I know this is a paranormal RE-search site, but I can’t help posting about the passing of one of my favorite actors. My wife recently informed me that Sid Haig has passed away.
“Who was Sid Haig?” You might ask.
It’s likely that 90% of Americans ages of 40 and up who watched television with any frequency during the 60s, 70s and 80s, have seen Sid Haig, probably more than one time, and didn’t know it. Haig has been in more films and TV shows than Dennis Fimple! If you’re within the afore mentioned age range, you’ve seen him too.
Most horror fans will recognize Sid Haig from his role as Captain Spaulding in the Rob Zombie film House of 1000 Corpses, but his career spans decades and begins back in 1960 when a then twenty-one year old Haig got a role as the fugitive in a short film directed by Jack Hill called The Host. Jack Hill would recast Haig many times over the next fourteen years, in classic films like Spider Baby (which later inspired the title of a song by the band White Zombie).
Sid Haig has appeared in over 145 films and TV shows spanning more than 40 years. He kept quite busy during the the first three decades of his career, but took some time off because he felt typecast as a tough guy, or “heavy” as he put it. At one time he commented, “They just kept giving me the same parts but just putting different clothes on me. It was stupid, and I resented it…”
He jumped back into the industry when Quentin Tarantino cast him in the role of a judge for the film Jackie Brown. Three years later he would be meeting with Rob Zombie to develop the character of Captain Spaulding in Zombie’s horror film House of 1000 Corpses.
That movie created a cult following for Haig and he became a regular guest at horror conventions, and appeared in many more films including the House of 1000 Corpses sequels The Devils Rejects and Three From Hell.
Sid Haig was hospitalized after a fall at his home and was recovering when he suffered an unfortunate event. He had vomited in his sleep and aspirated. Due to a monitoring system the staff responded and he was immediately tended to and stabilized. His lungs were cleared but he subsequently developed a lung infection which he ultimately did not recover from.
Sid Haig was 80 years old. RIP you crazy clown. We love you and miss you.
This film is disturbing to watch, and I think that is due to the sheer level of delusion presented. Look, believe what you want, we all have zany ideas, but this kind of stuff typically doesn’t survive an elementary education. To see grown people sitting around talking about telepathic communication with Bigfoot, the healing powers of Sasquatch, and higher love frequencies being the secret to connecting with the “forest people”, as if they have been bestowed with some special arcane knowledge that supersedes any academic or scientific knowledge simply weirds me out. It’s creepy.
I haven’t been so unsettled watching a Bigfoot documentary since Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie when some guy posited the theory of Bigfoot levitating to avoid leaving footprints. The rest of that documentary, though strange, had a human element that at least made some kind of an impact; you felt some empathy for the two main guys. Sasquatch Speaks contains no redeeming qualities. It is more a documentation of delusional belief, psychosis, and who shouldn’t do shrooms, than it is a documentary about Sasquatch. And there are two more in the series!
Sasquatch Speaks brings us interviews with such memorable, self-appointed shamans, healers and elders as Kewaunee Lapseritis, “Reverend” White Otter (or did she say Reverend Dwight Otter?), Otter’s spouse Su Walker, Sunbow TrueBrother and others. These folks sit there and tell us about Sasquatch being interdimensional and at times see-through, with the ability to heal and comfort people. Sounds like Jesus.
Spiritual and religious beliefs tend to get blended with all of this paranormal and cryptozoological stuff. UFOs and space aliens take the place of guardian angels; mysterious, elusive monsters in the woods become ancient wisemen who can pass between dimensions. For some reason these hairy creatures who stink like skunks and armpits are higher level spiritual beings. So much for the splendid Nordic aliens replete in their flowing robes and blond hair.
Weird gets weirder. Or maybe the weird stays the same. It just gets recycled decade after decade, fastening itself to whatever it can to help people feel connected to something bigger than they are. It fulfills a need. A need to belong, a longing for purpose, and a need to understand.
It’s still weird though. There is this thing called science, and bash it as spiritualists may, it works on facts and evidence. To pretend there is some supernatural or spiritual realm one could fathom that knowledgable scientists can’t, is delusional. Some say you can’t approach religion through science because they can not be reconciled, but in reality the only way to approach religion is through science because then we come to the truth. You can’t know something you can’t know, period.
This film, and I use the term loosely, is disturbing. It’s also poorly produced. The cartoon intro sets the stage perfectly: it’s a childish endeavor. I do not want to see another movie like this ever again, so will not be viewing the subsequent parts.
Ahh why not Marion, NC too? The village of Whitehall, NY, dubbed the old Cryptozoological poster-cryptid their official animal last month, there’s plenty of Squatch to go around.
I can hear the mayor of Marion, NC, now, “Crap we should have put that through sooner, Whitehall beat us to it!”
Bigfoot of Whitehall, NY
Whitehall is a small unassuming village a mere mile and a half or so from the Vermont border, just east of Lake George, nestled in the foothills of the Adirondacks. The high peaks region of the Adirondacks lies within a two-ish hour drive to the northwest. Plenty of wildlife, rivers, creeks and miles of forest shelter. The Adirondacks is Bigfoot heaven.
Lets face it, the northeast wilderness of New York, New Hampshire and Vermont is probably the most likely region on the east coast for a decent population of these creatures to thrive if they do actually exist. I mean, if Bigfoot (that is the plural form, like deer and bear) are real the Adirondacks is the kind of place they’re likely to be found cavorting. The jury of popular science is still out on that though, so more compelling evidence—than the thousands of sightings and footprint casts already amassed—is required.
Impressive steel sculpture displayed by Vermont Marble, Granite, Slate & Soapstone Co. on Rt 4 in Whitehall. Pic courtesy Cryptobrewology.com
Whitehall is a personal favorite for various reasons; beautiful scenery, a massive steel Bigfoot sculpture and assorted other tributes to these hairy forest giants, including a rather goofy looking metal Bigfoot sculpture standing outside of Bigfoot Wine & Liquor. Whitehall has had a fair share of Bigfoot sightings over the years too.
The first reported and most famous Bigfoot sighting near Whitehall is the 1976 Abair Road encounter. On the night of August 24th of that year 18 year old Paul Gosselin and his friend Martin Paddock were driving in a pickup truck along Abair Road just over the town line in Hampton, NY. They passed a “human figure” standing by the roadside. Turning around they returned to the spot and stopped the truck but the figure was gone.
The story goes that they heard a sound like a “pig or a lady” screaming. Startled and unsure what to make of it all they “took off to the top of the hill” where they locked the doors and waited for a bit. Suddenly they saw “something big” running at them so they high-tailed it out of there and drove into Whitehall to get the police. After a few jokes and jeers the officers, one of whom was Paul’s older brother Brian Gosselin, returned with them to check out their claim. Their father, also a cop, was also on the scene as were state troopers. This was apparently a pretty big deal.
Metal sculpture at Bigfoot Wine & Liquors, and a wood carving of Bigfoot. Photos pilfered from Cryptobrewology.com, thanks!
At one point officer Brian Gosselin shined his search light into a field along Abair Road and caught a huge creature in the wash of the beam. The boys witnessed the creature as well and the officer stepped closer to the field while another officer apparently fled the scene, later refusing to admit what he had seen. It’s interesting to note that although many iterations of this tale mention state troopers and other officers on the scene not one of those other witnesses ever came forward to tell their version of events and are not mentioned further.
Read more about the Abair Road encounter in the new book Abair Road the True Story by Sue Gosselin. The road name is pronounce with a long “A” like “ey-bear” by the way. The documentary Beast of Whitehall is another good resource including this and other Whitehall sightings. Bonus, in that doc you’ll also hear excerpts from actual recorded interviews made during the investigation by Bigfoot researcher Bill Brann.
Other sightings in Whitehall include a Sasquatch who apparently wanted to play through on the golf course at Skene Valley Country Club; two hunters who heard low vocalizations and saw a creature on the opposite side of a creek; a NJ couple passing through Whitehall reported a creature crossing the road; and most recently—and maybe conveniently with the upcoming Bigfoot Calling Festival—earlier this month a motorist spotted a large hairy something crossing Route 4, and investigator Paul Bartholomew, co-author of the awesome but sadly out of print book available for an elevated sum by thrid-party sellers at Amazon.com, Monsters of the Northwoods, made a cast of a large footprint found nearby.
If Bigfoot tickles your whatever and you also happen to be a fan of craft beer and brew pubs there are almost as many breweries as Bigfoot sightings in the vicinity. Just south of Whitehall, on Rt 4 in Fort Ann, you’ll find Battle Hill Brewing Co. During our investigation of the area my partner and I stopped in for a flight of some really great beers. The brewer really knows what he’s doing. From the huge window in the dining area you get a great view north toward Whitehall, including the peaks of Battle Hill and the Pinnacle in the distance. I think it’s the Pinnacle, anyone who knows for sure is welcome to leave a comment.
It is this blogging investigator’s opinion that Bigfoot, as flesh and blood creatures, have a greater chance of being real than more fantastical things like ghosts, fairies, demons, unicorns or the Great Pumpkin. This isn’t a supernatural thing and it isn’t about belief. There are millions of acres across the Northeast states that roll right on up into Ontario, similar to the gazilions of acres of pristine forest land in the Pacific Northwest. Sure, you get the occasional rogue hairy upright walking hominid in Vineland, NJ—plenty of woodsy spots there and it’s close to IHOP—but nothing compared to the sprawling forests farther north.
