- PARANORMAL PERVERTS DEPARTMENT -

The Lover’s Lane Phenomenon: Vortexes for Forteana?
By Micah Hanks

From Australia to England, and throughout virtually all parts of the United States, there are secretive, secluded pull-offs in rural areas that are referred to popularly as “lover’s lanes.” The term itself hardly needs explanation–young couples go to these sorts of locations when clandestine “alone time” wouldn’t present itself otherwise. But perhaps there is one angle to this mystery that is deserving of deeper prodding, and in order to understand the mystery fully, it may require us to go a little further beyond “first base,” if you’ll pardon the pun.

Indeed, by examining reports of strange phenomenon throughout the decades, it becomes apparent that a number of famous reports with strange beings, hideous monsters, and weird alien creeps have transpired while young couples sought their sensual refuges at lover’s lanes. But exactly what is it about these areas that attracts such phenomenon? Are Fortean oddities drawn there for reasons similar to that of the young couples they end up terrorizing, or is there something more to all this?

The most obvious explanation, if we are to first look at the mystery on the simplistic basis that these creatures are a) monsters or other strange beings, and that they b) are physical in the same sense as you and I, would suggest that creeps of this sort are drawn to such locations because of their seclusion. This provides an easy way to lure or capture a young couple like little sardines in a massive tin-can (hence why we may hear so many reports of hairy monsters emerging from the brush and pounding on the hood of cars in such circumstances).

This is precisely what occurred during the summer of 1969 in the vicinity of Lake Worth, Texas, where reports of a large creature, variously described as a large white ape or something manlike that resembled a “goat with scales” terrorized residents. Some reports claimed that up to forty witnesses at a time had seen the beast, with stories claiming encounters with young couples parked around Lake Worth attracting the attention of local press. In fact, the Fort Worth Star Telegram even featured one front page story that read, “Fishy Man-Goat Terrifies Couples Parked at Lake Worth.” Indeed, the earliest report of the beast involved its sudden appearance by the parked vehicle of Mr. and Mrs. John Reichart, who claimed that on the evening of July 10, 1969 the beast leaped onto the hood of their car at around midnight. Others who were present with the couple joined them when they subsequently visited the police station to file their report later that evening. This story bears some similarity to the earliest credible report of the Mothman creature of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, during which five witnesses, Roger and Linda Scarberry, Steve and Mary Mallette, and Lonnie Button, the Mallette’s cousin, reported a similar encounter while traveling together at night near the infamous abandoned TNT factory in the area.

If we were to consider the possibility that some of these incidents might be hoaxes, again the lover’s lane parallel seems to crop up. Arguably, young couples would make good targets for eager friends who, knowing the likely appearances of their compatriots at such locations, might seek to make them the object of a practical joke. But even removing the friendly aspect from the equation, it has long been supposed that urban legends such as “The Hook,” which also transpires famously at a lover’s lane, might stem from real stories of crazies and perverts sneaking around parked cars at night, hoping to catch naughty glimpses of young lovers in the act.

Taking this a bit further still into the realm of psychokinetic phenomenon, there could be even more to this strange mystery. Popular reports of so-called “SLIder phenomenon” (this denotes street light interference, for which the acronym “SLI” is used) detail how individuals who are in a particularly distressed or otherwise “heightened” states of awareness sometimes claim to be able to “knock out” streetlights in urban areas by merely walking beneath them (I’ve even experienced this myself a number of times, and for an excellent primer on the subject, see Hilary Evans’ book SLIders: The Enigma of Streetlight Interference). Interestingly, Evans notes at least a few instances in his book where individuals in aroused or amorous states experienced the phenomenon (one gent described having visited his girlfriend on a number of occasions, and while walking home from her house afterward, would repeatedly affect streetlights he walked under). Could the similar state of mind present among couples at lover’s lanes create a strange sort of “vortex” for Forteana, much the same way that Evans suggests may be occurring with SLI? Even British occultist Aleister Crowley considered human sexuality–and more importantly, couples engaging in the act–as a powerful impetus for opening rents in space-time, allowing discourse with denizens of other dimensions.

In fact, an entire volume based solely on the study of how human sexuality comes into play with regard to various supernatural phenomenon could be produced as a result of such meanderings of the mind, though it would be slightly beyond the scope of this article. However, I must leave you on a rather interesting, and slightly personal note with regard to the bizarre consistency of Forteana and general weirdness being associated with “Lover’s Lanes.” While composing this article, I took a moment to chat with my girlfriend about the subject (granted, she isn’t one who follows the unexplained quite to the degree I would). When I mentioned some of the odd occurrences that have transpired at lover’s lanes over the years, my girlfriend suddenly asked if any of these reports had occurred somewhere in the state of New York, since apparently she had known a woman in her sixties a few years ago who shared a remarkably similar story with her. Back during her teenage years, the gal in question had apparently lived in New York, and while visiting a popular lover’s lane in her area, she said she and her friends had been astonished to see a group of what she could only describe as “aliens” appear nearby! The witness had given no further details, other than the assurance that she hadn’t consumed any hallucinogens or other illicit substances prior to the strange experience.

It’s a strange notion indeed, but the prevalence among reports simply can’t be denied. Is there something more to the encounters with strange beings a lover’s lanes, or is this merely one more piece to the odd tidbits of folklore that tend to surround such reports of the strange and unusual?

Source: Mysterious Universe
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/04/the-lovers-lane-phenomenon-vortexes-for-forteana/

The mystery surrounding reports of “giant skeletons” has always intrigued and fascinated me. Specifically, how it seemed to be a common occurrence that human-like bone remains, often of giant proportions, were known for popping up everywhere in the mid-to-late 1800s, as featured in reports like these:

* During an 1879 excavation of an Indian mound near Brewersville, Indiana, a nine-foot eight inch skeleton was found buried within.
* Around the same time, George W. Hill, M.D., also unearthed a skeleton said to be “of unusual size” while excavating a mound in Ashland County, Ohio.  
* In 1880, American Antiquarian, volume three, reported that a Doctor Everhart allegedly found another large skeleton “reported to have been of enormous dimensions” in a strange clay coffin along with a sandstone slab marked with unidentified hieroglyphics near Zanesville Ohio.
* In 1881 in Medina County, Ohio, a succession of nine bodies were found below the cellar of a house, buried as though the corpses had been “dumped into a ditch.” Albert Harris, one of the residents, was twenty years old at the time of the grave’s discovery, and removing one of the large skeletons, said that he could literally fit the piece over his entire head and allow it to rest on his shoulders like a large helmet, even while wearing a cap underneath!  

Still, we’ve all heard of how even well known authors of the era, including Mark Twain, contributed to the telling of “whoppers” in their day; that is, many writers who got their feet wet as newspaper writers for dailies would occasionally cook up tall tales when local news just wasn’t doing it (see a great example of this here). Eventually, I decided to try and find out if there might be any reports that could be verified with more certainty, and after some digging around in public domain archives, I found a couple.

In their 1894 report to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, Cyrus Thomas and Thomas Powell of the Bureau of Ethnology wrote of several discoveries where large human skeletal remains were found, the first occurring in Roane County, Tennessee:

“Underneath the layer of shells the earth was very dark and appeared to be mixed with vegetable mold to the depth of 1 foot. At the bottom of this, resting on the original surface of the ground, was a very large skeleton lying horizontally at full length. Although very soft, the bones were sufficiently distinct to allow of careful measurement before attempting to remove them. The length from the base of the skull to the bones of the toes was found to be 7 feet 3 inches. It is probable, therefore, that this individual when living was fully 7½ feet high.”

And yet another instance, this time in presumed Indian burial mounds at Dunlieth, Illinois:

“Near the original surface, 10 or 12 feet from the center, on the lower side, lying at full length on its back, was one of the largest skeletons discovered by the Bureau agents, the length as proved by actual measurement being between 7 and 8 feet. It was clearly traceable, but crumbled to pieces immediately after removal from the hard earth in which it was encased….”

Indeed, it seems that the Smithsonian at one time reported oddities like these which they uncovered, especially during the “giant boom” of the late nineteenth century. Still, I can’t help but ask; if these kinds of discoveries were ever at all commonplace, why aren’t skeletons and other anomalies like this found more frequently in modern times… or are they?

During an email exchange I had last year with my good friend and mentor, Brad Steiger, we began discussing a few similar reports which he had included in his book Worlds Before Our Own, where a few such skeletons were said to exist in private museums. ”After the book was published, I learned of even more and included photos of them in my lectures,” he told me. ”Soon, individuals beseeched me to cease; the private museums were mysteriously suffering unexplained fires.” One is left to ask; what about anomalous relics of this (or any) sort could be so worthy of censorship on such a level?

Further complicating the mystery of missing giant bones is the following excerpt from an article I wrote which included the inquiries of the late zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, best known for his interest in the legends regarding America’s Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowmen alleged to reside in the Himalayas:

“Sometime in the 1960s, Sanderson wrote about an odd letter he received regarding an engineer who, during World War II, had been stationed on the Aleutian island of Shemya. While building an airstrip, the bulldozing of a group of hills in the area led the engineer and his crew to unearth several sedimentary layers of human remains. They noted the extraordinary length of the crania and leg bones at the site, having apparently belonged to people of gigantic proportions. The skulls were said to have measured up to 24 inches from base to crown, far greater than the length of an average human skull. Also of interest was that each was said to have been trepanned, the strange process of drilling or cutting a hole and removing a top center portion of the skull, thought by some ancient cultures to enable a variety of alleged “benefits”, including psychic abilities, etc. Sanderson actively began to search for more proof of this incident, and later was able to contact another member of the unit who also confirmed the bizarre story. By all accounts, the remains were said to have been gathered by the Smithsonian Institution, but no record of where they were taken was ever issued. Sanderson seemed convinced that the institute did indeed retrieve them however, going so far as to ask ‘is it that these people cannot face rewriting all the textbooks?’ “

Do I honestly think that there are MIBs out there spiriting away giant skeletons into an unmarked warehouse someplace? Not at all… but I think it’s safe to suppose (at least for the sake of a good pun) that someone may have a few “skeletons in their closet” that they just aren’t talking about!

Source: The Gralien Report
http://gralienreport.com/conspiracies/giant-bones-a-big-deal-or-merely-tall-tales/

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Stunned schoolkids had to run for cover as WORMS rained down on their football pitch.

PE teacher David Crichton told yesterday of the bizarre shower, which happened as he led a lesson for secondyear boys.

The boys heard a "soft thudding" on the artificial pitch - then looked up to see dozens of worms plummeting from the sky.

David, 26, said he and other teachers at Galashiels Academy were baffled by the incident.

And they later found more worms spread across a school tennis court almost 100 yards from the pitch. He said: "We started hearing this wee thudding noise. There were about 20 worms on the ground.

"Then they just kept coming down. The kids were laughing but some were covering their heads and others were running for cover. They just scattered to get out of the way."

The bizarre occurrence took place at 9.15am on Tuesday.

The teacher scooped up handfuls of the worms that had fallen from the sky as proof they had landed on his class.

He and his colleagues eventually found around 120 worms in total after checking the artificial football pitch and tennis courts.

David added: "Everyone was having a laugh at me about it until they went out and saw for themselves.

"Everyone thought I was mad. They came back in and looked shocked.

"I spoke with the science department here but none of them had any explanation for it. One of them thought maybe it was a freak weather thing.

"But it was such a clear, calm day. And we are quite a bit away from any of the buildings so it's not like anyone could have been throwing them."

Galashiels Academy head Kenny McKay said: "The event does coincide with a significant change in the weather in recent days and so could be the result of an unusual meteorological event.

"None of the students will ever forget the day at school when worms fell out of the sky."

Worms, frogs, fish, and other strange things falling from the sky have been recorded in Europe and America, including one fall of worms in Louisiana in 2007, blamed on freak weather lifting worms and water from a nearby river.  What cannot be easily explained is how a tornado can lift and transport only one species, leaving out material such as mud, weeds and rocks.

Source: Daily Record
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/weird-news/2011/04/02/pe-teacher-and-pupils-left-
gobsmacked-as-it-starts-raining-worms-86908-23032700/