Dogs of war: the Hound of Mons

J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment

Ah, World War I: an especially large-scale example of humanity getting itself into way deeper water than it was prepared for. 18-year-olds marched bravely with bayonets, just as their fathers and father’s fathers had done before them, to face enemies with mustard gas and machine guns. Add to that a dash of corpse-clogged trenches, a pinch of aggressive rats, and a heavy dose of feet-rotting mud, and you start to run out of adjectives that would adequately describe the experience. When I think of that war and what it did to people psychologically, I think of this photo:

Shell Shock 1916
A Canadian Soldier in 1916 who is pretty damn far from okay.

So that’s pretty much the baseline for this post. When your world is that inside out, what sort of supernatural monster could keep you up at night?

Let’s situate ourselves in the Belgian city of Mons. Mons was the place where the British entered the war, and the place where its last shot was fired. The official Battle of Mons is nigh legendary, where a group of British soldiers defied the odds and held off a large number of Germans for two weeks before being forced back. During that battle, men reported visions of angelic archers coming to the Allies’ aid. But we’re not here to talk about inspiring things. We’re here for what happened after.

According to Canadian Captain F.J. Newhouse, on November 14, 1914, a man named Captain Yeskes took four men out to patrol no man’s land. They never came back. This in itself was not unusual–”no man’s land” was not so named for its hospitality. But when another team went to recover their corpses, they found them not riddled with bullets as expected, but punctured with teeth marks, throats torn out.

Corpse in Trench
I think this post has the best ambience images yet. (Courtesy of Anders on Flickr)

That was bad enough. Then, a few nights later, as the Allies shivered in the mud of the trenches, an animal howl ripped through the camp. The link between the sound and the bodies was easy to make. They gave a simple name to this new, unknown terror: the Hound of Mons.

Over the next two years, many more soldiers would be found ripped apart among the blackened tree stumps and strings of barbed wire. Cries of pain and that long, terrible howl would echo through dark, either uncomfortably close or at a distance, near the trenches of the Germans. Some reported a grey shadow flitting through no man’s land, fast and low to the ground. It seemed that something had come up from hell itself to frighten the men to death.

And then, without warning, it all stopped. The beast was never seen again.

Civilians looked down on these stories as hysteric fantasy–British propaganda–but Newhouse claimed there was proof that the creature that been real. Secret papers had been recovered from the residence of the late German doctor Hochmuller–notes from an experiment as terrible than the war itself.

According to the papers, Dr. Hochmuller had hunted down and then cut the brain out of a man driven insane by his hatred of the Allies. Hochmuller transferred said brain to the body of a giant siberian wolfhound, abandoning the man to die.  After a few months of training, he let the wolfhound loose on the battlefront. Sure, there might have been some friendly casualties, but by and large, this experiment had been a success. The hound had been the ultimate German weapon.

Now, many have noted that there are issues with Newhouse’s story–his dates don’t line up with historical events, for one. There is no record of Hochmuller ever existing, and Yeskes almost certainly didn’t. Even with today’s scientific advances, a transplant of that caliber is not possible. Yet I don’t doubt that the terror in the trenches was real.

World War I was the first time dogs were used in a large scale, organized manner; one website postulates that the Hound of Mons might be an exaggerated, politicized account of the breeding of the German Shepherd.  It could be that soldiers saw stray dogs eating the corpses of their friends, and lost it.

Even if it wasn’t dogs, the hound could have been a desperate effort to rationalize what was happening with the rats. That is where my money would be. There are accounts of rats as big as cats, fat with human flesh; rats gnawing through up people’s eyes before they burrowed into their corpses; rats attacking and eating injured men who couldn’t defend themselves. Seeing something like that could easily leave a soldier spinning tales about hell hounds as a method of comfort.

In the end, demons might have been preferable to reality.

What’s your favorite type of puppy? Any adorable Youtube recommendations? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

 

WANT MORE HORRIFIC WWI PHOTOS? Check out Anders on Flickr here.

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And you’re not going to reach my telephone: Satoru-Kun

J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment

If you know anything about millennial stereotypes, you know we hate talking on the phone. Nothing spikes anxiety like the implication of someone’s choice to call rather than text. Fortunately, internet spawn Satoru-Kun has saved my generation face: thanks to him, breaking out into a cold sweat when your phone starts to buzz may no longer be an overreaction.

