- 562 - Saint Columba Encounters the Loch Ness Monster: Saint
Columba purportedly encounters a monster in Loch Ness or the River Ness
driving it back into the waters by making the sign of a cross.
- 1502 - Columbus’ End of World Prediction: Book of Prophecies
is published by Christopher Columbus, following his third voyage across
the Atlantic. The text makes various apocalyptic claims including that
the garden of Eden would be found and the world would end around 1656.
- 1510 - Origin of the Name ‘California’: Las Sergas de Esplandián
(The Adventures of Esplandián), by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, is
published detailing North American wonders. The novel includes mention
of the fictional, Amazon, warrior Queen Calafia, from whom California is
named.
- 1590 - Lost Colony: August 18, Upon his return to Roanoke,
John White, an associate of Walter Raleigh, finds the settlement
completely deserted. The only clue in the disappearance of one-hundred
plus settlers is the word “CROATOAN” carved into a post on settlement’s
perimeter. Later authors and historians would speculate as to the
settlers whereabouts. Some commentators have suggest that the colonist
set off to live wild in the woods.
- 1671 - New and Unknown World, by Arnoldus Montanus, is
published detailing North America. Montanus' account is not without
factual inaccuracies nor depictions of monsters.
- 1692-1693 - Salem Witch Trials: Between February and May,
mass hysteria results in fourteen women and five men being tried,
convicted and hanged for witchcraft.
- 1735 - Jersey Devil Birth: According to tradition Mother Leeds gives birth to her thirteenth child— the Jersey Devil.
- 1755 - Bulletproof Washington: July 18, during the French
and Indian War, a young George Washington relates in a letter to his
brother how two horses had been shot beneath him and four bullets had
passed through his coat, yet he remained completely unharmed.
- 1780 - Sky Darkens Over New England: May 19, The sky over New England darkened requiring the use of candles during daylight hours.
- 1816 - Year Without a Summer: Global decreases in temperatures brought on by a volcanic winter result in what would be known as the, “Year Without a Summer”
- 1817-1821 - Bell Witch: The Bell Witch is said to haunt the Bell family in Robertson County, Tennessee.
- 1820 - “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” by Washington Irving, is published in the The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent..
- 1820s - Territory of Poyais: Gregor MacGregor, notorious
conman, issued promotional materials as part of an elaborate scheme to
attract settlers to the “Territory of Poyais,” situated along the
Mosquito Coast (in modern day Nicaragua and Honduras). MacGregor sold
land certificates and Poyais currency to eager investors. Poyais, in
reality, existed only in the imagination of MacGregor and the victims of
his scam. Settlers anticipating a new life in a tropical paradise were
met with an absence of governmental authority, uninhabitable land,
starvation, disease and death.
- 1839-1849 - Crania Americana, by Samuel George
Morton, is published, alleging that intellectual capacity is determined
by skull size and volume corresponding to a particular race.
- 1842 - Fiji Mermaid: Showman and circus magnate P. T. Barnum
showcases the Fiji mermaid at Barnum’s American Museum. The Fiji
Mermaid was later exposed as an elaborate hoax utilizing taxidermy
combing parts of a monkey and fish.
- 1848 - Races of Man and Their Geographical Distribution,
by Charles Pickering, is published purporting that there exist eleven
distinct human “races.” Pickering contends that, “Two of the races may
therefore be designated as white, three as brown, four as
blackish-brown, and two as black.”
- 1854 - Types of Mankind is published supporting
polygenism (a.k.a. co-Adamism). Polygenism falsely alleges that
different races do not originate from a common human ancestor but
evolved from separate hominid species. The book, dedicated in the
memory of Samuel George Morton, would help propel Polygenism as a
dominant theory in its day.
- 1859 - Worldwide Electrical Outage: September 1-2, A massive
solar storm shuts down all electrical devices in the world, due to the
technology of the day, this is largely limited to disrupting telegraph
communications.
- 1860s - Spirit Photography: The practice of “spirit photography” is created by William H. Mumler. Mumler operated mostly out of Boston and New York.
