THE CARD:
Flying saucers, lumbering bucolic beasts, bug-eyed space people, screeching pterodactyls, glowing floating ovaries, and more hillbilly delusion than a GOP election campaign.
More details here.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
THE ANGLE:
Some weird ass shit is going on in Chestnut Ridge, a hotbed of paranormal and strange creature sightings in southwestern Pennsylvania. If you’ve heard of the Kecksburg UFO Incident, the notorious 1965 encounter involving a crashing fireball, alien visitation, and government cover-up which eclipses the peculiarity of Roswell, then you only know part of the odd goings-on here.
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| I want to believe this isn't a dog dish. |
This particular region has been also plagued with reports of Bigfoot, werewolves, giant birds (aka thunderbirds), and various other-worldly beings and creatures for decades.
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| This bodacious Bigfoot appears so, um, friendly. |
Interviewed here are trustworthy historians and investigators such as cryptid expert Eric Altman, a well-known researcher who I know from his excellent contributions to the long-running Darkness Radio podcast as well as his own paranormal and cryptid news website. Also presented are local eyewitnesses to the weirdness including this guy:
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| "Don't believe me? Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion, man." |
The documentary outlines the events of the Kecksburg and the odd sightings of creatures that were widely reported across the area. Among these weird appearance were otherworldly ape-men with glowing eyes.
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| "Take me to your Charlton Heston, Earth man!" |
Floating, glowing, sexually suggestive objects traversing through the forest.
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| David Bowman incubation in progress. |
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| "Bawk! Which way to Pittsburgh? BAWWWK!" |
Many theories are presented on just why Chestnut Ridge is such a magnet for bizarre phenomena, but few shed any light on the matter and it's just as well because maybe there's things in this world that are better left unsolved and left to the imagination.
I grew up in the Southeastern corner of Arizona and as a kid, I was convinced that my homestead of Cochise County comprised a paranormal geographic rectangle where UFOs, ghosts, demons, nocturnal creatures, and other elusive mysteries found a place to frolic and terrorize. I had heard all the stories: roadside phantoms thumbing a ride along Interstate 10 on the dusty plains of Willcox in the north; something fanged, hungry, and unnatural roaming the sagebrush desolateness of Benson in the east; strange lights in the skies above the wooded hills along the New Mexico state line to the west; and the sorrowful spirit of a murderous mother forever searching for her lost children along the Mexican border to the south. Those stories were told to me by a variety of folks from school teachers to spooky aunts to staggering Coors Light-chugging neighbors. And I ate these scary tales up, man. I swear most of my childhood was like Stranger Things only with chanklas. But very much like Stranger Things, it all turned out to be mostly fiction. Yet today I am still drawn to these stories which now manifest themselves on paranormal reality TV shows and documentaries like Invasion on Chestnut Ridge.
Whatever the hell is going on in this part of Pennsylvania appears to be anything but fiction. Director Seth Breedlove is a prolific documentary filmmaker of paranormal/cryptid subjects. His Smalltown Monsters production company has released titles on the Mothman, Boggy Creek Monster, and other various mythical critters. Although the subject matter is fascinating and the eyewitness and expert testimony believable and credible, the overall presentation of the film is rather bland. The narration is dryly delivered and visual evidence is sparse and questionable. But the story of what happened in Kecksburg that winter evening in 1965 and the creepy things such as the red-eyed werewolf creatures and the giant birds that may have been side effects of this eerie encounter with something otherworldly, will keep interested viewers riveted. And maybe that’s enough. I can’t recommend the film for your Halloween marathon as its slow pace may drag down your spooky night groove. But those of you who also grew up in a creepy burg or haunted desert wasteland should definitely check this one out.
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