My Psychic Journey: Part Two

So I got through chapter 3 a few days ago.  It’s taken me a while to write anything about it because I had to have time to reread, study, and wrap my head around the whole thing.  The title of chapter 3 is “The Imagination of the Psychic: Patterns of Vibrations”.  It’s taken me a while just to think about the chapter title, what the heck is Dr. Reed talking about.

When you see a psychic detective on TV or something, sometimes the psychic can touch a picture or an object belonging to a missing person, and they claim they are picking up vibrations.  This seems kind of strange to me, don’t vibrations usually produce some sort of sound?  I thought only tangible things could vibrate.  But Edgar Cayce said that thoughts are things, they can vibrate away, and psychics can pick up on those vibrations.  How you they do this?  You may ask.  By the concept of oneness.  Science deals a lot with the small side of things, the atoms, the chemicals, and the chemical reactions.  If you want to look at the world psychically, it’s better to approach things in a macro sort of way, or holistically.  Seeing everything at once, seeing how things connect.  What I gathered from this whole notion is that a psychic needs to see everything at the same time to be useful.  They need not pay attention to little things like molecules bouncing around, but instead, they need to notice that the world is one unit.  Here is where I start to question this whole thing.  Don’t psychics thrive of vague generalities?  Don’t broad statements pertaining to a wide number of people make psychics their fame and money?  I think I’m over analyzing and putting words in Dr. Reed’s mouth again, so I’ll continue.

Creativity and imagination, as stated in the title of this chapter are extremely important in the psychic process.  I know it’s easy to think that if a person is creative, they can easily make up their perception of the world and tailor everything to their own creative specifications.  I might think that way as well.  I believe that I am a very creative person; so if I try my hand at being psychic, won’t my creativity just get in the way?  Dr. Reed has a different opinion on creativity.  He says that it’s the basis for psychic energy.  In the physical world, it usually takes opposing forces working together, or against each other, I guess, to create energy.  The creative mind can do almost the same thing.  Creative people see both sides of things, two sides of a situation, either side of an idea, and so on.  If you think really hard about it, I suppose it makes sense that a creative mind can spark some sort of energy, and I guess the only way that energy is measured is through psychic ability.  Edgar Cayce spoke of the fourth dimension as a realm of ideas.  In this dimension, ideas can become so tangible and real that it is this place that the psychic needs to tune into.  The physical manifestation of ideas is how the psychic picks up on vibration of thought.

Things really started making sense to me when I got to the matter of pattern recognition.  I think it is here that some of this psychic theory started to click.  I’m still not a psychic, but I’m getting to the point of understanding where they are coming from.  According to what I think I read, the best way to start on the road to becoming a psychic, one has to examine their own life first.  This can be done by pattern recognition.  If you look at patterns in your own life, your actions, even your dreams; I think that opens up a new level of awareness.  And if you can see patterns in your own life, I bet you can start picking up on patterns of other people.

There is a whole lot more to this chapter, but I’m not doing a book report.  I’m taking a psychic journey.  The main point I gathered from this chapter is that imagination is not used by a psychic to make false realities, but to see the world as it really is; to imagine the world as a single entity, to see how everything fits together.  Unimaginative people are stuck in their own little world, in their own little lives; they can barely see beyond their own nose.  Imaginative people can reach out to the far corners of the earth; they can see the world for what it is and what it can be.  Also, in order to become a psychic, you have to believe that it’s a possibility.  I guess I need to open my mind even more.

I’m still not a psychic, but I think I’m getting to the point where I am more sensitive toward others around me.

My Psychic Journey: Part One

            As a paranormal researcher, I have to look at all aspects of it with an open mind and a willingness to write about it.  Before I started this blog, I wouldn’t touch certain subjects.  I found them boring or too insane.  I would stick to monsters, UFOs, and ghosts.  I know now that there is much more to learn, so I’m trying new things out.  I picked up this book, Awakening Your Psychic Powers, by Henry Reed, Ph. D.  It’s an Edgar Cayce guide.  Before I got this book, I had no idea who Edgar Cayce was.  From what I’ve learned so far, he was a well-studied and well-documented psychic.  Before I go on, let me explain my feelings toward psychics, prior to reading much of anything about them.  I’ve seen quite a few on TV, on certain ghost shows.  They all seemed like lunatics to me.  Sometimes they would get something right, a profession, a name, the way someone died.  How, though, could it be proved that the information they picked up on wasn’t obtained before filming?  I really never believed the channeling and possession aspects of psychic ability.  It was too far out, and it seemed to reek of mental disorders.  I would never degrade a crazy person, in fact, I’m one myself.  However, when someone has a mental illness is called in to help someone else, disastrous consequences could occur.  The person who thinks they are seeing things is being praised when they should actually be getting professional help.  I know I could open up a whole bunch of discussions here, but I’ll save that for later and move on.  I was occasionally impressed, less by TV psychics, but more by psychics I’ve read about in Hans Holzer and Brad Stieger books.  The séances seemed more interesting, but there was still a question of whether or not some facts were exaggerated or even fabricated.  It’s all that new age stuff that bothers me.  Finding your spirit guide, and stuff like that.  So when I started reading this book, I was pretty skeptical.  And you know what?  I still am.  However, I will see this book to the end and share with you any insights or techniques I’ve picked up along the way. 

            I finished chapter two last night, so I believe I can write at least a little bit of what the book is about.  First of all, the subject of Edgar Cayce.  He seems to be a pretty interesting guy.  He did not complete his formal education, but he seems pretty wise.  He’s worked with thousands of people, he’s healed himself of certain maladies, and he’s helped other people in many ways.  He took his gift and ran with it, claiming that God gave the gift to him.  This is where things get interesting.  This book is pro creationism, and it seems to tell the reader that psychic power doesn’t come from one’s self, but rather a oneness with God.  I realized pretty quickly at this point that there is a difference between psychics and TV psychics.  The book does not specifically state this, but I’m smart enough to figure some things out for myself.  The psychics on ghost shows are mediums.  They are the ones that speak to the dead and let the dead speak through them.  A basic psychic, as defined in this book, is someone with an ability to reach into the minds of people and not necessarily read their thoughts, but discover where their pain lies, mentally and physically.  With that major distinction out of the way, I finally know what I am researching in this book, and I am more open to what it is saying.

            The first two chapters don’t give me any real techniques on how to miraculously become a psychic.  Yet it does raise some interesting points.  It brings up some concerns that people may have before delving into a psychic kind of life.  Is reading people’s thoughts morally acceptable?  What if I hear things I don’t want to hear?  Will I be able to control this ability once I have it?  These are very good questions, but I’m not going to pay much attention to them, because I am starting at such a basic level that I don’t think my abilities could ever get that fine tuned.  But if they do, I’ll definitely discuss how to control such an ability.  So for a beginner like me, the book focuses on the fact that the concept of oneness with the world and God is pretty important on the path to becoming a psychic.  The concept that we are all living on this planet and therefore we should all be attuned to each other and live and breathe as one is pretty difficult for me to comprehend.  There are a lot of people I don’t like and can’t even imagine even having a little love for.  Love and compassion are very important because to be a psychic, you must love the world and love what’s in the world.  I’m so not there yet.  An exercise that Dr. Reed mentioned is to meditate and imagine yourself without a head and to experience the world that way.  I kind of like my head and brain, so it’s hard to imagine parting with them.  But now that I think about it, I believe Dr. Reed means that you should imagine removing yourself from judgmental ideas, influenced opinions, and willful thought.  Without a head, you might experience the world the way it truly is and feel things without preconceived notions.  Next, Dr. Reed has you imagine that the world is your head.  I think he’s going for the concept of oneness again.  If the world is your head, you can see all of creation and you are part of that creation.  I know, this all sounds like new-age silliness, but it can’t hurt for me to try these exercises out.

            The really interesting thing that Dr. Reed brings up is our dualistic nature.  If we try to focus on a word or an image, our mind will inadvertently wander.  This is where it seems there are two parts to us; the part that is aware and focusing on that word or image, and the back of the brain that wanders, that quietly connects thought to thought.  The second part is where our oneness lies.  It’s deep within us, but I guess it’s our true self, not the façade we put up for everyone else.  That’s who we need to get in touch with to tap into our psychic powers.     

            As I said before, I’ve only just finished the second chapter, so I don’t know much yet.  I really doubt I’ll be able to do this at all, since the logical and self-aware part of my brain is always in overdrive.  I just ask you to stay tuned, and together we can see if I become more enlightened.

There's Something in the Water...ALL the Water

Are you afraid of water?  I’m not really, I can swim and all that fun stuff.  However, there is something strange going on in our lakes and rivers and I think it’s enough to make anyone scared of the water.  Sea farers have reported strange goings on in the oceans since man built his first boat.  It seems like there have always been sightings and tales of sea serpents and other underwater behemoths like the kraken.  Are these really just legends?  If that’s the case, then are all lake and river monsters legends as well?  I’ve always found underwater life to be very interesting and mysterious.  In the ocean, especially; no one really knows what’s going on down there.  We finally know that a rare giant squid lurks in the depths.  They don’t exactly wrap their tentacles around boats and drag them underwater, but they’re still pretty big.  The ocean is too much of an enigma for me to try and conquer today, so I will just stick with lakes and rivers. 

            It is astounding how many lakes and rivers contain their own monster.  I mean, a few strange sightings in one or two lakes is definitely something, but there are tons of these things everywhere!  How can there really be that many monsters hanging out in Earth’s smaller bodies of water?  Is it just a strange optical illusion?  Do lakes and rivers go through some kind of phenomena that makes people think, nay, believe, beyond a reasonable doubt that they’ve seen something strange?  The lakes and rivers where these creatures appear are hardly identical in their conditions.  They are different sizes, temperatures, elevations, and any other differences you can think of that exist among bodies of water.  From a strictly scientific standpoint, it would be hard to deny that people are getting startled, disturbed, and scared in these aquatic environments.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a living, breathing, undiscovered species of animal.  Maybe, sticks, logs, fish, or birds doing strange things are the definite answer.  Maybe it’s underwater geysers.  I know nothing about geysers, especially underwater ones, but I can certainly still have a guess.  Maybe there are underwater geysers springing up everywhere, pushing hot water to the surface of lakes and it all somehow looks like a breaching serpent’s humps, or perhaps a plesiosaurs’ head and neck.  A real scientist or anyone else with any brains is probably going to tell me that my ramblings are complete nonsense and an appearance of that many geysers would probably signify the end of the world, because eventually, the geysers will spew lava and cover the earth with hot, molten rock and kill us all.  Wait a minute, I don’t think a scientist would say that either.  What was I talking about?  Right, lake and river monsters.

            Could it really be true that we lack the capability to explore the depths of a mere lake?  I think we can do it, but a boat, or even a small fleet of boats can’t cover an entire lake at the same time.  It’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Look at the Loch Ness, for example.  I know that poor Nessie has been debunked so many times that he himself doubts his existence; but get this, for every picture proven fake or explainable, a new piece of unexplainable evidence floats in.  Recent expeditions have indicated that there are large entities under the water that can’t be positively identified.  I’m talking really recent expeditions, like in the last year or two.  Some people have received sonar hits that even a trained marine or whatever can’t officially claim to be a stick.  The Loch Ness buzzwords these days are non-submarine vehicles.  Meaning that whatever is being caught out there, seems to be alive.  From seeing Nessie as a tourist on the shore, or as a legitimate scientist with the latest technology, something is being sighted again and again.  Are we all suffering from mass hysteria?  Mass hysteria is a very real thing, but could it last for hundreds of years?  Is the human mind that fragile?

            You’re probably totally sick of hearing about that jerk Nessie.  What makes him so great?  Well, I think you’re right, let’s turn our attention from that spotlight hog Nessie and take a world tour of various bodies of water and we can learn about what people are seeing in less flashy locations.

            The Okanagan Lake is the home to Ogopogo.  This lake is located in British Columbia, Canada.  He’s your basic sea serpent, about 40-50 feet long with many sightings that date back to the 1800s.  It apparently ate some horses in 1860, but the first documented sighting didn’t occur until 1872.  The mass sighting, which seems to be a requirement of many lake monsters, occurred in 1926.  This mass sighting included 30 cars full of people whose reports all described the same thing.  It, of course, has been filmed and photographed, but not very clearly.  Apart from the mundane explanations, cryptozoologists have categorized Ogopogo as a primitive whale called basilosaurus.  Canadians must like pogo as a surname for their monsters because some of their other lake creatures are Manipogo, from Lake Manitoba, Winnipogo, from Lake Winnipegosis, also in Manitoba, and Igopogo in Lake Simcoe in Ontario.  Manipogo has been seen since 1908 and has a very serpent-y look to it.  It also has been theorized to be a primitive whale called the zeuglodon.  Though Manipogo can hardly be set apart from other lake monsters; one thing that makes it interesting is that in 1948, it came out of the water and made a sound that was deemed “dinosaur-like”.  Now, how people know what aquatic dinosaurs sound like is a mystery to me, but, there you go.  Winnipogo is pretty much the same as Manipogo, so I won’t go into detail here.  Igopogo has a dog head, so it really isn’t your regular dinosaur lake monster.  It apparently likes to sun bathe, indicating that it breathes air.  So if you’re in Canada and you want to see a monster, it’s best to do what the Canadians do and go pogo.  We aren’t finished with Canada yet, because some other monsters modeled their name after Nessie, like Cressie and Mussie.  Cressie comes from Crescent Lake and once had a much cooler name, Woodum Haoot, which means pond devil.  It looks like Cressie is a very big eel, it’s gone after some scuba divers and it happily swims around the lake.  Mussie lives in Muskrat Lake, near Ottawa, Canada.  He is thought to be a weird seal or walrus-like creature.  He’s been captured by sonar and all that great stuff, but Lake Muskrat apparently has hallucinogenic qualities.  I don’t know about that, unless a whole lot of seaweed makes people hallucinate, but I guess that’s a discussion for another time.

            Making our way south, we simply must stop at Lake Champlain, a lake nestled between the U.S. and Canada.  I’ve mentioned Champ before, so there’s no need to go into detail about him again.  He just needs to be mentioned for the sake of this article.  Besides Champ, most U.S. lake and river monsters are pretty boring and rarely seen.  Bessie, of Lake Erie, is snake-like and gray.  There’s a $100,000 reward on its head, so that’s pretty neat.  Tahoe Tessie, of, you guessed it, Lake Tahoe is pretty entertaining.  The size range of this thing is 10 feet to 80 feet.  Its coloration is anywhere from jet black to turquoise.  Tessie has been the star of Native tales since the mid 19^th century.  It lives in an underwater tunnel beneath Cave Rock.  There have been sightings by cops, pictures taken, the usual stuff.  There’s really nothing unique about Tessie.  In the U.S. there are reports of giant turtles and salamanders, but nothing terribly exciting.

            In Africa, that’s where the fun starts, because that’s where the dinosaurs live.  Though the names are often hard for us westerners to pronounce, we can all agree that Africa, especially the Congo, is the most likely place for a hiding dinosaur to reside.  Most of these things aren’t exactly lake or river monsters because they are known to tread upon the land.  They are included in this writing, however, because they hang out mostly in the water.  Like the Emela-ntouka, Mokele mbembe, and the Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu.  These are all described as saurpods who swim in the swamps and have an affinity for killing elephants and rhinoceros.  That Congo is a tough and unexplored place, who knows what could be out there.  In the Zambezi River located in Zimbabwe lives the river god Nyaminyami.  It’s dragon-like and snake-like, but this guy is revered as a god!  People have claimed to see it, but there are no official records of the creature.  Its presence can be felt and the BaTonga people of that region know for a fact that it’s there.  Nyaminyami made himself known when in the 1950s, outsiders tried to dam up the river.  The people knew their river god would protect them, he would show the foreigners not to mess with his river.  His vengeance occurred in 1957, the Zambezi River flooded like mad and the dam was destroyed, along with many of the outside workers.  In fact, some of the white worker’s bodies went missing.  The BaTonga elders told the white man that a sacrifice must be made to Nyaminyami in order for the carnage to stop.  A white calf was sacrificed and they floated it down the river.  The next day, the calf was gone, and in its place were the bodies of the missing workers.  The flooding was predicted to never come again for the next 1000 years, but, to everyone’s surprise except the BaTongas, the flooding came again the next year.  Those pesky outsiders finally harnessed the power of the river in 1960.  The BaTonga still wait for Nyaminyami to return and once again be the dominant power of the Zambezi River.

            Although Nessie gets top billing in Scotland, there are a few more monsters lurking in other lakes, that, or Nessie gets around.  In Lake Morar, Morag makes his home.  He’s serpent-like and 20-30 feet long, brown, with a head that’s a foot wide.  Its humps and head have been photographed, but nothing conclusive has ever been found.  A fun one lives in Iceland, the Lagarflóóts Worm located in Lagarflóót Lake is supposed to be 300 feet long.  It’s seen on dry land and in the water.  It should be noted that this particular lake has gas, so, that may be an explanation.  The Swedish Lake Storsjön is the home to Storsjöodjuret, a very old monster, first reported in 1635.  The lake is located near the city Östersund and in 1986 the city created a law that protected Storsjöodjuret and any offspring it may have produced.  The law was revoked in 2005, which leaves us to wonder, what did the monster do to get off the protected list?

            Russia, as cold as it is, still contains a few lake and river monsters.  The Brosno Dragon has been around since the 13^th century in Lake Brosno.  This thing could be anything, from a giant, mutated beaver to a living dinosaur.  This thing has the power to scare armies by eating its soldiers and horses.  In World War II it apparently swallowed an entire German airplane.  Whatever it is, it has a giant mouth.  The Lake Van monster in Lake Van of Turkey didn’t appear on the scene until 1995; but since then there have been over 1000 sightings of a fifteen meter beast with spikes on its back.  Seems pretty intense, but since this monster is so new, it’s very likely a hoax to generate tourist revenue.  There might be as many as 20 monsters dwelling in Heaven Lake in China.  In 1903, 3 people were attacked by an aquatic creature that looked like a buffalo.  This creature was shot, but retreated to the water.  In 1962, two monsters were seen chasing each other in the water.  That sounds pretty cute, actually.  Recently, the monster being spotted has a human-like head, a long neck, and smooth, gray skin, that sounds a lot less cute.  Reporters have seen as many as six Nessie-like monsters swimming around in that lake.

            Finally, in Argentina lives Nahuelito, the monster of Nahuel Huapi Lake.  It’s described as a plesiosaur with a hump and a serpentine body.  It’s been photographed and has received attention from the Buenos Aires Zoo.

            So, as you can see, the waters of Earth are brimming with strange creatures.  None of them have been proven without a doubt to be real.  What’s going on under the water?  Something weird, that’s for sure.

My Paranormal Dream Team

A dream team is an imaginary gathering of the best in a field, placed together in an imaginary setting, because this dream team would normally never be able to be in the same place at the same time.  This is due to some members being dead, mostly.  However, I think my dream team is a possibility.  I’m not looking for specific people, per se, I’m looking for a kind of person.  I want to assemble a paranormal team.  I want to do heavy research and seek out monsters, ghosts, and other paranormal things.  Here is the list of people I am looking for, tell me if you are, or know anybody like this.

            The Old Salt:  Has been around the paranormal block more than a few times.  He has seen things you wouldn’t believe and tells stories that would make the most hardened investigator’s skin crawl.  He doesn’t focus on the technology aspect of paranormal hunting; he doesn’t care much for proof or convincing the world of the truth about the paranormal.  He instead thinks the paranormal is a war on the human soul, and he is there to fight it when and how he can.  He will always be there to remind the team of the seriousness of the paranormal and won’t allow any screwing around on his watch.  He may seem grumpy and crotchety, but he is generally an advocate for good and for humanity.  It probably isn’t necessary to include him in every investigation.

            The Insensitive Sensitive:  There’s no doubt she has some psychic ability.  There’s also no doubt that she is often incorrect when using her psychic ability.  She will be useful in determining whether or not an entity is in the room, but she shouldn’t be depended on to get a correct back-story.  Because she is sensitive, she will be a nice conduit for picking up physical evidence.  She will know where to look and signs to look for during an investigation.  The moment she thinks she’s getting possessed by something, that will probably be a clue for the team to find themselves a new sensitive.  Channeling is different, and is okay in small doses.  A full on possession is proof that the sensitive is an outright liar or can’t control her abilities very well.  As far as monsters and UFOs go, she could end up being useful if she is more than just sensitive and has true psychic ability.  Monsters are often thought to be beings from another dimension and aliens are known to use psychic communication.  The team just has to remember that The Insensitive Sensitive doesn’t hold all the answers, she, like everyone else is there to help find the answers.

            The Newbie:  Is pretty young and has a sense of wonder.  He is new to the paranormal world and has never had his own paranormal experience, though he desperately wants one.  He is willing to work hard to prove himself to the rest of the team.  This includes doing the dirty or unwanted jobs.  He will help go over evidence, crawl through a swampy area, even investigate the gross bathroom.  The Newbie has yet to be jaded by hoaxes and misidentifications.  He will lend a fresh eye to old evidence; and, though he will be wrong most of the time, at least it shows that he has an open mind and is not quick to dismiss everything when he sees it.  He is great to work with because of his eagerness to learn.  He will make many mistakes at first, but he will soon be a valuable asset to the team.

            The Hard-Core Skeptic:  Is a direct contrast to The Newbie.  He doesn’t believe anything, even when he sees or hears it.  He is very curious about the paranormal, but doesn’t believe that any kind of proof exists anywhere.  The only way his mind can be changed is if a ghost or a monster walks right up to him, talks to him, and then poses for some really clear pictures.  He is good to have around because he grounds the team.  He doesn’t let anyone fly off the handle in excitement over tissue-thin evidence.  The Hard-Core Skeptic can sometimes be a pain because he will scoff at the team’s best evidence.  It’s really good to take him on investigations, because some phenomena might knock him down a peg.  He probably wouldn’t do too well going over the evidence later because he will forget he was scared or intrigued during the investigation.  The team may want answers, but The Hard-Core Skeptic will keep the team from finding something that isn’t there.

            The Fact Finder:  Knows everything about every place the team investigates.  She has read more books on these locations than anyone knew ever existed.  She is the tour guide of the team.  She can give you all of the history of a location, paranormal or not.  She helps prepare the team for any upcoming investigations by explaining everything that has ever occurred there.  She will be well versed in factual history, as well as local myths and legends.  She isn’t that essential to the investigation, but she will prove invaluable before and after.  She may even provide logical explanations for events by her knowledge alone.  She’ll be exceedingly helpful in finding paranormal trends from investigation to investigation.

            The Techie:  The name says it all.  This guy loves exploring the paranormal, but loves using technology to do it even more.  He is on the cutting edge of technological knowledge and thinks the team’s entire budget should be spent on new gadgets.  He must be included in every investigation because he is the one that can ensure that all equipment is working properly and will be able to fix anything that malfunctions.  He delights in going over investigation footage and can easily spot the difference between a paranormal anomaly and a technological anomaly.  However, he might be kind of a snob in the fact that the other team members don’t understand the equipment as well as he does.  He also won’t believe in anything paranormal unless it is captured on video or a sound recorder.  A ghost may stare him in the face, but unless he has a camera to prove it to the world, the experience didn’t happen.

            The Pretty Girl:  Very attractive, but very capable.  She is a very good and fearless investigator, but provides a little eye candy for the others.  She has a minor flirtation with The Newbie and it provides the rest of the team something to talk about when they tire of talking about the paranormal.  She is capable of almost any job that the team may need done.  Her looks may even get witnesses to try and better explain themselves.  She’ll prove to be a normal member of the team who happens to be pretty good looking.

            The Dramatist:  Can be either a male or a female.  Just like in most professional settings, there are people so mired in their personal lives that they are hard to work with and are hard to rely on.  The Dramatist is the very essence of this type of person.  Because this is an investigation team and not a formal place to work, The Dramatist’s personality becomes greatly magnified.  They just can’t seem to pull themselves together enough to get real work done.  Their needy, and most likely ugly, significant other is on the top of their list at every moment, so getting them to focus is an uphill battle.  The reason The Dramatist is kept around because they make a perfect scapegoat, and can easily be blamed if anything goes wrong.  They may eventually quit the team on their own accord, but the team should just let The Dramatist be, because it’s funny to watch The Old Salt yell at them on every investigation.

            The Angry Douche:  Some may wonder how this guy ever found himself on a paranormal team.  He is the epitome of a douche bag; his hair, his clothes, his demeanor.  He thinks he is a better paranormal investigator than everyone else, not to mention, he thinks he’s better looking.  He ridicules people that he doesn’t understand; this is why he and The Insensitive Sensitive are always at each others throats.  He is only allowed to remain on the team because he gets pretty good results.  Apparently, ghosts tire of his obnoxious behavior and find ways to reveal themselves, if only to shut him up.  The rest of the team will be very annoyed that he keeps collecting such good evidence, but they will remain quiet, because evidence is evidence no matter how it’s attained.

            The Voice of Reason:  With so many strong and overwhelming personalities on one team, there needs to be a calming factor with neutral tendencies.  This is where The Voice of Reason comes in.  She remains upbeat and positive no matter how upset and frustrate the others get.  She is very curious about the paranormal and has no selfish or hidden agenda.  She is one of the best investigators on the team.  She will be an on-site investigator or will simply go over evidence if she needs to do that.  It is really nice to have someone so even tempered around to take such an outlandish hobby in stride and remain the stable of sanity.

            The Freak Out:  A much more jumpy version of The Insensitive Sensitive.  He is always seeing and hearing something that isn’t really there, and he is definitely not happy about it.  In fact, the paranormal  realm is scary to him, but he is on the team because he is 100% sure it exists.  He is very helpful when he is not in a haunted or monster infested place.  He assists The Techie in setting up equipment and making repairs.  He even does a good job when going over footage later.  It’s safe to say, though, he will be the one to run first when things get dicey.  Maybe he should just be the team’s childcare service, as long as the team members’ houses aren’t haunted.

            The Conspiracy Theorist:  Every team needs someone who thinks the world is out to get them.  If anything, he keeps the team laughing.  He fears The Techie and his abilities.  He will often accuse The Techie of bugging his house and improper surveillance.  The Conspiracy Theorist is the one the team wants to take on UFO hunts.  He’s not afraid to accuse someone of hiding information and he is always sure that the government is behind all the cases the team investigates.  He’s also good for history, but unlike The Fact Finder, his history is full of blme and secrecy.  He’s the one the team wants to have around just in case they receive unwanted attention.  The Conspiracy Theorist is good at staying in the shadows.

            Where do I fit in among this motley crew?  Obviously, I’m the fearless leader.  I may not be as experienced as some of the other people, but I am good at rallying the troops and getting things done.  These people are out there, they just need me to organize them.

What Makes a Man a Man?

            People are pretty complicated things, with their circulatory, digestive, reproductive, and other systems.  Our brains are complicated pieces of work.  Everything about a person, really, is quite extraordinary.  Just look at DNA and genes.  It takes a lot of work and seemingly good fortune to make a person; a regular functioning person.  If it takes that much to make a human being, how could there ever be a human-hybrid?  “A human-hybrid?” you ask.  Yes, that’s what I said.  What happens if, among all that miraculous DNA creation, something else gets mixed in with it all?  Well, then we have human-hybrids.  “Do such things exist?” you may ask.  No, not officially, but people are seeing things that are not quite human and not quite animal; something that shouldn’t exist, but seems to.  Something that comes in many varieties.  What is a human-hybrid?  For the purposes of my writing today, I will say that a human-hybrid is something with human characteristics and the qualities of something else.  I will discuss how this may have happened or how it came about.  Like I’ve said before, the paranormal does not fit into clearly defined parameters, so I doubt I will come to any real conclusions.  However, I do hope that we can come up with something we can dwell upon and perhaps discuss.

            I guess the most popular form of a human-hybrid is the monkey-man.  You can call him bigfoot if you like.  He fits into many paranormal categories, and there’s many explanations, and blah, blah, blah.  I’m sure I will be writing a lot about bigfoot in the future, but for now, it’s hypothetical hybrid time.  There is something very human about bigfoot.  The bi-pedal factor, the reported ability to use tools, the fact that they may sometimes make their own clothing.  There’s also something very ape-y about them: the hair, the stench, the dwelling in the wilderness, and tons of other things, I’m sure.  Does this mean that bigfoot is a combination between modern humans and modern apes?  Probably not, because, gross.  Yet it is interesting to note the similarity of the DNA of humans and apes.  The most common theory behind bigfoot is that it’s an offshoot of human evolution.  I, personally, think this is a very good example of a human-hybrid; there’s humanity in it, but it isn’t all the way there, some animal remains within.

            If you really want to talk about human-hybrids, it’s only natural to think of the infamous mothman, who terrorized residents of Point Pleasant, West Virginia for about a year in the 60s.  It liked to scare young people and kill dogs; but there is so much more to it than that.  It was described as a humanoid type creature with large wings; it was reported to be very tall, and, most strikingly, it had large red reflective or luminous eyes.  The mothman is very intriguing because it has scientific and supernatural lore.  The mothman was primarily seen around an old TNT factory.  TNT is great and all, but was that all that occurred there?  Could scientists have been working on something else?  Did an over exposure to chemicals create some sort of mega-human?  I don’t know, it all sounds like comic book superhero origin stories to me.  Even the name mothman was inspired by the Batman TV show that was popular at the time.  I really don’t think that mothman is actually part man and part moth.  If that were the case, wouldn’t it be fluttering around streetlamps instead of lurking in the dark, allowing people to only catch a glimpse of it?  The fact that it hung around the old TNT plant is quite interesting.  Was it created there?  I don’t know.  It probably just hung around that place because it was abandoned and mostly away from the public. That is, until word of the mothman got out, then that area swarmed with people in their cars looking for a thrill by seeking the beast.  However, mothman doesn’t seem to just be a freak of nature.  It had some very supernatural qualities about it, and in this aspect, it looks a lot more sinister.  Mothman is linked to mysterious strangers in black who appeared in the area after the first sightings.  Who they were and what they wanted still remains a mystery, but of course, there are theories.  The most common is that they were government agents trying to keep tabs on this flying anomaly.  However, I just read something, and it seems to make the most sense to me; the men in black were priests attempting to exorcise an evil entity.  Why do I think that this poor, lonely monster was evil?  The last time mothman was seen was on December 15^th, 1967, when the Silver Bridge collapsed and 46 people died.  Some witnesses claimed to see the mothman around the bridge shortly before the tragedy.  This is why the mothman is thought to be a harbinger of doom.  That alone can lead us to all sorts of conclusions; let’s discuss a few.  If the men in black were in fact priests trying to oust the demonic mothman, they failed horribly; the bridge still collapsed.  Though a very logical explanation was found for the falling bridge, I still find it strange that the mothman disappeared after this catastrophe.  Maybe the mothman is a spirit who watches over Point Pleasant and only appears in times of danger to warn its citizens about the near future.  But again, I’m getting off track; I’m talking about human-hybrids here, so let’s stick with that.  When you boil it all down, the mothman is a humanoid with wings.  How much humanity does it possess?  Not much, I think.  If it was a result of genetic testing, I think the result was more monster than super-human.  Its face didn’t look like a human’s, according to witnesses.  Humans generally don’t have large, red eyes.  The legacy of the mothman is very short, so it’s hard to attempt to put all of the pieces together.  Some say the mothman was a misidentified owl.  I’ve never heard of a seven-foot tall owl, but that alone is pretty terrifying.  I just have one last question: where did the mothman go?  Owls still exist, and if the mothman was a misidentification, why did the sightings suddenly stop?  I think the mothman just moved on, to be where he is needed.

            Maybe he went to England.  About ten years after the mothman incidents, 1970s England played host to a very similar creature in Cornwall.  This creature was known as the owlman.  The creature was first seen in 1976 by a family near a church.  The family was on vacation at the time, but the owlman scared them so badly, they went home three days early.  Two months later, two girls were camping near that very same church, when they heard a very bizarre hissing noise.  They turned and saw a human sized owl thing, it had, not surprisingly, red eyes.  Sightings continued very sparsely for two years, and they all took place in near proximity to the Mawnan church.  Things picked up again in 1989, when a young man saw a 5 foot tall owl creature.  In 1995, an American tourist saw the man-bird, she claimed it had pointed ears and glowing eyes.  Has the mothman indeed crossed the ocean and made its home in a church?  The reports sound very similar, and the scientific explanations both involve large owls.  The owlman, however, doesn’t seem to bring destruction with it.  The owlman is much more likely a misidentification than the mothman, but do owls really ever get that big?

            What if that giant meteor didn’t kill all the dinosaurs?  What if a few survived?  What if they evolved right along with humans?  If something like that happened, I think you’d wind up with a lizard man.  Apparently, the lizard man has been seen worldwide and in several different varieties.  I think the best example of a reptilian humanoid lives in South Carolina.  In 1988 a 17 year old driving home from work at around 2 am near a place called Scape Ore Swamp was attacked by a green, scaly creature.  It tried to get into the car by grabbing the door handle.  Very intriguing, if you ask me, how did it know to do that?  Anyway, after its unsuccessful attempts at the door handle, it jumped on the roof, where the kid could see it had three fingers on each hand and three clawed toes on each foot.  So this guy starts driving and swerving to try to knock the creature off.  He finally accomplishes this and the lizard man is flung to the side of the road.  Upon later assessment, the young man finds quite a bit of damage to his car.  Whatever this thing was, you couldn’t deny its strength.  In South Carolina, other sightings began to trickle in, as well as three-toed footprints being discovered near the swamp.  One thing can be said of it: it’s aggressive.  In New Jersey there is a Native American legend about a man-sized fish that can never be caught.  Now, in modern times, aka, 1973, the legend has returned, but this time the creature is a humanoid alligator.  What a humanoid alligator is, I’m not exactly sure.  Maybe the top looks like a human and its lower half is alligator like.  Not a lot is known about this creature, since it has left no evidence of itself behind.  Unlike South Carolina’s lizard man, the gator man doesn’t seem to be a product of parallel evolution.  I lack the scientific and zoological knowledge to even hypothesize about what this thing is.  It’s probably not even around anymore.  It appears to have last been seen in 1973.  Maybe something that freaky was too frail to live for very long.  The weirdest (if things could get any weirder) account of a reptilian/amphibian-hybrid are the Loveland frogmen.  They are 3-4 feet tall, bipedal, and have webbed hands and feet.  Their heads are distinctly frog-like, thus, the name frogmen.  When I say “they,” it’s because in 1955 a business man saw three of these things on the side of the road.  Right here is where this story differs from any other I’ve heard before; one of the frogmen pulled out a wand looking thing and, according to the business man, sparks began to fly from the object, which, naturally, caused the man to flee in terror.  Are frogmen some sort of wizards?  What are they doing with sparking sticks?  Is it dynamite?  Well, probably not.  Fast forward to 1972 when a Loveland, Ohio policeman was cruising along at one in the morning when an unknown creature darted in front of his car.  The policeman had to slam on his breaks to avoid hitting what revealed itself to be a crouching frogman.  Two weeks later, another policeman actually shot a frogman when he saw one on the side of the road.  The 1970s sightings are standard cryptid encounters; yet I keep getting drawn back to what happened in 1955.  Hoping beyond hope that this account isn’t a lie, it has to be one of the most intriguing human-hybrid stories I’ve ever heard.  I have no idea where to even start with this one.  All I can think of are poor, cursed souls, turned into frogmen because of jealousy, or perhaps their own pride.  Now I’m entering into the magic realm.  I have no time for that today.  The thing about the reptile men is that there are very few sightings of them, and they don’t span a long period of time.  Are they that incredibly elusive?  Have they all died off?  Have they simply left the planet?  We’ll just have to wait, and see if any more turn up.

            The ultimate human-hybrid is the skin-walker, because you know there is a human element there.  In certain Native American legends, a skin-walker is someone who can turn into an animal or a human with very animal-like characteristics.  The Navajo keep the best records and stories of skin-walkers.  In Navajo culture, skin-walkers are people who have attained the highest level of magic and then committed an evil act.  This means that skin-walkers are not very good company.  Though it is said that skin-walkers can transform into an animal, it seems that the skin-walker turns out to be a grotesque and vaguely human-like version of the creature.  There are tons of stories out there about skin-walkers, but not many of them come straight from a Navajo tribe member.  Just talking about them is a bad idea.  It’s a very serious and sensitive topic among Native Americans.  So that’s probably all I should say about that.

            There are countless human-hybrids in mythology: deer women, mermaids, satyrs, centaurs, and the list goes on.  I have decided to stick with the hybrids that actually have had recent sightings. I’m not really sure where these hybrids come from or how they are created.  I’m a creationist, but I believe in evolution.  Could human-hybrids be evolutionary mistakes?  Offshoots of your average evolution?  They could be results of hideous genetic experiments.  And if they are, I’m never going near a geneticist or a government that funds this type of genetic research.  I don’t want to be captured and end up with an elephant’s trunk or something.  I just hope those human-hybrids are doing alright, wherever they are.