Invasion on Chestnut Ridge: Spooky, Scary, A Cocktail of Weirdness

Invasion on Chestnut Ridge is a bit of a departure for Seth Breedlove and Small Town Monsters films.

Spooky, at times scary, and often a cocktail of weirdness, the documentary projects a Twilight Zone feel. Not strictly about monsters and cryptids, one gets the sense we are peeking in on a secret region of the country - Chestnut Ridge at the edgy corner of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.

What is seen as normal there by the locals - where UFOs, Bigfoot, Black Panthers, Dogmen, and Glowing Orbs haunt the area and coexist - is beyond bizarre elsewhere. Breedlove captures it all well, although it is hard to say any of it really has anything to do with each of the other phenomena being reported.

Driven by the testimony and gathering of incidents by a handful of investigators, we are asked to buy into the strange notion of the connectedness of this window area. If anything, we should look back and appreciate Breedlove for documenting how very isolated and unusual this story is - thank goodness.

Invasion of Chestnut Ridge is due Halloween 2017, and you may pre-order it via Small Town Monsters, along with their other movies, together or separately.  Director Seth Breedlove was named The Cryptozoologist of The Year 2017, due to his growing body of cryptozoology documentary work. Pick up some of his films, and view them for yourself.

(For more remarks, in my extended comments on this documentary, see below.)

Seth Breedlove's and his Small Town Monsters crew's on-site location interviews of eyewitnesses adds a texture to the film not found in merely reading or hearing about the cases. The viewer is able to "see" where these incidents happened, and experience these remarkable events in an unforgettable fashion.

 Stan Gordon was a focus of the Invasion on Chestnut Ridge interviews, as the primary historical investigator in the area, creating a thread throughout the documentary. Gordon's open-minded theorizing that connects UFOs to the creature accounts is the paintbrush that colors the documentary. 

This is not to say this is an incorrect notion about the world of Chestnut Ridge, but a critical thinking audience may wish to examine the cases outside Gordon's worldview. Breedlove's film gives plenty of opportunities to merely listen and look at the weirdness, and separate the data from the theorizing. Certainly, there is a great deal occurring in this specific region that defies explanation.

Chestnut Ridge is what must be considered one of the classic "window areas" mentioned by John A. Keel and other UFO investigators in the 1960s-1970s. The documentary begins with notes on how these special locations are a concentration of intrigue and interest. But the "celebrity sites," such as the Bermuda Triangle and Stonehenge get all the attention. Other ones, off the beaten track of visitors and media attention, include places like Chestnut Ridge. There is a need for more documentaries like this one.

Invasion on Chestnut Ridge shines a spotlight on Westmoreland County (where Stan Gordon lives).

Around the edges, we do note that the "Fayette Factor" is part of the picture.

Fayette County is known for Falling Water and Frank Lloyd Wright (see here).

Invasion of Chestnut Ridge mentions, besides its focus on Westmoreland County, that Fayette County is not to be ignored. I wrote of "Frank Lloyd Wright and Synchromysticism" in 2012. I've been writing about Fayette County for decades.

High strangeness in Fayette County, Pennsylvania is a long documented reality. (See here.) In 1978, my and Jerry Clark's Creatures of the Outer Edge dealt with the bizarre Uniontown, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, case involving Bigfoot and globes of light and more. It is a different kind of county.

Anyone familiar with my writings, as well as Jim Brandon's, know I put stock in the Fayette Factor as a lens to Fortean weirdness awareness.

Watch Invasion of Chestnut Ridge with a view to looking deeper than any cryptozoologist or ufologist ever did. You may see things never observed before, synchromystically speaking, through your 2017 eyes.

Metropolis Maria Appears

On November 14, 2015, I was given the Lifetime Achievement in Cryptozoology Award by 2015 PA MUFON, bestowed by the Pennsylvania State Director John Ventre. I was shocked and surprised it was the False Maria from Metropolis, a personal favorite of mine, a fact unknown to these PA folks. Indeed, my wife Jenny had done a painting of Metropolis's robotic wonder for me, months ago.

Ventre (here with his alien partners in crime) made it an adventure by dropping the award twice, as he walked into the college to present it to me. The legs, arms, a hand, and head broke off. Indeed, the statuette was decapitated.

The head went missing for hours. Search parties were assembled, but it could not be found. Then, Erie Ohio's Thomas Lee Curtin Jr. (above) presented me with the head he had found in the brush outside the lecture hall. The day - or at least, the head - was saved, and now to put False Maria back together.

What was I to do? Ventre declared he was not going to touch it again. Luckily, former Yankees' and other MLB teams' pitcher, MUFON insider George "Doc" Medich came to the rescue with super glue. I glued the statute temporarily, and the reconstruction allowed the ceremony to proceed. (The entire body broke away from the base, on the flight home, due to rough baggage handling, apparently, and another repair is in order).

But the Award was in hand, and I am honored by it.

The Award

Stan Gordon, Mord McGhee, and Loren Coleman

False Maria

False Maria and Beyoncé (Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter).

Beyoncé (Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter) and 

J.Lo (Jennifer Lynn Lopez) as False Maria.

What great symbolism.

The Maschinenmensch (German for "machine-human") is a fictional character in Fritz Lang's film Metropolis, played by German actress Brigitte Helm in both its robot form and human incarnation. She is a gynoid (female robot or android) created by the scientist Rotwang. Named Maria in the film, and Futura in Thea von Harbou's original novel Metropolis, she was the first robot ever depicted in cinema.
The Maschinenmensch has been given several names through the decades: Parody, Ultima, Machina, Futura, Robotrix, False Maria, Robot Maria, Roboria and Hel. The intertitles of the 2010 restoration of Metropolis quotes Rotwang, the robot's creator, referring to his gynoid Maschinenmensch, literally translated as "Machine human." Source.

This all happened in the weird neverland of Youngwood, Pennsylvania, as world events swirled around a weekend dominated by Friday the 13th of November 2015's Paris Terror Attack. There was more talk of Fayettenam than Paris, as it turned out. That seemed rather bizarre.