The Occult Section

This story has been making national headlines, and it unfortunately shows the dangers of “ghost hunting” while trespassing. A North Carolina-based ghost hunting group was at the site of the Bostian Bridge train wreck on the anniversary of the crash (which took place on August 27, 1891). They were on the bridge in the early morning hours last Friday when an actual, non-ghost train came suddenly around the corner. With nowhere to really take cover, three people were struck by the train, killing 29-year-old Christopher Kaiser immediately. Two women were injured, one seriously.

We joke a lot here at The Occult Section (especially me), but this tragedy is very serious. If you are in a paranormal group, please, please take this story as a warning. If anything good can come of it, let it be that it will make other groups think twice about trespassing for the sake of chasing the paranormal. The risk is not worth your life!

An outing Friday morning to see the reported ghost of a train that crashed in 1891 ended in tragedy for a group of ghost hunters.

Christopher Joseph Kaiser, 29, of Charlotte was pronounced dead at the scene of the famous Bostian Bridge train crash on Buffalo Shoals Road.

A woman, whose name has not yet been released, was airlifted from Iredell Memorial Hospital to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. Her condition was unavailable.

Kaiser and others were apparently on the trestle when an eastbound Norfolk Southern train, containing three locomotives and no cars, approached.

Capt. Darren Campbell of the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office said most of those on the trestle were able to run to safety, but Kaiser and the woman were not. Various reports said Kaiser pushed the woman from the front of the train before being hit.

An ambulance was called to treat a third person. That person was not transported to a hospital.
The train operators tried to stop the train and blew the horn to warn the people on the trestle, Campbell said.

Campbell said a group of about a dozen people gathered at the site on Buffalo Shoals Road shortly before 3 a.m. Friday in what has become an annual ritual for some ghost hunters.

A train fell off the trestle around 3 a.m. on Aug. 27, 1891, killing 30 people. Stories of paranormal activity started on the first anniversary of the crash and have continued since.

In 1991, when the 100th anniversary rolled around, nearly 300 people crowded into the field where the 1891 wreck came to rest to celebrate and, some, in hopes of seeing the ghost train return.
No ghost train appeared that night.

The Iredell County Sheriff’s Office, the N.C. Highway Patrol and the Norfolk Southern Railroad Police are investigating the incident.

Campbell said the sheriff’ s office is still hoping to interview those who might have been at the site Friday morning but left before the arrival of law enforcement.

Campbell said the incident appears to be an accident.

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Monsters of New Jersey: Mysterious Creatures in the Garden State by Loren Coleman and Bruce G. Hallenbeck

“As in all investigations in New Jersey, as elsewhere, it is best to approach your quest with an open mind, critically, skeptically, and patiently.”

"Monsters of New Jersey" by Loren Coleman

I suppose it’s fitting to start my review of Monsters of New Jersey: Mysterious Creatures in the Garden State with the last sentence in the book. Author Loren Coleman, the world’s leading cryptozoologist and Fortean, succinctly puts what any armchair monster hunter (or any paranormal investigator, for that matter) should know: There’s a lot of weird stuff out there, and whether it’s real or not, we have to be careful before we believe it or debunk it.

A natural companion piece to his earlier Mysterious America, Coleman’s new book focuses solely on the creepy critters of New Jersey. Once again, the gamut of oddities from the goblin universe is explored here, from more well-known creatures such as Bigfoot and sea monsters, to lesser-known beings like lizardmen and flying humanoids.

The first chapter details what is surely New Jersey’s most prominent monster, the Jersey Devil. Part folklore, part hoax, and part genuinely unexplained phenomena, the Jersey Devil supposedly resides in the Pine Barrens, south Jersey’s vast, million-acre wooded area that is largely unpopulated. The Jersey Devil doesn’t fit into any neat cryptozoological archetype. The most common descriptions claim that it has the head of a horse or ram, bat-like wings, and cloven hooves. It supposedly emits a mournful, high-pitched wail described as a cross between a shriek and a whistle. The author does a good job pointing out which parts of the story are pure fabrications, and which parts of the legend are truly unexplained.

Artist's rendition of the Jersey Devil

Then we’re on to winged weirdies, which include giant birds, flying humanoids, and more. Mentioned is one of my favorite stories, from September of 1880, in which a winged man was seen flying over Coney Island towards New Jersey. Being a Brooklyn native, I can tell you that if anything weird was going to happen around here, it would probably involve Coney Island and New Jersey.

