Red-Shirted Fakenauts

Glen de Vries

On October 13, 2021, William Shatner (age 90), the actor who played Captain Kirk on the Original Star Trek series, boarded a Blue Origin sub-orbital capsule and successfully flew to space becoming the oldest person to fly to space. The flight was ten minutes long.

The vehicle was New Shepard 4, and reached 341,434 feet (106 km).

Shatner flew to space on Blue Origin's second sub-orbital human spaceflight, Blue Origin NS-18, on October 13, 2021. He was accompanied by Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries, and Audrey Powers aboard the RSS First Step, the New Shepard suborbital rocket capsule, from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. Aged 90 years, 6 months and 22 days, Shatner became the oldest person to fly to space, surpassing Wally Funk, who flew on Blue Origin's first human spaceflight at the age of 82 in July 2021.

In a televised post-flight conversation with Blue Origin's founder Jeff Bezos, who had invited him to join the flight, Shatner articulated experiencing what is called the overview effect, a deep awareness of the fragility of planet Earth and its relatively thin-atmosphere.

Due to Shatner being on the flight, spoof sites and meme builders had "fun" with the crew. Fake photos of the flight members were shown with red shirts versus Shatner's senior official uniform. The not-too-subtle meaning being that on Star Trek the first individuals killed in encounters were those wearing red.

These jokes seemingly appeared to be prophetic. 

On November 11, 2021, Glen de Vries, 49, died in a small plane crash. De Vries is one of the most common Dutch surnames. It indicates a geographical origin: "Vriesland" is an old spelling of the Dutch province of Friesland (Frisia). Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the northern part of the country. Hence, "de Vries" means "the Frisian". The name has been modified to "DeVries", "deVries", or "Devries" in other countries.

Since the late Middle Ages, Friesland has been renowned for the exceptional height of its inhabitants, who were deemed among the tallest groups of Indo-Europeans. Even early Renaissance poet Dante Alighieri refers to the height of Frisians in his Divine Comedy when, in the canticle about Hell, he talks about the magnitude of an infernal demon by stating that "not even three tall Frieslanders, were they set one upon the other, would have matched his height."

Where Glen de Vries was killed is a topic of social media conversation.

"The Time I Went to Aleister Crowley's Burial Site"

Or not...

 

"On 1 December 1947, Crowley died at Netherwood of chronic bronchitis aggravated by pleurisy and myocardial degeneration, aged 72....Crowley's body was cremated, his ashes were sent to Karl Germer in the US, who buried them in his garden in Hampton, New Jersey." Source.

Also worthy of your reading time...

Chris Knowles on Astroworld, here and here.

Halloween's Tokyo Joker Attack

A man, 24, dressed as Batman's Joker, attacked passengers on a Tokyo train line on Sunday evening, October 31, 2021, injuring 17, as many party-goers headed into the city center for Halloween. The suspected attacker was arrested on the spot.

According to Reuters, the attacker had spread fluid around the train and started a fire.

A video on Twitter showed a bespectacled man dressed in a purple suit and bright green shirt, as worn by the Joker, seated in an empty train puffing on a cigarette, his legs crossed and looking calm. He can be seen through the window being surrounded by law enforcement in a subsequent clip.

Origins

As David Charles Plate observes, "Alan Moore's The Killing Joke was the first instance of The Dark Knight rendition of Batman along with The Man Who Laughs rendition of The Joker. The Thelema connections are numerous."

It is apparent that the alleged attacker's outfit was copycatted from Heath Ledger's Joker in the "Dark Knight" costuming (which, of course, has a long history before modern cinema). However, the Tokyo individual's costume was a bit off; he was wearing a green shirt, different tie, and a purple vest, as opposed to Ledger's outfit.

The attack occurred on the Keio express line bound for Shinjuku, the world's busiest rail station, at around 8 p.m. (1100 GMT).

Phantom Clowns and Jokers

In March of 1982, in Fate magazine, and then in 1983, in my book Mysterious America, I first used the term "Phantom Clowns" to talk of May 1981's Boston, Massachusetts accounts of individuals wearing multicolored clothes who reportedly were trying to entice school children into coming along with them. The eyewitness accounts of clowns in vans bothering children were discussed for the first time comprehensively in a work of Fortean wonders.

The ultimate modern "Killer Clown" was the Joker, which evolved into the killer Dark Knight, appearing in full form at Aurora on July 20, 2012 (see here at "red dawn," with many links therein).

The copycat effect continues....

On October 27, 2021, a Joker character with a knife ~ in Boise, Idaho, was seen but no suspect was apprehended. That would case be a classic Phantom Clown sighting (as per my Fortean clown classification system). The Japanese incident on Halloween 2021 is a physical manifestation of the Killer Clown.

Family Trees

Created in 1998 by artist Jeffrey Vallance.

Phantom Clowns, Killer Clowns, Jokers, and Dark Knights issue forth from the same, sometimes deadly, "Trickster"/"Clown" tree. 

Created in 2008 by artist Jeffrey Vallance.

With the change of season, we may see the appearance of members of the "Wildman"/"Santa Claus" family tree, as captured above a decade after Vallance's "Trickster" family tree.

See also here, here, and here.

h/t AProdigiosus, Chris Farnsworth, Tim Binnall, Jeffrey Vallance

#Cryptokubrology, #Batman, #Joker.

Footnote: My wife, Jenny appeared to be picking up on this Joker energy on Halloween, and said several things about Batman throughout Sunday. Humm...