symondrake » Paranormal http://www.symondrake.com The Official Site of Symon Drake Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:17:18 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 The evolution of vampirism http://www.symondrake.com/evolution-of-vampirism-villian-to-hero/ http://www.symondrake.com/evolution-of-vampirism-villian-to-hero/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:56:49 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=491

There has been a modern revival of vampirism in recent years.  Although AIDS has put a dampener on sucking your girlfriend’s blood, no one can deny there is a growing subculture which embracing everything vampish, and its popularity has spilled over into mainstream pop-culture.

What is modern-day vampirism? Simply, the party by night, sleep by day mentality. Dressing in black, celebrating everything macabre and sensual. What is its origin? To cut a long story short, the early Slavs and Britons had a strong belief in vampires (living corpses empowered by evil, craving blood as sustenance) up until the early 1800s. Some occultists today believe supernatural vampirism to be a fact (another post perhaps?).

If I was to ask who is the most popular vampire in history – an overwhelming majority would say Dracula (although my kids might say Sesame Street’s The Count). Have you ever wondered how the superstar of horror was inspired?

Dracula was very much a real person, called Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (or more commonly known as the Vlad The Impaler, or Draculea (1431-1476). He was a madman who massacred more than 100,000 men women, children, and babies during his lifetime in the most sickening, disturbing ways imaginable. And to drive the point home (pun intended) let me go into detail – but please be warned, the next paragraph isn’t nice to read (skip it if you want).

The atrocities committed by Vlad included impaling, torturing, burning, skinning, roasting, and boiling people, feeding people the flesh of their friends or relatives, cutting off limbs and drowning.  As his name implies… Impalement was Vlad’s preferred method of torture and execution. An oiled stake was slowly forced through the anus until it emerged from the mouth. Death by impalement was slow and agonizing and victims sometimes endured for hours or even days. One claim says he impaled 10,000 in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in a single day (and I bet you thought Transylvania was only a fictional country).

Sorry you had to read that – but again I wish to make a point, which is simply this…

The origins of vampirism is nothing short of pure evil. The original vampire, Vlad Dracul, was nothing short of pure evil. The vampires in books and films of yesteryear were nothing short of pure evil.

But times have changed.

Pure evil has become not-so-bad-pretty-good-actually evil. The repulsive has become romantic. The villain has now become the hero. We, the pop-culture consumers have made the slow (but sure) transition from hating the vampire, to cheering for him… or her.

Is anyone else concerned?

]]> http://www.symondrake.com/evolution-of-vampirism-villian-to-hero/feed/ 9 The sounds of hell in Siberia http://www.symondrake.com/the-sounds-of-hell-in-siberia/ http://www.symondrake.com/the-sounds-of-hell-in-siberia/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:50:15 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=304

A comment on yesterday’s post reminded me of an old urban legend about another hell hole in Russia, but one which is rather more disturbing. The story goes like this…

Geologists working somewhere in remote Siberia had drilled a hole some 14.4 kilometers deep when the drill bit suddenly began to rotate wildly. The project’s manager was quoted as saying they decided that the center of the earth was hollow.  Supposedly, the geologists measured temperatures of over 2,000 degrees in the deep hole. They lowered super sensitive microphones to the bottom of the well, and to their horror they heard the sounds of thousands, perhaps millions, of suffering souls screaming.  The plot thickened when a recording emerged of the account, and just when you thought the story couldn’t get any better, a man who witnessed the drilling went on record with the description of the bat-like creature coming out of the same hole.

The story and it’s additions were made famous by supermarket tabloids (and by the gullible people who read them or well-meaning religious folk) of the early 1990s and it has now entered the halls of infamy thanks to the Internet (and by the gullible people who…).Is there any truth to it?  Snopes says “no”, truthorfiction says “no”, my common sense says “no”, and I tend to agree with all three.

