Author: Jon Bolton

Strange things that go bump in the night…the Boogie man hiding under your bed or in your closet…Sandusky…all these things bring up fear within a child and/or their parent. For many years tales have been passed down from generation to generation about creatures that would steal children never to see them again. Some of our deepest and darkest fears come from these stories we hear as children and they then carry on into our adult life. Once we become adults do we completely forget about such stories??? No we do not. They are still there in the back of our mind for us to tell our children or sometimes those stories come out when we hear of something unexplainable, something that can happens for no reason at all, something that makes you wonder if those stories you heard when you were younger are in fact laced with some sort of truth.

One such story that has little to no notoriety is that of the Slenderman. No it’s not some weight loss success story and no its not some stupid wrestling gimmick name it is in fact a paranormal child stealing demon…supposedly. I must admit that I have never heard of this story before or even about this thing known as the Slenderman, but I stumbled across it and here we go.

The Slenderman supposedly has a long history attached to it going back as far as german wood cuttings. It depicted a man, almost skeletal in appearance, with very long limbs that do not bend in normal positions. While not much is known about him and his origin of formation he has been linked to numerous child disappearances. It is also said to have been caught on tape in audio format, now if you can find this on the vast array of youtube videos you would see why I don’t give the audio that much credit. There are pictures of him and some supposed vided, but nothing concrete to confirm his true existence…gee sounds like every single paranormal or cryptozoology story out there to date.

The Slenderman is just that…he is slender, but over the years he has changed, I don’t know if this is because of his surroundings or he is keeping up with the fashion times. Whatever the case may be he is now depicted as wearing a suit, almost very Men In Black, plus he is now known to have multiple arms coming out of him almost like a tree. The other aspect of him is that he is always picture around or near trees or forests. Fog has also been associated with him as well as the giggling of children right before he is seen.

As well there are apparently warning signs associated with him that you should be aware of:

-Coughing up blood
-Slender Man messes with technology
-Memory loss
-Nightmares about him
-drawing the symbol (circle with an “X” through it)
-diarrhea (yes, I know)
-vomiting

Now as much as I think this is a cool story waiting for some Hollywood movie to be made about it I am not putting much faith in this one. In fact since he is referred to as the “tall man” at times then that is the title role of Phantasm and I guess Hollywood beat me to my own comment. If you research all the videos and pictures out there they seem to fake and deliberate…almost like Blair Witch. One thing where the eyes can play tricks on you is that when you see pictures of the Slenderman in the trees, yes you can see something like a person there, but its trees and there are branches everywhere, anything can seem like anything ie optical illusions.

This is just one of many stories in the long line of urban myths and stories to scare kids with. While is fun to talk about, it really doesn’t hold up to anything closely related to truth or fact.

Be safe and remember to put down that twinkie if you ever want to be like the slenderman,

Jon Bolton

When you think of legends of the seven seas that sailors would tell to one another there are multiple stories and superstitions that come to mind. The sailing community is one of the most superstitious in my opinion. Sailors have good luck rituals that are able to fill a book, oh wait I googled that and found about 50 different books on sailor superstitions, that’s a good confirmation to my statement. However in all seriousness with even the modern and highly technical equipment that the Navy uses today the superstitious ways are still prevalent. And just equally just as prevalent are the sea stories of legend and the one in particular I’m referencing is that of the Flying Dutchman.

Most people have hard of the Flying Dutchman legend but more likely in the bastardized Hollywood scenario such as is with the Pirates Of The Caribbean and even Sponge Bob Squarepants. There are many people out there who do not know the legend of the Flying Dutchman has been around since the 17^th century.

This nautical tale is that of a doomed shipped that can never make port and is in fact a ghost ship. There are different accounts that some would try and signal to the ship to see if they could communicate with it, but in most of the stories the sight of the Flying Dutchman always spelled impending doom on to those witnesses. The origin of the story is a bit of a mystery as there are a few Dutch ships that have been associated with the story. However the one aspect that is the same is that a mighty storm had taken the ship along with the lives of the men who sailed upon her.

Bad weather is most usually associated with the spotting of such a ghostly ship as well as the impeding doom to those who spot her, but again the story is unclear as to why the ship is doomed to phantom sail the seas. Some say that a disgruntled captain made a threat to the seas and the winds, how that would make you be eternally damned I’m not sure, but oh well.

There are those out there who have tried to explain the ghostly ship as merely an optical illusion. These such optical illusion are called looming of Fata Morgana in which the sea reflection sends the image to the sky and because of certain weather conditions shows what appears to be a ship. I would go into the complete scientific break down of it, and while I could, I will let you do some research instead of me spoon feeding you all the information.

