Slenderman Tales/ Open Lines

Hosted byDave Schrader

Slenderman Tales/ Open Lines

About the show

Paranormal and urban legends expert, Nick Redfern, joined Dave Schrader (email) to discuss who (or what) the horrifying creature known as the "Slenderman" might be and how its existence began on the Internet but may have turned into a thought-form that can stride out of our darkest imaginations and into reality if enough people believe in it. Redfern described the genesis of the fictional entity and how it was born from a 2009 internet contest to create the most frightening monster. Soon, the character was appearing in online forums, video games, web-based TV shows, and movies. The idea, Redfern pointed out, "caught on massively, almost immediately." Within a few years, some people (particularly children and teens) believed that the Slenderman was real, and began to act on the mythology that demanded sacrifice to the creature. In 2014, two Wisconsin girls tried to murder one of their friends in order (as they claimed) to become servants of the entity and were recently convicted of attempted murder.

Surprisingly, Redfern described earlier sightings of the same type of being going back decades before it was even conceived, and proposed that its form might be an archetypal character which tapped into our deepest fears and ideas of horrifying entities, and was already "primed in our subconscious." He also described the phenomenon of the "manifested thought form," sometimes referred to by the term "tulpa," and how there is ample anecdotal evidence for the existence of these beings. In part of the second hour, paranormal researcher Bill Murphy described experiments he has conducted in attempting to create physical manifestations by mental power alone.

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During Open Lines, David called in from Texas and told of a strange incident in a music studio where he used to work. The studio had objects that moved on their own, and even keyboard sounds showing up in recordings when they were not being played. After a night of strange happenings, he returned in the morning to find that a set of expensive guitars had been damaged with hundreds of hairline cracks across their surfaces. Simeon in Florida described a stretch of woods where he grew up that contained something that made them feel as if he was being watched. Years later, a member of his family saw "a nine-foot-tall sasquatch" in the area which "walked sideways and just disappeared" when it left.

Zack called from Florida with a story about being chased through a parking lot late at night by an "extremely tall" man who had previously stood and stared at him and his friend. When they finally reached their car to leave, the figure was nowhere to be seen. Vernon in Arizona works as a security guard late at night and described "lights turning on and off" and toilets flushing by themselves. His brother also works at the same place, and once saw a figure of a woman, who he could see through. She ran towards a cliff and disappeared. Dave in Wyoming told of an eerie encounter with what he believed was the legendary entity known as the "Banshee" which was "combing her hair down and kind of wailing a little bit."

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Last Night

Meteorite Hunting / Precognition & ESP
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Meteorite hunter Bemile Mavinga talked about his experience and his passion for finding meteorites. Followed by interdisciplinary scientist Jon Taylor who discussed his theory on precognition and ESP.

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