The twilight language explores hidden meanings and synchromystic connections via onomatology (study of names) and toponymy (study of place names). This blog further investigates "name games" and "number coincidences" found in news and history. Examinations are also found in my book The Copycat Effect (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004).
May 18th is a date of some significance in terms of school violence.
The Bath School disaster, sometimes known as the Bath School massacre, was a series of violent attacks perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe on May 18, 1927, in Bath Township, Michigan, which killed 38 elementary school children and six adults and injured at least 58 other people. Kehoe killed his wife and firebombed his farm, then detonated an explosion in the Bath Consolidated School before dying suicide by detonating a final device in his truck.
On May 18, 2018, a school shooting occurred between 7:30 and 7:45 am, local time, at the Santa Fe High School, Santa Fe, Texas. A gunman walked into an art class at the high school and began firing what looked like a shotgun.
The shooter, law enforcement officials state, only had a shotgun and a 35 pistol on his person, in addition to having planted pipe and pressure-cooker bombs.
It has been confirmed that 10 people have been killed; nine students, one teacher. The final death toll is yet to be determined. Students and adults, including one injured police officer were killed and injured.
Facebook screenshots of the alleged suspect arrested. The 17 year old student was reported to be wearing a "Born to Kill" teeshirt.
Santa Fe shooting suspect has been identified as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, law enforcement sources tell CBS News.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis' dad, Antonios E. Pagourtzis, was born in Magoulítsa, Kardhitsa, Greece. The area, located in the Thessaly region, is in the central part of the country, about halfway between Thessaloniki and the country’s capital of Athens.
Dimitrios = Demetrius is the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek male given name Dēmḗtrios (Δημήτριος), meaning "devoted to Demeter." Alternate forms include Demetrios, Dimitrios, Dimitris, Dmytro, Dimitri, Demitri, Dhimitër, and Dimitrije, in addition to other forms (such as Russian Dmitri) descended from it.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the grain, agriculture, harvest, growth, and nourishment, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain", as the giver of food or grain, and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; φόρος, phoros: bringer, bearer), "Law-Bringer", as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.
[There is a direct sync between the name of the alleged shooter, Dimitrios = Demeter (goddess of Harvest) and the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting.]
[There is also this: Santa Fe = Spanish = Fay = French = Fayette Factor.]
A student at the high school is in custody, and another one detained.
Santa Fe means "holy faith" in Spanish.
[h/t S. Hunter & J. Walsh.]
+++ CNN is publishing photographs of Santa Fe, Texas students, taken during the April 20, 2018, national walkout.
Will part of the revealing of the students' names who were killed/injured on May 18, 2018, be the discovery that someone pictured at the demonstration in April were involved in the Santa Fe shooting?
Bomb threats forced evacuations at Jewish schools and community centers in 11 states Monday, February 27, 2017, with the Jewish Community Center Association confirming threats in states ranging from Florida to Michigan. In Ann Arbor, Mich., police gave the all-clear after a Hebrew day school was threatened, forcing students to leave.
Some of the February 27, 2017, threats
"Today, bomb threats were called into schools and/or JCCs in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia," the JCC Association of North America says. "Many affected institutions have already been declared clear and have returned to regular operations. All previous bomb threats to JCCs this year were determined to be hoaxes."
In Ann Arbor, police are working with the FBI after receiving an "unusually specific" threat about a bomb in a backpack, Michigan Radio's Kate Wells reports. After detection dogs were brought in, police allowed students to return to school — but Wells calls the scene "surreal," with news crews and police still hovering around the school.
"My instincts tell me this is all part of a coordinated effort," an Ann Arbor police detective tells Wells, saying that there have been at least two bomb threats against the Ann Arbor Jewish Community Center.
January 18, 2017 Jewish center threats around the country.
January 31, 2017 threat locations in the two above maps.
February 20, 2017 threat locations
Bomb threats forced evacuations at Jewish schools and community centers in 11 states Monday, February 27, 2017, with the Jewish Community Center Association confirming threats in states ranging from Florida to Michigan. In Ann Arbor, Mich., police gave the all-clear after a Hebrew day school was threatened, forcing students to leave.
"Today, bomb threats were called into schools and/or JCCs in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia," the JCC Association of North America says. "Many affected institutions have already been declared clear and have returned to regular operations. All previous bomb threats to JCCs this year were determined to be hoaxes."