I am a person who would love nothing more than to see a spectral sip sailing across the sky during an impending storm. However I also realize that this is nothing more than a sailors tale of legend and lore, a good story, but simply just that…a story.

Be safe and wear a life jacket,

Jon Bolton

The Montauk Project is the sequel to the Philadelphia Experiment, and I’m not talking movie sequels here. I am talking about a sequel in the aspect of military warfare and wacky weapon technology that could only be done in movie and not real life. I know the movie Men Who Stare at Goats was a big success and shed a comedic light onto the division of the military that tried to use their minds as weapons, but a lot of people don’t know that is was a serious business. Even to this day there are experiments and tests developing new weapons not of technological basis, but rather of the human mind and body. It’s like X-Men, mutants, working for the military as weapons type stuff if you want to put into plain easy to understand common language/explanation.

As I had stated in the beginning this is considered to be the sequel to the famed Philadelphia Experiment. I had already written an article about the Philadelphia Experiment so I am not going to delve into all that much. However a brief synopsis is that the Naval Destroyer Eldridge was docked in Philadelphia for a series of experiments to render it invisible. In classic science fiction the experiment went wrong, the destroyed disappeared and supposedly did some sort of time travel and when it reappeared again most of the crew had gone mad or were melted into the metal structure of the ship. Do I think this happened…read the article I wrote about it for your answer.

Now the Montauk Project was designed specifically for the development and deployment of psychological warfare. One of the experiments was in fact for the human body’s ability to conduct time travel.

There is no solid evidence that such projects even took place or were successful for that matter. Now a man by the name of Preston Nichols remembered his involvement with this project through repressed memory identification. It simply means he either used hypnosis or something clicked in his mind and remembered his past, both of which I don’t put any stock into. Of course the whole program was actually fought by congress but the department of defense decided to go ahead with and paying for it with capture Nazi gold. Now if this doesn’t sound like a blockbuster movie I don’t know what does, it is so far fetched about some of the experiments that have come out and the funding for the whole endeavor.

Do I think the government tried to develop psychological warfare techniques…yes I do and I still think they do to this very day. In fact I would be willing to et that countries all over the world are trying to create their own telekinesis soldier, too bad there is no real records of telekinesis listed in fact. If you want to go the Uri Geller route you can, but I will also consider you ignorant for your belief in a scam/con artists who bent spoons not with his mind, but trickery, just ask James Randi.

Be safe and wear those tin foil hats for defense,

Jon Bolton

Height is an aspect of genetics and the way some people are identified in this world. Height is such a determining factor when it comes to aspects of life such as tall people play basketball and in a police line up your asked how tall they were. We see so many people who are tall in our daily lives that it doesn’t affect us all that much. Yet when we see someone who we would consider to be a giant, usually they are people who are almost eight feet or taller, we tend to stand and look in awe.

There are those people out there who grow to such heights that even the tallest of basketball players seem to be short. The occurrence of such genetic anomalies is rare and because of that they are very well recorded. Yet there was a time in history when it was reported that there were a great tribe of giants nine foot plus that roamed the land. The land in particular was in the European area and not really North America.

There have been stories of these giants for years and in fact as far back as biblical times. Just look at the story of David and Goliath when David slayed the mighty giant Goliath with a simple slingshot and a well placed rock.

Giants have always had a place in history not only from the bible, but also in mythology such as with the Cyclops and even the Gods themselves were giants, and we cannot forget about atlas who carried the world on his shoulders. The fascination with them is a bit mysterious or it could be the sideshow aspect that we like to stare at something we do not understand.

In fact the fascination with giants is such a draw and profitable draw that PT Barnum had a giant skeleton fashioned in order to claim its authenticity. His giant, over ten foot tall, was fashioned after the Cardiff giant, which too was a great hoax in and of itself. People from all over the world would come to stare at the preserved bones of this giant man who once walked the earth.

Now scientists are still debating whether or not there was a tribe of giant people standing over ten feet tall yet every now and then giant human bones to make their way to the surface. Is there clear cut evidence that this tribe of giants existed or could it be they to only had a few anomalies like we do today and we just happen to get lucky when finding the bones?

In either case it is left up to you for debate as you can draw your own conclusion whether or not these giants were and are real. I would like to think that there was a tribe of giants many years ago because it just further makes the history of the world that much more unique. How and why were they that tall? Were they stronger and smarter? Who knows for sure, but it is something to ponder.

Be safe and remember not all giants are gentle,

Jon Bolton