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WENDIGO FLESH EATERS OR JUST FOLKLORE?

8/17/2014

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Hi guys, before I get into today's post I would like to give a few updates. My second novel "The Third Gender" is now in the editing phase and should be ready for release in a month or so. My first novel "Wormwood" has held pretty steady and has been on the top 100 best sellers on three different genre lists on Amazon. You can still get it HERE .  I also have a short story that is nearly complete called "The Shadow People." If you are interested in getting updates on my writing and this blog sign up for the mailing list HERE

If you've been following the blog you might remember a post I did about Skin-Walkers. They were based on an Native American legend, but had manifested into sightings of an actual creature. Today I would like to talk about another abomination based on a Native American legend... The Wendigo.  The Wendigo is a half demon, half human entity that feeds on human flesh.  The association with cannibalism is strong and the name Wendigo has been used to describe the more modern medical disorder know as Wendigo Psychosis.  Wendigo Pychosis is used to describe someone with an intense and insatiable craving for human flesh. 

It was believed by the American Indians of the Great Lakes region that someone who was full of greed, gluttony and or someone who had resorted to cannibalism was susceptible of becoming a Wendigo. Here is a description from Basil Johnston an Objibwe teacher:

"The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody [....] Unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption."

The Wendigo myth was used as a deterrent by Shamans and tribal leaders especially in hard times like winter and times of drought and famine. The idea was basically to scare people to walk the straight and narrow (especially when it came to eating family members).  One case of Wendigo Psychosis involved a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta named Swift Runner. Here is the story from Wiki: 

"One of the more famous cases of Wendigo psychosis reported involved a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta, named Swift Runner.[20][21] During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. Twenty-five miles away from emergency food supplies at a Hudson's Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children.[22] Given that he resorted to cannibalism so near to food supplies, and that he killed and consumed the remains of all those present, it was revealed that Swift Runner's was not a case of pure cannibalism as a last resort to avoid starvation, but rather of a man suffering from Wendigo psychosis.[22] He eventually confessed and was executed by authorities at Fort Saskatchewan"


The Wendigo has super-natural implications and is very similar to the Jikininki or "Hungry Ghost" from Japan. Here is the description of the Jikininki again from wiki:

"In Japanese Buddhism, jikininki (Japanese: 食人鬼, "human-eating ghosts"; pronounced shokujinki in modern Japanese) are the spirits of greedy, selfish or impious individuals who are cursed after death to seek out and eat human corpses. They do this at night, scavenging for newly dead bodies and food offerings left for the dead. They sometimes also loot the corpses they eat for valuables, which they use to bribe local officials to leave them in peace. Nevertheless, jikininki lament their condition and hate their repugnant cravings for dead human flesh.

Often, jikininki are said to look like decomposing cadavers, perhaps with a few inhuman features such as sharp claws or glowing eyes. They are a horrifying sight, and any mortal who views one finds himself or herself frozen in fear. However, several stories give them the ability to magically disguise themselves as normal human beings and even to lead normal "lives" by day.
"

Here is some video of alleged Wendigo sightings:


The problem with these videos other then they are all shaky cam images of who knows what, is that I have seen the same videos used as sightings of The Rake and Skinwalkers. So either it's all the same species or there simply isn't a lot of imagination used in these hoaxes. 
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THE FLATWOODS MONSTER: ALIEN, GHOST, CRYPTID OR HOAX?

8/12/2014

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Today's post is about a creature that could be an alien, a cryptid or some kind of paranormal entity. It's called the Flatwoods Monster or the Flatwoods Phantom. It seems that most researchers familiar with this case think that it came from outer space. The name comes from the fact that the monstrosity had been sighted in the town of Flatwoods, West Virginia. 

Here is the description of the first report from wikipedia:  

"At 7:15 PM on September 12, 1952, two brothers, Edward and Fred May, and their friend Tommy Hyer (ages 13, 12, and 10 respectively) witnessed a bright object cross the sky. The object appeared to come to rest on land belonging to local farmer G. Bailey Fisher.Upon witnessing the object, the boys went to the home of the May brothers' mother, Kathleen May, where they reported seeing a UFO crash land in the hills. From there, Mrs. May accompanied by the three boys, local children Neil Nunley (14) and Ronnie Shaver (10), and 17-year-old West Virginia National Guardsman Eugene 'Gene' Lemon, traveled to the Fisher farm in an effort to locate whatever it was that the boys had seen.

Lemon's dog ran ahead out of sight and suddenly began barking, and moments later ran back to the group with its tail between its legs. After traveling about ¼ of a mile (400 m) the group reached the top of a hill, where they reportedly saw a large pulsating "ball of fire" about 50 feet (15 m) to their right. They also detected a pungent mist that made their eyes and noses burn. Lemon then noticed two small lights over to the left of the object, underneath a nearby oak tree and directed his flashlight towards them, revealing the creature, which was reported to have emitted a shrill hissing noise before gliding towards them, changing direction and then heading off towards the red light. At this point the group fled in panic."



When the group returned to their home Mrs. May contacted the local Sheriff and a reporter Mr A. Lee Stewart. Stewart conducted many interviews and examined the woods in the area with Eugene Lemon. The reporter said that "there was a sickening, burnt, metallic odor still prevailing."

Many other people were interviewed after the event and reported similar experiences. The creatures description again from wiki: 

"Various descriptions of the entity exist. Most agree that it was at least 7 feet (2.1 m) tall and that it had a black face which appeared to glow from within, and a black body. Witnesses described the creature's head as elongated, non-human eyes and as either being shaped like a sideways diamond, or as having a large circle shaped cowling behind it. The creature's body was described as being inhumanly-shaped and clad in a dark pleated exoskeleton ; later being 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 ending in long, claw-like fingers, which protruded from the front of its body"


There are many possible explanations for what the witnesses encountered. Most of the experts seem to suggest that a combination of an owl, a meteor and aircraft beacons combined together to form a whole scenario in which a gaggle of witnesses mistook for an alien.

Here's a video from a man who thinks that there was an air war between US jets and UFO's during 1952. While the documentary is sometimes funny (unintentionally), sometimes cheesy and sometimes hard to believe, it does bring together a lot of this info. It also raises some interesting questions.



So what do you guys think this is? Could it be some kind of cryptid? a phantom or fallen angel? an alien encounter? or a hoax?
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POST APOCALYPTIC MOVIES ON NETFLIX

8/4/2014

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So today I had the day off and I decided to have a Post-Apocalyptic Netflix day seeing as I saw that they've recently added a couple of these flicks to their new releases. 

The first movie I watched was "Goodbye World" a movie about a virus that shuts down the power grid. The movie starts off in a very promising way, a man is about to kill himself he sends out a message to every cell phone in the United States that says Goodbye World. Then we start to meet our cast. These are a bunch of college friends sort of like a modern day St. Elmos Fire. They all end up at a Cabin in the California hills that is relatively well set up. The power grid starts to fail and we get a inkling that it was all started by a computer virus. 

This is where the movie starts to loose its potency. They are riding out the apocalypse and they're partying and having the time of their lives. Then things start to get troublesome in paradise, but not because of the ongoing apocalypse. People start falling in love with each others wives/husbands. Others start fighting. It's like a super-dramatic soap opera about these hipsters love lives. One of the women who starts to become an outcast finally says "You all think you're so intelligent, but you're really just weak... and boring." To me that line sums up the whole movie.  One reviewer of my novel commented that it was a "sort of cushy apocalypse." Obviously that reviewer hadn't seen this movie, because it makes the apocalypse look like a bad day at a hippy commune.

The next movie I watched was "The Last Days" a subtitled film from Spain. If you guys have read my stories you know that I like taking themes that have been played out (like zombies and serial killers) and turning them on their heads. I think this movie does that. It really takes a fresh spin on the apocalypse. The film starts out with a guy who hates his job, he works in a typical cubical in a high-rise.  Something slowly starts causing people to have extreme agoraphobia, the mass hysteria spreads and soon everyone has it. Not only are they scared to go outside, but it is so intense that you begin to get seizures and your brain hemorrhages. 

So here's a guy who is seemingly stuck at his job for eternity. They ration food and do what they can to survive. No one can go outside so eventually they tunnel into the subway. Our main character Marc desperately needs to find his love interest and through an unlikely partnership with the company head-hunter they traverse the city through the subway tunnels and sewers using a stolen GPS.

The movie has some great imagery and the acting is pretty solid. I really liked the idea of "What if you could never go outside and were stuck exactly where you are. It had great symbolism. The end of the movie gets a little shaky especially with a silly scene involving a bear, and the end itself is somewhat schmaltzy.  Overall though I highly recommend this fresh take on the end of times.

