December blog

Last month I spent most of the month working on my outline, and I was intending to spend most of this month working on my Ignite presentation. I have spent over 20 hours on it this month and it is basically done. I spent a lot of time on the presentation part of it as well as actually writing and timing a script which was an incredibly tedious task but I am glad I did so. I also practiced this a bunch of times in front of friends and family as well as alone to make sure it is perfect. I really really want to make sure the whole thing is great because I did not feel that good about my last Ignite presentation and I want to be really happy with this one. I did spend quite a bit of time thinking about my outline and I have a couple of ideas for the direction I want to take with it once I start working on it again. I am planning on spending quite a bit of time on the project when winter break starts (which is Thursday). I would like to spend approximately 50 hours on the outline and stuff during winter break so I am truly ready and have a plan for my writing when I begin drafting the book next month. I did not get to my targeted amount of hours yet, but will definitely by the time the month is over. Since it was accelerated term, I did take it easy.
I think my decision to work on the Ignite presentation early was a good example of initiative because I did not have to do it this early but since I have all of the break to work on the outline and my friends are around now and I could use them for practice, it made sense.
I did not really have much of a highlight of the month for my internship, but I did come in and teach a class on cryptozoology in Mr. Martell's Mythical Creatures and Conspiracies class. I had a great time doing it and hope that if he does the class again next year, I am invited to come back.
I learned that it is best to do your work early if it makes sense to do so. I feel really good about the fact that I put together my Ignite presentation so early. I really like how it turned out and I am actually looking forward to giving the presentation next month. I think that I will stop procrastinating with a lot of my work and will take full advantage of the time I am given to work on projects. It is kinda weird that it took me this long to realize the benefits of doing my work early. I have always been extremely bad about procrastination and not doing my work, but I really do think that I have learned that if I do the things I am supposed to do well before they are due, I can be much better prepared for whatever may come my way.
I think that a challenge that I encountered was the decision to work on my Ignite presentation instead of my outline. My outline could be done alone and in my room during winter break. As could the Ignite presentation, but it was better that I did it here because it allowed me to get helpful feedback from my peers on my timing and presentation slides. I really wanted to work on my outline more because I enjoy that type of work a little bit better than I enjoy working on a presentation (which I feel can be a bit tedious at times). And it was challenging to not work on the outline, but in the end, I spent my time more effectively by working on the Ignite presentation instead. I am really glad I did work on the Ignite presentation instead, as I have previously stated in my above remarks.
I am looking forward to finishing my outline and actually, finally, eventually working on my first draft for my book. I know that it will lead to a lot more work during the week and less time for me to spend as I like, but I really am looking forward to it.

