Kraken

Although the name kraken never appears in the Norse sagas, there are similar sea monsters, the hafgufa and lyngbakr, both described in Örvar-Odds saga and the Norwegian text from c. 1250, Konungs skuggsjá. Carolus Linnaeus included kraken as cephalopods with the scientific name Microcosmus in the first edition of his Systema Naturae (1735), a taxonomic classification of living organisms, but excluded the animal in later editions. Kraken were also extensively described by Erik Pontoppidan, bishop of Bergen, in his “Natural History of Norway” (Copenhagen, 1752–3).

Early accounts, including Pontoppidan’s, describe the kraken as an animal “the size of a floating island” whose real danger for sailors was not the creature itself, but the whirlpool it created after quickly descending back into the ocean. However, Pontoppidan also described the destructive potential of the giant beast: “It is said that if it grabbed the largest warship, it could manage to pull it down to the bottom of the ocean” (Sjögren, 1980). Kraken were always distinct from sea serpents, also common in Scandinavian lore (Jörmungandr for instance).

According to Pontoppidan, Norwegian fishermen often took the risk of trying to fish over kraken, since the catch was so good. If a fisherman had an unusually good catch, they used to say to each other, “You must have fished on Kraken.” Pontoppidan also claimed that the monster was sometimes mistaken for an island, and that some maps that included islands that were only sometimes visible were actually indicating kraken. Pontoppidan also proposed that a young specimen of the monster once died and was washed ashore at Alstahaug (Bengt Sjögren, 1980).

Since the late 18th century, kraken have been depicted in a number of ways, primarily as large octopus-like creatures, and it has often been alleged that Pontoppidan’s kraken might have been based on sailors’ observations of the giant squid. In the earliest descriptions, however, the creatures were more crab- like than octopus-like, and generally possessed traits that are associated with large whales rather than with giant squid. Some traits of kraken resemble undersea volcanic activity occurring in the Iceland region, including bubbles of water; sudden, dangerous currents; and appearance of new islets.

In 1802, the French malacologist Pierre Dénys de Montfort recognized the existence of two kinds of giant octopus in Histoire Naturelle Générale et Particulière des Mollusques, an encyclopedic description of mollusks. Montfort claimed that the first type, the kraken octopus, had been described by Norwegian sailors and American whalers, as well as ancient writers such as Pliny the Elder. The much larger second type, the colossal octopus (depicted in the above image), was reported to have attacked a sailing vessel from Saint-Malo, off the coast of Angola.

Montfort later dared more sensational claims. He proposed that ten British warships that had mysteriously disappeared one night in 1782 must have been attacked and sunk by giant octopuses. Unfortunately for Montfort, the British knew what had happened to the ships, resulting in a disgraceful revelation for Montfort. Pierre Dénys de Montfort’s career never recovered and he died starving and poor in Paris around 1820 (Sjögren, 1980). In defence of Pierre Dénys de Montfort, it should be noted that many of his sources for the “kraken octopus” probably described the very real giant squid, proven to exist in 1857.

In 1830, possibly aware of Pierre Dénys de Montfort’s work, Alfred Tennyson published his popular poem “The Kraken” (essentially an irregular sonnet), which disseminated Kraken in English forever fixed with its superfluous the. Tennyson’s description apparently influenced Jules Verne’s imagined lair of the famous giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea from 1870. Verne also makes numerous references to Kraken, and Bishop Pontoppidan in the novel.

My name is Ty, and I’m one of the GhoSt Augustine haunted pub tour guides. One of my pub stops is an establishment which has had a history of many residents over a span of 150 years. The spirit is particularly interesting because it interacts often with the pub owner, who lives upstairs . Without going into much detail here — you’ll need to attend the tour for the full story! — I will say that the spirit is a mischievous poltergeist whose identity remains unknown . During my tour I relate various documented activities and anecdotes regarding this particular haunt. Based on these occurrences , I always venture a guess that the spirit is that of a young boy. The following event might shed some light on this mystery.

One evening I was waiting outside the establishment for my group to reconvene before heading to the next stop. A woman in my group approached me, claiming t hat she had psychic ability. Her talent was corroborated by her husband and friend who accompanied her. She surprised me by saying, “Ty, I need to correct you on one important point in your story. T he spirit is not a boy.” In response to my puzzled expression, s he continued . “She is a girl, and was eleven years old when she died. She complains that someone braids her hair much too tightly.” The psychic explained that the girl would prefer to wear her hair down, but the adult won’t pay her any mind.

I pressed her to help me understand her ps ychic gift. “It’s not necessarily a gift,” she told me. “I’ve been able to see into the spirit world for as long as I can remember. Believe me, some things you just don’t want to know.” She hesitated briefly. “By the way, did you know the strap in the back of your vest is undone?” She tied the strap around its buckle. Since then, neither spirit nor dry cleaner has loosened it.

Brown Mountain Lights

Although the mysterious lights have been observed by local Native American tribes for hundreds of years, the earliest sighting by a European seems to be from a surveyor of the area, Gerard Will de Brahm, in 1771. He tried to explain the phenomenon as a “nitrous vapor” which “inflames, sulphurates and deteriorates.” One early account dates from September 13, 1913, as reported in the Charlotte Daily Observer. A fisherman claimed to have seen “mysterious lights seen just above the horizon every night” red in color, with a pronounced circular shape. Rather soon after this account, a US Geological Survey employee, D.B. Stewart, studied the area in question and determined the witnesses had mistaken train lights for something more mysterious reports of odd lights continued, and a more formal USGS survey began in 1922, under the direction of George Rogers Mansfield. He determined witnesses had misidentified automobile or train lights, fires, or mundane stationary lights. However, this does not explain the fact that the lights had been observed long before the advent of automobiles, trains or electricity in general. In later decades, reports of the Brown Mountain Lights continued. An experiment conducted in 1977 shone a 50,000 candela floodlight 22 miles (35 km) towards Brown Mountain. Experimenters saw a red, circular light floating above the horizon, and thus concluded that refraction of ordinary lights were likely to blame for the Brown Mountain Lights.

Research on the phenomenon has been conducted by paranormal researcher Joshua P. Warren and the League of Energy Materialization and Unexplained phenomena Research based in Asheville, NC. They say that after fifteen years of field research working with a wide variety of scientists, they concluded that the lights are caused by natural plasmas produced by special geologic and atmospheric conditions of the mountain. According to their interpretation, conductive and non-conductive layers of the mountain (such as magnetite and quartz) store electric charge when water runs through tunnels in the ridge. At night, when the rocks cool and contract, these layers squeeze together causing massive discharges. Sometimes multiple discharges intersect and spin fast enough to be observed in the visible electromagnetic spectrum, causing the illusion of a self-contained sphere of light at the point of intersection.

ASSESSING THE PARANORMAL:

by Harry Stafford, Ph.D, Director of Haunted St. Augustine – Nighlty Investigations of
the Paranormal

                                           THE ROLE OF THE MIND I

        There’s a familiar saying “it’s all in the mind.”  All of us have experienced the power of suggestion.  We know how rapidly our attention can be riveted to something of appeal or significance to us – such as someone consuming an icy beverage on a blisteringly hot day.  Parapsychology recognizes how easily the power of suggestion can evoke the paranormal experiences that so many strongly desire. This is evident in many supposed sightings, interpretations of what we hear on EVP, or just the feelings evoked by eerie accounts of paranormal events.  What about a decidedly spooky setting such as a cemetery filled with broken and weather-worn monuments?
        On an even more fundamental level, we are learning the potent role mind can play in the very ways we construct reality.  The Placebo Effect has proven how sugar pills can contribute to healings if we believe these pills to be some powerful drug.  Demonstrations of psychokinesis or telekinesis in the laboratory illustrate how the mind may directly affect material objects apart from any ordinary physical contact.  What is most relevant to the paranormal, however, is the view of many physicists today that mind is at the basis of all reality.  Sir James Jeans once remarked that our understanding of quantum physics makes the world look more and more like a great idea (mind) rather than a great “thing” (matter.)  Most of the founders of quantum physics – such as Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, etc. – held similar views, views that are even more commonplace today.
        All of us — and all “things”– are manifestations of a vast, integral field of energy that is more like “mind” than “matter” as it is traditionally understood.  Our observation and interpretation of what we see and experience cannot be neatly separated from what we think of as a world or events existing objectively apart from us. In a real sense, there is no such separately existing world.
        Consider what this means, for example, for encounters with the paranormal. If we do not exist separately from the ordinary world, how much more true is this of the paranormal?  If we in part construct the ordinary world through our senses and our beliefs and interpretations of events, how much more true may this be for the world(s) of the paranormal?  If we project reality outward onto our everyday world (a well-known fact of modern psychology,) how much more may we do so with the paranormal world(s)?  For example, what is an “intelligent haunting,” really? We shall return to these intriguing and perplexing issues . . . Paranormal riddles are also riddles about the nature of reality itself.

©Harry C. Stafford, 2010

Bermuda Triangle

The Triangle marks a corridor of the north Atlantic stretching
northward from the West Indies along the North American seaboard as
far as the Carolinas. To take advantage of prevailing winds, ships
returning to Europe during the Age of Sail would sail north to the
Carolinas before turning east to cross the north Atlantic. This
pattern continued after the development of steam and internal
combustion engines, meaning that much of the north Atlantic shipping
traffic crossed (and still crosses) through the Triangle’s area.
The Gulf Stream, an area of volatile weather, also passes through the
Triangle as it leaves the West Indies. The combination of heavy
maritime traffic and tempestuous weather made it inevitable that
vessels would founder in storms and be lost without trace, especially
before the telecommunications, radar and satellite technology of the
late twentieth century. The occasional vessel still sinks, but rarely
without a trace.

Bigfoot

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, is an alleged apelike animal said to inhabit remote forests in North America, with many of the sightings occurring in the Pacific northwest of the United States and British Columbia, Canada. Bigfoot is sometimes described as a large, hairy bipedal hominoid, and many believe that this animal, or its close relatives, may be found around the world under different regional names, such as the Yeti of Tibet and Nepal. Bigfoot is one of the more famous examples of cryptozoology, a subject that tends to be dismissed as pseudoscience by mainstream researchers, because of unreliable eyewitness accounts and a lack of solid physical evidence. Most theorists consider the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of unsubstantiated folklore and hoaxes.

Hi, my name is Amy. I am honored to be one of your Haunted St. Augustine tour guides. I have been interested in the paranormal since the age of 4 when i had my first paranormal experience. I have since had many more experiences. The Haunted St. Augustine tour is the perfect tour for me to be a guide on because it is a real investigative tour, not theatrical. I really want to know what the other side is all about and I love investigating with people who share my interest. I also love making believers out of skeptics which tends to happen alot on this tour. So whether you’re a die hard paranormal fan, or a total skeptic, or maybe even somewhere in between, I look for to investigating with you!

Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster is an unidentified animal purported to inhabit Scotland’s Loch Ness, the most voluminous freshwater lake in Great Britain. Along with Bigfoot and the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster is one of the best-known mysteries of cryptozoology. Local Scottish highlanders, and many people around the world, have affectionately referred to the animal by the feminine name of Nessie.

Most scientists and other experts find current evidence supporting the creature’s existence unpersuasive, and regard the occasional sightings as hoaxes or misidentification of known creatures or natural phenomena. However, belief in the legend persists around the world, with the most popular theory posing that the creature is actually a plesiosaur.

GhoSt Augustine is launching a brand new tour! Starting this Friday July 9th, 2010 we will be offering 3pm Historic Cemetery Tours on Fridays and Saturdays.
Ride in one of our HEARSES to the well known and not so well known cemeteries of St. Augustine. See and hear the history of these beautiful historic cemeteries, burial customs, the history of funerals, funeral cars, superstitions, and learn about pleasing the spirits. 
This hour and a half tour is full of fun for the entire family and will take you to places most people never will see on the walking tours. You will also learn seldom known and sometimes unbelievable facts about the subject.
We are very excited about launching this new tour and think you will be too once you encounter GhoSt Augustine’s Historic Cemetery Tour.
Adults are $29 and rear seating is $19
See you in the hearse on our Historic Cemetery Tour!

UFOs

An unidentified flying object, or UFO, is any real or apparent flying object which cannot be identified by the observer and which remains unidentified after investigation.

Sightings of unusual aerial phenomena date back to ancient times, but reports of UFO sightings started becoming more common after the first widely publicized U.S. sighting in 1947. Many tens of thousands of such claimed observations have since been reported worldwide, and it is very likely many more go unreported due to fear of public ridicule because of the  social stigma created around the UFO topic.

In popular culture throughout the world, UFO is commonly used to refer to any hypothetical alien spacecraft but the term flying saucer is also regularly used. Once a UFO is identified as a known object (for example an aircraft or weather balloon), it ceases to be a UFO and becomes an identified object. In such cases, it is inaccurate to continue to use the acronym UFO to describe the object.