Join us at the First Anomaly Archives Meetup of 2010 this Saturday at the Austin History Center from 3-4pm.(See end of email for venue details)

Sponsoring this meetup and venue is the local Austin Mufon chapter headed by Anomaly Archives board member Mike DeGroff.

The monthly Austin Mufon meeting is 1-4pm the first Saturday of most months.

As this is our first official “MeetUp” we’ll be answering questions about the organization, its mission, projects and goals, etc.

We may watch a video or two, talk about books we’re reading, and generally talking about a wide variety of anomalous subjects.

We’ll also be giving away a couple of books to some lucky attendees. Kind of like a door prize. Details at the meeting.

Also, after the meeting, if there’s enough interest, perhaps we can retire to some comfortable outdoor eatery for “conversations over saucers” with coffee, tea, beer, etc.

Finally, we’re pleased to announce that the Anomaly Archives will be hosting British Fortean Cryptozoologist Jonathan Downes the afternoon of Saturday, March 20th. Details to follow shortly.

Thank you for your support. We look forward to seeing you all at the Austin History Center this Saturday.

- SMiles Lewis

Founder & President
www.AnomalyArchives.org
AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER
810 Guadalupe, Austin, TX 78701

Anomaly Archives Meetup this Saturday – Austin Anomaly Archives (Austin, TX) – Meetup.com.

Howdy all, and happy Thursday!

I know that I’ve been out of the loop for the last couple of weeks. After my trip back home to visit family, I needed some time to recuperate. Then I threw myself into some writing about some family experiences and ghost stories that I hoped would be my next Thursday column. Unfortunately another Thursday came and went without my being able to complete a very personal segment of the story about my own experiences, at a very young age, coming to terms with the unexpected, and still unexplained, death of a beloved uncle.

Then I remembered, the Thursday blog post isn’t supposed to be about that! Thursday posts are supposed to be low pressure posts. Something fun to pass the time with while taking a break at the end of a long work week.

So, with that in mind, no in-depth post this week. No recollections of soul searching five-year-olds and their troubled lucid dreams.

Instead, we’ll take the opportunity to welcome one of my favorite time-wasters back to Hulu. That’s right kids. Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International are back on Hulu with new episodes. If you like to relive your favorite moments from the SyFy series at your desk during your lunch break; or if, like me, you don’t have cable and only watch the show online, you’ve probably been watching, waiting, and already got yourself caught up on the last couple of episodes. If you aren’t familiar, now is a good time to browse on over to Hulu and check them out. The last couple of episodes have featured some remarkable stories, including an inexplicable FLIR image of what appears to be a “hunched” figure in a cape or cover (no invisibility cloak jokes from the Harry Potter fans, please) shuffling quickly by, just feet from the investigators.

You can find the newest episodes here (Ghost Hunters) and here (GHI).

With most full episodes of Monster Quest now removed from History.com (the most recent two episodes seem to remain available, with older episodes being removed as the latest episode is added), UFO Hunters still a ridiculous ETH circle jerk, and the latest season of the delightfully campy Destination Truth yet to show up on Hulu, the latest episodes of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International are just what the doctor ordered for wiling away these final days of summer. It may be too hot to fish, and too hot to golf, but its never too hot to plop down in front of the monitor, crank the A/C, and waste an afternoon with two of the best paranormal investigative series currently in production.

south end of the Argillite, KY train tunnel, photo from Wikipedia

So, not much to share this Thursday. I’ll spend most of the day on airplanes today until I land in Columbus, OH, jump in my mom’s van, and head south toward Kentucky.

I’ll be in the Ohio River Valley for the extended weekend with my family. The same “neck of the woods” that’s home to Mothman, the Serpent Mound,  the Tremper Mound effigy pipes, Moonville Tunnel, and, since we’re on trains anyway for Moonville, this recent incident mentioned on Loren Coleman’s “other blog”.

I generally try and avoid anything train related. I lost a favorite uncle to a train accident at a young age, and my father and grandfather are both retired railroaders (from the N&W/NS railway), dad maintenance of way and papa an engineer working those same coalfield runs mentioned in the article,  who told me ten times more train related horror stories than a kid ever needs to hear.

Usually I try to avoid trains; but between Loren’s article, talking with my old friend and bandmate Todd Martin, who penned the tune “Moonville Tunnel” for his band Mothman while I was percussionist for the group, and seeing a series of photos of iron blast furnaces and remnants of the associated Eastern Kentucky Railway on a friend’s Facebook, it seemed like the trains wanted to be talked about. Or at least they wanted links posted. And I promise to be back next week with some neat hillbilly ghost stories and photos.

Somehow this has flown under my radar for a couple of months, but Dan Akroyd is marketing his own brand of boutique vodka sold in a skull shaped bottle. What does this have to do with anomalous phenomenon you ask?

Everything!

In his online video explaining the liquor, an oddly sweaty Akroyd almost seems to be parodying himself in some Twilight Zone episode of SNL as he talks about everything from ghosts, UFOs, and the “invisible world”,  to ectoplasm (a running gag of his Ghost Busters movies) and the latest Indiana Jones movie. That’s right. The latest Indie movie and this vodka have something in common other than actors who made their best movies two decades ago. The bottle shape was chosen as a tribute to the infamous crystal skulls.

So that the packaging matched the spiritual potential of the contents, naturally.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any stranger, Akroyd reveals the secret filtration process that makes his vodka the purest in the world. I won’t reveal it here. The video just has to be seen for itself.

And in spite of the sheer ridiculousness of it all, I can’t help myself. I really want a bottle of this vodka! Or thirteen. After all, as the website for Crystal Head Vodka notes:

Brought together, the Crystal Heads are said to contain vast knowledge and enlightenment capable of unlocking our most enigmatic ancient mysteries. Alone, each is believed to house radiant psychic energy, which has magical powers and healing properties.

Spirits indeed.

www.CrystalHeadVodka.com

This Saturday, February 16 at 2 PM, Nick Redfern will be speaking at the downtown Dallas Public Library. The talk is entitled:

Weird Mysteries of Texas: UFO’s, Bigfoot, Ghosts and more.

J. Erik Jonsson Central Library (2-3 PM)
1515 Young Street
The Studio, Humanities Division, 3rd Floor,
Dallas, TX75201