The Eye of the Watcher

Throughout the history of mankind the eye has provoked the most primal of responses.

It is not surprising, for having a disturbing feeling that you are being watched by unseen eyes is basic to most all living things. Through eons the unease at the presence of a fixated iris has been passed on from generation to generation until the actual sight of an eye upon you is naught but the confirmation of what the rest of your body is telling you.

You are being watched.

It is the feeling of being prey. It is a learned trait that has been passed on to future generations for survival in a cruel and violent world.

Sometimes this natural response to the predator/prey instinct seems preternatural.

You cannot explain it,but you know you are being watched.

I am sure most of you have experienced that hair raising feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. You don't know why, but you know there are eyes upon you.

Perhaps some of you are feeling that sensation now.

In our modern times with Internet communication, and the proliferation of hackers and government oversight, it is a fact that there are unseen eyes upon you, watching your every move.

You are being watched.

Sometimes though, you do not have that unsettling feeling of being watched while sitting in the glow of a monitor alone in some secluded room. No. It is while you are at work, or at play. It is while you were taking that leisurely walk in the woods that lie not far from your home.

You could swear you were being watched.

There is an eye upon you.

What is the intent of that elusive watcher out of nowhere?

Is it something that plans your destruction; are you the prey for a superior predator that is merely stalking you?

Or is it something else?

History is also abounding with references to an 'all seeing eye'. From the beginning of human culture, religious iconography has been imbued with an eye symbol. Be it Wedjat (the ancient Egyptian eye of Horus), The third or inner eye of Eastern Mysticism or the Western eye of providence; the symbol of the eye often connoted deeply spiritual truths for the follower. The believer was either protected from evil, the object of divine oversight or imbued with deep spiritual knowledge or wisdom.

The eye symbolizes an active presence.

There are also folklore traditions of the malevolent eye gazing upon you, wishing you ill will. The most popular of these instances is the curse of the evil eye. A person of magical power is said to have the ability to curse with but a look from their eyes. This belief spans many millenia and cultures; it often spawns the production of various amulets or counter hexes to ward off the evil power of the dark enchantment.

So historically there are many meanings to the symbol of a watching eye. However to many in our culture today the symbol of the disembodied eye conjures a creepy and loathsome feeling of menace. Perhaps it is the ancient fear of the watching predator or pop culture referencing such as the evil eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings.

Of course it would be very disconcerting if one would encounter an actual disembodied eye in real life.

Moreso if you discover the eye is connected with a phenomena that you have been trying to explain, and something you have put off as a hallucination or signs of old age or disease.

And greater the perplexity of the situation if the phenomena occured in a church.

I have referenced the church that I attend here on this blog numerous times. After many investigations by various local paranormal groups St. Paul's United Church of Christ here in downtown Erie has officially been declared haunted by at least two groups. It has been featured on local news stations and was host to a paranormal tour this Halloween season. One of the videos caught at the church will also be featured in an upcoming episode of the new show Ghost Lab.

This past Halloween night Erie County Paranormal once again investigated the church. As a Church Council Memeber I sat with them while they did the investigation. Usually when I have my turn at hosting the church for an investigation I catch up on my reading (or sleeping!) in the Pastor's Study. However, this time I thought I would join in on the fun and stationed myself in the santuary with a camera and digital recorder. I sat in the back pew and sang hymns and prayed hoping to perhaps catch an occasional voice that might sing alone. Alas, there were no such phantom voices on my digital recorder after the night. However, it was a very strange night to say the least.

Throughout the night I was seeing tiny flashes of light all over the Santcuary. Like tiny pinpoints flares of a flashlight quickly turning on and off at various areas in the air. There were white ones and red ones. None of these seemed to have an outside source. It was if they appeared and dissapeared out of nowhere.

This was not the first time I had experienced this phenomena at the church. Last year while talking with the leader of the same team in the church's fellowship hall, we both experienced the blinking tiny lights floating in mid air. At that time we both chocked it up to being near a high electro magnetic field that was on the other side of the hall. We thought we were halucinating.

