Posts Tagged ‘weird’

Halloween Horrors: Strange Sky Sounds

Monday, October 30th, 2023

All around the world, people hear strange things from the sky. Here’s a roundup of the various “sky trumpets,” booming noises, hums and other things people have no explanation for.

Library Additions: Two Hollow Earth Books

Thursday, July 13th, 2023

Both these books were in the same Heritage lot as the Locke book. I have a small but growing collection of books on Hollow Earth theory and the Shaver Mystery, and these two fit right in.

  • Bernard, Dr. Raymond (pseudonym for Walter Siegmeister). The Hollow Earth. Fieldcrest Publishing, 1964. “New Edition” hardback (I think this amounts to the second printing of the first edition, which was evidently offset, so this might qualify as the first printed edition), a Very Good+ copy in red decorated boards with a few pinhead spots of staining to rear, slight wear at head and heel, slight blunting of points, and slight wear to gold lettering, lacking the dust jacket. Barnard wrote several books promulgating various fringe and pseudoscience beliefs (vegetarianism, parthenogentic reproduction, sexual abstinence, etc.), and this book discusses how UFOs actually come from the hollow earth. He also believed there was a hollow earth opening in Brazil, and tried to start a farming colony somewhere in the general vicinity of the entrance. Kafton-Minkel, Subterranean Worlds, pages 192-216. Standish, Hollow Earth pages 277-278 (“a distillate of virtually every crackpot theory about the hollow earth that had been accumulating for a hundred years or more”). Though this had many later printings, any Fieldcrest printing seems uncommon.

  • Wentworth, Jim. Giants in the Earth: Ray Palmer, Oahspe and the Shaver Mystery. Palmer Publications, 1973. First edition? (no additional printings mentioned) trade paperback original, a Near Fine- copy with one tackhead-sized chip at the end of a crease to top front corner and slight wear at points, otherwise a fairly nice copy. Mishmash of Shaver Mystery, spiritualism, UFOs, Shaver’s “rock books,” and a dozen other fringe ideas, mostly taken from Palmer’s publications. Not in Kafton-Minkel or Standish.

  • Happy Halloween!

    Monday, October 31st, 2022

    Today is Halloween, which means it’s time for the annul Fark scary story thread!

    Here are the links to threads from previous years:

  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2015
  • 2014
  • 2013
  • 2012
  • 2011
  • 2010
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2007
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004
  • While you’re here, feel free to check out some of my other freaky/creepy/scary/silly Halloween posts.

    Halloween Horrors: Mysterious Dark Atlantic Mass Eats a Torpedo

    Wednesday, October 30th, 2019

    Have you ever heard of the cryptid known as the Lusca?

    The Lusca has been described in varying ways. Some cryptozoologists have suggested it is merely a giant octopus that has been misidentified. Many others have described the Lusca as a half-shark, half-octopus hybrid monster.

    It has razor-sharp teeth and multi-suckered tentacles. It sometimes has many of the same characteristics as a colossal octopus, but has also been described at different times as having multiple heads, dragon-like features, or even appearing as a vaguely described evil spirit.

    Some eyewitnesses have described the Lusca as appearing like a squid-eel hybrid, rather than the shark-octopus combination.

    The Lusca is said to be over 75 feet long, possibly growing as large as 200 feet in some cases. It can change colors, much like some smaller species of octopus. Its habitat is rugged underwater terrain, large underwater caves, the edge of the continental, or other areas where large crustaceans are found, as this is assumed to be its food source.

    It’s said to inhabit “blue holes,” deep blue pits in the ocean floor, especially in the Caribbean.

    Which brings us to this story, relayed second-hand by a guest of Joe Rogan’s:

    Back in the ‘90s, this pilot’s job was to fetch BQM aerial target drones and submarine telemetry torpedoes from the ocean. At the time, the pilot was flying a CH-53—“a big, heavy-lifter the Marine Corps uses for certain things,” Fravor told Rogan. “Off the East Coast they do a lot of shooting, at the time it was off Puerto Rico.”

    “The helo drops a swimmer in the water, he hooks the whole thing up and they fly back,” Fravor said. “The first time they were out and they were going to pick up a BQM, he’s sitting in the front—in the CH-53 you can see down by your feet—and as he’s looking down, they’re 50 feet (15 metres) above the water, he sees this kind of dark mass coming up from the depths.”

    As the pilot picked up the BQM, he was apparently at a loss for words. “He’s looking at this thing going, ‘What the hell is that?’ And then it just goes back down underwater. Once they pull the kid and the BQM out of the water, this object descends back into the depths.”

    One dark mass coming up from the depths is weird enough. Two is officially cause for concern. A few months later, the helicopter pilot saw the exact same thing.

    “He’s out picking up a torpedo, they hook the diver up on the winch, and as they’re lowering him down, he sees this big mass. He goes, ‘It’s not a submarine’. He’s seen submarines before. Once you’ve seen a submarine you can’t confuse it with something else. This big object, kind of circular, is coming up from the depths and he starts screaming through the intercom system to tell them to pull the diver up, and the diver’s only a few feet from the water.

    “They reverse the winch and the diver’s thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And all of a sudden he said the torpedo just got sucked down underwater, and the object just descended back down into the depths. They never recovered it.”

