A few guidelines before we start:

1) Yes, we understand that by traveling through the space you are inherently traveling through time–don’t get stuck up on the semantics.
2) In both cases, you are restricted to a normal human lifespan…unless of course you merge with the AI overlords or charm the alien gods at the heart of a distant galaxy.
3) If you pick time travel, you will be Earth-bound. This means if you travel to the future and die in an asteroid apocalypse, well, you’re screwed. It also means you may be able to live in virtual environments in which travels through space are perfectly simulated.
4) If you pick space travel, you get to bring a couple friends. But you CAN’T return to Earth–ever! And if you fly straight into a black hole you’re, well, screwed. Also assume you will have the right exoskeleton/spacesuit necessary to withstand another planet’s atmospheric and gravitational peculiarities.
5) If you pick space travel you can assume light speed travel and wormholes to other galaxies, though these wormholes will be hard to find. In other words, you will spend a lot of time flying through the emptiness of space but will see thousands of cosmic treasures and visit thousands of planets…and if you find the wormholes you might well be able to galaxy-crawl across the universe.
6) In the case of time travel, assume you will be able to observe the past and future and interact marginally with the people and objects there. Assume the integrity of the space-time continuum prevents you from paradox inducement. No, if you time travel to the future when humans all live off-world–guess what, you can’t go…how about them apples?

Alright, so time travel vs space travel. Let’s weigh the pros of each….

Time Travel

Few people could deny that witnessing the entire history of Earth firsthand would be one of the most incredible things ever. And, yes, while the past is a barbaric, more difficult place, imagine having at your disposal the knowledge of the future and the resulting wealth and accessories you would be able to utilize.

Nor could one deny how tantalizing a prospect it is to imagine seeing the distant future. Let’s imagine a hypothetical morning itinerary: you wake up at dawn and watch the sun rise over the best views Pangea had to offer; breakfast in 19th century France, then a boundless morning jog over Mount Everest via an altitude/terrain-defying exoskeleton procured from the future; quick mid-morning nap in a future sensory deprivation/virtual reality machine; lunch over-looking Monet’s lily pads….

Other pros:

~Three words: Roman orgy feast
~Hang out with robots in the future
~Instagram dinosaurs
~Sample the very best of advanced virtual reality later this century–travel through simulated space in the comfort of your own dream-space…
~Attend a Gatsby-like roaring 20s gala
~Get an exoskeleton from the future and dominate the Olympics
~Make a fortune off the stock market and live like royalty in any time period you want
~Discover the truth behind history’s greatest mysteries: Jesus, the Great Pyramids, 80s dance clubs…
~Overhead view of epic medieval battles
~Gather some facts from the future and then come back and blow minds with your psychic abilities
~60s LSD

But remember, you could also die in the plague, or be burned as a witch (especially with your inherent arrogant powers of prophecy and your futuristic tools), or be imprisoned for life for heresy.

Space travel

You have selected option 2: exploring the universe. You will be afforded the very best starship, plucked right from the minds of Einstein, Carl Sagan, and Stephen Hawking. This ship will act as a kind of mentor/supercomputer, guiding you among the stars with as much precision as possible. You have a couple friends with you and together you will explore the cosmos for as long as your bodies can hold up.

Pros:

~Ice fishing on Europa
~Scope a Supernova explosion…from a safe distance
~Watch a Magnetar, dying star heavier than the sun, collapse into a lump of matter just a dozen miles in diameter
~Visit 164,250 planets (90 years, hitting 5 planets a day; bear in mind that’s including a bunch of crazy sunsets)
~Traveling at light speed, for God’s sake
~Traveling through a wormhole–think Jodie Foster in Contact
~Meeting and joining an advanced alien race
~Populating other Earth-like planets with your spawn (remember, you brought friends); leave a kind of Bible buried somewhere so that future generations will worship you as a God
~Swan diving into a black hole

But remember, you could also be smashed and killed by meteor, or eaten by the aforementioned aliens, or simply freak out and kill your passengers and then go mad from loneliness and die screaming in the emptiness of space.

Alright, which is it going to be: time travel or space travel? Before you make your decision, take a look at a slightly more in depth comparison above…

40) Dance of the dead

We went into this film not expecting much and were pleasantly surprised. Dance of the Dead is a nice combination of low budget horror and teen angst comedy. Just think of John Hughes mixed with Return of the Living Dead. Although the film has its flaws–as virtually all zombie movies do–it’s non-stop fun.

39) Nightmare City

There are brilliant zombie films (Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later), and then there are zombie films that are so cheesy and ridiculous that you can’t help but love them. This film is one of the latter. Nightmare City, which was Eli Roth’s inspiration for Planet Terror, has to be one of the cheesiest movies ever made. Yet somehow, it is every bit as entertaining as anything that Romero ever directed. The best part is: the zombies in this movie are radioactive, which means they are capable of piloting planes and wielding weapons of mass destruction. Sound familiar? Nightmare City has to be seen to be believed. If you’re a zombie gorehound who who appreciates campy horror movies that transcend bad…order yourself a pizza, pop open a cold brew, and press play.

38) The Horde

Influenced by the gritty crime movies of the 70s, this French zombie gore-fest doesn’t let up from the moment the film begins. Unfortunately, due to the unappealing characters, an underdeveloped storyline, and the “let’s get out of the building” plot, this film is a far cry from a classic horror film. But if you love zombie-mayhem and violent action packed gore this film will make a perfect Friday night viewing for any hardcore zombie fan.

37) PontyPool

This Canadian zombie flick takes place in a small radio station during a snow storm. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the radio studio is where this film builds its psychological creepiness. The true horror comes from what we hear and not what we see. The plot revolves around the idea that words can travel like a virus into our subconscious (memes anyone?) and turn people into zombies. Many people will be disappointed by this movie because there is very little zombie action until the last 20 minutes. If you want an apocalyptic zombie movie with desperate survivors fighting off hordes of the undead, this may not be the best zombie movie for you. But it’s still a cool watch.

