Peru Meteor, Space Sickness, Zombies?!?!

Some 600 people in Peru have required treatment after an object from space - said to be a meteorite - plummeted to Earth in a remote area, officials say.

They say the object left a deep crater after crashing down over the weekend near the town of Carancas in the Andes.

People who have visited scene have been complaining of headaches, vomiting and nausea after inhaling gases.

Well, this is just about how every bad (and good) zombie film starts. I also can't help but notice a disturbing likeness to Lovecraft's story, "The Colour Out of Space." Face it, dear readers, something very nasty is on the way. Space AIDS or Ebola in the best case, the living dead in the worst. Not surprisingly, we find ourselves returned to the old, but popular question of what would you do to survive a zombie epidemic?

Everyone immediately rushes into thinking Wal-Marts or Malls would make excellent hideouts. I beg to differ. Just for the record, I'll be taking my chances going as far north as possible. Sure, the northern wastes of Canada presented their own problems in World War Z, but I'm optimistic. Let's just hope the zombies aren't the first wave of a noxious bio-weapon from some extraterrestrial intelligence. Then things will get a little too interesting for my tastes. I've never been one for multi-apocalyptic nightmare mode.

-Namtlieu

Colorful (and Crazy) Candidates for President in 2008

Just about everyone has heard of popular contenders for the Presidential nomination from the two major parties, and even some third parties. Hillary, Obama, Romney, Giuliani, and Ron Paul will continue to dominate news, and will almost undoubtedly go on to face off in the primaries and beyond. Yet, thanks to the wiles of the internet, we now have the great ease of seeing some of the more colorful (and insane) candidates vying for President next year.

Lee L. Mercer Junior: This fellow, running for the Democratic nomination, seems a little confused. One need only look at his campaign theme on the front page to see why, since he believes:

“The United States Government must regulate government sleepers and government regulations authorized thought, ideas, acts, actions, rights, wrongs, controversies, facts, issues and circumstantial evidence through intelligence research, law research, law enforcement research and criminal law research implementing ROTC communications research innovating education national and international.”

His desire for such regulations is particularly interesting; since he appears convinced in his “Reasons for Candidacy” that the government is involved in all sorts of unseemly activities corrupting his own life and those of the rest of us. Perhaps the best of these is number 49, which reads:

“To Prove the United States Government killed my sex life, my wife sex life, my daughter-in –laws sex life both may sons and other of my family members sex life with Espionage Experimentation and Espionage Exploitation sex killing.”

Jackson Kirk Grimes: Mr. Grimes, a self-styled head of the United Fascist Union (of which he appears to be the only member), previously ran in both 2000 and 2004. He’s back for more this time, with the same wacky platform involving a transformation of the US into a Mussolini-like regime with Imperial Roman features. His older website for the “U.F.U.” features a few fashionable (and hilarious) photos of himself and his girlfriend posing in homemade black uniforms and sitting in various restaurants. Grimes claimed to take 6^th place in the 2000 election, so he may find it once again difficult to top his own delusional performance.

Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey: Though his website currently seems to be down, the flamboyant vampire who tried running for Minnesota governor last year before dropping out appears to have aspirations for higher office this time around. A former Republican and Reform Party member, these days he operates using his own political vehicle, the “Vampires, Witches, and Pagan Party.” His platform is a bizarre mixture of hate for the Judeo-Christian God, brutal punishments (impaling) for terrorists and hardened criminals, but also self-described respect for the Constitution and New Deal economics. More on Sharkey’s sordid past and his earlier political campaigns can be found on his wikipedia entry here.

Quay Fortuna: Not nearly as kooky in platform as some of the other candidates examined above, Quay Fortuna’s Star Wars like name alone earns him a spot here. This blog owner established the tiny “Ward Republic Party” that acts as his political arm. In heart, Quay and his fledgling party are strong believers in the power of local institutions to triumph over big government. His site is worth a look, if only because of an attentive focus on events he believes are leading us to Armageddon, and clever tidbits like “Hillary isn’t the Antichrist, but She Takes His Advice.”

