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Category: haunted landscape

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Connection Between Paranormal Activity and Crime?

A strong connection between paranormal activity and crimes is one of the most common motives in fiction, but also in lore and in so-called true stories. There are a number of stories where the paranormal activity is considered the cause of the crime. This applies especially to hotspots like the Bridgewater triangle.

Is this a cheap excuse for criminals? Of psychopaths who want to evade persecution? Or is there more to this? Fact is that haunted landscapes are often related to a higher number of extraordinary crimes, among them shocking crimes, satanic rituals, abductions, or mysterious disappearances.

There are many arguments against paranormal influence triggering malevolent human behaviour. We are fully responsible for our actions. Claims of “a voice told me to do this” are either cheap excuses or the result of conditions like Schizophrenia. But there are perhaps natural and less natural trigger effects that can play a role.

In the case of the Bridgewater triangle, where all sorts of crimes happened as animal mutilation or vandalism, but also serious crimes as murders, copycatting might play a role. Groups of people were attracted to the reputation of the place and started their own nonsense.

There should also be other sets of circumstances considered when it comes to hotspots for crimes in forests, mysterious mountain regions, swamps, and other areas. These include remote, abandoned regions that are less densely populated, which have served as a refuge for drug dealers and other criminals. Alternatively, there may be little law enforcement in a certain region.

There is also the question of what happened in the first place

A murder and an unsolved crime are the most common reasons for later paranormal activity.

A ghost of the victim of a murderer seeking revenge. Or the crime is unsolved, and the ghost haunts the place in order to bring the murderer to justice. The brutal crime left a residue, like a memory stored at the place it happened. Many hauntings in houses or special places are connected with crimes.

Sometimes it is said that the original crime leads to paranormal activity, which causes further crimes. A house or a place, or a forest is cursed.

This is the case with the Bridgewater triangle and the Freetown Fall River Forest: The brutal murder of Indian American king Philip and the slaughter of the American indian tribes there is one reason for the curse of the Bridgewater triangle, according to some believers.

However, this is a prominent example of how it works both ways.

People also say that the massacres and the betrayal that happened there are the result of ancient, old, darker forces. That’s hard to believe, as indigenous people were slaughtered nearly everywhere in the New World.

Another reason why we may attribute crimes and other events to paranormal activity is our own mindset. Everybody knows the “local legend” concept used in countless movies and stories. The lore of haunted places goes way back to the times of the Old Testament. This creates two effects: We attribute certain traces, events, and types of crimes as ritualistic, even if there might be no occult background here. Often, it is conspiracy theories that have a life of their own in our world, which create a certain interpretation. The second effect is that we see the paranormal at work even in cases where there is no evidence for this, but there is a long and strong tradition of storytelling shaping our thinking.

Nevertheless, the “power of place” is a concept well known around the world, and there are things that cannot easily be explained away.

What is the power of place?

We are talking about a less comprehensible force and a much more mysterious force, rather than a curse or a haunting. The power of place might also be something much more complex than a vortex or a portal. And not something which is the main cause of a specific event.

It is the “something” in the trees, in the fields, in the earth, that we can never comprehend. We can feel it, it is the subtle force shaping things at certain places, not a voice but an ancient influence.

It would be naive to attribute certain events or even crimes to that force, but perhaps there is a tendency in certain places to make things more likely to happen here as in other places. Mysterious disappearances are a prominent example – conditions of a landscape, like a wilderness, can only partly explain the statistics.

The key characteristics of paranormal zones remind us that we have to abandon the normal ways of thinking in our everyday world if we want to get a sense of the unknown. Things are more paradoxical than logical. The otherworldly realm even demands we accept contradictions.

Any of these zones, like the Bridgewater Triangle, the Alaska Triangle, or the Bennington Triangle, are hotspots of countless bizarre phenomena which are not simple UFOs or hauntings. They appear to shape human history in mysterious ways over longer, eternal periods, and not as a sort of intervention that causes an individual to do a certain thing.

Why is that?

If we look at the Bridgewater Triangle, we have reports of all kinds of phenomena: Thunderbirds, UFOS, Bigfoot, little people, giant cats, orbs, experiences of being watched, a sense of sylvan dread, a mysterious hitchhiker, a trucker pursuing drivers on a lonely road, mysterious disappearances, satanic rituals, briefly the whole set of strange phenomena. This is odd. The popularity of such places might trigger hoaxes or people invent things, but it is still remarkable. Things that can’t be explained away happen. And there is a blurred line between normal reality and the otherworldly here. The phenomena are real but not literally real. This is the biggest challenge for the human mind. But it explains why there is no simple connection between crime and paranormal activity.

One of the researchers of the Bridgewater triangle said that whatever resides there is an old soul. This is a good image. Something that works in large periods and something that doesn’t relate to humankind in a way we understand. It is more something that exerts a hidden influence upon us.

What does this force want?

Of course, there is no simple answer to this. Perhaps it is the transformative power of nature. William P. Simmons writes in Lost in the Wildwood: Sylvan Dread in Weird Fiction: In the confused paths of our minds, the forest is always there, ready for us to enter, ready to enter and transform us. For centuries, our imaginations have populated the forest with mythical beasts and beings, ancient powers that inspire delight and dread. Old Gods flourish in Oak trees and rivers, Elemental spirit walk borderlands of soul and soil. The Earth itself, imbued with a secret sacred sentience, hints of vast possibilities that we cannot define.” He speaks of a “cosmic intelligence beyond our logic and science, facts and spreadsheets. A secret soul both malevolent and nourishing”.

What exactly this force does, we don’t know. What we do know is that extreme circumstances bring out the best but also the worst in men. A famine, isolation, and starvation can awaken barbaric impulses. Civilisation is always a thin layer, barbarism is never far away. But the cause of horrific actions or crimes is never a power of place, or nature, it is what already exists in humankind.

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Ontology Of Paranormal Triangles – Alaska Triangle, Bennington Triangle, Bridgewater Triangle

Peter Engelmann, December 13, 2024

Paranormal hotspots are often called triangles, which refer to a triangle-shaped zone. The triangle is a zone where statistically more strange events occur than elsewhere. But it is not only about sheer numbers. Some triangles share the same components, the same kind of altered reality. 

The original triangle is supposedly the Bermuda triangle which was popular during the 70ties and 80ties. I will focus here on triangles on land, specifically in Northern America. The well-known Bennington Triangle, The Bridgewater Triangle, and The Alaska Triangle share many things in common.

And there is one triangle where strange things culminate, where everything appears more extreme than in any other place. And this is the Alaska Triangle.

Devil’s Country: The Alaska Triangle

Even though some reports might be exaggerated it’s mindboggling what happened there. According to some sources over 16000 people have gone missing in Alaska since 1988 or over 20000 since the 70ties. A whole town, Portlock, was abandoned under strange circumstances. Countless ships and planes have vanished and have yet to be found. Strange accidents happen, UFO sightings are notorious, and sightings of creatures are countless.

Of course, there are natural reasons why these strange things happen in Alaska: The state in the North is one of the last vast wildernesses on Earth with rugged terrain, high mountains, arctic climates, and impenetrable forests. No wonder, people go missing here. One mistake can be deadly in these extreme surroundings.

Nevertheless, even though strange disappearances, accidents, and events may have natural explanations the presence of the paranormal can’t be overlooked. In the series Alaskan Killer Bigfoot by Discovery UK, the forest around the Portlock lagoon becomes a dangerous, unpredictable zone and the Alaska Triangle Series on History.com unfolds a whole paranormal universe. The shows might accentuate certain effects and bend the truth in scripted reality but the whole picture is impressive.

But what exactly is the Alaska Triangle?

According to The Economic Times, “Alaska Triangle, encompassing Anchorage, Juneau, and Utqiagvik, has seen over 20,000 disappearances since the 1970s. The region gained attention in 1972 when a plane carrying two US politicians vanished. Explanations for these disappearances range from unusual magnetic activity to natural dangers in the rugged wilderness.”

