Update - DEC, 2019

Facebook, Inc.

Hi guys, et. al.!  If you haven't noticed, I really am hard at work behind the scenes, mostly updating old posts, revising the tagging system, and editing links to external sites.

I've been aware of some serious, and seriously widespread, chicanery for a while now but it's taken longer than expected to isolate the issue(s) -- not to suggest that I've solved the problem(s), just to say that I am aware of it and am working on it.  Most of it seems to now be centered on older posts, after I was forced to remove a lot of sponsored posts that were the original targets.

Some research suggests it goes much deeper than mere attempts to annoy me or keep visitors from accessing the site.  I dare not use the word, "Conspiracy," despite the fact that it's apt.

I now have more sources than I can count!  Having dropped Amazon as a sponsor (accidentally, but I made less than $7.00 over the course of 10 years anyway), I am working on finding a new one so I can link you to them.  Should you purchase any, it's a win-win: We get a tiny bit of money to keep us rolling along and you get a worthwhile source of all things Unexplained.  I intend to post an updated list of sources soon.

In going over old posts, I realize how politically-charged this blog is, especially the earlier entries.  One can blame the hyper-politicization of literally everything, forced upon us by a biased and thoroughly corrupt media and government/military state apparatus, but it is what it is.  As such, I am likely to delve into that more in the future.

Many "Supernatural" and "Paranormal" events are actually military projects, most of which target unsuspecting, innocent civilians -- that is, War Crimes.  The perpetrators of these heinous acts rely on such deceptions to discredit accusers and derail serious inquiry.  Still, other phenomena remain unexplained and, while those continue to be the focus of this blog, it is impossible to discuss the inexplicable without mentioning the (all too often obvious) connections to suppressed technology, military overreach, and governmental/corporate corruption.

We are dealing (though not consorting, conspiring, nor trafficking) with entities that openly disregard all legalities with disdain and malice aforethought.  We proudly disseminate information that may be upsetting to some, controversial in nature, and (rarely) outright wrong, but never do we engage in "Fake News" or intentionally promote disinformation.

I am also working on future posts so we can get back on schedule, but it will likely be after the holidays before I am able to return to regular posting.

I did want to point-out and/or clear-up a few things while I'm here, though:

• Climate change is real but hurricanes do not form over dry land.
• Weather manipulation is not only real, but it is also in widespread practice: PUBLIC LAW 105—85, NOV. 18, 1997 -- US Code (UCS) at 50 USC 1520a.
• Those "snake-like" UFOs are a NASA weather experiment.
• Sheldon Adelson, Donald Trump's primary Presidential sponsor, owns two newspapers: The ISraeli ISrael Hayom and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  Seeing as how Bloomberg is blacklisted for its alleged bias, those rags should be blacklisted, as well.  Otherwise, it is a blatantly unconstitutional violation of Bloomberg's First Amendment Rights and those of each of its individual contributors.
• The very existence of the highly unconstitutional NDAA necessarily negates the argumentative Defense of "private companies' 'Right'" to censor information and individuals.  All acts of suppression of evidence and information constitute a violation of the First Amendment, as does the oppression of contributors.
• When you illegally hack us and surveil our mail, phone, and communications, we legally return the favor.  Because International Law does not apply to you, by your own decree.  Might want to lawyer-up.  If you are being set-up, you can prove that.
• Scotland Yard's decision to not investigate the Jeffrey Epstein case due to it being outside of their jurisdiction sets Precedent for all rulings the UK makes, has made, or intends to make regarding the Internet.
• Marco Rubio should resign, effective immediately.  This is no threat, just a friendly notice.  Might want to lawyer-up, too.
• If you are a contractor, hold government contracts, or are connected to a Governmental/Military/Intelligence Agency, et. al., we reserve the right to "burn" you, period.  We're a private company, so the law does not apply to us -- according to a long series of well-documented, "legal" Precedents... and your own decree.
• There is no such thing as "National Security;" that is a cover story to blatantly abuse the Law and disregard the Constitution, and/or International Law.
• We don't hack, wiretap, or deal in stolen information; we come across everything legally and have no idea who our sources are in most cases.  The majority of our information comes from published sources, many of which are no longer in print or circulation (which, alone, tells you something). 
• We have no connection to, nor affiliation with, law enforcement, government, nor military agencies -- foreign, domestic, private, or otherwise.  We are not "at war" with any of them, we have not "Declared War" on any of them, and we have no plans of doing so.  We are, however, intensely concerned with holding them accountable when appropriate.  Insofar as that goes, the entirety of Broward County would be under arrest if any of these 17 US agencies were serious about upholding the Law and not openly involved in Racketeering.
• Linking to external sources is no indication of affiliation or association, nor even meant to suggest a belief in, or agreement with, said content.  Cross-referencing information via hypertext is how the Internet works.  In fact, we stringently disagree with some of the sources we link to on several issues.  We are acutely aware of the fact that many of the sites to which we link are blacklisted by governmental agencies such as Google and often attacked by special interests.  We're not real big on "Coincidence."  Love him, hate him, or never heard of him, what the US government did to Alex Jones is unconstitutional and illegal.
• We love our readers and are doing everything we can to protect your right to visit, share, and interact with our content.  We love hearing from you but, in many instances, we have not published your comments for your own safety.  This may be a paranoid approach but, given the overwhelming evidence of malfeasance by Big Tech and basically every government in the world, we don't think it is.  Should you be harassed, stalked, or abused after leaving comments, you have my word that no one here has anything to do with that and we suggest you contact Blogger/Google (an Alphabet, Inc. subsidiary) directly, though you will not receive a reply.
• This blog is not meant for children but contains nothing illegal nor inappropriate for kids over 13 or so.
• All of this sounds terribly scary, yet it shouldn't.  We've been around for nearly 15 years and have suffered only minor issues prior to 2015.  We're not real big on "coincidence."