- 1864 ∨ 1865 - Paul Bunyan & The Round River Drive:
Lumberjacks tell that Paul Bunyan is said to have floated a great
quantity of lumber down the Round River in order to transport them to a
saw mill. However, as days passed the river was discovered to be a
complete 360 degrees having no mouth. Thus, Bunyan was forced to abandon
the timber. Recounted in Douglas Malloch’s poem “The Round River Drive” (1914) published in the American Lumberman.
- 1870 - Lost Ship of the Desert: Newspapers publish the first
report of a lost ship stranded in the middle of the Colorado Desert.
Afterwards, the legend would be repeated with descriptions varying from a
Spanish galleon to a Viking canoe with a serpent neck.
- 1870 - Hodag Mill: The yet earliest known mention of the creature the Hodag is recorded in History and Directory of Kent County, Michigan, Containing a History of Each Township and the City of Grand Rapids.
The account states that a steam saw mill, called hodag mill, was named
after “an unknown and mysterious animal” that “was heard, seen and even
fired at, in the woods near here, some years ago.” Hodag mill was
erected in June 1869 along Little Cedar Creek in Kent County, Michigan.
- 1870-1872 - John Henry: Traditional holds that, in a race
between man and machine, John Henry beat a steam drill in a tunneling
contest during the construction of the The Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott,
West Virginia. Stories tell that John Henry won the contest but lost
his life in the struggle.
- 1871 - Gloucester Sea Serpent: A sea serpent is sporadically reported in Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts.
- 1880s - Lulu Hurst: Early in the decade, teenage Lulu Hurst
tours the United States performing various feats of superhuman strength
attributing this ability to mysterious powers.
- 1883 - Bonilla Observation: August 12, José Bonilla,
astronomer, in Zacatecas Observatory, Zacatecas, Mexico, reported
observing more than 300 objects passing across the sun. Bonilla took
multiple photographs.
- 1886 - Thunderbird Photograph: Tradition holds that the newspaper The Tombstone Epitaph
published a photograph of a “Thunderbird,” or giant flying creature,
nailed to a wall with wings outstretch. Reports note that several
persons were included in the photograph to provide a sense of
proportion. However, no trace of the alleged photograph has ever been
found.
- 1889 - Cardiff Giant: October 16, The Cardiff Giant is
unearthed from the property of William C. Newell in Cardiff, New York.
The Cardiff Giant was a supposed corpse of a colossal human being
standing ten feet tall. The “giant” was, in fact, a colossal hoax carved
from gypsum.
- 1893 - Hodag: Eugene Shepard purportedly captures the hodag in Rhinelander, Wisconsin
- 1893 - “Paul Bunion [sic] is getting ready while the water is high to take his drive out,” this single-line, inside joke, published in The Gladwin County Record, on March 17, 1893 , marks the first yet known mention of the Paul Bunyan name in print.
- 1896 - St. Augustine Monster: November, remains of an unidentified creature wash up on a beach in St. Augustine, Florida.
- 1897 - On This Site: On this site in 1897 nothing happened.
- 1897 - Aurora Airship Crash: April 17, an airship purportedly
crashes in Aurora, Texas. The pilot was reported dead and noted to be
“... an inhabitant not of this world.”
- 1897 - The Gowrow is reported in Blanco, Calf Creek Township in Searcy County, Arkansas,
- 1898 - Ice Worms: E. J. “Stroller” White writes about the emerging ice worms in Dawson, Alaska in the Klondike Nugget
- 1898 - The Kensington Runeston, a large stone slab with
alleged viking runes, is unearthed in Solem, Minnesota by Olof Ohman.
The stone is largely debunked as a hoax.
- 1899 - Harry Houdini, through various cunning escapes, begins his rise to fame and rapidly becomes one of the top vaudeville performers.
- 1900s - Radionics is created early in the decade by Albert
Abrams. The practice aims in applying electromagnetic radiation,
including radio waves, to cure diseases.
- 1903 - Nature Faker Controversy: John Burroughs, American
nature essayist, condemns poetic and romanticized character common in
contemporary natural histories in “Real and Sham Natural History.”
Burroughs’ articles sparks controversy and the creation of the
prerogative “nature faker/fakir” being applied to those who naturalistic
writings are called into question. Notably, American President Theodore
Roosevelt would lend his thoughts on the debate.
