Halloween is almost upon us and being a paranormal investigator and ghost writer, you would think I would embrace this holiday. I have one foot in reality and one foot in the paranormal. I walk in between two worlds. This is my life. You can say, I live and breathe the paranormal. But, sometimes the paranormal becomes too much a part of my life and Halloween is almost here, I want to retreat into a dark corner of my home and keep away from those kids with their Halloween masks on. Yes, I will retreat from Halloween this year.
It's October 15, the time is midnight. I get a loud knocking on my door. I think to myself...'who could it be at this late hour?' My dogs Pika and T-Rex instead of barking, retreat to the back bedroom and hide underneath my bed. Okay, now I'm scared. I approach the door to see who is knocking. The door slams open. On my doorstep I recognize 15 well-known monsters at my doorstep. They are: Freddy Krueger, Chuckie, Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Leprechaun, Dr. Andre Delambrea aka the Fly, Count Orlok, Phantom of the Opera, a Djinn named Wishmaster, Ghostface who was made famous by the movie 'Scream', The Fisherman made famous by the movie 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', Pinhead of Hellraiser, Jigsaw of Saw, Hannibal Lecter.
Freddie Krueger looks at me and says..."So, your the one they call 'Paranormal Paul', we will either rip you apart limb by limb, or you can tell us a good Halloween story!" Paul: "This can't be real, you guys are not real!" Pinhead: "What ever a man can imagine, is real, you must have such sights to show us!" As Pinhead starts summoning these chains with little hooks, I started spinning a Halloween story, I might as well talk about the origin of Halloween.
The monsters at my doorstep started gathering around me, all of them hungry for a good Halloween story. I start off by telling them that the origins of Halloween started with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts celebrated their New Year, which began on November 1st. For the Celts, it was the end of Summer and harvest and the beginning of the cold Winter that brings early darkness. It was the time where the living and the dead interacted. This was the time, that the ghosts of the dead came to visit the living. The Celts to appease the dead would wear costumes made up of animal skins. Their masks were of animal heads. They would dance all night long to raging bonfires. This was the origin of Halloween.
Count Orlok: "I believe we all know how Halloween started, except for Leatherface". Leatherface: "Ugghhh!" Paul: "Okay, okay, there is more, did you know there are real monsters here in this world we call Earth?" "I'm not talking about you guys, let me tell you about some of the real monsters that roam this planet, making the people of this world take heed to the things we refer as paranormal."
How many of you know that the story of Victor Frankenstein and his hideous creation have a foundation of truth? Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly once visited a castle, called Castle Frankenstein in Strasbourg. When I was an Army MP in Germany, I visited Castle Frankenstein, it's an impressive place and has a lot of history. Victor Frankenstein was based on the real life Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734). He was born in Germany at Castle Frankenstein. The townsfolk thought Dippel was a mad scientist, he dabbled with alchemy. He was doing pseudoscientific experiments with the attempt of turning lead into gold. He later tried to 'engender life in the dead' by playing around with animal corpses and later human corpses. Sometimes the worse kind of monster, is the human monster. Was Dippel a man who was merely trying to reanimate life for a good purpose, or for an evil purpose?
We all know that Bram Stoker's Dracula was based on a Romanian Prince named Vlad Dracula (1431-1476). Vlad Dracula fought against the Turks. He tortured Turks in his dungeons, he would impale the Turks with long poles and raise the long poles over an area where he would feast and admire his grisly collection of impaled Turks. Vlad Dracula's home was in Transylvania in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. Dracula is a legend enriched with history, books, movies and TV. Dracula is a monster that will live with us forever.
Halloween is a time to be frightened and when people hear stories about ghosts, incubus, succubus, poltergeists, dopplegangers, demons, it brings chills down their spines. The world can be a very spooky place. Even fairies, gnomes, pixies, trolls, leprechauns, elves can be scary. Why? They are the little people. Some of these little people can create fairy circles. Could these stories, been the experiences of ancient people witnessing aliens? Grays are small, they are known to abduct people. Fairie and their like are known to be small, they are known to abduct people, especially children. There are other similarities. Let's explore more. Fairy circles. Could this be the landing sites of UFOs or what we call Crop Circles? If we take it a step further, ancient people would sacrifice animals and even their own kind. There would be blood spilled to appease the gods. Cattle mutilations are blamed on aliens. Could ancient man have known that aliens were abducting their animals and that is why they would have ceremonies to sacrifice animals, so the aliens wouldn't come down and take their animals? Are the gods and fairies of our myths actually been aliens that have been with man since the dawn of time? We thinks of aliens as scary, that is why you see so many kids wearing alien Halloween masks. It's just one more thing, to make us afraid.
