Link to Interview on X Zone Radio Show

My interview with the X Zone Radio Show was posted so you can hear it. https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv/xzrs20181113ep1empamelakkinney

Author Book Signing of Ghost Books at Barnes and Noble Saturday

It's October, and with Halloween at the end of the month. A good time to read ghost stories and urban legends. Not just for Halloween, but signed, they make great Christmas gifts as Christmas is not far behind October.

I'll be signing copies of all of my nonfiction ghost books at the Barnes and Noble at Chesterfield Town Center this Saturday, October 13, 2018, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. That's Haunted Richmond, Haunted Richmond II, Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths, and True Tales, Virginia's Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations, and Paranormal Petersburg, Virginia, and the Tri-Cities Area. 

So come by and get a book, and there'll be chocolate too in my shadow person candy dish!

Barnes and Noble,
11500 Midlothian Turnpike
Richmond, Virginia 23235
Bookstore Phone: 804-794-6640

Author Appearance at Monster Fest in Chesapeake, Va. October 6, 2018

Monster Fest returns for its 15th year. The one-day horror convention's free and open to the public, family friendly, with panels, costume contests (one adult, other for children), trick-or-treating at some of the vendors form the kids (must sign up first), and movies. It will be held as always at Chesapeake Central Library, 298 Cedar Road, Chesapeake, Virginia.
I'll have two tables-one for my books that Ill be selling and will sign, and the other for Paranormal World Seekers paranormal reality show--with its DVDs for sale, including the new Barons Pub of Suffolk, Virginia investigation for sale. And I will be moderating a panel on Frankenstein the novel by Mary Shelley, joined by two other writers. It happens at 4:00 p.m.

For further information on programming and what vendors or guests will be there: www.MonsterFestVa.com 

Author Appearance at Fandom Fest in Newport News, Virginia August 25, 2018

I'll be at this event happening this Saturday at the Grissom Library branch of the Newport News Public Library, 366 Deshazor Drive, Newport News, Virginia. The event is free, and I will have copies of my books for sale and to sign. (If you have any copies of any of my books-do bring by and I will sign them for you, too.) And selling Paranormal World Seekers DVDs. I will be doing panels too. 

Fandom Fest's Schedule of Events*

10–11:45 a.m. & 1–5 p.m.: Screenings
10 a.m.–4:30 p.m.: Photo Booth
10 a.m.–5 p.m.: Random Fandom Crafts
10 a.m.–5 p.m.: PS4 VR gaming
11 a.m.–12 p.m.: Panel: What Makes Strong Female Characters in Fandoms?
12–1 p.m.: Theme Song Trivia
1–2 p.m.: Escape the Room
2–3 p.m.: Superhero Storytime
3–4 p.m.: Panel: Modernizing Classic Fandoms
4–5 p.m.: Panel: How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

* schedule may be subject to change

Supernatural Friday: The Full Moon's Effect on the Supernatural

Just in time for the June full moon--the Strawberry Moon. About the Strawberry Moon: the name comes from Algonquin tribes of Native Americans. This full moon was their sign to harvest wild strawberries, so says the Old Farmer's Almanac. It is also known as the Hot Moon.

When I led a team to Petersburg, Virginia in July 2014 during a full supermoon, we had quite a bit of paranormal activity, including my camera in its case taken from my locked car for ten minutes, until I asked the spirits to return it if we leave those at the ruins of the Peter Jones Trading Post alone, and just investigate the Bistro at Market and Grove restaurant. The camera reappeared at my feet on the parking lot ground between my car and an investigator’s vehicle, when it hadn’t been there a minute ago. Freaky? Yeah, in a way, though I was more relieved to get my camera back, in one piece and working, to even get me a dancing shadow later that night in the restaurant. The next day, someone said that full moons can affect the paranormal.

Can it? I researched and found since ancient times, people believed this, along with activity being more noticeable during phases of the full moon. There were those who use these times to speak to the spirit realm. Could this be put down to Luna Madness, or could this really be happening? Some paranormal investigators say they have more ghostly activity around the full moon, while others say they get nothing.  

The moon’s gravitational pull affects the tides, but can it affect a person? If we look at what is known about the human body and how it is made up of 75-80% of water there is a strong chance that when the moon is full and at its strongest, it could, in theory, affect a person in terms of what they are thinking. 