    Some people are obviously going to think of UFOs, but I thought of the Lusca…

    Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Peaked at Tony Sarg

    Thursday, November 24th, 2016

    I dislike Macy’s (for numerous reasons I need not detail here) and am bored by parades, but when I came across this image of an early balloon from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I thought it was so cool it must be fake:

    Turns out that not only is it real, but it was among the very first balloons featured in the parade, and was designed by a man named Tony Sarg:

    In 1921, Tony Sarg, a celebrated illustrator and puppeteer, bought a home on Nantucket and eventually opened a toy store in town. From his off-island studios nestled in Times Square, Sarg’s artwork appeared on the covers of magazines, on the pages of children’s books, and eventually in Macy’s department store window displays. Beginning in 1924, Macy’s held an annual Christmas parade to celebrate the holiday shopping season in New York City, and appointed Tony Sarg as its chief designer.

    After three years of the Christmas Parade, in November 1927, the president of Macy’s, Jesse Strauss, announced to America that the parade was going to take it up a notch, way up. The press and the people of New York City swelled with anticipation, all waiting to see what Tony Sarg had in mind. At one o’clock, Thanksgiving Day 1927, Sarg unveiled his lofty creations—first a twenty-one-foot balloon man that peeked into second story windows and then a jaw-dropping sixty-foot-long balloon dragon. The balloons were a huge hit, and have been the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving Day Parade ever since.

    Later he used the same balloon (or a modified version of it) to hoax the media that there was a sea serpent out on Nantucket. What a card.

    Anyway, I don’t think Macy’s has had a balloon in the parade nearly as interesting since.

    Insert your own (SFW) Man from Nantucket limerick below.

    The End of the Llamas With Hats Saga

    Thursday, March 5th, 2015

    I’ve mentioned Llamas with Hats before. While I wasn’t looking, the people at Filmcow went out and completed the saga.

    The verdict? Eh. The combination of humor and disturbing off-screen violence of the first few hit the spot, but they gradually cranked up the disturbing while sidelining the humor.

    Not the choice I would have made.

    Here are all twelve for your viewing pleasure.

    Three is still the funniest.

    Also enjoy these complimentary memes with your flight:

    Llamas1

    Build Your Own Electric God!

    Thursday, October 16th, 2014

    Not many people read Frankenstein and think “Hey, what a swell idea! I should try that!”

    But John Murray Spear was not an ordinary man. Nor did he think so small as to merely attempt to create a living creature with electricity. No, Spear thought much bigger than that.

    He wanted to use electricity to build his own God.

    Spear was a former Unitarian minister who had been driven out of more than one church for his strange ideas (oh those straight-laced Unitarians and their rigid dogmas!) who took a turn toward spiritualism right after the Fox sisters started their toe-tapping shenanigans. In 1853, supposedly following the instructions of a cadre of spirit guides (including Benjamin Franklin) he called the “Electricizers,” Spear and his followers began construction of his his electrical messiah, dubbed “New Motive Power,” on a hilltop in Lynn, Massachusetts.

    “From the center of the table rose two metallic uprights connected at the top by a revolving steel shaft. The shaft supported a transverse steel arm from whose extremities were suspended two large steel spheres enclosing magnets. Beneath the spheres there appeared [..] a very curiously constructed fixture, a sort of oval platform, formed of a peculiar combination of magnets and metals. Directly above this were suspended a number of zinc and copper plates, alternately arranged, and said to correspond with the brain as an electric reservoir. These were supplied with lofty metallic conductors, or attractors, reaching upward to an elevated stratum of atmosphere said to draw power directly from the atmosphere. In combination with these principal parts were adjusted various metallic bars, plates, wires, magnets, insulating substances, peculiar chemical compounds, etc… At certain points around the circumference of these structures, and connected with the center, small steel balls enclosing magnets were suspended. A metallic connection with the earth, both positive and negative, corresponding with the two lower limbs, right and left, of the body, was also provided.

    Once it was given life, New Motive Power was supposed to usher in a new era of heaven on earth.

    After 9 months, they tried to give it life. Let me spoil the suspense for you: Didn’t work, though Spear claimed it did twitch feebly for a few minutes. Later it was supposedly torn apart by a mob of enraged townspeople.

    Spear spent the rest of his life promoting spiritualism, free love, and socialism. (Speaking of gods that failed…)

    I wonder if anyone has written the steampunk horror story where Spear succeeded, only to discover that building an electrical god based on instructions received from spirits turns out to be a really bad idea

    Trailer for Terry Gilliam’s Zero Theorem

    Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

    So the trailer for Terry Gilliam’s forthcoming Zero Theorem is out:

    It’s the science fiction dead end job loser virtual reality physics dating sim you’ve been waiting for!

    Could be epic, or an epic train wreck…

    Guillermo Del Toro Simpsons‘ Couch Gag is Awesome

    Saturday, October 5th, 2013

    This came out two days ago, and already has over 6 million hits, but I still thought Guillermo Del Toro opening couch gag for The Simpsons forthcoming “Treehouse of Horror” episode was too awesome (and too full of SF/F/H references) not to share.

    Hat tip: Hank Wagner’s Facebook feed.

    Halloween Scares: Uninvited Guests

    Friday, October 4th, 2013

    Hey, remember the spider-man of Denver?

    In 2008 in Japan, a man found that a homeless woman had been living in his home for almost a year.

    Given she was Japanese, I assume she was a very polite, quiet creepy visitor living in his home.

    Hey, how much crawlspace do you think there is in your home?

    And now, a completely unrelated image: