Hello, I am Robert G. Male. Welcome to WraithStop™. Here you will find links that I think are of interest. Furthermore these are links that I want to keep track of because they have given me either ideas or some other form of inspiration for my writing. Links are listed in order lowest to highest both in the date they are given and the order in which they appear (meaning: read them from the bottom up for a certain day's list). Some of these sites may require you to sign up for free. Without further ado, the links...

Newest Entry

March 9, 2009

• A temple area may have been created before towns or agriculture or farm animals. This has wide and varied implications even without looking at the date supposed for the creation of the site. First among them is that religious need brought people together at this place and the need to stay close to the temple area caused them to develop everything. On page 2 is an interesting note about "sky burials" where the dead were fed to carrion birds. The part on page 3 about the timeline for archaeological sites discovered before this one and the ones that come after it, and how this one particularly stands out as ahead of the curve is quite interesting. Also the site was intentionally buried at some point--shades of the Exorcist prequel.

February 9, 2009

• Parapsychology's greatest strength is its grounding in science and the continuance of a healthy amount of scepticism. This requires gathering all of the evidence to discount what can be explained until only the paranormal remains. This investigation of making a haunted house with no haunting is a great example of dealing with the explainable. When the methods used here are stripped away from investigations at the scene then there is something to truly work with. From a writer's standpoint much greater reality can be given to haunted house story, or the science used here can be turned to some excellent fictional chicanery.

• This is an interesting set of sites. I can't say that I agree with them being the top five most haunted, but perhaps that's only a difference of knowledge and there are histories to back it up. Number 5 happens to have an insert to one of the strangest haunted houses, The Winchester Mystery House. It also doesn't connect the history of the hanging with any of the ghosts. Number 4 with the faces isn't much of a haunting but could be put to good fodder use. The number 1 haunted house may actually be so, it does have a lot of stories.

December 1, 2009

• Atlantis is one of those myths that really has staying power. That there is finally a real if less than stupendous discovery of the truth is more of a relief than a let down. It's still archaeologically fascinating and the people studying this sunken city are certainly excited by what they've found. The non-presence of fantastic achievements and super inventions or powers does not take away from the mystery of what the people were like in such an old recorded city or the creeping horror of losing their home to the waves.

Strange phenomena, especially of the UFO variety, real or not, seems to be as commonplace in Russia as it is in North America. This cloud spectacular is just that, impressive, even if it is an illusion of light and location. It would make a striking display in any movie or storyline and could be indicative of the UFO itself or something that it does, including some kind of weapon.

• In what could be a scene played out in zombie film after zombie film this town has to deal with the aftermath of the power being cut in a place where perishable food is kept. This sort of thing should be commonplace whenever society falls by the way side. Food processing plants will be a terrible sources of not only smell but disease and infection run rampant. One abandoned frozen storage location multiplied many times across the country would be that much more terrible and the survivors would have quite the cleaning issue on their hands.

November 17, 2009

• What is not to like about this location? Lots of fodder to be had in places like this. It is of course very reminiscent of Centralia a.k.a. Silent Hill. It's very interesting and kind of spooky how these things burn for decades. The whole door thing adds another dimension to the story ideas that can be derived from this place.

• I asked myself is this linked article for real use in some kind of story or is it only an interesting factoid? It is true anything might spark an idea, but how would you integrate sound being more frightening with closed eyes that isn't already done? Closed eyes or darkness lets the imagination run wild when other senses are aware of stimuli. The part about the areas of the brain that are involved in the difference is interesting though, as is the idea this knowledge can be used in the treatment of disease.

• It's one thing to choose your own reality and what that entails, but what happens when someone else forces their version of the world on you, literally. Certainly there is even some horror to stepping away from the real world. While from a technical standpoint horror might come from mass enslavement and forced implants to provide the enforced augmented reality, it is the singular, more personal applications that can be the most chilling. Consider a more subtle approach such as an augmented reality haunting or constant mind warping companions. See also the TechStop™ discussion on this article.

October 25, 2009

Here are the links to the blog entries thus far. Enjoy.

October 6, 2009

Welcome to the 13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2009. Click here to see the list of all thirteen movies. Hit your local video store, snail mail rental services or legal download service and watch along. Click the cover to buy a copy from Amazon.com. Each day you can click the movie's name to read the R.G. Male's Dark Corners' blog about the movie.

September 8, 2009

• Stephen King's novel The Dark Half was many people's first introduction to the word psychopomp. Another example is in the movie The Crow. Neither of these particularly fit the archetype of the psychopomp in the different lores from around the world. That both of these examples involve animals leaves it open to a bit of a surprise to learn that many psychopomp examples from the lores are human-shaped figures. Even more interesting is that some of them are living people. {Ref#6 - Others}

• Of all the animals commonly found the owl is one shrouded in mystery and cloaked in superstition. This page delves into some of the lore about owls, the good and the bad, from different places around the world. The symbology is pretty simple, but lends itself to good use. Some of the magic surrounding them and using them is interesting. Don't forget the connection to witches--like so many other things.

• This one needs a little background. Searching for "necropolis" yielded an interesting bit of trivia from Encyclopaedia Britannica, but they of course want money for you to see more than a couple of lines, which soon segues into a hit up for money, so off I went for the same information elsewhere to share. That led to this article, which briefly mentions the salient fact, that a necropolis was often situated on the road out of town--to lead angry spirits away, apparently. What this page has aside from general info on a necropolis and "grave goods"--very Egyptian sounding process of burying people with things they enjoyed--is some fascinating and gruesome information on the burial of black plague victims. The numbers were huge and the entire process was not without its own non-decaying-kind of corruption. Corpse "bearers" were a rough lot more interested in money than the danger of moving the dead from the plague. Grave robbing was common in and out of plague years, even including bodies stolen from homes, perhaps even under threat of or involving actual violence against the living. Also of note were "homicidal nurses who robbed the dying and then perished themselves", and corpse gases causing explosions. Lastly, Enon Chapel (I mistook it for at least a triple-take as Enron Chapel) had over 1000 buried in its basement as part of some scheme.

Looking for something less dark? Try our sister site "TechStop"

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