This previous Halloween though, I saw this phenomena while in the midst of others who did not notice it. I again counted it up to either hallucination or old age. Later in the night though as two of the groups members sat across the sanctuary in the chior loft, the lights began to occur more frequently. And one of the other members saw them as well. All night I had been taking photos wth my digital camera, and I tried to see if I could catch these lights on camera. Luckily, and to my astonishment, I did. Here is the photo:

The most obvious explanation for this photo is that it is an orb, and therefore a piece of dust reflected from the camera light. I did catch many orbs in the church that night, in fact there is an orb in this same photo-almost in the exact center. However all the orbs I caught were the common phantom half lit circle. This object is very bright, appears very high in the ceiling (50 ft) and oval in shape. And it is exactly what I had been witnessing all night. Bright tiny oval flashes. I was curious what I would find if I magnified the flash to see if I could make out the image more clearly. to my surprise I caught this:

Take a closer look at the enlargement:



At first I was a little disturbed. My mind raced back to Lovecraftian Literature and to the vivid images of August Derleth where the ancient evil ones constantly observes the Earth waiting for the eventual invasion of the ancient evil horde and he total destruction of mankind.


But a much better esoteric explanation can be found within Scripture itself.

Revelation 6:6 And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.

This verse describes the Angels of God before His throne.

Angels are not only God's messengers, they are also God's eyes over the Earth. Not limiting His omnipresence, they observe with a distinct free will and compassion that is their own. Perhaps the eyes of light were snapshots of a sort. Just as I was trying to capture the otherworldy within the church with my digital eye, perhaps the beings of the otherworld were capturing what was happening in our material realm with their supernatural eyes.

Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope

Presque Isle UFO video Presentation

Part of my seminar series at this years Erie Horror Film Festival was a multimedia presentation of local true tales of terror. One of the stories highlighted was the Presque Isle UFO encounter in the 1960s.

You can find the video on my Examiner page:
The Presque Isle UFO of 1966

The Lurkers in Twilight

Steve was a normal rugged boy at the age of twelve, an ourdoorsman in the making. Like the other boys that lived in his country setting he divided the time he had left over from school and chores with hobbies and adventure.

The thrill of adventure that stirred Steve's young heart was that of exploration. He certainly was born in the right place to fulfill his quest for adventure, for he was surrounded by miles of wilderness with strong flowing streams that cut deep crevasses in the ancient Alleghany mountains.

There were many abandoned settlements dotting the overgrown landscape, the land lost to Indian was in an era lost to time; or to the Great Depression, when the poor farmers moved to urban areas to fend for their families as the local economy ground to a halt.

Of the many ancient ruins that he came across in his adventures, nothing gave him such a distinct unsettling feeling as coming across an abandoned and dilapidated graveyard in the middle of the forest. With no visible houses or signs of habitation in the area, these forgotten villages of the dead gave one the impression that something terribly wrong must have happened for someone to totally their forsake ancestors as these ones had. Did something unspeakable happen that drove them from this place, making those interred here the dishonored dead? Was the land cursed? Though Steve would never know for sure the reason, the feeling of dread and despair always accompanied coming upon such sites.

On one occasion he encountered more than just a nameless fear that covered the area like a shroud of darkness.

One time he was sure he met the darkness itself in physical form.

It was late afternoon one hot summer day when Steve and his best friend Randy came across a strange sight while exploring a local creek. It looked as if the shale had exploded in the creek bed, from a distance they saw large pieces of rock standing upright on the shore and other similar sized pieces scattered in piles nearby.

But as they drew closer, they could see that it was not the thick shale from the creek that protruded from and littered the ground that edged the creek.

They were headstones.