Now, about this Marion thing…
Bigfoot of Marion, NC
What sort of Bigfooty things are going on in Marion, NC? Hardly enough to make Bigfoot the official town critter but apparently there is enough Squatchery nearby that they wanted to hop on the Bigfoot bandwagon. There are only two sightings in McDowell county listed in the BFRO database, one in Spruce Pine and other occurances in Little Switzerland that may have been Bigfoot related.
Adjacent counties have had about as much activity over the years as McDowell with just two alleged Bigfoot related incidents each for Avery, Buncombe, Burke and Yancey. One each for Rutherford and Mitchell. So for an area covering over 2,500 square miles of the Blue Ridge Mountains, that’s 1.6 million acres, twelve sightings ain’t much. Granted those are sightings actually reported to the BFRO.
By comparison there are 21 Bigfoot related events in Warren and Washington counties in New York. Whitehall is located in Washington county which boasts 9 sightings. Granted the BFRO isn’t the be-all-end-all of Bigfoot sightings, no doubt there are countless sightings and incidents that have not made it to the BFRO database. Sighting reports still sitting in file cabinets in news offices and police departments across America.
I can’t believe I’m spending so much time on this.
Can’t blame Marion for jumping in on the Bigfoot craze. They did it for the same reason Whitehall did: tourist dollars. You see, after early interest in this subject dwindled in the public eye through the 1980s and 90s, due to the onset of internet social media platforms and services like YouTube the topic of Bigfoot, and other so-called unexplained mysteries, has again grown in popularity and filmmakers and TV producers are taking advantage of this interest, creating content that further fuels the flames of squatchery.
Bring people into town to spend money at local restaurants and businesses, and everyone’s happy. That’s the idea. But how can you get them there? Any way you can. Create a festival, draw attention by claiming Bigfoot as your official animal, give folks something fun to do, something strange to ponder, food, beer, enterainment and you’re all set.
Does Bigfoot live in the mountains of Western NC?
Want Bigfoot festivals? You got it!
Whitehall is hosting the Sasquatch Calling Contest & Festival on September 29th this year. Free admission, fun for the kids, vendors, movies, live music, Bigfoot information and of course the calling contest. Get your vocal cords ready, you might win $100! For more information visit the Bigfoot Calling Festival Facebook page.
Just like the northeast U.S., western North Carolina has millions of acres of wilderness hills and mountains, the perfect place for Bigfoot. So don’t be surprised if, on some moonlit night, you’re driving back from the festival to your RV at the campground or your cabin rental in the mountains, and some hulking, hairy beast steps out into the beam of your headlights. Keep your eyes on the road ahead, you may encounter Bigfoot…
I do most of my work, and living, in a small cabin in the woods. That’s the way I like it. The atmosphere is relaxing, serene. No pesky neighbors spying on my, no dogs barking, no traffic noise, sirens or honking. I can do my paranormal research and debunking in peace and quiet. Continue reading “Psychological Torture”→
Okay, it has nothing to do with the paranormal, but it has everything to do with abnormal! But hey, what do I know? Maybe I’m the only person who thinks this is screwed up.
Did you find this page because you thought you’d get to listen to “frantic” and “chilling” 911 calls of students and teachers in distress during the Marysville school shooting near Seattle, Washington; an unfortunate, devastating circumstance which resulted in the deaths of 5 students? Shame on you.
You want to hear kids say things like, “blood is everywhere…” ? You want to listen to their voices and hear the fear as they watch their fellow students get shot?
Zoe Galasso, 14. Killed Friday, October 24, 2014.
Gia Soriano, 14. Died Sunday, October 26, 2014.
Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14. Died Friday, Oct. 31.
Andrew Fryberg, 15. Died Friday, November 6, 2014.
Jaylen Fryberg, 14, died of a self-inflicted wound October 24, 2014.
Pardon my French but I’m a little ticked. We’re a fucked up society. And you know, it’s not you. You’re human, we’re human. We all do it, but it’s sad because shit like this is used to make money for the media outlets. True story…
News outlets and internet media pander to our desire to watch and listen to tragedy, because they profit from it, and we respond obediently. We have to see people getting run over, beat up, shot, and other sick and sad shit. We gawk with our mouths agape and a blank, dead stare in our eyes as some part deep in our retarded brains takes over.
We’re a nation of idiots, sheeple, lured in by tantalizing headlines promising forbidden tidbits of depravity, and we gotta have it! We give the media outlets what they want: a bump in ad views and revenue.
Sure, I lured you in with that headline, but I wanted to make this statement, not play you 911 recordings. A 911 call which relates to a violent, fatal act is not necessary information for public edification. It is sloppy management of what should be sensitive material. It’s irresponsible behavior for our 911 emergency response system and irresponsible of the media.