Cover slide for my Ignite presentation

November blog

A lot of weird and varied stuff happened this month. I intended to focus my work this month on the outline for the book. I ended up putting a lot more effort into other parts of the project, but ones that were just as important. I did spend quite a few days adding possible subjects to the basic outline. I also broke down several other books I own that are concerning similar subjects and looked at how they were organized and how they approached different subjects. I got a lot of really intriguing data from doing this and now have a much better grasp as to what my outline should look like. I also spent the 10th at the Fifth Annual Old Mill ParaCon in Dundee, Michigan. That was a load of fun. I was there from 5 am until 10 pm. I gave my road lecture (which I actually had some changes specifically for the event put in), participated in a ghost hunt, spent some time in their records and files, hung out with other researcher and bounced my theories and ideas off of them, and sold some books. It was easily one of the best events I attended and really helped me with developing my theories and ideas into a more mature aspect. After the event, I began to try to track down a possible haunted road in Ohio that might have been the origin of several legends that I've found floating around while researching. I received this lead from another investigator at the conference. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find anything useful, and I doubt that the road that was mentioned exists or even existed at any point.
I think initiative was shown when I spent some time looking at the outlines and organization of other books that are similar to what I intend my book to look like. Without doing this, it would be much more difficult to write a cohesive outline with any flow between the different subjects.
A major highlight of my month was the Old Mill ParaCon in Dundee. I got to meet some researchers I grew up watching on television such as Dustin Parri from Ghost Hunters International and hang out with some old friends of mine such as John Tenney and Greg and Dinah Newkirk.
I learned a lot about how the paranormal field writes and organizes books. I also noticed the differences between different publication companies and how they layout books and how they want books organized. For example, Llewellyn Publications prefers their books to be divided into 10-20 larger chapters with about 20 smaller sections within each chapter. Contrarily, New Page Books prefers their books to be divided into about 15 chapters with very few different smaller sections expressly noted in the work. I examined books from ten different large to medium sized anomalous subject publishers and denoted the differences and similarities between their layout and outlines. I also learned quite a bit about various bridges in Ohio in my fruitless attempt to track down an anomalous bridge. Finally, I did some targeted research concerning haunted roads and bridges in Michigan for the Old Mill ParaCon. The legends in that state tend to be pretty similar to Ohio's, which is incredibly interesting.
A major challenge I overcame during the month was taking time to work on my project when I had absolutely no motivation to do so. I had quite a few massive personal problems come up during the course of the month and due to this I quickly lost any motivation to do any work. I managed to motivate myself by setting personal rules. If I did not get A or B done, I could not do C. I kept myself from doing nothing by playing video games and reading comic books with this method. I was just sad for a lot of the month and just wanted to spend all of my time in fictional worlds, doing no research or work. I am just now coming out of my funk and I am really looking forward to finishing my outline and to start working on the first draft of my book.
I am really looking forward to starting the first draft of my book. I am getting tired of the endless outline work and the endless research so the actual writing of the thing is going to be a nice breath of fresh air once I finally get to it. I expect I will have a lot more time concerning the project because of accelerated term.

The infamous John Tenney and I at the Old Mill ParaCon immediately after we realized we had never taken a picture together before. 

October Blog

This month was a little weird. I did not have a ton of specific things I needed to do because I was ahead of schedule so I focused on doing more in-depth research and all kinds of little tangents and avenues to look into. I had a good time this month. I have also been extremely busy this month so I ended up not hitting the exact amount of hours I needed to stay on track, but that's okay. With accelerated term and breaks coming up soon, I should have more than enough time to make up the needed and missing 10 hours. I did have two talks this month which were awesome. I ended up only counting one of them for hours, though because I needed to do new research for that one. The second talk (the new one) was about Ohio hauntings and a bunch of the included stories and cases were roads, bridges, or railroads, thus were relevant to my project. I gave the talk for the Ravenna Historical Society. They were extremely nice and friendly. There were cookies and hot cocoa afterward and they gave me a private tour of their facility and I got to spend some time in their library and files. There were a lot of old and weird maps (I love maps). I also worked on my spook light list some this month but ended up scrapping it because I was spending way too much time on it with no real use.
I do not really think I showed very much initiative this month because I did not get my required hours done. I did a lot of other things with much time such as play Magic the Gathering and watch tv. It was a long month and this is probably going to lead to me having a ton more work in the future, but I had a fun month anyway.
The second talk (the new one) was about Ohio hauntings and a bunch of the included stories and cases were roads, bridges, or railroads, thus were relevant to my project. I gave the talk for the Ravenna Historical Society. They were extremely nice and friendly. There were cookies and hot cocoa afterward and they gave me a private tour of their facility and I got to spend some time in their library and files.
I learned that I should really do my work instead of just screwing around. I am not looking forward to the extra work I am going to have to do because of not really doing a ton this month. I did get some great leads from the Ravenna Historical Society when I went and gave my Ohio haunted places talk for them concerning some specific history of certain roads and bridges I'm investigating. I also learned a lot about the habits of spook lights and how they can work within the realm of unidentified flying objects and parapsychology/ghosts. I also learned a lot about cry baby bridges and their lore and history. I always assumed the only legend behind them was focused on the death of an infant, but I learned that there are some places that attribute the hauntings to lynchings done by the Ku Klux Klan, gruesome.
I did not really encounter any challenge; I just did not do any work. Instead, I did a lot of other things with much time such as play Magic the Gathering and watch tv. It was a long month and this is probably going to lead to me having a ton more work in the future, but I had a fun month anyway. Maybe the main challenge was actually working on the project. If that is the case, I failed horribly and terribly. I did not his my recommended hour amount and didn't really do a ton in general. I am going to be fixing that next month, but that does not really help me right now with the writing of this very blog post. I had something to do basically every weekend and weeknight and foolishly played Magic the Gathering during school when I had gaps in my schedule.
I am looking forward to beginning my outline for my book next month. I simply adore making outlines. I like the simplicity of it. I like they organized part of it. They are just fun. And it means I am getting ready to write the book which is incredibly exciting. I love writing and I am greatly missing it.