The names and lettering were almost completely obliterated after years of exposure to the elements. Gray green mold covered most of the markers, which gave an odd texture to the few stylized features that were still visible on the surface. But the thing that disturbed Steve and Randy most was the oddity of having a graveyard placed on the shores of a creek. It seemed like a very odd and unlikely place to bury the dead. The boys thoroughly examined every stone, looking for a name, but the letters were too worn to be discernible. It was then that they had the distinct feeling that they were being watched.

Steve knew the feeling well, having spent many hours hunting in the woods. It was instinctual, but training made one rely upon and enhance that instinct. And he knew there was something off to the right watching them. He nonchalantly turned, still keeping his eyes to the ground. Then without raising his head he looked up into the wooded embankment where he felt the eyes upon him.

And he saw it. It was staring back at him.

Behind some foliage there crouched a hideous humanoid figure.

From what he recalls it was dressed in literal rags. The shirt and pants were torn and filthy in so much that the original color could not truly be discerned. The body was unnatural. As it hunched over, you had the sense that this was its natural posture, a misshapen body that tried to look like a human but failed on a basic level.

But it was the head that was the truly frightening thing.

Like the body, it was as if someone who had never seen a human being before had tried to make one out of a few mangled pieces. The head was large and bulbous in a way that one could only call 'squash' like. The eyes were oddly set and protruding from their sockets like they were made too large for the skull that held them. The creature's greyish skin was covered in lesions and boils from which a shiny ichor leaked, drenching the flesh.

They stood there staring at each other for what seemed like hours, eye to eye measuring the other. The only movement was the lurching of the things body as it rythmically breathed. Then as Randy turned and saw the monstrosity stalking them, he let out a high pitched shriek.

And the creature dissapeared.

It did not run. Steve and Randy had kept their eyes on it the whole time. It just simply faded away as if it never existed.

The two boys stood there stunned, wondering if they had just hallucinated the whole thing. But a quick examination of the area where the being had stood showed that there had been something physically there. The ground was disturbed and there were vague footprints in the mud.

They quickly halted their investigation and made haste in returning home. They never returned there, they were too afraid what they might encounter again.

What was the spectral image that Steve and Randy saw when they were young boys? Was it an apparition of one of the dishonored dead, buried haphazardly by the side of a creek in the middle of nowhere? Was it a hallucination after a long hike and a spooky setting which played with young boys minds? Or was it something else?

Although this encounter happened years ago, a similar incident brought the story back to mind.

I work with paranormal groups across the nation and some oversees, doing consultation with some very odd cases. One such case bears a striking resemblance to what those young boys encountered over 10 years ago deep in the Western Pennsylvania woods.

A group from another State contacted me a few months ago, they wanted my opinion of an unusual case. At first I thought someone was pulling their leg, or they were attempting to pull mine. The case involved a very violent haunting where a man was being physically attacked. There was something scratching him, pulling his across the floor and things being thrown across a room. But the strangest thing and what made me pause was the appearance of a disfigured humanoid in the man's house.

Its appearance was very similar to what Steve and Randy had encountered all those years ago. The bulbous head, the disfigured body in tattered clothing. however the thing did not just disappear into nothingness. It ran away, but someone other than the victim saw it trying to enter the woman's house.

All of this might have been dismissed as hallucination or hoax if it were not for the respectability of the victim and the witness. Adding to the veracity of the tale, the victim and the witness both do not wish to be in the spotlight. He does not seek fame nor glory nor his fifteen minutes of fame. He just wants it all to stop. He wants the terror to go away.

Is it mere coincidence that these two phantom beings have the same physical appearance? Many would say it is a demonic class of being, or a creature akin to the old world elf or gnome. A creature of supernatural abilities that seems to be a crude mockery of humanity. A specter out of folklore, coming to haunt our modern day world.

