MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS

I just recently binge watched the Netflix television series, Stranger Things. I was encouraged to do this by many of my listeners who told me that I wouldn’t regret watching it. Needless to say, I didn’t regret it, especially when the T.V. series seems to be art imitating life as we realize that a monster in the woods and strange experiments in the opening of a portal demonstrate there is an underworld called “the upside down” which I have determined is the portal to hell.

It also opens up a lot of possibilities about what is called, Brane Cosmology, or that our universe is actually embedded in a higher-dimensional reality, much as a photograph or more appropriately a hologram compresses three dimensions onto a two-dimensional surface.

Brane is short for Membrane or the concept being that our observable universe is a kind of membrane with other dimensions extending from it.

Back in 1997, the theory of a holographic universe was first introduced by physicist Juan Maldacena, who theorized that gravity arises from thin, vibrating strings that exist in nine dimensions of space and another of time, whereas real life exists in a universe without gravity. The comparison to the hologram is frequently made because of the way a hologram is created; it’s a three-dimensional image coded onto a two-dimensional surface.

The theory suggests that the universe is built in a similar fashion – the higher dimensional part coded onto a flatter, lower dimensional part. So, on a hologram, only one part is tangible — the lower dimensional surface onto which the hologram is coded. The holographic image, though, merely looks three-dimensional. You can’t, for example, touch it with your fingers. Hypothetically, that’s the structure of the universe.

As I have reported before when quoting Robert Anton Wilson, we have created this safety net we call reality and every once in a while, we are reminded that a very real existential world exists and that the spooky actions we see are all part of some quantum theory which is not easily explained.

Quantum physics gives us a new way to look at our world. If we see an object, it is because the object pops into view; if it leaves our view quickly we question if what we see was just a hallucination or if it is real and pops out of sight and out of mind.

Quantum reality gives us the ability to even question if what we saw was out of the ordinary, or plucked from another matrix to occupy this construct.

There have been many occasions where we have been told that the universe we live in is a construct, a safe haven that we have developed to hide away from the various demons and bogey man that plague our nightmares.

Now in the TV show, Stranger Things, all of the secrets of the unknown are all kept hidden in the woods near a facility that is being operated by the Department of Energy. From an occult perspective, the woods are a breeding ground for paranormal events and in many cases, it is a place where one can find themselves lost and in some cases the woods are believe to be areas where portals are secretly hidden. Every once in a while we hear of people who end up disappearing in the woods without a trace.

One such area is in Hoia-Baciu forest in Romania. The woods there are said to be peculiar as the trees are oddly shaped and orbs and lights are seen appearing and disappearing constantly.

There are stories of werewolves in these woods and also talk of dimensional portals where strange creatures emerge, described as little men or demonic men with pale faces and dark eyes.

His place is considerably charged with what can be called, paranormal or unexplained forces. The strange forest can be seen as a place of mystical toponomy.

Mystical toponomy is the notion that there are powerful and sacred places on the Earth.

Places on earth with strange names, or places on earth where horrible things happen have a power about them. Some places are considered dangerous or creepy only because of some horrible event that has happened or continues to happen there.

The forest primeval is considered the testing ground for many things that are considered paranormal. In most of our myths and campfire stories the hero must always be tested in the forest in order to transform and prepare for greater dangers ahead. Every witch, dragon and demon appears to the warrior in the forest. It appears that all shadow archetypes convene in the woods and sometimes the observer witnesses the manifestation of profane beings from other dimensional locales.

Particularly haunted forests are very likely to house secret cults. Some of the scariest stories happened in “Freetown-Fall River State Forest”, Massachusetts in the US. Brent Swancer, Mysteriousuniverserse.org describes, The Cursed Forest of Massachusetts:

“There seem to be places in this world to which strangeness seems to gravitate. Whether it is their geography, topography, or some inexplicable, unseen forces, these locations possess what can only be described as certain disconnect from reality as we know it. They are imbued with some sort of undercurrent of mystery, strangeness, and sometimes even terror.”

The Freetown-Fall River State Forest is a paranormal hotspot with a history of crimes and mysteries. In 1978, a teen-aged cheerleader was found murdered and over the years there have been murders and other crimes with alleged satanic or cult activity. The cultist activities were mentioned in two murder trials. Nevertheless, there is a lot of speculation here and once a place has a certain “reputation” there could be also imitations or wrong-leads.

Legends of evil or curses are also attached to forests.

Aokigahara in Japan, also known as the Trees of the Sea, is a 35-square-kilometer forest that lies at the northwest base of Mount Fuji. The density of the trees is so massive that you can wander in pitch black darkness during the day. Due to the wind-blocking density of the trees and an absence of wildlife, the forest is also known for being extremely quiet.

It certainly a peaceful site the only problem is that hanging from the trees are decaying bodies, and on the ground are rotting corpses and skeletal remains of those who decided to shake this mortal coil and commit suicide.

The forest has a historic association with demons in Japanese mythology and is the second most popular place for suicides in the world right after the Golden Gate Bridge. Almost 100 people a year wander in the forest never to return again.

More than 500 people have committed suicide there in the last 50 years. Japanese authorities have a hard time finding and removing all those bodies. Every year, they do a sweep of the area in hopes of removing the bodies and it is being more of a task as the suicides are increasing.

David Weatherly, a well-know writer and investigator of the strange has reported recently that in the woods of Tennessee and in various neighborhoods around Nashville, people are reporting seeing what are described as faceless entities.

Researcher Albert S. Rosales also reported back in 2013 that:

“The main witness and a friend decided to walk around the block in a pretty quiet suburban neighborhood. Once they started walking down the middle of the street everything became strangely quiet. No crickets, frogs, wind, nothing. It seemed like the breeze stopped as well. They kept walking, and about halfway down the street they saw a minivan in a driveway with the hood up, and there were these two “things” peering into the engine like they were studying it. They were white and they had no faces. There was a soft glow coming off them like if they were reflecting a black light, but it seemed like there wasn’t really a source for it. The white flowers in the yard had the same glow. The strange figures looked about normal height, two arms, and two legs. They sort of jumped when the witnesses came into view, like they were surprised. Then they half-hid behind the van and both witnesses immediately had this feeling like they ‘could not look at them, no matter what.’

That was probably the most scared the main witness has ever been.

They both kept walking forward and watched out of the corner of their eyes, and the entities watched them, while also trying to position themselves behind the van.

The main witness got the impression that ‘they’ weren’t used to hiding much because they would look at them, then look at the van, then at themselves, then crouch behind the van a little more.

The witnesses kept walking, looking ahead until they got to the end of the street. At this point, all the normal sounds returned and they could feel the breeze again, everything again felt normal. The main witness wasn’t really sure if he was going to say something to his friend but suddenly and at the same time they both stopped and exhaled really hard. He asked his friend if he had seen those ‘white figures,’ but for most of the walk they wouldn’t talk about it and his friend just told him to shut up. Strangely, the witnesses had the feeling that they shouldn’t talk about what they had seen.

Three years later the main witness finally spoke to his friend about what they had seen, his friend looked pretty freaked out and asked the main witness if he remembered them crossing the street in front of them, which the main witness did not. He told him it was right after he fell or laid down, and all of the sudden the main witness remembered right before he saw them, he looked over and his friend was laying down on the side of the road, stiff as a board and not responding to anything the witness was saying, he was just blinking really hard.

Eventually he got up and they just kept walking. Around the time that his friend fell to the ground is when everything became quiet and eerie. The witness doesn’t know how he could have forgotten that part.”

Of course, there’s something inherently disturbing about a figure without a face. Humans relate through their facial expressions and features and to be confronted with a blank nothingness is most unsettling.

Equally the corpse face, pale white with dark eyes and red exaggerated lips eventually became the comical visage of the trickster or clown. The Trickster, Joker, or clown is often associated with the devil or death.

The Black Death killed some 25 million Europeans in a devastating outbreak between 1347 and 1352, and then reappeared periodically for more than 300 years. Scholars had thought flea-infested rats living on ships brought the disease from China to Italy and then the rest of the continent. When people were dropping like flies some of the first clowns were seen in the streets of Europe. The clowns were actually a commentary on the outrageous features that were seen on plague victims.

The clown face of course was pale, dark eyes with enlarged red fat lips and exaggerated tassels or buttons that looked very much like the purple and reddish buboes on the body. The clown was a comical form of the corpse like victim that had the plague. This may be why many people associate the clown with death.

Peter Barnes who is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter actually penned a story called “Red Noses” which is a fictional account of a priest who trained a group of clowns that he called “God’s Zanies” and traveled through France. Although the play is ostensibly about love in the time of plague, it’s less about disease than it is about humanity’s durability and the power of acceptance and tolerance.

The origins of clowns and how the exaggerated features of death by plague were part of their visage and body hundreds of years ago brings forth a creepy synchronicity when we think of how people fear clowns today.

Nearly 700 years after the first clowns were seen administering and entertaining plague victims, it is believed that as much as 2 percent of the adult population has a fear of clowns.

Oddly it seems that the fear is increasing as clowns are being used more and more as evil entities in movies and books. Adult clown-o- phobics are unsettled by how clowns are able to engage in manic behavior, often without consequences.

Recently there have been strange and creepy clown sightings seeping the nation. Many of these clowns have been reportedly seen in the woods and have allegedly beckoned children to follow them into the trees away from their homes.

Now what is odd is that police in any given area have been unable to capture or even make contact with one of these weird clowns that seem to be disturbing people. This makes the story even more frightening.

This strikes a chord with what could be called phantom hysteria.

Other strange clown sightings involve particularly disturbing clown behavior ranging from the ‘clown strolling through the graveyard at 3am’ to knife attacks and other mischief.

While many clown sightings are being reported to police right now, it is apparent that a lot more are either being ignored by the media or are not being reported at all due to fear of ridicule. Some of the stranger aspects of these clown sightings are being left out of mainstream media reports altogether.

The most disturbing rash of recent clown sightings though, does stand out from the rest. South Carolina is dealing with some really serious and disturbing clown activity at the moment.

Many of the encounters involving these clowns are violent, implicate child abduction and at the very least highly disturbing. Police in many places especially South Carolina are becoming very serious about people dressed as clowns terrorizing people and have vowed to arrest anyone caught doing it.

911 calls to police dispatchers in South Carolina are growing as more and more people are seeing what they call a white faced clown or killer clown hiding out in places and attempting to lure kids into the woods.

On Aug. 21st, police were called to Fleetwood Manor Apartments to investigate when several residents reported seeing “a suspicious character, dressed in circus clown attire and white face paint, enticing kids to follow him/her into the woods.”

Police met with a mother who wishes to remain anonymous. The mother witnessed the clowns in the woods after her son came and told her about them. The woman told police that it looked like the clowns were shining something like green laser light around out in the woods.

Another anonymous resident reported seeing a very large hulking clown standing under a streetlight near a trash dumpster as his nose blinked. The freakishly large clown just stared at her.

When deputies spoke to children in the area they were told that the clowns had been trying to entice them into the woods with large amounts of money, candy among other things. The children also told deputies that they believed the clowns lived in an old abandoned house out in the woods that is near a pond. However, when deputies went to investigate the abandoned house, they found no signs of clowns or anyone living there.

Deputies say they had also received two calls about clown sightings prior to this. Police had also received another report of gunshots being fired at clowns as well.

Later that same night another report came in from Shemwood apartment complex. This time a 12 year old told police that he saw 2 clowns lurking in the area of his backyard. The kid described one as having red hair and the other wearing a body suit with a white mask. The child claimed that these clowns were taking photographs of him and other children regularly. Another resident said she had seen a clown with a blinking light on its face near a dumpster at 2:30 a.m.

He waved at her.

A week later, a boy at an apartment ten miles away reported seeing a man in a clown mask in the woods near his home. Later that night, a boy at an apartment just three miles from Fleetwood Manor reported seeing another clown. That apartment also sits on the edge of a wooded area. There was another local sighting the next day. The following day, a woman told police she saw a clown standing outside a Greenville Laundromat, simply staring at her.

Police responded to these initial reports by increasing patrols in the area of these strange clown sightings. Their investigation is ongoing.

By then, the clowns had begun to mobilize. The previous day, a 14-year-old boy in Columbus, Ohio, said that a man wearing a clown mask chased him with a knife while the boy was walking to his school bus stop. Less than a week later, on September 5th, two children in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, claimed a clown was offering candy, as long as they would follow him into the woods. Later that night, a woman in the area claimed that a clown tried to coax her into the woods, except this one was carrying a machete. He wore black gloves and a black tie. The next morning, in the nearby town of Greensboro, a man said he saw a clown in the woods behind his apartment with a yellow polka-dotted shirt and blue pants.

Once again amid all of these reports, no clowns have been photographed. Police investigators have found no traces of clown activity. Not even a stray red nose or a strand of blue hair.

Now as crazy as it may sound—these clowns may not be real clowns at all. They could be simply entities that are appearing to people and in their horror they see a clown when what they are really seeing is something more terrifying.

The stalker clown is a meme that has been generated and manifested in a viral fashion thanks to social media. Entities like elves, leprechauns, aliens, and even demons have been known to lurk in the forest luring children into their lairs in order to kill or eat them.

Phantom clowns may be a psychogenic replacement or block against something far more terrifying.

Legends, myths and other written accounts of the paranormal proliferates all parts of history. In all cultures creatures of twilight exist and persist. They drift about and manifest sending many people to unknown ends to find the answers and in many ways we see that the paranormal can be similar to a rainbow’s chase.

A clown in the woods motioning for a child to follow them into a cabin or a hole in the ground is a classic metaphor.

For example, Stephen King’s IT features a clown named, Pennywise that in the TV series based on the book appears in a storm drain under the street. He asks the little boy, Georgie if he wants to come and join him. He offers the boy a balloon and tells him that there are rides and cotton candy waiting for him.

Now, compare that to a show aimed at children about furry aliens that do the same thing like the Teletubbies.

Children are exposed to furry little pseudo-aliens that speak baby gibberish and prance around getting into all kinds of mischievous trouble. However the creatures are child abductors like the fictitious Morlocks in H.G. Wells, Time Machine. In the Teletubbies, a Morlock control voice dictates morals out of a telephone speaker/showerhead to the creatures.

Wells describes the Morlock creatures as “Half-bleached in color with dark eyes. Their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes.”

Or could they be described as white faced clowns with dark eyes?

The ancient stories of abductions by gnomes in hollow hills are similar to what we are hearing about with the phantom clowns and alien abductions. Little beings with large eyes bid you to come where they live, either in a hollowed hill, or a modern space ship.

Simultaneously with the clown sightings in woods another strange story is being reported in the woods of Rhode Island. Chris Simpkins was awakened in his rural Rhode Island home by a frightening, mysterious noise coming from the forest, and he did the best thing possible – he recorded it.

For almost 20 minutes, Simpkins recorded the noises echoing from the woods, noting that not only was the wind quiet, but that there are no trains or traffic sources anywhere nearby. In fact, you can even hear the sounds of crickets and frogs from the nearby woods. Simpkins was also quick to point out that after having lived there for a year; he and his family had never heard anything that sounded anything like the eerie droning.

Some have tried to tie it in with the clown sightings while others think it is the sound or droning of an alien mother ship.

One thing is evident – we are seeing paranormal events that are creating psychogenic hysteria. The trickster is in the wood opening an upside down world with his hidden hand.

https://soundcloud.com/groundzeromedia/a2016-9-15

Written by Ron Patton