Interestingly the paranormal quality of the triangle focuses strongly on a couple of motives and theories:

Especially electromagnetic anomalies, portals, and vile Vortices play a central role in the narratives. Compasses, GPS, and other devices fail suddenly in the Alaskan triangle and are susceptible for the cause of accidents and strange disappearances.

These ideas about vortexes and electromagnetic anomalies may have been triggered by Ivan T. Anderson’s vile vortices and then developed further. There is some credibility to the electromagnetic field anomalies however no groundbreaking research revealed portals or energy vortexes. But the vortexes, portals, and anomalies are a repeating element in all narratives around the triangle and also appear in theories about the Bennington and the Bridgewater triangle. 

The Bridgewater triangle is called a vortex in itself, and there is supposedly a vortex there that swallows the unaware: https://regina-clarke7.medium.com/i-once-lived-inside-the-eerie-bridgewater-triangle-56a5693f64e3

In the Bennington Triangle, the famous Glastonbury Mountain is connected with an energy vortex: Over the years, several mysterious happenings have been reported in the area, leading some to speculate that Glastenbury Mountain could be an energy vortex or exist in an alternate dimension. There is also a legend about a cursed boulder that engulfs hikers into a bottomless pit and a story about a creature, possibly Big Foot, that resides in the woods. From: https://happyvermont.com/2023/10/11/bennington-triangle-happy-vermont-podcast/

Vortexes are a common feature in many paranormal features and have been described here previously: https://www.theforestdark.com/wordpress/energy-vortexes-and-triangles/

The quote from Happyvermont.com contains interestingly the other prominent features we find also in the Alaska triangle and the Bridgewater triangle:

-alternate dimension.

– big foot, Cryptids, Creatures

– and boulder, stone, or mountain “swallowing people” (attributed always to old American Indian legends).

The latter one is really interesting as a weird explanation of why people disappear. It bears some resemblance to old European legends about people disappearing in the underground or getting abducted in underground terrain.

In any of the triangles, the bigfoot/creatures play a big role. Again the Alaska triangle comes up with the most overwhelming sightings and ideas about creatures.

Here it is the NANTIAQ, which is more ghost or demonlike than the common Sasquatch. And it gets really interesting that the Nantiaq in Alaska is linked to the idea of alternate dimensions according to American Indian lore. It is a shapeshifting creature that can travel between dimensions. And even more, it has humans abducted into these alternate dimensions. It can rest in old trees and witnesses describe it sometimes more as an energy. The whole Portlock mystery centers around a NANTIAQ-like creature terrorizing the inhabitants until they abandon the town.

What do we have here?

We have very similar patterns and motives when it comes to the elements of the paranormal triangles. However, these common elements have different specifications. What do we make of this?

On one hand, skeptics might say that these motives are part of a collective consciousness, that legends and narratives travel. Therefore there is nothing extraordinary about them.

Indeed it might be possible that the reported phenomena masking the original, the real phenomenon that remains hidden behind a veil. Then we use common patterns to understand what’s going on. Perhaps, what’s going on in these triangles is beyond our comprehension.

And the best way to get closer to these great mysteries of the Great Northern is to listen to the stories which were told by those who had the experience. The most common element of the frightening encounters, the strange disappearances, and the uncanny adventures is a sense of dread, of something greater, something beyond our understanding. One of the most compelling tales of the Alaska triangle is “The Strangest Story Ever Told: The Legend Of Thomas Bay by Harry D. Cold which has in some way the excellence of Aldernoon Blackwood’s stories but has a real background: “WHAT was the secret of Alaska’s Thomas Bay? It held fabulous wealth in gold, but, for most men, even gold wasn’t enough to lure them there. Yet, brave men dared to visit its bleak shores. Some returned horror-stricken, refusing to talk about what they had seen…:” (Goodreads)

Here we get a feeling about what makes these triangles. Are there vortexes, are there UFOs or creatures out there? We don’t know for sure. But the fear of these men, their stories, and the horror they experience deep in the Forest Dark is real. Whatever they heard, whatever they might have seen, and which changed their lives it was out there.

