(Mothman painting by Frank Frazetta)

Is there a connection between Mothman and Pazuzu?

This is an article by the always interesting Farah Yurdozu on the similarities between modern sightings of Mothman and the deities of ancient Turkey.

Pazuzu or Mothman?

Link

It’s a very cool science fiction vision for fans and believers of the ancient astronaut theory.

As for aliens in our more recent past. . .

I was very surprised by this next article, in which Farah discusses the Mary Poppins novels, and the intent by their author to write them as metaphors for the alien abduction experience.

Mary Poppins, Alien Abductions, and Gurdijeff

Link

(Pamela Lyndon Travers, author and creator of Mary Poppins)

History, Literature, Supernatural, UFO | 2 Comments »

(Image by FroweMinahild)

What really happened in Port Chatham (specifically Portlock), Alaska, where an entire village was abandoned for fear of a mysterious white-faced woman in black, and her bigfoot-like accomplices.

Port Chatham Left to the Spirits

What frightening situation caused John and Helen Romanoff to take their children and flee to Nanwalek?

“We left our houses and the school, and started all new here,” Malania said in a recent interview, speaking in her traditional Sugt’stun through translator Sally Ash. “There was plentiful land here for gardening and people. My parents built a house on the beach.”

What had frightened Malania’s parents hadn’t been a single event. Over a “long period of time,” a nantiinaq (Nan-te-nuk) – or big hairy creature – was reportedly terrorizing villagers. And Malania also told of the spirit of a woman dressed in draping black clothes that would come out of the cliffs.

“Her dress was so long she would drag it,” Malania said. “She had a very white face and would disappear back into the cliffs.”

The Nantiinaq is described by many as being analogous to the sasquatch which, given the description of the Nantiinaq in this account, is perfectly understandable. The Nantiinaq does have it’s own unique history though, which may (or may not, depending on your beliefs regarding bigfoots) separate it from other such creatures.

The book Where Bigfoot Walks gives a brief, yet interesting, description of the Nantiinaq. It also mentions a tale similar to the one above, about a town being abandoned because of encounters with a hairy biped.

Martha Demientieff, a native Alutiiq writer and teacher whose family runs a river transport company, told me of a Yukon village deserted as recently as 1992 because of the appearance of the Wood Man, sometimes known as Neginla-eh. And on a recent trip to Homer, Alaska, I became acquainted with a rich lode of Bigfoot tradition on the Kenai Peninsula. The residents of English Bay tell of many encounters with Nantiinaq, who could change from Bigfoot into any other form. Some of the stories were collected in a magazine called Fireweed Cillqaq.

Link

Is this Yukon village, abandoned in the 1990′s, somehow the same village abandoned in Port Chatham? The same story retold until the details have changed? Or have multiple settlements been taken by these beings?

The excerpt from Where Bigfoot Walks compares the shape-shifting Nantiinaq with the Neginla-eh, or Wood Man, while the comment section from this post on Cryptomundo draws parallels with the Hoolaq, and the legend of Headless Valley.

The comments on the original news article link the story to sightings of giant otters in Alaska, and from there the research quickly lead to the discovery of my new favorite cryptid, Land Otter Man.

“Do not sneak around here for I can see you.” They could not get at them. These land-otter-men had come to the women to turn them into land-otter-people also.

Link

At first I thought Land Otter Man was a single entity, but it turns out they are an entire race in Northern mythology. It appears that the Land Otter People have a fondness for large scale encounters as well.

As for the white-faced spirit-woman in black, who lived in the cliffs and accompanied the Nantiinaq; her identity remains a mystery.

See also:

Mysterious Beings in Alaska

Giant Platypus in Alaska

Bigfoots and UFOs

(Image by Galim)

Cryptozoology, History, Supernatural | 1 Comment »

In 1944, the mystic, author, and 33° Mason Manly P. Hall published a book called The Secret Destiny of America, in which a case was made for the secret influence of a group of mysterious immortals on some of the greatest moments in history, from Ancient Egypt to the American Revolution.