Satoru-Kun is one of those CreepyPasta-esque urban legends whose origin is unclear. Sources put his “birth” sometime around 2011. Supposedly he’s Japanese, though a Google search reveals that most of the content about him is in English, Spanish, or Portuguese, so do with that what you will. He’s not Slenderman-famous, but he’s well known enough to have a piece of fan art or two, as well as to be featured by a few blogs and several Youtubers–my primary source material for this post.

Youtube for Saturo-Kun
Thank you kindly for the perfect image for this post, Maurits Knook of Flickr.

In brief, Satoru (whose name means “to know” or “understand) is a ghost and/or demon who looks like a 8-year-old boy but houses such a repository of knowledge that he can answer any question about the past, present, or future. Ostensibly that’s why people risk calling him: to get the answer to a burning question. But because Satoru-kun is a creature of the internet, let’s be real: people are calling him for with the hope that his arrival will get them views or likes.

Most content about Satoru borrows from these instructions, which detail how to summon him. The ceremony seems relatively simple, and requires only a cell phone (if you’re smart, you’ll make it a burner), a payphone, and any necessary change to operate it. But if Youtube has taught me anything, it’s that simple in theory does not mean simple in practice.

Payphone for Saturo-Kun
On second thought, you might want to include a fourth requirement: hand sanitizer. (Photo courtesy of By Paul Sableman over at Wikimedia Commons.)

First, you approach the payphone. This task alone baffled several Youtubers, especially American Youtubers. (To quote one that provides a lengthy explanation of what a payphone is and why they have passed out of favor: “Like, finding a pay phone is nearly impossible, guys.”) It does not matter what time you approach said payphone, but if you are a Youtuber asking viewers to “smash the like button,” it might serve you to do it at night for the best effect.

Next, insert the requisite coins into the payphone. (This, too, proved difficult for for a couple intrepid Youtubers, but I digress.) Tradition says it should be 10 yen, but depending on what country you’re in, yen may not get the result you’re looking for. It should be coins, though, and not a calling card.

Now, dial the number of the cell phone you have reserved for this task. Once you have answered your own call, speak into the echoing abyss:

“Satoru-kun, Satoru-kun, please come here. Satoru, Satoru, please show yourself. Satoru, Satoru, please answer me if you are there.”

Once that is done, you hang up and then turn off your cell phone. For many, this was a more harrowing trial than the prospect of facing a ghost.

Now the fun begins: within 24 hours, if you have done everything correctly, Satoru will call you back, even though your phone is off. He will whisper his whereabouts and hang up. A short while later, he will call you again, only this time he will be closer.

And then again, closer.

The process repeats until he is in your building, then down the hall, and then, at last, right behind you.

Let us be clear: there is no room for tomfoolery here. You do not hesitate, you do not turn around, and by god (do people really have to be told this?), you do not touch him. You ask your question quickly, listen to his answer, and then stay the hell put until you are 150% sure that he is gone. Do that, and you will survive as a wiser person; you can destroy your phone and move on with your life. Fail, and he’ll take you home with him, and by “home” I mean the burning bowels of hell.

Shockingly, Saturo did not show up for any Youtubers I watched.* One (who called using his brand new I-phone…apparently he wasn’t on the up-and-up so far as the “destroy your phone after it is done” part goes) did receive a call while his phone was off. It showed up in his call history as a series of red zeros with a call origin of…wait for it…Canada. There was some excitement over this mystery in the comments, though a few pointed out that red numbers simply mean that you missed a call. I did some Googling and found that a number of people have received calls from 0000000000, and when they’ve picked up have gotten everything from total silence to the Republican National Committee. So not sure if we can call that one a success.

Regardless, the concept of Saturo-Kun is a fun one. The next time I can’t decide what to have for lunch, I might just give him a ring.

 

What sort of mystery caller would get you to pick up the phone? Or is that a line that you would never cross, even when faced with death? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

 

 

 

*One commenter wondered if that might be because they were summoning Saturo in the wrong language. That might be. It might also be because several were aggressively mispronouncing his name.

ENJOYED MAURITS’S FLAMING YOUTUBE IMAGE? FIND MORE HERE.

Whistle while you work: the ghost of Walter Stinson

J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment

I recently read one of the best nonfiction books I’ve come across in years: The Witch of Lime Street, by David Jaher. Jaher relates his slice of history in such a compelling way that instead of just using it as fodder for my fiction (as I’d intended), I wanted to share a piece of it here.