Bigfoot is up next, or as he is known in the Garden State, “Big Red Eye,” for his distinguishing feature of glowing red eyes. Mr. Coleman does a good job of distinguishing the classic Bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest from the usually less bulky hairy hominids of the east coast. Tied into the New Jersey sightings are reports from New York, Long Island, and down to Florida, where they call their man-beast the Skunk Ape. It’s interesting to note how the sighting patterns of these creatures over the years seems to indicate a migratory pattern, as they are seen more frequently down south as the weather up north gets colder.

The next chapters deal with the Hoboken Monkey Man, which is in all likelihood just a homeless person, and the “St. Joseph’s Cat’s Eyes” of Jersey City. We then move down to Cape May, as the author tells us about the long history of sea monster sightings on the coast of New Jersey. Lots of normal creatures have washed up on the shores over the years, and in the past they were assumed to be monsters. But there is one story in chapter on fresh water monsters that is 100% confirmed: the great white shark attacks in Matawan in 1916. A great white apparently swam inland into fresh water and started attacking swimmers in the town. These true events went on to inspire the novel and movie Jaws.

The last chapter is very short, and details some accounts of alligators in the sewers (and elsewhere) as well as lizardmen, humanoid beings with scaly skin and lizard-like appearances. There is a great appendix to the book as well, which is a chronological list of Jersey Devil sightings, furnished by The Devil Hunters, official researchers of the Jersey Devil.

The Good: Loren Coleman is perhaps the world’s leading cryptozoologist, and for good reason. So if you need a book on cryptids and strange animals, you need look no further. I’ve reviewed some of his other books in the past, including Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, so it’s no secret that I love his writing style. Informative yet accessible, he continues that trend in Monsters of New Jersey, and occasionally breaks the fourth wall to give the reader a wink and a nod. I received this book on Saturday, and was finished on Sunday afternoon. Part of that is due to the fact that the book, since it only focuses on New Jersey, is only 120 some-odd (and some very odd) pages. But it’s also a great read that never loses the reader’s interest. There’s a good mix of monsters in here, from the well-known to the obscure. When something is a hoax or just too “out there” to be believed (such as the giant bird made of wood that could speak perfect English, and would inflate like a balloon and float away when attacked), he is not afraid to call it like it is. Most of his books have great appendices, and this one is no different.

The Bad: There is not much I could say against this book. I should perhaps address the bias I have, as I live on Staten Island, just a stone’s throw away from Jersey (and a very strange place in its own right). So I could see this book appealing more to people from New Jersey or some of the surrounding states like New York and Pennsylvania. Any true cryptozoology enthusiast will love the book, but the casual reader may not be able to relate as well as a local. The book does seem a bit short, and a few chapters seem rushed, but Mr. Coleman addresses the reader in his acknowledgements, indicating that during the writing of this book, he lost his mother, some friends, had some true family tragedies, and more issues in his life that perhaps delayed this book and maybe even forced him to cut it short. But it in no way detracts from the book. I just always want more.

The Ugly: Besides the horrific-looking creature on the cover of this book, there’s nothing really bad about this book. Some pictures would have been nice, allowing the reader to see the Pine Barrens, or the Blue Hole, but again, it doesn’t detract from the book.

The Bottom Line: If you have even a passing interest in cryptozoology, you should get this book. Amazon.com has it for $9.32, which is a bargain. The book covers a lot of ground, with a lot of reports, in a little over 120 pages. It’s a good primer on cryptids on the east coast, and a great companion piece to Mysterious America. Highly recommended.

Final Score: 95%

I want these action figures. Also, I kind of feel like that's who I'll be when I'm an old man.

Technorati Tags: bigfoot, book reviews, books, cryptozoology, loren coleman, new jersey, new york, News, people, the jersey devil, thoughts

Don’t look now, Team Edward fans, but it’s looking like demons are heating up the silver screen again and may just be the antidote to the latest vampire craze.  With last year’s hugely successful Paranormal Activity (its sequel is due out this fall), the indie hit The House of the Devil, and – my personal favorite – the campy, yet terrifying Drag Me To Hell, The Last Exorcism becomes the latest horror installment to conjure up the demons to try and create box office success.

Daniel Stamm (A Necessary Death) directs this faux documentary, and relies on mostly unknown actors and the modern genre’s use of a hand-held camera to do the filming here.  The setup is that the documentary’s “crew” is going to follow a disillusioned preacher, Cotton Marcus, played by Patrick Fabian (Big Love), as he agrees to perform one last exorcism, on camera, in order to expose exorcism for the scam he thinks it is.

