You know I have my gnostic tendencies, so I see our existence itself as mysterious, with anomalies in all the conventional explanations -- but even under the orthodox Christian view, there's so much about the context within which our world sits, that much remains unanswered and, for now, unanswerable (at least for us). I think the mysterious, whether in art or history or sensational news stories, appeals to us because it awakens within us a deeper longing to have the disconnected jigsaw puzzle pieces of our existence finally form a complete picture.
“The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.”
A curious piece. Locally, when I was a kid, a kid my age got kidnapped, Jacob Wetterling. 30 years later he was still missing. Then they arrested a guy, who I think led them to the place he burned the body. It turned out there had been a positive ID of his vehicle at the time, he had a record, but the police and presumably FBI ignored him in favor of persecuting some poor sap bachelor school teacher, if I recall correctly.
That he disappeared though, was a heavy weight for everybody in the region. That was the early 80's and life didn't seem so safe and innocent after that.
Great piece, the link about the Bennington Triangle was spooky. I’ve hiked and camped around there and never heard of that until now.
I’ve spent time in mountains and forests all over the US and Canada, and I will say that the Green Mountains in VT and Whites in NH feel more ancient and eerie than anyplace else I’ve been. The deep north woods of Maine are even more remote, but I’ve never had the same “hair on the back of my neck standing up” feeling there.
I’m about as rational and skeptical as they come, but if there was anywhere that would make me believe in Indian curses or cryptids, it would be that part of the world.
DamnedifIknow. I can only speak for myself but I suspect many, if not most, lives include instances defying rational explanations. Miracles, mysteries, magic, be such majestic, benign, macabre or trivial if you will, occur and reoccur. None the less it's best to seek a rationale, in most, in the vast majority of cases such is there. Sometimes though, all you're got is damnedifIknow.
Film called The Pledge is highly effective in conveying the poignant agony felt by those personally concerned with mysteries of this sort. The generally appalling Sean Penn directed it, but to give credit where it's due it's the kind of thing he's really very good at.
As Ed Dutton would say he's 'open to experience', in the typically leftist manner. He's open to it all--whether it's getting inside the head of the bereaved or snortin' coke with Zelensky in keev.
🤣🤣 He knows where to get a container full shipped to Zelenks afterall.
Sean: Hey Zelensky, wanna party?
Zelenks: Yeah man.
Sean: I know how you can get some guns too.
Zelenks: No.Way. Hook it up bro, how are you going to pull that off.
Sean: I know a guy that knows a guy that owes me a solid in Mexico. Bidey won't care.
Zelenks: How?
Sean: I set up El Chapo with the help of the CIA so his competition could move in as is custom in the war on drugs. Fentaynl has to flood in for our benevolent master Dope Boy Xi. So I just have to make a call.
Zelenks: Make that call...wait you setting me up too Sean?
Sean: No way man, meet my assistant Sarah, we're psyopping the public with him after we leave-it works for the XiIA, but hey we'll get some photo opps for the tale I'm weaving and after that we'll get our base to start going full in with support for your burgeoning fiefdom as Bidey has revenge to get on the Ukraine for that Burisma business. Schawb is letting him. May I say Zelenks the role you are playing right now is one of the best performances I've wanted to play for years.
Mystic River was one of that snitchin on El Chapo commies best serious roles. The Pledge was a good one. Mystic River has a good mystery to it and he plays the missing girls Dad. Based on a book if memory serves me correctly here.
Indeed he's a towering presence in the missing child metaphysical mystery genre. Gone Baby Gone is another good one in the same vein, but I think he wasn't involved in it.
Mysterious disappearances abound, certainly the ones that remain unsolved. In my neck of the woods, the Jacob Wetterling disappearance still captivates(probably a poor choice of words) audiences nationwide. Sometimes you can only believe no bad deeds go unpunished, especially when enough time has passed and all avenues are exhausted. God Bless!!!
Fortunately and unfortunately, that case has been solved. Jacob's remains were discovered and his killer has confessed to the crime. At least there's some resolution.
My wife and I were just up in the Bennington Triangle area not so long ago. I have heard there are bigfoots (bigfeet?) up that way. I keep telling my wife that bigfoot is real, but she just laughs at me. I think we need another trip up there so I can finally convince her. Plus, it's really pretty.