The last movie I watched was called "After the Dark" I have mixed feelings about this movie. Again this is a different take on the apocalypse. It's and interesting premise, where a Philosophy teacher comes up with a thought experiment that includes apocalyptic scenarios. The students have to decide which classmates get to live in their bunker which is only big enough for half of the class. They are given different skills which would make them valuable or not. The apocalypse is then played out in a CGI'd alternate reality ie. their imaginations. The problem with this is that we as the audience know that nothing life threatening is really happening. It takes a lot of the "skin" and emotional investment out of the conflict. 

I liked some parts of the movie, but other parts were a little silly. The first big twist is really well done, but the others ... not so much. I do however think it's a movie that has the potential to make you think and being targeted to the "Hunger Games" crowd it is much more worthy than most of that genre.  I think it's worth a watch and if you ignore a few minor plot holes and gimmicks you'll probably enjoy it.

So anyway that's my take on the new Post-Apoc movies on Netflix.

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THE KATRINA CANNIBAL: POSSESSION OR OBSESSION 

8/2/2014

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Those of you that have followed this blog know that I have been very prolific often writing five blogs a week or more. Unfortunately I have been so busy that I've had to cut that number drastically. I hope to have more time in the fall and winter and anticipate writing nearly full time then. For the summer I will try to keep posting once or twice per week. If you have a subject that is weird, creepy and or extraordinary please contact me and I will try and cover it. If you would like to post your own scary story, experience or author promo, I would love to have you guest host for a post. If you are interested or simply want to chat use the contact form on this site. Also if you would like to receive updates on this blog and my writing please join the mailing list.


Today I want to talk about an incident that may or may not have a paranormal twist. The incident is the story of Zachary Bowen also known as the Katrina Cannibal. Zachary was a military policeman serving in Iraq and Kosovo. He was highly decorated and earned commendations for his bravery. After his time in the military Zachary moved to New Orleans. During the time when the winds of Hurricane Katrina started pummeling the city he met and fell in love with Addie Hall.  The two hunkered down and sheltered in Zachary's french quarter apartment.  The two became well known locally for refusing to leave the city as the flood waters rose after the storm.


Although the two had a tumultuous relationship often fighting and breaking up, they always seemed to get back together and eventually moved to a second apartment. Here is what happened next - from crime museum.org:

"On the evening of October 16, 2006, Bowen had been out drinking with a friend. He appeared to those who encountered him to be in good spirits and talked about a much needed vacation. His friend even made a comment to him about “being in paradise” the following night. But the night of October 17 turned out to be anything but a trip to paradise for Bowen.

Around 8:30 PM on October 17th, a guest at the Omni Royal Orleans, sitting in an upper level lounge, noticed the body of a man atop the roof of the parking deck. Bowen had jumped to his death from a rooftop terrace with a suicide note tucked into his pocket. His badly mangled body was covered in cigarette burns. Surveillance camera footage shows Bowen walking to the ledge several times before following through with his fateful jump
."


Here is what the first part of Zachary's suicide note said : 

"I didn’t contact any of my family, so that’ll explain the shock. This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took…Every last one of these [aspects] I failed at, hence the 28 cigarette burns, one for each year of my existence."



The most disturbing thing is what the police found in Zachary's apartment. He had spray painted directions on the wall for the police to follow. They followed one particular scrawling to a large pot on the stove. The pot contained Addie Hall's head. In a second pot they found her hands and feet and inside the stove was a basting pan that contained Addie Hall's arms and legs.


The second part of Zachary's suicide note detailed the fact that he repeatedly had sex with Addie's corpse. Reports from eyewitnesses said that Addie's torso was on the kitchen table cooked, but not charred and the legs in the basting pan looked as if they had been picked over and eaten. Official police reports suggest however that the subject of cannibalism was an over-exaggeration made by the salacious press.


Now many people said that Zachary and Addie had been partying in the partially deserted city. It is possible that drugs had a serious impact on Zachary, perhaps he indulged in bath salts? Others believe that the fact that the second apartment was in the "voodoo district" and that evil spirits had possessed Zachary.  Could the spirits or a demon have been so angry that these two lovers were partying while the rest of the city was drowning that they forced a normally mild mannered person to commit this atrocity?


What do you think?
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    Micah Ackerman

    Author of Wormwood, The Third Gender, and Short Stories such as The Man With The White Face


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