- 1909 - The Snallygaster, a large bird-reptile creature with
iron claws, tentacles, and an eye in the center of its forehead, is
reported in Middletown, Maryland.
- 1910 - Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, with a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts, by William T. Cox, is published.
- 1910 - Edgar Cayce, American psychic, receives national
attention for his claims of foreseeing past lives and diagnosing illness
by means of a trance-like state.
- 1916 - Snake Oil: June 15, Clark Stanley, self-proclaimed
“rattlesnake king,” of the Clark Stanley Snake Oil Liniment Co.,
Providence, Rhode Island, enters into a plea of no contest after his
flagship product was determined to be misbranded containing no
snake-based ingredients. Stanley was fined $20.00 ($466.68 in 2018).
Afterwards, “Snake oil” became a catch-all term for useless medicine.
- 1919 - The Book of the Damned the first of four nonfiction works by Charles Fort examining anomalous phenomena is published.
- 1920 - The “Spirit Wireless,” an apparatus designed to
communicate with the deceased through scientific means is announced to
be in the works by Thomas Edison.
- 1920 - The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy,
by Lothrop Stoddard, infamous Klansman, is published predicting the
fall of the “white world” due to increasing populations of people of
color. The collapse of society through integration, as Stoddard
predicated, has not come to pass and never will.
- 1921 - “Abominable Snowman”: Lt. Col. Charles Howard-Bury
relates, following a reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest, that he
observed human-like tracks left in the snow but which were likely
formed by a wolf. Howard-Bury added that guides immediately suggested
that the prints were of "The Wild Man of the Snows." Howard-Bury notes
the local name given for the creature as "metoh-kangmi," later
interpreted as “Abominable Snowman” by Henry Newman, a contributor to The Statesman, a newspaper out of Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
- 1923 - New Lands second work in Charles Fort’s series on anomalistics is published.
- 1923 - Weird Tales arguably the most renown and influential fantasy magazine is first published in March.
- 1924 - Ape Canyon Bigfoot Attack: An incident is reported between several miners and a group of Bigfoot in Ape Canyon
- 1924 - The Crystal Skull: Anna Mitchell-Hedges finds a
crystal skull in British Honduras, present-day Belize. The artifact was
recovered in Lubaantun among the ruins of a destroyed altar. The
discovery would not be made public until roughly a decade later.
- 1926 - Ogopogo is first sighted in Okanagan Lake, British Columbia.
- 1930s - NYC Sewer ’Gators: First reports of alligators
discovered in sewers come out of New York City; however, the phenomenon
of sewer gators were reported previously in cities such as Baltimore and
Miami decades earlier.
- 1931 - Lo! third work in Charles Fort’s series on anomalistics is published.
- 1931 - Universal Classic Monster Series takes new shape with the dual successes, in 1931, of Dracula, staring Bela Lugosi, and Frankenstein,
staring Boris Karloff. Universal would follow up with other entries
featuring iconic monsters such as: the mummy, wolf man, creature from
the black lagoon, invisible man, etc. Films would continue to be
produced, the majority throughout the thirties and forties, with the
series' last major achievement in the fifties.
- 1932 - Wild Talents fourth and final work in Charles Fort’s series on anomalistics is published.
- 1933 - Loch Ness Monster Sightings: First modern accounts realting sightings of a strange, marine animal living in Loch Ness, Scotland start to appear.
- 1935 - Manipogo, a lake monster, is first sighted in Lake Manitoba, Manitoba.
- 1938 - The Addams Family is created by American cartoonist Charles Addams in single-panel cartoons for The New Yorker.
- 1938 - War of the Worlds Broadcast: October 30, actor/director Orson Welles adapts H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds
for radio. It is said that the broadcast caused confusion and panic
among a few who mistook the play for an actual news alert of a Martian
invasion.
- 1939 - The Glawackus is reported in Glastonbury, Connecticut,
- 1939 - 1945 - Foo Fighters: During the height of World War II
various pilots report sighting “foo fighters,” mysterious lights
rumored to be extraterrestrial or top secret aircraft.