My sister and I went to the same private school; one day one of her good friend's cousins went missing. It happened to be her friend's favourite cousin, same age more or less. My sister watched the news for two or three weeks; eventually the body was found in a shallow grave on the other side of the harbour. Scarred is an understatement. As soon as her friend was of age she left the country and never lived there again.
It's a small country. I could never live there again either. Someone else (again with only two degrees of separation) disappeared in the late 90's and was never seen or heard of again - (Olivia) Hope with her friend (Ben) Smart. It was as if to theatrically say: "Hope and intelligence has disappeared from this country without a trace."
It’s terrible that that happened, all the more so when such crimes are arbitrary. Apart from the actual loss, there’s the awful awareness of vulnerability that such an experience makes manifest. But in the long run such an awareness of the world makes us better able to navigate life, knowing that our time is brief and the end of our story is not ours to write.
Intriguing story, and very thought provoking. This reads like a perfect Twilight Zone story. Fascinating the bloodhounds couldn’t follow her scent outside the parameters of their yard.
That could mean the dogs just couldn't hit on a scent (happens more often than movies would lead one to believe) or that she got into a car, or that she backtracked and wandered into the woods behind her house. But like so much else, it's unknowable.
Yes I must be one of these people that just assume bloodhounds can find anything. Lol! …Influenced by what I’ve seen and heard in movies. There are more questions than there are answers here. The unknowing. Thank you!
The FBI expert the author of the book spoke to ruled out voluntary disappearance as anything but an extremely remote possibility. In all the cases he'd looked at there were clear signs of unhappiness and the people who left always took extreme care NOT to leave a mystery so as not to have people chasing them down. Anything is possible, but based on existing evidence I'd say that's unlikely. The problem is, nothing IS likely...
That's what I think. I don't see where the blood was analyzed and he said she was chasing something red. Could've been a salesman or could've had walkway wife, got the blood at some ritual goat killing. Then she gets home has a few cold ones, because hey she's finally breaking free right- new life and she's going to San Francisco with an aching in her heart. Pirout gave her some ideas on those afternoons with Agatha- and that Martin. Maybe he had plans to put her in the local sanitarium if she ever tried to leave now had 49 years to think about those threats, she had been saving money from her allowance and knew if she took the kids he'd kill all 3 of them. Everyone thought BTK was a nice guy. Lol 😁🤣 I do feel like she staged it as we don't know the events around her disappearance and before and leading up to. Has a cold case detective looked? That's it call in Joe Concha. Lol. That's a good one. Outstanding whodunit Librarian!
Your scenario is possible, but look at what our imaginations always do. We recoil from the unknowing, running towards our own rationalizations while knocking the facts on offer out of the way. Everything you theorized could be true, but for that to be so, we would have to ignore other things even more established as true. We can easily drown in that Sea of Unknowing...
You know I have my gnostic tendencies, so I see our existence itself as mysterious, with anomalies in all the conventional explanations -- but even under the orthodox Christian view, there's so much about the context within which our world sits, that much remains unanswered and, for now, unanswerable (at least for us). I think the mysterious, whether in art or history or sensational news stories, appeals to us because it awakens within us a deeper longing to have the disconnected jigsaw puzzle pieces of our existence finally form a complete picture.
Very well put. The mysteries of the lives of others serve as a mirror for our own.
“The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.”
Our being as mortals is contingent, and our continued existence is predicated on forces outside of our control or understanding.
A curious piece. Locally, when I was a kid, a kid my age got kidnapped, Jacob Wetterling. 30 years later he was still missing. Then they arrested a guy, who I think led them to the place he burned the body. It turned out there had been a positive ID of his vehicle at the time, he had a record, but the police and presumably FBI ignored him in favor of persecuting some poor sap bachelor school teacher, if I recall correctly.
That he disappeared though, was a heavy weight for everybody in the region. That was the early 80's and life didn't seem so safe and innocent after that.
Great piece, the link about the Bennington Triangle was spooky. I’ve hiked and camped around there and never heard of that until now.
I’ve spent time in mountains and forests all over the US and Canada, and I will say that the Green Mountains in VT and Whites in NH feel more ancient and eerie than anyplace else I’ve been. The deep north woods of Maine are even more remote, but I’ve never had the same “hair on the back of my neck standing up” feeling there.
I’m about as rational and skeptical as they come, but if there was anywhere that would make me believe in Indian curses or cryptids, it would be that part of the world.
There’s a huge rabbit hole to explore with the topic. America has a lot of such places.
I'll quote Brodsky from his lengthy "New Jules Verne" (1977)
...
When the ship doesn't arrive at the port of call
on time, or later on, the Business
Manager says in his office, "Hell!"
The Admiralty says, "Jesus."
...
Oceanic events are, as a rule, abrupt.
Still, long afterwards, the waves toss the remnants of their brief sally:
life-vests, spliters of masts, a rat --
none with the fingertips, sadly.
...
And then comes autumn. And later or, winter cuts
it. The sirocco tatters awnings that summer fancied.
Silent waves can drive best attorney nuts
with their show of a sunset.
...
Something hobs up in the papers -- burying under their slants
the facts -- driblets, really. Who can crack it...
A woman wearing brown clutches the drapes and slumps
slowly onto the carpet.
...
The horizon's improving. The air's filled with iodine and salt.
Far away breakers pummel with great abandon
some inanimate object. And the bell of old
keeps tolling grimly at Lloyd's of London.
Captures the sentiment perfectly.
DamnedifIknow. I can only speak for myself but I suspect many, if not most, lives include instances defying rational explanations. Miracles, mysteries, magic, be such majestic, benign, macabre or trivial if you will, occur and reoccur. None the less it's best to seek a rationale, in most, in the vast majority of cases such is there. Sometimes though, all you're got is damnedifIknow.
Film called The Pledge is highly effective in conveying the poignant agony felt by those personally concerned with mysteries of this sort. The generally appalling Sean Penn directed it, but to give credit where it's due it's the kind of thing he's really very good at.
Commie though he his, his aesthetic sense isn’t bad. Who knew that Spicoli would pull that off.
As Ed Dutton would say he's 'open to experience', in the typically leftist manner. He's open to it all--whether it's getting inside the head of the bereaved or snortin' coke with Zelensky in keev.
🤣🤣 He knows where to get a container full shipped to Zelenks afterall.
Sean: Hey Zelensky, wanna party?
Zelenks: Yeah man.
Sean: I know how you can get some guns too.
Zelenks: No.Way. Hook it up bro, how are you going to pull that off.
Sean: I know a guy that knows a guy that owes me a solid in Mexico. Bidey won't care.
Zelenks: How?
Sean: I set up El Chapo with the help of the CIA so his competition could move in as is custom in the war on drugs. Fentaynl has to flood in for our benevolent master Dope Boy Xi. So I just have to make a call.
Zelenks: Make that call...wait you setting me up too Sean?
Sean: No way man, meet my assistant Sarah, we're psyopping the public with him after we leave-it works for the XiIA, but hey we'll get some photo opps for the tale I'm weaving and after that we'll get our base to start going full in with support for your burgeoning fiefdom as Bidey has revenge to get on the Ukraine for that Burisma business. Schawb is letting him. May I say Zelenks the role you are playing right now is one of the best performances I've wanted to play for years.
Zelenks: You sly dog.
😁
I could totally see Sean Penn playing Zelensky in the biopic!
Congratulations on obtaining and publishing the unexpurgated wikileaks transcript of this momentous discussion
🤣🤣 As Andre 3000 says it's just my interpretation of the situation. 😁
They get to play each other. Sean Penn could play himself and Zelenks though too, which could be quite entertaining.
Mystic River was one of that snitchin on El Chapo commies best serious roles. The Pledge was a good one. Mystic River has a good mystery to it and he plays the missing girls Dad. Based on a book if memory serves me correctly here.
Indeed he's a towering presence in the missing child metaphysical mystery genre. Gone Baby Gone is another good one in the same vein, but I think he wasn't involved in it.
That was Ben and Casey Affleck, revelations as director and actor, respectively. Phenomenal and profoundly affecting film.
Aha yes that's right.
Poor old Ben...
Dennis Lehane for the win on both!
Neat story. Look into” missing 411”.
A lot of well documented mysterious people missing persons .
I'm familiar with it; I can't say I endorse all of his theories, but I do find it interesting.