Before I continue, let me digress for a moment. There is something about human nature which yearns to believe the unbelievable.  There is the child in all of us which still is innocent enough to believe in fairy tales. Problem is we simply don’t do the research, or use our God given brains.  We hear, then re-tell the incredible stories without hesitation (or a simple google to see if it is truth or fiction) and before long fiction is re-labeled fact.  That is until the truth is discovered and we get egg on our face.  Unfortunately many of us Christians are the worst culprits, and not only does our character lose credibly… our faith loses credibility.  We must remember that Jesus is the Truth, we are followers and carriers of Truth and although we still desperately need the child-like faith, we shouldn’t have child-like intelligence.

With that in mind, back to the story…

The truth.  In 1984, an experimental well in Russia’s Kola Peninsula which reached 12 kilometers into the earth.  Scientists discovered rare rock formations, flows of gas and water, but no damned souls, no hollow center, and not temperatures of 2000&deg but of 180&deg.  You can read all about the Kola well here, all factual and very interesting.   The origin of the recording? unknown. The bat-out-of-hell creature addition?  A simple lie designed  to see whether a religious television program would accept the story at face value without checking it out, which they did (unfortunately).

In conclusion, I wish to say that although Hell isn’t situated under the snow in Siberia… it is very real, you don’t want to go there, and there is only one way to avoid it. Find a Bible look up John 3 :16 and think about it seriously.

Siberia hell hole aside, is hell really in the Earth’s bowels?  My opinion is again “no”, simply because the Bible says Hell  is eternal, and that the earth is not.  In fact it is going to all go up in flames one day… But not on Dec 22, 2012 (that is another blog post ;-) )

]]> http://www.symondrake.com/the-sounds-of-hell-in-siberia/feed/ 7 Mair Park Ghost Footage http://www.symondrake.com/mair-park-ghost-footage/ http://www.symondrake.com/mair-park-ghost-footage/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:52:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=178
About this time last year, I wrote of the time when my parents had a close encounter with the urban legend known as ‘The Mair Park Ghost. The original post created quite a stir, and you can read the subsequent shenanigans here:

On Saturday, my good buddy Lesmond and I decided to make a small video diary/doco about the ghost legend. What ensued was far from expected, or rehearsed. Disturbing footage follows.
]]> http://www.symondrake.com/mair-park-ghost-footage/feed/ 9 The Tunguska Catastrophe http://www.symondrake.com/the-tunguska-catastrophe/ http://www.symondrake.com/the-tunguska-catastrophe/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 04:30:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=157
I had never ever heard of the name Tunguska before… until I bought a PC game (for the kids) called Secret files: Tunguska. Then I became enlightened to an extremely fascinating and equally mysterious event which occurred 101 years ago in Central Siberia.

In the Tunguska region at 7:17am on 30 June 1908 something of apocalyptic proportions occurred. This ‘happening’ flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,000 square km. The blast (if that was what it was) was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and generated a shock wave that knocked people unconscious 60km from the epicentre. In the following weeks, night skies over Europe and western Russia glowed brightly enough for people to read by. Mysteriously, there was no crater or any other clear evidence for what exploded.

The first report of the explosion was in the Irkutsk paper dated July 2, 1908, published two days after the explosion:

The peasants saw a body shining very brightly (too bright for the naked eye) with a bluish-white light… The body was in the form of ‘a pipe’, i.e. cylindrical. The sky was cloudless, except that low down on the horizon, in the direction in which this glowing body was observed, a small dark cloud was noticed. It was hot and dry and when the shining body approached the ground (which was covered with forest at this point) it seemed to be pulverized, and in its place a loud crash, not like thunder, but as if from the fall of large stones or from gunfire was heard. All the buildings shook and at the same time a forked tongue of flames broke through the cloud. All the inhabitants of the village ran out into the street in panic. The old women wept, everyone thought that the end of the world was approaching.