Using one article’s theory that I found, it is possible that full moons could cause a person who is inclined to thoughts of the paranormal to believe they are experiencing something paranormal or quite possibly it could cause that individuals mind to trick itself into hallucinating and seeing what they believe to be an apparition. Personally, a person can hallucinate anytime, so I don’t think a full moon makes any difference. And I think there are those actually seeing a ghost, even photographs of them. I think it’s all about how much of the psychic is inside each person. That is why those who are parapsychologists do studies on the psychic and not just on spirits. Places like the Rhine Center and others at certain universities. One interested can take online courses to get an introduction to parapsychology. Like at the Rhine Center: Education.    

Whatever the truth behind the full moon and the paranormal, whatever you believe, there is still inconclusive proof to be sure. But it is still interesting to think about, maybe even try as an experiment. 

Author Appearance at Indie Urban Lit Fest at Richmond Library June 23, 2018

I'll be at the Indie Urban Lit Fest this Saturday, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The free event will be held at the main branch of the Richmond Public Library, 101 Franklin Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219. I will only have copies of my indie urban fantasy novel, How the Vortex  Changed My Life, for sale and signing. I will have copies of my other books in my tote with me-just ask me. But "Vortex" will be on the table only. Along with Larry--so do take a selfie with him and share on social media. 

 About it: The event will feature 50 independently published authors of urban fiction, romance, poetry, memoir, and motivational writing. Special guests include best-selling authors Nikki Turner, K’wan, and Silk White. Writing and publishing workshops, meet and greet with authors, book sales, and panel discussions will be held throughout the day, with live music by Tiara & Andrew and poetry performances in library park from 1-4. This event is free and open to the public. For more on it: http://rvalibrary.org/indie-urban-lit-fest/indie-urban-lit-fest/ or call the library at 804-646-4867. Map of area, with the library in middle. 

Supernatural Friday: Fairy, Fae, Faery, It All Leads to the Little People

The term Faerie is derived from "Fé erie.” It means the enchantment of the Fées, while Fé is derived from Fay, derived from Fatae, or the Fates. The term originally applied to supernatural women who directed the lives of men and attended births. Now it has come to mean any supernatural creature tied to the earth, except monsters and ghosts. The modern term, “fairy,” was created, due to fairy tales.

In Ireland, the Faeries are called the Aes Sídhe (the singular being Aes Sídh). Sídhe happens to be the name for the earthen mounds and hills dotting the Irish landscape. Irish tales claim the Faeries live under these mounds, so the term "sídhe" has come to mean Faerie in general. The word also refers to the palaces, courts, halls, and residences of the Faeries. Fairies are also known b y other euphemisms, "the Fair Folk", "the Good Neighbors", "the Little Folk", "the Little Darlings", and "the People of Peace". The reason why: first is to avoid attracting their attention. The second was to avoid insulting them.

Thanks to legends and folklore of Scandinavia the elf was used the same way Aes Sídh was used in Ireland, to refer to any Faeries, and it was introduced to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons. English literature made the elves the diminutive fairies of Spenser and Shakespeare, which in conventional Faerie lore would be the equivalent of the little nature spirits.

There are tales in myths of how fairies came to be. The first way had them as fallen angels. A few did not follow Lucifer into Hell, but decided to reside on earth.

Second: It is explained them as the dead not good enough to enter Heaven, but too good for Hell. It is said they live in limbo as they recreate their former lives.

Third and last: This has them as children of Eve. She hides them from God, who curses her that the children she tried to hide from Him would remain hidden from her, and subsequently all Mankind.