The world is filled with monsters. The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, The Abominable Snowman, Chupacabra. How about the Mothman that terrorized Charleston and Point Pleasant from November 1966 to December 1967? Could contamination at the West Virginia Ordnance Works have opened a dimensional portal and brought in the Mothmen? Perhaps the Mothmen looked like monsters, with their large leathery wings, but perhaps they were alien or dimensional entities that were looking out for the welfare of mankind and tried to warn us of a bridge collapse that would take the lives of many. After the bridge collapsed in this small town, the Mothmen were never seen again in this area. There are stories they have appeared in other areas of the world and when they appear, there is a disaster that happens afterwards.
You hear about monsters all the time. Like the Mamlambo - the South African man-eating river monster that has the head of a horse and the body of a fish. There are monster squids washing up on the beaches of Australia. There may be a living Brontosaurus in the Congo of Africa. Even England is plagued by their large phantom black panthers that roam their countryside. England in the past was terrorized by Springheel Jack that hopped around from one roof to another. The town's people noticed that Springheel Jack left hoof marks on their roofs. He was known to have incredible jumping powers. So as you can see the whole Earth is surrounded by monsters or scary entities.
What makes Halloween a success is that people love being scared. When Halloween approaches, we think of the fictional monsters like Michael Myers, Jigsaw. Jigsaw: "As for us being fictional, that is your opinion." Paul: "Okay, Jigsaw, I am just trying to make a point." People experience the reality of day-to-day life, they get up, they go to work, they come home and watch TV or whatever else they may do, before preparing for work again. They crave excitement, they wonder in their minds during the time of Halloween, if the world has monsters or scary things that go bump in the night. That is why, people love ghost stories. In our hearts we seek out the truth, we want to believe there is more out there. The universe is a very mysterious place. The existence of the universe is one big mystery, the existence of life on this planet is a big mystery. If we seek out the mysterious, we will face the mysterious. There is more than the reality that is about us, behind every dark corner, there lies a mystery. We just need to seek it out and find it. Halloween is a time to scare people, it's a time to be scared. Horror is in our DNA, it's the primitive essence of our being. Early man up to present day man, has witnessed the horror and atrocities of war. What man saw, scared him. We now want to be scared, but feel safe, that is why we turn to fictional horror, we can safely sit in a movie theater and be scared, but we know that we are relatively safe.
Halloween will always be a part of us, it's part of our souls. Because of this, you guys will always be a success and have many sequels to your movies! Ghostface: "Enough talk, let's rip this guy apart!" Paul: "Hold on, if you rip me apart, who will tell the scary stories?" Chuckie: "He does make a good point, we're going to be watching you and HPI, and if you ever slack off with your stories, we will be back!" Hannibal Lecter: "Rats! I would have enjoyed dining on the cerebral cortex of his brain, adding a dash of fava beans in a tossed salad and topping it off with a nice Chianti." Before Hannibal could finish the word Chianti, there is a rip in time and space that opens up in the dark cloudy skies and I watch these movie monsters dissipate into the celluloid rip that has touched upon our own fabric of reality. I wipe off the sweat from my brow and contemplate the situation that has happened. I now know that I better not run from Halloween, I'm part of this holiday if I like it or not. I get on the phone with Shannon 'Ms. Macabre' McCabe, President of HPI and ask her when the next investigation is taking place, because I am ready to tackle the unknown and I am ready to tell the stories of our investigations. The more investigations there are, it's a matter of time, before we will discover the truth! Happy Halloween everyone! Keep it fun and safe!
For more on H.P.I. Haunted and Paranormal Investigations of Northern California, go to their website at:
www.hpiparanormal.netPaul Dale Roberts,
Jazma Freelance Writer
H.P.I. Ghostwriter/Paranormal Investigator
www.jazmaonline.comJazmaPika@cs.com
Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:56 pm
