Let’s say there’s a row of street lamps you pass every day while going to and from work. They are, being typical, modern street lamps, of the low-pressure sodium-vapor variety, emitting a red glow at start up and, once they’re operating fully, a steady monochrome yellow. The lamps automatically switch on at sundown, via the activation of a light-sensitive cell, or photocell. The cell is triggered again when sunlight returns at dawn, switching the lamps off. Generally, rather than each lamp having its own photocell, a single photocell is used to control a whole group of street lamps.

You’re returning home from work on what has so far been a completely typical evening, the street lamps illuminating your way as you stroll down the footpath. No one else is around. Oddly, the street lamp nearest you suddenly blinks out, turning on again as soon as you’ve passed it. A level-headed person, you attribute the event to coincidence and think no more of it. Three evenings later, however, while passing the same row of lamps, the phenomenon occurs again. On this occasion, three successive lamps are affected, each one blinking out as you approach, only to suddenly blink on again the moment you step away.

What on earth just happened? Did you influence the lamps with the power of your mind? Or is there a mundane explanation for these events?

Known as street lamp Interference (SLI), experiences of this nature are common, with people in many different parts of the world claiming “that they involuntarily, and usually spontaneously, cause street lamps to go out. Generally the effect is intermittent, infrequent and without an immediately discernable sequence of cause and effect.”¹

These are the words of the British paranormal scholar Hilary Evans, who, prior to his death in 2011, was the foremost authority on SLI. (“SLIder” is the term he coined to refer to someone who reports a SLI experience.) In addition to being a pictorial archivist and author of numerous books on the Fortean, he helped found, in 1981, the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP). After receiving numerous reports from people claiming that street lamps respond to their presence in an inexplicable fashion, Evans decided to take on the mystery, collecting hundreds of accounts of SLI through his Street Lamp Interference Data Exchange (SLIDE). The culmination of this research – what turned out to be his final book – is the brief yet highly impressive SLIDERS: The Enigma of Street Light Interference (2010). “SLI… can reasonably be regarded as a phenomenon in its own right,” he argued.² 

Frankly, when I first heard of SLI I considered it largely insignificant and boring, regardless of whether or not the phenomenon had a paranormal basis. I hastily concluded that most, if not all, SLI experiences could be accounted for as a result of people perceiving connections that have no basis in reality. For, as everybody knows, street lamps can and do malfunction from time to time, and people are bound to walk past them at the moment these malfunctions occur. After taking a deeper look at the phenomenon, however, I came to the unavoidable conclusion that we’re dealing with a genuine mystery – and, what’s more, an important and fascinating one. I agree with Evans when he says: “If true… claims [of SLI] carry profound and exciting implications for science and for our knowledge of human potential.”³

It’s time we examined some of those claims. Richard M, a professional magician in his thirties who lives in London, England, recalls the moment he became aware of his SLI ability. A teenager at the time, he was taking his dog for a walk when he noticed “that lights were going out when we walked under them and then flickering back on when we had passed.” He continues:

“It didn’t frighten me but I became conscious of it. I remember walking under them trying to make them go out but I couldn’t. The moment I stopped willing it to happen, it would start again – like someone catching me out. I sort of anticipated it for a while and didn’t really tell anyone about it. A few years ago, I noticed it happening again – the first time for a long time. Again, I was with my dog and this time we turned out a number of lights in a car park across the road. I told a close friend when I got home and he came out to watch from the other side of the road. As we walked around the park, they all went out as we passed under them, and then came back on when we had moved away… I seem to recall that both periods coincided with stress, some of it quite intense.”⁴

If SLI involves psychokinesis – or some other form of psi – it figures that the ability would be more inclined to manifest while one is in an abnormal mood or state of consciousness. For, as shown by experiments in parapsychology, our everyday state of consciousness is virtually useless when it comes to psychic functioning. How interesting, then, that the two SLI experiences described by Richard occurred while he was stressed. That a stressed or aroused state of mind encourages SLI ability is suggested by the testimony of a man from Yorkshire, England, referred to as Dan C.

It was early one morning in 1991, when he was nineteen, that Dan’s history of SLI began. He was heading home from his girlfriend’s house, where the two of them had engaged in a steamy “smooching session,” when a street lamp went out as he approached it. At first he attributed the incident to a “dodgy bulb.” However, the lamp did the same thing the following night. When the incident happened a third time, he “started to think something was up.” Further strange incidents with the street lamp followed. Explains Dan: “Over the months, as I returned home from my girlfriend’s house, the light would always do the opposite as to its original state, i.e. if it was off it would turn on and vice versa. After I’d passed the light-post, it would usually revert to its original state…”⁵

As was found to be the case for Richard, Dan discovered that the phenomenon behaved according to its own set of rules, largely resisting his attempts to control it. On one occasion, for example, keen to demonstrate his SLI ability to doubting friends, he made them watch while he approached the street lamp, only to make himself look a fool by failing to duplicate the effect. A number of SLI experiences later, involving not just the one street lamp but several different lamps, Dan became aware of a pattern: the phenomenon generally coincided with his being in a particular state of mind. He describes this as “quite tired, on edge, nervous of my surroundings… and I reckon my adrenaline levels must have been up.” He concludes: “This sort of explains why I couldn’t ‘perform’ in front of my friends, having been in a relaxed situation. I have since shut my friends up as I have shown my ability on more than one occasion.”⁶

There is clearly a connection between sex and SLI. This connection deepens when examined in light of William G. Roll’s recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK) interpretation of poltergeist disturbances. According to the RSPK model, these amazing demonstrations of mind-over-matter – of objects flying around houses and electrical equipment going haywire – occur as a result of sexual and emotional tension on the part of the “focus,” who more often than not is a troubled teenager undergoing puberty. Are the mechanisms at work in poltergeist disturbances the same as those involved in SLI?

That the state of arousal produced by sexual activity plays a role in SLI is nowhere more evident than in the case of Bob Lovely, from Montana, USA. Bob says his SLI ability became especially apparent when, at one point in his life, he was dating a woman who lived across the other side of town from him, to whom he paid frequent evening visits. It was while making these nightly trips that Bob occasionally saw rows of street lamps switch off as he passed them in his car, so that “each lamp I passed would go out as I was passing it.” Most interesting of all, however, is that the phenomenon always occurred on those evenings when he and his girlfriend had had intercourse. “On other evenings some lamps would go out but not like on the ones when our passions had been aroused.”⁷

Whereas some SLIders say they affect only street lamps, other say their ability extends to a whole range of electrical devices, from battery-operated wrist watches to railroad crossings to aircraft navigation equipment. Diana B, an office worker from Texas, USA, belongs to the latter category. Not only do street lamps dim and go out when she approaches them at night, sometimes they also turn on when she approaches them during the day. Regular light bulbs and fluorescent lights also behave oddly in her presence, such as when she goes to a restaurant or enters the home of a friend. There have been occasions, too, when automatic garage doors have suddenly gone haywire on her, opening and closing quickly “in a crazy way.”

According to Diana, her ability to affect electrical devices becomes heightened whenever she’s in a state of excitement or high energy. During these times, she can hold a compass in her hands and the needle will start to spin wildly, coming to a rest the moment she puts the compass down. Handheld tape recorders pose a special problem for Diana, either refusing to record when she wants them to or breaking down altogether. “I went through about 10 of them over a period of a couple of months,” she says. “Once it was so bad it even wiped out what was on the tape.”⁸

Interestingly, countless instances of malfunctioning electrical equipment, involving recording devices especially, have been observed in relation to psychics like Uri Geller and Matthew Manning, as well as in connection with poltergeist disturbances, UFO sightings and even crop circles. Who isn’t familiar with the scenario whereby an enthusiastic investigator attempts to record some form of paranormal activity on film or cassette, only to find that his equipment has suddenly and inexplicably broken down, or, more frustrating still, that the tape came out blank? Much to the gratification of skeptics – who fail to comprehend that paranormal events are, by their very nature, as slippers as subatomic particles, resisting all attempts to be pinned down – such occurrences are a matter of course.

In terms of what’s known about the human body by contemporary, orthodox science, Diana’s strange talent shouldn’t exist, and therefore she must be either lying or deluded. But if such is the case, why have so many others come forward with similar claims, most of them perfectly normal human beings? Many of those who contacted Evans to inform him of their SLI experiences had never heard of the phenomenon until coming across his research, previously considering their ability unique or doubting their own sanity. To quote one SLIder: “I couldn’t believe this was a phenomenon that others shared with me. I just thought I was nuts…”⁹

There are indications that SLI has a physical, measurable component, and that even the run-of-the-mill physicist or biologist would be able to make some headway into penetrating the mystery. For instance, some SLIders, including Diana, have a tendency to accumulate (or perhaps generate within the body itself) a high static charge. She explains: “I… can get very charged with static electricity, so much so that sparks actually fly around me and if anyone else is close by the sparks will connect with them.” Similar comments from other SLIders include, “I build up static electricity like crazy,” and “I seem to get more static shocks than other people.”¹⁰

Of course, not all SLIders have issues with static electricity, and while it’s true that someone with a high static charge has the potential to interfere with electrical equipment, they cannot do so from a distance; only by means of contact. That a statically charged person would be able to influence a street lamp mounted high above them is therefore extremely unlikely. And let us not forget that some incidents of SLI occur while the individual is seated in their car, a car being a crude form of Faraday cage, blocking static and non-static electric fields. One needn’t be a scientist to realize that the phenomenon is hard to account for in terms of electromagnetism alone, and must therefore involve some other form of energy – perhaps what the Taoists call “chi,” or what Wilhelm Reich dubbed “orgone.”

Speculation aside, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that at least some incidents of SLI can be attributed to entirely mundane causes, a combination of mechanical and psychological factors. Skeptics of SLI are keen to point out that when the bulbs in sodium-vapor street lamps reach the end of their life they undergo a phenomenon known as “cycling,” switching on and off every few minutes until a technician comes along and replaces the bulb. It can also happen that the bulb becomes slightly dislodged from its socket, so that even a minor vibration – such as that caused by a passing car or a person – is enough to make the lamp blink out for a moment.

Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, England, was asked to give his opinion on SLI for the Daily Mail newspaper. A dedicated member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), he cited “observer bias” as the culprit, stating that “street lamps are going on and off all the time… People only have to walk under a couple of lamps going off to think that they might be the cause.”¹¹

Had Wiseman looked at the evidence properly, he’d realize that observer bias is not the whole story. When we eliminate this and other obvious explanations for SLI, we’re left with an exciting possibility: that the phenomenon is due to psychokinesis. Evans discusses this notion in his book, suggesting that some kind of “force” is at work when a SLIder influences a street lamp. He explains that street lamps are designed in such a way as to be protected from operating at too high a voltage, whereby a cut off switch is triggered the moment the voltage reaches a certain level. The lamp will remain off until reactivated the following evening. A similar scenario occurs when the voltage drops below a certain level. Evans puts forward an intriguing theory: that the “force” at work in SLI operates by affecting the voltage of the current, most likely by causing a surge in voltage that triggers the lamp’s internal cut off switch.

“To perform this feat,” he speculates, “SLI would have to be an electro-dynamic force, somehow generated within or through the human biological system, and somehow externalised into the neighbouring environment, where it will act on any appliance which happens to be vulnerable.”¹²

Footnotes

1. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect: Street Lamp Interference – A Provisional Assessment, Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, 1993.
2. Hilary Evans, “SLIders: The Mystery of Street Lamp Interference,” Fortean Times, April 2011.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect.
8. Hilary Evans, “SLIders: The Mystery of Street Lamp Interference.”
9. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect.
10. Ibid.
11. David Derbyshire, “‘Electricity Woman with Amazing Powers’ Causes Lights to Flicker When She Gets Stressed,” Mail Online, 2 February 2008.
12. Hilary Evans, The SLI Effect.

If you’ve undergone experiences similar to the ones described in this article, or have ever been targeted by lightning, the author would like to hear from you via louisproud(at)gmail(dot)com. 

This article appears in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 7 No 2 – Paranormal Realities & the Unexplained. Click here to obtain your copy.  

Did a German secret society resort to human sacrifice to stem the tide of the First World War in Germany’s favour? Was the builder of a house that became known as The Round House a member of this order? Were human remains found, and were the outlines of a giant Wodan, the supreme god of Nordic mythology, carefully hidden in the landscape around this enigmatic edifice? Was the area surrounding the house witness to bizarre rituals? A shadowy group of investigators claims so.

Read Part 1.

Around the 1900’s, the exact date or year is shrouded in uncertainty, wealthy estate owner Frank Van Vloten suddenly starts with a series of extensive landscape and garden projects on his estate. The labourers who work for him do not understand why, as almost everything they are ordered to do to makes no sense from an agricultural point of view. On the surface, there seems to be no logical plan behind the work. ‘But there was work, and therefore food on the table’, is the consensus among the labourers.

The working group investigating the mysteries that swirl around the house is set on the trail of looking at the landscape surrounding the Round House instead of delving through what archives remain, by a chance discovery. They find what they see as a clue in the files of a former SS affiliated archaeologist. Before World War II, the archaeologist had done some excavation work at the Mythstee. This is a spot in the vicinity of the Round House, since long rumoured to have been an ancient Germanic place of worship.

The former SS affiliated archaeologist, Frans Christiaan Bursch (1903-1981), seen above in the comfort of his study in the 1930′s, has a chequered past, to say the least. During the Second World War, from 1940 to 1945, Bursch became a member of the N.S.B., a Dutch pro-Nazi organisation. 1943 finds him at the Ukraine, involved in excavations with the use of slave labour. Notwithstanding his N.S.B. membership and his affiliation to Heinrich Himmler’s occult research institute Ahnenerbe, he escapes any consequences after the end of the war in 1945. Until his death in 1981, he is a teacher in classical languages. Bursch, as might be expected from someone who had the dark overlord as his master, saw ancient German ruins and remains everywhere. In how far Bursch was working on a theory involving a giant pictogram and a geoglyph in the vicinity of the Mythstee, is hard to say. His remaining archive offers no further clue, and his post-war book makes no mention of it.

The Mythstee, another source points out, is a place of evil. He recounts vague rumours that ghosts and other strange creatures were frequently seen there. “Dark and bloody rituals said to have been conducted at the Mythstee and for a long time there were those that claimed that the famous Varus Battle took place there, and not somewhere in Germany. Wild German hordes whipped into frenzy by their druids sacrificed the vanquished Romans on the earthen walls of the Mythstee. This was the cause that the Pan-Germanic movement had a more than usual interest in that particular spot, as it was also placed on a ‘Heilige Lijn’, the German equivalent of a ley-line. This line allegedly was restored in 1891 by the Alldeutscher Verein. That was the motive for the construction of the Round House and its inhabitant, Frank van Vloten, was placed there under orders of the Pangermanic movement.” Modern archaeology though has established that the Mythstee is a curious, but natural formation.

What the working group finds in the files of the deceased archaeologist on the Mythstee is a depiction of the Giant of Cerne Abbas. Wondering about the presence of this seemingly unrelated image in that file, the question arises: would it be possible that the landscape surrounding The Round House might have hidden a similar figure?

In the light of this theory, the extensive work done on the estate begins to make sense. The landscaping, the planting or removing or relocation of bushes, the digging of certain ditches and paths and the creation of artificial hills all serve to create, in deepest secret, a giant figure of Wodan, only to be seen from the sky, with the Round House in its centre. For that is Wodan’s remaining eye.

Schalkwijk , the spokesman for the anonymous group investigating this mysterious house, claims that he and his group investigated the surrounding area with the use of soil investigations, measuring equipment and ‘other sources’. They arrive at the conclusion that The Round House and the estate were constructed according to ‘German rites’. Seen from above, the giant image of the Nordic god Wodan would be visible. The Round House is his one remaining eye. Schalkwijk even manages to reconstruct a helmet and a spear in the landscape. In a bush he recognizes a beard and moustache. They further claim to have found at the south a ditch in the form of a phallus, with a vulva nearby, at walking distance. “We got the most insane orders, replacing hills, dig away soil and construct rice fields. We never saw rice”, the labourers tell. These statements strengthen Schalkwijk and his group in their conviction.

Copyright Werkgroep Het Ronde Huis & Uitgeverij Nunspeet.

From other quarters too, it is murmured that the place has a reputation for weirdness. Some visitors will later claim that they felt haunted by a strange, oppressive atmosphere when visiting the by now wooded area. Other tales recount how many times, in the past but also in the present, little people were seen who allegedly had an abode in the vicinity of the Mythstee. But that is not everything. A wealthy family buys an estate adjacent to The Round House and the Mythstee in the 1930’s. Some of its members behave very curiously and subsequently more rumours start that a ‘Germanic-Celtic cult’ practice its rituals at the Round House. When National Socialism emerges, eugenic experiments were conducted there as well. Mention is made of unholy orgies with certain very high placed German-friendly Dutchmen. There’s even mention of the ghostly appearances of four or five girls. They can be seen wandering over the nearby path sometimes at night, their arms tightly clutched.

Copyright Werkgroep Het Ronde Huis & Uitgeverij Nunspeet

The problem though is that the existence of a huge geoglyph in the form of Wodan remains unproven too. On the aerial photos that have been studied by enthousiasts and researchers of the myth, nothing is seen. Also, but a few traces remain of the original landscape projects of Frank Van Vloten, seen above in a family picture in the upper right corner. Are Schalkwijk and his group of fellow researchers deluded and do they simply want to see things that are not there at all? What certainly doesn’t give one confidence is that almost anything in the book on the case is unsourced. We don’t know who spoke to whom, when or how.

But the strange stories remain.

In regards to these weird tales about little men and unholy rites by a ‘German-Celtic cult’, these stem from an odd source as well. They appear in some curious leaves with intricate drawings, done by an elderly and deceased man by thename of Eldermans. Not much is known about him, what remained of his archive when Eldermans destroyed most of it towards the end of his life, is for the most part found in a museum for witchcraft. Eldermans himself is described by his late son-in-law with simply one word: ‘witch’.

Perhaps a closer examination of the purported shadowy group responsible for the occult activity during World War One might shed some much-needed light on the matter. It is perhaps here, in the various allegations of occult orders working on behalf of Imperial Germany, that we may be able to shed some light on the matter.

Soon to follow: Part III – The Secret Brotherhood

The story was as good as anything you might see in films or on television, and certainly would have been familiar to a generation that was soon to be exposed to the weekly soap opera known as Dark Shadows. And yet, the story of a strange blood sucker that was attacking North Carolina residents was nothing that had found its way off the silver screen, and into the impressionable minds of the American youth; this vampire was apparently very real. 

Rural North Carolina is probably the last place you would expect to have a frightening encounter with a fanged, blood-drinking monster. Yet surprisingly, there is something of a history of not only “vampires,” but the attacks of farm animals, and even humans that would lead to such claims. Reports of dogs and farm animals around the Bladen area, which were apparently killed by some “beast” that drained the blood of its victims, date back to the 1950s, as I recently recounted in an piece which featured a sensational-looking headline from the Balden area newspaper, the Robesonian. 