In Ann Arbor, police are working with the FBI after receiving an "unusually specific" threat about a bomb in a backpack, Michigan Radio's Kate Wells reports. After detection dogs were brought in, police allowed students to return to school — but Wells calls the scene "surreal," with news crews and police still hovering around the school.
"My instincts tell me this is all part of a coordinated effort," an Ann Arbor police detective tells Wells, saying that there have been at least two bomb threats against the Ann Arbor Jewish Community Center.
The Anti-Defamation League says there have been reports of bomb threats at a wide range of locations in and around New York, including "three in Staten Island, one in New Jersey, one on Long Island, one in Westchester."
The ADL confirms threats were made Monday against a Jewish day school in Miami, a JCC in Asheville, N.C., and the upper school of Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Md. It also says there are unconfirmed reports of a threat in Birmingham, Ala.
Vandals knocked over headstones the weekend of February 18-19, 2017, in the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, University City, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri.
Vandals attack tombstones at the Jewish Mount Carmel Cemetery
Since the start of 2017, dozens of bomb threats have been made against Jewish community centers; this is at least the fifth wave of threats in the past two months.
President Trump, who had been criticized for not vigorously responding to earlier threats against Jewish community centers, took on the issue more directly last Tuesday, saying the threats "are horrible and are painful, and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil."
As news of Monday's wave of threats spread, David Posner, director of strategic performance at the JCC Association of North America, issued a statement that reads, in part:
"Anti-Semitism of this nature should not and must not be allowed to endure in our communities. The Justice Department, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the White House, alongside Congress and local officials, must speak out — and speak out forcefully — against this scourge of anti-Semitism impacting communities across the country."
There has been reports of an active shooter situation in the Berrien County Courthouse in St. Joseph, Michigan, on July 11, 2016.
Details surrounding the shooting, which happened around 2:30 p.m. at the courthouse on Port Street in downtown St. Joseph, have not been released.
On Monday afternoon, July 11, 2016, some of the breaking news is reaching the public via tweets.
Shooter identified as Larry Darnell Gordon, 44 or 45 (pictured). Publishing of gunman's photograph appears to confuse racial profiling trends.
Intriguing how the tinting of Gordon's Caucasian image in photo #3 above as "FIRST PHOTO: @ABC7Chicago #ITeam picture of #BerrienCountyCourthouse shooter Larry Darnell Gordon, 45" actually makes him appear AfricanAmerican or biracial.
On Saturday, February 20, 2016, Uber driver Jason Brian Dalton, 45, killed six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the 42nd mass shooting of 2016. The first people killed were Tyler D. Smith (17), and his father Richard E. Smith (53), who were both killed at the Kia car dealership. Four women – Mary Jo Nye (60), Mary Lou Nye (62), Dorothy Brown (74), and Barbara Hawthorne (68) – were killed at the Cracker Barrel. A 14-year-old girl who was with the four women at Cracker Barrel was shot in the head, and was initially presumed dead, but later confirmed to have survived. As of February 23, she remained on a ventilator and in critical condition.
Then another shooting happened in Kansas.
Gabrielle Giffords was to observe:
On February 25, 2016, three people were killed and fourteen others injured in a series of shootings in Newton and Hesston, Kansas, including in and outside an Excel Industries building. The dead victims were identified as Randall "Renee" Benjamin, 30; Joshua Higbee, 31; and Brian Sadowsky, 44. All were killed inside the Excel plant.The shooter, identified as Excel employee Cedric Larry Ford (pictured below), was then killed by a responding police officer.
The shootings began at around 4:57 p.m. at a street intersection in Newton, where Ford shot at two vehicles in a drive-by shooting. The first motorist suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound to the shoulder, while the second motorist escaped unscathed after a bullet pierced the car's windshield. He then drove down Old U.S. Route 81 and fired at oncoming traffic. His vehicle and another one crashed in a nearby ditch, after which he got out, shot and injured the other driver in the leg, and stole that victim's vehicle.
To excel is to do better than others. Mass shooters often covertly compete against each other.
Ford then arrived at Excel Industries, a manufacturer of lawnmowers, in Hesston, injured an elderly woman in the parking lot, went inside the building, and fired randomly at the assembly lines, shooting several employees. He then shot at the first officer to respond to the scene, and the officer fired back. He was struck by bullets and died at 5:23 p.m. Ford was armed with a Zastava Arms AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle and a Glock 22 semi-automatic pistol. At least 150 people were inside the plant at the time of the shooting there.