36) Let Sleeping Corpses Lie

One of the better zombies shockers of the 70s, this artfully made zombie movie fills in the missing link of the early Romero films and the Italian zombie movies that would later come. Although the majority of this film may be too slowly paced for the average film viewer, there are some nice payoffs at the 50 minute mark of the movie. We think we counted maybe 10 zombies in the entire movie. That being said, these are some seriously sinister zombies.

35) Dog House

For fans of Shaun of the Dead comes the outrageous and inventive zombie comedy Doghouse. First off, this film is by no means a masterpiece. But it’s definitely one of the most enthusiastically hilarious zombie gore movies we’ve ever seen. The plot is as simple as it gets: a group of immature men leave town for a crazy weekend of boozing and womanizing — but when they show up at their intended destination, it becomes clear that a horde of zombies are on the loose. Unfortunately for the boys, these zombies turn out to be man-hating feminist zombies intent on killing all men. This movie is perfect for a boys night. In other words, your girlfriend will most likely hate this movie. FYI, this movie is much better than the Lesbian Vampire Killers.

34) White Zombie

White Zombie is generally believed to be the first Hollywood picture that featured zombies. It’s not a horror film by today’s standards but more of a dark atmospheric visual poem about the consequences of obsession. The film has a surreal, gothic, and other-worldly tone to it. If you’re a fan of the original Universal monster movies than you’ll find that White Zombie fits in nicely with the classics. Plus, Bela Lugosi is absolutely mesmerizing as the Haitian voodoo master who brainwashes hoards of zombies to assist his sinister deeds. This movie is not for the average film viewer but for true horror fans who are interested in the history of horror cinema.

33) The Dead (2010)

The Dead is a refreshing tribute to the early Romero films, building suspense and atmosphere rather than overusing the shaky cam gimmick and CGI gore that we have grown so accustomed to. It doesn’t offer anything new to the genre but its cinematography is absolutely breathtaking. And despite its low budget, the effects are incredibly well done. Filmed in West Africa, this superbly crafted film uses bleak and desolate settings to portray the dread and fear of the zombie apocalypse.

32) The Beyond

Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond has amassed a large cult following over the years. Many hardcore horror fans believe it to be one of the best Italian horror films ever released. The story takes place in an old New Orleans hotel built upon one of the seven gateways to hell. Unfortunately, the gateway is accidentally opened by a plumber, who unwittingly unleashes a sinister force. If you have the patience for it this movie will stay with you long after the credits roll. The Beyond is a supernatural nightmare with plenty of retro-styled gore and zombies to make most hardcore horror fan smile.

31) Dead and Buried

This underrated 80s horror gem mixes zombies, witchcraft, and murder mystery all into one movie. The story revolves around a string of grisly murders in the small town of Porters Bluff, where the victims are mysteriously coming back to life. Without giving away too much of the plot, Dead & Buried is one creepy film viewing experience–haunting, imaginative, and highly recommended if you enjoy 80s horror movies!

30) Night of the Comet

Another excellent cult classic zombie gem is Night of the Comet. We’re not sure we’ve seen another movie that encapsulates Reagan era nostalgia. This movie is a must see. Let’s put it this way, you’ve got zombies, a cheerleader, some Uzis, a shopping mall, and evil scientists–what more could you ask for? If you’re seeking an brilliantly 80s cheesy zombie romp this Bud’s for you.

29) Night of the creeps

This certifiable zombie classic pays homage to the B-horror movies from the 1950s atomic age. Low-budget and highly entertaining, this film effortlessly throws in aliens, axe-wielding murderers, flesh-eating zombies, nudity, drunken frat boys, and rolls them all into a campy horror movie burrito. There’s plenty of witty one-liners and references to dozens of other horror movies sprinkled into the mix as well. So tip yours hats to one of the funniest, most entertaining B-flicks of the 80s and prepare yourself to enter horror movie nerd-vanna.

28) Night of Living Dead Remake

Yes, this is how remakes should be done, thoughtfully re-imagined and done with the highest respect to the original. Directed by special effects wizard Tom Savini, the horror genius responsible for the zombie effects in Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Savini does a respectable job of bringing Romero’s masterpiece to life and adds enough new twists and turns to make the movie worth watching. Our only real complaint is that although the film is sharp and suspenseful, it fails to be truly scary. That being said, there’s plenty here to whet the appetite of any zombie lover.

27) Dead Snow

This Norwegian Nazi-zombie effort became a cult classic sensation after it was released on DVD and you can currently stream it on Netflix’s Instant Watch. Dead Snow tells the story of a group of Norwegian medical students who head into the mountains for a winter holiday. After only a short while, an evil Nazi zombie curse is unleashed and all hell breaks loose. Dead Snow doesn’t bring anything new to the table but it’s wickedly funny, outrageously gory, and it offers all the over-the-top zombie mayhem you could ask for. There’s even a few scares thrown into the mix for good measure. Highly recommended for any fan of the zomcom genre.

26) Resident evil

If you’re looking for highly stylized zombie mayhem, in-your-face scares, gory animatronics, a good workout for your home stereo system, and model Milla Jovovich in a torn mini-skirt drop kicking zombie dogs…well friends, look no further than the first Resident Evil! Yes, it’s derivative, mindless, and kind of cheesy, but it’s also incredibly entertaining.

25) The Serpent and the rainbow

Horror master Wes Craven departed from the slasher genre in the 80s to bring us this creepy thriller zombie movie, which was filmed on location in Haiti. The movie was inspired by a book by Wade Davis, “a Harvard scientist who investigated the voodoo society of Haiti and identified two of the drugs used for “zombification” – drugs that lower the metabolic rate of their victims so much that they appear dead, and are buried, only to be dug up later and revived.” Craven’s depictions of the Haitian voodoo rituals are bone chilling. In one of the film’s scariest scenes, Bill Pullman’s character is drugged and then buried alive with a tarantula. The Serpent and the Rainbow is a superbly crafted horror film, both eerily atmospheric and visually stunning. It’s a must-see for Wes Craven fans and zombie hounds alike.