Granted, the likely culprit in this series of killings had been a large wild cat of some variety; perhaps a mountain lion. However, the exsanguination, or draining of blood, seems out of character for any known breed of wild cat. I had begun to wonder if this part of the story had been an embellishment, added to lend a bit of sensationalism to the otherwise unremarkable–though unexplained–elimination of farm animals around the town of Bladen. However, digging a bit deeper, it turns out that there were local legends of another “vampire,” and of the variety that walked on two legs…

After reading my initial piece on the “vampire” of Bladen, a friend of mine sent along a newspaper clip, also from the Robesonian, which went to print decades after the story of the so-called “Beast of Bladen.” In the editorial, featured in May of 1992, memories from the area were being recounted from ages past, and in addition to the stories of the town’s alleged livestock-killing menace, there was also a bit about the “vampire” legend, which seemed to draw a clear distinction between the beast and any legends of a blood-sucking monster:

“There was another tale of a “vampire” in Robeson County that just grazes my memory from earlier days, but this one I have no details concerning other than it was apparently a deranged person wandering about the countryside in the general areas of Rowland and/or Maxton, attacking people and drinking their blood, but that’s about all I recall. This one, I think, was finally caught and finally put away in a mental institution.”

While the details procured here are somewhat anecdotal, it details more for us here than merely the story of a “deranged vampire” that had been (or at least may have been) attacking North Carolina residents near Bladen and surrounding communities decades ago. It also shows us how when peculiar phenomenon begin to occur within a general vicinity, there seems to be a tendency to lump all the stories together, and to create the false impression of there being some kind of continuum between them; in this instance, separate stories of a panther or mountain lion-like beast may have been paired with tales of a deranged fool that would attack people and bite their necks, presumably, in order to drink their blood. Thus, I can’t help but wonder if the stories of the “panther” killings might not have adopted a few elements from existing area folklore (that is, if the “vampire” stories had already existed by the time the so-called Beast of Bladen made its appearance). If this were indeed the case, we might also wonder if the stories of exsanguinated animal bodies weren’t a bit embellished, so as to accomodate for the existing urban legends.

To be clear, however, I think I should also point out that the aforementioned statement is merely speculative. Something else I often ask is why it seems more acceptable for someone to make such a claim, so long as they label it “skepticism”. If one were to do the same, and label it “speculation” in favor of a slightly more bizarre theory, they would be called a crackpot (by the skeptics, of course).

But enough of my para-political fence-riding between belief and the skeptoid zone… the point is that, while I’m merely speculating, there is some empirical evidence for this sort of thing happening elsewhere. Perhaps one of the most famous (and terribly underreported) examples has to do with one of our favorite pet cryptids out there, the Mothman of West Virginia. Something that is all-too-often overlooked in relation the early stories of the Mothman is the fact that there were a number of different kinds of strange phenomenon being reported in the area, as author John Keel himself noted in his book The Mothman Prophecies, ranging from Bigfoot sightings, to the appearance of large birds. However, in all likelihood, these stories were not-so-cautiously lumped together by local media, who had also labeled the West Virginian “thing” as being a “Mothman.”

Keel, looking back at the disparate reports from his own research in the area, would later on revisit the Mothman case with a slightly more skeptical approach:

“During our five lengthy visits to Point Pleasant we interviewed over one hundred monster witnesses, plus scores of UFO sighters. We began to suspect that “Mothman” was represented in only a small percentage of the incidents. It seemed that an Abominable Swamp Slob (i.e. Bigfoot) was also loose in the area. The witnesses to the real “Mothman” never saw any arms on the creature and their descriptions were impressively consistent. Others had been surprised by a giant, hair-covered, headless thing with broad shoulders.”

Could it be that some reports of alleged “Mothmen” in the area had actually resulted from confabulation regarding reports of other things? It seems likely, especially if we take into consideration that area media may have helped somewhat with this. This isn’t to say, however, that all instances of anomalous occurrence can be explained away in such fashion, but to instead draw attention to the fact that there may be times where experienced reporters, who are nonetheless novice paranormal researchers, may take less seriously the tales of oddity as they occur in a general locale, and tie together or misappropriate the facts in order to draw some kind of apparent continuum between subjects that are probably entirely unrelated. And then, of course, decades later the researchers of genuine anomalies are left to ponder the inconsistencies that emerge in such newspaper stories, long after many (or any) of the witnesses–or writers, for that matter–can be readily found for questioning.

Did a German secret society resort to human sacrifice to stem the tide of the First World War in Germany’s favour? Was the builder of a house that became known as The Round House a member of this order? Were human remains found, and was there a geoglyph in the shape of the supreme god of Nordic mythology carefully hidden in the landscape around this enigmatic edifice? Does the landscape itself offer more clues pointing to a carefully constructed occult geography? Was all of this known in certain select circles and was that the reason that the house was destroyed in 1967?

These questions and many others haunt a rural village in the Netherlands. The mystery has been known for some time by a select group of journalists and writers who were in possession of the same, fragmentary source. Last year, the situation changed with the publication of a book that has left me with more questions than answers. Titled De Geschiedenis van Het Ronde Huis, Mysteries Ontrafeld… (The History of The Round House, Mysteries unravelled…), the book is the result of a study by an anonymous ‘working group’, consisting of seven persons. Sixty-five year old former bank employee Hans Schalkwijk is one of them. He is listed as the unofficial ‘author’ of the book and acts as spokesperson for this group. He became interested in the mystery over forty years ago.

In the book the group claims it has spent a considerable amount of time, decades in fact, investigating the mystery of the Round House. It has built up a comprehensive archive on the case, it further claims, yet the book is unreferenced and much of the testimony in the book is by anonymous sources. I have not seen the archive. I only know it from Schalkwijk’s description, so I don’t know what it contains. Since the claims are so wild and there is no documentary evidence, the book has only led to more controversy, with fierce proponents and opponents. After a short flurry of minor interest, the national media have dropped the case.

But let us first examine the strange story of the mystery of the Round House itself.

A local hermit by the name of Johan Montenberg begins to tell a strange story to Schalkwijk, who he meets in 1972. Montenberg is a distrustful man. He doesn’t tell the story in one breath, but rather, by bits and pieces, by hints here and there, and by rambling letters to various persons, over a longer period of time.

What he hints at is hair-raising and unbelievable. A tale unfolds of secret rituals, a German occult order, and the abduction of young girls for human sacrifice. Mention is made of subterranean passages and a lime pit where the bodies of the hapless victims are disposed of. As recent as 2011, a local weekly states that human remains were found in 1916 and the corpse of a young girl in 1917. A police investigation at around 1924 is said to have been halted on ‘orders of superiors’. All of this is said to have occurred before, during and after the First World War. In that war the Netherlands had a neutral status.

On these points though Schalkwijk is adamant. “There was no corpse found in 1924, no human remains were dug up. There is no system of underground passageways. I found absolutely no evidence”. Schalkwijk’s words were printed in a Dutch newspaper five months ago. Yet he remains convinced that around the time of the First World War a pagan-Germanic order existed that practiced occult warfare.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Europe was literally riddled with secret societies and occult orders, and Germany was no exception. Ariosophy, theosophy, anthroposophy and countless of other, lesser known sects, cults and orders flocked the streets. There was for instance the O.T.O. that came into existence between 1895 and 1904. Others were the Germanenorden, founded in 1912 in Berlin and having a swastika as its symbol. From it ultimately sprang forth the Thule Gesellschaft, formally founded in 1918. There were many more virulent antisemitic and Volkische orders. Political murders, especially after the defeat of Germany in the First World War were the order of the day. But no evidence has ever come to light of instances of human sacrifice in these German-Austrian occult circles, which makes the claims surrounding the Round House especially hard to believe.

At the centre of the dark mystery stands a wealthy Dutchman, Frank van Vloten (1858 – 1930), who has a reputation for eccentricity. Some stories claim he always dressed in black, rode a black horse and was known as ‘the black devil’. In 1906 Van Vloten begins the construction of a curious building. It is a circular shaped stone house of three stories and a flat roof on his large estate near Nunspeet, a little Dutch town in a wooded area called the Veluwe. A private pony tram on a Decauville track delivers guests from the local train station to the building that quickly acquires the name The Round House.

Strange rumours begin to swirl around it although it is hard to say when this exactly started. It is said that a woman, dressed entirely in black, now and then visits the house. On certain occasions, it is claimed, she brings a number of young girls, veiled and also dressed in black with the private horse carriage. The children arrive, but are never seen leaving. It is said that some of the labourers who work for Van Vloten know what happens with these girls, but keep their mouths tightly shut out of fear of reprisals. When these rumours begin to emerge in the local Nunspeet newspaper in 1976, they are rebuffed and delegated to the realms of fantasy by others who visited the Round House in their childhoods. It is later claimed that the reporter who wrote the 1976 story immigrated to Canada because of serious threats made to his life.

The book also cites an anonymous, handwritten account in a notebook. It is said to have been written by a man who hunted regularly during the First World War in the woods around the Round House. Read aloud to one of the researchers in 2006, it states in detail what happened:

“Had a conversation with H. in regards to the rumours about the Round House… He finally confirmed that German rituals took place on the grounds of the Round House. First in the house and then outside. Always at full moon. The girls, usually a number of about six, were given a drug to drink and were thus put in a state of hypnosis… At one of the small ponds, a sacrificial stone was placed on a pedestal. Next to it in an inclination in the ground a fire burned… The priest with a hood with two holes for the eyes killed the girl with a sword. It is not known who this man is. The group went back to the Round House and the priest stayed behind and disposed of the body…”

Other accounts surface over the years, such as this one by a by now deceased, local artist-painter:

“We were so poor, that I used to hunt a rabbit in the woods… One night I was at it again. At the pond I heard voices and saw a light gleaming. I hid behind a tree to have a look. At the bank of the pond there were a number of girls with oil lamps. They were standing in a half circle, facing the pond. Twelve to fifteen girls, probably twenty years old. In front of them was a woman facing them. A sturdy woman of about 40 years old. The girls wore white blouses and dark skirts, possibly red in colour. On their heads they wore some kind of hood. In fact more a band round the head with on their foreheads something glistening. Around their waits something that looked like a little apron or bag. The older woman wore a long, dark dress, possibly red in colour too. Something glistening was hanging on her chest. I think a chain or something. All the girls and the woman put up their right hand with two fingers in the air. It seemed like an oath taking. The older woman said something, after which the girls repeated it. Afterwards the woman threw something over her shoulder in the pond, perhaps a stone or a coin. Then the girls began to sing softly. During the singing a number of men approached the girls. They must have been standing farther away in the dark. I became frightened and left immediately.”