To orient ourselves: we’re going back to the 1920’s, when, after a horrific numbers of deaths from World War I and the Spanish Influenza, the world experienced a surge of interest in contact with the afterlife. With this surge came a number of scammers seeking to make money off of people’s grief, as well as a counter-force of people–scientists, mostly, and stage magicians, who knew too well some of the tricks the scammers pulled–to expose them.

Mina Crandon
Rather creepy photo of Mina Crandon, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Early in the March of 1923, a charming, pretty upper-class Bostonite named Mina Crandon went to her first seance. She did it on a whim, almost as a joke, deciding to go while still out on her customary horse ride with her friend Kitty. Thus Mina found herself in a Spiritualist minister’s study in the middle of the afternoon, still wearing her riding clothes and trying not to laugh.

Then the medium started to speak. He channeled a strapping blonde man Mina was shocked to recognize: her brother Walter Stinson, dead some dozen years. The medium knew things about him that he shouldn’t have. He had a message for her from Walter: far from making fun of clairvoyants, she was about to become one herself, and one of the most powerful of the age.

Mina resisted the idea–she was a ruthlessly clever woman who had never had much of an interest in ghosts before–but in the end, she found herself in the dark of her parlor, holding hands with her friends and channeling a spirit that would earn her international fame: that of her own brother.

Walter was the centerpiece of his sister’s performances. He was the spirit that came most often, and was fiercely protective of his baby sister–or, as he called her, “the kid.” He was every bit as witty as Mina was, but bolder, ruder, and more temperamental. In an age where sham mediums forced their sitters to endure supernatural “miracles” in complete darkness, Mina (by Walter’s grace) held her seances in the light of a red lamp. Apparently, she and her brother had nothing to hide.

mina_crandon_ectoplasm_face
Mina Crandon emitting ectoplasm during a seance, also courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

A typical seance went like this: the sitters would sit in a circle in the Crandon’s parlor and hold hands (oftentimes, volunteers or later psychic investigators would also hold down Mina’s feet, in an attempt to prevent fraud). Sometimes Mina would go quiet and nod off into a trance; others she would sit still, waiting like the others. Then a hair-raising whistle would cut through the silence, announcing Walter’s arrival. (Mina herself had never been able to whistle.) His voice–husky and very different from Mina’s own–would sound from different parts of the room: over the table, in the corner, next to someone’s ear. He would curse, crack jokes, and sing along to hit tunes that played suddenly on the Victrola in the other room, voice always coming in loud and clear, even when everyone at the table had their mouths full of water, including the medium herself.

But vocal productions were by no means the only way Walter impressed Mina’s guests. Under increasingly rigorous scientific tests (for Mina and Walter were beginning to draw attention), he not only did typical ghost things like rap on walls or levitate the table, but also:

  • Made said table lurch toward people, rear up on its hind legs like a dog, or chase people out the room and into the hallway
  • Stopped clocks, on command, to whatever time the sitters asked for
  • Rang gongs even as investigators held them in their hands
  • Made bells encased in a “fool-proof” plastic case ring on command
  • Pinched and poked people, and removed delicate pins from sitters’ hair
  • Blasted people with cold air in closed rooms
  • Made Mina’s spirit cabinet variously shoot across the room, splinter apart, and explode
mina_crandon_with_harry_houdini
One of said rigorous tests, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Many Spiritualists were convinced that Mina–who now called herself Margery–was not only legitimate, but, as Walter had predicted, one of the most powerful mediums of her age. Some scientists became convinced also, when all their restraints and checks did nothing to hamper her. Mina was nothing but accommodating to these tests–showing them around house, and with mock seriousness explaining how various pieces of her furniture might be used in what her enemies called sham productions. She was funny and pretty and fashionable, and most everyone who met her ended up laughing and having as much fun as she did.

Most everyone, but not all. Mina made friends in high places–Sir Arthur Conan Doyle being a major one–but she also made famous enemies, including the implacable Harry Houdini.

alter_franklin_prince_with_mina_crandon_and_houdini
Mina with Houdini and other investigators.

In the end, things did start to unravel–I would recommend reading Jaher’s book to find out how, because a) I don’t want to steal his thunder too much and b) there is not nearly enough room to cover it here. The more Mina tried to impress people–the more wild the stunts the public demanded–the less real her performances became. But the veracity of Walter’s personality remained.

Toward the end of Mina’s career Walter spoke through another medium–Eileen Garret, an Irish psychic that channelled messages and information. Without knowing who Mina was, Eileen identified her as a powerful medium, and spoke with the voice of a young man who addressed Mina as “kid” and correctly identified the name of their childhood dog. Mina’s heart must have stopped in her throat when she heard his message: “Kid you certainly are an old fraud, but I am in on it.”

