Tag Archives: folklore

Triangle Trope of Vermont: Bennington

By | August 7, 2024

The Bennington Triangle in Vermont has a foundational narrative of real life murders, disappearances, and an abandoned village. A corpus of exaggerated tales grew from it.

TikTok generates multiple scare lore stories about flagged cars

By | May 27, 2021

Always keen to hear about the latest “weird news”, I noticed a trend in 2020 where young women (typically) were reporting that their cars were moderately vandalized in busy parking lots. On the video social media app TikTok, they interpreted these events as a signal that they were being targeted for abduction by sex traffickers… Read More »

Cryptozoology and Myth, Part 3: Hiding in the cold, dark water until Judgment Day

By | September 8, 2015

This is the third in a series of posts examining cryptids (“hidden” animals said to exist based on local testimony), namely lake monsters, in terms of the folklore, tradition, and native tales of these creatures. The first part is here: Cryptozoology and Myth, Part 1: The Illusion of Facticity in Unknown Animal Reports The second part… Read More »

Cryptozoology and Myth, Part 2: Lake Monster Tropes

By | August 31, 2015

This is the second in a series of posts examining cryptids (“hidden” animals said to exist based on local testimony), namely lake monsters, in terms of the folklore, tradition, and native tales of these creatures. The first part is here: Cryptozoology and Myth, Part 1: The Illusion of Facticity in Unknown Animal Reports What can… Read More »

Monster Stories from Pennsylvania

By | February 10, 2011

Pennsylvania is the locale for oodles of strange stories, from the ghosts of Gettysburg to Thunderbirds of the northern forests, from the Jersey Devil sightings along the Delaware to UFOs in Kecksburg (and all across the state).  A 135-page book by Patty A. Wilson chronicles, specifically, Monsters in Pennsylvania: Mysterious Creatures in the Keystone State.… Read More »