- 1943 - Philadelphia Experiment: October 28, The alleged
Philadelphia Experiment is alledged to have taken place. The rumored
incident was purported to involve the USS Eldridge wherein the ship was
to be rendered invisible at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in
Pennsylvania. However, claims of the suppoused incident relate that
members of the experiment went back into time.
- 1943 - Shaver Mystery concerned Richard Sharpe Shaver writing to Amazing Stories
magazine regarding “Mantong.” Shaver purported that Mantong was the
source tongue of all languages and could be applied as to decode the
inner meaning of any word in any language. Shaver’s claims were
published resulting in a significant boost in the magazine’s
circulation.
- 1943 - Gremlins, fanciful little creatures that damage
aircraft, are introduced to the American public after Walt Disney
Productions commissions British author Roald Dahl to write The Gremlins,
a promotional story for an animated feature that was never developed.
Previously, reports of gremlins were largely limited to the European
theater particularly within Britain’s Royal Air Force.
- 1945 - Curse of the Billy Goat: William Sianis was directed
to remove his billy goat from Wrigley Field during game four of the 1945
World Series. Sianis announced that the Cubs would not win anymore.
Coincidentally, the Cubs did not receive another World Series
Championship until 2016
- 1947 - Roswell UFO Crash: On June 14, William Brazel
uncovered debris of unknown origin scattered across a field in Roswell,
New Mexico later speculated to be the remains of an extraterrestrial
spacecraft.
- 1947 - Mount Rainer UFO Sighting: June 24, Kenneth Arnold
reports sighting nine metallic
objects flying near Mount Rainer, Washington. It was Arnold’s
description of the objects’ odd locomotion that led the press to coin
the term, “flying saucer.&rdquo.
- 1949 - Beast of Busco, a giant turtle, is reported in Churubusco, Indiana
- 1951 - Island of the Dolls: After discovering the body of a
girl drowned in the Xochimico canals, Don Julian Santana Barrer hangs a
doll washed up on a small island to a tree. Barrer continues these
practice with other dolls until his death in 2001. The area later
becomes known as Isla de las Munecas, Island of the Dolls. Tradition holds that the area is one of the most haunted in Mexico City.
- 1952 - Project Blue Book: The United States Air Force begins
the first of several investigations into UFO phenomenon entitled project
Blue Book. This project would later by followed up by two others,
Project Sign in 1947 and Project Grudge in 1949, respectively.
- 1952 - George Adamski claims to have made contact with the
pilot of a Venusian scout ship in the Colorado Desert. This would be the
first of several of assertions regarding Adamski’s interactions with
otherworldly beings. George Adamski would later become a prominent
speaker often elaborating on the topic of UFOs and his own “Space
Brothers” philosophies, which outline peaceful contact with
extraterrestrial visitors. The following year, Adamanski, with co-author
Desmond Leslie, would pen Flying Saucers Have Landed based on Admanski’s on his supposed experiences with people from other planets.
- 1952 - Flatwoods Phantom, also known as "The Green Monster," is reported in Flatwooods, West Virginia,
- 1953 - Project MKUltra, a project conducted by the United
States Central Intelligence Agency, is begun to test the effects of
various illegal drugs with the objective of mind control.
- 1954 - Seduction of the Innocent, by Fredric Wertham,
psychiatrist, is published. The text is critical of comic books and
attempts to link the industry to juvenile delinquency. A U.S.
Congressional inquiry was launched soon after resulting in the creating
of the Comics Code Authority.
- 1954 - Vampira, a character created and protrayed by actress Maila Nurmi, makes her first appearance on The Vampira Show on KABC-TV in Los Angeles, CA. The program which features the titular character hosting horror movies marks the introduction of the television horror host.
- 1958 - Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine debut issue is released in February.
- 1955 - Loveland Frogs, giant amphibians, are reported in Loveland, Ohio, U.S.A
- 1958 - El Santo, the Mexican luchador, marks his film debut upon staring in two Cuban film productions, Cerebro del Mal (Brian of Evil), and Santo contra Hombres Infernals
(Santo against the Infernal Men). These pictures would launch El
Santo’s career as an icon of the Mexican wrestling-fantasy/horror genre.
