Running On Fumes

Not necessarily the most auspicious start to a week, but hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? Speaking of running ragged, lets talk about the Raggedy Man (or the Tatterdemalion, if you prefer).

The Raggedy Man is the closest thing to a cautionary tale that those in the distant past had about "Stranger Danger". Depicted as living only a hair above the level of a transient, "the Rag and Bone Man" was the colloquialism used to describe a person who collected scrap metal, bone, and fabric to sell back to others: the modern analog could be those homeless who spend their time collecting recyclables to make enough money for food. Now, in and of itself, that doesn't sound too bad. But keeping in mind that he quietly travelled from town to town in search of his wares, and also didn't have a whole lot to lose (and the inherent anonymity of a social outcast), -and- the fact that children went missing all the time, it was easy to see that the majority attracted quite a bit of suspicion. Tie that to stories of certain Rag Men who somehow were consistently able to make lively incomes from the vast quantities of bone they were able to sell, seemingly from out of nowhere...

Thus was born one of the first "door-to-door" serial killer stories. As far as bogeymen went, there was definitely a division between reality and fantasy in that there were many legitimate, trusted Rag-And-Bone Men (and in fact, with the global recession really starting to set in, the profession is making a comeback, believe it or not) to contrast with the dark killers that some were rumored to be. Supernaturally, there wasn't a whole lot going on for them, and physically they tended to be fairly unremarkable excepting that they were usually very gaunt and lithe (from their hard living), had faces that were usually vague and forgettable, and that they were exceedingly hard to kill due to enduring a lifetime of scavenging. Sort of like a skinny Jason Vorhees, if you will. However, while there wasn't anything directly paranormal about them, if there were indeed a few who travelled around murdering those when they thought they could get away with it (and, to be honest, it seems like a perfect profession for at least one or two to have engaged in it), then there remains a distinct possibility that a couple of dark Rag Men may have created many unfortunate situations (i.e., ripe for paranormal residuals) in far-off wild places that are begging for further investigation...maybe it's time to follow the dancing lights after all? :P

 

Poultry Guys

Poltergeists (German for "knocking ghosts") are another class of spirit that seem to be found the world over under a variety of different names, though rather than going into the distinctions between different "types" of poltergeists, I'd like to focus on their shared abilities, as well as one very interesting point about them.

Poltergeists, by their most simplified definition, are entities that have the ability to make noises and move objects around independent of any observable external force. Usually the phenomena manifests quite suddenly, with often with no provocation on the part of the inhabitants of the affected dwelling, and tends to last between the space of a few hours to a few years at sporadic intervals of quiet and activity. While the phenomena can be mischevious-seeming at times, as there have been numerous reports of objects being tossed at individuals residing in a house afflicted with poltergeist activity, it is worth noting that for the most part the activity seems "dumb", that is to say there is no rhyme or reason to the actions it takes, and most objects that impact individuals seem to be projected with only enough force to make contact, and not nearly enough to hurt someone. However, this last point has two major caveats: one, that there have been rare cases of violent poltergeists that actively harmed those in their vicinity with forcefully thrown objects, scratches, beatings, etc (however, while this has been reported, it is in the -wildly- vast minority), and two, that most houses with a poltergeist tend to have a "center" of the activity, not necessarily a focal point or target of the phenomena, but someone who seems to always be present when the activity happens. Usually, this happened to be a child in the midst of adolscence, leading many to claim that poltergeists are actually subconscious manifestations of telekinesis by those "centers", their existence usually reasoned as an outlet for their feelings of agression, alientation, and other teenage angsty-wangsty issues.

Now, the big thing worth noting that I had no idea about until recently...supposedly lending support to the psychokinesis theory, a group of paranormal researchers in the 1970s were able to create an "artificial poltergeist" named Philip. See, what they did was make up a name and backstory for a fictional person, and by collectively meditating and visualizing the spirit, were able to supposedly make a table tilt and knocks to be heard in response to questions, with the questions answered as a person with the given backstory would answer them. Even more curious is that the table movement and rapping was supposedly caught on film, and that other parapsychological groups were able to replicate the same effects with different backstories and therefore different "artifical poltergeists". So the story goes that the original group continued to try and meditate with the intent of getting an actual apparition to appear, but upon finding themselves unable to, the project was abandoned.

A couple of questions pop out at me on hearing this. The biggest, though, is while it's an interesting story, why was the work discontinued? It may be that seeing an apparition would have been much more convincing an effect that just hearing knocks, and maybe I'm just being naive, but if I could reliably cause knocks to sound in response to questions without physical movement on my part, I'd be pretty damn excited with even that. So for me, the whole story should be taken with a Buick-sized grain of salt, but still, an interesting little story all the same...

