Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

The sun's hidden face

Sometimes the sun's warm face turns sinister.

How can this be?

This visualization shows the sun's activity in two wavelengths of light, 171 Angstroms and 193 Angstroms.

 

But wait.  Is this benign, or something more disturbing?

Extreme ultraviolet light isn't visible to the naked eye, but it can nevertheless affect human life. When the sun is particularly active, the high-energy photons of extreme UV light can heat the Earth's atmosphere, creating additional drag on mankind's orbiting satellites. Or the photons can break apart atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, creating ions that disrupt radio signals. Luckily for life on Earth, the atmosphere blocks most extreme ultraviolet light from reaching the planet.

That's the sun's skull beneath the face, grinning with the promise of destruction to come.

A leg of lamp

Some body parts are lost, but found again. A Dutch man lost his leg through a swimming pool accident, then decided to have the detached limb turned into a lamp. 

(thanks to the wife of Infocult)

Some fun haunted houses

"Most extreme haunted houses" ia what a Fox News report promises.  And the article delivers a fine sequence of intense-sounding experiences.

Note one bit of moralism early on:

"extreme" haunted houses – also called “interactive” or “intense” haunted houses... cater to the demand of increasingly desensitized patrons looking to be frightened to their core at Halloween. Some aim to terrorize and traumatize...

(thanks to Annette)

Clowns with weapons

The California creepy story escalated in the media, with accounts of clowns now going about with weapons.

Reports of creepy clowns carrying knives and other weapons have been scaring people in the California city of Bakersfield for the past week, police said on Sunday.

In the latest incident, a person telephoned the Bakersfield Police Department on Saturday night, reporting a clown armed with a firearm, said watch commander Lieutenant Jason Matson.

"We've been having sightings all over the city," Matson said. "They range from anywhere from a guy carrying a gun to a guy carrying a knife running up to houses."

Several thoughts.

First, this is a very American development in the clown story, given how well armed our society is.  

Second, it connects well with media panics about crime.

Third, Halloween approaches, so this clown meme/LARP-thing can pick up all kinds of practices from there.

(link thanks to Jesse Walker; image from IMDB)

 

A nuclear missile ghost

The recent book about atomic weapons Command and Control has some terrific Gothic passages, as one might expect.

Here are two.  First, a spooky silo:

One [Titan II missile] launch complex, however, stood apart them the rest: 373-4 was known as the "ghost site".  It was the first complex where [Al] Childers was stationed, and odd things seemed to happen there.  Pumps that could be operated only by hand suddenly went on by themselves.  Lights turned on and off for no reason.  Childers didn't believe in the supernatural, and most offiers laughed at the idea that the complex might be haunted.  But some crew members thought that every now and then it felt petty odd down there.

There's one story about that ghost site:

Rodney Holder was once working in the silo at night with another crew member.  The silo had a majually operated elevator that traveled from levels 2 to 8, and then men had left its door open  The bell in the elevator started to ring.  It rang whenever the door was open and someone on another level needed the elevator.  Holder couldn't think of anyone who might need a ride.  He called the control center and learned that nobody else was in the silo.  The bell kept ringing.  Holder and his partner were spooked, quickly finished thir work, and returned to the control center. (22)

Next, horror by shadows: 

After the fire killed fifty-three workers [in Launch Complex 373-4 in Searcy, Arkansas)... Thick black soot covered almost everything.  But handprints could still be seen on the rungs of ladders, and the bodies of fallen workers had left clear outlines on the floor.  Scallorn could make out the shapes of their arms and legs, the positions of their bodies as they died, surrounded by black soot.  All that remained of them were these pale, ghost silhouettes. (227)

d

A haunted house rumor

Snopes found a fine haunted house urban legend.  It concerns a haunted house so scary that nobody can complete it.

I have heard for YEARS about a supposed "Haunted Hospital" here in Ohio.

Not actually haunted, but a haunted house attraction set in a hospital. Supposedly it's very scary and if you can make it through all the floors you get your money back. And no one ever makes it all the way through.

I've heard this story from MANY people, but NOONE knows exactly where it is. I've heard Dayton, OH Columbus, OH even KY. 

These get pretty elaborate:

Common elements of the rumor are statements that the "house" has a specified number of floors or levels, and visitors are charged an exorbitant fee for entering, but get back a specified dollar amount for each floor or level completed. Ultimately, according to scuttlebutt, those who complete the full tour get back every cent they paid to get in. In the same breath, however, one hears that no one has yet managed this feat — this place has proved too darned scary for those who've so far tried it. (Some versions even posit that a few visitors never came out the exit, and were later found dead on the top floor.) 