El Santo would star in over fifty films, from 1958 to 1981, as a
silver-masked strongman battling villains ranging from zombies, head
hunters, mummies, vampire women, the mafia, Martians and even Count
Dracula. For More Info Visit : The Films of El Santo
- 1959 - Twilight Zone: Television’s The Twilight Zone
exploring paranormal, unexplained, and physiological themes, is first
broadcast. The term “Twilight Zone” would later enter into the English
vocabulary to refer to the feeling of being in any situation beyond
’normal’ reality.
- 1959 - Plan 9 from Outer Space is released in theaters
throughout North America. The film, directed by Ed Wood, has afterwards
been regarded as the “worst movie ever made.” It should stressed,
however, that the movie is not considered bad by its entertainment
value. Rather, the title held by the film is reflective of its many
idiosyncrasies, unconventional methods, unintentional flaws and the
manner in which the director address difficulties in production. Still, today,
it is these same characteristics that make the film a cult classic rather than forgotten failure.
- 1960s - Minnesota Iceman: Throughout the decade, carnival showman Frank Hansen toured county and state fairs showcasing the supposed remains of a Homo pongoides
encased in ice. The creature, only partially visible through the ice,
resembled a brown-haired hominid about six feet tall. Hansen’s iceman
was an alleged missing-link and billed to have been discovered in the
Siberian tundra.
- 1961 - Hill Abduction: September 19-20, Barney and Betty
Hill claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings from the
Zeta Reticuli binary star system while driving near Lancaster, New
Hampshire.
- 1966-1967 - Mothman, a vaguley humanoid winged creature, is first reported in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
- 1967 - The Patterson-Gimlin Film, by Roger Patterson and
Robert “Bob” Gimlin, is filmed allegedly depicting a bigfoot in Bluff
Creek near Willow Creek, California.
- 1967 - Shag Harbour UFO incident: October 4, A large unknown
object crashes into Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia and is reported by various
members of the Canadian military and civilians.
- 1971 - Goatman surges in popularity after a dog’s death is attributed to a satyr-like creature in Prince George County, Maryland
- 1976 - Face on Mars: July 25, Viking 1 orbiter photographs
the Cydonia region of the Martian surface revealing geological
formations resembling a giant face. This feature would be commonly
referred to in popular culture as, “The Face on Mars.”
- 1980s - D&D Controversy: Backlash by multiple groups,
notably Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD), against the
tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons, increases as such
associations alleged that the role-playing game promoted witchcraft,
diabolism, and suicide. It, however, does not.
- 1981 - Polybius, a mysterious arcade machine, is rumored to
make its first and only appearance in Portland, Oregon. Later, the game
is said to have been abruptly pulled out of arcades due to the adverse
mental side-effects it induces. The game is legend to have been designed
as a government mind experiment. Stories have it that strange persons
clad in black would frequent the machines to collect data on a regular
basis. Since rumors first were circulated, no evidence of the game’s
existence has been verified.
- 1983 - Atari Video Game Burial: September, amid the video
game crash of the same year, hundreds of cartridges for the Atari 2600
are disposed of at a landfill site in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Most
notably among them, copies for the game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,
based on the movie of the same name, are buried. The game was an immense
commercial failure taking a sizable toll on the video game industry at
large.
- 1988 - Elvis Sightings: Elvis Presley is alleged to be seen at a supermarket and a Burger King
in Kalamazoo, Michigan eleven years following his death. This incident would trigger a wave of Elvis sightings.
- 1992 - Bat Boy: June 23, “Bat Boy” first hits newsstands in the tabloid Weekly World News’s
headline story, “Bat Child Found in Cave.” The account details the
discovery of a humanoid creature, with the bulging eyes and pointed ears
suggestive of a bat. This would be the first of many Bat Boy stories.
- 1995 - Alien Autopsy, a seventeen minute short
subject purportedly showing the filmed dissection of an
extraterrestrial, recovered after the Roswell incident, is released.
- 1995 - Chupacabra: In March, numerous sheep discovered
drained of blood are reported in Puerto Rico. This is later attributed
to the infamous goat-vampire, El Chupacabra.