24) Zombi

Lucio Fulci’s Zombi is an over the top gorefest that has amassed a huge cult following among zombie fans over the years. Featuring some of the most gruesome looking zombies ever to be seen on film and plenty of memorable scenes to boot (including the infamous splinter in the eye scene and the beautifully shot but ridiculous battle between a shark and a zombie). Sure the plot is horrendous and the acting is cheesy, but but for fans of cheap Italian gore films this is a dream come true.

23) Blood Creek

Blood Creek is a top-notch zombie-esque horror film that has inexplicably gone completely under-the-radar. Slickly shot, creepy, and highly entertaining. There’s even a zombie horse in the movie–yes, a zombie horse that pulls a victim through a window with its zombie horse teeth. Directed by Joel Schumacher (The Lost Boys, Flatliners), this movie tells the story of two brothers who fight for their lives on a remote farm against a satanic Nazi-zombie. In a nutshell, Blood Creek is a solid B-horror movie that moves at breakneck pace, providing wall to wall horror action. There’s also some legit scares in it that will please even the most rock-steady horror fans.

22) Day of the dead

The third and final entry into Romero’s “dead series” has aged remarkably well compared to other zombie movies from the 80s. Although it’s a little too bleak and depressing for our taste, it has enough scares, stunning zombie effects, and thought provoking social commentary to make it a minor classic.

21) Flight Of the Living Dead

This straight to video oddity is an instant classic that is beyond entertaining. The set up for the plot is along the same lines as Snakes on a Plane. A bunch of passengers in the air don’t realize that below the plane, there’s “special cargo” that is being shipped with a zombie in it. During the flight the zombie runs amok and the undead infection spreads. Simply put, this film rocks! My hat goes off to whoever green lighted this gem of a zombie movie. In an industry full of cheaply made cash-in zombie flicks, Flight of the Living Dead is one of the most entertaining zomcoms out there. As zombie aficionados, we highly recommend this film.

If you were to compare one extreme (a masterwork of subtlety and nuance) to another (an abomination of special effects and sound effects used to assault the senses), I’d choose The Haunting. For both. The Haunting (1963) is in no hurry to divulge any of its macabre secrets and takes great pleasure in exploring the ambiguity of its horrors. The Haunting (1999) quickly flies off the rails at breakneck speed and throws in a ludicrous plot and scheme involving an evil entity that must collect souls. One is a prideful work of darkness and mystery; the other is an awesome failure that’s as funny as some of the best comedies without meaning to be.

The Changeling (1980) is a great movie. It’s surprising to me with the many lists put out each year about the greatest horror movies or the greatest specific sub-genre of horror, it’s rarely ever mentioned. Martin Scorsese did put it on his list of the 11 Scariest Movies, but outside of his recommendation and a loving cult viewership online, it’s largely unknown by mainstream audiences.

The Changeling should be held in high regard among other classics of the genre, along titles such as, say, Poltergeist or The Sixth Sense or The Haunting (1963, of course). It has influenced numerous contemporary horror films such as Insidious with its nail-biting séance sequence that, if not influenced directly, must have been a subconscious shout-out, and Alejandro Amenábar directly cited The Changeling as an inspiration for The Others.

On Roger Ebert’s audio commentary for Dark City, he—paraphrasing a similar statement from Howard Hawks—defines a “great film” in simple terms. A great film has three great scenes, and no bad ones. When thinking of any movie you consider to be great or one of your personal favorites, you’ll easily be able to think of three absolutely, pitch-perfect scenes… and no bad scenes. The Changeling’s three great scenes are: the chilling opening, the scene where our hero discovers the hidden room, and the oft-copied séance scene.

Like all great gothic melodramas, The Changeling begins with tragedy. The word “melodrama” seems to rub people the wrong way, as if it’s an inherent statement on an overwrought story with cheesy inspirations. A melodrama is only a genre that utilizes exaggerated plot developments in order to explore themes and emotions. “Melodramatic” is often a denotative statement used to decry a story, but many stories are both masterpieces and melodramas—Guillermo del Toro is a master of modern melodrama.

John Russell, played magnificently by George C. Scott, is with his wife and daughter in upstate New York when their car breaks down. The movie begins with them pushing the vehicle to safety off the side of the road. As he goes to use a telephone to call for assistance, a semi-truck, spooked by another car swerving for control on the icy roads, comes barreling down on his wife and daughter who are making snow angels by the broken down vehicle, and kills them instantly. John is trapped inside the payphone, helplessly watching his entire family destroyed in the blink of an eye.

Many movies have opened similarly, but this movie does something to really put you ill-at-ease as you watch the goings on. It is absolutely terrifying. The direction, editing and acting all work together to create a scene that is just heart-wrenching. It defines the actions that follow later and you can’t help but call back to it and remember it whenever the character of John Russell makes a decision. The scene lasts only a few minutes on the screen but makes a lasting effect.

George C. Scott, who won his much deserved Oscar for Patton had been sometimes criticized for accepting roles that are much in line for what made him famous in the first place and actively worked as a self-parody, similar to Robert Stack or Adam West. When you look at his performances in Doctor Strangelove and in this, you begin to appreciate his effortless range. In one scene in the movie, after he seemingly comes to terms with the tragedy he survived, he awakes early in the morning and begins to cry deep, mourning sobs. In that moment, I was drawn to the plot and immediately forgot that I was watching a performance. It played out so naturally and realistically, it felt like I was a fly on the wall, watching a heartbroken man try to make sense of his life.