Any recent signs of this?

One broken mystery body among many

"Something was shipped up from Florida, and it was buried, and someone believed it was Thomas Curry."

Florida keep generating Gothic events.  Case in point: the latest Dozier School story, wherein a family discovered that they had not buried a human body.  

[T]he family learned Curry wasn't in the casket -- no bones, no clothing, no sign of him at all.

"Wood. Layers of pieces of wood," said anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, explaining what she and her team found in the casket. "It was completely filled with wooden planks."

Indeed, they can no longer understand what happened to young Thomas Curry in 1925:

The coroner at the time ruled Curry's manner of death was unknown. The ledger entry at the Dozier school said he was "killed on RR Bridge Chattahoochee, Fla." Another document at Old Cathedral Cemetery in Philadelphia says he was "killed by train." No one from Dozier ever reported his death to the state.

He was returned in a casket to his family, who, in turn, buried him in Philadelphia. Or so the family thought.

It wasn't until a state investigation beginning in 2008 that Curry's death certificate was found at Dozier. It said he died of a crushed skull from an "unknown cause."

The more one thinks of that acount, the worse it gets.

One of the most remarkable Florida real-life Gothics concerns the Dozier School for Boys, which seems to have tormented and possible murdered at least dozens of young men throughout the twentieth century.

Consider this quiet assessment;

Throughout its 111-year history, the school gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. Despite periodic investigations, changes of leadership, and promises to improve, the allegations of cruelty and abuse continued.

This Metafilter post offers good links for learning more.  Infocult notes this last year.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Creepy clowns invade southern California

People dressed as clowns have started appearing in Kern County, California.  And they are as creepy as you might think.

Sleep tight, SoCal. And well done, prepping for Halloween.

(via Slate)

Drug war identity theft Gothic

The war on drugs has long had a Gothic flair.  But perhaps it's crossed over into cybergothic, as this headline suggests:

Once you’ve dehumanized drug offenders, it’s easy to steal their identities

Radley Balko describes a disturbing drug enforcement tactic, whereby an officer inhabits a civilian's social media persona as part of an investigation.  This involved "impersonat[ing] a young woman online by creating a Facebook page in her name without her knowledge."

And a court upheld the gambit:

Government lawyers also are defending the agent’s right to scour the woman’s seized cellphone and to post photographs — including racy pictures of her and even one of her young son and niece — to the phony social media account, which the agent was using to communicate with suspected criminals.

This reads like a cautionary tale about avoiding identity theft - for which, you know, you might want law enforcement's assistance:

The woman, Sondra Arquiett, who then went by the name Sondra Prince, first learned her identity had been commandeered in 2010 when a friend asked about the pictures she was posting on her Facebook page. There she was, for anyone with an account to see — posing on the hood of a BMW, legs spread, or, in another, wearing only skimpy attire. She was surprised; she hadn’t even set up a Facebook page . . .

Balko observes:

Consider what the federal government is arguing here. It’s arguing that if you’re arrested for a drug crime, including a crime unserious enough to merit a sentence of probation, the government retains the power to (a) steal your identity, (b) use that identity for drug policing, thus making your name and face known to potentially dangerous criminals, (c) interact with those criminals while posing as you, which could subject you to reprisals from those criminals, (d) expose photos of your family, including children, to those criminals, and (e) do all of this without your consent, and with no regard for your safety or public reputation.

(link thanks to "Jesse Walker"; photo by carbonnyc)

Fear the internet people

Some residents of a New York City neighborhood oppose a new dining establishment.  What's interesting is how they see it in terms of cyber-anxiety:

Local residents want to pull the plug on a wine bar's bid to serve booze in its outdoor seating area because it will expose children to seedy "Internet people" flocking there for dates after meeting online, they claimed at a recent community board meeting.

For example,

Resident Al Salsano griped that the wine bar has a limited food menu and attracts people who use it as a place for dates after meeting online.

"I have seen people say, ‘I met you on the Internet,’ and you’re putting that on the sidewalk?" he said incredulously. "I don’t want children walking near 'Internet people' meeting."

Or

"Have you ever gone to any of the sidewalk cafes in this neighborhood? Do you find them all rowdy and people staggering out of them all the time?" asked board member George Zeppenfeldt-Cestero.

Resident Chris Horwitz retorted that he wouldn't know because, "I don’t go out to meet people I found on the Internet."

It's fascinating to see this disdain and fear appear in the heart of a very internet-focused city.

Does anyone know more about the neighborhood, which might shed light on the story?

(thanks to Jason K. for the link; photo by robnas)