Jeff “Petro” Petkevicius: Petro, as his nickname indicates, is running on a campaign with most of his focus on one issue: CHEAP GAS. He believes this can be accomplished by setting price ceilings on both oil and the price-per-gallon at the pump, alongside use of existing US reserves (which he believes can be readily replaced with Iraqi/Kuwaiti oil). The rest of his one-liner campaign planks, and website decorations like Biblical quotes and an “I Support President Bush” banner probably won’t endear him to even the fringe crowd, but they do indicate he is running a mostly right-wing, populist campaign. The site itself is heavily cluttered, and holds a strange resemblance to a social networking or personal website circa 1999.

That’s all for now. As the campaign season shifts into higher gear, I’ll be posting more political oddities, and likely even another series or two of zesty candidates destined to garner a lot of laughs and a handful of votes.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: Origins of Byard's Leap

Byard's Leap is a small hamlet, west of Cranwell in Lincolnshire, associated with various legends, including the origin of the name.

The story goes that there was a witch called Old Meg, an evil crone who plagued the local villagers from her cave in a spinney near a crossroads on Ermine Street, here called High Dike. A local champion came forward in response to the villagers' requests, and he asserted that he could kill her by driving a sword through her heart. To select a horse suitable for this task, he went to a pond where horses drank and dropped a stone in the pond, selecting the horse that reacted quickest, and this horse was known locally as 'Blind Byard', as he was blind.

The champion went to the witch’s cave and called her out, but the witch refused, saying she was eating and he would have to wait. However, she crept up behind him and sank her long nails into the horse who ran, leaping over a 60 foot cliff. The champion regained control of the horse when they reached the pond, pursued by the witch, where he turned and thrust his sword into her heart, and she fell in the pond and drowned.

The spot where Blind Byard landed is marked by four posts in the ground with horseshoes on, and a commemorative stone. The sharply cut small valley in the limestone, which is now smoothed over by plowing, is as likely a site as any for the dramatic events, assuming they happened.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The Cradle Replacements

In rural southern Illinois, a toy company began selling "realistic" baby dolls to expectant mothers. But apparently, after the mother had her child, the toy baby would start crying. Eventually the "rocking motion" advertised to calm it down wouldn't work, and you couldn't get it to stop without shaking it. Eventually, when it started crying the parent would have to beat it, and the beatings and thrashings would have to get harder and harder to get it to be quiet. The only thing that seemed to shut the baby doll up permanently was to bash its head against the wall, destroying whatever mechanism triggered the crying. On more than one occasion though, neighbors called the authorities to report child abuse, and when the police arrived they found the bloody remains of infants smeared across the walls and the floor. In most cases, the mother couldn't understand why the police were there, she just "got rid of the stupid doll," as she rocked a baby-shaped bundle in her arms.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: An Apple a Day

Have you ever heard the expression "an apple a day keeps the Doctor away?" Most assume, with no reason to think otherwise, that it is simply an easy-to-remember rhyme that stresses the importance of eating healthily to young children. But the saying did not originate as a harmless reminder. It was born in a frontier town in the early years of the gold rush, where food was scarce and money even scarcer.

One August, when a bad drought had struck the region, a series of bloody killings swept through the town. Every night, a single house would be broken into, and anyone who saw the invader would be swiftly, brutally slain. Nothing was ever stolen, save for a few scraps of food.

After two weeks of this, the local grocer set out a few apples and a glass of milk in the town square overnight. He then hid in the tower of the church, hoping to catch a glimpse of anyone who came by.

Fighting fatigue, the grocer waited for any sign of life below. Just after midnight, he was rewarded by a chilling sight; a man, carrying a black bag stuffed with dully shining metal tools and covered from head to foot in cloth bandages, staggered into view. He paused at the sight of the apples and milk, then whipped his head around, as if looking for the one who dared to patronize him. Seized with fear, the grocer ducked out of sight, staying hidden 'til sunrise.

The strange man had only taken one of the apples, and didn't even touch the glass of milk. No houses were broken into, and no one was killed. For decades, the town continued to place out an apple or two every night, even long after a single apple stopped disappearing.

