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Sunday, December 3, 2023

Decemystery (2023) 3: The Little Blue Man

 

Hello, dear reader, and welcome back to my little blog. This is the place where I spend thousands of words talking about weird stuff that I found while browsing the Internet (and elsewhere). Given that it’s still December, it’s time for another round of Decemystery goodness!


Today, I want to take a trip over to a website that I’ve gone to for a write-up—not that I remember, at least. It’s called Your Ghost Stories and is dedicated to—shock of all shocks—user-submitted ghost stories. The site was launched in 2006 and is host to 19,839 stories (as of October 17). Even nowadays, it’s still posting new stories. God willing, it will still be active when this goes up because if it’s not, I’ll be quite disappointed.


Anyway, today’s mystery is one that I stumbled across while I was browsing through the archives; like many stories before it, the name is what got me: The Little Blue Man. This is a rather oddball tale; although it’s on a website dedicated to ghost stories, it’s by no means a tale about a haunting or anything of that nature. Instead, it’s closer to a user reaching out to others asking for help on what their mother experienced when she was pregnant.


So come along, dear reader; let’s see if we can provide answers to this puzzling case! After over a year of being out of the game, it’s time to dive back into the world of the paranormal!

Decemystery (2022.3) 3: The Alvin Sea Serpent

I’m pretty sure that at some point in this blog, I mentioned that one of my earliest dreams was to be a marine biologist. If I didn’t, then I have now. Sea life fascinated me to no end as a child, and even nowadays, it does. I love to swim, I hope to take scuba lessons at some point in the near future, and sea cryptids are easily some of my favorites to read about.


With that said, I must concede that the sea is a terrifying place. It’s easy to die, there are plenty of ways to become stranded, and you never know what may mistake you for a tasty meal. And don’t get me started on the horror story that is narcosis. I’m surprised I haven’t seen a movie incorporate that to mess with the audience’s heads for a bit.


I digress, though. We aren’t here to fear the ocean and its many ways to kill us. No, we are here to look at one of its deepest secrets—quite literally. Back in 2020, I went over the Mariana Trench Sea Serpent (and bone pit), which I should rewrite since it’s a rather poorly written and researched piece. Despite that, that cryptid is unique for how deep underwater it was seen; today’s story is a very similar case.


Known as the Alvin Sea Serpent, this creature holds the distinction of being considered the deepest aquatic cryptid ever to be seen at a staggering 5,000 feet (1,524 meters). That’s nearly a mile (1.6 kilometers) under the sea! So come along; let’s investigate one of cryptozoology’s deepest enigmas!

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Decemystery (2023) 2: The Poole Pyramid

 

This story is dedicated to my dear friend Graham. I just want to let you know that Kyle Larson is the better driver.


So, I have a story to tell you all. Today’s entry was planned to be on The Bunnyman; I had wanted to do something grandiose and go over basically the entire history and numerous variations of the story, what inspired it, and the “real” versions of the fiend. And I did; I got a little over 11,000 words into the story until I realized something: I was absolutely not using what I had for Decemystery.


When I do these write-ups, I try my absolute best to make them as smoothly paced as possible. Even the longer ones, I aim to feel like brisk reads; I don’t want them to feel painfully long. A good example of what I aim for is David Fincher’s “Zodiac.” That movie is nearly 3 hours long, but it sure as heck doesn’t feel that long. Not in my eyes, at least.


What I had with The Bunnyman, while I liked most of it, went on and on for way too long. So, I set it aside. However, that left me with a problem: I had no idea what I wanted to replace it with. Yes, I—the guy who has several thousands of stories in a backlog—didn’t know what to replace it with; I’ll elaborate on that later when I give my take on this story.


Thankfully, I quickly found the perfect replacement. Today’s story is that of The Poole Pyramid; it’s a story that is filed as an extraterrestrial encounter, and it comes across as anything but one. So come along, dear reader; it’s time to see just how much stranger alien encounters can get!

Decemystery (2022.3) 2: The Elizaville Monster (AKA: Tall, Dark, & Gruesome)

 

There’s nothing I dislike about writing more than introductions. This disliking extends to talking, too; I’m terrible at initiating a conversation unless I absolutely know what I want to say to someone. But when it comes to writing, I never exactly know what will get someone’s attention since my writing style is very similar to how I talk. In fact, when I write, I do so in a manner where I envision myself outright talking to someone. So I never feel like I’m “comfortable” (for lack of a better word) until I’m actually talking about whatever the main focus of the write-up is about.


As such, there are times when I sometimes just wonder if I should simply do away with these introductions and instead jump right into the main story. Alas, I don’t like change, and to be honest, when I do find some footing with the introduction, I feel like it adds something to the overall write-up. It all comes together to form a nice, delightful story of strange/mysterious/Fortean goodness.


However, with today’s write-up, I must concede that I don’t think any introduction could quite prepare anyone for what’s to come. No, it isn’t gory (though there is some pretty gnarly stuff), nor is it shocking. Rather, it’s the name of the story—which I have a good feeling you chose to read because of that name.


With a name like the Elizaville Monster, I feel one would be likely to assume it’s another Bigfoot-type monster. There are more of those said to be in the United States than there are butthurt football fans any given Sunday.


However, this thing’s second name is what drew me in. You see, this thing is also known as Tall, Dark, & Gruesome. With a name like that, I must admit that there was absolutely no way that I wouldn’t pass up the chance to cover this. I mean, that name is just glorious. Even if this had absolutely nothing on it and was brought up once on 4chan, I would still cover it. As luck would have it, the story itself is pretty interesting and has more than just a few sentences on some niche Wiki.


So come along, dear reader, let’s take a gander at one of Indiana’s strangest murderous paranormal cryptids! Good God, I think that sentence is a crime against literature. I love it.

Friday, December 1, 2023

Decemystery (2023) 1: That Time a Dog Was Seen Eating Cereal with a Spoon

 

Well, hello there, dear reader! Welcome back to my blog, which is now officially back in business and primed for a month of mysteries and oddness! Indeed, if you read the previous post, you’ll know that there are two concurrent Decemysterys going on. One is for last year (since I was out of commission for almost all of 2022), while the other is for this year. If you didn’t read the post that’s below this one, then, well, you know that now!


This, as you can plainly see, is the inaugural entry for this year! It’s a story that I recall seeing a few years ago and actually really enjoyed reading. However, it wasn’t until this year that I dug a bit more into it and decided it could be worth writing about for a little bit of fun. Besides, it features a dog, and I love dogs. I own a dog! He’s the best boy.


Anyway, without further delay (since I did most of the talking in the post before this one), let’s begin the second Decemystery with a story that exemplifies the term “High Strangeness.” It’s the story of That Time a Dog Was Seen Eating Cereal with a Spoon, and it—as stated above—went viral a few years back. So come along, dear reader; it’s time for yet another round of the oddest tales from around the world. Decemystery 2023 begins now!

Decemystery (2022.3) 1: The TED Talk "There Is Nothing" Incident

 

Hello there, dear reader! I have no real idea whether or not you will have read any sort of update by the time you’re reading this. If you are, then you likely know what my plans are for this year. If you haven’t read an update, then there’s a good chance that I never bothered to post a single thing the entire year (which likely has made my blog look like it was abandoned). Now, why don't I post an update? Well, I’m scared of making a promise and breaking it—again.


So, for the sake of providing one before we get into the fun, allow me to explain something. Brain fog sucks. Brain fog that lasts an entire year really sucks. Brain fog that stops you from doing the one thing that you believe you’re good at really, really sucks. Indeed, that’s pretty much the one and only reason that I never posted anything last year (a year which I had hoped would be my biggest and best year to date). Thanks, COVID! You robbed me of a year of my life.


Anyway, because of that, there was no Decemystery 2022. However, I’m nothing if not committed to saying that I’ve done a Decemystery each and every year. So, for this year, there will be not one but two Decemystery series! The first will be known as Decemystery 2022.3 and will be posted at 6:00 a.m. Eastern time. The second will be Decemystery 2023 and will be posted an hour later. This is the inaugural story of the first of those two. Also, I hope you don’t hate me for not posting anything of merit last year (besides a review of a really awful horror film). If you do hate me, all I can say is I’m sorry, and I deeply regret not posting more updates last year to let you all know what my health status was.


And then, immediately after writing this part of the introduction, I decided to post an update on the blog to alert people I was writing again. Why didn’t I delete this part? Because I wanted to pad the word count. No, really, that’s the only reason. :^)


So, confession time: I’ve never seen The Matrix. I know, that’s probably the worst thing to ever be uttered by any human being, but it’s true. Though I haven’t seen it, I am still very much aware of a great many things about it. For example, I know that Keanu Reeves starred in it, I know of bullet time, I know of the red and blue pills (take both pills at once, anons), and I know there was no spoon.


Now that I have confessed to my greatest cinematic sin and every Matrix fan is gone and preparing their cat-o’-nine-tails for my inevitable torturing, allow me to get this ball a-rollin’. I want to hone in on the concept of there being “no spoon.” I’m sure that most—if not all—of you are familiar with the “simulation theory.” If you aren’t, it’s the theory that reality is just some, well, simulation. Basically, we live in The Sims. Truly, this is a fate worse than Alt+F4.


The simulation theory is a controversial one, to be sure. It has its proponents and its dissidents, and whether the former spend their days trying their best to activate cheat codes within the hypothetical simulation is up for debate. Should any succeed, I hope they use those cheat codes for good and also help me get back the time I wasted watching Pride & Prejudice & Zombies in theaters.


Anyway, let’s get back on track. All of this rambling does have a point, and it’s one that I’ve struggled to make for quite some time. You see, I’m not a believer in the simulation theory, nor am I fond of it. Despite that, I never try to let my personal views or beliefs dictate what I write about or how I write about something. That doesn’t always end up being the case, though; sometimes, my personal beliefs end up taking over and end up with something extraordinarily narrow-minded or biased. However, in those cases, it’s usually something that I believe isn’t going to upset a lot of people—barring Nibiru (which I would like to one day do a rewrite on since I think my biased views on that make it an unpleasant read).


So, what am I trying to get at? Well, at the time of this writing (which is in January of this year), I’m finally getting back into writing after close to a year of not having done any. As such, I wanted to start off with something that I would consider easy, and today’s story fit the bill for me. Coincidentally, it’ll also be an exercise in me not inserting any personal beliefs or biased comments.


That story hails from one of the many, many Conspiracy Theory Icebergs. Known as the TED Talk “There Is Nothing” Incident, this is something I would expect to find on a creepypasta website. That would actually be preferable, given how absurdly difficult it was to find anything on this story, but I digress. This is something I’ve had on my radar for a few years now, and I finally wish to cover it today. So come along, dear reader. It’s time for Decemystery 2022.3 to begin, and it’s time to find out if there really is anything to the story that claims there really is nothing.

Saturday, July 8, 2023