The article below (which alternatively interprets these beings as extraterrestrial) proposes a relationship between such entities and the South American revolutionary General Bolivar.

The General and The Aliens

It must seem very strange to our readers to see me state that the Liberator had contact with aliens and received information from them. In saying this, I am basing myself upon the very important historical research of Don Luis Beltrán Reyes, which are rather well documented and therefore worthy of trust. At no point does he suggest that the three strange men that mysteriously interviewed the Liberator were aliens, but the characteristics of these beings, as described, are sufficient for me to sustain, as I do now, that they were in fact aliens without question. During the course of his famous military campaigns, Bolivar would meet with three mysterious men, very strange in their appearance, and whose arrival and departure, or no man knew the means through which this was achieved. According to the description given by Luis Beltrán Reyes, these three men were tall and distinguished in their manner. They wore white uniforms with white dress coats and golden cuffs, with the extraordinary detail that [the uniforms] were emblazoned with golden spikes that gave off a strange luminescence. They also wore Wellington-style boots, but the strangest feature was that their footsteps could not be heard as they walked. Moreover, some witnesses say that they were endowed with magical powers, such as the ability to become invisible whenever they deemed it necessary.

Aliens or immortals, one thing that cannot be denied is that they were snappy dressers.

History, Revolution, Supernatural | No Comments »

I discovered this while tripping through Wikipedia recently. It’s an old English and Norse concept of non-linear destiny called the wyrd, which adds an interesting dimension to any dualistic discussions of fate versus free will.

In a simple sense, Wyrd refers to how past actions continually affect and condition the future, but also how the future affects the past. The concept of Wyrd highlights the interconnected nature of all actions and how they influence each other. Indeed, for a true comprehension it is key for the Wyrd to be embraced as a conceptual mystery, wherein the tides and tidings of time and timelessness flow and weave always, all ways, entwining the reticulum of the fabric of being and non-being.

A shamanistic view of a hyperdimensional universe?

It’s interesting that the modern “weird,” which today refers to the strange and anomalous, derives from this ancient term.

It’s the basis of a martial arts style called The Weirding Way in Dune as well.

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The Mayans Played the Pyramids to Make Music for a Rain God

Sit on the steps of Mexico’s El Castillo pyramid in Chichen Itza and you may hear a confusing sound. As other visitors climb the colossal staircase their footsteps begin to sound like raindrops falling into a bucket of water as they near the top. Were the Mayan temple builders trying to communicate with their gods?

The discovery of the raindrop “music” in another pyramid suggests that at least some of Mexico’s pyramids were deliberately built for this purpose. Some of the structures consist of a combination of steps and platforms, while others, like El Castillo, resemble the more even-stepped Egyptian pyramids.

Now how long will it be before Disney makes a musical out of this discovery? I love the idea of entire temples and pyramids being designed as cosmic musical instruments.

Occult architecture, buildings and cities built to amplify our psychic selves and our connections to the gods, is something that has interested me for quite some time. Alan Moore’s historical thriller From Hell delves deeply into the subject with his examination of the history of the layout of London and the churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor. Even absent the possible motivations of Hawksmoor, this is something that is built into almost every church. Think of what great acoustics so many of them have, perfect for gospel music and echoing prayers to the beings above.

I wonder what the music played on these pyramids sounds like?

Expanding even beyond occult architecture is the art of psychogeography (a term originally coined by Situationist Guy Debord) which can reveal a magical significance to any location.

See also:

Portal to Mythical Mayan Underworld Found

Ancient Cities of the Mississippi (and Twin-Spirits)

Meeting in the Dream World: Oneironauticum

History, Music, Supernatural | 1 Comment »

Sacrificial Virgins of the Mississippi

As archaeologist Timothy Pauketat’s cautious but mesmerizing new book, Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi makes clear, Cahokia — the greatest Native American city north of Mexico — definitely belongs to human history. (It is not “historical,” in the strict sense, because the Cahokians left no written records.) At its peak in the 12th century, this settlement along the Mississippi River bottomland of western Illinois, a few miles east of modern-day St. Louis, was probably larger than London, and held economic, cultural and religious sway over a vast swath of the American heartland. Featuring a man-made central plaza covering 50 acres and the third-largest pyramid in the New World (the 100-foot-tall “Monks Mound”), Cahokia was home to at least 20,000 people. If that doesn’t sound impressive from a 21st-century perspective, consider that the next city on United States territory to attain that size would be Philadelphia, some 600 years later.