Recall that the mass shooting right before Newton-Hesston, Kansas, was the one in Kalamazoo. Strangely, in a CNN article on Cedric Larry Ford, it was noted: "On his first visit to a zoo, he was awestruck by the beauty of wildlife, friend and co-worker Matt Jarrell said." It seems an odd detail.
Attention should be given also to the fact that this shooting spree began in Newton, Kansas, reminding some of Newtown, Connecticut, the site of the Sandy Hook school shooting of December 14, 2012, occurred.
Many of the early settlers of Hesston, Kansas, were Mennonite farmers. In 1909, the Mennonite Church founded the Hesston College, because of that fact.
Cedric (French spelling: Cédric) is a masculine given name invented by Sir Walter Scott in the 1819 novel Ivanhoe. It is of Old English origin, and the meaning of Cedric is "kind and loved." The invented name is based on Cerdic, the name of a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon king (itself from Brittonic Cortices).
Have you noticed how the mainstream media are not talking about mass shootings as much as usual?
President Obama told the media that to mass shootings should dominate the news on Friday, February 26, 2016, saying "the real tragedy is the degree to which this has become routine."
The media is overwhelming the US public with its obsessive attention to ad hominem attacks between politicians, especially on the Republican side. Covert violence. Those who are being triggered to "go off" are getting the message.
Starting at 6 pm local time, Saturday, February 20, 2016, a man in a black Chevy HHR began driving around Kalamazoo, Michigan, shooting and killing people. Some initial reports said nine or seven people were killed. It turns out that six did die, as one 14-year-old girl shot at a Cracker Barrel restaurant did not expire. She remains in critical condition in a hospital.
The first shooting took place around 6 p.m., when a woman was shot four times in an apartment complex parking lot....She was with her three children. The woman is in serious condition.
Shortly after 10 p.m., two people were shot and killed at a car dealership....the victims were there looking at a vehicle.
Kelly Bainbridge was with her fiance and friends at Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo when she started getting texts and calls from concerned family members about the gunman.
"As the shootings continued to occur, the situation because more frightening," Bainbridge told CNN. She was less than 4 miles away from the dealership.
Some of her friends decided to leave the bar, but Bainbridge and her fiance stayed. The brewery's owner locked the doors to protect his patrons.
Less than 8 miles away, the third shooting occurred, this time outside a Cracker Barrel. Five people in two separate cars were shot....
The suspect was arrested about two blocks away from the brewery, Bainbridge said. Source.
Kalamazoo County, Michigan, prosecutor Jeff Getting said Sunday that there is "no reason to believe" that the shooting rampage was related to terrorism. All the victims were picked at random.
The suspect, Jason Brian Dalton, 45, was arrested when his vehicle was recognized in downtown Kalamazoo early Sunday morning.
Authorities recovered a weapon from the suspect's car, his black Chevy HHR, shown below. (I hated to hear this news, as I always do, but also then to learn about Dalton's car, since my own personal car is a black Chevy HHR that was a sync I didn't wish to read.)
Uber driver?
The man suspected of killing six people and injuring two more in a Saturday evening shooting rampage in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was an Uber driver who may have picked up passengers that same evening, according to the ride-sharing company and police.
"Jason Brian Dalton had passed a background check, and was a driver-partner with Uber," said Uber's chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, in a statement. "We have reached out to the police to help with their investigation in any way that we can."
While the company did not address reports that Dalton picked up and dropped off customers Saturday night, authorities told CNN that it was "certainly part of our investigation."
"We're looking into his connection to Uber and whether or not he was picking up fares in between the shootings," said Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley. CNN.
Jason is a common given name for a male. It comes from Greek Ἰάσων (Iasōn), meaning "healer," from the verb ἰάομαι, iaomai, "heal," "cure," cognate with Ἰασώ, Iasō, the goddess of healing and ἰατρός, iatros, "healer," "physician."
Brian is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world. It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word bre meaning "hill", or by extension "high, noble."
The name Dalton is an English name, with the meaning "from the farm in the dale." The Old English meaning is "valley town."
The name "Dalton" is familiar due to the Dalton Gang. The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also known as The Dalton Brothers because three of its members were brothers. The gang specialized in bank and train robberies. The Dalton Gang continues name-recognition because of its popular culture mentions.