How much of these weird tales without any possibility of checking should we believe? That is the main gripe of the opponents and I can’t blame them. I have talked to Schalkwijk and asked him if he or the group he represents had any documentary, verifiable evidence for the existence of that German occult order. His reply was that he had three oral sources but no documentary evidence.

We will take a critical look at the problem of references in a further instalment. But first we need to hear what else Schalkwijk and his group have to say, as the story gets even stranger. They claim that there is, or rather was, evidence as to the occult nature of Van Vloten and his order. It is not found in archives, but in the landscape around the Round House.

Read the next part! Part II – Occult geography

Writing about the paranormal for about a decade, I’ve seen certain topics grab the public’s attention and quickly fade (orbs, rods), but others, for good reason, stick around year, after year, after year (ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, shadow people). A fairly recent entry into the paranormal landscape that has stalked its way into our deepest nightmares, the weirdest bogyman to show its greasy-haired head in a long time, is the Black-Eyed Kids. I’ve written quite a bit about BEKs, and frankly many of the cases are too similar. Someone alone is approached by children or teens that try to talk their way into a house/car/secluded spot. The children seem strange, then the person notices their all black eyes. The person slams the door and the story is over.

Creepy, but we’ve heard it before.

Every once in a while I find someone whose encounter with these entities is a bit different, and that gives me the willies. Here are two.

A Horror on the Farm

Tonya’s family moved from an apartment in town to a small ranch house in rural Indiana when she was five. “My Mom was pregnant with my sis,” Tonya said. “I remember having a swing set and Mom and Dad let me have a rabbit outside in a cage.”

One night while her mother and father were inside preparing supper, Tonya played on the swing set and discovered she wasn’t alone. “Another girl appeared behind me,” Tonya said. “I remember thinking I would have someone to play with now.”

The girl looked dirty, poor, her hair in tangles. “She didn’t speak to me but she scared me,” Tonya said. “I will never forget that. Her eyes were dark and her teeth were wrong; sharp, a lot of them, and dirty also.”

Although the girl with the mouthful of needle-like teeth stood still and made no move toward her, Tonya jumped off the swing and ran inside. “Mom gave me a bath after supper and put me to bed,” she said. “The next day … I was too afraid to get out of bed cause I thought she would get me.”

That day, Tonya’s parents found her pet rabbit dead. Something had opened the lock on the hutch and shredded the rabbit. “I tried to tell my mom about the girl, but she was upset over my rabbit. We both were,” Tonya said. “To this day I remember her face, eyes, and teeth. She killed my rabbit. I knew it then, and know it now.”

My Brother’s Terror

Shay’s brother Korey was young when he became afraid of the dark. “He was just seven years of age and now at the age of 23 he still sticks firmly to his story,” Shay said.

Shay and Korey’s family moved from Arkansas to Olive Branch, Mississippi, in April 1996, and quickly adjusted to the new town, new home, and new school, but after three weeks, some things in the house were still missing. “We had no blinds on our windows,” Shay said. And that brought on Korey’s fear.

One night while Shay helped his mother cook dinner, his father watching television in the living room, Korey sat in his room doing homework. “He had only been in his room around 20 minutes when he came barreling down the hallway with the most horrifying scream I had ever heard with tears rolling down his face,” Shay said. “He nearly climbed my mother like a tree trunk all while trying to bury his face as to hide from something.”

The something was horrifying. “He said as he sat doing his homework he felt an eerie feeling like he was being watched and like something was calling to him,” Shay said. “He then said he glanced up at his window and saw a white-faced boy that looked like a ghost peering into the bottom of his window.”

Korey said, “Momma, he looked my age and I thought it was me at first, but when I got close to the window he blinked and moved closer, and he had all black eyes there wasn’t no white there.” Korey knew what he saw wasn’t his reflection; it was something wicked.

“I’m sure now if my brother would have stuck around without running away in fear the child may have asked him to let him in,” Shay said. “For nearly three weeks after the incident my brother being scared to sleep in his own room made camp underneath my daybed with my cocker spaniel Danny.” After that, Shay and Korey swapped rooms, but by then blinds hung from the windows – and Shay never opened them.

Sixteen years later, Shay knows the memory still terrifies Korey. “As I was leaving work at night somewhat frightened and feeling horrified to walk to my car alone, I called my brother,” Shay said. “I asked, ‘Korey, do you still remember that little boy you saw looking in your window all those years ago?’”

Korey’s voice was shaky in response. “The one with the black eyes?” he asked. “Shay, why did you have to bring that up?” Shay had read an Internet story about Black-Eyed Kids. “I wish you wouldn’t have told me that,” Korey said. “I’ve tried forgetting and it still terrifies me, especially now that I know it wasn’t just my eyes playing tricks on me.”

Fred Lusebrink from Cummings, Kansas, drove home from work at about 1:05 a.m. in early spring 2010 when he saw something strange in the sky about two miles northwest of Potter, Kansas. “Temperature 35 to 42 degrees Fahrenheit, skies 100 percent clear,” Lusebrink said. “Wind south to southwest, zero to four mph. Moon phase was dark, but starlight was very bright.”

See the detail? All UFOs should be seen by former military personnel.

“Triangular shaped and large; I estimate 90 to 125 feet wing span,” he said. “Center warning light was bright white, square but slanted aerodynamically, and large; four feet by four feet. Above it one dim small red light that blinked in four- to five-second intervals.”

Dim blue lights flashed from left to right under the white light and ran for about 20 feet on each side of the craft and, “flashed from left to right then in a complete change right to left, and as quickly back. No sequence but flashed very quickly. The speed of craft and two smaller trail craft 30 to 35 mph. Altitude approximately 500 feet.”

The blue-black color of the craft, Lusebrink said, was similar to the B-2 Stealth Bomber. “I did see riveting or very fine fitted seems clearly on the belly of the craft,” he said. “Little to no audible jet blast or other sounds of turbines, etc., either before flyover, during, or after.”

The two smaller craft flew about 70 yards behind the larger craft on either side. “The trail aircraft were barely discernable and gave no hint at their shape but did emit some, maybe one-15^th the sound of a normal jet trainer during flyover. These trail craft had only one dim red safety light each that did not flash. I believe they were on their left wing.”

The craft flew east-to-southeast in the Stranger Creek bottoms between rows of small hills. “The craft flying over the valley helped outline and magnify, making my observation more dramatic,” he said.

Lusebrink initially stopped his pickup because he thought the bright, white light from the larger ship was from a medical helicopter responding to an accident; the slow speed due to the pilot looking for a safe landing spot. “I turned my truck off and shut my headlights off so as to not blind the pilot’s night vision goggles,” he said. “I got out of my vehicle and knew within two seconds it was not a helicopter. It was a great show that lasted approximately 20 to 25 seconds from first sight till flyover.”

Lusebrink knows aircraft. “I spent 20 years in the US Army serving in Korea, Germany, Central America, and the Middle East along with various stateside assignments,” he said. “I have flown in many transport aircraft both fixed and rotary. I have been up close to and witnessed flyovers and takeoffs of B-2s, A-10s, F-16s, B-52s, C-130s, C-141s, C-5s, etc. This craft was none of the above, nor any modification of these.”

Since military personnel have to make split-second decisions in combat situations, they are trained to be good observers. And what Lusebrink observed was strange, but is it from another world? No. He’s certain it’s from the United States government. “It is the nation’s next generation Angel of Death,” he said. “After watching it fly twice I said those exact words both times.”

And, yes, he’s seen it twice.

“I was cooking over a spit with two friends in rural north Leavenworth County (Kansas) around 12:45 a.m. last May 2012 on a moonless clear night,” he said. “Again, little to no wind. We were partaking of cereal malt beverages and generally having a good time.”

Then the craft appeared. “I pointed to the apparent hovering of a craft three to five miles out,” Lusebrink said. “After much kidding they finally shut up and watched it fly over at approximately 600 to 700 feet with what appeared to be two trail craft. This time the aircraft flew slower, and it did a little show for us.”

The craft flew directly over them, and one friend shouted, “Man, what was that?”

“My hypotheses: still in the ‘be damn careful with it phase,’” Lusebrink postulates. “It only flies in very, very mild weather conditions, it’s gotta have trail aircraft lest some jerk in a go-cart glider chases it, and it seems to always come from the west with general flight direction towards Whiteman Air Force Base.” Whiteman, in central Missouri, is home to the B-2 bomber.

“I’m 100 certain the craft is experimental and military in nature,” he said. “Although I have not seen it since but look forward to seeing it again. UFO? Nah, just something 30 years beyond the B-2. I herby name the craft The Bat Plane III version 2.0. I know what I saw and, man, it was awesome.”

Let’s be honest: Most of us have fantasized about winning the lottery. Surely all that wealth would transform our lives for the better, even if it failed to make us significantly happier? The fact is, for many lottery winners the only outcome is pain and tragedy – hence the supposed “lottery curse.”

The lottery curse has claimed many a victim. So strange and haunting are some of their stories that even the most rational person cannot help but wonder if the winning ticket really is jinxed. Consider, for example, the sad tale of Jack Whittaker.

On December 24, 2002, Whittaker, then aged 55, stopped at a convenience store in the town of Hurricane, West Virginia, to purchase fuel for his vehicle, a couple of sandwiches, and a $1 Powerball lottery ticket. A multimillionaire – he owned a successful contracting firm that employed over 100 people – his decision to purchase the lottery ticked was hardly motivated by financial desperation. When the Powerball results appeared on television that evening, Whittaker was disappointed to hear that he’d lost by one digit. The following day – Christmas – he practically fainted when he heard that the results had been broadcast incorrectly, so that his was in fact the winning ticket.

A day or so later, Whittaker – accompanied by his wife Jewel, his daughter Ginger Whittaker Bragg, and his 15-year-old granddaughter Brandi Bragg (Ginger’s daughter) – was photographed holding a giant cheque for the sum of $314.9 million, a record breaking win at the time. Whittaker had two choices: to receive the money in annual installments over a period of 29 years, or two accept a onetime payout of approximately $113 million. He chose the latter option, ending up, after tax, with around $93 million – still a huge sum, though only a fraction of what he’d been announced as winning. Even from the start, there was something not quite right about the money. “I’ve had to work for everything in my life,” he reflected. “This is the first thing that’s ever been given to me.”

Whittaker gave tens of millions to charity, even setting up a foundation to provide food and clothing for the needy of West Virginia. A dedicated Christian, he also donated a portion of his winnings to the church. Less than a year later, however, things began to turn sour for the man with too much money. In August 2003, during a visit to a strip joint called the Pink Pony, he was robbed more than $500,000 in cash and cashier’s checks, the money and checks stolen from his Hummer parked outside. Several months later, he was arrested after driving his Hummer into a concrete median, the arresting officer claiming that he smelled alcohol on Whittaker’s breath.

No matter how much he tried to enjoy his enormous wealth, Whittaker couldn’t help but attract bad luck. More of his money was stolen by thieves; one woman tried to sue him for sexual assault; he was arrested for further drink driving incidents; he and his wife separated after more than forty years of marriage; the list of misfortunes goes on.

But if Whittaker had become a target for bad luck, so had his family members and acquaintances. In September 2004, Brandi Bragg’s boyfriend, Jessie Joe Tribble, 18, was found dead in Whittaker’s home. He had died of a drug overdose. That December Bragg went missing. A few weeks later her heavily decayed body was found wrapped in a plastic tarp behind a dilapidated truck, her death the result of an accidental overdose. Whittaker – who had basically raised Bragg himself and considered her “the shining star of my life” – was understandably devastated. “I wish I’d torn that ticket up,” he told reporters at the time.

In keeping with the adage “bad luck comes in threes,” Whittaker’s daughter Ginger, 42, was found dead in her luxury home in July 2009. Although foul play was never suspected, the exact cause of her death remains unknown.

Sadly, Whittaker’s troubles haven’t ended; reports have surfaced suggesting that he’s broke.

It’s vital to our existence, is responsible for every move we make and every thought we have, and the smartest of us only use about 10% of it; the human brain is a mystery within itself. However, the organic computer system which allows us to do so much can often be one of our biggest obstacles. Psychological disorders are nothing to laugh about…although sometimes it really can’t be helped.  

Foreign Accent Syndrome

There’s no misunderstanding this one, because it is exactly as the name suggests. With sixty recorded cases around the world – most of which are attributed to brain damage – this syndrome results in the sufferer speaking with an accent (go figure). This syndrome does NOT allow the person to speak different languages. Yeah, I was disappointed too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stendhal Syndrome

I like to maintain that many of the people whom have averted their gaze from my direction suffer from Stendhal Syndrome, which is commonly referred to as a ‘fear of beauty’, but alas it isn’t so. Although frequently noted as an individual’s immense shock  at artworks of particular beauty, cases have been documented where the sufferer reacts the same at the site of real-world beauty. Symptoms may include hallucinations, rapid heartbeat, dizziness and fainting. Note: Sufferers of the syndrome are very rarely found at Victoria’s Secret parties.

Reduplicative Paramnesia

Ever seen a man be in two places at once? No. Ever seen a man think he’s in two places at once? He might just suffer from Reduplicative Paramnesia. A syndrome identified by the delusional belief that a location has been duplicated, exists in two places or has been moved elsewhere, Reduplicative Paramnesia is often associated with paranoia (And extreme paranoia). This syndrome is found to be linked with damage to both the right hemisphere and two frontal lobes of the brain.

Strange…

Alien Hand Syndrome

Idle hands are the Devil’s play things. Or are they the play things of an Outer Space puppet-master? Or – most likely – they’re simply a result of the two hemispheres of the brain being separated. Also known as “Dr Strangelove” Syndrome, this neurological disorder results in an unruly limb; a limb which performs unwanted movements, spasmodic gestures, and causes chaos throughout the city! Okay, I made that last one up, however, in extreme cases, this syndrome can become quite violent.

A very extreme case.

The Cotard Delusion

Night of the living dead! Wait, sorry. That should read: Night of the living thinking they’re dead! The Walking Corpse Syndrome is a bizarre one to say the least. Believing themselves to be either dead, non-existent, without blood or organs or, in some cases, immortal, the Cotard Delusion takes the cake for being one of the coolest disorders ever! Except for those who suffer from it. Being dead must kind of suck, even if it’s not technically true.

Pretty much sums up Cotard’s Syndrome

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lately I’ve been listening to what many would agree is Leonard Cohen’s most controversial and least successful album, his 1977 collaboration with legendary record producer Phil Spector, Death of a Ladies’ Man. The album is bizarre on a number of levels. Strangest of all is that it appears to foresee an event that took place a quarter of a century later: the fatal shooting of actress Lana Clarkson, a crime for which Spector is currently serving time in prison.

The Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is famous not so much for his singing and the melodies of his songs as he is for his powerful, poetic lyrics that explore existential themes. As evident in his music, Cohen has battled with depression throughout much of his life. Now a practicing Zen Buddhist – though without having abandoned his Jewish roots – he is recognized by his fans as something of a prophet, a wise old man who speaks and sings the truth, even if very cryptically. “Give me back the Berlin wall/Give me Stalin and St. Paul/I’ve seen the future, brother:/it is murder,” he growls in his 1992 song The Future.

During the writing and recording of Death of a Ladies’ Man, Cohen was going through what he describes as a “very very dark period” in his life, having “lost control…of my family [and] my work.” At that stage he was living in Los Angeles, a city foreign to him. Spector, the originator of the famous “wall of sound” production technique which redefined pop music, was in just as troubled a state as Cohen. Though he’d achieved a great deal of success in the past, particularly during the 60s – producing such hit singles as “Deep River–Mountain High” with Ike and Tina Turner – his career had slumped dramatically.

Ever since the 60s, there were rumors that Spector suffered from mental health problems, many describing him as mad rather than simply eccentric. In 1974, several years prior to his collaboration with Cohen, he was thrown from the windscreen of his car during a horrific and near-fatal car crash in Hollywood, from which he sustained serious head injuries. Following the incident, he became more reclusive than he’d been in the past, and began donning outlandish wigs to cover the scars on his head.

When Cohen stepped into the studio with Spector, the record producer’s dark side quickly came to the fore. Spector showed signs of “megalomania and insanity,” while the atmosphere in the studio “was one of guns,” recalled Cohen in a 1994 BBC Radio interview. “You know, people were armed to the teeth, all his friends, his bodyguards, and everybody was drunk, or intoxicated on other items, so you were slipping over bullets, and you were biting into revolvers in your hamburger. There were guns everywhere. Phil was beyond control…”

On one occasion, says Cohen, Spector became annoyed with a violinist for failing to play the way he wanted him to, and so “pulled a gun on the guy.” He describes another disturbing incident: “And at a certain point Phil approached me with a bottle of Manischewitz kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved a revolver into my neck and said, ‘Leonard, I love you.’ I said, ‘I hope you do, Phil.’”

When it came time to mix the tracks, Spector, in another act of lunacy, locked Cohen out of the studio so as to exercise full control over the process. Cohen, his art practically stolen from him, was extremely disappointed with the finished product, calling the album “grotesque.” Even worse, the majority of his fans felt the same way, many critics stating that his singing and lyrics had been swamped by Spector’s loud and chaotic wall of sound. The gun-toting Spector, on the other hand, was convinced that he and Cohen had created “some great fucking music.”

Lana Clarkson

As the decades rolled by and Spector’s mental health continued to deteriorate, disaster finally struck. In the early morning hours of February 3, 2003, an emergency call was made from Spector’s 33-room mansion in Alhambra, California, by his chauffeur Adriano de Souza. There police discovered, slumped in a chair, the body of actress Lana Clarkson, the bottom of her mouth blown off by a gun. (The tall, blonde, and busty Clarkson was the star of the 1985 cult classic Barbarian Queen, as well its sequel, Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back.)

It emerged that Spector and Clarkson had first met each other at the House of Blues nightclub on the evening of February 2, where the 40-year-old actress worked part-time as a waitress to help make ends meet. Clearly unaware of Spector’s fondness for firearms – nor of his childish tendency to threaten people with guns when they refused to comply with his wishes – Clarkson agreed to climb into Spector’s limo so as to join him for a drink at his home. Several hours later she was dead. Spector was eventually charged with Clarkson’s murder, yet still denies the crime, arguing that her death was “an accidental suicide” and that she “kissed the gun.” The only piece of evidence supporting Spector’s version of events is that his fingerprints were absent from the murder weapon, a .38 Colt revolver.

In an article published in LA Weekly in 2009, titled “Phil Spector’s Deadly Ways: Does Leonard Cohen’s Death of a Ladies’ Man Foresee Lana Clarkson’s Murder?” pop music critic Randall Roberts explores this very question. “In hindsight,” he suggests, “[the album] could be seen as a portent of Spector’s woes.” Citing such tracks from the album as “True Love Leaves No Traces,” “Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On,” and “Fingerprints,” he states that these are “all key themes in the Spector murder trial.” He continues: “The more we dug, the more evidence surfaced that maybe this Cohen guy was on to something, like he had some sort of premonition.”

Like Roberts, I can’t help but think that Cohen was “on to something,” especially in the case, as Roberts himself points out, of the very rambunctious “Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On,” the chorus of which warns: “Don’t go home with your hard-on/It will only drive you insane/You can’t shake it (or break it) with your Motown/You can’t melt it down in the rain.” Had Spector heeded Cohen’s advice, and not “gone home with his hard-on” the night that he and Clarkson met, most probably the actress would still be alive today.

Below is Roberts’ analysis of Death of a Ladies’ Man, revealing some of the album’s most premonitory moments:

Item 1. Spector meets Clarkson at House of Blues in West Hollywood, where she is a waitress:

I walked up to the tallest and the blondest girl

I said, Look, you don’t know me now but very soon you will

So won’t you let me see

Won’t you let me see

Won’t you let me see

Your naked body?

– from “Memories”

He invites her over to his place after she gets off work. She agrees:

She took his much-admired oriental frame of mind

and the heart-of-darkness alibi his money hides behind

She took his blonde madonna and his monastery wine —

‘This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.’

– from “Death of a Ladies’ Man”

Item 2. They arrive at Spector’s Alhambra mansion. They get to know each other. He, a producer past his prime; she, an actress who had to work at House of Blues to pay the rent:

She said, I see your eyes are dead

What happened to you, lover?

What happened to you, my lover?

What happened to you, lover?

What happened to you?

And since she spoke the truth to me

I tried to answer truthfully

Whatever happened to my eyes

Happened to your beauty

– from “I Left a Woman Waiting”

Item 3. Spector, a legendary ladies’ man, and strong with manly desire, admires the blonde Clarkson. She, however, is not so sure. This is understandably frustrating to the producer:

But don’t go home with your hard-on

It will only drive you insane

You can’t shake it (or break it) with your Motown

You can’t melt it down in the rain

– from “Don’t Go Home With Your Hard-On”

Item 4. Enter a gun. Who knows how it got there? An alleged struggle:

Your beauty on my bruise like iodine

I asked you if a man could be forgiven

And though I failed at love, was this a crime?

You said, Don’t worry, don’t worry, darling

There are many ways a man can serve his time

– from “Iodine”

Item 5. Serve time? What are you talking about, serve time? A gunshot. Who pulled the trigger? Where is the evidence? Why aren’t Spector’s prints on the gun?

I called my fingerprints all night

But they don’t seem to care

The last time that I saw them

They were leafing through your hair

Fingerprints, fingerprints

Where are you now my fingerprints?

– from “Fingerprints”

Item 6. Call an ambulance! There’s been an incident at the Spector mansion! Too late. It’s over.

And many nights endure

Without a moon or star

So we will endure

When one is gone and far

– from “True Love Leaves No Traces”

“You know, we should write a book together!” We’ve all said it so many times, and while there are about three colleagues (no wait, four of them) with whom I really do hope to co-author books on strange phenomena, it seems that the regular conference attenders, lecturers, bloggers, and bibliophiles alike toss the statement around far more often. 

Until the advent of the digital age, the book was once the epitome of the serious researcher’s collected findings. It was not uncommon back in the day for really, really good books to sometimes take years to write, while collaborations with other researchers as I outlined above could take close to a decade of combined reports and observations. As evidenced by the correspondences of late Fortean scholars John Keel and Ivan Sanderson, the two had similarly planned to co-author something, though this would-be odd tome of esoterica never made it past the planning stages. We can only imagine what a Keel and Sanderson collaboration might have ended up being like.

But in the modern day, the accessibility and general availability of knowledge via not just the information found on the web, but also the communication pathways it has opened up have begun to change the way research of all kinds is done. Arguably, this is a good thing, as in my own personal experience, it has seemed to help researchers who come from different areas of interest or academic backgrounds to discover common ground more easily. Thus, there is a bridging of several gaps between not just unrelated fields within study of the strange and unusual, but also between skeptics and the more pragmatic Fortean researchers, as well as laymen writers and journalists and academics. But how will this newfound connectivity influence the publication of books and other materials that deal with the unexplained?

My colleague Scott Alan Roberts and I, while sharing mutual interests, come from very different backgrounds when it comes to the research we do; this, in part, is what helped us decide to launch the Paradigm Symposium event, which seeks purposely to draw experts from very different disciplines and bring them all together in one place to share ideas and present their findings. Scotty, for one, hails from a theological background, having attended seminary in twenties, in addition to working professionally as a family counselor. From an early age, he had been fascinated–if not overtly drawn–to the story of the biblical Moses, which led to his introduction to ancient mysteries and studies of humanity’s ancient history. Thus, with his book The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim, Scotty explored the ancient history of humankind as it relates to the suppositions of modern “ancient alien theories,” though in my opinion, in a very much more scholarly fashion than many popular writers who have broached the subject.

“What if the old spiritualities and religions weren’t just legends?” Roberts asks. “What if there was something living and breathing beneath the surface; a tangible interlinking of theology and spirituality, science and myth, inter-dimensionality and cold, hard fact?” For all we know, What Scotty outlines here very well may be the case. We simply don’t know.

My own approach, rather that seeking to understand mysteries such as UFOs through studying ancient history, has more to do with looking at today’s science, and perhaps more importantly, where those trends are headed with regard to science of the future, and filtering the study of people’s alleged sightings of strange unidentified aircraft through the window of technology. Ideally, emerging science of the coming decades, as we continue to advance our understanding of science and the universe around us at an almost greater than exponential rate, will lead to new technological applications within the next two decades, in my mind, that will be instrumental in determining, once and for all, whether there is anything to the ongoing mystery of UFOs.

While our approaches seem fundamentally different (perhaps even opposing, from the perspective of some), Scotty and I find that we have much in common. We’re both open minded, but inherently skeptical thinkers, and people who question everything with a healthy dose of scrutiny. Each of us, coming from religious upbringings, questions his own faith, and the actual physical laws that dictate who we are, and how humankind came to exist in this universe. We are sometimes troubled, like any researcher may be, at what the facts may dictate, and often, as with my book The UFO Singularity and Scotty’s follow up, The Secret History of the Reptilians, neither of us take at face value the notion of an ongoing interaction between humankind and our supposed interstellar alien kindred. With my own book, I look very critically at the alien abduction enigma, while Scotty goes after the obvious flaws in logic presented by the likes of conspiracy theorist David Icke, Zecharia Sitchin, and others.

Hence, when we began discussing the co-authorship of an eventual book, the first idea that came to mind wasn’t a lineage of human-alien interaction, nor any speculative endeavor as to how our Reptilian alien overlords may have harnessed intergalactic travel using post-singularity alien nanotech. Instead, we resolved that our best mutual contribution to the world of Fortean publications would be a book that looks at the great schism, as well as the common ground that exists between open minded believers, and their skeptical “opponents” on the opposite extreme.

In many instances, Scotty and I have often wondered why “the great debate” really still exists the way it does. After all, in our experience, there seems to be far more common ground between the two sides, at times, than either would care to admit. In other words, in a world where argument and hotly debated facts and opinions riddle our prime-time television networks, there are indeed  ”moderates” out there, comprised of academic scientists and laymen, dreamers and doubters, open-minded wonderers and skeptical thinkers, and so forth, who are willing to be open to possibilities, but nonetheless questioning in their approach.

One fine instance of this that has come along in recent weeks is a Media Guide to Skepticism my colleague Sharon Hill of Doubtful News has taken the time to compile and author. Her purpose, as stated at her website, is to “provide a clear, easy-to-read guide about the “Skeptical” viewpoint as subscribed to by many who might call themselves Skeptics or critical thinkers; to distinguish practical Skepticism from the popular use of the phrase “I’m skeptical,” and from those who claim to be “skeptics” regarding some well-established conclusion (such as climate change).”

Immediately, I know there are many out there whose tongues want to race to the back of their mouths and choke themselves merely after seeing the words “skeptic” written at a popular paranormal blog… though I ask you to keep in mind that this is being written by a popular paranormal writer, and one who, upon reading Sharon’s thesis on reasonable, moderate and logic-oriented skepticism, found that he agreed with her on nearly every point she expresses.

Within the context of Sharon’s guide, in addition to talking about what her brand of skepticism actually is, she also takes time to outline, in precise terms, what it isn’t just as well. ”

True skeptics, she writes, aren’t cynics, nor are they simply “disbelievers.” Nor is every skeptic an atheist, an attitude worn more like a badge by many in popular circles that call themselves skeptics. And a skeptic, while questioning the facts, won’t dismiss science or other information that is less convenient to their own ideals or beliefs (which we would call a “denialist” here). Sharon writes:

“The ‘Skeptic’ is often seen as the ‘debunker,’ the ‘downer’, or the ‘balloon buster’. It may appear that way for those who are very attached to certain concepts to which Skepticism is being applied, such as existence of ghosts, Bigfoot or UFOs. Skeptics aren’t skeptical of everything, either. In classical Greek Skepticism, the individual did not commit to stating ‘knowledge’; everything was doubted, there was no certainty. That is not a popular stance today. When we speak of modern Skepticism, we are talking about those who seek the conclusion best supported by current evidence and reason.”

Returning again to my own work, when I spoke this year at the 2013 International UFO Congress, I was very surprised at how warmly I was welcomed by the crowd, despite being perhaps the only speaker all weekend who stood up before the crowd and said, “I have seen no proof, to date, that UFOs represent alien spacecraft from other worlds.” There was one gentleman who, later in the weekend, approached me to say my presentation (and my book, which he admitted to having only thumbed through) lacked content altogether, and that there was “simply no reason to speak about the subject outside the context of extraterrestrials before an audience like this.” I must admit to being a bit amazed at a statement like this; while we certainly have some compelling evidence that some UFO phenomenon could be extraterrestrial technology, I must again state that there is a big difference between “evidence” and “proof.” As Sharon states above, a good researcher has to look at the evidence, and attempt to draw conclusions that are best supported by this evidence, as well as a discerning ability to reason. To me UFOs could thus be a lot of different things, and maybe there’s room for ETs in there someplace just as well. But I can’t prove that… no matter how badly my heart wants it to be true.

With regard to the discussion with the gentleman I discussed above, I finally agreed to send him copies of my books, free of charge, so that he could at least take my positions more thoroughly into consideration… while he (respectfully, no less) advised that I simply hadn’t drawn the same extraterrestrial component from the equation because I “haven’t been at it as long” as he. To each his own, but we left the discussion as new friends, rather than a pair of ideologues merely intent on clashing.

So what does all this mean, and what does it have to do with modern publishing regarding unexplained phenomenon and fringe topics? Quite simply, it is this: while blogs and online media have fought their way into the exchange of ideas, books will still remain (for some time, at least) perhaps the chief way of expressing the totality of one’s viewpoints, or the collected summation of a few. And while some view it as an ongoing argument, what I’m beginning to see out there is, at least in appearance, a greater number of “believers” and “skeptics” who are willing to work together, share ideas, and allow their work to influence one another.

Yes, at times there is (and I would maintain that there must be) a place for reasonable speculation–even in the absence of facts–because only in this way, at times, can theories and hypotheses be formulated, tests and experiments be designed, and final, scientific truths be discerned about various phenomenon. On the other extreme, paranormal researchers might do well to take a few steps back, and look at the bigger picture of what the call their worldview, and ask how much of it is truly substantiated by facts; perhaps one reason we’ve seen so little of this over the last few decades is because, sadly, much of what I discuss about publishing and books also influences people’s reasons for selling them: a controversial subject will sell much better than a bold (and even, at times, a boring) truth. And hence, albeit not maliciously, some researchers may quite easily delude themselves into believing certain things they’ve dedicated years and years of their lives to. It’s hard to step off the block once you’re so high up, and yes, it might hurt your book sales. 

But in the coming years, I’ll be eager to see what kinds of books will begin to appear in the Fortean markets that deal less with conventional approaches to the unexplained, and have more to do instead with new, innovative approaches to studying strange phenomenon; perhaps in a less biased way that in years past, and while a bit more skeptical, this approach could at once lend itself to opening even more exciting possibilities than ever before.

In fact, this sounds so exciting, I may just have to write a book about it. 

By the light of a full moon, it seems that virtually anything could happen, if the folklore we’ve associated with Earth’s lonely natural satellite were to be believed. From transforming a man into a bizarre were-beast, to the literal changing of the Earth’s tides, the moon has been attributed to a plethora of strange phenomena, ranging from the mythic and supernatural, to the realms of pure science. 

Indeed, the moon has, over time, come to represent a cultural phenomenon within itself; the goings on of late-night happenings, secretive rendezvous, and quite encounters kept away from the waking world have come to be represented by the full moon. It is a beacon not only for strange night-owls and insomniacs, but also for those seeking to rid themselves of the pressures and standards of the daylight world.

While themes that involve supernatural beasts like the werewolf are already very familiar to our modern society, in recent years there have been a plethora of other strange conspiracy theories that have come into existence regarding the lunar satellite, ranging from theories of a hollow moon and a “second moon” existing in Earth orbit, to the supposed colonization by secretive earthbound organizations and even extraterrestrials using it as an outpost for their earth-related activities. But whether it be superstitions, or conspiracies, how much truth is there to the mystique the moon has managed to possess over time?

The notion that the moon possesses strange powers over humanity is an age old concept, and looking back to the earliest modern philosophers the likes of Pliny the Elder, Aristotle, and others, it has been a common belief that the moon–especially a full moon–could cause panic, madness, or other forms of hysteria to erupt. A general approach to explaining this once traditionally involved the notion that the human brain, with its partial liquid composition, might have been subject to the same effects that the moon appeared to display on Earth’s tides. While science has proven this to be impossible, the notion that a full moon can cause varieties of madness has no doubt remained consistent with legends of lycanthropy and were-beasts. Even today, some statistics maintain that violent crimes and other social unrest tend to spike alongside the full moon appearing in the sky.

Science does not support such ideas, however, suggesting instead that there are prosaic explanations for any apparent “moon madness” that may be believed to exist. Writing for Scientific American in 2009, researchersScott O. Lilienfeld Hal Arkowitz discussed that what is known as an “illusory correlation” might underly people’s perception of a correlation between strange phenomenon and a full moon:

Illusory correlations result in part from our mind’s propensity to attend to—and recall—most events better than nonevents. When there is a full moon and something decidedly odd happens, we usually notice it, tell others about it and remember it. We do so because such co-occurrences fit with our preconceptions. Indeed, one study showed that psychiatric nurses who believed in the lunar effect wrote more notes about patients’ peculiar behavior than did nurses who did not believe in this effect. In contrast, when there is a full moon and nothing odd happens, this nonevent quickly fades from our memory. As a result of our selective recall, we erroneously perceive an association between full moons and myriad bizarre events.

While there may be no scientific basis for “full moon madness”, this hasn’t removed the possibility that the moon might have been used for purposes of creating an extra-planetary outpost for off-earth affairs… at least in the minds of a few researchers. For instance, the highly-decorated former pilot John Lear has made frequent use of NASA photos for making a case that there are literally such things as buildings, mining operations, and perhaps even trees that are visible on the lunar surface (for more on Lear’s claims about objects visible in official NASA photography of the moon, take a look at this website). It has been asserted regarding Lear’s claims that there could be existent operations being carried out by Earth agencies that could account for such “Lunar Anomalies,” although the claim that alien bases might exist there also reamin popular by many fringe thinkers today.

While less intriguing than the sensational claim that “alien outposts” may exist on the far side of the moon, what is interesting nonetheless (and remains a verified fact) is that, from time to time, Earth may be capable of acquiring a second moon. Indeed, a number of years ago it was reported that a tiny asteroid had managed to drift into Earth’s gravitation field, where it remained captured for a short time. Given the name 6R10DB9, this small asteroid nonetheless was large enough to be considered by some to be a “second moon,” of sorts, and of course, the possibility remains today that at some point another (perhaps larger) asteroid could enter Earth’s gravitational field and reside there, forming a second natural satellite hovering around the Earth.

A distinct separation exists between those things that are believed to occur at the time of a full moon, etc, compared with the multitude of strange, yet verifiable natural lunar phenomena that are scientifically accepted. While the latter are certainly less sensational than the notion of “alien moon bases”, it cannot be denied that there are indeed a number of fascinating potentials that seem to exist within, around, or in conjunction with a full moon’s appearance. Despite what we already know about our moon’s influence on life here on Earth, over time we will no doubt manage to uncover even greater mysteries, as we grow to know our lonely natural satellite a bit better… and armed with new technologies suited for probing its deeper mysteries.

As some people may already be aware, many of my views on crop circles are hardly what might be termed conventional. But, as crop circles are themselves in no way conventional, for me, at least, my approach to the subject is a highly appropriate one. Here’s the deal: for numerous people crop circles are the work of aliens, ET, little grey men with large, wrap-around black eyes, and over-sized heads. You get the picture, right? Of course you do! For the true-believers who pray daily at the altar of our hallowed lord and master, Kenneth Arnold, it has to be ET; it just has to be.

Actually, when it comes to crop circles, no, it doesn’t have to be. At all.

In response to those true believers, I say: “Okay, then what about the human element of the crop circle mystery?”

Well, whenever I bring up that distinctly thorny issue I very often hear two tired, well-worn and usually utterly defensive statements that broadly go something like this: “All those people who say they make crop circles are liars.” Or: “They’re nothing but hoaxers.” Blah, blah, blah. Etc, etc., etc.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To the uninitiated, the unacquainted and the outright biased, I say this: have you ever actually spoken to any of the people who make these formations? Have you ever spoken to even just one such person? Have you ever hung out in an English field – in the dead of night – and watched carefully while a massively complex formation is created undercover of darkness by a highly-skilled team?

For those who have not, but who instead prefer to make loud proclamations from the confines of their office or living-room (and possibly even on the other side of the world), I say that it’s about time you did! To all of the above.

Most people who create highly intricate crop formations are actually not out to fool anyone, to con anybody, to entice tourists to the area, or to deceive the populace and the Fortean community in the slightest. That is nothing but a media-driven myth, which is believed by millions. And it’s a myth that many people accept without question or barely a second thought.

In reality, the motivations for making crop circles run much deeper and stranger than just having a laugh at the expense of someone else. One person I have interviewed extensively on the human angle of crop circle-making is Matthew Williams. He is one of the very few people in the world, thus far, arrested, charged and convicted for making a crop formation. Or, for causing a bit of a fuss in – and damage to – a field in Wiltshire, England, as the local police preferred it when they decided to haul Matt before the judge.

Now, Matt is a good mate of mine, and I have known about his circle motivations, beliefs and actions for around 15 years or so. Basically, Matt is of the opinion that the human element is the key element in crop circles: to put it bluntly, they are made by people.

Very early on in his crop circle research, however, Matt came to realize something deeply strange and highly intriguing: namely that many people who made the formations were themselves experiencing unusual phenomena – and on numerous occasions in the formations of their very own making.

For example, Matt has experienced (as have a number of other, well-known circle-makers, more than a few of who are reluctant to speak on the record) a wealth of weird phenomena in crop circles that he himself created, including seeing small, aerial balls of light zipping around, detecting unexplained animal-like presences, and even experiencing significant periods of missing time.

Matt spelled out to me what he believes lies at the heart of all this, and it involves a belief system suggesting that crop circles are somewhat akin to 21^st Century versions of Stonehenge or the Avebury Stones. They are rather like modern-day – but highly alternative – temples that, via ritual magic, can be instilled with extraordinary properties that, in turn, lead to the sometimes unusual effects experienced within such formations.

Of course, discussion of scenarios like these can often lead to a distinct rolling of the eyes on the part of those obsessed by nothing but Area 51 and Roswell, and who long for the return of Mulder, Scully and the Cigarette-Smoking Man. And, to an extent, such ideas are dependent on the belief systems of the circle-makers and those that share their views.

But, the fact of the matter is that some human circle-makers do believe this: they firmly accept that creating a crop formation, and engaging in ritual and rite within the formation in question – sometimes coupled with entering altered states of mind via the use of psychedelics – can open doorways to other realms of existence, and to paranormal-style phenomena. Plus, they have seen that high-strangeness up close and personal in their own crop-based creations.