S.B. Semenov, an eyewitness in the village of Vanovara about 60 km south of the explosion site, gave the following report…

I was sitting in the porch of the house at the trading station of Vanovara at breakfast time… when suddenly the sky was split in two and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared to be covered with fire. At that moment I felt great heat as if my shirt had caught fire; this heat came from the north side. I wanted to pull off my shirt and throw it away, but at that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash was heard. I was thrown to the ground… and for a moment I lost consciousness… The crash was followed by noise like stones falling from the sky, or guns firing. The earth trembled, and when I lay on the ground I covered my head because I was afraid that stones might hit it.

The most accepted explanations as to what caused the Tunguska event are:

  • A fragmentary asteroid or meteorite that exploded in the atmosphere.

  • The nucleus of a comet that likewise exploded in the atmosphere.

    • But I ask you, could a comet cause the following enigmatic effects that were recorded at the site?

  • disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field.

  • a local geomagnetic storm.

  • a reversal of soil magnetization.

  • an electromagnetic pulse, similar to what would be created by a nuclear explosion.

  • aurora displays before and after the event.

  • unusually bright nights seen before and after the event.

  • genetic mutations in plants and animals.

  • accelerated growth of plants afterward.

  • radiation-like burns and deaths of exposed people.

    • Not surprisingly there are many learned people who disagree with the ‘accepted’ explanation. Among the more ‘exotic’ theories are…

  • An unusual tectonic event.

  • A massive methane gas explosion.
  • A black hole that entered the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space and imploded.

  • A chunk of antimatter that reacted with the matter of our planet.

  • A crashed UFO.

  • A deliberate attack by extraterrestrials.

  • The result of a test of Nikola Tesla’s wireless power transmitter.

    • I agree that most of the theories listed above sound utterly ridiculous… but the event itself simply cannot be adequately explained using natural reasoning. Even now, 101 years later Russian scientists are still struggling to get a clearer understanding of what really happened that day.

    What is disturbing is that if the Tunguska event occurred 4 hours and 47 seconds later, it would have hit the Russian Capitol.

    (For an intriguing look at the Nikola Tesla hypothesis click here.)

    ]]>     http://www.symondrake.com/the-tunguska-catastrophe/feed/ 4     My close encounter with a UFO… cult http://www.symondrake.com/my-close-encounter-with-a-ufo-cult/ http://www.symondrake.com/my-close-encounter-with-a-ufo-cult/#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:18:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=153 It was a fateful night in 1997 when the Aetherius Society came to town to promote their religion. For those who don’t know what the Aetherius Society is (I’m guessing about 99.9% of the people reading this post), it is a UFO cult.

    I was a zealous (and somewhat tactless) Bible College student at the time, and had just finished writing a study on Aliens from a Christian Worldview. So armed with my Bible… (yes, I took my NIV Study Bible to a UFO cult meeting – told you I was tactless ;-) , a wad of my UFO studies, and my 6’4″ friend (you can never be too careful), I made my way into the venue, past the freaky door greeter (who had a crystal the size of a tennis ball around his neck) and sat down with about ten other people.

    For the next hour, two Atherius reps spoke about what they believe in. This is it in a nutshell…

    George King was born in England in 1919. He dedicated his life to the practice of Eastern Mysticism. One day he he heard a loud voice saying…

    “Prepare yourself! You are to become the voice of Interplanetary Parliament.”

    Apparently, the voice belonged to one of the ‘Cosmic Masters of the Solar System’ and George King became their ‘Primary Terrestrial Mental Channel’, bringing their message to Earth.