Cover slide of my presentation from this month

September Blog

This month was another long block of research, research, and more research. I swear, if next month doesn't change (which I know it will) I'll scream. I went through the rest of my digital files, looking for cases. I logged approximately 2,600 cases between this month and last month. I then organized the cases into the different categories that were relevant to my project. Some of the categories include various cryptids, Faeries, car troubles before and during the encounter, chases with or at the car, physical attacks from the cryptids and UFOs, electromagnetic effects on vehicles, haunted roads, phantom hitchhikers, spook lights, and road folklore. I also gave a lecture at the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia on September 15th. There I worked a table where I sold copies of my book and discussed my research with other researchers and enthusiasts. I purchased several quite valuable books for my research concerning various haunted locations in different states in the midwest. My lecture went off extremely well at the event, and there were plenty of fantastic questions that helped with my research development. Finally, I did extensive research concerning highway hypnosis and if it could explain some of the road encounters. Highway hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness which is attributed to driving for extreme lengths of time. I felt this might explain some of the less complex cases I have collected. Unfortunately, there is no hallucination aspect of the hypnosis so the only thing that it explains is missing time cases with no other phenomenon.

I showed initiative this month by deciding to shift the focus of my project. I felt that I was overreaching with my original scope of the project. I don't think I could adequately assess car interaction cases and folklore and regular driving encounters without making the book woefully shallow or making the book 3,000 pages long. I decided to focus on the folklore behind many of these cases and discuss roads where the phenomena are common and that is what they are known for.

The highlight of my month was easily the Mothman Festival. This year was my fourth year attending and the second year speaking. I had a great time. I was surrounded by close friends, colleagues, and researchers many of whom I grew up learning from and watching on television. I received many fantastic insights concerning my project and just had such a great time overall.

I learned quite a bit of Crybaby Bridges because of one of the books I picked up at the Mothman Festival. I was titled Crybaby Bridges and was by my friend George Dudding. In it, George catalogs and discusses approximately 150 Crybaby Bridges around the country (about a third of which are here in Ohio). Crybaby Bridges are supposedly haunted bridges where an infant has died either due to motherly neglect or because of infanticide on the part of the mother. Many of the legends are rather brutal and dark. The bridges are all over and have become a fairly popular type of local urban legend, but there are some who claim to have actually encountered possible ghostly presences on the bridges. These could include infant apparitions, crying sounds from under the bridge, or even the shutting down of car engines. I had previously only had a passing knowledge of this phenomenon but I plan on including numerous cases of this in my book.

A challenge that I encountered this month had to do with what I should focus my book on. My original plan was to create a wide-ranging guide to various fortean road encounters, but this is not really feasible. There is simply too many cases and too many aspects to the phenomena for a single reasonably sized book to handle. So, after a long talk with my advisor Joshua Cutchin, I have decided to focus on "haunted roads" not just roads that are supposedly inhabited by ghosts and spirits, but also roads that are frequented by UFO visits and cryptid reports. This will have a focus on the folklore and history behind these roads and begin to ask why these roads and not others. I am happy about this because it allows me to explore some of my favorite aspects of the paranormal: phantom hitchhikers; cryptid habituation; spook lights, and folklore.