Myth also divides fairies into three groups. This explains Faeries as an older race of people driven into hiding by invading newcomers. This old race continues to survive in part by stealing tools, food, animals, even woman and children from the invaders, attacking solitary travelers who wander into their territory, or haunting isolated farms where they do work in exchange for food. In time, the invaders come to think of these people as having supernatural powers, and develop traditions about them to protect themselves and try to stay out of their way. Of course, this may have occurred in Ireland, when the Mesolithic hunter-gathers were supplanted by Neolithic farmers sometime around 4500 B.C. Irish mythological history says defeated races retreated under mounds to become the Faeries (this is also in England too—the “little people” of mounds there). It was also said that Fairies might be a form of ancestor worship, especially forebears from a past "Golden Age" of heroic history. Legends and folktales tell how great kings and heroes entered Faerieland when they died, to establish new kingdoms under hills and mounds. Does this not also sound like what happened to King Arthur, taken to Avalon? But then the Celts were not only in Ireland, but in England and Wales then, too.  Same of some in Scotland. Anyway, the Irish generally believed that Faeries were the dead, and Faerieland was the afterlife. Even after their conversion to Christianity, the Irish continued to believe that most people when they died waited for the Last Judgment inside one or another Faerie mound. Last theory concerned that Faeries were dwindled gods. It  is said that generations of people retold their myths, changing them from deities to nature spirits, especially after the coming of Christianity. In Ireland, the legends and folktales say that the ancient Tuatha Dé Danann and Fir Bholg retreated under the mounds to become the first Faeries, and most mythographers believe they were the gods of the ancient Irish.

There is a connection in mythology of people and children being taken by fairies and coming back years later hardly aged. Sounds somewhat like alien abduction, doesn’t it? Fairies steal babies, leaving a changeling in the child’s place. Fairies stole young women as brides, or perhaps for other, less honorable purposes. In the aptly named tale “Stolen Bride,” a gang of fairies carries off a young woman, and something similar happens in "Jamie Freel and the Young Lady.” In both cases, the women are put under an enchantment that leaves them mute and confused.   And sometimes the women are left pregnant—like in alien abduction stories—only to lose the child one night after abduction.

Now in Virginia where I live, there is a state park that is named Fairy Stone State Park. It is the largest of Virginia's six original state parks, is home to its namesake "fairy stones." These rare mineral crosses and the park's scenic beauty, rich history and ample recreational opportunities make it a local and regional favorite. The 4,639 acres that make up the park were donated by Junius B. Fishburn, former owner of the Roanoke Times, in 1933. The Civilian Conservation Corps originally built the park, its lake and many structures still in use there.

For many years people held these little crosses in superstitious awe, firm in the belief that they protected the wearer against witchcraft, sickness, accidents and disaster. Fairy stones are staurolite, a combination of silica, iron and aluminum. Staurolite crystallizes at 60 or 90 degree angles, hence the stone's cross-like structure. Found only in rocks once subjected to great heat and pressure, the mineral was formed long, long ago, during the rise of the Appalachian Mountains. The stones are most commonly shaped like St. Andrew’s cross, an "X," but "T" shaped Roman crosses and square Maltese crosses are the most sought-after. The rare staurolite stones are found elsewhere but not in such abundance as at Fairy Stone State Park.

The Legend of the Fairy Stone: Many hundreds of years before Chief Powhatan’s reign, fairies were dancing around a spring of water, playing with naiads and wood nymphs, when an elfin messenger arrived from a city far away. He brought news of the death of Christ. When these creatures of the forest heard the story of the crucifixion, they wept. As their tears fell upon the earth, they crystallized to form beautiful crosses. 

If you like to visit this park, find out more at the official website at http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/fairy-stone#general_information

Author Appearance at Mysticon in Roanoke, Virginia This Weekend

You can catch me at Mysticon this weekend, from February 23-25th, at the Holiday Inn-Tanglewood, 4468 Starkey Road, SW, Roanoke, Virginia 24018.  Registration opens Friday at 1:00 P.M. (The line may begin forming at 12:30. Lines will not be allowed to form before 12:30) And the convention hasn't sold out, so you might be able to get a walk-in membership, even one day, but check the website to be sure. 

Programming Schedule

Supernatural Friday: Last of #TherearenoeyedropsinHell Blog Tour for How the Vortex Changed My Life

Today, is the last stop for the #TherearenoeyedropsinHell blog tour for my new urban fantasy release, How the Vortex Changed My Life. 