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THE DAMNED FORESTS

by Peter Engelmann, August 27, 2022

Folk horror is often about a cursed landscape. Somehow the place where the story takes place is bewitched. We don’t see the ghost, the witch, the demon. The Folk horror genre is much about landscape shaping our minds. It’s about the elder gods which are still here, somewhere. Playing tricks with our mind. Demand a human sacrifice. In a remote town a secret cult is still worshipping the old deities. The most notorious places are the woods, these damned forests. Movies such as In The Earth or Midsommar pick up these traditions. However, some contemporary folk horror seems more like a revival of genre movies as The Stone Tape and books from the last century, instead of taking primarily inspiration from the real world.

It would be very interesting to know when we started to rely more on previous writings and creative products rather than taking the inspiration from the “original” ( a place we visited, an experience we had). Or is it a mix of inspiration from the real world and former movies and novels?

True Stories

Horror movies or forest horror movies sometimes claim to be based on a true story. Or they are mockumentaries as Blairwitch. However, as N.E. Genre pointed out in Beyond Blair Witch, the story of the Blair Witch benefits from a rich cultural heritage. An example is the stickmen, a well-established motive long before Blairwitch. Most of the stories we experience in books or films are more rooted in previous works or collective consciousness rather than any actual existing rituals or events. That doesn’t mean that magic belief, folk traditions, and even the idea of a landscape as a magical spiritual character isn’t pretty much alive. Thanksgiving is a good example. Many pagan Earth-God rites had been absorbed by Christianity. Christian practices are sometimes the same thing under a different label. But this is not the primary marketplace where most fiction takes inspiration from and starts off.

Movies like Wicker Man or The Stone Tape are from the 60ties and 70ties. It was a time of changes in society. There is often some subtext about undercurrents in society. But even then, at that time there was a strong tradition of literature. The ideas were not new. So, where are the real roots of folk horror and today’s stories in the woods?

Landscape And Imagination

The landscape was always a factor: The folk tales connected shapes in the landscape to mythical stories. For example, the devil created a block of boulders in a mountain forest. Or he created a canyon which spurred a new local legend. A mountain top with frequent wild weather is the witches’ dance place. We still find the remnants of ancient rituals in the fields and the forests. There are monuments. Neolithic stones, druid stones, and hill graves are reminders of a mysterious past. The remarkable works of modern fiction came much later.

Another background is tradition, folklore, practices in rural regions, symbols, and the rumors and remnants about pagans and their sacrifices. And to be clear: If it seems that modern folk horror in movies such as Wicker Man is connected to earlier works in literature, this is about the premise, the basic models for stories, and not the world of the film. The writers and moviemakers did a lot of research. They used “original” motives such as the Green Man or that “wicker man” sacrifice, which is rooted back in Julius Caesar’s descriptions of the Gallic War.

But again, our modern movies and folk horror stories usually don’t refer to this ancient connection between men and landscape or the “local legend“. The most influential stories were written at a time, when the connection between men and nature was already lost. These works, often novellas, were written in the late 19th/early 20th century. It is the period H.P. Lovecraft describes as the modern era of horror in his essay Supernatural horror in literature. Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, and M.R. James are among the most prominent writers of the weird fiction genre. Algernon Blackwood established modern forest horror with supernatural stories such as The Wendigo and The Willows. John Buchan, a Scottish writer, wrote Witch Wood (1927) about the existence of a witch sabbath in the Caledonian forest. The Place called Dagon from the same time period deals with a secret cult. Fiction writers in turn were in some cases inspired by anthropological research, for example, The Witch Cult In Western Europe by Margaret Murray. These stories attribute a lot to the modern idea of the damned forests and the world of folk horror stories. I can fairly admit that my Forest Dark Movie project is also inspired by the weird tales.

Lovecraft writes that ” Serious weird stories are either made realistically intense by close consistency and perfect fidelity to Nature except in the one supernatural direction which the author allows himself or else cast altogether in the realm of phantasy, with atmosphere cunningly adapted to the visualization of a delicately exotic world of unreality beyond space and time, in which almost anything may happen if it but happen in true accord with certain types of imagination and illusion normal to the sensitive human brain”. This may not so much about the later so-called sub-genre “folk horror” but he describes the modern conception of a genre which emancipated itself from romanticism and the patterns of gothic literature.

