The Great Drone Wave

In 1887, a story by famed French science fiction pioneer Jules Verne, titled "Robur the Conqueror" was released in English. The story concerned a wave of sightings of mysterious lights in the night sky and similar phenomenon, which turns out to be the work of aviator Robur and his extraordinary airship called the Albatross. In 1897, with the concept of dirigibles and manned flight burgeoning in the popular imagination, thanks to Verne's story, scores of people began reporting sightings of strange lights, dirigibles and all manner of flying contraptions in the skies over America. This was known as the Great Airship Flap.

Fifty years later, in 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold made the first sighting of UFOs over Mount Rainier in Wahington state and coined the term "flying saucer" to describe these mysterious flying discs. Hollywood took up this idea of mankind encountering alien visitors, in films such as The Man from Planet X, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World. Thus was inspired the first of the UFO Waves, as reports of daylight discs, nocturnal lights and similar ariel anomalies flooded switchboards and newspaper stories nationwide and around the civilized world. Though chiefly presumed to be aircraft of extraterrestrial origin, it's interesting that these early UFO sightings seem to coincide with the development and proliferation of the first jet aircraft.

Today in Denver, Colorado, air-traffic picked up an unidentified object which was endangering the flight paths of commercial aircraft. The identity of the flying object is still in question but it's believed to have been an errant law-enforcement drone. And so the latest arial technology once again gives rise to controversy and wonder. Welcome, my friends, to the official start of the Great Drone Wave.

Keep watching the skies!

Colorado Vampire Sighting

Vampire Car Crash: Colorado woman blames vampire for crashing car - KDVR

FRUITA, Colo. - If a Western Slope woman is to be believed, vampires may be lurking in Colorado’s Grand Valley.

The woman claims she spotted a vampire in the middle of a dirt road near Fruita, Colo. Sunday night. She told Colorado State Troopers she was startled by the undead being, threw her SUV into reverse, and crashed into a canal.

She was not injured.

State Troopers say the woman’s husband arrived at the scene and took her home. The vampire, which was not seen by anyone else, apparently let her get away.

Troopers do not suspect drugs or alcohol to be factors in the crash.

More Coffin Races Pics

Off-ed to the Races!

No the people of Manitou Springs, Colorado aren't a bunch of chanting and gibbering deformed idol-worshipping savages out of a Lovecraft story, they just really know how to celebrate Halloween. And their Halloween spirit shines the brightest during the Emma Crawford Coffin Races, held every year the Saturday before Halloween. This years event, the 15th annual ECCR, had the fortune of falling on one of the warmest sunniest day of the month.

Emma Crawford was a lovely young woman, afflicted with tubeculosis, whose family moved to Manitou in 1889 to provide her with the believed restorative powers of the local mineral springs and mountain air. Emma asked to be buried on nearby Red Mountain and when she died, in 1891, her family had the wish fulfilled. Unfortunately, Emma's body was relocated years later by the railroad to the south side of Red Mountain where the heightened exposure to the elements caused Emma coffin to become unearthed and wash down the mountainside in 1929. Emma's poor abused bones were re-interred in a cemetery in an unmarked grave and rumor has it that Emma's ghost haunts the slopes of Red Mountain looking for her lost resting place.

So I trust you get the basic premise. Every year the folks of Manitou pay tribute to Emma's spirit with a racing competition where colorfully-costumed teams push coffin-like carts ( two at a time) to the finish line, each bearing a unique representation of the restless Miss Crawford.

Each year there is an invitation only wake at the Miramont Castle the evening before the race and the next day the public event begins with a parade in Emma honor featuring a convoy of pimped-out hearses as well as the race competitors themselves.

It's basically a Halloween event, with dazzling costumes on both sides of the parade-tape.

Prizes are given for originality of the teams costumes and coffins as well as the actual races.

The event gives Halloween exhibitionists a perfect place to flaunt their nature, such as... What's this?...

What's bugging those dogs? Some kind of remote-controlled car?

Oh, but of course...

The fact is, there were so darned many people packed onto Manitou Avenue that I gave up trying to get good shots of the races themselves. But I knew someone would have video up on YouTube by the time I wrote this post, anyway.

More Coffin Race Pics

Cemetery Bear

About 15 years ago I went on a trip to the mountain town of Lake City with my mom. During the trip we took a drive up to the Lake City cemetery to see my grandfather's grave. At one point during the drive up the winding dirt road I spotted a small bear. I got out of the car and took some pictures of it as it ambled off into the woods and even followed it a little. If the bear was a cub, it's mother was nowhere in sight.

Moments later, I realized that we'd found the grave. I'd unknowingly framed it in the first pictures.

Cool cemetery, too....

The Mysterious Ruins

The Mysterious Ruins Part 2

Hearse Looking at You, Kid!

In the last episode our search for Halloween Evil brought us to a macabre gathering of the strange denizens of Manitou Springs, Colorado, no doubt preparing for a lurid fire-lit ritualistic ceremony of naked dancing, blood sacrifices and cannibalism. The street has been cleared for the arrival of God knows what ranks and machinations of eldritch horror...

ACHTUNG! The Horrible Mohawk Halloween Regime has assumed control!

YOU THERE!-make an extreme jack-o-lantern that belches fire and smoke! YOU!-paint your little sister's face to look like a kitty cat! YOU!-think of strange new uses for candy corn! ZEIG HALLOW!

Need a ride, mortal? The kid in everyone loves hearses. Black hearses, white hearses, um, gray hearses... Big hearses, sm-.... Errr.... Hearses!

How about a hearse that will Monster Mash your ass if you you don't like the color pink?

This ambulance is nice but a little too pristine to be scary. Unless it's like a Christine ambulance, or something. Hey, wait a minute.... If I survive this I've got a great idea for a shameless rip-off book to write!

Woah! That Fascist babe is totally checking me out. She looks like Patty Hearse-t.

No, no. I've got to focus!

These people should have checked gramma's pulse before putting her on the roof. And that's good advice for anyone. Even-... Wait! Is that Zombie Tom Arnold?

Who ya gonna call? I'm gonna call that girl, I was just asking who you gonna call?

Hey you damn kids! Quit playing with the corpse! How's daddy supposed to make it in the hearsin' business if you keep messin' 'em up?

I guess what I'm trying to say is...hearses.

Especially this one.

Oh dear Lord! Now what?....

Off-ed to the Races!

Doc Holiday-Rest in ?

If you ever visit the beautiful town of Glennwood Springs, Colorado and are thinking about penciling in to your busy itenerary a visit to the grave of legendary gunslinger Doc Holiday, there are a couple of caveats. First, the tour broshure doesn't tell you that there is going to be a steep dirt road between you and the grave. I'm talking steep. I'm talking a hike. I'm talking hot sun and circling vultures and the hammering of heart upon chest. Leave gramma back at the car.... (UPDATE!) I've since learned that there is apparently a less challenging route up to the cemetery that we didn't know about because, well, we took the wrong fork in the road or something. Embarassing!

Secondly, the grave marker is not so much a grave marker as a marker indicating that you are standing, parched and weary from your grueling climb, somewhere in the basic approximate ballpark of Doc Holiday's grave. Maybe. The body may have been taken by family to be buried in Oakhill Cemetery in Griffin Georgia. Another story is that the the older graves at this grave site were washed away in a mudslide. Likely, the truth is that they don't want someone to get to thinking how awesome it would be to have Doc Holiday's skull above their fireplace. Anyway, here's some rocks to signify his existence, somewhere. Notice where people have thrown poker chips and flowers and playing cards on his grave. And a little pocket change. You know, in case he rises from the grave and gets a hankerin' to play some nickel slots or something.

Manitou Springs-City of EVIL!

In the wicked wicked town of Manitou Springs something sinister is afoot. What could it be? What draws the legions of the dead and iniquitous there on such a sunny day? In the 1980s Geraldo Rivera declared Manitou Springs the Satanic Capital of the Western World! The very name Manitou is synonymous with mystery and darkness! Someone had better investigate. But does this evil sign mark my last chance to turn back?

Here goes... (click below to continue...)

Hearse Looking at You, Kid!

The Colorado Cannibal (& Me)

This bottle which (one presumes) once contained medicinal brandy is my family's connection to celebrated Colorado Cannibal Alferd Packer. D.S. Hoffman was my great-grandfather and, at the time of the so-called Al Packer Massacre, was a physician at the remote mountain town of Lake City, where trail-guide Al Packer would later be tried for the murder of the five members of a prospecting expedition that came to a gory end near Lake San Cristobal. It's really quite a long story so I'll give you the post-card summary right up front:

Souvenir shops in the lovely town of Lake City are crammed with Al Packer momentos and post cards such as this one showing the massacre site.

Here's my own photo of the memorials plaque.

And backed up a bit to show some of the surrounding territory.

And here's Lake San Cristobal. I slept at the lodge there, once.

Here's a couple of pics of an Al Packer wax exhibit in Denver. I kind of doubt it's still around since I haven't seen any recent images.

This seems to be from the Denver Courthouse but I don't really know. The following are from an old souvenir booklet I bought as a kid, followed by a couple of movie trailers for fun:

As you can see, quite a legend has been built up around the incident. In case you didn't notice, that's South Park creator Trey Parker as Alferd Packer in Cannibal: The Musical. And though Ravenous was probably inspired as much by Indian legend as Al Packer, Robert Carlyle's character is clearly modeled after Packer. There is quite a lot of information about Al Packer (and what became of him) online, as well as images, songs, recipes and what have you. Here's the Wiki just to get you started on the whole fascinating story.