I want to talk about why I felt Richmond and nearby Chesterfield County made a good area for this new fiction novel of mine. It’s a very paranormal loaded spot. Just as all of Virginia is. After writing five nonfiction ghost books, I learned a lot. Where else would a serial killer who dresses in a white bunny costume and brandish a hatchet at a bridge in Fairfax? Forget that man with the hook—Bunnyman is creepy, downright creepy. Ghosts seem to be just wanting to haunt the Commonwealth. Especially in Virginia’s haunted Historic Triangle and Petersburg and its Tri-Cities area.

Richmond has a vampire connected to the train buried under the hill in Churchhill, and his tomb is located in Hollywood Cemetery. Does he wait for his next victim, maybe the last to leave as dusk settles over the tombstones? People talk about seeing a werewolf in Henrico. I wonder if like the old classic Universal monsters, if the werewolf battles the Richmond Vampire?

Most of all, Poe may not have been born here, but he was raised here, went to college in Charlottesville and had his honeymoon in Petersburg, so Virginia must have been dear to his heart (his beating, telltale heart). He is considered Richmond’s native son.

So, where else would Larry and all those demonic beings, plus that vortex, come to, but Richmond? At least, Larry can get eye drops from any drugstore in town.

Leave a comment,  telling me if you agree Richmond is very paranormal or not, leaving your name, to be entered in this short blog tour’s giveaway, where one winner will win a gift certificate of $20.oo from Amazon, where you can buy the paperback copy of , or the Kindle version, plus stuff on Amazon (you might think about one of my books even). Check this blog, http://pamelakkinney.blogspot.com/ this coming, Monday,  October 16, 2017, at Noon, Eastern time, to see if your name is picked. If it is, you will need to leave me a comment with your name and email (don’t worry, I must approve comments and I won’t post it on my blog, just email you, so we can get you your prize).

Pamela K. Kinney

Buy the book:

How the Vortex Changed My Life available on Kindle and in trade paperback

You can visit the past three blogs I stopped at:

    October 8, 2017: I Smell Sheep Reviews: http://www.ismellsheep.com/

    October 9, 2017:  KMN Books: http://kmnbooks.blogspot.com/

    October 10, 2o17: https://www.carolsmithwrites.com/single-post/2017/10/10/This-Week-Pamela-K-Kinney-Is-Guest-Blogging

Cat Viggolone just can’t get a break. She'd gotten married, but that ended when the husband left her for his younger secretary. She'd wanted children. That flew out the window along with the cheating husband. There’s the career, but working a window at the Virginia DMV can’t really be classified as a great career choice. At thirty-three, her life had become positively dull. then the vortex opened.

Sucked up into a corridor just outside of Hell, she meets Connor, a werewolf, and Larry, a demon that looks like a blue-eyed eyeball. They escape back to earth, only to find that the vortex has opened up in downtown Richmond. The town is going to hell, literally. Besides a grayness seeping out and turning all living things into zombies, monsters and demons are invading Cat’s world.

Will Cat and her new friends (including an angel named George) be able to stop the vortex before it claims the entire planet? Cat’s life is definitely no longer humdrum and ordinary.

Connor and I arrived at some stone steps. We clattered up them and into the Richmond Public Library. After we stepped into the foyer and passed the circulation desk we looked around, unsure of where to go. I saw a room to the left of us, pointed at it, and we slipped inside. Rows and rows of books in shelves lined the area like soldiers marching behind each other. A portly man in khaki pants, white shirt, and a blue, flowered tie sat behind a desk. He looked up and smiled.

"Can I be of assistance?" His smile faltered as he stared past me.

He's seen Larry. This won't be good.

He stood, his forehead wrinkling. "That's pretty life like. What is it? A balloon? I can't see any string attached to it."

Deciding not to beat around the bush, I blurted, "He's not a balloon. He's an eyeball—actually, he's a demon."

The man said, "Are you trying to say that whatever it is, is alive?"

"Kinda. I guess demons are sort of alive."

The librarian walked over to us and poked at Larry. Larry didn't like it and started that weird bleating noise he could make and bumped against the man. He bumped him so hard, he almost knocked the librarian over. The man managed to stay on his feet, and took a couple of steps back as he wiped the finger on his pants as if Larry had given him cooties.

Connor grabbed the librarian by the same finger and squeezed hard. The man cried out.

Connor let go. "Larry doesn't like people poking at him." He glared. "It's rude. Besides, how would you like it if I poked at you?" Connor proceeded to do just that.

