Drowning in Poop
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Jason Murphy is a novelist, screenwriter, and content creator. He once drew a perfect circle on an Etch-A-Sketch.
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19th Century Aliens. In Texas.
I don’t know how into this whole ‘alien thing’ you guys are. I have to admit, it’s kind of eating my brain and devouring my time. But I am skeptical!
I am skeptical.
I am skeptical.
I keep having to repeat that refrain. Maybe that’s my mantra to convince myself I haven’t become one of those tinfoil hat weirdos. But here goes … I joined r/UFOs and r/aliens on Reddit. I check them daily.
Why does this feel like I’m announcing my alcoholism?
I don’t want to be that guy. I really, really don’t. But once you get into something resembling conspiracy - and this is definitely that - you start to see connections when there shouldn’t be any. You start to look for patterns and if you’re looking hard enough, you might find them. It’s got all the trappings of bad science. So help me God, if you hear me talking about how Sasquatch is an alien, please just slap me forcefully across the face and take away my internet.
This last week, I learned about the events that allegedly took place in Aurora, TX. I have to admit, reading this story didn’t help pull me back from the brink. If anything, this quaint little tale made me want to run through the streets like the end of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
“They’re here! They’re already here!”
In the early morning hours of April 17, 1897, the people of Aurora, Texas, stepped outside to see what was described as an ‘airship’ gliding slow and low over the town square.
Keep in mind that this was several years before the Wright Brothers took to the skies.
The cigar-shaped craft, which they say looked otherworldly, crashed into a windmill belonging to a local judge. The ship was mostly obliterated, sending wreckage raining down across the countryside and causing the death of the pilot, one believed to be an extraterrestrial from Mars. The good people of Aurora gave the spaceman a proper Christian burial in the town cemetery.
News of the incident quickly spread across Texas, and the Dallas Morning News published an article on April 19, 1897, titled "A Windmill Demolishes It." The article, written by S.E. Haydon, detailed the event and its aftermath, sparking widespread interest. According to the report, the UFO was made of "unknown metal" and contained "strange hieroglyphics."
But let’s get to the point - allegedly, there’s an alien buried in Aurora, TX. Now, I had suggested in the short that we all grab our shovels and take a little trip to Aurora to get to the bottom of this. Let’s dig that little bastard up! But I guess I wasn’t the first to have this idea. While efforts have been made to locate the grave and exhume the remains, legal obstacles and concerns for the sanctity of the resting place have prevented any conclusive investigation.
https://www.auroratexas.gov/community/history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora,_Texas,_UFO_incident
Would you believe there’s an even weirder coda to this story? Like so many of the tales we talk about here, this one would make an interesting movie. How would people in 1897 deal with an alien encounter? It’s basically a Weird Western. They didn’t have the pop-cultural points of reference we do. They hadn’t seen a xenomorph burst from a man’s chest. They hadn’t seen a mothership annihilate the White House. They didn’t know about the Men in Black or the alien predilection of probing our nethers. John Carter hadn’t even made it to Mars yet!
But of course, there’s already a movie about it. The dashing gentlemen of the International News Service podcast brought this to my attention. The movie is called The Aurora Encounter.
See the alien there? That’s him. He’s not really wearing much prosthetics or makeup. He was a teenager with a very real condition called progeria. So they cast him. As an alien.
Whoa.
When you’re making an indie film, one of the ways to make it happen is to see what you have access to. Do you have access to horses? Maybe a pretend Western town on a relative’s ranch? Do you know a kid with a horrible disease?
Boom. You’ve got yourself a scifi-Western epic. Filmmaking is for everyone.
Everyone Has ALL of Your Data
The internet is forever. You’ve heard that, right? Anything you put online is out there. Forever and ever. I know, it seems like a magical box full of ephemera and elves, but … it’s really a tool to incriminate yourself.
With the proliferation of digital technologies and the widespread use of the internet and social media platforms, vast amounts of data are generated by individuals daily. Private companies, ranging from tech giants to marketing firms, have harnessed this data for various purposes, including targeted advertising and consumer behavior analysis. This data can include personal information, online activities, social connections, and even sensitive details such as health records.
The US government does it. The intelligence community purchases data from these private companies to augment its intelligence-gathering efforts. The reasoning behind this approach is to bolster national security initiatives, counter potential threats, and identify individuals involved in criminal or terrorist activities. By accessing a wide range of data sources, government agencies can potentially uncover patterns, analyze trends, and identify potential risks.
So what we have here is the government sidestepping laws about warrants and information gathering on citizens. There are some feeble laws in place to help prevent that, but there’s nothing that says they can’t just buy the data from one of these companies. And they do. A lot of it. And guess what? If the US government can buy it, so can China. So can Russian troll farms. So can … really anyone who wants to know what you do when you think no one is looking.
I’m working on a novel (and other related items) that takes place in our dystopian now. When you hear ‘dystopia’, what do you think? Riot gear-clad stormtroopers? A fascist government in the thrall of corporate money? Escalating climate disasters? Yeah. Dystopia is here. I may have to put a bit of a scifi patina on everything to sugar coat that bitter pill. It’s a strange thing. We have the perspective of being the frogs that were boiled alive. It happened as we watched, the creep of the bleak future. But if you look out your window and take stock of what you see, it’s really not that far from the horrible things writers have been warning us about. 1984? Fahrenheit 451? The Handmaid’s Tale? Take your pick. They’re all within reach.
Drowning In Poop
Henry VI was King of Germany and in July of 1184, he was making plans to become the Holy Roman Emperor, which is a pretty big deal. But some of his subordinates weren’t getting along. Landgrave Louis III of Thuringia and Archbishop Conrad of Mainz were arguing about land control. Needing to keep the peace in his kingdom, the king called all of the nobles together to the Petersberg Citadel in Erfurt.
The nobles came in droves, clad in all their heavy furs, armor, and regalia. They gathered in a large chamber on the second floor of Peterskirche. Now what you need to understand is that this citadel had no plumbing. It was the 12th century after all and this place was built by monks. Instead of plumbing, there was a cesspool. They didn’t want to have to constantly scoop out the cesspool, so they made it really big.
And they put it underneath the chamber that all of the nobles were now standing in.
The wooden floor almost immediately collapsed, sending 60-100 nobles plummeting into the cesspit below. Many of them were killed in the fall or crushed by debris. But many of them suffocated from the fumes or drowned in human excrement. Henry himself clung to the bars on a window, narrowly escaping death. Let it be known that Henry VI threw the worst parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_latrine_disaster
I really want to see a 8-part HBO miniseries about this. I think. Maybe not. If you were writing something like this, I can totally see producers saying, “No. This is too silly. No one wants to see a comedy set in the 12th Century.”
But it really happened! Henry VI did end up becoming Holy Roman Emperor anyway. Maybe everyone was scared that he did it on purpose to eliminate any threats to the throne.
The Teenage Soviet Spy
Theodore Hall was an extraordinary physicist whose contributions to the Manhattan Project during World War II played a significant role in shaping the course of history. Born in 1925, Hall's exceptional intellect and scientific curiosity led him to join the project at the age of 19, making him the youngest scientist involved. Working at the Los Alamos Laboratory alongside renowned physicists such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hall's expertise and insights proved invaluable in the development of the implosion-type plutonium bomb, known as "Fat Man." His knowledge helped overcome technical challenges and ensured the successful creation of the world's first atomic bomb.
Despite his groundbreaking contributions, Theodore Hall's legacy remains shrouded in controversy due to his later involvement in espionage. Motivated by his political convictions, Hall began passing classified information to the Soviet Union. The motivations behind his actions remain subject to speculation and debate, with some seeing him as a traitor and others arguing that he acted out of a sense of moral responsibility to prevent the United States from holding a monopoly on atomic weapons. While Hall's espionage activities went undetected for many years, they were confirmed by declassified Soviet documents in the 1990s. However, after leaving the field of physics, Hall embarked on a successful career in biology, where he focused on researching the structure and function of proteins, making notable contributions to the understanding of viruses and cancer.
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/theodore-hall/
Hall’s story is particularly interesting. He wasn’t a cartoon villain. He seemed like an idealistic kid. His reasoning for giving the plans to the Soviets was that he didn’t want the United States to have a monopoly on nuclear weapons.
The best characters in any story are the conflicted ones. Don’t write something where the heroes are always right. I think it was David Fincher that said that when two characters are fighting, they should both be right. I’m not implying that Hall was right, of course, but he was convinced he was. Youthful idealism pushed a genius kid to give nuclear secrets to the Soviets. That is an interesting character.
The Strangerous Channel Updates
We’re putting the finishing touches on our background for some of the Strangerous content we’re working on. There’s still some greenscreen involved, of course, but here’s a sneak peek at one of our physical backgrounds.
As I mentioned previously, there’s also a podcast on the way! I’ve lined up some great guests to talk about their favorite Strange and Dangerous topics. Bigfoot! Strange cheeses! Hacking!
We’re also planning for the Strangerous launch party next month, so make sure you’re signed up for this here newsletter so you don’t miss it.
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Even More Strange and Dangerous!
Thanks for reading our online newsletter! Here’s just a bit of our favorite things we’ve found lately.
While shooting my reel about the Vietnam Rock Apes, I asked Midjourney for help with some background images. Midjourney came back with this, which is better than I’d ever hoped.
Here’s a story sent to me by friend of the show and a future Strangerous guest.
I’m an easy mark for tales of the military encountering something bizarre. I’ll definitely be talking about this one more soon.
You're telling me no grave robber has had the idea to dig up this supposed alien?
Ok. What is behind Jason in that picture? In the wooden box? I know I know it but I can't find it in my brain. Ive let it go for a few weeks now but it's nagging at me like a louse chewing on my frontal lobe draining the blood from my soul.