Bloody 37th

Hellier fans are no doubt anticipating the upcoming Penny Royal podcast. It's going to provide a much more in-depth account of the mysterious Somerset, KY that plays such a crucial role in the second season of Hellier. Satanic cults allegedly linked to the military and implicated in drug and sex trafficking are hardly the only curiosities that Somerset has witnessed over the years. Not by a long shot. 

As I'm involved in the Penny Royal project I'm not doubt biased in this regard. But the synchronicities are quite incredible, as I hope to illustrate in this post. One particular aspect of Somerset and Hellier that the show invoked was the location of either town upon the mysterious 37th parallel. In recent years, the 37th has developed a reputation as the "UFO Highway" or "Paranormal Highway" due to the staggering amount of high weirdness reported along it:

"Stretching from the Chesapeake Bay to Santa Cruz, CA, the 37th Parallel has been called the “UFO Highway” and the “Paranormal Highway.” From sea to shining sea, this line on the map is littered with histories of cattle mutilations, UFO sightings, reports of underground military bases, and ancient native sacred sites. The phenomena zone stretches about 70 miles either side of the 37th — roughly, the area between the 36th and 38th parallels, 150 miles of anomalous real estate."

Its not just high weirdness that has an uncanny ability of cropping up along the 37th, however. Indeed, there are some disturbing indications that something darker is at a play. Let's just consider a few of the other locations along the 37th parallel. 

In my beloved West Virginia, the 37th stretches through Mingo County. One local history dubbed this region one of "the bloodiest counties in America." It played a significant role in the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud and the Battle of Matewan. The latter paved the way for the Battle of Blair Mountain, the nation's largest ever labor uprising and the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. Mingo provided many of the miners who fought at Blair Mountain, which unfolded in neighboring Logan County. Naturally, Logan is also on the 37th. 

The kind of lawlessness that long characterized Mingo can be seen in a place like Dingess. Between 1900 and 1972, some seventeen local lawmen were murdered in addition to numerous other residents. In recent years, Mingo has been decimated by opioid abuse and resulting crime. More painkillers were shipped to this county than anywhere in the US, with just three pharmacies there receiving over 30 million opioid pain pills. It probably goes without saying, but this strongly indicates a massive drug ring was operating there well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. 

So yeah, that's Mingo. More on some of the strangeness in this area, including what appears to be a ritual murder committed during the early 1930s, can be found here. 

Lost Boys

What about sunny California? The 37th stretches through there and it's every bit as disturbing as the ghosts of Mingo. In particular, the 37th runs through the city of Santa Cruz, The beloved 1980s vampire flick The Lost Boys was set in Santa Clara, which the film proclaimed to be "the murder capital of the world." Santa Clara was actually a fictionalized version of Santa Cruz, which bulked at the murder capital designation. While an exaggeration, it wasn't that far from the mark, at least during the late 1960s and 1970s. 

"To briefly recap, no fewer than six serial killers/mass murderers – Charles Manson, Stanley Baker, Edmund Kemper, Herbert Mullen, John Lindsey Frazier, and the Zodiac – were all spawned from the Santa Cruz/San Francisco metropolitan area in the span of just over four years, at a time when 'serial killers' were a rare enough phenomenon that they hadn't yet acquired a name. And another serial killer was said to be at work not far away during the same timeframe. As Bundy chronicler Richard Larson recounts, the bodies of at least fourteen young women and girls were found, nude and with their belongings missing, in Northern California between December 1969 and December 1973. In the immediate vicinity of each of the bodies 'was found an elaborate witchcraft symbol of twigs and rocks.' Remarkably enough, the crimes collectively attributed to these men did not even account for all the ritualized homicides that occurred in the Bay Area during that time. For example, the murder of Fred Bennett, the captain of the Oakland chapter of the Black Panthers whose mutilated remains were found scattered in the Santa Cruz hills, was never solved. And many of the young students who were reported missing from local campuses were never found, either dead or alive, and were therefore never listed as homicide victims.

"On December 12, 1974, the birthday of Aleister Crowley, student Arliss Perry was brutally murdered and left on display in the Stanford Memorial Church on the campus of Stanford University, nestled in the shadows of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Perry was left lying on her back, with her head toward the altar and her legs spread wide. She was nude from the waist down and an altar candle protruded from her vagina; another altar candle was wedged between her exposed breast. Her jeans had been neatly arranged in an inverted V-shape placed across her splayed legs, forming the Masonic symbol of the compass on the square..."

(Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder, David McGowan, pgs. 136-137)

In addition to the serial killers, there were also a litany of cults active in the Bay area (which is largely located along the 37th) during this time. There was of course the Manson family and the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Also present were Jim Jones' Peoples Temple and a rogue branch of the Nation of Islam implicated in the Zebra murders. The Church of Satan was founded and long headquartered in San Francisco while Colonel Michael Aquino pimped the breakaway Temple of Set while stationed at the Presidio during the 1980s. Yes, the same Presidio (which is certainly located along the 37th) that turned up in the daycare abuse of children during the 1980s. 

Finally, there were the radical political groups --the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Weather Underground had a significant presence the Bay area, while Oakland housed one of the more storied chapters of the Black Panther Party. Years ago I did an extensive series of the Zebra killings and a lot of these other curiosities in the Bay area during that era, which can be found here. 

Interestingly, the campuses of both Stanford and SRI (which were united until 1969) are located along the 37th parallel. Those of you who caught my Strange Realities Con presentation will recognize the significance of this. For those of you who did not, it revolved around those two campuses embarking upon the most epic experimentation in human consciousness ever. This is a topic that I will be exploring in much greater depth during the next year. I may drop a few more hints when I appear on Skeptico in a few weeks, so stay tuned on that front. 

Mormon Best Friends

For now, let us turn our attention to another super creepy locale off the 37th: Colorado City, AZ. Colorado City, former Short Creek, is the home base of one of the most infamous "fundamentalist" Mormon sects, the aptly named Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). In recent years, this cult has been taken over by Warren Jeffs, whose currently runs this outfit from prison. He's serving life for child sexual assault. 

Jeffs

For decades, the FLDS has ruled Colorado City as a full blown theocracy, controlling all aspects of the local government and police. Jeffs himself "married" multiple girls while still teenagers, including one as young as 12. He kept a series of safehouses across the American West where he could entertain these "wives" and other such girls.  

Interestingly, about 40 minutes away is Kanab, UT, the longtime headquarters of the Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS). While now largely seen in a positive light due to its association with the popular show DogTown, the BFAS actually has its origins in the Process Church of the Final Judgment. It arrived in Kanab in 1984, while working under the name of the Foundation Faith of the Millennium. This was a Christian fundie rebranding the Process undertook to cash-in on the Jesus Freak movement during the 1970s. 

As longtime readers of this blog are well aware, this researcher is very dubious in regards to the longstanding allegations surrounding the Process. Still, one of the most disturbing and widely acknowledged aspects of the Process is especially relevant here: the abuse and disappearance of various children under the care of the Process. In particular, what became of many of the children sired by Process members still remains a mystery, many having disappeared off the face of the earth. This is especially ominous in light of allegations that a fundamentalist Mormon sect in Mexico was providing the NXIVM cult with teenage girls. 

I should emphasize that there is no direct evidence of a connection with these Mexican Mormon fundamentalists (who are related to the infamous LeBaron family, a cult in their own right) and Jeffs' outfit. What is curious is the disturbing habit some fundamentalist Mormon sects have of "losing" the children they produce. The Process had a similar problem, which is why its so interesting that its successor ended up within close proximity one of the most storied fundamentalist Mormon sites in these United States.

Colorado City was known for its polygamist ways for decades. There's no way the Process/Best Friends were unaware of what their neighbors were up to when they relocated there. And conversely, with the kind of control the FLDS exorcised over Colorado City and the surrounding area, its unlikely they were not aware of the origins of the Best Friends when they relocated there either. But apparently both were okay with one another, which isn't especially surprising. Birds of a feather and all. 

One of the Hellier team first being told about the alleged Satanic cults in Somerset

 

Throughout this scene he's wearing a Best Friends Animal Society T-shirt

Closing Thoughts

As our brief examination of the 37th parallel has hopefully demonstrated, high weirdness was hardly the only thing unfolding along that thread. In the cases of Mingo County, WV; Santa Cruz/San Fran; and Colorado City/Kanab; there are some disturbing patterns present. On the one hand, regions along the 37th parallel appear to be lightening rods for violent and bizarre crime, addiction, and mental instability. As such, it's hardly surprising that many of these same regions also feature staggering amounts of radicals, serial killers, and cults. 

Whether some type of Byzantine conspiracy is at play is highly debatable. But certainly these are some odd and disturbing synchronicities none the less. Synchomystics, Ufologists, occultists and other chronicler of high weirdness tend to focus on Fortean phenomena that congregate in certain geographical regions. But as this small sample seems to indicate, certain regions can also have tragic effects on the people who inhabit them. 

And Somerset, KY, and the broader Pike County appears to attract the same type of sinister forces. Be sure to tune on October 21st for the launch of Penny Royal to see how this enigmatic region of Kentucky measures up. And with that, I'll be signing off for now. As always dear readers, stay tuned till next time.