WFNews #11 – “Subtle Transitions”

Wow, it’s been awhile, huh? Well, we’re all moved into our new HQ in the cozy lower west side of Chicago, and that means we can finally get cracking on some updates. This is it, readers, we’re finally going weekly.

What have we got for you in this week’s news update? Let’s see.. there’s a 15 year old boy who cries tears of blood, the corpse of an “alien baby” making headlines on Mexican TV, TAPS Family Manager and ‘Ghost Hunters’ star Britt Griffith and his dildo, a brand spankin’ new WF? contest, a strengthening placebo effect, human/goat hybrid devil babies, Bigfoot’s peeping-tom escapades, the Loch Ness Monster captured on Google Earth, how to kill someone via exorcism and get away with it, plus a whole ‘lotta news concerning this here ‘zine.

Buckle up, readers! Here we go..

I. Tennessee Boy Cries Tears of Blood

15 year old Calvino Inman has been stumping doctors by crying tears of blood up the three times a day for the past several weeks, prompting friends, neighbors and classmates to label Inman as “possessed”, while many others insist he is experiencing a “miracle”.

Calvino’s mother, Tammy Mynatt, has been featured all over her local Tennessee news, and even “Good Morning America”, pleading for doctors to come forward with an explanation for her son’s unexplained condition after numerous CAT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, and specialists left her without answers.

“The scariest thing in my life is when he looked at me and said, ‘Mom, am I going to die?’ That right there broke my heart,” Mynatt told WATE.

Unlike normal tears, Calvin cannot suppress the urge to cry. ”Sometimes, I can feel it coming up, like a tear. I feel my eyes watering,” he tells WATE. “Sometimes, it will burn as it comes out.”

So far, the only decent answer given to the boy came from Ophthalmologist Rex Hamilton, who, on “Good Morning America”, suggested that he was suffering from a rare case of Haemolacria, which literally means “bloody tears”, though no cause is actually known.

Full story at the NY Daily News. Video HERE.

II. “Alien Baby” Corpse Stumps “Experts”

As Mexican television tells it, in 2007 rural farmer Marao Lopez stumbled across a small creature stuck in a trap he’d set for coyotes earlier in the year. Having never seen anything like the creature, Marao panicked and attempted to drown it in a nearby ditch. Three times. A feat that took several hours to accomplish.

Late last year, Lopez handed the corpse over to “university scientists” (though we can’t seem to find any references to which university) for testing. Lopez was promptly found burned to death on the side of the road in a parked car.

So far, the apparent experts don’t know what to make of the creature, which has human-like joints, a larger than average brain for it’s size, and a skeletal structure that resembles that of a lizard.

Is this an as yet undiscovered species? An alien baby left stranded by it’s intergalactic parents? Or is it simply a clever ruse? The lack of hard evidence would suggest the latter, but hoax or not, you’ve got to admit the thing looks pretty disturbing.

More at The Daily Telegraph. Video HERE.

III. TAPS’ Family Manager Britt Griffith + Dildo

We’ve been holding on to this one for awhile, so long, in fact, that we forgot about it until we were preparing for this week’s update. Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you a video of Ghost Hunters star and TAPS Family Manager Britt Griffith waving around a big ‘ol dildo during the filming of commentary for the show. Professionalism, indeed.

The clip, presumably leaked by a crew member to Pasadena Paranormal, has a few golden pieces of dialogue from Dave Walters, the dude next to Britt in the clip. Golden nuggets such as:

“It’s awesome to have Britt around because he and I, we go around and have butt love in the kitchen.”

There was an outside copy of the video posted earlier, but that has since gone down, so we have instead decided to host the video HERE. Due to a request from Griffith itself, we should let you know, if you don’t already, that this video is not for kids. But if you’re a kid, and you’re at this website, you are one awesome kid.

IV. New WF Contest!

Last update’s caption contest went over so well that we decided to have a new contest this week. In conjunction of the release of our latest sketch, “The Audition : Paranormal State’s Sergey Pobereznhy’s lost audition tape for Dancing with the Stars”, we’re giving away the last three albums by Jeremy Gloff, who’s single “Boyfriend” off the album 1987 is actually the catalyst for awesome in the latest video. If you haven’t watched it yet, we suggest you do so. The video stars regular WF contributer Nick Foust and WF editor Greg Newkirk as Sergey Pobereznhy and Ryan Buell. The similarities are downright creepy.

For this contest, we’re asking readers to send in their original paranormal sketch ideas. If we like yours the most, we’ll not only send you Jeremy Gloff’s 1987, The Orange Songs, Now is the Right Time to Feel Good, and a bunch of limited editon WF swag, but we’ll also shoot your sketch for an upcoming issue of the ‘zine. Don’t worry, you’ll get full credit for your artistic genius and we aren’t going to sell it or anything.

Our only rules are these: keep it simple, keep it pertained to the paranormal, and it can’t be anything we’ll get sued over. Remember, we’re independent, so we’re poor. We can’t afford special effects or lawsuits. Not yet anyway. But hey, you can always donate to the cause.

We haven’t set a deadline for entries, but chances are we’ll cut things off in early October to start filming, so don’t wait to impress us with your screenwriting. You’ll know when we’ve got a winner, because we’ll have a (hopefully) hilarious new video for the website.

You can send your sketch ideas to whofortedblog(at)gmail(dot)com.

V. Placebos Getting More Effective and Nobody Knows Why

A recent article in WIRED Magazine reveals something that drug companies are slightly freaking out about : placebos are gradually becoming more effective, and they have no idea why.