Mysterious disappearances abound, certainly the ones that remain unsolved. In my neck of the woods, the Jacob Wetterling disappearance still captivates(probably a poor choice of words) audiences nationwide. Sometimes you can only believe no bad deeds go unpunished, especially when enough time has passed and all avenues are exhausted. God Bless!!!
Fortunately and unfortunately, that case has been solved. Jacob's remains were discovered and his killer has confessed to the crime. At least there's some resolution.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/06/jacob-wetterling-killing-minnesota-danny-heinrich-admits
My wife and I were just up in the Bennington Triangle area not so long ago. I have heard there are bigfoots (bigfeet?) up that way. I keep telling my wife that bigfoot is real, but she just laughs at me. I think we need another trip up there so I can finally convince her. Plus, it's really pretty.
It’s a very strange place. Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts- It’s the East Coast Mt. Shasta. Lovecraft set a story there, the Mi-go stealing brains.
Thanks for recommending a book I know my special lady will love, you’re an absolute bro
Hi5 bro!😎
My sister and I went to the same private school; one day one of her good friend's cousins went missing. It happened to be her friend's favourite cousin, same age more or less. My sister watched the news for two or three weeks; eventually the body was found in a shallow grave on the other side of the harbour. Scarred is an understatement. As soon as her friend was of age she left the country and never lived there again.
It's a small country. I could never live there again either. Someone else (again with only two degrees of separation) disappeared in the late 90's and was never seen or heard of again - (Olivia) Hope with her friend (Ben) Smart. It was as if to theatrically say: "Hope and intelligence has disappeared from this country without a trace."
It’s terrible that that happened, all the more so when such crimes are arbitrary. Apart from the actual loss, there’s the awful awareness of vulnerability that such an experience makes manifest. But in the long run such an awareness of the world makes us better able to navigate life, knowing that our time is brief and the end of our story is not ours to write.
Unsettling and unnerving, but as you point out, fascinating for reasons I can’t quite explain.
Thank you; it really is a subject I find compelling.
Intriguing story, and very thought provoking. This reads like a perfect Twilight Zone story. Fascinating the bloodhounds couldn’t follow her scent outside the parameters of their yard.
That could mean the dogs just couldn't hit on a scent (happens more often than movies would lead one to believe) or that she got into a car, or that she backtracked and wandered into the woods behind her house. But like so much else, it's unknowable.
Yes I must be one of these people that just assume bloodhounds can find anything. Lol! …Influenced by what I’ve seen and heard in movies. There are more questions than there are answers here. The unknowing. Thank you!
The Risch case is fascinating. My gut says she staged it and fled but thats just based on a cursory reading.
The FBI expert the author of the book spoke to ruled out voluntary disappearance as anything but an extremely remote possibility. In all the cases he'd looked at there were clear signs of unhappiness and the people who left always took extreme care NOT to leave a mystery so as not to have people chasing them down. Anything is possible, but based on existing evidence I'd say that's unlikely. The problem is, nothing IS likely...
That makes sense. Very bizarre
That's what I think. I don't see where the blood was analyzed and he said she was chasing something red. Could've been a salesman or could've had walkway wife, got the blood at some ritual goat killing. Then she gets home has a few cold ones, because hey she's finally breaking free right- new life and she's going to San Francisco with an aching in her heart. Pirout gave her some ideas on those afternoons with Agatha- and that Martin. Maybe he had plans to put her in the local sanitarium if she ever tried to leave now had 49 years to think about those threats, she had been saving money from her allowance and knew if she took the kids he'd kill all 3 of them. Everyone thought BTK was a nice guy. Lol 😁🤣 I do feel like she staged it as we don't know the events around her disappearance and before and leading up to. Has a cold case detective looked? That's it call in Joe Concha. Lol. That's a good one. Outstanding whodunit Librarian!
Thank you very much.
Your scenario is possible, but look at what our imaginations always do. We recoil from the unknowing, running towards our own rationalizations while knocking the facts on offer out of the way. Everything you theorized could be true, but for that to be so, we would have to ignore other things even more established as true. We can easily drown in that Sea of Unknowing...
Completely agree.
OT, but I got a note saying that you invited some subs to me. Thanks for that, much appreciated!
Glad to do so.
BTW, it says you got a 3 month comp, but I comped you for life a while ago. 😂