Mina’s son–who had the dubious honor of growing up around all of this supernatural hullabaloo–said of his mother that some of it had been real, especially in beginning. The full knowledge of just how much of it was died with Mina herself.

And so far as I know, nobody’s been able to call her up and ask.

 

Have you ever exploded pieces of furniture during a seance? Leave your story in the comments below.

Not what I meant by “the Crocodile Rock”: Cipactli

J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment

Happy new year, everyone! On this, the arbitrary day which the Western world has deemed the day we turn the page, I wanted to bring you a monster appropriate for the occasion: one centered around beginnings, creation, and life, with all its attendant horror.

This post has been brought to you by Aztec mythology.

15th and 16th century Aztecs (also known as the Mexica) had different religious views than what the average American is probably used to. They were polytheistic and carried out a huge number of important, complicated rituals throughout the year. Many of these placed a high value in sacrifice–not just the human sacrifices that they are (in)famous for, but sacrifices in general: self-sacrifice with bloodletting, sacrificing of animals, food, flowers, etc.  Sacrifice and death were bound to life: you could not get one without the other. So it’s not super surprising that in (at least one of) their creation myths, sacrifice plays an essential role.

The story goes like this:

In the beginning, a dual god created itself out of nothing, and then from itself created four sons, each of which claimed a cardinal direction. The gods then went about trying to create the earth, but the task was difficult, and on their first attempt managed only to create a vast, endless ocean and Cipactli, the subject of our tale.

Cipactli was something like a crocodile, if a crocodile were the size of Pangea and had some characteristics that were less crocodilian and more like a fish or a toad. Cipactli was extra special in that they (I’m using a general pronoun because Cipactli had, at least according to Wikipedia, “indefinite gender”) had a mouth on every single joint of their body.

Cipactli
An image of Cipactli, our hero (?). I am wondering if we can assume that all the red spots are blood. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

If we want to stop to do some math here: (insanely large carnivorous monster) + (mouths multi-jointed nightmares) = a hideous number of teeth and an insatiable hunger for blood. A regular crocodile is, frankly, bad enough, but this Cipactli was something else. The gods discovered the extent of their problem quickly, since whenever they tried to create something else, Cipactli’s mouths would swallow it whole. This made progress difficult, and the gods decided that they needed to kill the monster so that everything could move forward. But when Cipactli had teeth at every angle, how could the gods even hope to make an approach?

Mask of Tezcatlipoca
Mask of Tezcatlipoca, courtesy of Manu on Flickr.

Enter Tezcatlipoca, “the Smoking Mirror,” lord of the night sky, the north, discord, divination, beauty, and sorcery, among other things. He was soon to become one of the gods the Aztec people feared and revered the most. They would call him by many names: “Enemy of Both Sides,” “Lord of the Near and Nigh,” “He By Whom We Live,” and, most tellingly, “We Are His Slaves.” He was often depicted with a black and yellow stripe across his face, an obsidian mirror on his chest, and another mirror, bone or a snake taking place of his right foot. But his foot was not always missing.

Here, at the dawn of time, Tezcatlipoca approached Cipactli first, sacrificing himself so that the other gods could make their move. One of Cipactli’s mouths snapped shut around Tezcatlipoca’s foot, and as the blood spurted, the gods all grabbed the monster and tore them apart. Cipactli’s body became mountains, valleys, forests, and plains, all floating in the primordial soup of the sea. Thus the gods were able to begin their attempts at creating life–though they would go through four cycles of birth and violent destruction before arriving at the world we know today.

Cipactli_RV
A drawing by Giggette over at Wikimedia Commons of what appears to be the Cipactli battle scene, judging by how pissed everyone looks.

But the story doesn’t end there. Cipactli may have been defeated, but their hunger never stopped. Still the hills and ravines and all the odd corners of the earth are covered with mouths that crave the blood and hearts of men. And still humanity has not–perhaps cannot–repay its blood debt to Tezcatlipoca for the sacrifice of his foot.

But by Jove, the Aztecs tried.

Obviously we do not understand Aztec culture the same way they did–Spanish conquistador accounts were biased (to put it mildly), and have colored our view of things unfairly. What might seem horrific to us might have been moving or even beautiful to them. Our own culture is not without its appreciation for sacrifice–take Jesus, for example–but nowadays, we tend to shy away when things get visceral.

