Cryptid Alert: Giant Owls and The Albuquerque/Rio Rancho UFO and Paranormal Forum May Meeting By Nick Brown [ Wed May 19 2010 4:49 PM ] The New Mexico branch of the League of Western Fortean Intermediatists (hereinafter LOWFI) will be meeting this Saturday, May 22, at Manzano Mesa room four, from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Then they’re going to Applebee’s. V.18 No.51 \| 12/17/2009 Jesus and Mary Appear in Frost; Radford Appears on the History Channel By Marisa Demarco [ Fri Dec 11 2009 2:24 PM ] Alibi columnist Ben Radford will be on “MysteryQuest” looking for ghosts in haunted parts of Los Angeles. Tune in to the History Channel on Sunday at 9 p.m. for an episode called “Return of the Amityville Horror.” “Hopefully they didn’t edit out my skepticism!” Radford writes. Speaking of skeptics, here’s an interesting news release I was e-mailed this morning: JESUS AND MARY REVEALED TO AN ATHEIST! CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! What do you think? Is this guy an idiot and that’s the work of the Big Guy? Or is this guy an idiot and that’s just some frost? V.18 No.45 \| 11/5/2009 Radford to Disprove Existence of Larry Barker By Marisa Demarco [ Thu Oct 29 2009 2:58 PM ] The Alibi’s resident paranormal investigator Ben Radford will be on KRQE News 13 tonight showing Larry Barker around some hauntings. He’ll be talking about the KiMo ghost and the ghost in the Old Cuchillo Bar and Store in southern New Mexico. The segment will air tonight at 10:30 p.m., will repeat during tomorrow morning’s broadcast and should pop up again tomorrow night on FOX. Next up, disproving the existence of Radford. 2nd Annual Feline Film Festival at KiMo Theatre Meet adoptable kittens and create playful cat crafts with Albuquerque cat lovers. Paul Oakenfold • trance at The Stage at Santa Ana Star Casino Grand Opening at Casino at the DownsMore Recommended Events ››
Tales of mermaids Workshop explores how an idea becomes a story The old saying goes something like this: rumors stem from a kernel of the truth. Bigfoot, Chupacabra, Mothman and the Loch Ness monster are well-known myths. But where did they originate? Where does the true story begin? Joe Keleher doesn’t find the rumor as interesting as he does the kernel. This author and Cortez resident, is interested in the why. “I believe that something happened (in these stories) whether it involved a particular creature or not, is not as intriguing to me as why this story incurred,” Keleher says. On Friday, Nov. 16, Keleher will be at the Cortez Cultural Center to present a workshop about his novel writing process. He will talk about his travels that led him to discover his recent work of fiction, Beul Nam Beinn, and share the importance of the writing journey and its transitions. His newest book is a genre he deems, “merworld fantasy.” It’s not historical fiction, and it’s not complete fantasy but it does contain both, and the focus is mermaids. A well-known cryptid and character of Irish and Scottish legends, mermaids or merfolk, are a staple in Scottish ballads. In fact, some families of Hebrides and Orkney Islands on Scotland’s west coast, can trace their lineage to unions between human and merfolk. Strange as it may seem, there is always a school of thought that believe whole-heartedly in the existence of these myths, or truths. A Scottish tradition Keleher was introduced to one of the most popular stories of Scottish tradition, by a friend who is a cryptologist, someone who studies hidden or mythical creatures. The story goes like this: Residents of the Scottish island of Benbecula, saw a mermaid playing in their coastal waters. Men tried to capture the sea creature but it resisted. Upon retreating, a young boy struck the creature with a rock, it cried out and swam away. Her body washed ashore a few days later and the people of Benbecula held a burial. The creature was said to have the torso of a woman and a lower half like a fish, but no bigger than a 4-year-old child. “I didn’t believe the story as much as I was inspired by it,” Keleher says. He had helped the same friend research the legendary “monster lizard,” a large fan-collared lizard that stands on its hind legs, that resides in the Four Corners area. Naturally, he was intrigued to do the same with this tale. “I traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, and a few other places. I did research in their historical files and found nothing,” he says. “I also went to Benbecula, where the sighting occurred because I thought researching the people mentioned in the story would lead me to something, but again, I found nothing.” He did, however, find the traditional oration of the tale. The bed and breakfast he stayed at, was owned by a man whose family had been passing down this particular legend since it began in 1830. His mother recited the legend to him, his grandmother to her and so on. But Keleher did not assume defeat. He simply thought up his own tale. Beul Nam Beinn, is his fictional story of a young man who inherits Scottish land from his grandfather. Unbeknownst to him, he comes across a family secret locked away in a