 

Land of the Lost

 

How goes it, Earthlings? Today we're going to start a two part discussion about a very unusual trend in cryptozoology, that of the living dinosaur.

So what is a "living dinosaur", exactly? Well, at it's simplest, it's the idea that a resident reptile (or species of reptiles) from a bygone age has somehow remained undetected until modern times. A good example of this in practice would be the popular hypothesis that the Loch Ness Monster is supposedly a plesiosaur (or family of them) and survived the mass extinction event because it was able to camp out underwater for long enough. Any creature that could prove the idea in and of itself would basically be considered one of the Holy Grails of cryptozoology, as the discovery of the possibility of a dinosaur surviving through to modern times would basically open up the creature catalog of the entire fossil record to possible discovery. Think kind of like the Ark of the Covenant, minus this.

Anyways, where did this idea even come from and get started? Good question. Actually, the idea itself started getting circulated quite early, as the identification and reconstruction of dinosaurs started all sorts of imaginations as to the similarities between them and the hitherto firmly-in-the-camp-of-the-mythical dragons of legend. Once that germ of an idea began to spread, combined with the occasional "living fossil" finds such as the coelacanth and our reconstructed records of forgotten fauna expanded, it became easier and easier to justify the inclusion of "dinosaurs" as a viable hypothesis to explain sightings of unusual or mysterious creatures. Bigfoot, Champ, Ron Paul...all became possible examples of something unexpectedly surviving until modern times.

So, if the theory is so widespread, why don't we have any examples of it actually occurring? Well, nature, mostly. You see, the theory in and of itself is kind of a reach, even for cryptozoologists. See, if we look through the fossil record, you can damn well find almost anything that you can imagine, so one can always use it as an alternative hypothesis. Also, the likelihood of even a small herd of dinosaurs surviving undetected while still being able to have enough food to continue to flourish in incredibly small, even in the (few) areas that have little to no human habitation/traffic. Lastly, even if one of these wonder-herds did exist, nobody seems to take into account the fact that these things would have had thousands of years to evolve into completely new creatures. But still, the idea is an attractive one at least at the romantic level, so it persists to this day.

Aaaand that's it for today. Friday I'll go into specific famous and not-so famous examples of supposedly still-living dinosaurs. Take it easy!

 

Distant Hope

 So I was thinking today could be more of a history lesson than a paranormal essay, even though it has some tangential importance to paranormal investigations, it has even more influence on the very course of history and the exploration of the globe. Of course, I speak of Prester John.

Prester John was a legendary figure that was claimed to have kingdom first located in the Middle East, then the Orient, then back to India, then finally somewhere in Africa. As the tale goes, John was a descendant of one of the three Magi (Wise Men) who attended the baby Jesus' birth. Being rich in both resources and spirit, his realm was purported to be a place where the incredible was the norm, and his subjects lived in happiness and contentment. More intriguing than all of that, however, was one simple fact that had explorers trying to seek him out for over 500 years: he and the entirety of his kingdom were devout Christians.

While it seems a minor detail here, to understand the extraordinary impact that had you have to put yourself in the shoes of a European explorer between 1100 and 1800: you're considering going out for a jaunt that may or may not end with your death. At the very least, it will probably take the majority of your lifetime to get somewhere new, and even upon getting there, there is a very good chance that you will -not- be coming back with more wealth than you could possibly dream of. You're thinking of hitting South America because you've heard that El Dorado has awesome 2-for-1 shooters nights mandated for the entire nation and becaus the wings are f-ing bomb, but Spain and Portugal are being complete d-bags about it. But wait...your friend Chad-ington Blake-buryson just told you about this totally legit kingdom somewhere on your side of the Atlantic, and the dude running it is totes chill! The best part is it's like El Dorado, but with all the bro-skis worshipping the same God as you!

I dunno why I lapsed into Frat-Speak, but the point remains, Prester John's kingdom was widely considered a very rich, well-outfitted outpost or resupply area that one could look forwards to, in addition to the said area being a bastion of familiar culture, which was an invaluable bonus to the oft-harried and alienated explorers. One could liken it to an oasis in a desert, except where most oases could only be used for a moment and had to be moved on from, this oasis could be considered a respectable, self-sufficient endpoint if one wanted to. Anyways, Prester John's legend spread throughout Europe, culminating in many ridiculous situations such as the Prester John Letter Hoax, or the fact he was used as an excuse to start the second Crusades, or the fact that when the emperor of Ethiopia made contact with Europe that he was continuously referred to as "Prester John" (so much so that he actually called a couple of people out on it, letting them know that he was never referred to as "Prester John" by his people or anyone else up until that meeting, for that matter), but as an abstraction, a place that was always quested towards but never reached, it served as a well-believed carrot-on-a-stick for generation upon generation of explorers, and helped shape the world as we know it in incredibly sweeping ways.