Geez.  The world we live in, huh?  The world They allow us to live in... but I digress.

I'm going to try to post some more uplifting content along the way, just to keep us all from sticking our collective head in an oven, but this blog could disappear without warning at any time and I am also acutely aware of that.

© The Weirding, 2019

New Look, New Books

The current design is the one you're stuck with for the moment, Readers!  After several attempts, I finally settled on the current look.  I realize it is not without its flaws, but it is on theme and I don't find fault with it every time I open the damn thing.

I also invested in some new books on the subjects we cover.  Some of them are dated, and others are very general, but they at least provide jumping-off points for further research, and ideas for content.  I've settled on a schedule of one post per week for now, and have content scheduled throughout the next few months, so I have a headstart.

I hope you enjoy!  Bookmark us, follow us on RSS, and tell your friends!  Thanks.

© The Weirding, 2016

New Sources

Well, for the most part, the "30-mile Yardsale" was a bust.  Pretty much everyone and their brother piled shit they didn't want on their front lawn and, even though we were some of the first out there (we left home at 5:30a - my dad comes from a long line of dedicated yard-salers), there just wasn't much to be had.

There were two, distinct types of sellers: those who just wanted to get rid of their crap and those who thought they were going to redecorate their homes with the proceeds.  There were just too many of the latter to land any real "finds."  These people were selling pens and pencils for $1.00 a piece!  Regardless, as far as books, comics, and RPG go, there was absolutely nothing to be had.  I got a great deal on a Yamaha drum machine but, other than that, nothing.

Still, I managed to pick up one new source: Ripley's Believe it or Not! 9^th Series.  I wrote a post concerning plagiarism over to Weird Ink (the Writing department) which is kind of a digression here, but needed to be mentioned in case anyone is interested in learning more about how these sources are used.  You can find a list of sources used in the Links section of the left sidebar and under the sources tag.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

To Subscribe... or Not?

No, this isn't one of those "please subscribe to my RSS feed" posts.  Though -- you know, while we're at it -- it couldn't hurt...

Seriously though, this is about all the many subscriptions I get monthly that I never read.  It isn't that I don't enjoy the magazines, nor that I never try to read them; I carry them along with me whenever I go out, just in case I have some time to kill along the way or what-have-you, and I always enjoy the articles whenever I do read them.   It's just that I honestly do not have the time!

And I've given this a lot of thought because I somehow seem to find the time to read so much online that you would think I could spend an hour or two devouring the latest issue of whatever it is I've paid to receive... and note that word paid -- I have already shelled-out my hard-earned money to receive these rags, so it would seem that that fact, alone, would be the incentive I need to plunk my skinny ass down once a month and give them a look-through.  But, excepting a few trades here and there, I rarely do.

So I am writing this to remind myself to do exactly that.  And, since I've put it in print, I want you to hold me to it!  Seriously.  I want you to say, "Hey MD, read anything new lately? (wink)"  Just every once in a while.  To keep me honest.

Oh, and while we're at it, subscribe to my feed.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

What's With All the Death?

I'm just segueing up a storm here, huh?  Well, I'd wanted to say this earlier anyway, but knew I had a lot more on the Supernatural (and hauntings, in particular) to come, so I was biding my time.

Of course, Ghost Hunters just returned recently, and that has been good for some ghostly discussion and all, but the book I checked out from the library was actually due yesterday and I had to renew it -- just crept-up on me, to be honest -- because I am only halfway through it.  So, I figured I'd better go on and dispense with everything I can get from it while I have it.

This book is pretty old (pretty thorough in places, but still old) and doesn't have much in the way of theory and so forth, so I had to do a lot of cross-referencing, which has taken some time.  That's why I've been on this ghost kick lately.  Once you get this far into something, it's hard to change gears suddenly, then come back to it later.

But, the best thing about older books like this one is that they are so much closer to their sources.  Books nowadays provide so much theoretical scientific bullshit (well, that's a little harsh, but keep reading) that it seems like the author is apologizing for even bothering to write on the subject, much less taking it seriously.  Modern Science, Medicine, Pharmacology, Chemistry, and Surgery came from the study of Alchemy; Astronomy from Astrology and Weather-watching; hell, Archaeology was the result of a cat who read about the siege of Troy, took a spade to the spot, and dug it up!

The result is that a lot of the pertinent folklore with which we, as phenomenalists and researchers, should be concerned and need to know is excised from the accounts in favor of more "scientific" data.  I think a firm grounding in the Occult, Spiritualism, Religion, and Folklore is far more important to the study of the Supernatural than Science and Psychology.

But I agree that these fields have a very important place in Parapsychology and the research of all things Fortean.

© C Harris Lynn, 2007-2008

Ghosts, Hunters, and a New Source

Don't forget tomorrow night's new Ghost Hunters and Destination Truth.  One reader said the latter needed to turn up something before its destination is nowhere, but I have to point out that it really isn't in these channels' best interests to lay to rest any of these mysteries.  If they did, say, catch the Loch Ness Monster, then they'd only have one episode to rerun!

At any rate, I stopped by the library today and picked up the only real source on ghosts they had: A Dictionary of Ghost Lore by Peter Haining.  The cover blurb disclaims it as an authoritative source and I'm one of those "collectors" and "cataloguers," so if I turn up any new insights or terms, we'll run them through the mill.

I don't like to read reviews before I check things out because I find it taints my opinion and often spoils the process.  So, if it's a shit book, I'll find out soon enough on my own.  But feel free to weigh-in if you've read it yourself!

Sources

Sources are a funny thing with the paranormal for two major reasons.  For one, whenever you don't include one, skeptics use that to discount the report.  The other is that a lot of sources tend to repeat stories -- secondhand information that gets into third- and fourth- and fifth- hand accounts of the same, basic story.

One of the most infamous of these was one that I had originally heard happened in Tennessee: A man walked across his front yard in plain view of his family and a neighbor and, when he turned to wave goodbye to them, he simply disappeared from sight!  This story was repeated so often, with only minor changes here and there, that it was eventually accepted as one of the Unexplained stories everyone assumed to be true because... well, it had to be, right?

Several years ago, an intrepid researcher got down to brass tacks and followed the story all the way down to find out -- it didn't exist!  How did he do it?  He tracked down the newspaper in which the story was supposed to have appeared, as listed in one of the earliest books containing the account, and went through their morgue.  He found the paper and read it from front to back, and the story simply did not exist.

The actual story behind that research is a bit more complex, but it just goes to show that, much like a modern day Schliemann (who picked up a trowel and dug up Troy), the researcher simply followed the source given and discovered the article did not exist.  Was this a hoax?   Probably.  The Indian Rope Trick was; it was published on April 1^st and even said, "April Fool's!" at the end of it.  But, the idea so captivated readers that movies were made purporting to show the trick and others went in search of fakirs who could perform it.

The problem with finding "original" sources for many of these accounts is that they are usually astronomical in price.   I have been quite lucky in my time to have read many of the "golden books" in the field (though I had no idea of their status then), and even managed to acquire several over the years.  While the sources we use here vary and are given whenever possible, here are six, major books from which we both cull stories and compare new ones to:

• Eyewitness to History: Easily one of the greatest books ever - written? compiled? - put together, editor John Carey collects the original documents and firsthand accounts concerning history's most important events, people, places, and times.
• Mysteries of the Unexplained (1982): Still one of the preeminent authorities on all things Unknown, this tome is well-crafted, copiously illustrated, and extensively researched. One of the very few books on the subject I have at my disposal in which I've found startlingly few errors or omissions.
• Phenomena: A Book of Wonders: One of the true great authorities within the field, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a good copy of this one for under $15-20.00 and, believe me, that's a steal! I got mine off of an obscure web-based auction site you might not have heard of... e... something or other, and it came from across the Pond there, but it was worth every penny. You'll notice that this book is quoted as a source in most all others on the subject.
• Unexplained!: An exhaustive, though not always accurate, collection of stories and accounts, this one is what I like to call a third-hand source. Most of the stories and accounts collected herein are drawn from other written sources, making it one of the least credible of the primary sources from which we work, but that's not to say Clark didn't do his homework - this is about as near replete a collection of the Unknown as one could hope for. I just wish he'd checked and double-checked his sources a bit better. Still, he manages to throw in many, many stories and legends even I had never heard of. Great read - in fact, I literally could not put this book down for the 2-3 days it took me to read it, cover-to-cover!
• An Underground Education: This book should be required reading material for everyone over the age of 17. This book should be taught in colleges - no, eff that - this book should be taught in highschools. If you have not read this book, I honestly do not think you know Thing One about History in any regard. An absolute treasure for the historian, an absolute must-read for everyone.
• Mind & Magic: This repository is one of the true unsung heroes within the field. King not only collects stories and accounts, but relates the concepts in-depth, and even manages to give real examples (of spells, practices, items, and much more). This is a serious Occult primer book to which many might object, but the information it contains is invaluable to the serious paranormal expert.

Of course, there are literally dozens of others to which I refer constantly and read occasionally.  These, though, are the primary sources from which The OddBlog most often draws.  Many times, when we quote sources, if these are among them, we will simply link to this post.