I received an email a few days ago telling me that the latest episode of Weird NJ magazine is out. I’ve contributed to Weird NJ before—Mark Sceurman and I did an article for Issue 26 (Spring 2008, I believe) on the remains of Aleister Crowley. Legend has it that Crowley is buried in my town, Hampton, NJ. I’m sad to report that if his remains were indeed brought here and buried by Karl Germer, who had a Hampton post office box (#418, which is now used by the Hampton Water Utility), they are not buried in Hampton proper. In the newest issue, Mark contacted me again for an article on an alleged Satanic murder case in Paterson, New Jersey from 1979. One of the conspiracy theories surrounding this murder was that it was carried out by the O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis, a magical order highly influenced by Crowley). Mark wanted my input to set the record straight on that, so if you subscribe to Weird NJ (or still want to try to get a subscription), you can see that in the latest issue. Due to COVID-19, fewer issues were produced and are only available by subscription, unfortunately.
In the same Weird NJ email, Mark and Mark mentioned a reasonably new Travel Channel show called “Paranormal Caught on Camera.” Both Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran are featured on this show, which I have started binge-watching on Amazon Prime. I was interested in the episode in the Sheffield (UK) cemetery, using the Ovulus (i.e., “Ghost Box”). The investigator was freaked out by the word “Satan” from the Ovulus in response to a question. Truthfully, I’m not impressed; I have my own Ovulus that I brought into my workplace, a university campus library in New Jersey, as our building is allegedly haunted. I got the word “Satan” near the microfilm machines. I doubt Satan is hanging out there, though I imagine some students find the microfilm machines to be archaic and perhaps Satanic. Which just furthers my own magical powers, I guess, as I’ve been more of an expert than I want to be on the use of those machines.
In the first season, Episodes 5 and 6 were particularly interesting, as they talk about UFOs over Wiltshire, England, and also about an alleged video showing a fairy from Bournemouth. I can’t speak to the validity of these images—some of what I see on the show are things that I’m pretty sure have been debunked, or at least have alternate explanations. It is interesting to watch nonetheless, and I found myself thinking about my own experiences in Wiltshire, and at the Avebury stone circle in particular.
I’ve always been really drawn to Avebury and the surrounding area, and it’s where I hope to settle eventually, when I have the opportunity to move to the UK. The Avebury stone circle is older than Stonehenge. Unlike it’s more famous megalithic neighbor down the road in Amesbury, the town is built around the Avebury circle, and you can spend your time wandering among the avenue of stones. Avebury is the fictional “Milbury” in the British TV mini-series from 1977, Children of the Stones (which I highly recommend, you can find it on YouTube).
Last March I stayed at a B&B that was just 5 minutes outside the Avebury circle. From the windows of my room I could see the rolling countryside, and there was a rather interesting looking tree right outside my window. On my first night there, it was very windy and dark, but the sky was mostly clear. In the tree outside my window, two lights were moving among the tree branches—one was blue, the other was red. At first I thought I was seeing the light of aircraft in the distance through the branches, but the lights just staggered around and hovered in the branches. Occasionally the red one seemed to flare out, like it was fiery. I felt very strongly that I was looking at fairy activity, but it was hard to believe; I spent about an hour looking around the room, looking at the reflection of the smoke detector light, anything else that might explain why these mysterious bobbing lights were there. They stayed there quite a long time, and I saw them the next two nights as well. On my third night, the reddish one suddenly flared out and appeared to spin around, and I saw two saucer-like eyes that looked like pools of fire. I didn’t really have any doubt that I was looking at some kind of fire elemental at that point. The next morning, I went down to breakfast. A couple from North Carolina had arrived the night before, and were in the room next to me. We had a long, pleasant conversation. When one of the B&B owners came over to chat with us, they asked him if the B&B was haunted. He did mention that the ghost of a former owner was supposed to be about the place. Then the woman said, “Well, you have fairies—I saw them in that tree in the yard last night.” I’d said nothing to either of the owners at that point, or to the couple, but I spoke up at that point. I was glad she said it, because one never entirely knows whether they are really seeing something or if their brain or eyes are failing. Someone else saw the same thing, and interpreted it the same way without knowing my experience. So, make of that what you will.
After the first sighting, I was in the town the next day, visiting one of the metaphysical shops. I had seen the owner talking with the B&B owners the day I arrived, as she was hoping to use their back fields for an event, something fairy-related if I recall. I said to her, “Well, you picked a good spot for that.” She looked at me questioningly and said, “Why do you say that?” So, I told her what I saw. She then told me a story about the first time she was in Avebury with her boyfriend at the time, who was in the Royal Air Force. They were driving at night, and two lights came down and hovered, one on each side of the car, right outside their windows. Her boyfriend suggested that maybe it was a military experiment, though she had no idea what kind of experiment that could possibly be. Whether that was fairy activity, UFO activity, or something else—who knows. But these things are apparently common in the countryside around Somerset and Wiltshire, and there are no reports of phenomena in that area that surprise me.
I’m not big on the whole “UFO” thing to be honest; however, I have one more story to tell. In July 1994, my parents had rented a house in Ocean Beach on the Jersey Shore, something our family did for years. My father was in the Air Force during the Korean War, and he had a fondness for watching planes and other aircraft using his binoculars when we were at the beach. He was doing this at sunset, watching what looked like a single light from a plane overhead, or perhaps some visible planet. He then motioned for to me to come over, and handed me the binoculars. He pointed to the light in the sky. “Take a look at that,” he said. “Tell me what you think that is.” So, I looked—and it was a weird cigar-shaped craft, all silver, just hovering in that spot. It had the shape and features of your typically reported UFO, and I was extremely surprised, as I was definitely not a believer in such things. I told him what I saw, and asked him what he thought. “I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s certainly interesting.”
I have other similar stories, which I may share at another time. In the meantime—there will be a lot of new stuff coming to Chthonia by the end of May, so please stay tuned! And if you are interested in New Jersey folklore and weirdness, consider subscribing to Weird NJ magazine.