But it is a comforting thing, to trust that life and beauty grow out of death, even at its most frightening.

So here’s to the New Year, which, like every year, will doubtless bring us a little bit of both. May you and yours be kept safe and happy, far away from the teeth between the hills.

New year, new you! What fresh new look will you adopt to help stave off the existential dread? Share your style in the comments below.

 

 

For more of Manu’s awesome stuff on Flickr, go here!

Not horsing around: the Nuckelavee

J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment

It’s interesting to see how similar monsters crop up again and again across different cultures. Everyone seems to have their version of a bigfoot, of a loch ness monster, of a boogeyman, etc.  It’s touching that we all have so much to share. This month’s monster has a familiar function, but overachieves in appearance and personality and pretty much everything else.

Orkney Islands
One of the islands, courtesy of Colin Park at Wikimedia Commons.

Remember my post on the Finfolk a year and a half ago? If you’ll recall, they hailed from the Orkney Islands, an archipelago situated up in the Northern Isles of Scotland. The islands have few trees, powerful winds, and a lot of prehistoric monuments. They are far enough north to experience those near-endless summer days and crushingly long, dark winter nights. The climate is temperate, the land fertile, and occasionally you can see the Aurora Borealis. It’s the type of place where some truly magical monsters can be born. Such were the Finfolk. And such is the Nuckelavee.

At first blush, the Nuckelavee looks like a just another demi-god scapegoat for bad weather or ill fortune. He was a evil, hate-filled fairy from the Atlantic that would breathe pestilence into crops and epidemics into livestock. Also familiar is his seasonality: the Nuckelavee terrorized humans primarily during winter, when the only entity that could control him–the powerful Mither o’ the Sea–tired from her long summer of keeping things in check. In short, he was the type of thing that folklorists like Walter Traill Dennison (19th century) might have appreciated, but not been terribly surprised by. But the more Dennison dug, the more he realized that there was something more to the story.

Few dared mention the Nuckelavee by name. When they did, no one wanted to talk about it in detail. Dennison got bits and pieces of description–the Nuckelavee had a protruding mouth like a pig; it had one red, glowing eye–but could not pull together the full picture. He needed a first-hand encounter. What he found was Tammas.

Tammas was considered foolhardy, but was not so foolhardy as go blabbing about his experience willy nilly. It took much “higgling and persuasion” to get him to tell his story, but when he did, the Nuckelavee solidified in the nightmares of generations to come. Tammas described his experience thus:

 

***

Night beach
A little mood-setting image that sort of directly contradicts the first line of description of the story but that’s okay–AMBIANCE.

One moonless, starry night, Tammas was walking home along the beach when a hulking figure came out of the darkness ahead. Frightened but determined, Tammas said a prayer and vowed that he would not show the figure his back.

As the they drew closer to one another, it became harder and harder to stick to that vow. At first Tammas thought the figure might be a rider on a horse, but it very soon became apparent that the horse and rider were fused together in one terrible, fleshy mass. It was a giant thing, entirely skinless, with red glistening muscles and veins that shuddered with black blood. Its mouth was mad and wide, its single eye glowing red. The “rider”’s arms were long enough to drag almost down to the ground, and his enormous, bulging head lolled heavily backwards as his horse parts trotted forward.

Tammas knew immediately that it was the Nuckelavee, and that he would probably not make it back alive. But, foolhardy as he was, he kept walking forward, hoping perhaps the thing wouldn’t notice him. He kept on the left side of the road, close to the fresh water of an adjacent loch. He knew the Nuckelavee hated fresh water. One step closer, and then another, and then the Nuckelavee noticed him.

The Nuckelavee roared with hate. Tammas shrieked and splashed into the water of the loch –afraid to wade too deep (for fear of yet more monsters), but trying to stay out of the Nuckelavee’s reach. His frantic movements splashed water up on the Nuckelavee’s forelegs. The monster bellowed in pain, and Tammas abandoned his wading and made a run for it.

There was a rivulet of water crossing the road up ahead, where the loch emptied out toward the sea. If Tammas could cross it, he knew he would be safe. But though he ran with every ounce of his strength–lungs raw, muscles screaming, chest about to burst–the Nuckelavee caught up fast. Tammas could feel its breath sear the back of his neck, and then felt its long, unnatural fingers brush the top of his hat. With one last effort, he threw himself across the tiny stream of freshwater, just as the Nuckelavee made its snatch.

