Something strange is happening in Snyder, New York.
Between 9am and Midnight on Tuesday January 18th 2011 a strange substance fell from the sky causing icicles to turn yellow, green and brown. The obvious answer would be discharge from an airplane flying overhead but the FAA insists there were no craft in the area at the time. Here is the video from the local ABC affiliate:
So what then caused this green slime invasion? Is it toxic? Does this have any connection to the mass dying of wild animals we have seen in the last few months?
Is it an attack from....who?
Or is the Earth going through a stage of cleansing and renewal like which we have never seen before?
Perhaps it is like some naturists claim, nothing but bird poo from eating too much McDonalds fries.
I could relate to that.
But if you have ever been at a Mcdonalds you know that birds eating left over fries and such is nothing new.
Sorry for leaving the blog empty so long without explaining what was happening.
I have been experiencing a lot of illness lately and recently found I am Diabetic.
Unfortunately there has been complications that led to a lengthy hospital stay.
Fortunately my illness (acute Cellulitus) led to the discovery that my kidneys were failing and I have the start of congestive heart failure. While having my leg virtually torn apart was tough, at least they caught these illnesses before they became fatal.
Right now I am recuperating, it is hard to write while under the influence of so many medications, but I am doing research and attempting to write and rewrite some stories.
New stories should be coming soon, but they will come out slowly at the start. (Unless something awesome comes my way during my rehabilitation!). I am also finally finishing my Masters of Divinity (2 courses to go) after a 20 year hiatus from academia so the next months shall be chalenging.
Just to let you know I have not given up on the blog or my Examiner site, and a new book should be out around Halloween as well.
I would appreciate your prayers no matter what your faith. God has been very good and close to me, and I have the best church family in the known multiverse.
Thanks for hanging with me. Look to my Examiner poage within the next week for a cryptid story from Erie County PA.
Generational tales that are passed down from family member to family member over the decades can be very interesting. They also can be greatly exaggerated.
Take my family with the tales of my maternal grandfathers adventures as a rum runner and moonshiner during prohibition and his subsequent death at age 96 from bad shine he brewed in his still. I heard the stories over and over as I grew up, only to find out later in life that they were all untrue. Of course dying quietly of old age in a nursing home is not as adventurous a yarn as an ancient moonshiner dying by his still, but such is life.
Then again a humble old story can become a great adventure when the truth comes clear through the decades. Long has there been rumors in my family of “an ancestor who was granted land in America after being a successful privateer for the English Crown during Queen Ann’s War. Finding out later in life the story was documented and researched. My ancestor owned a large lot in Manhattan and after his unexpected death at this colonial farm, ownership fell into the hands of the colonial government, the land was reapportioned to another pioneer. No one could find the deed and the land was worth billions in the 20 century. In the late 70s, my Uncle claimed to have found the deed in an old family painting, and after showing the document to many and after hiring a lawyer to challenge the ownership of the land, he died in a mysterious car accident in the HawaiianMountains. The deed mysteriously disappeared after his death.
Sometimes family stories are steeped in myth, other times they are only portions of a bigger truth that can be quite startling. Consider this old story passed down from the turn of the last century, told to me by an elderly gentleman this summer, dear reader. Of which type is it? You decide.
The Macchovi family had owned the carriage works for generations when they converted it to an automobile garage after World War 1. They transformed the large two story store room into the main bay for repairs and the old assembly area into the parts room to accommodate more vehicles being worked on at the same time. The large old store room was quite cold in the winter time, but in summer its spacious layout with two double doors on both ends and high ceiling made for a comfortable work area. During the summer days the bay was constantly a buzz with the chirping birds that nested in the buildings high wooden rafters. The bird were mostly small sparrowsand while the noise was bearable, the constant droppings coating customers cars was not. Ever since the building renovation Uncle Marcel Macchovi had tried to rid the bay of the nuisance of the sparrows. He had tried shooting them, but instead of being rid of his trouble, he added onto them by shooting holes into the ceiling. He tried smoking them out, but the birds would only leave and return when the smoke had cleared. Barn cats were also ineffective, only able to catch a few birds a week of the multitude that called the shop home.
For years Marcel put up with the bird bombing, until one late summer day it abruptly stopped.
The crew didn’t notice the silence in the auto bay until almost noon, all the birds were gone from the rafters. They thought it curious and wondered what had frightened them off.Calling it a blessings, Marcel and his men worked hard into the day until later in the afternoon one of the workers made a disturbing discovery. Behind the shop where they stored the old oil in barrels, one of the workers found a pile of dead birds.
The pile was enormous. Marcel judged that not only were all the sparrows from the shop in the heap, many other birds were put there as well. The strangest thing was that they had no discernible injuries. No bullet holes, cuts, bites or any mark upon them. They were just dead. Many with their eyes open.
It was as their lives were just sucked from them. The bodies were in no ways molested, not a broken bone in the bunch.
It was very odd. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. But they shook it off and continued their busy day. They had almost forgotten it until a week later when they heard the neighboring farmers complain about the mass death of their chickens. The cages chicken coops themselves were undamaged, however when the farmers had entered them, all the chickens were dead and in a pile on the floor of the coop. Like the wild birds, they had no marks upon them. They had all suddenly died and mysteriously gathered in a heap.
A local Veterinarian was called to inspect the birds, but he too could not find a cause of death. There were no outward sign of disease, but would have diagnosed an avian virus if it were not for the bodies being piled up in a single heap. Someone was playing a trick, or the farmers had an unknown enemy, he surmised.
In response the local farmers stepped up their efforts to protect their livestock; both those who lost their fowl as well as those that had no attack. Guard dogs were purchased along with an increased patrol of watchmen pooled from a combined force of work hands who were good with a gun.
Three days later, the guard dogs on all the farms started to make a commotion during the night and as the watchmen came upon the nearest farm, the guard dogs were nowhere in sight, this happened on each farm they investigated that night.They were found the next morning in the middle of a large cornfield. The pile contained all manner of outdoor animals. From wandering house cat to coyote and even a few cougars. It baffled everyone.
Mrs. Rowse lived next to the Macchovi garage, she was a cat lover with a house full of them. When they all disappeared she called upon Marcel for help, he told her the bad news and she took it quite hard. Her countenance changed at the news, and never was the same again. She quietly made her way home, silently sobbing into her handkerchief.
Marcel went to console his neighbor on the next day, but she did not answer. He visited again the next day and once again Mrs. Rowse did not answer, he stayed a while and heard not a rustle in the house, banging on both the front and back door and with desperation a knock on the front window. On the third day Marcel was walking along the creek which was a shortcut to the Rowse house, avoiding the turn in the road connecting the properties, when he heard a noise on the other side of the creek above the small cliff side. It was a rustling in the bushes with a raspy breathing. Something was moving along the other side of the creek very slowly. Marcel unsheathed his knife, a large hunting knife he carried on the inside of his boot, carried for situations quite like this.
He quickly and quietly hopped the shale rock to the other side of the creek near the noise. He jumped up the little outcrop with knife drawn to see shat was making the noise.
It was Mrs. Rowse, lying in a little dip in the hill across a path. With a heavy breath her body moved by itself down across the dip. It was if she was being dragged without her body being affected by the woodland floor. She was floating there moving with each deep breath as if upon an invisible blanket.
Marcel jumped across the path to other side and was almost within arms reach of the woman when the sunlight reflected something unnatural.
It was if she were enveloped by a bubble that glistened in the light. A movement to or fro and the bubble vanished from sight. But at a certain angle the sun showed the bubble, heaving as the old woman breathed and dragged her inside of it’s unseen mass.
Marcel approached and poked at the bubble with the point of his blade.
There was a movement of sorts within the bubble, it swelled and became clear to see in the angle of his vision. He saw the movement form into a bulbous blur on the bubble, as if it had a giant zit that was to pop. Then the bulge on the bubble opened.
It was an eye.
An ungodly visage that manifest itself upon the gelatinous form focused its ethereal iris toward Marcel. And so he struck again at the iris.
He told his crew chief later that it was if the thing was real, but not. It was halfway into this world and that with a lucky shot he hit the thing at its weakest point and the thing squealed and faded away. Mrs. Rowse let loose one large sigh and passed on. The county coroner ruled that she died of lung disease because of smoking.
Marcel never knew her to be a smoker.
At the funeral service Marcel left unexpectedly. His chief followed after him and saw Uncle Marcel shoot himself in the head in the backyard of the funeral home. They were in the middle of the chorus of an old gospel hymn that Mrs. Rowse had loved all her life. The chorus to the song, “His Eye is on the Sparrow” is,
“I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know he watches me.”
The strange deaths stopped after Marcel’s suicide.
It is quite an odd tale, you be the judge. Did Uncle Marcel see something in the woods or was it all in his mind?
Was it some transdimensional life draining creature, or a demon from the pit of hell?
To me, the monster reminded me of a creature from the old 1960s cartoon “Johnny Quest”. That knife must have had a fine tip; I want one.
With all the Paranormal Investigators and groups out there, there are a lot of personal tricks of the trade that would be of great value to others. With that in mind I will gather together some videos and share them here with a link to the groups website. Once a week a new tip will be highlighted along with my regular content which will come regularly.
Here's the first tip from VIPER Virginia Investigators of Paranormal, Education and Research.
"In this "Budget Ghost Hunting" tutorial Mike St. Clair from VIPER Paranormal shows you how to safely disable your digital or analog voice recorder's microphone for recording EVP. It does not harm your recorder so you can still use it with the microphone as well."
Sometimes while doing research you find a little tidbit that throws you off topic and down a path you never though you would find yourself wandering on. While investigating the topic of lost graveyards in Erie I stumbled upon this curiosity: “…when the roadway of the Philadelphia & Erie road, where it passes through the Warfel farm, was being widened, another deposit of bones was dug up and summarily deposed of as before (Thrown in a neighboring ditch). Among the skeletons was one of a giant, side by side with a smaller one, probably that of his wife. The arm and leg bones of this native American Goliath were about one-half longer than those of the tallest man among the laborers; the skull was immensely large; the lower jawbone easily slipped over the face and whiskers of a full faced man, and the teeth were in a perfect state of preservation. Another skeleton was dug up in Conneaut Township a few years ago which was quite as remarkable in its dimensions. As in the other instance, a comparison was made with the largest man in the neighborhood , and the jawbone readily covered his face, while the lower bone of the leg was nearly a foot longer than the one with which it was measured, indicating that the man must have been eight to ten feet in height. The bones of a flathead were turned up in the same township some two years ago with a skull of unusual size. Relics of a former time have been gathered in that section by the pailful, and among other curiosities a brass watch was found that was as big as a common saucer. An ancient graveyard was discovered in 1820, on the land now known as Dr. Carter and Dr. Dickinson places in Erie, which created quite a sensation at the time. Dr. Albert Thayer dug up some of the bones, and all indicated a race of beings of immense size.” (History of Erie County Volume 1; Warner, Beers and Co., 1884, pp. 166-169)
For more see the article see my new book "Eerie Erie:Tales of the Unexplained from Northwestern Pennsylvania" due in August 2011!
This past spring I lectured at a paranormal conference and met a few friends.During a break between speakers we wandered to various tables to meet, greet and buy.After having a book autographed by Stan Gordon, I turned to find my friend Cindy Willoughby the case manager for The Greater Pittsburgh Paranormal Society.
As I scanned the crown, I noticed a family wandering through the chairs in my direction. I felt something was wrong, something out of place as they wandered my way. You could say my spiritual spidey-senses were tingling as the mother, father and young daughter approached. This was not the first time such a feeling came over me, although rare I have experienced this heightened spiritual sense many times. My attention focused on the young girl, it seemed she was enveloped by something. It was if behind the middle aged mother and father there was a large hulkish creature of darkness that was walking in sync with the disheveled homely teen girl.
And then the sense was gone. And I was a bit unnerved.
I then saw Cindy at the other end of the hall and went over to her. I pointed out the family to her and asked her if she felt anything unusual about them. Cindy is a sensitive. She has the gift of second sight, as some would say. She can perceive the unseen and understand the heart of a person without them saying a word. Some call her clairvoyant because she can seemingly read people’s minds. Others call her a medium because she can see spirits. Cindy believes she has been gifted by God to help others. When she looked at the family she told me she she felt an oppressive spirit over the girl. She then turned to me and said, “She’s being abused.” That was the exact feeling I had as I saw the hulking specter attached to her. A confirmation, but sadly in a situation like this the only thing you can do to help is pray. They are after all anonymous strangers who you pass by the way, and even though you can spiritually discern a problem or issue-most of the time the only practical option you can have is prayer.
In historical Biblical language Cindy is a Seer. Most people who have a Judeo-Christian background would have the conception that this giftedness is some New Age though, but the gifts that Cindy has are spoken of throughout Scripture as supernatural gifts from God. In the New Testament book of First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul talks about the diversity of supernatural spiritual gifts:
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: 2 You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
4 There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
I have highlighted the spiritual gifts, and I will not go into how they all manifest themselves. But I want to investigate two of them; the word of knowledge and discerning of spirits. To many in various denominations the word of knowledge is the supernatural ability to know the unknown. You have a supernatural understanding of a situation or character of a person that could not be gained by the normal six senses. The gift of discernment of spirits manifests itself in various ways. Basically it is the ability to discern good from evil. Some can sense whether a person is worthy of trust or not, and others can also actually perceive spirits either visually or psychically. Many times these two gifts manifest together or with other spiritual gifts. In the Old Testament those who possess such gifts were called Seers.
In early Israel before the time of the kings, the faithful who had questions of faith or spirituality would turn to the seers(1 Samuel 9:9). Seers were prophets, but not all prophets had the gift of supernatural visions. They seem to be a distinct variety of prophet according to many Biblical scholars (Havernick; Introductions to Old Testament, 50 ff, English translation). They knew the unknown and had the ability to discern spirits.
Many people seem to have these paranormal abilities from birth. Others receive them during a spiritual renewal as God’s Spirit fills them. Some in Fundamental religious circles consider that possessing the gifts without a spiritual infilling of the Holy Spirit is possessed with a demonic spirit that mimics the power of God. They also claim this explains the manifestation of psychic abilities outside of the Christian religion. Careful examination would seem to show that like any natural gift, supernatural gifts are inherent in some individuals and while some manifest these abilities at a young age or learn them through time, a spiritual renewal can activate the gift or further empower those who have already manifest the abilities. The spiritual renewal by the infilling of God’s Spirit acts as an anointed consecration of the gift, much like a physical consecration in a religious service of Holy items.
Many confuse the gifts of a Seer with those who practice divination. Divination uses ritual and/or items to gain knowledge. A Seer is supernaturally gifted with any doing of his/her own. Divination is essentially an artificial way to gain what the Seer has been gifted with naturally and supernaturally. There are some people with the gifts of a Seer who rely on techniques of divination. Not only is it unnecessary, it can be dangerous. Divination can attract spiritual entities that can manipulate, harm and harass an individual.
While I myself have had some of the gifts that a Seer has manifest themselves in my spiritual life, I would in no way consider myself a Seer. I remember while ministering in Hell’s Kitchen in the 1980s an urgency to pray for specific individuals in specific circumstances would press upon me. Most times I did not even know the individuals, but I would take a moment to pray. But for the ones whom I prayed for that I knew, it was astounding to see that I was praying for something that was actually happening for which I had no actual knowledge of. This sensitivity went on for many months and then faded. None of the gifts of the Spirit work in me consistently, they seem to ebb and flow when needed. And I did not experience any manifestation of spiritual gifts until after my spiritual renewal with Christ.
There are others who have had experiences since they were children. Many children seem to have the ability to sense spirits or angelic beings. The most common is seeing a person at the end of their bed or lurking in the corner. Some have other gifts of the Seer.
While attending Seminary I had a friend who’s 6 year old daughter who had the same type of prayer gift that I was gifted with, but to a greater degree. At prayer times she would often pray for people the family did not know, and when asked she told her parents that God had told her to pray for them. One time during a blessing before dinner, she blurted out excitedly, “We have to pray for Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey! They are in a car accident!”The Lindsey’s were members of their church and the family remembered them as they blessed the food. A few hours later word came through the telephone prayer chain that the Lindsey’s were in a bad car accident on the thruway while going out to dinner in the city. The accident happened at about the same time as my friend’s daughter interrupted the dinner blessing with her concern.
Whatever your worldview of Spiritual gifts, we are charged to use them to help others. There are those who have used them for fame and selfish gain that have tarnished their credibility and even lost their gifts. Some who have had the gifts removed have even relied on trickery and charlatanism to maintain their feeble grasp of power. Others have been overcome by spirits that are in no way holy or benevolent. And the one time rescuers become those who are in need of rescuing.
is an Author and has been a Christian Minister for more than 27 years in both Mainline and Evangelical Denominations. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Literature from Nyack College and an M.Div. In Pastoral Ministry with an emphasis on Pastoral Counseling from Alliance Theological Seminary. He has served as a short term Missionary to Burkina Faso, and has Ministered to the homeless in New York City's Hell's Kitchen. He is currently the Pastor of Bountiful Community Church in Bountiful, Utah
He is also a freelance journalist for Examiner.com, has a column in the Tri-State Senior News and has also written for Fate Magazine.
As a Seminary trained exorcist he has done consulting work with various paranormal investigators and television productions in the United States as well as investigators and writers across the globe