sea cave, buried in his great-great-great grandmother’s journals. He encounters the myths and legends surrounding her journals only to happen upon his own self discovery. The book is romantic at moments but is more about the main character’s epiphany. “This book is definitely for adults,” Keleher says. “I tried to write it for young adults but I threw that out and started over. It came together better that way.” Workshop for writers The workshop at the cultural center is intended for writers, or anyone interested in writing, to approach the process with a greater and more in-depth outlook. Keleher feels that writing for today’s society can be challenging. Holding the reader’s attention is sometimes a tough thing to accomplish. “This workshop is primarily meant for people to think about those ideas they’ve had, and how they could turn them into stories,” he said. With a background in anthropology, Keleher’s novels focus on the cultural aspect of geographical areas. Although not all of his fiction is filled with talk of legendary creatures, he does base much of his work on existing historical sites and then he fills those stories with his own historical characters. He has five published books, two of which are online eBook purchases only. A worldwide traveler Keleher has visited Poland, Scotland, Spain, Romania, France and other countries. His traveling has inspired a few of his novels such as, “Grandpa and the Christmas Tree,” “Vlad’s Son” and “Dancing Stones: Cliff Huggins in the American Southwest,” the first in a series. Keleher was born in New York but has lived in Cortez for several years. He moved back to the East Coast for three years. He also lived and taught in Tanzania at the International School of Moshi-Arusha for seven months this year. Recently returning to claim Cortez as his home, Keleher works part-time for Kemper Elementary as an aide and hopes to continue his teaching in the area. Visit with Keleher and learn about his journey while writing Beul Nam Beinn at the Cortez Cultural Center tomorrow evening from 5 to 6 p.m. For more information on Keleher and his novels check out his website at jwkeleher.com.
Man-eating tree can refer to any of various legendary or cryptid carnivorous plants that are large enough to kill and consume a person or other large animal. In actuality, the carnivorous plant with the largest known traps is probably Nepenthes rajah, which produces pitchers up to 38 cm (15 in) tall with a volume of up to 3.5 litres (0.77 imp gal; 0.92 US gal). This species may rarely trap small mammals. Snarebears are large Venus flytraps that, as their name suggests, like to eat bears such as Banjo. They appear in all seasons of Click Clock Wood, growing as time passes, although in winter only their shriveled remains are present. The Chomper can eat Zombies (other than a Gargantuar, Giga-Gargantuar or Dr. Zomboss) in one bite - even Zombonis and the Zombie Bobsled Team. It will spend about 40 seconds chewing its meal, during which time it is vulnerable and cannot eat another zombie. Piranha Plants are large, carnivorous plants encountered throughout the Mario series; Piranha Plants are seemingly based-off Venus Flytraps, eating anything that approaches them. The head of a Piranha Plant is most commonly either red or green with multiple other colors. Audrey II is a plant who, originally was a cute little plant that didn't eat water or plant food, but blood. Seymour brought this plant from a Chinese man, who sold it to him for a long price. The Deathbottle is a plant that will evolve from the Venus Flytrap. It commonly eats Desert hoppers, which it traps by disguising itself as part of the ground & kills with it's poisenous spikes. When it needs to take it's seeds around,it relys on the Bumblebeetle, who get tricked into thinking that they have found an Ocean flish. Devil's Snare is a plant with the magical ability to constrict or strangle anything in its surrounding environment or something that happens to touch it. Struggling or resistance to Devil's Snare will cause the plant to exert a greater force of constriction. The Seemingly Harmless Plant was a gift that Timmy Turner got from the Planet of Seemingly Harmless Plants for Trixie Tang. Unfortunately, it was really an alien monster that had a taste for flesh and it could grow at a fast pace. The Laganaphyllis Simnovorii (commonly known as the Cowplant ) is a bizarre bovine vegetation that is large enough to swallow a Sim whole. The Cowplant is the career reward for the Natural Science career in The Sims 2. The triffid is a tall, mobile, carnivorous, prolific and highly venomous fictional plant species—the titular antagonist in John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids and Simon Clark's 2001 sequel The Night of the Triffids.