Which makes one think, what other creatures of native folklore that lurk in our Fortean world might in truth be more spiritual in nature than flesh and blood? Some of the same periphery phenomena that occures during paranormal manifestations also occures during encounters with cryptids and UFOs. Batteries drain, temperatures drop and electromagnetic fields fluctuate. I myself have had personal experience with this, last year while visiting the same area where I encountered the giant bird in 2000 I once again saw either the same or a simular creature. But this time I was prepaired, with digital camera in hand I began to snap pictures of the large bird as it was being attacked by smaller birds as it rose into the air a little more than 100 feet from me. But the camera froze. The batteries were dead. But they had just been purchased and placed in the device a few moments before I entered the area. By the time I switched out batteries I did manage to snap a few pictures, but they were blurry and you could not make out anything of value. They were pretty darn pathetic. I only told a few of the experience, mostly because of the bad evidence I had onhand. I only share it now as example.

Many who study various areas of the unexplained do not like to have their genre of study lumped with the descriptive title of 'paranormal phenomena'. But perhaps, there is more commanlity in all these encounters with the unexplained than we would like to presume.

Perhaps we, with our dim mortal vision of the mysteries that surround us, are the true lurkers in twilight.

Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope

The Phantom Child of Wintergreen Gorge

On my Examiner Page, a retelling of a story that strikes close to home.

Just on the brink of happiness, Tim Randall dies a horrible death. Does he walk the cliffs of Wintergreen Gorge reliving the best times of his life?

http://www.examiner.com

Video blog: The Love Lost Nun of Mercyhurst College

Mercyhurst College here in Erie Pennsylvania has a resident ghost: an apparition of a Nun.

I detailed the story here: http://theparanormalpastor.blogspot.com/2008/08/crazed-ghost-of-love-lost-nun_12.html

Part of my seminar at this years Erie Horror Film Festival is a multimedia presentation that includes animated local legends, the Ghost Nun being one of them. The main body of the story is on my Youtube page. Let me know what you think.

More new stories to come by the second week of October, and I can take a breath!!

Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope

Seminar at the Erie Horrorfest

I have the humble privilege to participate in a seminar series for the Erie Horror Film Festival next month. They are wishing to expand the fulcrum of their view beyond the cinematic, and into the true tales of the unexplained. Therefore I am going to give a multimedia presentation of Erie Counties most astounding true tales of terror, The UFO landing on Presque Isle, The Love lost Nun of Mercyhurst College, The Ghost boy of Penn State Erie's Wintergreen Gorge, The Restless Dead of the War of 1812 to name a few.

You can find more information about the fest and the celebrity guest stars from horror filmdom here:
http://www.eeriehorrorfilmfestival.com/
Come and say hello!

This is one reason why stories have not been flowing like usual here, I am doing a 3d animation on most of these stories. It seems my old habits of precrastination from Grad school has never left me and I always approach the task from the side instead of head on and waste a lot of time, which is why more stories are missing here. I do have a group of stories in the pike that shuls flow after this task is done. Sorry. But if you are in the Erie area and do enjoy the stories, I do believe you would enjoy the finished product I have labored over for the last month or two.

And hey, the fest is hosting Corey Feldman. He has seen Gremlins first hand!

Blessings,

Pastor Swope

Pithy and Pompous Paranormal Pundancy

Frank, head of Erie County Paranormal asked me to appear on their blogtalk show this Saturday night. After having Riley Martin on the show last week there was a verbal slugfest between two callers that descended into Theological issues such as evolution, life on other planets and proving there is a God. They asked the callers back this week and asked me to sit in and strike up a debate. It was a blast and the two hours flew by, it was a thought provoking session where I show I cannot tell jokes very well and can come up with a crude analogy with the best of them. Tempers flared a bit and mayhem ensued. If you want to take a listen you can go to the show at the link below.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ghsthunter346/2009/09/13/The-battle-of-is-there-life-on-other-planets-returns-to-Erie-County-Paranormal

One of the key 'heretical' points I bring up is my belief that animals do not have souls. I try to explain it theologically and with an inappropriate metaphor, but I don't think many understood my intent.

Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope