Autumnforest Crushes: Ray Villafane Pumpkin Artist

I haven't done Autumnforest Crushes in a while, but it's that time of the year that I simply must share my ultimate Halloween artist crush - Ray Villafane. What an amazing artist! You can find his works at this site and look below at just SOME of his tons of amazing art! I get tingly just looking at it!

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Cemetery Safety Bells, Morbid Death Mementos and Superstitions

(funeral memento - above - with woven hair of the dead included) Giving up our dead is never an easy task and it doesn't matter what region of the world or what era you grew up in, it's full of rituals and also many superstitions. Let's have a look at how we have handled death - (cemetery bell system - above) During the cholera epidemic in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, people feared being buried when they weren't completely dead. Many reported digging up graves of loved ones to find signs they fought inside the coffin to get out. As this would nearly be an impossibility with the weight of the earth on the coffin and lack of oxygen, the rumors did start hysteria. Patents were put out for these bells that would allow the newly awakened buried person to pull a string, ring a bell above ground that the groundskeeper could hear. Imagine how freaking chilling that would be to actually hear one go off? I had an idea for a zombie story about that but never got aroun...

Don Monroe Case Files: Unusual Carving Unearthed!

Life-long explorer, adventurer and researcher, Don Monroe, has a million stories to tell, only he's been on the road nonstop, busy hiking the back country in dozens of countries, climbing the highest peaks and crawling in the deepest caves to understand this natural world we live in. He has hunted, tracked, trapped, cast footprints, talked to Native people, continued several-decade long ongoing research projects, devoured tons of research books, and ultimately sought answers about every aspect of nature and all the mysteries within. During those travels, he came across many unusual things. What I am presenting now is one of them - Don Monroe and a researcher friend named Massey, were up at about 7000 feet on Anaconda Range in Montana. They were tracking a bear when Don noted something sticking out of the ground, just a bit of something, but didn't look like a regular rock. In this remote area at that elevation, the idea of running across something man-made was unlikely. He s...

The Urban Sasquatch Journal: Stick Glyphs

This is the reporting by a Bigfoot researcher of an ongoing study in the Southern part of the United States in a very large park area near homes and urban setting. LINK TO PRIOR INSTALLMENTS STARTING WITH #1 Journal Volume 3 Report #50 Saturday November 26, 2016 I arrived at the park approximately 9:52 AM. The temperature was 65 and cool. It was partly cloudy with high clouds. I had my bike with me and rode the trail first. This took 44 minutes. I was back to back to my car at 10:48 AM. I then got my pack then rode over to the site. The goal of the trail ride was to observe any new tree breaks, twists or limbs etc. broke over the trail. Also to see if any stick signs were along the trail in the grass. I did observe several interesting items on the east end. These I photographed. Trail ride observations with photos. These cover photos 1-8. #1. thru #3. Between mile markers 2.75 and 3.0 , on the north side of the trail, approximately 10' inside the treeline, these possible stick ...

Scary and Precarious Roads!

Summer road trip time - why not consider scaring the crap out of your family? The road to Big Sur (above) is sure to separate boys from men. Highway 1 is an intense cliff hugging drive along the coast for 122 miles from Monterey to Morro Bay. Independence Pass from Aspen to Leadville in Colorado. Highway 82 is a 187-mile white knuckler. And if that's not enough, you take the over 1000-foot tall highest suspension bridge in the world! Great Smoky Mountains National Park "Tail of the Dragon" in North Carolina/Tennessee Highway 129 takes you on 11 miles of awesome views. Clinton Road , Passaic County, New Jersey. Seriously paranormal , " If you are visiting the road at midnight, stop by the bridge at Dead Man’s Curve for a game of catch. Toss pennies into the water, and the ghost of a young boy will toss them back. A gray wolf with red eyes will stalk you from the bushes. Satan worshippers will hang hang up their bloody clot...

Monsters in the Deepest Ocean!

The ocean takes up the majority of the surface on our world and yet so little of what is in it is known to us. Upon occasion, we come across some real mysteries, tantalizing glimpses that make us wonder. For a long time, the giant squid (above) was a legend until it was finally filmed underwater. What other legends might tell us what is in the sea? One creative thinker in 1570 drew up the sea monsters that lay in the waters outside of Iceland. Scientist and artist, Abraham Ortelius had some very fanciful ideas of what awaited the seafarer. He also pondered what might live in the Pacific Ocean. In 1644, another artist/scientist drew up what he thought might lurk in the waters off of Africa. Willem Blaeu had quite an interesting vision. In 1727, Peter Kolb envisioned a sea lion of interesting characteristics - In present day, we still run across things in the sea that puzzle us. Here is one such thing photographed at Hook Island. It was estimated to be 75-80 feet long and to this day the...

Obscure Horror Movies of the 70s and 80s

The 1970s and 1980s were horror movie lovers' heaven! There were movies about nature turning on man because of pollution, witches, devil worshippers, killers, insanity, revenge, demons, families moving into haunted houses, beasts attacking, and teens being slashed. You might have missed some of the more obscure ones in the offering - *Descriptions thanks to my favorite movie site IMDB (The Food of the Gods - 1976) The Food of the Gods: A group of friends travel to a remote Canadian island to hunt, only to be attacked by giant killer animals which have populated the place. The People: Kim Darby and William Shatner star in this 1972 made-for-tv movie. A woman is sent to a secluded valley to teach school to the reclusive residents' children. The citizens start showing some odd skills and pretty soon the teacher begins to wonder if the residents are human. The Initiation: Daphne Zuniga stars in this 1984 slasher that takes place during an initiation sta...

Terror of Doll Island!

Photo source Isla de las Munecas or "Island of the Dolls" (popularly coined "Doll Island") is a thing of horror for many. Why would an island filled with dolls for decades, laid to waste by the elements and neglect, be terrifying? Well, let me introduce you to its most unsettling beginnings. Don Julian Santana was unhappy with city life and moved to an island on a canalway south of Mexico City for peace and quiet. It was there that the legend begins and takes on a life that is animated enough to bring the dead to life. Don reported that a little girl had drowned in the canal 50 years ago and he believed her spirit to be troubled and haunting his little island. He said that he was out one day when he saw a doll floating in the canal and scooped it out, hanging it up on a tree near the drowning spot to make the girl eternally happy so she would not haunt and scare him. He then became consumed with finding more and more dolls, fishing them out of the canal, sorting t...

Ghost Ships and Fata Morgana Mirages

Fata Morgana Fata Morgana is a complex superior mirage. In this instance, in the horizon a narrow band seen can separate an image, casting what looks like another image superior to the original object. In the image above it appears as if the ship is in the air. Below, the image shows a repeat of it up in the air. Sometimes, the image can be inverted. This occurs when rays of light are bent when they pass through layers that are different temperatures. Flying Dutchman This legend is talked about among sailors since the late 1700s. The tale says that there was a ship's captain sailing around the most dangerous ocean strait, the Cape of Good Hope. He cursed the elements and swore he would make it no matter what. The ship went down and all perished, but they are said to continue as a ghost ship for eternity in the region of the Southern tip of Africa because of the arrogance. In fact, the legend was picked up and modified for many countries and many sea locations. Perhaps it wa...

The Most Bizarre Photographic Finds On Mars!

Mars explorers have sent back photos of some rather unusual, sometimes vague, and often times puzzling items on the surface of the "dead" planet. This has us wondering, if our own planet no longer supported life, would all the evidence of our having been here be covered up by a millennia of earth, leaving only the occasional hint someone might have been here? Here's a look at a large gallery of photos from the red planet. You come to your own conclusions.... Th e one above, I will chalk up to optical illusion. The stone is actually on the ground in the distance. In the foreground is a rock casting a shadow. Are we looking at a planet that seems to be dead and yet it has a history of life? What if a civilization that was quite advanced had the opportunity to leave a sick planet for a healthy one not so far away in terms of space travel? Is Mars a planet that never supported life or is it a planet that sustained life long enough to build an entire civilization now buried ...

Present Day Russian Neanderthal?

Regions with Bigfoot-type bipedal creatures have their own local names for these types. In Russia and Siberia, they are referred to as the Almas by the Mongolian people and Almasty by the Russians. These beings are described as between 5 feet tall and 6-1/2 feet tall; much shorter than the typical American Bigfoot. They are said to have reddish brown hair, flat noses, a pronounced brow ridge, and weak chin. This is a classic Neanderthal face. One thing we don't know about Neanderthal is if they were hair covered. With hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to the climate of the Altai mountains and cold northern regions, they likely were. A boy in Russia ( LINK ) found some prints that were attributed to a possible yeti. When you look at it, however, it resembles a Neanderthal print quite a bit with the pronounced inner curve and the angle from big to little. Could Neanderthal still exist in Russia and Mongolia? It would be as likely as my theory that the Bigfoot are d...

GHOST HUNTERS

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