Voyage to the Land of the Living Dead

Inexplicata contributing editor Manuel Carballal describes one of his most perilous brushes with the unknown, an encounter with Haitian voodoo.

The scene could have been derived from any suspense film. Manuel Delgado instinctively held on tightly to his television camera as we clutched our machetes. Our vehicle was being surrounded by a dozen ebony-skinned Haitians. The blancs, as they derisively call Europeans, are not welcome in Haiti and we had been warned that under no circumstances should we venture into the shanty towns outside Port-au-Prince where, we were told, "there exists a 90 per cent chance of being mugged." We ignored this sage advice, of course.

After endless minutes of waiting, our guide allowed us to emerge from the car. Monsieur Balaguer, an important bokor -- a voodoo high priest -- would allow us to visit his hounfor or temple. The hounfor consisted in a humble wooden shack whose center contained the peristyle, the indispensable central column of every voodoo ritual, by means of which the gods or loas descend to earth. A filthy light bulb and seven candles enabled us to see the disquieting form of Monsieur Balaguer, a tall man with sparkling black eyes, who covered his head with a Stetson.

While our guide stated all the arguments at his disposal in order to have Monsieur Balaguer allow us to film his "she-devil" and his "zombie", we were startled by a sudden blackout. The dirty light bulb was extinguished, plunging us into the shadows, illuminated only by the seven candles around the peristyle. Balaguer greeted his "she-devil" -- supposedly located behind a mysterious metal door -- by rapping on it a few times. From the other side, "something" responded with brutal blows against the door, causing the entire temple to shake. Suddenly we were told that the bokor had to consult the loas: we looked on as Monsieur Balaguer fell int a sort of trance, being "ridden" or possessed by Bravo, one of the loas who shares the lordship over death and cemeteries with Baron Samedi and Baron La Croix. Subjecting us to a sort of "trial," exchanging a curious combinations of handshakes to which we instinctively responded to, Balaguer drank rum through an ear as he smoked a cigarette through one nostril.

The fact of the matter is that in Haiti, Western patterns of logic become fragile in the face of the unpredictable, incomprehensible and irrational voodoo cult -- vodú in the native tongue -- which originates from the Fon language of Dahomey, meaning "deity" or "spirit." This is the precise nature of voodoo: a spirit that envelops Haiti, influencing each and every cultural or social manifestation of this small country, the poorest of the Americas. Read more

Did Leonardo da Vinci Fake the Shroud of Turin?

Does the newly discovered painting "The Saviour of the World" prove that Leonardo da Vinci faked the Turin Shroud? Two British researchers reveal the art history sensation that may end decades of controversy.

Do Einstein's Laws Prove Ghosts Exist?

Do Einstein's laws prove ghosts exist? Since the universe's energy is constant and can't be destroyed, what happens to energy in our bodies when we die?

Every night, amateur ghost-hunting groups across the country head out into abandoned warehouses, old buildings and cemeteries to look for ghosts. They often bring along electronic equipment that they believe helps them locate ghostly energy.

Despite years of efforts by ghost hunters on TV and in real life, we still do not have good proof that ghosts are real. Many ghost hunters believe that strong support for the existence of ghosts can be found in modern physics. Specifically, that Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific minds of all time, offered a scientific basis for the reality of ghosts. Read more

10 Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion

Though some people say that spontaneous human combustion is just a regular fire that people can't be bothered to find the cause for, take a look at ten actual cases of spontaneous human combustion, and decide for yourself.

Some people say that spontaneous human combustion is just a regular fire that people can't be bothered to find the cause for, that could have been avoided through basic fire safety. Others say that it's just a peculiar shift of our internal chemistry, that can happen to anyone at any time.

Take a look at ten actual cases of spontaneous human combustion, and decide for yourself. Read more

White House: Extraterrestrials Haven't Contacted or Visited Earth

Move along. Nothing to see here. According to the White House, extraterrestrials haven't contacted or visited Earth. Well, that settles that.

Alien lifeforms have not contacted Earth yet, the White House claimed over the weekend in response to petitions asking for information on supposed human interactions with extraterrestrials.

"The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race," Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy wrote in a blog post responding to the inquiries. "In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye." Read more

Ohio Woman Claims to Have Witnessed Ghost Sex

Euclid, Ohio woman Dianne Carlisle claims to have witnessed ghost sex.



Typically, Nerve treats the story as a joke:

If you heard the song "Grim Grinnin' Ghosts" at some point during your Halloween debauchery, you know from the lyrics that they occasionally come out to socialize. What the song doesn't tell you is that they also like to bone one another — at least, according to Euclid, Ohio woman Dianne Carlisle, who purports to have seen two spirits bumping uglies in her living room. "It looks like ghosts having sex in my living room!" she says of the above photo, which her four-year old granddaughter took while playing with her cell phone. "They are having sex, you can see the lady's high heeled shoes!" Read more

This story is actually rather unusual. As discussed in my post Spectrophilia: Sex with Ghosts, stories about sex between spirits and humans are not new, but this is the first I've heard of someone claiming to have witnessed spirits having sex with each other.

Cave Creatures: Reptilian Humanoids from the Hollow Earth?

Stories persist of reptilian humanoids from a Hollow Earth.

Continuing our celebration of the month of “Crocktober,” there are a multitude of new creepy films and other entertainment out there, designed to chill the bones and raise the hairs of the faint-hearted (in a fun way). For many, the terrors that can achieve this sort of thing remain in the realm of sewn-together man-things like Frankenstein; or maybe your favorite ghouls are the blood-sucking boogers, most of which are far-less cordial and romantic than Edward and his Twilight ilk.

While I enjoy all of these creepy critters too, my personal favorite remedy for the Crocktober Creeps involves the subject of creatures from the depths of the underground realm. Books and films like The Descent take the notion of mankind’s greatest fears into the recesses of a hypothetical underworld which, in truth, provides a unique allegory for the eternal struggle between mankind and the influences of darkness… perhaps no place gets any darker than the Hollow Earth.

Taking a more Fortean angle to all this, for most of us the serious treatment of any idea that there might be humanoid monstrosities lurking within cavernous corridors beneath the Earth’s surface is little more than lunacy. In many regards, I have to agree that, while I enjoy the films and other fictional portrayals that delve into the depths of this subject, we cannot take very literally the idea that subterranean non-humans exist. And yet, from time to time, there are indeed reports that “surface” (pun intended) which seek to illustrate that this very sort of thing actually is more than mere fiction. Read more