    At this point I would like to include an except from the UFO study (soon to be posted on this site)…

    Some people claim that by putting themselves into a hypnotic trance they are acting as a channelling device in which extra-terrestrial beings speak through them. The same general message permeates over 90% of the words received by millions of people over the world while they are channelling. The following is an actual example:

    We come from the Interplanetary Configuration of solar systems, and our purpose is to aid our brother man on the earth as the new age dawns. The teacher that was known to you as Jesus was able to use many more of the abilities than the people of this planet. Unfortunately, man upon planet earth has misinterpreted the meaning of this mans life. He was no different than any of you; he was simply able to remember certain principles. These principles may be realised by any one of you at any time, it is only necessary that you avail yourself to our contact through meditation in order to begin to realise that which is rightfully yours, the truth of the creation and the truth of your position in it. Know ye not that ye are gods? We have been puzzled at times by the inability of the people in general of this planet to be awakened to this truth. We find the state of hypnoses, brought about by the evolution of thought by the people of this planet is so great, that it is necessary for him to maintain a constant awareness of his spiritual nature by meditation.

    I might add that there are absolutely no reports of any alien ever proclaiming that Jesus is the only way to find salvation.

    This is from the Aetherius site…

    At this significant point in the history of mankind, the Cosmic Masters have chosen to release a new level of understanding and wisdom to those who are ready on Earth. This wisdom in no way invalidates or replaces the wisdom given to mankind in the past by the great teachers such as Shri Krishna, Lord Buddha and the Master Jesus. These beings and several more, were also Cosmic Masters from advanced worlds sent to Earth to help mankind in the best way possible when they came.

    I always find it amusing how so many New Age religions claim that Jesus Christ is ‘a way’, when Jesus Christ Himself said that He was ‘The Way’ (John 14:6). There’s a very big difference between ‘a’ and ‘the’.

    Anyway, back to the story… At the conclusion of the night the well-meaning reps asked if anyone had any questions. It was then that I stood up and asked them to explain what the Bible meant when it talked about end-time deception and doctrines of demons (I even read out the relevant verses). As you can imagine, it didn’t go down too well. One of them said that it was easily explained in Revelation chapter 23 and asked me to turn there. Problem was, there is no Revelation chapter 23. And so the evening ended, much to the relief of the hosts, and I handed out the studies to the folk leaving the building ;-)

    I sometimes think back to that time and wonder what on earth I was thinking. Did I do the right thing in my challenging confrontation? Did I exhibit the love of Jesus or push the people further away from Him? Would I do the same today? Lord, help me to be zealous… with knowledge.

    To visit Wikipedia’s page on UFO cults click here. ]]> http://www.symondrake.com/my-close-encounter-with-a-ufo-cult/feed/ 4 We see what we want to see http://www.symondrake.com/we-see-what-we-want-to-see/ http://www.symondrake.com/we-see-what-we-want-to-see/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:08:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=151 My sons reckoned they saw a UFO today (I was quick to remind my eldest that the last UFO he saw turned out to be a seagull). Like father like son.

    Ever since I watched ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’ as a kid, I’ve been fascinated by UFO phenomena. As a Christian, I definitely believe there is something out there, but I don’t suspect they come from other worlds… more like the demonic realm. I have an essay that I’ll post here one day, and might even tell the story of the time I gate-crashed a UFO cult meeting when I was ‘zealous without knowledge’ and told them quite impolitely exactly what I thought of their beliefs ;-) .

    But for now I would like to prove that we generally see what we want to see. If we see something that looks like an alien craft, we’ll probably believe it is.

    Check out the first clip below.

    Quite convincing isn’t it (especially with the X-Files theme included). The Chilean air force released a press-statement claiming that the lights were from their training aircraft flying in formation. Surely those lights couldn’t possibly be training planes? Surely it must be a cover-up. Well… no.

    Watch the following clip to understand what I mean about seeing what we want to see.
    ]]> http://www.symondrake.com/we-see-what-we-want-to-see/feed/ 4 Revenge of the Mair Park Ghost http://www.symondrake.com/revenge-of-the-mair-park-ghost/ http://www.symondrake.com/revenge-of-the-mair-park-ghost/#comments Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:10:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=48

    Before that fateful day when I decided to write about the Mair Park Ghost, I Googled the same three words, just to see if there was any other information about it. As I suspected, nothing came up. Absolutely zero.