-Namtlieu

Weekend Creepypasta: A Recipe for Success

Prominently displayed in the children's section of the Houston Downtown Public Library, among several others of the same title, My First Cookbook appears as a run-of-the-mill children's cookbook. It is complete with large print, simple instructions, colorful, friendly illustrations and a somewhat disproportionate desert section. In fact, the only major deviation from this theme is an article near the end of the book entitled, "A Recipe for Success". This is a complex, macabre ritual involving human sacrifice, self mutilation and sacrilege, as well as more curious and innocuous practices such as walking down a stair case with a prime number of stairs, taking them two at a time, and then up it taking them three at a time. It's written in the same cheerfully simple prose as the rest of the book and accompanied by the same helpful, pastel drawings.

-Namtlieu

MORE CREEPYPASTA: THE RED BARON

An odd occurrence has been rumored to happen in a certain pub at night in southwest Germany. Sit in the stool farthest from the door while one beside it is empty, order a round for yourself, and offer to "buy one for the Baron.” The bartender will, without question or expression, pour two beers from tap. He'll place one beside you, and the moment the other one hits the table the room will go dark and silent, save for the sound of footsteps. Look up, and you’ll see a man in uniform sit beside you.

It is believed that it is indeed Captain Manfred von Richthofen, although no one is sure because they can barely see their own glass, much less the person's face. No one who's told this story has had the nerve you touch him or risk insult, and the figure does not say a word. But apparently if you were to ask, "So sir, what's the condition at the front?" he would tell you startling details about the region's future and sometimes how they connect to the world as a whole.

Those who lived long enough after the fact claim that these events took place about the exact number of years from the date they asked as from the date Baron von Richthofen died in battle. Yet, this cannot be confirmed, because every time the figure has been asked the question after 1964, he's only replied with a cold laugh.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The Hotel California

They say that somewhere in western America, some say in Utah, others say on the California coast, there's a small motel on the side of the road. When you go inside, it's decorated in very common hotel attire, with the paneling and old fashioned key-lock doors.

The thing is, there's a room in there for everybody. Everybody has a reservation for exactly when they show up, and the number of rooms available is always one more than the number of people there. One person to a room is the rule.

Some say that the song "Hotel California" is based off this motel, though you *can* leave this particular motel. I wouldn't advise looking at a mirror for at least a month after doing so, though.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The "Real" Livejournal

When using Internet Explorer 3 for Windows (google around for a version that works on Windows XP), enter this in the address bar (you must input it with your keyboard):

for-you://gratitude-and-remembrance

Wait ~ 40 seconds. You will fell strange. Don't fight the feeling, or you will be jerked out of it, and you have only one chance to do it. A web log will appear. It will contain events that will happen for the seven next years of your life. Add /admin/ to the address bar. Try to guess the password your future self would have chosen. There is always a way, discovering it is never out of your reach even if it's a meaningless string of letters.

Once you have access to the admin, you can delete any post you want, and that event will never happen to you. However, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES you are to edit a post. Just don’t. You have only one hour to do it: after that the connection will be lost.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: Placebo and the Shadow People

If you listen to every song Placebo ever sang in the right order backwards (up to their most recent album), you will receive secret instructions on how to summon and control Shadow People. The order has to be exact, or else the Shadow People will come and kill you, turning you into one as well.

So far, nobody has ever gotten it right…

-Namtlieu

They're Made of Meat

I stumbled upon this again today on youtube. I'd seen it about a year ago, and found it just too good to not pass along. It offers an unexpected and somewhat humorous perspective on human existence in the eyes of others:



-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The Tree of Memory

During the spring of 1902 in the Dry Tortugas islands off of the coast of Key West, a man was shot and the bullet protruded slightly from the back of his skull into a tree (which he had his back against). As time passed and the tree continued to grow, his putrefied corpse was lifted into the boughs as his skull was still attached loosely to the tree by the bullet. Eventually, the tree grew around the skeleton. If you can find this tree on one of the islands and tap it thrice with the heel of a leather boot, you will be granted the ability to make anyone forget anything at will.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The Theater

Okay, back to regular eerie tales today. I like the unexpected location of this one, although I think the consequences leave something to be desired. They’re so minor in comparison to others that I would almost be tempted to try this one. Enjoy!

There's a movie theater in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It only plays movies from 1987. If you pay for 3 tickets and buy a large popcorn, they will play a film that shows you your future. If you watch the entire film completely, you will have sleeping problems for the rest of your life.

-Namtlieu

Creepypasta: Lovecraft's Perspective on the Universe

Today, something a little different: one of H.P. Lovecraft’s most thought-provoking quotations that will still send shivers up the spine of any thinking person. Just meditate on the full implications of this sort of “Lovecraftian Humanism.”

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: Unbinding the Mirror Self

The images we see in the mirror are the pure incarnations of evil. They are only allowed to exist in the area reflected in the glass. To them, life is like a never ending hell, rotting away in the same room day after day. The only release from this purgatory is death, and the only way for them to die, sad to say, is if YOU die.

Fortunately, they are bound by a code. You are their master, and they must mirror your every movement and expression. To do otherwise would break an unbreakable law, unraveling the space-time continuum. However, there is a loophole, and it can only be triggered by you, the master. To force them into error is to free them from their contract; after you let them out of your view, you're on your own. Know this: when you watch them, they're watching you back. They're watching. And they're thinking.

The next time you're alone in your room, turn down the lights. Think of something on your body that varies in length, such as hair. It must be clearly viewable from your perspective. Grab a ruler and, looking in the mirror, quickly grab a hair at random; you must confuse it. Hold it in position as best you can and note the length. Look down. Yours will be different.

Don't look back up.

Don't turn your back to that mirror ever again.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The Pin Prayers

Not quite as intentionally creepy as the others, but it does raise some interesting issues:

Convicted forger A. Schiller was serving his time in Sing Sing prison in the late 19^th century when guards found him dead in his cell. On his body, they found seven regular straight pins whose heads measured the typical 47/1000ths of an inch or 1.17 mm in diameter. Under 500X magnification, it was found that the tiny etchings were seen on the heads of the pins were the words to “The Lord’s Prayer,” which is 65 words and 254 letters long. Of the seven pins, six were silver and one was gold. The gold pin’s prayer was flawless and said to be a true masterpiece. Schiller had spent the last twenty five years of his life creating the pins, using a tool too small to be seen by the naked eye. It is estimated that it took 1,863 separate carving strokes to make it. Schiller went blind because of his artwork. Why did Schiller do this? And how did he acquire the knowledge to construct such a tiny instrument for the engravings?

-Namtlieu

Modern Flagellants: Processions of Pain

Religious flagellation has a long and disturbing history in the West. Most militant and brutish during the Black Death of the 14^th century, flagellants continue to exist in the dark corners of the Earth, despite official bans by the Catholic Church. And no, not just in the vibrant and bizarre BDSM community of the internet world. Secretive Christian cliques readily continue to practice immolation of the flesh. It is a mystical addiction of enduring appeal, probably due to the heavy release of endorphins that follows the intense pain, reportedly inducing mystical visions as well.

The practice appears most frequently today in the more passionate societies of the West: the Mediterranean and Hispanic ones and their offshoots. Italy’s town of Guardia Sanframondi is one of these, long shrouded in many trappings of medieval mystery, including a castle and archaic festivals. Every seven years, it holds one of the most open and rigorous events in modern times that feature torturous penitents. An enormous procession with a choir and a statue of the Madonna with her child, said to be hundreds of years old, heads through town. Among them are countless hooded men who beat themselves with metal scourges. Secrecy is standard in this practice, as the men do not tell their wives or other family members that they are participants. As the feverish pitch rises on Sunday, flagellants also utilize sponges soaked in white wine (probably to ward off infection from their wounds) and packed with sharp pins to strike each other.

In a more extreme form, Catholic sects have even adopted crucifixion re-enactments of varying painful quality across the world. Hispanic flagellants in New Mexico and Colorado, the “Brothers of Light,” were said to have used this practice up until the late 19^th century. In another of Spain’s former colonies, the Philippines, brutish (though still non-lethal) crucifixion that still includes the use of nails through appendages continues for devotional purposes up to this day.

The aforementioned Hispanic penitents of the American West are reported to still hold secretive, punishing rites on a regular basis. The original “Brothers of Light” seems to have dissolved, but less organized “Penitentes” continue to lurk in New Mexico, though in much reduced numbers since the late 1940s, when postwar depopulation of their traditional haunts occurred. While no longer nearly as punishing as their 19^th century practices, their continuing existence is still a testament to the longevity of flagellation.

This brief overview only touches on Western subscribers to flagellation in contemporary or recent times. Even in this age of mass communications, it’s reasonable to assume more secretive flagellant organizations continue to operate. And, certainly, other spiritual groups throughout the world are confirmed to practice flagellation and other painful related practices, sometimes in forms that greatly dwarf the lasting Western performances in size and intensity. In the end, one can arrive at their own judgment about modern flagellants, but know they’re sure to persist indefinitely as either freakish anachronisms or divine cults (whichever you prefer).

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The Leap Year Bargain

There is a moment each leap year, at exactly three minutes past three on the morning of February twenty-ninth. If you possess the courage, await that moment in darkened room, with no other present. At that moment, the darkness will deepen. If you were to hold your hand directly before your face, you would not see a thing. But you must not do so. No, for that would be to waste the moment. Instead you must reach out, into that impenetrable darkness.

And it will reach out to you.

An unseen hand will grasp yours. You must not flinch away, nor tighten your grasp. To do so will only slough away more of the decrepit flesh that covers it, and anger its unseen owner. Remain perfectly still, as the withered fingers move over your palm, tracing unknown patterns. Do not move an inch as it crawls slowly up your arm. And most of all, do not even breathe as it caresses your face, touching what cannot be seen.

Should you remain still through this, the hand will be withdrawn and a voice will speak, so close you can feel its breath on your face, smelling the scent of decay it carries. It will ask you for one simple piece of information: your name. Answer truthfully, and the presence will retreat, leaving only a whisper in the air as the darkness lifts. "It is done."

From that day on, untold good fortune will be yours, alongside mysterious power. You will lack nothing, and have everything. But in a year, perhaps two, you will feel your skin begin to decay, and smell the sweet smell of death upon your breath...

-Namtlieu

Friday Creepypasta: The Lost Bride

A young man and his new bride were honeymooning in Paris when his wife went into a restroom and didn't return. With time the man began to fear the worst and went to the police. The police thought it was most likely the girl simply had second thoughts about the marriage, but they checked it out anyway and found no evidence of foul play.

As weeks turned into months, the man finally gave up on finding his beautiful wife, but his life fell into a shambles he was so filled with grief.

Unable to hold a job or go on with his life, he took to wandering the world looking for anything that might ease his pain. Years later in Borneo, he came upon a freak show in an old shabby building and went in on a whim. In the last filthy cage he saw a twisted, scarred, and mutilated woman rocking back and forth and groaning strange animal-like noises. He screamed as he recognized the birthmark on his wife's face.

-Namtlieu

More Creepypasta: The German Medic

In winter of 1944, with overtaxed supply lines in the Ardennes, a German medic had completely run out of plasma, bandages, and antiseptic. During one particularly bad round of mortar fire, his encampment suddenly became a bloodbath. The survivors claimed to hear, above the screams and barked commands of their Lieutenant, someone cackling with almost girlish glee.

The medic made his rounds during the fire, in almost complete darkness as he had so many times before, but never this short on supplies.

The bombardment moved to other ends of the line, most men dropped off to sleep in the still dark hours of the morning - New Year's Day, 1945.

The men awoke at first light with screams. They discovered that their bandages were not typical bandages at all, but hunks and strips of human flesh. Several men had been given fresh blood transfusions, with no blood supplies available. Each treated man was almost completely covered, head-to-toe, with the maroon stain of blood.

The medic was found, sitting on an ammunition tin, staring off into space. When one man approached him, tapped him on the shoulder, his tunic fell off to reveal all skin, muscle, and sinew had been stripped from his torso and his body almost completely dried of blood. In one hand was a scalpel, and in the other, a blood transfusion vial.

None of the men treated for wounds that night, in that camp, saw the end of January, 1945.

-Namtlieu