- 1995 - “Superman Curse”: Following a horse-riding accident in
May, speculation builds of an alleged “Superman Curse” as the tragic
paralyzing incident suffered by Christopher Reeve, actor who played the
titular character in the 1978 Superman film, seems to mirror the
unfortunate death of George Reeves, television’s Superman during the
fifties. Later, other actors would take up the mantle without further
incident.
- 1997 - Heaven’s Gate: March 26, all members of the Heaven’s
Gate cult are found dead. All thirty-nine members had committed suicide
to rid themselves of their “physical vessels” and attain to a spaceship
predicted to trail behind the Hale-Bopp Comet.
- 1997 - Miss Cleo, a psychic onscreen personality portrayed by
Youree Dell Harris, begins appearing for a series of commercials for
the pay-for-call hotline Psychic Readers Network. While Miss Cleo was
never really more than a spokesperson, the Psychic Readers Network,
itself, was shrouded in controversy as its operators were later found to
be reading off scripts and overcharging customers.
- 1997 Phoenix Lights: March 13, unexplained lights appeared
over the skies of Arizona and Nevada, in the U.S.A., as well as in the
adjacent Mexican state of Sonora. Countless eyewitness described what
appeared to be a V-shape pattern of lights moving in a southward
trajectory.
- 1998 - “Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus” is a faux
internet campaign created by Lyle Zapato depicting a a variety of
octopus that had adapted to living in trees. After the hoax's creation,
the website has habitually been used as a source-validity test for
students.
- 1999 - Y2K Scare: Efforts within the technology sector
increase in an attempt to address the year 2000 (Y2K) problem. Among
certain members of the public, however, Y2K led to a scare, as
speculation rose amid fears of catastrophic failure in computer systems
and networks. However, the devastation resulting from Y2K was greatly
overestimated by proponents of the cataclysm. The Y2K scare, itself, was
often quelled with little more than the byline, “Y2K compliant”
inserted into technology ads.
- 2000 - eBay Haunted Painting: The Hands Resist Him, a
1972 oil painting by Bill Stoneham, for auction on eBay, sells for
$1,025.00 in February. The auction purported that the painting was
haunted and that the figures depicted would speak to one another or
leave the painting.
- 2001 - "Moon Landing Hoax" special: February, the televsion network FOX airs the forty-five minute "documentary" Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?
The special presented inteviews, commentary and suppoused "evidence"
to support claims that the moon landing was fabricated. The special was
watched by approxiamtely 15 million viewers.
- 2000-2001 - “All Your Base are Belong to Us”: A line of
poorly translated dialog from the English version of Zero Wing, a 1989
Japanese arcade game, is brought into popular uses as the phrase, “All
your base are belong to us,” is digitally edited into various otherwise
normal settings posted online via Something Awful forums. The
phrase would surge in popularity as it was set to animation and a
pounding, techno track. Subsequently, the phrase would crop up in
unexpected places both on and off the web.
- 2000-2001 - John Titor: Under the handle TimeTravel_0, an
individual identifying himself as John Titor purports to be from the
year 2036 over an online forum. Titor elaborates that he had traveled
back to 1974 in order to obtain an IBM5100 needed to debug systems in
2036. Titor provided various images to support his claims and expressed
that he made a stop in 2000 for personal reasons.
- 2005 - Creepy-chan: The first in a series of seemingly eerie
photos from a MySpace user start appearing on 4chan forums. The subject
of the images dubbed, "Creepy-chan," was Allison Harvard who would later
go on to modeling and appear on the twelfth season of the television
series America's Next Top Model.
- 2006 - Lumberwoods: An electronic copy of Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, by William T. Cox, is published online via the free hosting site Angelfire. Later, a domain is added (fearsomecreatures ofthelumberwoods.com) and shortned a couple years later to lumberwoods.com as additional e-texts are added to an expanding library.
- 2007 - Fresno Nightcrawlers: A home security camera captures
two unidentified non-descripts resembling a round-headed entities with
two leg-like appendages seemingly walking across a residential yard in
Fresno, California. Curiously, the beings appear to flail as if to be a
living pair of pants. Speculation continues to mount on what the objects
are. A later sighting at Yosemite National Park would only add to the
confusion on whether the entities are genuine beings, puppets on wire or
something different altogether.