Of course, Lovecraft adds a lot to the genesis of the modern weird tales with his writings. Strange rituals in the woods and cosmic fear are a constant theme in H.P. Lovecraft’s writings. And we find many traces of this early 20th tradition in modern literature, as in “The Ritual” by Adam Nevill, which became a successful movie. “The Ritual” is one of the most convincing examples of a book and a movie, which explore both genre traditions but is also rich in a unique first-hand experience of the wilderness.

It is interesting that the modern weird tale, which is in some ways a foundation of folk horror and forest horror stories, emerges in the times of modern industrialization. Usually we wouldn’t associate the fin de siecle with a “back to the roots” or “a back to nature” (even though movements existed). But isn’t it, that there was a disenfranchisement from nature in modern times? Maybe this is the reason for the rise of haunted landscapes and damned forests in fiction in the first place. That kind of precursor of the folk horror weird tale and movie was less popular after the war. Science fiction was popular, and this was less about Lovecraft’s cosmic fear of alien visitors or invaders.

However, the landscape is a crucial element in Stephen King’s writings. Perhaps, “The Children Of The Corn” could be seen as folk horror. And most prominently, there is “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. These stories also center around a central premise in folk horror: The remote town with a secret (pagan) cult and human sacrifice. There is a continuous tradition here, even if it wasn’t labeled as a subgenre.

Researchers have spent a lot of time exploring the roots of folk horror and the dynamic in the genre’s development. An excellent source for further information is the Eldritch Archives on YT. There is a hint, for example, about the role of the Salem Witch Trials in the genesis and development of American folk horror. 

There are times when curiosity arises about the mysteries of the landscapes and the forests. Janet and Colin Bord are writers and researchers and published books such as “Ancient Mysteries Of Britain” in the Eighties and Nineties. Everywhere that old heritage became popular again. Meanwhile, there are endless books about monuments, secret old places, old rites, ritual sites, and mysterious places. There is a new interest in the land.

Future Damned Forests

What are the best strategies for folk horror and forest horror? We should be aware of an obvious question. Do we still take the ideas of haunted landscapes, cursed places, and the influence of the landscape seriously? Do we believe that landscape, the dark forest, or the holy mountains are more than a shape, a mass of stone, or an arrangement of trees? What about psycho-geography? Does that mean that places have psychological influence, or is there more to it? Are the elder gods still here?

We don’t need to believe in dragons, but the mere stability of the genre suggests there is more to its central motives than we think. The most convincing stories and movies will sell “the idea of an unreal world constantly pressing upon ours” (H.P. Lovecraft) in a fresh manner, and will tap deep into realities which haven’t been told yet. 

It is also clear that if the folk horror genre and forest horror want to succeed continuously in the future, they will become less revival and more fresh and original. “The Ritual” or “The Reddening” are some excellent examples.

They represent a curiosity about the eerie landscapes and mysterious monuments surrounding in our everyday world.

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The Otherworldly Ambiance Of Landscapes

by Peter Engelmann,  August 5, 2021

If we do a supernatural story emphasizing places we either create such places or we took inspiration from what we call an eldrich location. Places that create “in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers” (H.P. Lovecraft) both exist in our mind and in our reality.

In movies and literature, we see the products of explorations of an uncanny world with hidden trapdoors and places where the veil between our world and another dimension becomes thin.

However if we look closer into this matter things appear more complex.

What makes a haunted landscape?

In the first moment, we might think of a typical scenery as the dark forest, the lonely mountain plateau, or barren, windswept landscapes like Dartmoor. However, it might be good to make some distinctions. There is a cultural tradition that we might consider the shadowy landscape for example with twisted trees as a haunted place. The gothic tradition and romanticism built the framework for a long time. Hammer films referred to this gothic tradition and we find references in films like “Sleepy Hollow”. They are spooky. Sometimes there is a ruin of a castle or the remnants of a cloister.

What about landscapes and places that trigger a real sense of dread? In the first place, this is not something we make up. It’s about places that really exist. And it is not automatically the enchanted forest or the wilderness. It’s about a weirdness, a sense of disenfranchisement that suddenly overwhelms us.

