Here's a little tale about the beginning of the end of my reporting career. It wasn't supernatural, but it was definitely creepy to me, and it would have fit nicely as an introduction to a slasher movie.

In January 98, I was doing on-the-job training at a small newspaper (I won't state where, to protect the possibly guilty). About halfway through the six-weeks, I accompanied the managing editor to a town council meeting. These are usually boring affairs (at least to me), but it is necessary to cover them, because the things that are discussed and decided in them are usually of importance to the community.

This meeting was of no particular interest to me, but I decided to take notes about one townsperson's complaint of snowmobilers making noise late at night, and how there should be trails for them somewhere distant from the homes. I wrote up an article about it, filed it in the computer system, and forgot about it.

I think it was the day after the story was printed that a phone call was transferred to my little office. I picked it up and got an earful. At first, I didn't have an idea what this guy was yelling about, or who he was. All I could gather from his almost incomprehensible shouts was that he was very mad at me about something.

Eventually he yelled himself out, and began speaking in a more normal tone. He was still mad, but at least I could make him out now. I realized it was the guy who didn't like snowmobiles, and for some reason he thought I was being unfair and prejudiced against him in my article. After a while, I was able to calm him down by being apologetic, and by agreeing to go to his place sometime to get his side of the story (which I thought I had already done) so as to write another article about it.

After hanging up, I walked, shell shocked, into the main room and asked one of my co-workers if they had ever heard of the guy. Within a couple of minutes, I learned several things that lowered my morale even further.

He was considered to be a very odd and shady person. Two years prior, his wife and child had been murdered. The killer was never found (at least not to that point, maybe in the years since it has been solved). Finally, and most ominous to me, some people thought he might be the one who did it.

Oh goody! This guy, who was not very fond of me, might be so warped that he killed his family, and at some point I was going to meet with him at his house, by myself. And furthermore, I was not getting paid for this delightful little jaunt to my potential doom.

It was about this time that I started to think this career might not be for me. Well, that, and the fact that I sucked at it. But, you know, mostly that.

Epilogue to this story: he never did call me back, thankfully. Maybe he was too tired from constantly being woken up by snowmobiles to get the energy to slaughter me. Several weeks later, my ojt was over, and I got the heck out of Dodge.

Now, for something to do with the paranormal. This isn't something from my personal experiences, as I'm getting low on those, and I want to save things to write about on the final nights until Halloween. This is something I read about on the 'net a few months ago that fascinated me.

In the 1960's, the US Navy put a number of hydrophones in the oceans to track submarines. In the decades since, if I remember the details right, they stopped using them, and these underwater microphones are now used by scientists.

In 1997, a sound was picked up by the hydrophones. The scientists do not know what made the sound, but they believe it to be a living creature. What makes it interesting is that the sound was so loud, it was picked up by sensors about 3000 miles apart.

If it is indeed a living creature, to make sounds like that, it would have to be at least several times the size of a blue whale. To those who are unfamiliar with blue whales, they can reach a length of up to 108 feet. They are the largest known animal to ever exist.

The sound has been named 'The Bloop'. If you want to learn more about it, and hear it for yourself (I myself found it quite eerie), here is a site dedicated to it:

BloopWatch.org

One final thing before I end this post, that will hopefully be fun to those interested. If you're so inclined, look up a map that includes the northern US and southern Canada. Focus on the Great Lakes. See if you can notice something rather peculiar about them. A shiny new no-prize will go to the person who figures out why the lakes could be an important part of a fantasy/horror story about Ragnarok, if it was to be written.