In a number of critical ways, Cahokia seems to resemble other ancient cities discovered all over the world, from Mesopotamia to the Yucatán. It appears to have been arranged according to geometrical and astronomical principles (around various “Woodhenges,” large, precisely positioned circles of wooden poles), and was probably governed by an elite class who commanded both political allegiance and spiritual authority. Cahokia was evidently an imperial center that abruptly exploded, flourished for more then a century and then collapsed, very likely for one or more of the usual reasons: environmental destruction, epidemics of disease, the ill will of subjugated peoples and/or outside enemies.

(Link via Dangerous Minds)

The article goes on to discuss the subject of human sacrifice amongst the people of Cahokia, two kings buried as thunderbirds, and their possible connection to a fascinating Native American mythological hero named Red Horn – “He Who Wears Man Faces On His Ears.”

From the article on Wikipedia

Red Horn is a culture hero in Siouan oral traditions, specifically of the Ioway and Hocąk (Winnebago) nations. Only in Hocąk literature is he known as “Red Horn” (Hešucka), but among the Ioway and Hocągara both, he is known by one of his variant names, “He Who Wears (Man) Faces on His Ears”. This name derives from the living faces on his earlobes (Hocąk), or earbobs that come to life when he places them on his ears (Ioway). Elsewhere, he is given yet another name, “Red Man” (Wąkšucka), on account of the fact that his entire body is red from head to toe. Red Horn was one of the five sons of Earthmaker whom the Creator fashioned with his own hands and sent to earth to rescue mankind. During his sojourn on earth, he contested both giants and water spirits, and led warparties against the bad spirits who plagued mankind. As Wears Faces on His Ears, he is also said to be a star, although its identity is a subject of controversy. Under the names “One Horn” (Hejąkiga) and “Without Horns” (Herok’aga), he and his sons are chiefs over the lilliputian hunting spirits known as the herok’a and the “little children spirits”. Red Horn, as chief of the herok’a, has a spiritual and sometimes corporeal identity with the arrow. Archaeologists have speculated that Red Horn is a mythic figure in Mississipian art, represented on a number of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC) artifacts.

. . .

“Then Earthmaker (Mą’ųna) sent down another son, He who Wears Human Heads as Earrings. He went around talking to people, but they would always fix on his earrings which were actual, living, miniature human heads. When these little heads saw someone looking at them, they would wink and make funny faces. In the end, He who Wears Human Heads as Earrings could not accomplish the mission either.”

Reading the story of Red Horn quickly lead me to another aspect of Native culture I had previously been unfamiliar with, the transgendered Two-Spirits people.

Wikipedia on Twin-Spirits

These individuals were sometimes viewed in certain tribes as having two spirits occupying one body. Their dress is usually a mixture of traditionally male and traditionally female articles. They have distinct gender and social roles in their tribes.

. . .

Some examples of two-spirited people in history include accounts by Spanish conquistadors who spotted a two-spirited individual(s) in almost every village they entered in Central America. There are descriptions of two-spirited individuals having strong mystical powers. In one account, raiding soldiers of a rival tribe began to attack a group of foraging women. When they perceived that one of the women, the one that did not run away, was a two-spirit, they halted their attack and retreated after the two-spirit countered them with a stick, determining that the two-spirit would have great power which they would not be able to overcome.

According to a few legends at least, some of those powers included the ability to turn into giants.

From the Red Horn article

On the way, the little boy was kidnapped by a group of berdaches [Two-Spirits] who had the power to change their size.

We need to see more of this world.

History, Science, Supernatural | No Comments »