Set in rural Louisiana, Marcus and the two crew members make their way to the Sweetzer farm, where local farmer Louis (played by Louis Herthum) believes his teenage daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) is possessed by a demon.  Livestock are turning up dead, and he’s got animal corpses and Nell’s bloodied nightgowns to prove it.  Of course after speaking to the young girl, she doesn’t remember doing any of it, and because Marcus doesn’t believe in demons, with only the crew in earshot he quickly turns to implications that perhaps something else is going on here: incest and psychological abuse at the hand of either her father or her extraordinarily creepy older brother, Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones).

Still, he keeps up the holy-roller ruse in front of the family and agrees to perform the exorcism on Nell.  Only Caleb seems any wiser to the theatrics that Marcus employs during his “exorcism,” and after Nell agrees to accept the Lord into her life, Marcus takes Louis Sweetzer’s wad of cash and readies himself to leave the farm.  This is when things start to go awry, and to reveal much more would spoil the twists and turns The Last Exorcism takes.

While there is plenty of jump-in-your-seat moments in the latter half of the film, the action is slow to build to that point.  I was okay with this, because the dialogue and dry humor in the first half of the film (written by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland) are mostly entertaining, save for a few groan-inducing moments and some definite clichés, but it did seem to make much of the audience in my screening a bit restless (and talkative, which always seems to be the case when I see a movie in the city).  My biggest problem with the movie is that, after showing so much restraint throughout most of it, the last few minutes take what would have been a quiet, creepy little flick and turn it into something else – something much more reminiscent of another, much more well-known horror film – because it lessens the effectiveness in this particular case and made me like it less than I would have otherwise.

The Last Exorcism sets out to make you uncomfortable; taking on fundamentalist religious beliefs, rural stereotypes, incest and demons isn’t exactly light material. I was actually a bit surprised to see that it was only given a PG-13 rating; I guess the folks at the MPAA were expecting a more foul-mouthed possession performance, akin to Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist, which you won’t see here, or perhaps after seeing Eli Roth’s name attached (he’s the producer) they were anticipating graphic violence, a la Hostel.  You won’t get that either.  You will get the grittiness and fake realism that the genre relies on, and while the effectiveness of this is starting to dissipate, in this case it mostly works because of solid performances turned in by the actors.

Grade: B

"Just stay calm. I'm going to conjure up the spirit of Billy Mays, get some Oxi Clean and these blood stains will come right out."

Technorati Tags: demons, devil, Eli Roth, horror, Linda Blair, movie review, movies, paranormal activity, The Exorcist, The Last Exorcism

A few months back, I reported on a crisis in Roswell, NM: city officials were going to pull the plug on the annual UFO Festival. A few weeks later, I reported how such musical luminaries as Billy Ray Cyrus and Phil Vassar had pulled out of the festival, afraid that they might not get their money. I guess they fell back on raiding a daughter’s bank account and standing on a corner with a cardboard sign, respectively. But KOB.com has some good news, for UFO enthusiasts and washed up musicians alike:

The city of Roswell says it’s serious about the annual UFO Festival and finally approved funding for it late Wednesday.

The city council held a special workshop to approve a budget for this fiscal year which included $150,000 for the controversial UFO Festival.

That is the same amount as last year that was taken out of the lodgers tax fund.

There was some concern that the city might not fund the festival because it was not included in the preliminary budget. At that time, the city council wanted to look at whether the money was being spent wisely before funding it again.

The final numbers from the most recent UFO festival will not be ready until next month.

“We’ve got to be responsible to our citizens and also to the people coming to visit us… But I’ll guarantee I’m going to be watching it like a hawk, and I think you’ll see everyone at the table watching like a hawk, you’ve seen me yell and scream before, and I’ll yell and scream again,” said City Councilor Dusty Huckabee.

City officials says they will fully support the festival and that is why they decided to approve the funding before seeing the final numbers.

Two funny points in this article. One, which I’ve made before, is that why else would anyone go to Roswell and spend money there, if not for the UFO connection? Drop the festival and they become just another rinky-dink town with no reason for tourists to visit. Secondly, we definitely need more politicians who yell and scream. We don’t have enough immature idiots in government. Make this guy mayor. Now.