Now, this is all highly controversial, I’ll be the very first to admit. It’s also worth noting, however, that I came across a crop circle at Chartley Castle, Staffordshire, England in the summer of 2006 that showed clear evidence of occultists having been at work in the direct vicinity of the formation and which involved the ritual slaughter of a peacock.

Now, Matt and his colleagues try and instill circles with positive energy; but there was nothing positive about the Chartley Castle crop circle: it utterly oozed negativity and was shrouded in an air of menace. But, all the same, the highly intricate Chartley Castle creation was without doubt the work of humans.

So, for those interested in crop circles, but who are massively misinformed about the people who make them and why they do so, I say this: look to the human angle for the answers to the crop circle puzzle. But don’t label those people such as Matthew Williams as hoaxers. That is the very last thing they are. It’s much more subtle than that, and runs deep into the heart of British folklore, mythology and ancient rite and ritual.

And stop focusing on bloody ET. The truth of the crop circle enigma may be far stranger than anything those bug-eyed little creeps could ever hope to cook up.

When 20-year-old Walter woke, the red, glowing lights of his bedside alarm clock read 88:88. He quickly saw the clock wasn’t the only thing wrong in his room. “Standing above it was a man-sized black shadow with glowing red eyes,” Walter said. “I looked right at him, and was more confused then anything.”

Walter, now 28, has always been used to strange things in his room. During many nights as a small child, the thin blanket of light crawling into his room from nearby streetlights would slowly dim until he couldn’t see anything. Although he was too young to remember, family members told him this is when the voices came out. “At that time what I was told was imaginary friends would come and I’d talk to them,” he said. “Even now when I’m in a dark room it’s like I can still hear the whispers of others and even during times of danger there is always a voice that warns me to take action.”

But as far as he could remember, Walter had never seen the source of these voices until the night of the red-eyed shadow. “He leaned forward towards me and said, ‘They are watching you,’” Walter said. “He climbed back into the wall of my room, and my alarm clock turned off and resumed its regular time after that.”

They are watching you. Walter already knew that; he’s known it since he was 16. He just doesn’t know who “they” are. “When I was younger I always noticed I was being watched by several people in black vans or SUVs from a distance,” he said. “I know they were looking at me because as soon as I left the line of sight they packed up and left.”

These vehicles followed Walter everywhere. He saw them often around the school he attended, Banting Memorial High School in Alliston, Ontario, and on shopping trips to nearby Barrie, Ontario. “I noticed the same style cars that would stop by stores I was at and left when I was leaving,” he said. “No one got out while I was at the store. Just parked while I entered and drove off while I left.”

The drivers of the vehicles soon became brazen. Numerous times as Walter stood on a street corner waiting for the light to change, one of the black SUVs would make a full stop at a green light, looked Walter down, and drive off. “I even saw a flash once before it took off.”

Then came the day Walter tried to confront a driver. “I caught one watching me,” he said. Walter stepped behind a vehicle, momentarily out of view, and snuck close to the black SUV. Two people were with the vehicle, one sitting inside, the other standing outside holding a camera with a telephoto lens.

“They were dressed in somewhat leisure-style clothing. Black pants and a white shirt and had sunglasses on,” Walter said. “They noticed I was ten-ish feet away and threw everything in the car and booked it.” Walter thinks these people in the dark SUVs may be gone for good. “After the shadow figure told me they were watching me I haven’t been bugged by them to the best of my knowledge.”

Are these the mysterious Men in Black; strange darkly dressed, semi-human entities that have been reported harassing UFO witnesses since the modern UFO flap began in the 1940s? The men and vehicles Walter saw fit the description, but Walter has never encountered a UFO.

However, he has experienced something almost as strange. “I did noticed one thing that was going weird around me,” he said. “Lampposts would turn off while I was close to them and turn back on when I left their area, I even walked past some emergency fire lights and they turned on when I got too close.”

Street Light Interference, lights going on and off when people approach them, has been documented for decades. Although no one knows what causes the phenomenon, this happens to Walter, which brings us back to that night in his room, when the streetlights went dark, and the red-eyed shadow man spoke.

“I had no clue what the shadow entity was, but I always loved the dark, I feel at ease the darker the room is,” he said. “I even have a hard time during the day seeing since the sunlight burns my eyes. I kinda joke with my friends at times who I’ve told this to that he helped me out of kinsmanship.”

I became acquainted with Jadoo – the first book ever written by John Keel – back in the late 1980s, when a friend in the Fortean field loaned me a copy. Having eagerly read The Mothman Prophecies when I was about twelve or thirteen, I equally eagerly devoured Jadoo. And a damn good read it was too! But, since I never personally owned a copy of the book, I have to confess that, as time passed by and the years progressed, I pretty much forgot about it. Until now. Yep, Jadoo is back!

Thanks to the good folks at Anomalist Books, Keel’s book is with us once again. And, yes, you can purchase used, old copies of Jadoo online, but there are very good reasons why it would be much wiser – and far more rewarding – to invest in a copy of the new edition. I’ll explain why, at the end. But, before we get to all that, if you haven’t read Jadoo, you may already be thinking: What’s Nick on about and what is Jadoo about? I’ll tell you.

It’s fair to say that when most people think of John Keel it’s probably in relation to the aforementioned Mothman, the sinister and ghoulish Men in Black, his views on the extraterrestrial vs. ultraterrestrial theory for the UFO phenomenon, and his thoughts on demonology, folklore and mythology. Yes, all of these matters did indeed fascinate (and obsess) Keel for years. But, Jadoo is very different.

In the pages of Jadoo, you will not find tales of the MIB, or of flying, winged nightmares with fiery red eyes. Nor will you find any accounts of dark-suited MIB intent on silencing witnesses to profound UFO encounters. Rather, Jadoo represents the very early years of Keel and his paranormal-themed research and writing, long before he got immersed in the UFO issue and the surrounding culture of Ufology. And a highly entertaining read it is, too.

Indeed, in the quarter of a century or so that has passed since I read Jadoo (and read it only once), I was pleased to see it has not lost its energy, wit, excitement, adventure, and intrigue. In fact, rather than losing anything, it has several significant things added to it. As I’ll soon explain.

So, with that all said, what is Jadoo about? Well, if I was to say  to you: “Try and imagine a story that is part-Raiders of the Lost Ark, part-Kerouac, part-Bukowski, part-The Da Vinci Code, and part-Hemingway and you have Jadoo,” maybe that would help. It should help, since – for me, anyway – that is indeed a solid portrayal of what you’ll find in the 300-pages of Keel’s book.

Basically, this is 1950s-era Keel: a young man with wild adventure and even wilder travel on his mind. Not to mention, articles to write, deadlines to meet, and dollars to earn. So, we see our Indiana Jones-style Keel having entertaining – and at times dicey and even life-threatening – experiences in India, Egypt and Iraq. And if you think Iraq is dangerous now, you should have seen it back then! Keel did, and he only just about survived the process!

Jadoo is a story of what happens when you take that aforementioned young man far away from his native United States, and dump him in wild and wonderful locations that are filled with magicians, terrible secrets that date back to the dawning of civilization, ancient cities, deadly cults, and sinister figures who might smile at you one moment and, later, casually slit your throat while you sleep under a Middle Eastern sun. It’s a saga filled with fantastically entertaining tales of mummies, snake-charmers, and – for fans of Cryptozoology and strange beasts – even a quest for the legendary Yeti.

But we get something else from Keel in Jadoo. It’s something he rarely gave us a look at in his other works: his personal life. No, I’m not talking about his run-ins with the likes of Jim Moseley, Gray Barker, and all manner of dubious but entertaining tales of hoaxed phone-calls and phony photos. We’re talking romance.

It transpires that these sections of Jadoo were omitted from the original edition due to the fact that Keel’s beloved – a German girl named Lite, but who is referred to in the text as Ingrid – could not be located to sign a release form. But, nearly 60 years later, does it really matter? No, probably not! Keel relates – in a fashion that the aforementioned Hemingway would have been proud of – how he and Ingrid came to meet, how their romance developed in exotic lands, and the way in which it reached its sad but probably inevitable end. When I say this section of the book makes for captivating and almost gut-wrenching reading, I’m not exaggerating.

Many – who are only familiar with Keel from his later work - might be surprised by how much emotion and personal feeling Keel puts into the sections of the book concerning Lite, since they have nothing whatsoever to do with the world of the paranormal and everything to do with young, and ultimately lost, love. But those people would be missing the point: Jadoo is about the adventure and experience that is called “Life.” And, Keel lived it. He did so particularly in the tales that comprise Jadoo.

Keel is now gone. Certainly most of the players in the book – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright deadly – are probably gone too. I have no idea about Lite. It would be cool to think she is still with us and can now take a renewed look back into the past, and her time spent with Keel, courtesy of the new Jadoo.

If you want to learn about what the man who made Mothman famous (and who, in turn, was made famous by it) was doing long before Point Pleasant, West Virginia dragged him, magnet-like, into its creepy confines, then buy and read Jadoo.

Yes, Jadoo is a book that is saturated by tale after tale of the paranormal. But, it’s also a story that makes it clear why life is to be lived, loved, savored and experienced to the full, no matter where it takes us, and no matter the outcome. Keel understood the importance of all that. And he chronicled a great deal of it in the pages of Jadoo.

PS: The sections of the new edition of Jadoo which concerns Keel and Lite are not the only brand new additions to the book. There’s also an old review of the book which is a glowing one. It should be glowing since, as it’s revealed, Keel wrote it himself under the alias of Randolph Halsey-Quince!! There is a section comprised of Keel’s original “travel notes.” And, finally, there’s a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of a planned follow-up book to Jadoo, but which never came to fruition. These items alone make Anomalist Books’ new edition required reading for any Keel fan.