- 2008 - Post-Racial America: The election of American
President Barrack Obama leads numerous commentators to declare the start
of a “post-racial America,” an America wherein the country is devoid of
racial prejudice and intolerance.
- 2009 - Slender Man makes his debut in several brief accounts
and doctored photographs distributed online via the Something Awful
forum. These accounts depict a thin-bodied, bogeyman with indiscernible
features, vaguely reminiscent of the hidebehind. The character was created by Eric “Victor Surge” Knudsen and rapidly grows into a fixture of internet culture.
- 2012 - Mayan Apocalypse: Due to the ending of the Mayan calendar cycle, it is speculated that the world would come to an end.
- 2015 - I'm Poppy: Unblinking with a disproportionate degree
of social confidence, YouTuber and singer Poppy begins producing surreal
videos featuring herself making unusual statements or behaving oddly.
Poppy exhibits the tonal and behavioral quirks more expected of an
automaton than a human being. The videos range from outright bizarre to
providing subtle social commentary; a notable example of her videos
being an early entry wherein she repeatedly declares "I'm Poppy" or "I
am Poppy" for ten minutes straight.
- 2015 - Trump Wall: American President Trump elaborates on his
construction of a “great wall” between the U.S.A. and Mexico. Likewise,
President Trump boasted that he is the best at constructing walls, that
the wall would be inexpensive and Mexico would pay for it. However,
Trump had little background in barrier fabrication, the project was
estimated at least at 21 Billion USD and Mexico directly refused to pay
for such a wall. Accordingly, the project never made it past any inital
stages.
- 2016 - Deez Nuts for President: During the American
presidential race, an independant canidate enters under the assumed name
“Deez Nuts.” It would later be revealed that the candidate was, in
fact, a fifteen year old from Iowa. Due to mounting opposition against
forerunners, Deez Nuts garnered as much as 10% of the polls in certain
states.
- 2016 - Clown Sightings: Sightings surge throughout North
America of individuals dressed in clown makeup and regalia. The
sightings first originated in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Afterwards,
sightings of clowns would spread to other continents as well.
- 2018 - Sirenhead: Trevor Henderson, artist and graphic
designer, creates an image of a vaguely humanoid towering creature
sporting two protrusions resembling vintage air-raid sirens from a
telephone-pole-like neck. The being's unsettling combination of organic
and inorganic features, coupled with a backstory of blaring random
sounds and words, attracted much attention online. The creature would
later grow in popularity in 2020 after being featured prominently across
YouTube and other social media.
- 2019 - Trump’s National State of Emergency: February, American President Donald Trump declares a national “emergency” despite no such emergency existing.
- 2019 - Birds Work for the Bourgeoise: July, a faux conspiracy
theory is circulated purporting that all species of birds were actually
eradicated under the Reagan administration and subsequently substituted
with spies that closely monitor the activities of citizens. The phrase
originated with Kendrick Smith, an internet comedian, who ended a
social media video on the infamous line sounded through a megaphone.
- 2019 - Lumberwoods, Unnatural History Museum: August 4, In its thirteenth year, the website Lumberwoods evolves into the Lumberwoods, Unnatural History Museum transforming into a virtual arena of exhibition as well as adding hundreds of pages to preexisting ones.
- 2019 - US Navy Confirms UFOs: September, US Navy confirms the existence of UFO as reported by US Navu personnel.
- 2020 - Beaver Dams with Satellite Dishes: August, satellite dishes, and habitually Canadian flags, start appearing atop beaver dwellings in dams across Canada.
- 2020 - Utah Monolith: November, scientists with the Utah
Division of Wildlife Resources, while tracking bighorn sheep, observed a
three-sided, reflective, metallic pillar juxtaposed against the remote
desert expanses of Lockhart Basin near Bears Ears National Monument. The
mystery surrounding the structure was never accounted for, the piece
having been erected in 2016 without its existence known. Subsequently,
what has been since dubbed as the “Utah monolith” was taken down by a
group four only to have other “monoliths” appear in random areas around
the world.
- 2021 - Pentagon Verifies UFO Footage: April 2021, Pentagon
verifies autenticity of a video showing a UFO or UAP (Uidentified Aerial
Phenomenon) taken by US Navy personnel.
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⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
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