Tammas landed roughly on the opposite side, knees giving out beneath him, consciousness not far behind. The Nuckelavee drew up before the water, his hat clutched in its terrible, glistening fingers, and roared as Tammas blacked out.

The Nuckelavee
A lovely illustration of the Nuckelavee, courtesy of contemporary James Torrance at Wikimedia Commons.

***

 

Yes, Dennison found that the Nuckelavee was a special kind of terror, and not only in appearance. It was an unusual creature in that it had no use for humans whatsoever–not as food, not as playthings, not even as macabre decoration. It operated out of pure hatred, and wanted everyone dead. As Dennison wrote: “Nuckelavee was a monster of unmixed malignity, never willingly resting from doing evil to mankind.”

But perhaps the Nuckelavee can’t be blamed for his animosity. Some said his ire stemmed from the 18th and 18th century Orcadian habit of burning seaweed. The resulting kelp could be used for a variety of commercial purposes, but the process stank so bad that some said it drove away even the fish. If that was indeed the Nuckevalee’s complaint, I say: fair enough.  Indeed, once the burning fell out of practice in the early 1900’s, Nuckelavee visits subsided.

Nowadays, people aren’t afraid to speak his name like they used to be. Why should we be? With all our modern lights and cellphones and near-ubiquitous wifi connectivity, who needs to be worried about a skinless horse-man hybrid with long arms and longer grudges?

Amirite?

 

Happy holidays to all! Did not do a themed post this year, unless you want me to relate skinless monsters to your skinless holiday turkey breast. Share your thoughts on parallels between the Nuckelavee and this festive time of year in the comments below.

I do believe in monsters; I do!: “Night-mares” and SUNDS

J. M. Plumbley2 Comments

I love sleep. I love learning about sleep cycles, the sleeping habits of famous artists, my own bedtimes, and, of course, dreams. My obsession has leaked out a little in this blog: last year we talked a little about the Shadow People, dark figures who show up in people’s bedrooms (among other places) when they’re not quite asleep, yet not quite awake. This year we took on the Popobawa, a Zanzibarian incubus that was real enough to his community that he caused real damage. Really, I figured I probably hold off on the sleep-related terrors for a while. But then I happened upon this article entitled “Can You Really Die in Your Nightmares?”, and…well, this is the result.

First, let’s look closely at the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, sleep paralysis is something that is, arguably, even worse than your worst normal nightmare (“nightmare” meaning frightening dream). The scientific explanation for how sleep paralysis happens goes like this:

  1. There are a number of different sleep cycles we go through each night, from tiny wakening periods to light sleep to deep sleep to REM sleep. In REM—that most famous of sleep cycles–our heartbeat increases, our breathing becomes more shallow, our eyes dart back and forth behind closed lids, and we start to dream.
  2. To avoid us acting our dreams of being chased, stabbing zombies, or doing the polka with Captain Hook, our bodies shut down during REM sleep, essentially putting us in a state of temporary paralysis. As we exit REM, the paralysis releases, and we get up, rub our eyes, and try in vain to recall what in the hell just happened. At least, that’s how it normally goes.
  3. But sometimes things go wrong. The body gets out of sync, and we wake up (or think we’re awake), but the paralysis is still gripping us tight and we can’t move or cry out. Right around then is when we start to see things. Hear things. Feel things.
johann_heinrich_fc3bcssli_-_the_nightmare_-_wga08333
A famous depiction of sleep paralysis/night-mare/terrible time, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Remnants of dreams, surely. That’s what Western science would have us believe. But if those are remnants of dreams, they are scary as f***. Because the thing with sleep paralysis—and the things we see therein—is that it feels very much like we are awake. We perceive our room as it really is, we’re aware that we’re in bed and have just woken up, so it can be very disconcerting to know all this and then realize that there’s something standing your bedroom corner.

I’ve talked before about how I woke up one night to see a tall figure lurch at me from out of my closet—such a vivid experience that I remember it perfectly almost two decades later. But other people with sleep paralysis have had it worse. It’s common to not only see and/or sense a figure, but to have it on top of you, too feel its weight, and have the air crushed out of your chest. All this, and you can’t scream—can’t even move. The experience can last for several minutes, and can be so horrific that language can’t express it.