This can be anything: A place where high voltage power lines cross, a desert, a shore, a river bed, a tundra landscape or the outskirts of a town.

It’s also the type of place or eldritch location we find reflected in modern horror as in the writings of Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, and M.R. James. TV and films capture these weird landscapes too. Sometimes there isn’t necessarily so much strangeness at first sight. Whistle and I’ll Come to You is a BBC television drama and an adaptation of the short story of M.R. James. It has some memorable scenes with a sheer endless shore in East Anglia. Normally there is nothing sinister about a shore but here it’s wind, weather, and loneliness that creates the feeling of being lost. In the story and in the TV play it is a place where the hero is unprotected. It’s not only a bleak landscape it is the vast openness that establishes the supernatural cosmic terror in the story.

H.P Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood’s stories are best known for their distinct rich sense of place. Both took inspiration from real places. Perhaps the most prominent example is Algernon Blackwood’s masterpiece “The Willows”. The story is set in some river wilderness of the Danube between Vienna and Budapest. The two heroes of the story get stranded there and experience some nearly indescribable cosmic horror. Blackwood himself did two trips with a Canadian canoe on the river Danube 1901. The journey inspired his most famous novella “The Willows”, a milestone of cosmic horror and fiction about the wonder of nature. There is both a sense of awe and terror here. It is both about horror and a deep and profound sense of wonder. Of course, the revelations are very scary but there is more:

An outstanding article about the sublime horror in nature.

Eugene Thacker wrote an brilliant article “How Algernon Blackwood Turned Nature Into Sublime Horror” about Blackwood’s novella The Willows from 1907 in Lithub. He mentions a couple of important things among them “the sense of a deep time”. Deep time is a concept undergoing different meanings referring to the unimaginable age of the Earth’s geology but having philosophical implications too. Some sceneries on earth trigger similar thoughts and emotions as when watching alien landscapes, i.e. pictures taken from a Mars rover.

One of the key points in Thacker’s article mentions a form of life embedded in nature but beyond our comprehension: “But what gives scenes like this their ambiance of otherworldliness is not that there are menacing monsters in the night, but rather that the entire environment—the mountains, sky, river, trees—are somehow alive, and alive in an impersonal but sublime way that far exceeds the taxonomies of the naturalist or the theories of the biologist. “

Let’s think about this – It means that in some moments certain places or locations challenge our very idea of reality. The world is not what it seems. In The Willows – as Thacker says – the narrator” seems even more uncertain of what “nature” is by the end of the story”. A “something makes its presence known”. I strongly recommend to read Eugene Thacker’s article which in my view is the best I ever read about the subject and The Willows.

Creating Otherworldly Landscapes

But how do we bring that experience to the reader or in the case of a movie to the moviegoers? Algernon Blackwood was a master in the use of language. A language which allowed the imagination of the reader to see what he has seen. He and other writers as M.R. James and the lesser known H.R. Wakefield understood that sense of place and how to let the story and the descriptions work together. Filmmakers however need to visualise, they need to give answers where literature can leave more room for the reader’s imagination.

Doing artwork and previzualisation or design concepts for The Forest Dark Feature Film I am currently exploring the potential of all our wonderful modern technology and see what rings true or not. So far the process is not so much different from the work of the writers. Getting that sense of otherworldly ambiguity means a lot of exploration. Visiting places, taking in the atmosphere and wait for different moods in landscapes is part of the research. Frankly, we never know how much the sense of place comes across on a screen when the movie was made. But keeping the great examples from literature as The Willows always in mind as a sort of beacon we know where we are heading.

In the end of his article about The Willows Thacker suggests that “Perhaps the natural is supernatural, and vice-versa” and the “weirdest” understanding might come from science – what nature is. That’s also what a camera is looking for when filming nature and putting it in the context of a movie: Trying to getting us closer to the enigma. Reveal what’s hidden in broad daylight. Get that sense of the double nature of landscape. Bring it to life as a character and – if we are very lucky – getting into a communication about the metaphysical implications with our readers and viewers.