John Russell, in the aftermath of what had happened to his wife and daughter, relocates to Seattle. As a professor of advanced musical theory, he begins teaching a class at the local university and begins composing music as a means of coping. In need of living in a place of his own, he settles on an historical house in town that is quite possibly the most haunted-looking house on the market. It is a large mansion that has been unoccupied for 12 years. His purchase seemed to make sense on a symbolic level, something that could provide him with housing, a comfortable bed but still allow him to continue to be lonely in such a large, empty space.

Once there, within days, he begins to realize that he is sharing his abode with the spirit of a soul who had been tragically killed. What I liked best about his investigation is that he researches the house and finds out that the child of a previous occupant had died in a freak accident. He accepts this to be the soul that is haunting the house, but as the plot moves along, his initial suspicion is proved to be incorrect. In most movies, when the main character makes a discovery, that had to be the one, absolute truth… because the main character discovered it. How can it be wrong? In a twist and subversion of story development, John’s theory is proven to be incorrect and we discover the truth, the real meaning of the titular changeling.

How does a movie manage the ever-mounting scares of a ghost story without becoming a ridiculous spectacle? It needs a plot to match. A horror movie’s scares are only as good as its plot. The scares in The Changeling remain subtle throughout. It never really attempts to out-do itself. It’s confidently helmed by Peter Medak, a director with a solid career, consisting of some 60 movies and television episodes, but never has he been as on-point as with this film. The Changeling is surely his masterpiece. I want to write, in detail, about the expertly crafted scares because they were phenomenal, but I want to entice anyone and everyone to see this movie.

At one point, John cries out to the house, “You goddamn son of a bitch. What is it you want?” and we begin to realize the motivation of the spirit. It’s revenge. Without ever having to say directly so to the audience, we realize that the vengeful spirit is a childish one, because it died when it was a child for selfish purposes. Aside from a few brief glimpses, we never see it, but we know that it scorned and it is selfish because it’s the ghost of a little boy.

The movie is not without its faults. In one scene in particular, in a mostly devoid-of-bloodshed chiller, the spirit of the mansion may have, though not explicitly (but heavily insinuated), kills a problem-character to the plot who might bring down or add conflict the story. The resolution felt rushed. It felt out of place. In the scene where John first witnesses, first hand, the spooky specter he’s housemates with reflected in a bathtub filled with water, the scenes cuts to him calmly explaining his situation the following morning. Had I been the main character, the scene would have cut to me, thousands of miles away in a hotel room, with a squirt gun filled with holy water under my pillow.

The ending, too, felt out of place. In such a sure and confident movie, the destructive finale seemed like it would have benefitted a dumber, blunter plot. Here, it seemed like maybe it was studio interference wanting some fireworks at the end to wake up anyone who didn’t want to follow along with the serpentine plot and fell asleep. As much as I wished the ending had been subtler, the last shot before the final credit crawl is amazing.

The Changeling may be a good way to fill the void until The Conjuring is released this summer. Both are movies that have been Rated R by the MPAA without featuring any gore, nudity or foul language, but restricted to a mature audience for simply being too scary. The Changeling is mostly free of bloodshed, has only limited swearing (no F-words, S-words) and no sexuality whatsoever. If rated today, I imagine it would secure a PG-13 rating.

Guest post by Billy Russell

Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym tells the tale of four shipwreck survivors who are stranded at sea and finally decide to kill and eat the cabin boy, named Richard Parker.

A few years later, in 1884, a real ship by the name of the Mignonette experienced the same fate: the officers on board, starving to death and losing their minds, killed and ate the cabin boy, who’s actual name was….wait for it…Richard Parker.

You Will Die By This Bullet

In 1883, Henry Ziegland broke off his relationship to a longtime girlfriend who then killed herself in sorrow. The woman’s brother devoted his life to hunting Ziegland down and murdering him. And he did so, shooting Ziegland before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide. But Ziegland was not dead; the bullet had grazed his face and then lodged itself into a tree, leaving Henry injured but alive.

Years later, Ziegland decided to cut down the very same tree that had the bullet lodged in it. But when the trunk proved too bulky for his landscaping capabilities, Ziegland used dynamite. The blast sent the bullet air-born once more and, as fate would decree, straight into Henry’s head. This time it stuck.

JFK predicted his own death

You could fill a library with all of the conspiracies, anomalies and coincidences swirling around the date of November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But this is not about the Lone Gunmen theory or the grassy knoll. Rather, this coincidence concerns something you may have never heard of: the fact that JFK actually predicted his own death, hours before it happened.

While reassuring wife Jacqueline Kennedy, who was severely disturbed by a funereal anti-Kennedy ad posted in the Dallas Morning News, John reportedly said: “Jackie, if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?”

If that’s not enough, read the list of similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy. Brace your head for some spinning.

The Curse of James Dean’s car

Forever cementing the phrase “It’s better to burn out than fade away” into the pantheon of American counterculture, James Dean died in 1955 when his Porsche sports car crashed virtually head-on into a Turnipseed Ford at speeds of 70-75 mph. What you might not have heard is the strange epilogue of death that haunted his car afterwards.

When the car was towed away from accident scene, the engine slipped out and shattered a mechanic’s legs. Later, the engine was bought by a doctor, who used it in his own racing car. This doctor was killed in a racing accident shortly thereafter. Another racing driver was killed in his car during that same race; his car happened to be fitted with James Dean’s driveshaft. The garage that housed James Dean’s Porsche while it was repaired was destroyed in a fire and, while on display in Sacramento, the car fell off its mount and shattered a kid’s hip.

Mark Twain and Halley’s Comet

Celebrated satirist and author Mark Twain was born in 1835 on the day of the appearance of Halley’s Comet. In 1909, Twin predicted he would die the day the comet returned, and he did. Perhaps Twain, knowing he was near death, pushed himself along so that his demise would coincide so fantastically with Halley’s arrival. Or, perhaps his fate was irrevocably linked with a rock hurtling through space.