Kalamazoo
Originally known as Bronson (after founder Titus Bronson) in the township of Arcadia, the names of both the city and the township were changed to "Kalamazoo" in 1836 and 1837, respectively. The Kalamazoo name comes from a Potawatomi word, first found in a British report in 1772. However, the Kalamazoo River, which passes through the modern city of Kalamazoo, was located on the route between Detroit and Fort Saint-Joseph (nowadays Niles, Michigan). French-Canadian traders, missionaries, and military personnel were quite familiar with this area during the French era and thereafter. The name for the Kalamazoo River was then known by Canadians and French as La rivière Kikanamaso. The name "Kikanamaso" was also recorded by Father Pierre Potier, a Jesuit missionary for the Huron-Wendats at the Assumption mission (south shore of Detroit), while en route to Fort Saint-Joseph during the fall of 1760. Legend has it that "Ki-ka-ma-sung," meaning "boiling water," referring to a footrace held each fall by local Native Americans, who had to run to the river and back before the pot boiled. Still another theory is that it means "the mirage or reflecting river." Another legend is that the image of "boiling water" referred to fog on the river as seen from the hills above the current downtown. The name was also given to the river that flows almost all the way across the state. Source.
HHR
The Chevrolet HHR (for Heritage High Roof) is a retro-styled station wagon launched by Chevrolet at the 2005 Los Angeles Auto Show as a 2006 model — and designed by Bryan Nesbitt. The HHR shares the GM Delta platform with the Chevrolet Cobalt, Pontiac G5, and Saturn Ion. In Mexico, it was sold alongside its predecessor, the Opel-sourced Chevrolet Zafira compact MPV.
The vehicle's design was inspired by the mid-1940s Chevrolet cars and trucks, specifically the 1947 Chevrolet Suburban and Advance Design pickups, with large, square fender flares and a hemispherical grille. The design of the HHR has been credited to Bryan Nesbitt who was a former designer at Chrysler where he was the lead designer of the Chrysler PT Cruiser.
The HHR was assembled in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, and was available for sale throughout North America.
In the fourth quarter of 2010, Chevrolet announced that the HHR would be discontinued after the 2011 model year, with the last HHR's available in dealerships starting in late January to early February. HHRs were also available for fleet order until May 2011.
*42
Update: Uber riders who rode with Dalton in-between the shootings describe his vehicle as being silver, as it appears to be in the following photo.
As a slightly renamed documentary, The Bridgewater Triangle will make its national television debut on Saturday, September 5, 2015, at 10:00 PM Eastern Time, on the cable network Destination America. The channel will be airing a condensed broadcast hour (42 minute) cut of the film, with their newly created subtitle, America's Bermuda Triangle. The repeats will exist for years, and the awareness of the Bridgewater Triangle will expand.
The addition of the subtitle to this edited version of the documentary occurred weeks ago, perhaps even months before Wednesday, August 26, 2015's major media eruption of the name "Bridgewater," in conjunction with the first ever, on air, live shooting of two journalists. It was not lost on me that the shooting event happened at the Bridgewater Plaza in Virginia.
Bridgewaters, wherever they are, needless to say, have had a long history of strange happenings and phenomena. In the 1830s, in Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, a small hairy upright hominoid creature was confronted by a man picking berries; the beast ran off when chased. In December 1969, and then again in March-April 1970, near Bridgewater, Massachusetts, in the midst of the future named Bridgewater Triangle, many sightings of a Bigfoot, including by a police officer, took place. In the summer 1976, near Bridgewater, New Jersey, three teens saw a Bigfoot while they were playing in the woods and then found three-toed footprints. On July 27, 2015, a UFO sighting occurred in Bridgewater, New Jersey. There are also reports of a blond ghost around Bridgewater, New Jersey.
Bridgewater - a bridge over a body of water - evokes the challenge of the terrestrial over the aquatic.
America's Bermuda Triangle
Of course, the new subtitle given to the documentary by the cable network did seem relatively silly, when the first announcement was made.
The actual coining of the term "Bermuda Triangle" seems to point to Vincent Gaddis, a Fortean friend of Ivan T. Sanderson. In the February 1964 issue of Argosy, Vincent Gaddis' article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" used the phrase widely for the first time. Sanderson wrote the well-known followup article, "The Twelve Devil's Graveyards Around the World," in 1972, for Saga magazine.
The real Bermuda Triangle is partially in America, since Florida makes up the eastern side of that "triangle," so why change the perfectly good name from The Bridgewater Triangle to America's Bermuda Triangle? As it turns out, it was a subtitle and the use of that moniker acknowledges this is a new edit, and not the directors' cut.
