Messages from the Aether

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the odd phenomenon of synchronicity that often greets me on a daily basis. I will often see something on the tube that tickles my fancy, then I'll catch something similar later on the net, or I'll be in a library and spot a book on that same topic out of hundreds of others on the shelves, or I'll read a reference to the aforementioned fancy in a completely non-related book. Sometimes, it's downright eerie.

The past couple of days it's been a trio of oddities:

D. B. Cooper

The Son of Sam killings of 1976-77

The Oak Island "Money Pit"

Why, I don't know. I guess because, to me at least, these three items, with their various degrees of grimmishness, fall into that "weirdity" category that immediately peaks me interest.

I saw a news report on Cooper - that dude who hijacked a plane in the early 70s in Washington state and parachuted into oblivion with $200,000 - about two weeks ago. Don't even remember the topic per se as it was on the lunchroom teevee at work and I was just passing by. But, lo and behold, four or five days later I'm in one of my local libraries with Little One, not even browsing, just trying to herd her out of there, when - bang! - a book on Cooper catches my eye from the shelf like it was lit up like Times Square on December 31st.

The Son of Sam killings really freaked me out back then. I was nine going on ten and it seemed stories of mayhem, murder, Mr. Monster and talking dogs were splashed across the Daily News my parents had delivered to the house. I wrote about it a bit here on the blog, probably several times. I started doing a more comprehensive article but never finished it. Then, two or three days ago, I happen across a commercial on one of the History channels for a show which investigates old crimes. This one will be studying - you guessed it - David Berkowitz, and the theory that he did not act alone.

The Oak Island Money Pit is this huge hole dug into the ground over decades by various individuals and groups trying to get down far enough to rumoured pirate gold. The farther down you go, the more oddities you encounter: wooden planks, weird little traps, evidence to whet the treasure-seeker's whistle. It's also claimed the lives of a more than a couple people. I skimmed it in one of my strange used books (I think it was one written by John Keel, but I could be wrong) about a week ago. Then, today, at the library, hunting with my daughter for a book on vampires, I come across a child's book of weirdities that has a whole chapter on -

Well, you know.

I know there's a logical explanation. There's this thing called the Reticular Activating System. Every moment of the day we're bombarded with thousands and thousands of stimuli that the minds learns to ignore. When you suddenly become aware of a certain stimuli, when it gains some sort of meaning for you, then you notice it all the time.

Are you itchy? Probably not. But go outside on the deck for dinner and spot a mosquito on your arm. Swat it away, and all you'll think about for the next hour is mosquitoes. You'll start scratching your legs and your arms, trying to sooth those (most likely) imaginary itches.

How about this. Ever test drive a car? Or ride in a new car a friend buys? Suddenly, for seemingly mysterious reasons, for the next couple of days-weeks-months, all you'll see on the highway now are those same model vehicles. Everywhere you look you'll see them. You'll wonder where they all came from and how that car maker is suddenly selling gazillions of these things.

So something like that happens to me. That's the logical explanation.

I reject that.

I tend to believe, somewhat romantically, and that's an eighteenth-century notion of "romance", in the aether. That's right, the a-e-t-h-e-r. That's a catch-all phrase for the multiplicities of dimensions intimately surrounding us, outside of space, outside of time. The domain of angels. The domain of demons. A world much greater than our petty "scientific" minds can conceive of, but one that is, nonetheless, real. And these synchronicitous events are simply ...

Messages from the aether.

oooo-OOOOO-oooo!