Lightning Strikes…Four Times

In 1918, a bolt of lightning struck the battlefield of Flanders, knocking British officer Major Summerford off his horse and paralyzing him from the waist down. Six years later, a retired Summerford was fishing alongside a river when another lightning bolt struck a nearby tree. The tree landed on him, severely injuring him once again. Two years later, when Summerford had finally recovered from his injuries and could walk, he took a stroll in a park, where he was struck once more by a lightning bolt. This time, he was permanently paralyzed. Summerford died two years later.

End of crazy story right? Wrong! Four years later, a lightning bolt struck the cemetery where Summerford was buried, destroying a single tombstone: that’s right, Summerford’s.

The Dark Knight and Domestic Terrorism

In 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside an Aurora movie theater during the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. The shooter, James Holmes, who believed he was the Joker character from the Batman series, armed himself in tactical gear and killed 12 people before surrendering to police. Five months later another shooter, Adam Lanza, killed 26 people, including 20 children, at the Sandy Hook elementary school. On April 15, 2013, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev detonated two bombs at the Boston marathon, killing 3 and wounding 264.

The coincidence? The Dark Knight Rises contains a shot of a map featuring Sandy Hook. And the Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar…his name is pronounced Jo-kar, or Joker.

9/11, the Simpsons, and Predictive Programming

Above is the original cover for a Coup album, designed in June of 2001.

Like the JFK assassination, the events of 9/11 are festooned with eerie coincidences and anomalies, enough to make any conspiracy theorist feel like he’s losing his mind. And he probably is. But what many people don’t know is that some of the strangest 9/11 symbolism took place before the attack ever occurred, in the form of coincidental media images that seemed to prophesize the biggest terrorist attack on American soil.

Is it sheer coincidence, or evidence of predictive programming? Perhaps it goes even further: what if the secret cabals that plan these events communicate to one another through the media, planting details of false flag attacks and other conspiracies right under our noses.

Got some coincidences creepier than these? What about the psychic that predicted John Lennon’s death or the novel that foresaw that sinking of the Titanic? Personal, historical, conspiratorial, controversial–we’d love to hear about it.

Sheer coincidence, synchronicity of evil, predictive programming, or all of the above…?

In the last decade, there has been a stunning number of claims of reincarnated children–or, children whose demonstrably arcane powers of recollection suggest past lives. One of the most notable cases of a ‘reincarnated child’ is that of James Leininger, whose mind-blowing story exploded onto the scene in 2005.

James Leininger loved toy planes. In fact, according to his parents, Bruce and Andrea, James was obsessed with planes and frequently performed creative diagnostic inspections on his toys, using terminology he couldn’t possibly have absorbed in any kind of formal educational context. This terminology included seemingly random references to his plane’s auxiliary fuel drop tank.

At the age of five, James began having nightmares. Vivid nightmares of a fighter plane going down in flames. On more than one occasion, he woke up screaming from these nightmares. When his mom asked him what he had seen, he replied: “Airplane crash on fire, little man can’t get out.” James began to draw these images in crayon, signing them ‘James 3′. They depicted a World War 2 plane consumed by fire, hurtling toward the ocean.

James’ father Bruce became disturbed by his son’s illustrations and began to research. Because, you see, James was having more than just nightmares: he was recalling specific information from events that occurred approximately six decades earlier. He knew the type of plane: a Corsaire. He knew the warship his plane took off from: the Natoma.

And James even seemed to know the name of his co-pilot: Jack Larson. In his research, Bruce learned that there had indeed been a Natoma warship in WW2; there had also been a pilot by the name of Jack Larson, a friend of James M. Huston Jr., who was a pilot killed at Iwo Jima when enemy fire detonated his plane’s drop tank.

Fighter pilot James’ code name was ‘Little Man’.

This is just one of thousands of stories of children who seem to be able to recall specific memories from past lives. Another story, featured on the show Extraordinary People, introduces us to Cameron Macauley, who, from the age of two, has talked at length about his life on the island of Barra. Cameron lives with his mum, Norma, in Glasgow. They have never been to Barra.

On a daily basis Cameron recounts the minute details of his alter-ego past life in Barra: his house, his brothers and sisters, his dog, his mum and dad. He misses his family there, his life in Barra, his old identity….

Other stories involve kids who recall specific events and impressions from the point of view of firefighters who rushed into the burning World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. One story comes from a confounded mom, who says her four year old believes he is a firefighter. Though she claims her son has never been exposed to the images of 9/11, he speaks of planes crashing into buildings and people jumping to their deaths.

Another mother, who was featured on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, claims her son, who was only a year and a half at the time and had only just begun speaking, recalled specific memories of rescuing people from buildings. He also told his mom that he had picked her to be his mom.

One of the most chilling of these 9/11 stories came from a mom whose son claims he was a businessman in New York City on the day the towers collapsed. One day, the kid saw a photo of the WTC towers in a National Geographic and excitedly pointed to a window, exclaiming, “That’s where I used to work!” The kid went on to recall the feel of the building falling and then being buried in rock and rubble. He says he is still buried there.

So what are we to make of this? Are these kids truly reincarnated souls remembering their past lives? Or have certain pictures, videos and facts somehow slipped into their minds from the media or the Internet? Perhaps there is a middle ground, a subconscious human repository of ideas and images, a flowing river of collective archetypes that deposits our minds into an ocean of shared experience?

Carol Bowman, past life therapist and researcher, has been studying the phenomenon of reincarnated children and past life regression for decades and says reconciling past lives can lead to profound psychological benefits. Past life memories, which she calls “the autobiography of the soul”, are particularly strong in children, who do not have the mediating bells and whistles that restrict adults from understanding the eternal energy that binds all things.

Perhaps this is why a child who was consoling his mother in the hospital, once said: “Honey, I’ve been around this earth at least 189 times now and you know what? It’s always OK in the end.” Of course, that kid could have also just been trying to horribly freak his mom out. Kids are honest…they are also very weird.