I am looking forward to doing more specific folkloric and historical research next month. I love doing that type of work over the more broad scope of my previous research for the month. I am really passionate about a lot of these topics and this avenue allows me to fully explore that.

The title slide of my lecture for the Mothman Festival. 

August Blog

This month for my research project was extremely boring and tedious. I spent the entire month digging through digital archives of various works I have access to, looking for anything and everything that might be relevant to my project. I logged those cases into a notebook -- denoting the type of case or information, where it came from, date if relevant, place if relevant, and page numbers -- and just kept going. Before this month I had logged a total of 1,520 cases. In the end, I had logged 2,448 cases at the time of writing. That's an increase of 928 cases or a 61% increase. I think I did a pretty good job. Most of the month was spent delving into Albert Rosales's wonderful Humanoid Database. Albert is a ufologist who was born in Cuba and later moved to Florida. He spent dozens of years collecting UFO reports and other strange stories that involve encounters with a humanoid entity. A few years ago, he had his entire database available online in the form of PDFs. I quickly snapped it up knowing that it would be infinitely useful. It certainly was. He organized the cases chronologically and had a different PDF for each year, and the database covered from 1850-2015. 165 years! I didn't finish going through his database because it became too time-consuming. I decided somewhere in the 1970s to move on to the various books and papers I was sent PDFs of from my advisor (thanks again Joshua!). I also looked for some other books and resources that I figured would be useful in PDF form. My month was boring but also very busy.

For what I have been doing, showing initiative isn't the easiest thing to do. Or at least extra initiative. I found a few websites that work like digital libraries which I've been using for resource searching so I don't have to bug Joshua all the time for certain leads. I guess that counts.

Probably the biggest highlight of this month was finding a PDF copy of an incredibly rare UFO book. The book is UFO Reports Involving Vehicle Interference by Mark Rodeghier. It was only published once and had a very limited print run. I was lucky that the organization that funded the book, the Center for UFO Studies, had a PDF copy available on the website because the book itself is easily worth over $300 and that is a little above my budget!

The biggest thing I learned was different styles for searching through databases and the internet. I know it was something that was touched upon on in my Freshman year of Bio-Med, but we never did anything in-depth concerning the different strategies. Instead, I ended up doing a lot of trial and error searches around various sites such as archives.org and other paranormally themed databases. I think it was good practice for my future and is definitely a good tool to have for the project itself. I also learned about a few interesting cases that are fairly well known that I was previously unfamiliar with. A good example of this was the infamous Soccoro, New Mexico UFO Landing. A police officer was in the middle of a high-speed chase when he saw the UFO land not to far away. He actually went to investigate and thus began an extremely complex and fascinating case that I am certainly including in my book.

I think the biggest challenge that I encountered during this month concerning my project was tackling the repetition and inherent dullness of this stage of the project. I enjoy researching when I can bounce around to different sources and compare and really dig into something interesting. I couldn't really do a lot of that this month and that made it infinitely harder to motivate myself to work. What I ended up doing was effectively shutting myself off from the world when it was time to work. I would put my headphones on with really loud music, make sure I was alone while working, make sure my phone and other devices were hidden, muted, and out of reach, and I turned off the internet for my computer so I couldn't just Google whatever popped into my head. It was difficult and stressed me out quite a bit, but it was worth it to get my work done.

The thing I am most looking forward to next month is finishing my wide dive into the literature and to begin to organize my thoughts and the information I have collected. Also next month, I will be speaking about the topic I am covering for my book at the Mothman Festival. I am planning on using the response I get from the presentation and the whole process of the presentation to affect how I organize and set up my outline for my book in November.

Here is a picture of the notebooks I've been working with. It's pretty repetitive work.