The librarian stumbled back. "Okay, okay. But what is that thing? The lady called it a demon, but demons aren't real. Right?"

Connor snorted. "That thing is a demon like the lady said and if it wasn't for him, I'd been dead within hours after I got trapped in Hell." Larry bumped against Connor and made another noise I never heard before, like a cat's purr. "I find Larry is a lot more 'human' than you humans are."

"Well, you look as human as the rest of us," said the librarian with a snotty attitude, "and that eye beastie definitely doesn't." He narrowed his eyes. "This library is for humans only. I mean, non-human things can't get a library card issued to them." He saw Connor give him a glowering look and inched away. "Well, I'm pretty sure that's the rules."

I spoke up. "We're not here to borrow a book." I snuck a look at the front entrance. "We needed a place to hide in. You see, a monster is after us. A very big monster. And there are others outside like it and Larry here. A vortex opened not far from here and downtown Richmond is turning gray and I don't mean Confederate gray either. Richmond's new address is now a part of the Hell dimension. The whole world is doomed. And I don't think it really matters whether Larry can be issued a library card, or what species can use this library."

The librarian's mouth opened and shut in shock, his eyes bulging and looking like tennis balls. He sputtered, "You're nuts." He cut a glance at Larry who hovered closer to him. "I think you guys are pulling something on me. That thing has got to be fake."

I grabbed him by his ugly tie. "Look, Hell is taking over Richmond, and soon, Virginia, not long after, the U.S., and from there, maybe the world. So, get over it.Larry is not fake. He's a demon, plain and simple, but maybe you can't comprehend it. I know I couldn't at first. That means no more people checking out books, no more Christmas, cute fluffy kittens, no more anything good and right for humankind. Just demons, Hell, and the end of life as we know it."

The librarian ripped his tie out of my hand and looked at me like I'd sprouted horns and a pitchfork myself. I must have been tougher on him than I thought.

A growl reached my ears, along with an awful miasma slamming up my nostrils. I reeled around. With an African American lady librarian clasped in one clawed paw and a patron speared by the claws of the other, the monster that had been chasing us stood by the circulation desk. The patron kept screaming while the librarian hung unconscious and limp like a wet noodle.

I watched with horror as the monster snarled and slurped the patron's head into its mouth, effectively cutting off the screaming. The librarian with us took off, yelling something about monsters not being in his job description.

My Urban Fantasy Novel, How the Vortex Changed My Life is Live on Kindle!

My latest release, How the Vortex Changed My Life,  is now live in Kindle at Amazon! Hopefully, in the next few days, the trade paperback edition will be available too. It is an urban fantasy novel, set in Richmond, Virginia. You can purchase it at AMAZON

Book blurb:
Cat Viggolone just can’t get a break. She'd gotten married, but that ended when the husband left her for his younger secretary. She'd wanted children. That flew out the window along with the cheating husband. There’s the career, but working a window at the Virginia DMV can’t really be classified as a great career choice. At thirty-three, her life had become positively dull.
Then the vortex opened.
Sucked up into a corridor just outside of Hell, she meets Connor, a werewolf, and Larry, a demon that looks like a blue-eyed eyeball. They escape back to earth, only to find that the vortex has opened up in downtown Richmond. The town is going to hell, literally. Besides a grayness seeping out and turning all living things into zombies, monsters and demons are invading Cat’s world.
Will Cat and her new friends (including an angel named George) be able to stop the vortex before it claims the entire planet?
Cat’s life is definitely no longer humdrum and ordinary.

• ASIN: B075PX4QLW

Charlottesville Book Fair Logo

I will be doing a book fair in Charlottesville, Virginia on November 18, 2017 (just in time for those Christmas shopping). The person in charge of the event just sent out the logo for it.  