If, like us, you can’t get enough of this subject, you may be happy to know that a reality TV show on the subject of reincarnated children is slated to air on the Bio Channel later this year. Surely this venerable piece of programming, titled “Ghost Inside My Child,” won’t be cheesy or exploitative.

The following post was submitted to us by a Ghost Diaries reader. It concerns an experience with a possible shapeshifter.

“I am now 56 years old and living in British Columbia Canada. About 30 years ago I was coming home from work…as a welder…during the summer. It was a lovely clear peaceful bright summers evening downtown and I was standing waiting for my bus to take me home. It would have been about 5—6:00pm and the streets of Aberdeen Scotland were busy with people moving around and going home. I am originally from Glasgow but so many of us in those days were lured by oil and offshore rig romance.

“I watched as it finally turned a corner and only then could I move again. I did tell some people close to me at the time…of course there was some ridicule but nothing serious and for whatever reasons that day just hid away in the back of my mind. Just lately, in the past two years, I have been relating my experience. It is still as clear today as it was then.

“Wondering if anyone else may have had the same or similar happening. I am just a hardworking bloke…older and looking forward to a peaceful retirement…but…some things need to be shared. Thank you for your time spent on this regardless..”

Thanks for sharing! It sounds as if the entity was shocked at having been discovered and was forced to use some kind of power on you while he made his getaway.

Has anyone else had an experience like this?

My theory is that we go to the movies to see all of our emotions on display, not just the good ones. We go to the movies to laugh. We go to the movies to cry. We go to the movies to see what wonders await us in an amazing, fictional future. We also go to the movies to movies to scream our stupid heads off.

Whatever it is that scares us is hard to peg. It could, literally, be something as benign as a pen falling off a table when we’re watching an episode “I Love Lucy,” or a creak in the house while you’re thinking of someone you knew who’s dearly departed. You could wake up in the middle of the night and see something you could never rationally explain but hold dear to your heart to be true.

Most of all, what scares us is that one day we will be dead. What’s more, there is burning fear that something can take that life from us and have no regard for how precious and rare it is.

Citadel introduces fear itself as a character early on. Aneurin Barnard, who plays Tommy, is an agoraphobic. Going outside is a terrifying, Sisyphean ordeal for him. His fear is made to be our fear. Whenever he goes outside, the blinding light of the outside world is too much to manage and the director’s camera captures it as this barely conceivable white mash of mystery.

Our fear, as a viewer at the movies, has always been dependent on the director and we rely on their manipulation. We relate to the character better when he or she is afraid of something threatening but ultimately conquerable: James Stewart was afraid of heights in Vertigo, and Roy Scheider was afraid of open water in Jaws. Aneurin Barnard, in this film, is afraid of the wide open spaces you see when you step outside.

The first half of Citadel is handled expertly, helmed by a director with a sure hand who wants to manipulate an audience and watch them squirm and scream.

The second half of the movie is less sure and resorts to something of an action movie. The second half would have worked far better as another movie entirely. It was scary and well-made, but it didn’t seem to work as well within the movie following the build-up that the first half gave to us. It reminded me of the build-up and follow-up in the movie Jaws. The first half of Jaws is about a beach community being terrorized by an insatiably hungry shark; the second half is about the men who intend to kill it. Citadel seems to follow a similar formula but it’s not as successful and, instead, seems like two different movies that don’t quite work together as well as they should.

Citadel is a well-acted movie with interesting ideas about what fear means. The director, Ciaran Foy, employs a lot of neat visual techniques in the movie to help put us in Tommy’s head. In some scenes, the movie substitutes claustrophobia for agoraphobia because I think it may be a phobia that is easier to capture on film and portray to an audience, and also because it seems to be appropriately suffocating for the hero of the story.

Among some of the fearful themes explored in the movie were a fear of a public menace and the fear of newly being a father (a single father at that). The movie balances the fear one might experience in trying to keep their head above water and being so afraid of failing because so much—a life—is at stake. The agoraphobic fear of a cruel and indifferent society is a scary one, because it is absolutely something that you can’t control. Whether or not it’s based in fact, or whether it’s been proven to be real or disproven as an urban legend, there is always the underlying fear that the seat you’re sitting down on might have a syringe stuffed inside and loaded with a virus. There’s the fear that this Chuck-E-Cheese ball pit might have a razor blade in it. There’s the fear that someone could just kill you for no other reason than they just can. Irrational or not, what’s scary is our inability to control the external world.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, because most of the fun of Citadel comes from watching the story unfold and the genuine surprises it contains. I will say that it is a story about a man with a crippling fear of the outside and is also crippled emotionally by what he perceives as being his failure to stop his wife’s murder by a gang of feral children. The build-up and mounting tension to the climax is excellent, but I wish that the climax hadn’t been so… well, anti-climactic. It seemed a little standard, a little uninspired, a bit too much like an action movie finale than the horrifying, relentless one that we deserved. Rather than the action taking place in such a cramped place, I would have preferred Tommy having to brave his fear of open spaces and fighting somewhere out of his element.

Citadel is on DVD and Blu-Ray and it currently on Netflix Streaming. It is an original (a refreshing non-remake) movie with some good, solid direction and notable, strong performances. It isn’t a movie to write home about, but it’s solid.

Guest post by Billy Russell

The man went back and forth with authorities for hours, utterly confused and initially convinced that he was the victim of an elaborate practical joke. The man claimed to work for an international conglomerate that frequently did business in Japan. Yet, the hotel he was supposed to be staying in didn’t have his registration. And his passport observed citizenship to the nation of Taured. Additionally, his checkbook contained checks linked to an account with a bank that doesn’t exist.

Local law enforcement, vexed and eventually frightened by the situation, put the man up in a hotel for the night until his identity could be ascertained. The next day he was gone without a trace. Even the documents of his that had been confiscated by police were missing.

In 1919, the image of Freddy Jackson, a naval air mechanic who died two days earlier from an accident with an airplane propeller, appears to be juxtaposed next to his friend in this squadron photo.

