Peter Pan, Lost Boys, Bunny Men, and Goat Men

After reading "Peter Pan, Graverobbing, and Lost Boys" and "The Peter Pan/Hook Deaths," the following thoughts were shared by a correspondent:

I couldn't help wondering if there could be any connection between these
cases of children found mysteriously or suspiciously hanged from hooks, and
a couple of American "urban legends" or "campfire tales" of psychopathic or
demonic assailants who allegedly hang teen-agers from bridges in wooded
areas. One cluster of such tales concerns a railroad trestle in Fairfax
County, northern Virginia, called "Bunny Man's Bridge," and attributes the
alleged hangings to the "Bunny Man," supposedly a psychopathic killer
(either an escapee from an institution for the criminally insane, or a
one-time teen-age boy gone berserk) wearing an Easter Bunny costume. The
other cluster involves a highway overpass over Sweet Hollow Road in
Melville, eastern Long Island, and blames the alleged hangings on the
spirits of supposed escapees from a burnt-down local asylum. In neither
the "Bunny Man Bridge" nor the Sweet Hollow Road cases are there any actual police records of people actually ever been found hanged from the bridges in question nor of unsolved missing teen-ager reports from the respective local areas. Likewise, neither in the Sweet Hollow Road nor the "Bunny Man Bridge" cases is there any historical record of any burned-down or closed-down institution in the area such as those from which the alleged
perpetrators supposedly escaped. I've always wondered myself if there could
be some sort of "copycat" historical connection between the "Bunny Man
Bridge" and Sweet Hollow Road legends. ~ T. Peter Park.

The links do not end there.

I have written of the Bunny Man often in books and blogs (e.g. "Donnie Darko and Bunny Men"). As Wikipedia correctly summarizes, "Loren Coleman,...in the book Weird Virginia, which has a section on the Bunny Man, sees a direct association between the legend of Bunny Man and that of the Goatman of nearby Maryland." (For more on Goatman and the illustrations above, see here.)

Washington D.C. bound Amtrak train crosses over Colchester Road in Fairfax Station, Virginia at Colchester Overpass, also known as the "Bunnyman Bridge." Taken March 22, 2012. Credit: Kohlchester. Used by Wikipedia Creative Commons license.

Peter Pan, Graverobbing, and Lost Boys

Captain Hook. Graves. Death.

Under a flagstone at Durham Cathedral, Durham, England, earlier in September 2013, a mystery bottle containing a faded piece of paper was discovered with the names of three gravediggers, along with the message: "This grave was opened on Sunday May 11th 1913."

The Daily Mail noted, in part:

Stonemason Steve Mann unearthed the remarkably well-preserved bottle while re-laying the flagstones near the tomb of the Venerable Bede in the cathedral's 12 century Galilee Chapel on Tuesday [September 24, 2013].
The only tantalizing clue to what lay within was the words Globe Theatre, visible on the paper's letterhead....
A theatre advert - believed to be the closest piece of paper to hand when the note was made - was for a production of English dance and folk songs at the Globe Theatre, in London, Shaftesbury Avenue.
On the back were the names Mr W Wraybole, Mr W Carter, Mr G Yeoman. They were bracketed with the word Grave and what appears to be a capital D and included a stonemason mark - along with the enigmatic message.
Mr Emery said: 'The interesting thing to the advert is that it refers to the sole lessee of the Globe Theatre as Charles Frohman, the American impresario of the day. Frohman produced JM Barries' Peter Pan.'

Who were Misters Wraybole, Carter, and Yeoman?

What will be discovered about these three in the coming months? Were lost boys in the graves? Was someone looking for missing children?

The graverobbing actually links to the Globe Theatre-Charles Frohman-JM Barries-Peter Pan, and the concept of Puer aeternus. The phrase is Latin for eternal boy, used in mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young; psychologically it is an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level. The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible to escape. He covets independence and freedom, chafes at boundaries and limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable. The concept is very Jungian.

In an intriguing coincidence, one of the more significance books on Peter Pan at the end of the 20th century is Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth by Ann Yeoman (No. 82 in the series Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts).

Ann Yeoman, former Dean of Students at New College, University of Toronto, as mentioned on her academic biography, was born and raised in Devon, England, on a farm adjoining cliffs that overlooked the English Channel, a landscape which she says inspired her lifelong interest in the alternative worlds of the literary fantastic.