PARTICIPATING AUTHORS & PUBLISHERS

Betsy Ashton
Patsy Asuncion
PMH Atwater
Marc Boston
Anne Carley
Jayne D'Alessandro-Cox
Kimberly “Kimba” Dalferes
Phyllis Duncan
Pam Evans
Cynthia Fain
James Gaines
Allison Kathryn Garcia
Martha Graham
Robert Haught
Judith Howell
Christine Maria Jahn
Jean Kilby
Annabelle Kim
Pamela K. Kinney
Taryn Noelle Kloeden
Phyllis Koch-Sheras
Linda Layne, Cedar Creek Publishing
Amy Lee-Tai
Joanne Liggan
Margaret Locke
Louise Mitchell
Bryan Nowak
Carolyn O'Neal
Natalina Reis
Sara M. Robinson
Jim & Linda Salisbury, Tabby House
Tamara Shoemaker
Keith Shovlin, AOIS21 Publishing
Zachary Tamer
Leslie Truex
Elizabeth Van Zandt

ENTERTAINMENT:
Gareth Phillips of January Zero

Rich Cohen

Author Appearance/Signing at Suffolk, Virginia Mystery Author Festival This Saturday!

I'll be at the Suffolk, Virginia Mystery Authors Festival this Saturday the 12th, from 1:45-6 p.m at the New Author Expo with my ghosts books, horror fiction, and even a copy of my erotic urban fantasy, The Witch and The Familiar by me under the pseudonym, Sapphire Phelan. http://www.suffolkmysteryauthorsfestival.com/

Schedule of everything at the event(begins at 1 p.m.: http://www.suffolkmysteryauthorsfestival.com/full-festival-schedule.html

Supernatural Friday: The Devil Monkey Made Me Write This!

I’m going to blog about a Southern legendary monster, the devil monkey. No, it's not some little monkey you might see at the zoo, or with the organ grinder, tipping its hat for you to deposit coins in. Devil monkeys are described as baboon-like creatures able to leap like kangaroos. They have dark, “mean” eyes, pointed ears, short to shaggy fur that varies from red to gray to black, and large flat feet. Ranging in height from three to eight feet, it is said that they won’t back down, even from dogs, and although thought to be vegetarians, there are stories told of them killing livestock and small game. They exhibit a range of primate hoots, calls, screeches, whistles, and unearthly screams, and have an odor so bad, they have been also called Skunk Apes. It has been seen in the area of the Appalachian Mountains to even in British Columbia.

A cryptozoologist, Chad Arment, investigated the sightings of these creatures that one Virginia family and their friends had experiences with. This occurred from 1959 through the 1990s, in the mountains that surround Saltville.

Paranormal investigators Pauline and James Boyd’s parents were attacked in 1959 by a creature that left three scratch marks on their car. Not long after, a couple of nurses were driving home when an unknown animal attacked their vehicle, ripping the convertible’s top off. Badly shaken, they escaped otherwise unharmed. 

Friends of Pauline saw one of these creatures trotting across the road in front of their car. It leaped over a ditch, glided over a fence, and bounded through weeds along the road. 

Other sightings have occurred as recently as 2001, when a giant black monkey was seen nine different times over the course of two weeks in rural New Hampshire. It has even been told that a search party was formed to track one of these they thought was a devil monkey, but that the dogs refused to follow the trail.

Another beast, the "Belt Road Booger” was encountered by several people in Georgia in the 1970s. It was thought this might have been a devil monkey. The Nalusa Flaya of Choctaw legend bears a strong physical resemblance to the devil monkey, though the devil monkey does not appear to have any of the supernatural abilities attributed to this legendary monster.

What are these devil monkeys? Some people think devil monkeys are feral monkeys released into the wild or escaped from research facilities, such as the ones that broke free in Florida due to Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Cryptozoologists believe they are a surviving species once thought to be extinct, like a fruit-eating spider monkey originating from Brazil, or a large baboon that lived 650,000 years ago in East Africa. Maybe they could even be a sort of Sasquatch? Or could these beasties be nothing more than an illusion? Whatever the devil monkeys are, they are a fascinating tale to tell on Halloween around the hearth fire or around a campfire when you go camping in the mountains.

In 1996, a woman named Barbara Mullins was driving down a stretch of road in Louisiana known as Highway 12 when she noticed something odd on the side of the road. At first Mullins through the carcass she had found was that of a dog, that was until she saw its baboon like features. Mullins snapped several pictures of the carcass with her camera; the resulting images have been the topic of much debate in the cryptozoology world. The creature was described as about the size of a large adult Saint Bernard and covered with a thick coat of dark woolly hair. The most notable attribute was its decidedly simian found a website with the pictures and concluded myself it was nothing more than some dog, maybe gone feral. To me, there was nothing ape-like or monkey-like in the dead animal's appearance.