In 1901, two female academics, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, visited the Petit Trianon gardens at the Palace of Versailles. The women became lost and soon began to notice deserted farmhouses and cottages cloaked in dreariness. “Everything suddenly looked unnatural,” Moberly later wrote. “Even the trees seemed to become flat and lifeless, like wood worked in tapestry. There were no effects of light and shade, and no wind stirred the trees.”

The women were encountered by several figures, including possibly Marie Antoinette, who were dressed in 18th century garments. Later, after comparing notes and doing historical research about the Palace as well as consulting a map of the grounds, the women wrote a book about their adventure, convinced they had experienced something paranormal.

These stories–and the countless others out there–stand as possible examples of what paranormal researchers call a ‘timeslip’. Distinct from time travel, which, at least conceptually, requires some sort of device or mechanism, timeslips are events in which a person’s or persons’ cognitive interface shifts, melds or bleeds forward or backwards in time, or switches tracks into an alternate timeline or reality. People who report timeslips often describe them as eerily subtle. Sometimes they claim to have merely observed a singular event from another time. Other times, wives, husbands, and jobs are missing from reality, replaced overnight with a subtle replacements.

There are some who claim to have physical evidence of this incredible phenomenon.

At the age of 64, Harry Ross noticed something peculiar in a family photo. Taken outside Harry’s home in Rothesay, Bute, this photo shows him, his son Andrew, 26, and granddaughters Bonnie, five, and Leah, two. It also shows a mysterious face looking through the window that Harry and his family claim is Harry 42 years earlier on his wedding day.

Other reports involve sudden juxtapositions of historical objects and even sightings of pterodacytals.

Incredibly, there are scientists who claim the concept may actually have something to it. Except they don’t call it a timeslip; they call it a multiverse jump. The multiverse is a concept that is gaining traction among some prominent physicists, who believe our universe may be just one of a near infinite number of universes, universe bubbles, which are constantly bracketing and creating new timelines and realities. Our consciousness, which exerts some level of control at the quantum level, may become involved in a theoretical state called quantum entanglement, which can cross the time barrier and actually breach the space-time continuum.

Some people believe this creates a condition in which a near infinite number of parallel timelines and universes can essentially stack on top of one another, allowing certain people at certain moments to glimpse shifts in the timelines. This concept is brilliantly explored in the 2009 science fiction mockumentary Lunopolis (from which this post’s featured image was sourced), as well as Philip K. Dick’s Martian Timeslip, Stephen King’s The Langoliers, and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

Scroll to minute 6:55 of the above video. Is the man peddling in reverse an example of a timeslip caught on film?

Even if we were able to definitively say that some sort of metaphysical slip were occurring in these instances, the next question would be what kind of slip? Are these examples of traditionally categorized timeslips, in which individuals are gleaning bits and pieces from our past or future? Or, are these reports the result of multiverse jumps, by which unsuspecting people experience quantum entanglement and actually find themselves temporarily overlapped in a different universe altogether? A third alternative would be a dimensional shift, in which a reality reset in our universe creates a condition in which a person simultaneously experiences two different timelines: our original timeline and a fractured alternate timeline similar to the one in Back to the Future 2.

This alternative, known as a dimensional shift, is claimed by many to be the result of consciousness exerting a strange form of control over reality. Some people cite 9/11 as a reality reset. This event featured a massive paradigm overhaul for literally billions of minds. Some scientists, including the ones at the PEAR consciousness anomaly research institute, claim the role of consciousness in physical reality allows for small ordered breaches in what should be random information. When compounded a billion times over simultaneously–such as in powerful global events–some fringe thinkers think quantum entanglement creates a split, derailing our timeline into one or many others.

One or several of these phenomena could help unravel a variety of mysteries, including unexplained disappearances, sightings of ghosts and other paranormal activity.

The plot of the remake is more or less familiar to the original: Five friends stay in a cabin and discover an ancient, evil book, the Naturom Demonto or, roughly translated, the Book of the Dead. Once text from the book is read aloud, one by one, the friends are possessed by evil demons and they are killed in a spectacularly gruesome fashion. Here, in the 2013 version, more backstory is dedicated to the characters. We learn that Mia is a drug addict who plans on kicking her habit cold turkey, and her friends and her brother have come along for the emotional support that she will surely need. The hell of withdrawal is only a warm-up to the real horror that awaits them.

It stands to reason that a remake or a reboot would want to differentiate itself from the original, but adding the backstory and adding a lame prologue featuring a ritual to cleanse a young girl’s soul from the Abomination’s grasp was totally unnecessary. The original realized that fear is derived from the unknown. Removing that mystery removes the essence of fear and we’re left with a scenario in which our characters will simply have to kill each other in a case of one-upmanship, where each death is more brutal and disgusting than the last. This isn’t a viable substitution for mystery and fear; this is just cheap gimmickry with gore and blood as the main ingredient.

Putting a literal face and personification to the horror only served to take a potentially interesting plot point and make it dumb. The Abomination was supposed to be a very, very serious threat. Once it has the five souls that it requires for physical manifestation, it was to be a force to be reckoned with.

But… apparently sticking a chainsaw in its face will pretty much kill it right away. The Abomination does little more than crawl around, spit out silly lines and then finally die when Mia takes it on, face to face. It really doesn’t put up too much of a fight. Mia loses her hand when the Abomination uses its brute strength to overturn a Jeep on top of her, but that seemed more like the job of the Jeep than anything else.

Evil Dead, the 2013 version, wants to be as serious and terrifying as the original was, but seems to borrow a lot of the sillier ideas from Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, which worked as well as a comedy as a horror movie (and it’s brilliant). Here, having the character of David pull a MacGyver is a hilarious tonal shift. The homage doesn’t work to strengthen its standing in the Wide World of Remakes because it has a love for its source material, it only works to make it unintentionally hilarious.