Destination America is also referring to what they feel is the better known "Bermuda Triangle" name, although they might be surprised by how many people know about the Bridgewater Triangle, nowadays. Plus, most of the other "Triangles" have been labeled with those names because I began this practice in the 1970s, with the Bridgewater Triangle.
Therefore, since they gave The Bridgewater Triangle the subtitle America's Bermuda Triangle, let's switch this back around a bit and look at...
America's Bridgewater Triangles
#1. Bridgewater Triangle, Massachusetts
The Bridgewater Triangle was coined in the late 1970s (circa 1976) by yours truly, Loren Coleman, who published the phrase for the first time in the April 1980 article of the same name in Boston Magazine, and in the 1983 book, Mysterious America (Faber and Faber, 1983; now in a completely revised 2007 Simon & Schuster edition). A local newspaper published the name "The Bridgewater Triangle" after I gave a library lecture using the phrase in the late 1970s, in the Bridgewater area.
The Bridgewater Triangle is the focus of decades of weird activity (UFO sightings; cattle mutilations; Hell Hound encounters; Black Panther accounts; Giant Snake tales; people disappearances; little creature folklore, plus the 1969-1970s Bigfoot activity, mentioned above) in a 200-square-mile area in southeastern Massachusetts. The Bridgewater Triangle is roughly defined by the towns of Abington in the north, Freetown in the southeast, and Rehoboth in the southwest, an area that encompasses the Hockomock Swamp and the “infamous” Freetown/Fall River State Forest. (See at bottom, for more information on The Bridgewater Triangle.)
#2. The Bennington Triangle, Vermont
The Bennington Triangle was coined by writer Joseph A. Citro in 1992. According to Citro, the area shares characteristics with the Bridgewater Triangle in neighboring Massachusetts, and so he used a similar name.
This Vermont location has many of the same phenomena found in the Bridgewater Triangle. Citro related the disappearances of Middie Rivers (1945), Paula Weldon (1946), James Tedford (1949), Paul Jepson (1950), and Frieda Langer (1950), to the Bennington Triangle.
One of the more bizarre legends associated with this Vermont site is the man-eating stone of Glastonbury Mountain, which made its first appearance in Citro’s book The Vermont Monster Guide (2009). The man-eating stone is exactly what it sounds like…a rock that eats people.
A Wikipedia editor rather harshly noted that "precisely what area is encompassed in this hypothetical 'mystery triangle' is not clear."
But Citro is rather clear about where The Bennington Triangle is. It is centered on Glastenbury Mountain and includes some or most of the area of the towns immediately surrounding it, especially Bennington, Woodford, Shaftsbury, and Somerset. Glastenbury and its neighboring township Somerset were both once moderately thriving logging and industrial towns, but began declining toward the late 19th century and are now essentially ghost towns, unincorporated by an act of the state legislature in 1937.
Update: In response to this article, Joseph Citro shared the following thoughts on August 30, 2015,
Thanks, Loren Coleman. The problem with triangles, I think, is that people expect their boundaries to be rigidly defined -- straight lines and measurable angles. The phrase is simply a metaphor. The lines can undulate, and the angles can open and close. We could as easily and as accurately say, The Burmuda Square, or The Bridgewater Rectangle, but Triangle (i.e. three) has always had stronger metaphysical impact. It is a convenience word, but it surely has taken root in our language.
#3. The Coudersport Triangle, Pennsylvania
Thunderbirds have been seen in northern Pennsylvania, in an area known as the "Coudersport Triangle," which overlaps with the spooky Black Forest of the same location. Most of the Thunderbird sightings come from the Black Forest region of Clinton, Potter, Lycoming, Tioga, Cameron, and McKean counties, sparsely populated areas of mainly state forests and gamelands. Besides the Thunderbirds, tales of Black Panthers are part of the traditions here.
The earliest chronicler of the variously named Coudersport Triangle, Black Forest, or Forbidden Land accounts is the late Pennsylvania writer Robert Lyman, who penned a series of volumes in his Amazing Indeed, Strange Events in the Black Forest booklets. Extending Lyman's work, cryptozoologist and author Mark A. Hall captured more Thunderbird sightings in his chapter on the Pennsylvania accounts in his book, Thunderbirds: America's Living Legends of Giant Birds.
In 2004, I traveled to the Coudersport Triangle, on location for an episode of a Discovery science program for young people on the Coudersport Triangle/Black Forest's Thunderbird reports. Other programs have dealt with the same topic.
The Animal X program on the Black Forest contains eyewitness accounts from the Coudersport Triangle. Then it drifts into showing the "Chief John Huffer" footage from Illinois of what appears to be turkey vultures, but places the Huffer video incorrectly from Pennsylvania.