Technorati Tags: alien, aliens, billy ray cyrus, extraterrestrial, flying saucer, humor, media, new mexico, paranormal, people, roswell, thoughts, ufo, ufos

I’ve really lost a lot of respect for “Ghost Hunters” and TAPS these past few seasons, for a variety of reasons. The focus has gone from residential cases to famous locations and businesses. Their evidence has gone from intriguing to lame and questionable. Evidence that would have been thrown out (sometimes angrily) by Jason in the first season is now being presented to clients as “proof” of a haunting. They spend a lot of time goofing off. They use unscientific techniques like the “magic flashlight.” SyFy makes them have celebrity guests, from pro wrestlers, Meatloaf, and actors from other bad SyFy series. Jason seems apathetic and impatient on almost every case he goes on. Maybe he knows they’ve sold out.

Realizing that I’d become jaded, I was determined to watch last night’s season premier with an open mind. I didn’t want to go in angry before the show even started. So what did I think?

The show started off, as it tends to these days, with Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson pretending to still be working for Roto Rooter. This used to anger me, but I’ve come to terms with this. It’s part of the illusion of the show, two working guys who ghost hunt at night. Even though we all know neither one will ever have to work again, from residuals, speaking engagements, the hotel they own, book deals, merchandising rights, etc. But I guess being a working class hero sells better. Anyways, their case for tonight is, unsurprisingly, a hotel, the Otesaga Hotel in Cooperstown, NY. Not a residential case. As Grant often says, “We’re here to help!” But I guess the second part, “…you bring in more business!” usually ends up on the cutting room floor. Sorry, not being too good with keeping the jaded feelings away, am I?

They take the typical tour, only with Britt this time, as Steve and Tango are probably off filming “Ghost Hunters Academy.” Also with them is the mysterious and impressionable K.J., who is apparently a friend of Jason’s. It makes me pine for the days when people actually had to apply for membership in TAPS and prove themselves. But I guess that’s out now. They have a separate TV show for that now.

Jason and Grant start the investigation, and actually try to do some debunking, so props to them for that. They hear some mysterious sounds and run off looking for the source, but don’t find anything.

Kris and Amy are the second team to investigate, and immediately start going for the “magic flashlights,” which is just a flashlight with the cover loosened just enough so as to make it very easy for the flashlight to turn on and off. This is not even close to scientific, as if you do that, even the slightest vibration, paranormal or otherwise, will give the intended results. But Kris and Amy make it even less scientific by not even specifying which light they’d like the entities to turn on. By just saying “turn on one of the lights,” they are leaving it open, and no matter which light turns on, they can now claim they are “communicating” with a spirit. I call shenanigans.

Britt and K.J. are up next, and see all sorts of shadows down dark hallways, and hear more noises. At one point they see a shadow as they enter a room, and never once consider that maybe it was their own shadows, from light coming in through the hallway and the opening door. Bad investigating, guys. “When in doubt, throw it out.” Remember?

They end the night, and Kris and Amy actually sleep in one of the supposedly haunted rooms, with a camera going. I’m a guy…two girls sleeping together in a room with a camera going…you can make your own jokes here. But I digress…

The evidence review didn’t catch much. There was one decent EVP, but I feel like the team got what it said all wrong. They all said it sounded like it was saying “Amy,” but I heard more of a “Help me” or something similar. It was not an “A” sound that you would hear with “Amy.” Plus, Britt & K.J. are the ones who caught it, so it doesn’t quite fit in the scheme of the EVP session.

Overall, I think I’m done with “Ghost Hunters.” I truly tried to give it a chance (despite my now jaded review!), and tried to give credit where credit was due, but I didn’t see much worth giving credit to. K.J. is way too impressionable, and he seems to be like the new Brian Harnois. The flashlight experiments could be interesting, if not entirely scientific, if they actually applied more standards to the experiments. (Our friends over at Para-Blog of the Paranormal Research Association of Boston discuss this and why it’s unscientific). I feel like the noises on the roof and in the attic should have been thrown out, because it could possibly have been animals. And with the one EVP they did catch, they told the client what it was before asking the client what they heard. Once that’s done, the client really can’t hear anything else.

I think we all appreciate what TAPS and “Ghost Hunters” has done for the field. Lost of groups have popped up, using more scientific techniques than had been used before. But to me, the show is now so mired in being entertaining, getting ratings, and cross-promoting other SyFy shows that I can’t take it seriously anymore. It’s become like all other reality shows, in that very little of it actually represents reality.

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