A lot of my research for this post came from looking through reviews (and reading sections of) a book called Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind Body Connection by Dr. Shelley Adler, director of the Osher Center for Integrated Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. In what I’ve read of her book,* Adler points out that while 25-30% of people will experience an episode of sleep paralysis (what she calls a “night-mare”, hearkening back to the original meaning of the word) sometime in their life, in the U.S. the phenomenon is “simultaneously very common and little known.” This might be because, as she explains, our culture enforces a strict dichotomy between what we consider “real” (“visible, measurable, evidence-based”) and “unreal” (“supernatural, religious, unprovable”). We take that “real” and “unreal” things are non-compatible for granted, but that’s something our culture has created for us—the rest of humanity doesn’t necessarily agree.

Nor should they, according to Adler. It is foolhardy to assume that just because we do not currently have the tools to “prove” that something exists must mean that that something does not exist. Also, things that are “not real” can have very real effects.

Sleep paralysis by Gerard Van Der Leun on Flickr
A more modern depiction of the joys of sleep paralysis, courtesy of Gerard Van Der Leun on Flickr.

Across the U.S. in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, almost 200 people—mostly young, healthy men at an average of 33 years of age—abruptly died in their sleep. Some were said to cry out in the night. Others just went cold. Their spouses and families were stricken; their communities terrified. All of the men were Laotian-Hmong refugees who had recently come to the U.S., but besides that shared little in common. In whispers, they named the phenomenon the Night Terror; people became afraid to go to bed.

The refugees’ families often refused autopsies for religious reasons, but the few that did found no pathological evidence to explain why they died. A few showed slightly enlarged hearts, as if they had just…“shorted out.”

It’s easy to fill in the blanks with your imagination, knowing what we do about how intense little sleep-visitations can be. Adler claims that Laotian beliefs about demons, combined with the stress of being a refugee, might have exacerbated whatever genetic heart problems these men might have had and made their night-mares not just frightening, but deadly. That alone is bananas. But it’s not just Laotians that have died.

Check out this article from the American Journey of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, wherein data collected between 2001 and 2006 in Southern China revealed a whopping 975 cases of SUNDS—Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome, what scientists call this mystery death in your sleep. It, too, explores the idea that SUNDS might be associated with funky stuff going on in REM sleep, and the breathing and heart abnormalities that might result. Funky stuff like things being out of sync. Like what happens in sleep paralysis—Adler’s night-mares.

Genetics, again, could play a part, as could stress, socioeconomic background, and being overworked. But that doesn’t change the fact that these SUNDS victims might have faced down something terrible in the dead of night, and that thing could have been the last thing they saw.

We humans face a lot of stressful, frightening things in ordinary life. Their pedestrian nature can be exactly what makes them so scary. So let me offer you the comfort of this supernatural horror, to help you keep things in perspective: in the end, it may not matter whether that monster in your closet is “real” or a leftover dream. He can still kill you.

fritz_schwimbeck_-_my_dream2c_my_bad_dream-_1915
A nice closing image to leave you with, courtesy of Fritz Schwimbeck at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Have you ever had an unfriendly night time visitor? One time, while camping, I woke up to find a raccoon standing on my sleeping bag. Share your thoughts on that in the comments below.

 

 

 

* Sadly, I haven’t had a chance to read though all of it yet thanks to moving last weekend and an exceptionally heavy workload at my day job. Apologies to Dr. Adler and everyone else.

 

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Part of your world: terror in the depths of Lake Baikal

J. M. PlumbleyLeave a comment

I’ve always loved marine biology. Aquatic creatures and plants are so distinct from what we experience normally that they often border on the fantastic. Deep water life is a special treat: it remains a poorly-known frontier, and so excites wonderful, terrible possibilities. We humans have felt the weight of those possibilities for some time, which is why I think there are so many monster stories that come from the water. This month, let’s visit a few in a Siberia.

olkhon_island_and_lake_baikal
Lake Baikal, courtesy of Wikimedia commons.

To call Lake Baikal a mere “lake” might be doing it a disservice. Formed by the slowly yawning gap between two tectonic plates, it is the largest, deepest, and most ancient freshwater body on Earth. To be specific, Lake Baikal has more water than all of the U.S. Great Lakes combined, and reaches a depth of 1,642 meters (or, for us Americans, a little over a mile). At 25 million years old, it has been around more than 4 times longer than the human race.

That’s not the only way Baikal is impressive. The lake is also considered one of the world’s clearest–one source says that you can see as far into it as 130 feet. Surrounded by Siberian mountains, it is teeming with rich biodiversity: over 80% of the life in and around Baikal is made up of creatures that can be found nowhere else on earth.  In short, the lake is an extraordinary place. It’s no wonder people have attributed magic to it.