#4. The Virginia Triangle, Virginia and North Carolina
The Great Dismal Swamp is a marshy wetland that goes from Norfolk, located on the Elizabeth River, through southeastern Virginia's Coast Plain into northeastern North Carolina. It has been known as a miniversion of the Bermuda Triangle, on the level of other states' mystery triangles, like the Coudersport Triangle (linked to the Black Forest) in Pennsylvania or the Bridgewater Triangle (aligned with the Hockomock Swamp) in Massachusetts. Reports of ancient mysteries, as well as sighting of giant snakes and Bigfoot, have been associated with the Great Dismal Swamp.
Lake Drummond, a 3,100-acre lake, is located in the heart of the swamp, and only one of two natural lakes in Virginia. It was discovered in 1655, by former Scottish indentured servant William Drummond. Drummond went on to be governor of North Carolina, and was later hanged in Virginia. Lake Drummond is almost a perfect circle, and some thought has been given to it having been formed by a meteorite, a peat fire, or a tectonic shift. Native American tradition talks of "the Fire Bird" creating the freshwater lake.
#5. The Great Lakes Triangle and Michigan Triangle, Wisconsin, Michigan, Canada
Jay Gourley's book The Great Lakes Triangle first appeared on May 12, 1977. The focus was the disappearance of planes and ships throughout the entire region of the Great Lakes, as shown on the map below. The area was too large for it to be seen as a popular topic for research discussions by the mainstream media.
On the television program In Search Of…, the late Leonard Nimoy narrated the episode entitled "The Great Lakes Triangle," which aired on November 2, 1978.
Author Hugh Cochrane thanks Jay Gourley in his own book, Gateway To Oblivion: The Great Lakes' Bermuda Triangle. And from there, he expands upon the idea that the Great Lakes are host to vile vortices, UFO hotspots, Earth energies, and an entire catalog of unproven phenomena.
The Michigan Triangle, where many planes, ships, and people go missing, stretches from the town of Ludington to Benton Harbor in Michigan; another links from Benton Harbor to Manitowoc, Wisconsin; the final side connects Manitowoc back to Ludington. The Michigan Triangle is an extension but concentration of Jay Gourley's original idea, earlier, of The Great Lakes Triangle.
The Lake Michigan Triangle has been mentioned on Willian Shatner's Weird or What?, it has a place entry on the Atlas Obscura, and the Travel Channel's Mysteries at the Museum reported on it.
#6. The Big Lick Triangle, Indiana and Kentucky
In 2013, a clever blogger named Ben did his homework, and came up with this:
Children, have you ever heard of “The Bridgewater Triangle?”
Go and google it … I’ll wait.
OK, as we all now know, “The Bridgewater Triangle” refers to this vague geographic area in southeast Massachusetts. Weighing in at about 200 square miles, the Bridgewater Triangle is claimed to be a hotbed of paranormal activity — like every X-File you can image: UFOs, ghosts of all kind, Bigfoot, Thunderbirds, cattle mutilation, satanic activity, black helicopters, phantom pumas …
Back in the 1980s, a paranormal researcher was looking at a map and noticed that a lot of his ghost, Bigfeet and flying saucer reports happened in southern Mass, a few hundred miles around a town called Bridgewater. So he got his magic marker / sharpie, drew the rough borders on the map, and BAM! Instant paranormal fame.
Well, since that Fortean researcher was me (Loren Coleman) and I didn't use a magic marker in the 1970s (not the 1980s), I am honored by this cute passage, anyway.
Ben* goes on to notice the strange coincidences of his own area's phenomena - in a rough shape configured with three towns named Lick on each corner. Then he coined the name The Big Lick Triangle.
His body of linking evidence shows he had fun, especially since his area is "roughly 2269.9 square miles of weird" compared to 200 square miles of the Bridgewater Triangle. He surprisingly found much more that was strange in this Triangle that he reckoned for, and he appears to have been overjoyed with his discoveries.
My personal favorite in The Big Lick Triangle - and one that I have mentioned in my books - is the green, 10-foot-tall monster with glowing red eyes, seen in March 1965, by teenagers in the woods south of French Lick, Indiana. It grew to be called “Fluorescent Freddie." Unfortunately, it never became as famous as that other local tall native - Larry Bird.