Carnivorous Cryptid Plants of the World We live in a world full of plants. Our’s is a green planet, one full of countless species of plant life that thrive in every corner of the world. From the hottest rain forests to deserts, to some of the most inhospitable places on Earth, plants have managed to adapt and take hold. Even in the coldest of Arctic tundra, one can find lichens clinging to the landscape. Indeed, plants are some of the most adaptable forms of life on the planet. Surrounded by so much diverse flora, most of us probably think we have a good idea of what makes a plant a plant. They absorb water and sunlight, they utilize photosynthesis, they seed, pollinate and grow. They certainly don’t move or attack things. Yet, some forms of plant life defy expectations. These are the plants that feed on other animals, ingesting meat just as an animal would. Many people have heard of the Venus flytrap eating flies or the pitcher plant devouring insects or even small animals such as mice, but there have long been stories of mysterious and terrifying plants in the dark corners of the world for which that is not enough. From the far flung, remotest edges of the planet come accounts and stories of plants that feed off of dogs, deer, monkeys, and indeed even human beings. These are the plants that haunt the forests of the Earth and our nightmares as well, the ones no one wants in their backyard. Let us take a tour of these carnivorous enigmas of nature that inhabit the dim forests and jungles of the world. The Man Eating Trees of Madagascar Madagascar is purportedly home to at least two distinct types of mysterious carnivorous flora. Perhaps the most well known comes from an old account brought back from the deepest jungles by the German explorer Carl Liche in 1878. The account describes in horrific detail the sacrifice of a village woman of the Mkodo tribe to a giant flesh eating tree. In a letter published in The South Australian Register in 1881, Liche described the unsettling scene that unfolded before him and his cohort, a man only known as Hendrick. Liche writes: The slender delicate palpi, with the fury of starved serpents, quivered a moment over her head, then as if instinct with demoniac intelligence fastened upon her in sudden coils round and round her neck and arms; then while her awful screams and yet more awful laughter rose wildly to be instantly strangled down again into a gurgling moan, the tendrils one after another, like great green serpents, with brutal energy and infernal rapidity, rose, retracted themselves, and wrapped her about in fold after fold, ever tightening with cruel swiftness and savage tenacity of anacondas fastening upon their prey. The tree itself was described as being around 8 feet in height, and having an appearance reminiscent of a pineapple, with eight long, pointed leaves that hung down from its top to the ground. The trunk of the tree was topped with a sort of receptacle that contained a thick liquid said to have soporific qualities that drugged potential prey and was believed to be highly addictive. Surrounding this receptacle were long, hairy tendrils with six white palpi resembling tentacles. The tree possessed white, transparent leaves that reminded Liche of the quivering mouthparts of an insect. This graphic account has inspired several expeditions to Madagascar in search of the tree. One such expedition was undertaken by Chase Salmon Osborne, the governor of Michigan from 1911 to 1913, who went to the jungles of Madagascar to search for the man-eating tree. Although he was unsuccessful in his efforts to locate it, he did find both natives and Western missionaries that claimed to have seen it and that it did in fact exist. Another expedition was launched in 1998, this time by Czech explorer Ivan Mackerle. This expedition could not locate the elusive tree either, but during his travels Mackerle learned of yet another carnivorous tree on the island referred to as the Kumanga Killer Tree. Natives claimed that this particular tree was found on only one part of the island and was said to have flowers that exuded an extremely poisonous gas. The natives claimed to know where such a tree was and guided Mackerle to its location. During the trek, the expedition members were so concerned about the poisonous nature of the plant that they actually wore gas masks. When they arrived at the alleged Kumanga Killer Tree, they found no gas spewing flowers, but did find several animal skeletons under the tree. The lack of flowers, the natives explained, was due to the tree not being in bloom. Mackerle also uncovered a story of a former British army officer who allegedly took photographs of a tree on the island that had various animal skeletons strewn about its base. Whether this particular tree was either one of the aforementioned carnivorous trees or something new is uncertain. It is also unknown what became of these photographs, or if indeed they ever existed at all. The Nicaraguan Vampire Vine From the swamps of Nicaragua comes the rather bizarre account of the elusive and terrifying vampire vine. The vine is referred to by the natives as “The Devil’s Snare,” and is described as being rather like an octopus in appearance. The plant was described by one naturalist by the name of Mr. Dunstan, who came face to face with its horrifying nature while spending two years studying the plants and animals of the region. In the account, Dunstan claimed to have come across the plant while in a swamp