She decided to complete the training program in Analytical Psychology at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. She graduated as a Jungian Analyst in 1997. Her Zurich thesis was on a theme and interest that had been prevalent throughout her life: the genesis of fantasy figures and the symbolic role they play in our everyday lives. Ann turned her thesis into a book entitled Now or Neverland: Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth, published by Inner City Books (1998), which offers a psychological perspective on that popular literary icon, Peter Pan.

Until recently, Dr. Yeoman was the Director of New College's Program in Paradigms and Archetypes, and teaches the Jungian Studies courses offered in the program. She recently moved to her homeland in South Devon, England, where she continues her private practice as an analytical psychologist (Jungian Analyst).

Now Or Neverland offers a comprehensive overview of the eternal boy syndrome from its roots in mythology to present day psychological interpretations, including a detailed study of its twentieth century depiction by J.M. Barrie in his famous play and novel. 

Peter Pan. Lost Boys. Captain Hook. Graves. Death. Graverobbing. Missing Children.

Theo Paijmans shared the following in a past comment:

As for the Peter Pan connection, study the symbolism of Peter Pan as 'the boy who wouldn't grow up' and his gang of 'lost boys' who were 'forgotten by their parents'. The hooks were these tragic children were found hanging from, a reference to Peter Pan's arch nemesis Captain Hook.
J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, lets him say this about death: "To die will be an awfully big adventure". One author, Kevin Orlin Johnson, has argued that the Pan stories are in the German-English tradition of the Totenkindergeschichte, the "tales of dead children".
And then there is Peter Pan's mythical realm Neverland, the name also given to Michael Jackson's ranch which, as some allege, is a place where one of the darkest kinds of violence against children was been performed.

As we explored before (see The Peter Pan/Hook Deaths), something strange is going on, and it has been for decades.

Lost Boys: Mysterious Organization Has Them?

The father of three missing boys in Michigan claims a mysterious organization 

came on Thanksgiving Day and took his sons.

John Skelton, the father of three missing boys, said in a court hearing in Adrian, Michigan, on Thursday, December 16, 2010, that he gave his sons to someone from an organization who visited his home on Thanksgiving. But he wouldn't identify the group, reported the Associated Press and other media sources.

It was the first time Skelton had publicly discussed his sons since his arrest November 30, 2010, on parental kidnapping charges. The hearing was related to custody, not his criminal case. The boys ~ Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner, 5 ~ have not been seen since Thanksgiving when they were at their father's home in Morenci, on the Michigan-Ohio border. 

Skelton, 39, told Judge Margaret Noe that he gave the kids to a "person in a van," The Daily Telegram reported on its website.

"I know the organization, but I didn't know the person," Skelton said.

"What organization?" Noe asked.

"I would rather not say at this time," Skelton replied.

Morenci Police Chief Larry Weeks said he's heard similar references to what John Skelton said in court.

"I'm skeptical of what he's saying," Weeks told the Telegram. "We're not expecting a positive outcome."

In a written statement, Weeks said police have followed up on 900 tips, including some suspected sightings, but "we have been unable to confirm that any of them are the Skelton boys."

Skelton remains held on $30-million bond.

In Mysterious America, of course, I detail the reported use of "vans" in the child abduction cases labeled under the umbrella term "phantom clowns." Needless to say, these have been as elusive as Mr. Skelton's alleged child abduction organization may be to track down. But there is a hint of something sinister in this Michigan report. It is, indeed, intriguing that Morenci Police Chief Larry Weeks has heard reports of similar incidents. As we may reveal here soon, a nationwide series of bizarre child hanging cases seem to be related to a mysterious shadowy organization of pedophiles, related to Peter Pan, the Hook, and the the Lost Boys. More on that another time.

Name/location items on this case include:

One name in the mix here that might be the key is "Skelton." Were the Michigan boys "skeleton keys" in some ritualistic way?

Where are these three "lost boys"?

Morenci is a city in Lenawee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 2,398 at the 2000 census. Lenawee is a Henry Schoolcraft neologism thought to be derived from a Native American word meaning "man"—from the Delaware leno or lenno or the Shawnee lenawai.