*Update: "Ben" read this selection and got in contact. He identifies himself as Ben Schneider, and pointed out the fact "The Big Lick Triangle" has a curious name game to note. There is a "Bridgewater" name inside the configured area. It's the Bridgewater Cemetery in Scottsburg, Indiana, a town near the northern border of the Big Lick Triangle. Quoting from Ben's blog, the Bridgewater Cemetery is "haunted by an entity called 'Old Red Eyes.' It is often seen glowing at the back of the cemetery. A black form or object will often circle around cars, and handprints will appear on the windows. A white phantom horse sometimes chases gawkers away at night, and there is also the glowing tombstone of a man who awakens at night and guards the front gate."
Ben's comedic relief is apparent in his creation of this Triangle, but there's no reason to leave it off the list of Triangles, even if we know he's somewhat doing this exercise with his tongue firming in his cheek. He may have been hiding his Fortean wit behind his sarcasm, but the end result was pure satisfaction and enjoyment. And good research.
#7. The Nevada Triangle, Nevada and California
The disappearance of maverick aviator and daredevil entrepreneur Steve Fossett in 2007 brought into focus an area called The Nevada Triangle. Observers have documented more than 2,000 planes having crashed there in the past 60 years, including reports of UFOs and alien abduction, in the area that encompasses Reno, Fresno, China Lake, Las Vegas, and Groom Lake, a/k/a Area 51. Any location with Area 51 appears destined to be an enigmatic area, right?
The Mystery of the Nevada Triangle was a 2010 Channel 4 (UK) production about the location and the disappearance of Steve Fossett. Several news outlets, such as Fox News, reported on The Nevada Triangle in 2010.
#8. The Alaska Triangle, Alaska
The Alaska Triangle is also called Alaska's Devil's Graveyard, because so many ships and airplanes have disappeared there.
Planes go down, hikers go missing and Alaskan residents and tourists seem to vanish into the largely untouched backdrop.
The so-called Alaska Triangle slices through four of the state's regions, from the southeastern wilderness and fjords to the interior tundra and up to the arctic mountain ranges. Its points include the large swath of land from Juneau and Yakutat in the southeast, the Barrow mountain range in the north, and Anchorage in the center of the state.
#9. The Little Egypt Triangle, Illinois
The Southern Triangle of Illinois forms an area also given the name "Little Egypt" or "Egypt." The Triangle forms nicely from the southern third of the state of Illinois. With the area code 618, the southern part of Illinois is geographically, culturally, and economically distinct from the rest of the state. The region is bordered by the most voluminous rivers in the United States: the Wabash and Ohio rivers to the east and south, and the Mississippi River and its connecting Missouri River to the west.
Southern Illinois' most populated city is currently Belleville (see The Bell Name) at 44,478. Other principal cities include Alton, Centralia, Collinsville, Edwardsville, O'Fallon, Harrisburg, Mt. Vernon, Marion, and Carbondale, where the main campus of Southern Illinois University is located. It also has a campus at Edwardsville. Residents travel to amenities in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Evansville, Indiana; and Paducah, Kentucky. The region is also home to a major military installation, Scott Air Force Base.
I completed my undergraduate studies in anthropology/zoology at SIU-C. While there, and often not going to classes, I would investigate many Fortean and cryptozoological wonders in this area, from Black Panthers (Shawnee National Forest) to small red apes (swamps around Mt. Vernon and other towns), large birds (especially in the Alton area) to stone walls (across the Triangle). Several passages in my books, especially in Mysterious America, are about the cases in The Little Egypt Triangle.
The name game is strong in Little Egypt, with Thebes, Karnak, New Memphis, Dongola, and Cairo having lexilinks to ancient Egypt. SIU-C's students attending Little Egypt's leading university read The Daily Egyptian and call their athletic teams "The Salukis" (Egyptian hunting dogs). In nearby states, you find West Memphis and Memphis. Some have related these names to the strong Egyptian influences in the Supreme Council, 33°, Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, which had a sway over this area, technically south of the Mason/Dixon Line.
Little Egypt's Fayville (see the Fayette Factor), Illinois, is an unincorporated community in Alexander County, Illinois, located along the Mississippi River south of Thebes.
#10. The Ossipee Triangle, New Hampshire
First appearing in print as "The Ossipee Triangle" in Info Journal, Vol 12-13, 1987, the label was inspired by The Bridgewater Triangle. The name was coined by investigator Ken Moak. The Ossipee Triangle includes most of Carrol County in eastern New Hampshire, and at the center is Ossipee Lake. The Ossipee Triangle is the home of Mystery Pond (now called Snake Pond), UFOs, Indian mounds, ghost stories, disappearances of boats and planes, and other oddities.