region near Lake Nicaragua. Dunstan, who was collecting plant and insect specimens in the area, suddenly heard his dog let out a high pitched whine of terror, pain, or both. Dunstan allegedly hurried to the source of the cries and found his dog enveloped by a network of rope-like roots and fibers. These fibers were of a dark, nearly black hue, and were covered with a thick gum that seemed to exude from some sort of pores. This gum was reportedly extremely adhesive and had a foul, animal odor. The ensnared dog struggled within this fibrous network and was wailing as if in a great deal of pain. Once the startled Dunstan was able to recover from this gruesome sight, he tried desperately to cut the dog free with his knife, but found the vines to be surprisingly difficult to cut and to his horror found that the plant’s rope-like tendrils actively wrapped and curled themselves around his hands like sinuous fingers. Dunstan was able to extricate the animal only after an enormous amount of effort and he noticed that the grasping vines had left the skin of his hands red and blistered. He also noticed to his amazement that the dog was bloodstained and covered in spots that seemed puckered as if they had been sucked. The dog, though still alive, was extremely disoriented and had difficulty walking. The naturalist told the natives of his encounter and they explained that the vine was well known and feared in the area, warning him to stay well away from it. Undaunted, Dunstan tried to collect more information on the bizarre vine, but found it to be very difficult to approach or handle. However, through his observations he deduced where the plant’s remarkable suction abilities derived from and how it fed. He reported: “The plant’s power of suction is contained within a number of infinitesimal mouths or little suckers, which, ordinarily closed, open for the reception of food. If the substance is animal, the blood is drawn off and the carcass or refuse then dropped. A lump of raw meat being thrown to it, in the short space of five minutes the blood will be thoroughly drunk off and the mass thrown aside. Its voracity is almost beyond belief.” Dunstan also described how the plant was extremely hard to get off once it latched on, and could only be pulled away with a great deal of effort and possibly lost skin. He eventually gave up his studies on the vampire vine and very little else is known about it. Central American Killer Trees Central America is purportedly home to a vicious man-eating tree known as the yate-veo tree. The tree is said to have long spikes which it uses to impale its victims, whereupon it absorbs the victim’s blood. The spikes or spines have dagger-like thorns around their edges and hang down to the ground, where they lay hidden and still until prey comes along. When an unsuspecting victim steps among these barbed shoots, they spring to life and energetically impale them. The victim’s blood is then drunk through the trunk of the tree. Other carnivorous plants have been reported from Mexico. In the Sierra Madre area, a tree was reported that allegedly had branches with a slimy, snake-like appearance. One witness described seeing a bird land on one of the unusual branches and promptly be pulled down into a mass of other such branches. Indeed, the base of the tree was said to be littered with the bones and feathers of other unfortunate birds. When the branches were touched by one witness, they were found to snap down on the hand with enough force to tear skin away. Another account from Mexico was described by the explorer Byron Khun de Prorok in the Chiapas region in southern Mexico. While trekking through the jungle, he came across a giant plant which had impaled a bird upon large thorns covering its leaves. Native guides referred to the plant as the “plante vampire.” Man eating plants of South America The jungles of South America hide several types of mysterious carnivorous plant. From Brazil come accounts of what is called “The Brazilian Devil Tree,” which is reportedly found in the Mato Grosso region. The tree is said to hide its branches in the leaves and undergrowth of the forest floor or sometimes even underground. When a victim passes, the branches reportedly wrap around and slowly constrict the victim to death. Another plant reportedly found in the very same region is known to have sweet tasting berries in order to lure prey, said to consist of mostly birds. When a bird tries to eat the berries, branches snap around the unsuspecting prey and crush it against the trunk to kill it, after which the blood is sucked from the body at the plant’s leisure and the body discarded. Also from Brazil, near the border with Guyana, comes the story of the “Monkey Trap Tree,” which was described by the explorer Mariano da Silva. This plant’s preferred prey was said to be, as the name suggests, monkeys that were attracted by an irresistible scent exuded by the tree. The tree then enveloped the monkey with large leaves and digested the body over a period of several days, after which the bones were dropped to the forest floor. In Argentina and Bolivia, another such plant can be purportedly be found in the Chako forest region. In this case, masses of beautiful flowers are said to hang down from the canopy which exude a powerful sleeping agent. Prey is paralyzed by this poisonous perfume and subsequently drained of blood via suckers contained within the flowers themselves. The plant is said to feed on all manner of large animals, and supposedly even human beings. The Death Dealing Tree of the Phillipines While exploring in the Mindanao region of the Philippines, a planter from Mississippi reportedly came across a 35 foot tall tree with a dark gray color that was 80 to 100 feet in diameter, surrounded by bones and emitted a foul smelling odor like carrion. He noticed a human skull lying beneath the tree, and went to investigate it when his guide suddenly stopped him and pointed at the tree in a panic. That was when the horrified planter realized that the tree was reaching for him. The account appeared titled as “Escaped From the Embrace of the Man-Eating Tree,” in the American Weekly, Jan. 4, 1925 where it was written thus: The whole thing had changed shape and was horribly alive and alert. The dull, heavy leaves had sprung from their compact formation and were coming at him from all directions, advancing on the ends of long vine-like stems which stretched across like the necks of innumerable geese and, now that the old man had stopped his screaming, the air was full of hissing sounds. The leaves did not move straight at their target, but with a graceful, side-to-side sway, like a cobra about to strike. From the far side, the distant leaves were peeping and swaying on their journey around the trunk and even the tree top was bending down to join in the attack. The bending of the trunk was spasmodic and accompanied by sharp cracks. The effect of this advancing and swaying mass of green objects was hypnotic, like the charm movements of a snake. Bryant could not move, though the nearest leaf was within an inch of his face. He could see that it was armed with sharp spines on which a liquid was forming. He saw the heavy leaf curve like a green-mittened hand, and as it brushed his eyebrows in passing he got the smell of it — the same animal smell that hung in the surrounding air. Another instant and the thing would have had his eyes in its sticky, prickly grasp, but either his weakness or the brown man’s strength threw them both on their backs. The charm was broken. They crawled out of the circle of death and lay panting in the grass while the malignant plant, cracking and hissing, yearned and stretched and thrashed to get at them. When reached for comment at the time by naturalist Williard Clute, the author of this peculiar tale insisted that the story was true and that the tree did in fact exist. The Cow Eating Tree of India A bizarre report comes from Padrame, India, where in 2007 a farmer’s cow was reportedly attacked by a carnivorous tree. On 18th October 2007, villager Anand Gowda took his cowherd to graze in the forests near the village, when one of the cows was suddenly grabbed by branches and unbelievably pulled from the ground. When Gowda shouted for help, other villagers allegedly converged on the scene armed with knives and axes and proceeded to hack at the tree until it let go of the cow. Apparently this sort of carnivorous tree is known to locals and is called the pili mara, or “tiger tree.” The Death Flower of the South Pacific Somewhere in the South Pacific lies the forgotten islet of El Banoor, a place said to be home to a man-eating flower known only as “The Death Flower.” The flower’s existence is mostly known of through the 1581 account of the explorer Captain Arkwright, who wrote of it in his journals of his travels. He described the plant as basically a huge, brightly colored flower with very large petals. The flower reportedly could release a soporific, sleep inducing aroma, whereupon the victim would lie down upon one of the petals. Once this happened, the flower would close and digest its sleeping prey alive. It seems like a fascinating account, but since it is only one report and the location of El Banoor is not specifically explained, it seems unlikely we will ever know for sure just how much veracity the account holds. The idea of such carnivorous plants as these is perhaps rightly and understandably met with a great deal of skepticism from the scientific community. These accounts describe some behaviors that no plant should be capable of exhibiting and the reliability of such reports is at times questionable. Yet nevertheless, the idea of aggressive, man-eating plants lying coiled in the dark jungles of the world, ready to ensnare their prey, holds a certain fascination. We already know of carnivorous plants that do exist and although most prey on insects, some of these, such as some of the larger pitcher plants of the genus Nepenthes are on occasion known to ingest prey as large as rats or lizards. Could there be something larger and deadlier out there in the remote areas of the world? Perhaps time will tell. Until then, we can only imagine what this green planet of ours hides within its jungles and forests.