Let’s start with the happier stuff. If you take a dip in Baikal’s waters, rumor has it that you’ll live a longer, healthier life–provided you don’t suffer hypothermia (in the winter, the ice can get to be over 6 feet thick). The lake is also associated with a couple of historical celebrities: Genghis Kahn was born on one of its islands, and Jesus himself supposedly once visited, as well. Looking out over the waters, he raised his hand, and proclaimed with satisfaction that “beyond this, there is nothing.” (This was said to account for the problems 19th-century Duaria (the land beyond the lake) had with growing corn.)

Frozen Lake Baikal
A frozen Lake Baikal, © Sergey Pesterev via Wikimedia Commons

Beyond that, Lake Baikal has proved to be a bit of a deathtrap. Earthquakes strike every few years. You can walk over the lake when it freezes, but woe to the man who goes unprepared. In 1920, the retreating White Russian Army attempted the cross, only to find themselves buffeted by freezing winds over the open expanse of ice. Many died of frostbite and hypothermia. Their corpses had to be left behind, frozen to the surface until they sunk with the spring thaw.

Locals living around the lake have reported ghosts boats that appear and disappear without warning, as well as boats (and crew) of their own that disappear. As recently as 2011, 4 experienced men piloting the Yamaha vanished near an area of the lake known as the Devil’s Crater. There, whirlpools are said to suck ships down like toys in a bathtub train. At the bottom of the pools, some whisper, lies Hell.

But out of all the delights that Lake Baikal has to offer, my favorites are the extraterrestrial ones. According to UFO enthusiasts, those deep waters are not going unused.

I’m not well-versed in UFO lore, and so was surprised to learn that it’s common to see crafts around–or in–bodies of water (though “in” would make them Unidentified Submerged or Unidentified Underwater Objects). Lake Baikal is no exception: not only mysterious in its own right, it is one of the biggest UFO hotspots in Russia. The surrounding villages have witnessed hovering lights in various colors and formations, as well as silent discs that have floated low in the sky for so long people threw rocks at them from sheer boredom.

On more than one occasion, these UFOs have dove into the lake to escape human pursuit. For a long time, Baikal was too deep and dangerous for anyone to go after them, or indeed to explore very deep under the surface at all. Thanks to modern technology, that is no longer the not the case.

Underwater cave with diver
Some say that the many tight, poorly explored caves under Lake Baikal might be a good extraterrestrial hiding place.

The first reported underwater anomaly came in 1977. A pair of scientists took a submersible some 3900 feet below the surface and turned off their lights to study how far sunlight could penetrate. After a few seconds of darkness, they were blinded by two spotlights shining at them above and at their side. Before the men could figure out where they had come from, the lights went out, leaving them alone in the dark once more.

The second incident happened in 1982, this time with military divers using Lake Baikal as a training ground. In the middle of their drill, a few strange underwater vehicles zipped past them, going much faster than anything the Soviet navy was capable of at the time. The ships were gone long before the soldiers could follow.

Then there was the third–and probably most famous–incident. Just a few days after seeing the strange vehicles, the same navy divers swam right into a group of 3 other, unexpected divers. These were almost 10 feet tall, decked out in silver suits and helmets, but with no other signs of scuba gear.

The men were ordered to capture the swimmers (referred to by the commander as Ihtiander, a shark-boy from modern Russian mythology) . The soldiers tried, but the silver suits evaded them. Each human found himself blasted to the surface of the late, riddled with decompression sickness. 4 of them managed to get in a decompression chamber in time to save themselves. The other 3 died shortly thereafter.

All this came out a few years ago, when (allegedly) military documents describing the event were declassified. The Russian government, of course, claims that nothing of the sort ever happened.

Lake Baikal circles in ice
One of the circles in question. Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons and the ISS Crew Earth Observations Experiment

Regardless, interest in the lake and its possible extraterrestrial inhabits persists. In 2009, strange circles in Lake Baikal’s ice led to arguments over what might have created them: global warming or underwater spacecrafts. There’s a lot of stuff to explore, and a lot of people passionate about it. Ex-navy officer and UFO researcher Vladimir Azhazha says it best:

“I think about underwater bases and say: Why not? Nothing should be discarded, skepticism is the easiest way: believe nothing, do nothing. People rarely visit great depths. So it’s very important to analyze what they encountered there.”

 

What horrors have you found at the bottom of the pool? Share your story in the comments below.