According to William Potter, former psychologist for the National Institute of Mental Health and current Vice President for pharmaceutical giant Merck, years of Big Pharma’s attempts to dominate the central nervous system have revealed how powerful the concept of “mind over matter” really is.

“Before I routinely prescribed antidepressants, I would do more psychotherapy for mildly depressed patients,” Potter tells WIRED. “Today we would say I was trying to engage components of the placebo response—and those patients got better. To really do the best for your patients, you want the best placebo response plus the best drug response.”

For the entire story, plus tons of interesting insights on how placebos work, check out WIRED.

VI. Goat Gives Birth to “Human” Baby

Last Sunday in the Maboleni area of Zimbabwe, a goat gave birth to something that has disturbed the locals so much, they suspect involvement by the devil. Mr. Nyoni, owner of the goat, describes the creature as being that of a human/goat hybrid, with human limbs, a human face, and only sparse hair.

“This incident is very shocking. It is my first time to see such an evil thing. It is really embarrassing. The head belongs to a man while the body is that of a goat. This is evident that an adult human being was responsible. Evil powers caused this person to lose self control,” Nyoni told “The Chronicle”.

According to the Maboleni residents, who were upset enough to get the police and the mayor involved, even the dogs were so frightened that they wouldn’t dare approach the creature. Kinda looks like a deformed goat to us. What do you think?

Full story and a whole lotta’ torch-burnin’ villagers at Talk Zimbabwe.

VII. Bigfoot Is a Total Pervert

POLAND – 19 year old Justyna Folger tells the Poland Super Express Newspaper (awesome name) how Bigfoot, an apparent peeping-tom, gave her a good scan as she took a dip in the Tatra Mountains National Park.

“I wandered into the river for a dip when I realised that something was on the opposite shore. At first I thought it was a bear but it appeared to be stooping and then it raised itself on to two legs and ran off. I couldn’t believe it.”

Luckily, Justyna’s boyfriend, Tadeusz Serafinowski, had his videocamera running at the time and was able to capture what is either a large bipedal primate, or some horny dude in a gorilla suit. Regardless, the film evidence has been handed over to the Nautilus Foundation, a paranormal research foundation that has been following up on the rash of Yeti sightings in that particular area.

Foundation President Robert Bernatowicz tells the Daily Mail that, “the film clearly shows ‘something’ that moves on two legs and is bigger than a normal man, but because the camera shakes so much it is difficult to say what it is exactly. We need to go to the site and see what traces, if any, were left.”

Full story at The Daily Mail.

VIII. Nessie on Google Earth?

A bored Nottingham security guard, 25 year old Jason Cooke, has contacted the media after he claims to have stumbled upon the Loch Ness Monster while browsing the area on Google Earth. He tells The Sun, “I couldn’t believe it. It’s just like the descriptions of Nessie.”

The apparently find comes at a time that has Nessie’s official fan club (yes, there’s a fanclub) concerned for Nessie’s well-being over the lack of recent sightings. The Loch’s rather quiet previous year has even prompted club president, Gary Campbell, to assume that the legendary creature could be dead.

If you want to do a little monster hunting yourself, the location of Cooke’s find can be seen on Google Earth at the coordinates of Latitude 57°12’52.13″N, Longitude 4°34’14.16″W. If you’re too lazy to punch a few numbers into your browser, we’ve done the hard work and screencapped the image for you.

More Info at The Telegraph.

IX. Five Exorcism Killers Avoid Jail Time

Five New Zealand siblings found guilty of manslaughter after “exorcising” their niece to death, narrowly avoided jail time of five years, instead earning curfews and work sentences.

22 year old Janet Moses, mentally ill mother of two, was killed by drowning as her family members forced water down her throat in a traditional exorcism ritual intended to lift a makatu curse.

The Breitbart news reports that the family became convinced of Janet’s possession after two of their family members stole a concrete Chinese statue from outside of a hotel. The exorcism ceremony, while apparently living up to pop-culture expectations, included over thirty people, lasted several days, and included the bizarre act of sucking at her eyeballs in an attempt to vacuum the evil spirit from her body. Her relatives then forced water through her nose and mouth until she drowned.

Justice Simon France said he did not believe that Janet’s death was due to “bizarre beliefs” or malicious intent.

More on this depressing story at Breitbart News.

X.) The End

There, done. Sheesh, our ‘zine news ended up being almost as long as our regular news. I guess we do have a lot going on. Alright, time to give thanks where thanks are due.

- Huge thanks to Jeremy Gloff for letting us use his music for “The Audition”, even if it was based off of an assumption. Much love, Jeremy.

- Big thanks the people from Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp for, if nothing else, providing us with some entertainment and water to brush our teeth with while we road tripped.

- Thanks to Nancy Planetta for inviting out to the Seven Sisters Inn for a fun investigation. We’re mulling over an article about it.

- High Fives to Patrick H.T. Doyle for providing Haunted Hoax, an extremely well put-together web series that we thoroughly enjoy, and you should too.

- Thanks also to Brian Harnois and Jason Hawes for blocking us from following them on twitter. As if our egos needed reinforcing.

Until next time, cadets!

Greg Newkirk

Greg is the contributing editor for Who Forted?, as well as the founder of the paranormal adventuring group Ghost Hunters, Inc. When he's not occupied by writing about the wide world of the weird, he's busy directing and editing films like The Bigfoot Hunter: Still Searching or perusing used bookstores for antique occult manuscripts. He currently lives in Toronto.

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