    A couple of months have passed, the mystery has been solved (actually there is an extremely surprising twist to the tale, but I will keep it underwraps for now), and I am rather tired of all the kind folk who have come up to me and asked me if I really do read my kids ghost stories. For the record, the answer is a big fat ‘NO’.

    Anyway, curiosity got the better of me tonight. I couldn’t resist the tempation, and if persuaded by some unseen force (not), I typed in those three mysterious words once again “Mair Park Ghost”.

    Oh no. I discover that I am destined to be forever posted all over the net on bizarre websites, known as ‘The Kiwi Pastor Who Hunts Mair Ghost’. (Sheesh)

    Yes indeed, the ghost has had its revenge… for now anyway.

    I know you are thinking about it… Three words ‘Mair Park Ghost’… I dare you.

    ]]>     http://www.symondrake.com/revenge-of-the-mair-park-ghost/feed/ 2     Symon Drake… Ghostbuster (heh) http://www.symondrake.com/symon-drake-ghostbuster-heh/ http://www.symondrake.com/symon-drake-ghostbuster-heh/#comments Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:24:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=36
    Hilarious if you ask me.

    My ‘Mair Park Ghost’ post was spied by the Whangarei Leader (another local newspaper) a few weeks back, and I was interviewed the other day. I’m actually a bit over the whole ghost thing now, and was not looking foward to reading stuff which had been taken a little out of context as reporters do.

    The article was in today’s edition, and it is pretty good actually. Only one error… I don’t read ghost-stories to my children.

    Thanks heaps Deanna. (the reporter girl)
    I’m getting a hankering to watch some classic 70′s Scooby!

    ]]>     http://www.symondrake.com/symon-drake-ghostbuster-heh/feed/ 3     Ghost mystery solved… or is it? http://www.symondrake.com/ghost-mystery-solved-or-is-it/ http://www.symondrake.com/ghost-mystery-solved-or-is-it/#comments Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:22:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=35 I posted a story the other week about ‘The Mair Park Ghost’. In 1961, someone dressed up in an ornate costume scared ‘courters’ witless who visited the park at night, including my mum and dad.

    Read the post here: The Mair Park Ghost.

    DW and I thought it would be an entertaining read for the local paper, and emailed them a copy.

    To cut a long story short, the newspaper turned the story into a weekend article, and I became ‘a ghost hunter (who apparently doesn’t believe in life after death) who has an obsession to solve the 50-year old mystery, and is desperate for people to come forward with information about the phantom.’

    Read it here: Mair Park Ghost Mystery.

    Harmless fun I guess… embarrassing, definately, but harmless nevertheless.

    I had a call from the paper on Friday, the brother of the ‘ghost’ contacted them and spilled the beans about who really was the clever culprit and how he did it.

    Read it here: Ghost Busted.

    Mystery solved, case closed, everyone forgets the crazy youth pastor (hopefully)…

    Not quite.

    I have recieved a couple of mysterious emails lately. Apparently there is another ‘Mair Park Ghost’. The email ends with the words…

    “…the Ghost is closer than you think.”

    Creepy music starts now.

    ]]>     http://www.symondrake.com/ghost-mystery-solved-or-is-it/feed/ 2     Haunted houses, ghosts & demons http://www.symondrake.com/haunted-houses-ghosts-demons/ http://www.symondrake.com/haunted-houses-ghosts-demons/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:28:00 +0000 Symon http://www.symondrake.com/?p=29 It seems that a recent post on Whangarei’s ‘Mair Park Ghost’ has created a little publicity. A newspaper reporter was somewhat surprised by my personal opinion as to what ghosts really are. A couple of years ago I wrote a paper on the huge subject of haunted houses, ghosts and demons because most people realise that there is a supernatual realm, and genuinely want some answers that make sense.

    Click here to view the PDF file.

    I would love to know what you think, so feel free to leave a comment. ]]> http://www.symondrake.com/haunted-houses-ghosts-demons/feed/ 4