Was that a screech you heard in the night? Beware, it just might be the. . .devil monkey! 

Supernatural Friday: Weird and Bizarre Things in Virginia

Church of Spock--Illogical?

I'm a big Star Trek fan, and into anything to do with Trek, but one thing taking me aback, is this church called “The Spock.” It is a few miles south of Lynchburg in Campbell County, in the state of Virginia.

Founded in 1977, it was in a large and attractive octagonal building. It is said to be the world's only church of Star Trek, a religion centered on the popular 1960's television series, featuring the adventures of a crew of interstellar explorers. It promotes beliefs associated with one of the popular characters in the TV series, Mr. Spock. The ideology of the church is centered on so-called Vulcan philosophy which includes the belief in pure "logic" and which emphasizes a lifestyle devoid of emotion.

A huge stained-glass likeness of Mr. Spock is featured in the sanctuary. Churchgoers recite sequences of dialogue from the series and participate in what they call a "Holy Mind Meld." It is said that many of the members wear stick-on pointed ears like Spock has during services and at other church functions. Supposedly, in one case of excessive dedication to the "faith," one member attempted to have his ears surgically altered. There were disastrous results, requiring extensive corrective surgery.

"The Spock" is not without controversy, as reportedly in the late 1980's, disagreement arose within the church. This due to the lengths in which members should go in emulating the purely logical and emotionless Vulcan approach to life. Some of them advocated a reasonable degree of emotion, due to Spock’s half-human part. Though a core group of hard-line members were adamant to stick to the Vulcan ideology. The stricter view won.  Several members left the church, condemning the practices. One former member went so far as to publish a science fiction story based on his rigid and stifling upbringing in the faith, a story which concludes with the destruction of the Campbell County sanctuary by a "phaser" blast from an orbiting "starship" at his command.   

Troll in Lynchburg?

A question residents of that neighborhood have been asking for over two decades in the Windsor Hills subdivision of Lynchburg, "Is there something out there...some kind of presence," in their area. One person interviewed said they witnessed an "amorphous black specter that stirred up small whirlwinds of leaves...like a dark vortex." It has also been described as a scampering, mischievous small creature of some sort, sometimes venturing out of the woods to tap on windows, tip over trash cans, while others claimed it has threatened them. One encounter tells of hearing a rustle, then in front of them was something that looked like a troll. Now it was hard to see, but they said it wore dark leather clothes and maybe even a leather cap, had a bare human-like face, and muttered to itself, breaking out occasionally with sounded like a laugh. It turned on them and brandished  a small knife. The people bolted. More than one witness has reported sensing a presence before actually encountering the creature, and they began to wonder if it possessed some form of telepathic powers. Legend of the mysterious resident of the woods has grown over the years, and neighborhood kids called it, "Rufus." As one former Windsor Hills resident summed it up "I never believed in that kind of thing until I saw it with my own eyes."

A Sort of Area 51 in Virginia?

Supposedly in the Shenandoah Valley is "Valleyville," considered by those as Virginia's own twist on the legendary "Area 51." Like its famous counterpart, Valleyville is an off-limits region where only access roads are gated and guarded, the perimeter is electronically sealed and monitored, and its existence is denied by the government. Unlike Area 51, Valleyville serves an entirely different purpose. There are no runways at Valleyville and no top-secret aircraft being tested in the middle of the night. No pieces of UFO wreckage or frozen alien corpses hidden there. Valleyville is by all outward appearances a town tucked away in a nook-and-cranny of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley. There is no vantage point in Valleyville from which another town or even a road can be seen.

What is the purpose of Valleyville? No one really can say. A Charlottesville newspaper in 1994 hired former Navy Seal Peter McGowan to infiltrate Valleyville and uncover its secrets, but after acknowledging initial entry, radio contact was broken and McGowan was never heard from again. Efforts are ongoing to bring down the shroud of secrecy surrounding the town.

My thoughts on this? Obviously, someone should be putting their talents to writing a novel about this—sounds like fiction to me.