David, Mia’s brother, learns from the evil Book of the Dead that the Abomination will be free from his sister’s soul by doing something as simple as burying her alive. The evil entity will have no choice but to leave her be and the curse will be lifted from her and her soul will be at peace. He dresses her up in what appears to be Lydia’s dress from the Beetlejuice wedding scene and throws a CGI sandwich bag over her face and buries her alive.

Ta-da! The curse is lifted. You can tell, because a burning tree’s fire is immediately extinguished. David digs her up and stabs her in the heart with two syringes (or were they meat injectors?) rigged to a battery and jump starts her heart. She is alive and curse free. But the horror isn’t over yet! Because, apparently, they needed to pad the running time.

How many doors does this cabin have? I feel like the movie features no less than 13 doors being slammed in the viewer’s face. Even the kitchen has a door. The basement has a couple, too. I never felt a single moment of genuine tension during the movie, but I did cower a few times, concerned that yet another LOUD NOISE book-ended by moments of total silence was going to be responsible for my eardrum exploding. The very effective and well-done gore had me looking away from the screen a few times. I will give credit where it’s due: The gore was very good.

In the original, there was a long, extended sequence where our hero in that film, Ash, the last survivor, begins to lose his mind and we begin to lose ours along with him. He is alone and he is being tormented. It’s this fantastic little sequence with unforgettable camerawork and totally original sound effects done to incredible effect. It is one of the best scenes in any horror film ever made. The remake can make no such boasts. The best thing the remake has going for it is that there is a dog named Grandpa, and that is an awesome name for a dog.

If your only goal this spring is to see a movie that will satisfy your bloodlust, Evil Dead is a sure thing. It is very gross and very bloody and most of the gore effects are done practically with prosthetics and make-up and are some of the best I’ve seen in a while. If you want more than that, you should probably wait.

Guest post by Billy Russell

The actual theory is more elegant than our description and is better understood reading Bostom’s original paper, which supplies the underpinning mathematical equations. Since its publication, the Simulation Theory has become a familiar muse for science fiction audiences, explored in films like The Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, Dark City, and a smattering of anime films.

For most people, it’s a titillating but ultimately incomprehensible concept, one that is so far out there, so far removed from practical reality it’s hardly even worth thinking about. But if you’re like us and you enjoy pondering the distant, the sublime, the unknown, and the incredible on a daily basis, the Simulation Theory actually offers a verdant foundation for assessing some of the more vexing questions our civilization seeks to answer.

*Whole video is cool but simulation talk doesn’t start until about halfway thru.

Glitches in the Matrix

It has been suggested that the Simulation Theory would actually help explain paranormal activity, such as ghosts, haunted houses, ESP in its myriad forms, and demons. Viewed as part of the simulation, they are simply errant pieces of code. Entities such as Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster are as real as apple pie, except that as programs they are rife with glitches.

The Simulation Theory would also explain UFOs and even the lack of UFOs. Yes, both the thing and non-thing. With UFOs, as pointed out by Micah Hanks in The UFO Singularity, one of the more puzzling anomalies is that they seem to disappear on a dime. Many UFOlogists have pointed out that UFOs often behave as if they were on some alternate timeline and every once in a while we get to see through and spot them. The Simulation Theory would reconcile UFOs’ strange behavior, as they are either poorly written programs (perhaps the idle fun of a post-human adolescent), or have been purposely programmed to confound us.

The lack of aliens or UFOs could also be reconciled by the Simulation Theory. The Fermi Paradox, which describes how incredibly odd it is that in a universe this astoundingly big–containing billions of galaxies, each with a billion stars–with such a massive likelihood for intelligent life (at least according to the Drake Equation), we have been met with only cosmic silence. Well, the Simulation Theory would state simply that the reason we haven’t found any signs of extraterrestrial life is because it wasn’t written into the universe we occupy. Or if it has been, it’s being willfully concealed. Maybe that program will soon be launched, or perhaps ours is an existential experiment with loneliness and species pathology. Maybe our simulation operator is a sadistic bastard.

Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics

Perhaps what is most odd about the Simulation Theory is that there are actually prominent scientists and physicists who not only think it’s possible, they are actively conducting experiments to prove it. A team of German physicists think that eventually we will be able to paint a better portrait of the so-called numerical simulation that is our universe. They are working to create a mini-simulation that require physical constraints in order to run. They want to see if those same constraints exist in our own universe.

In order to create the simulation, the physicists are using something called lattice quantum chromodynamics to try and discover whether there is an underlying grid to the space/time continuum in our universe. Though they have only recreated a tiny corner of the known universe, a few femtometers across, they have simulated the hypothetical lattice and are now looking for matching physical limitations.

One popular constraint involves high energy particles. It turns out our universe does in fact have a physical limitation that is not fully understood. It is known as the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin or GZK cut off. And this limitation is eerily similar to what physicists predicts would exist in a simulated universe.

computer code found in string theory

In the last couple years, theoretical physicist S. James Gate has discovered something extraordinary in his String Theory research. Essentially, deep inside the equations we use to describe our universe Gate has found computer code. And not just any code, but extremely peculiar self-dual linear binary error-correcting block code. That’s right, error correcting 1s and 0s wound up tightly in the quantum core of our universe.

While no one can claim this is irrefutable proof of the Matrix, it is certainly eye-opening to listen to S. James Gate and Neil deGrasse Tyson speak in almost professional whispers about the ramifications of finding computer code mixed in with the equations of the String Theory.

These are whispers of rapture for the Ghost Diaries. Do we want to learn that the universe is a simulation, that all truth and matter is simply code, perhaps arbitrarily programmed by a being we can’t possibly imagine? Not necessarily, but it’s fun to think about. And we do, a lot. This summer we’ll be releasing a YA novel called The Indoor Kids, which will be mind-candy nerdcore for lovers of all things Fermi Paradox and Simulation Theory.

Turn that frown upside down, further down the rabbit hole we go….