These kids are DEAD, GONE, never to walk in the park, ride a bike or like Neil Young sang in Rockin’ in the Free World, “…never get to fall in love, never get to be cool…”
I just read this article at the Examiner.com and while I understand the interest in spooky ghost stories I am completely dumbfounded by how seriously paranormal “reality” shows are taken by viewers, and how successful they have been.
In our sufficiently advanced age we are entertained by, and make famous, plumbers who hunt ghosts in their spare time. Well, it’s full-time now I guess, they’re veritable rocks stars of paranormal investigation. But I guess I shouldn’t chuckle too much, our society finds celebrities in all kinds of useless TV and film. There’s no pride, no integrity, just a lot of shit.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the plumbing trade, it’s a perfectly worthwhile profession. Certainly more worthwhile than ghost hunting, and in general it pays better, but it is funny to note that in some cases the popularized, televised investigation of nothing is actually a more lucrative endeavor.
How does one find personal fulfillment in achieving fame as a ghost hunter?
There is the money. But for integrity’s sake there are two possibilities, the famed ghost hunter is either incredibly delusional or incredibly ambitious with no ounce of shame. I’d almost prefer to think that these famous paranormal investigators are intentionally taking advantage of the gullible, riding high on a wave of stupendously ignorant TV watchers. At least then we could call them charlatans or con-artists.
But if, like most of their viewers, they actually believe that ghosts are real and huntable then they’re just as ignorant of the facts. Still, credit where credit is due for their audacity at least, they actually had the balls to pursue a career in it and record their so-called investigations on video then pitch their idea to some network.
Our species has been conjuring up ghosts and the possibility of an afterlife, or some otherwise unknown and mysterious great “beyond,” for eons. Luckily, somewhere along the way some of us figured all this was probably bullshit and some smarty pants homo sapiens said, “this doesn’t make sense…” and scientific investigation was born.
After centuries examining claims and finding no evidence to support the existence of ghosts or any other paranormal or “unexplained” thing — including but not limited to gods, spirits, demons, witchcraft, alchemy, aliens, alien abductions, lake monsters, bigfoot, etc. — and assuming that most humans generally consider this stuff relative bunk and permissible merely for entertainment sake, scientists decided to stop looking too seriously at such things and instead began to concentrate on more fruitful endeavors like stuff we could see and examine. This ultimately lead to a greater understanding of our world and our species, as well as great advances in technology, cleaning pucks for your toilet, and Advil.
Now to the main topic of this post: Never a plumber, what advice does Ghost Hunter Amy Bruni share with budding rookie paranormal investigators? One key piece of wisdom she shares is, “expect many hours of investigation with little result.”
Okay, dopey title, but screw it, THAT is a scary looking fish! You want to talk Strange Encounters? Talk to the birds who narrowly escaped death as one of their comrades was snagged in mid flight by a bird hunting tiger fish. It’s not the first time a finned creature has been documented leaping out of water, for fun or to snag lunch. Whales frequently breach the surface for some form of their own entertainment, dolphins do too, and of course flying fish fly, to some extent. Great white sharks will break the surface too, when snagging a sea lion or a seal.
This is the first time a tiger fish has been documented mowing down on a swallow, but certainly not the first time it has happened. We have to give fish more cred. Hell, I hear goldfish breaching the surface in my fish tank all the time. “Bloop!” Not sure if they’d be able to take down a house fly or anything though. Gotta be quick for that. Check out the swallow catching tiger fish below…
And while you’re at it, watch this one for a laugh. Fish jumps in the boat, man jumps out.
From James Wan, Director of the original SAW movie, and Insidious, comes The Conjuring, a ghost tale based on an alleged “hidden” file of a haunting investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren, who were popular ghost hunters and paranormal investigators during the 50s, 60s and into the 80s. They are most famous for being the investigators in the Amityville Horror story.
The original SAW film was great, but I couldn’t seem to sit through Insidious, maybe I should give it another try on Netflix. I hope there is more success with The Conjuring, because it seems we are in the midst of a new era in film, where foreign movies are becoming better than those made in the U.S., and American filmmakers seem to be churning out some of the samest, lamest stuff every year.
Well, the lower budget guys that is. Big budget filmmakers always have an edge, and with an estimated budget of $13,000,000 I guess they think The Conjuring is a winner. The budget for SAW was 1.2 million and they grossed 18.2 million in the first week in the U.S., so they must really think they have a prize on there hands to toss 13 mil at it.
They’re probably right though. In the entertainment industry paranormal and supernatural business is booming. The audience is calling for that kind of stuff, look at all the ghost hunter shows on TV.
I can’t stand to see another lame supernatural thriller rehash, so I hope they did a good job with this one. Check out the trailer below:
