Tag: weird

the weird chip

As I type this it’s an ordinary Sunday afternoon. My house is (semi) clean, and while there are the usual creaks and settling (and rampaging of three new cats!) it’s otherwise quiet. Out the window the sun is shining for the first time in days. I can see clear back into the woods behind my house. Tonight I imagine I’ll even be able to see the stars.

What I won’t see are UFOs or strange animals (cats notwithstanding), and I sure  won’t hear or see any ghosts. Nor will I pick up a psychic message, or get any valuable intel on the future.

Sure, I’ve had the odd lucid dream or hypnopompic hallucination but I’ve never mistaken these for anything more than unusual-but-not-unheard-of brain misfirings. Even in the most auspicious places and circumstances I’ve not seen or heard a thing.

See, much as I’m interested in unusual experiences, I’ve never had any. And after 45 years I don’t suspect I will. I don’t think my brain has the “weird chip”.

computer chip

Though some argue that I ought to. I’m all on board with the co-creation hypothesis because I think a lot of what makes weird encounters weird is our own brains, but I’m not sure I agree that creative sorts are more prone to extraordinary experiences than others.

Admittedly, vanity and insecurity fuel this hesitation: I’d like to think that with all the writing and costuming that I’m at least a little creative. And yet, nada.

But this might not be a bad thing. In the past I’ve wanted to see something but having talked to a few witnesses of the weird I’m not so sure anymore. Such experiences can turn lives upside down. In addition to dealing with a harsh blow to what they thought they knew of the world, experiencers have to contend both with ridicule and others insisting they know what they really saw or did.

Besides, my interest in all this stuff would make me the least reliable witness ever.

Or, perhaps if these phenomena have minds of their own, I’m just not cool enough to get invited to that party. Which works out–I’m not that cool in this plane so it’s not a surprise if I’m not in others.

But I’m gonna keep looking.

 

biweekly links 5-2-2018

I’ve been on a bit of a Southern history jag since coming back from a trip to my home state of Georgia. Turns out I know very little about where I grew up. Some of my stranger findings:

old fashioned map of the northwest three-fourths of the state of Georgia
Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. (1859). Map of the State of Georgia Retrieved from.

Mary Shotwell Little Vanishes at Lenox Square-Well, We Think!: how had I never heard about this 1965 unsolved disappearance? A woman disappears from the biggest shopping mall in Atlanta. Her car is found with 40 unaccounted for miles on it… but the last sightings of her were six hours away in Charlottesville NC. Was she kidnapped or did she fake her own death–and in either case, why? See (or listen) also here and here.

Disappearance of Dannette and Jeannette Millbrook: I’d not heard of this one and no surprise – back in 1991 the authorities wrote off the Augusta, GA teenagers as runaways on no evidence whatsoever. Though re-opened in 2013 the Millbrook sisters’ case still didn’t get much attention until The Fall Line podcast focused on it for an entire season. A sad, frustrating cold case hopefully soon to come to a resolution.

The Georgia Guidestones: not hours away from my hometown yet I’ve never been (never been to Rock City or Ruby Falls either – yes, I am a slacker). A still anonymous “Small Group of Americans Who Seek The Age Of Reason” commissioned these in 1979 and they’ve inspired speculation and conspiracy theory ever since. Project Archivist covered these in one of their early episodes; their guest Raymond Wiley co-hosted Out There Radio back in 2005 based out of the University of Georgia radio station WUOG (where back in the early 1990s I hosted the dance music show during my student days).

And finally a whole blog of Georgia Mysteries for my future rabbit hole needs.

Dee, Kelley, and the Gulf Breeze Six

Lest you think that soliciting and obeying dubious supernatural advice is a purely pre-Enlightenment thing, I give you the Gulf Breeze Six.

Google Map of Gulf Breeze, on the Florida panhandle near Pensacola. Beautiful beaches but beware springtime jellyfish.

The abbreviated version: in July 1990 six American soldiers working in intelligence in West Germany went AWOL on the orders an entity called “Safire” they contacted through a Ouija board. The authorities apprehended them in Gulf Breeze, Florida, interrupting their attempt to 1) inform the President about aliens, 2) kill the antichrist, and/or 3) await the Rapture (accounts vary). Incredibly they evaded punishment: after three weeks held incommunicado the military discharged them with full honors.

Of course there’s more to it than that–isn’t there always? Government experiments, UFOs, and prophecies all get tossed into the blender of weird. The blog post at the link provides a sober, comprehensive history. Check out the accompanying PDF for contemporary news clippings.

The story caught my eye because the story is so similar that of Dee and Kelley:

  • Both groups sought and followed supernatural advice, even when it put them in conflict with the authorities
  • Neither group were cults as such, being small (six soldiers plus a handful more; Dee, Kelley, and their wives) disorganized, short-lived, and lacking charismatic leaders
  • Despite wild detours from orthodoxy both groups’ beliefs were rooted solidly in Christian theology

What intrigues me most is how many modern beliefs the Gulf Breeze Six must have had to jettison to make their assumptions. Dee and Kelley obeying their “celestial teachers” makes sense in their historic context; in twentieth century America not so much*. The GB6 must have taken some serious intellectual leaps (IMHO) to obey “Safire”‘s instructions to desert.

Letting go of my modern assumptions has been one of the hardest parts of getting into my characters’ heads. Characters may question Kelley’s intentions or sanity but it wouldn’t occur to them to question the existence of supernatural entities.

Mind, I’m a hard-headed, secular-soaked atheistic sort. Believer’s mileage may vary.

What’s your take?

*I’m well aware that belief in God/gods, angels, demons, etc. persists but those beliefs compete with modern scientific method in a way they didn’t in the sixteenth century. Turns out some of the GB6 were fundamentalist Christians. Which raises the question: how did they come to play with a Ouija board? I thought those were a big no-no in those circles.

how to talk about weird things (really, HOW?)

Despite my lifelong interest in the strange and unusual it took me a relatively long time to realize just how strange that is to (some) other people.

Growing up in a family where such inquiry was commonplace and getting the requisite pat on the head for my childhood faked Bigfoot plaster casts etc. it wasn’t until college that I started getting blank silence, laughter, even hostility. So I learned to shut up if I didn’t want to get into long-winded explanations of why I wasn’t a conspiracy theorist, UFO cultist, or what have you.

Alternative religion historian Mitch Horowitz’s discusses the hazards of discussing the occult in the media and many apply to discussing in company as well: the unknown is acceptable as long as you’re flip about it but any hint of serious interest gets conflated with blind belief, and hence, ridicule. This scares off intelligent inquirers and the truly off-the-wall rush in with their pet theories, perpetuating the association with crackpots.

Angry alien says to fellow aliens:
The acceptable face of  the weird. Don’t get me wrong, I find stuff like this funny too. Via.

Which is a damn shame because underneath the silliness and hysteria are some genuine questions like what really happened? and why do they keep on happening? and how do experiencers integrate their experiences into their daily lives?

Though I’m in the business of speculating I try to be aware that I am doing just that – speculating. I’m no scientist (or trained in rigorous scientific method) so I can’t make authoritative statements about the objective reality of strange phenomena. Nor can I discount or ridicule other people’s experiences – I don’t walk in their shoes.

But I can say: it’s ok to engage the weird. It can be done without sacrificing critical thought, though it is difficult. Investigate without assumptions and be ready to accept that you don’t know and may never know. Most of all, anyone who insists they’ve got The Answer(TM) doesn’t.

biweekly links 8-24-2016

quality weird

Much as I love me some weird, I’m cautious about what I consume. I seldom have time to read up on the latest historic mysteries and odd sightings, and even less to winnow out the wheat from the chaff.

Internet to the rescue, and I don’t mean leaning on Wikipedia or [insert true believer or paranoid ranter here]:

Do you have anything I should check out? Please share in the comments!

 

 

why I do the weird stuff

No, not that weird stuff!

I mean my biweekly link dumps of witches, occultists, strange/obscure history, and academic papers. Why do I post these (apart from their vague relevance to the work in progress)?

Well, I was a strange child. And I had help.

I grew up on an irregular diet of “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World” and the occasional surprise “In Search Of” when it aired at odd times on TBS. Also one side of my family nurtured an interest in UFOs, ghosts, cryptozoology, and other Forteana/paranormalia: I remember reading my grandmother’s back issues of Fate Magazine from around age 8, and books got passed around through the mail and at holiday get togethers.

I think the cryptozoology thing grew out of the usual childhood fascination with dinosaurs. My interest was intense enough that by elementary school I was making papier-mâché Loch Ness monsters and a faked plaster cast of a Bigfoot footprint for school projects.

I can’t remember my teachers’ reactions.

shelf of books with titles about UFOs, poltergeists, hidden animals, conspiracies
A “shelfie” of my weird collection. The old Fate mags have long since worn out and been thrown away.

Various family members expressed everything from skeptical interest to full on belief – dinner table conversation could go on for hours. As a child I was fairly uncritical about it all; as a teenager I became more skeptical but sought out anything that made my eyebrows jump – conspiracy theories, alien abduction, prank religions – for the sheer WTFery, if nothing else. I can’t remember how many times I checked High Weirdness by Mail out of the library (oh hey, now there’s an online version!).

And yes, in the 1990s I was a dedicated X-Phile. So many of the stories were already familiar, and the writers did a wonderful job with the source material!

As an adult I’m more detached but my interest remains, though I’ve grown so hard-headed it’s difficult to believe in anything I can’t hit with a hammer, so to speak. At the same time I recognize that subjective experience is relevant to the experiencer, objectively provable or not. In the end it’s not about aliens or ghosts or witches, but about people and how they integrate the unexplained into their lives.

Still, my inner curious child still aches to know: what really happened? What did they really see/experience/find? Through writing fiction I can speculate with the luxury of  not having to prove anything, and I have the freedom to make up answers.

I could (maybe I will) do a whole separate post about growing up as a history buff. Suffice it to say I’m not terribly surprised that two lifelong interests collided to have me writing about Elizabethan magicians ~30 years later.

What about you? Do you have any childhood obsessions that still inform your creative pursuits today? Tell me in the comments!