The map was created by the Mandate Interstate 93 (see below) folks, and they note The Ossipee Triangle "would include Mounts Shaw, Sentinel, Cannon, and Lafayette. Mystery Hill and Lake Winnipesaukee." The latter lake syncs with the fictional site of the movie, What About Bob? and the Bridgewater Plaza shootings.
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The following (slightly revised) press release on The Bridgewater Triangle: America's Bermuda Triangle is from Bristol County Media.
Triangle Documentary to See National Audience
In October of 2013, The Bridgewater Triangle documentary premiered to a sell-out crowd of over 750 people at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. One year later, the exclusive US broadcast rights to the film were licensed to Discovery Communications’ Destination America network. The channel will air a 42-minute (broadcast hour) version of the documentary under the title, The Bridgewater Triangle: America’s Bermuda Triangle, a name which they hope will help to draw-in a broader national audience. The film will broadcast on Saturday, September 5th at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. Viewers are encouraged to check with their local cable and satellite providers for availability and channel number. To celebrate the occasion, a free viewing party will be held that same night at Christopher’s Lounge at 1285 Broadway in Raynham, Massachusetts. The event is open to the public and will begin at 8:00 PM with a screening of the original 90-minute directors’ cut of The Bridgewater Triangle. At 10:00 PM, Christopher’s many televisions will be tuned in to Destination America as The Bridgewater Triangle (airing as The Bridgewater Triangle: America’s Bermuda Triangle) makes its debut on national television. A number of the film’s cast and crew members will be present at the event.
First named and defined, in 1978, by world-renown cryptozoologist and author Loren Coleman, the 200-square-mile Bridgewater Triangle sits within the Southeastern portion of Massachusetts, and includes a number of locations known for unexplained occurrences; the most prominent of which include the legendary Hockomock Swamp and the infamous Freetown-Fall River State Forest. The triangle’s traditional boarders are revealed by connecting the dots between the town of Abington to the North, the town of Freetown to the Southeast, and the town of Rehoboth to the Southwest. The area hosts an unusually high volume of reports involving strange happenings, baffling mysteries and sinister deeds. From ghostly hauntings and cryptid animal sightings, to UFO encounters and evidence of satanic ritual sacrifice, the Bridgewater Triangle serves as one of the world’s most diverse hotspots for paranormal activity. The first-ever feature-length documentary on the subject, The Bridgewater Triangle explores the history of this fascinating region. The film features a number of local residents providing first-hand accounts of unexplained occurrences. In addition, an all-star assembly of paranormal researchers, folklorists and authors provide expert analysis regarding the many mysteries of the triangle. Among the film’s on-screen personalities are Loren Coleman, and Ghost Adventures writer and author Jeff Belanger.
During its twenty-two month long run, the independently produced documentary, which was filmed entirely in Massachusetts, has been featured on the nationally-syndicated Coast to Coast AM radio show, on WCVB’s Chronicle, on Fox 25’s Zip Trips, and in a segment on WJAR in Providence. The film has also been covered in a number of publications including the nationally-distributed Rue Morgue magazine and the Boston Globe. On the festival circuit, the documentary received the Audience Award at the 2014 Terror Con Film Festival, in Providence, won Best Documentary at the Winter 2015 Macabre Faire Film Festival on Long Island, New York, and won Best Local at the 2015 Granite State Film Festival, in Manchester, New Hampshire. Reviews of the movie have been positive, including eight favorable write-ups from independent critics, and an 8.0 out of 10 stars rating on the Internet Movie Database. In late 2014, The Bridgewater Triangle became available on UltraFlix, NanoTech Entertainment’s 4k movie streaming service.
The film’s producers hope that a successful run on Destination America will lead to additional opportunities, including a chance to be shown on Discovery Communications’ flagship network, the Discovery Channel, and the possibility of generating an international interest in The Bridgewater Triangle with overseas broadcast and distribution deals. The producers will also retain the film’s exclusive Blu-ray, DVD and Internet On-Demand distribution rights, and the original 90-minute feature will remain available through their website.
This early 2000s map of the Bridgewater Triangle was created for a Boston Globe article about the area, and gave a decidedly more humanlike than cryptozoological slant to the traditions.
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Do you know of more "Bridgewater Triangles" in America? If so, let me know (here).
Enjoy....
and purchase Mysterious Americato read more about the Bridgewater Triangle.
