A friend sent me this link, thinking it was legit. It’s supposedly about someone named Tucker Darby who is investigating the story of Iowa farmer Benjamin Stove, who abandoned his family farm in 1988, leaving behind a mysterious painting of a crop circle.

I did some digging (and so have some folks on the site’s forum), and it turns out the domain is registered to GDM Studios.

GDM has links to Crispin Porter, the group responsible for such viral marketing promotions as the Subservient Chicken.

I can’t find any upcoming movies or TV shows that incorporate the idea of alien abductions and/or crop circles, so I’m not sure *what* they are trying to promote, but it’s interesting.

This sounds very similar to the M. Night Shyamalan/Sci Fi Channel mockumentary promotion for the Village. If he didn’t already do Signs I would peg this on him.

A NEW school for ghost hunters is being launched at a West Cumbrian castle reputed to be one of the country’s most haunted buildings.

Dr Jason Braithwaite wants to teach people what he says are the genuine scientific skills needed to investigate ‘haunted’ houses.

The two-day course will take place at Muncaster Castle, where there have been many reports of ghostly sightings.

Dr Braithwaite is an independent research scientist from the Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre at Birmingham University. He has been researching reasons why there have been so many ghost sightings at Muncaster Castle for nearly 15 years.

He remains sceptical that ghosts exist.

Dr Braithwaite said: “This course is for people who have an open mind; it is for those who question these experiences and really want to find out more about them from a more serious and scientific viewpoint.

The class costs 120 pounds (yes, it’s in the UK) for two days. No word if it covers – How not to wet your pants and scream like a girl if you see a ghost.

If you have not been in an alternative bookstore lately, it is possible that you have missed the news about indigo children. They represent “perhaps the most exciting, albeit odd, change in basic human nature that has ever been observed and documented,” Lee Carroll and Jan Tober write in “The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived” (Hay House). The book has sold 250,000 copies since 1999 and has spawned a cottage industry of books about indigo children.

Hay House said it has sold 500,000 books on indigo children. A documentary, “Indigo Evolution,” is scheduled to open on about 200 screens — at churches, yoga centers, college campuses and other places — on Jan. 27 (locations at www.spiritualcinemanetwork.com).

Indigo children were first described in the 1970s by a San Diego parapsychologist, Nancy Ann Tappe, who noticed the emergence of children with an indigo aura, a vibrational color she had never seen before. This color, she reasoned, coincided with a new consciousness.

In “The Indigo Children,” Carroll and Tober define the phenomenon. Indigos, they write, share traits like high IQ, acute intuition, self-confidence, resistance to authority and disruptive tendencies, which are often diagnosed as attention-deficit disorder, known as ADD, or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

“To me, these children are the answers to the prayers we all have for peace,” said Doreen Virtue, a former psychotherapist for adolescents who now writes books and lectures on indigo children. She calls the indigos a leap in human evolution. “They’re vigilant about cleaning the Earth of social ills and corruption, and increasing integrity,” Virtue said. “Other generations tried, but then they became apathetic. This generation won’t, unless we drug them into submission with Ritalin.”

Are Indigo kids here to save us or just try their parent’s patience. I don’t know, but the whole thing has a creepy Village of the Damned vibe about it.

2005 marked a historic year in cryptozoology (the study of unknown animals), highlighted by the rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, the first-ever filming of a live Giant Squid, and the discovery of homo floresiensis (a hobbit-like human population) on the island of Flores in Indonesia.

DUEL MASTERS(TM)Trading Card Game, created by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS – News), wants to make 2006 an equally stellar year for cryptozoological discoveries.

The trading card game, which features many awesome mythical creatures, is asking the public to submit personal photos that perpetuate the mystique surrounding creatures such as Bigfoot, the Yeti (aka the Abominable Snowman) and the Loch Ness Monster. It is hoped that these photos will help trained cryptozoologists finally track down some of the world’s most sought-after creatures.

The photo contest, which is sponsored by Wizards of the Coast, will award one $5,000 top prize for the photo that best perpetuates the mystique surrounding these mysterious creatures. A second prize winner will receive $2,500, and three runners-up will receive $500.

I wonder if Bigfoot would come out of hiding if I would split the $5,000 with him.

Biggie if your reading this (and I know you are) let’s make a deal. Sixty-forty sound about right? I promise the pictures will be tastefully done.

Like many human beliefs, the fear of Friday the 13th (known as paraskevidekatriaphobia) isn’t exactly grounded in scientific logic. But the really strange thing is that most of the people who believe the day is unlucky offer no explanation at all, logical or illogical. As with most superstitions, people fear Friday the 13th for its own sake, without any need for background information.

Who knew that fear of Friday the 13th was called paraskevidekatriaphobia. I may change the name of this blog to paraskevidekatriaphobia.wordpress.com. Pretty catchy ain’t it?

In general the Sci Fi channel pretty much sucks. Every time I flip to it, Stargate or one of it’s poo-poo spin-offs are on. I like the cheesy horror movies (Mansquito, anyone) but the rest of the programming is not so good.

That is except for Ghost Hunters, check your local listings.