Monday, July 30, 2012

Dakhma of India, open air gravesite.

On January 19, 2003 Indian officials were venturing into the jungle after receiving several missing persons reports from a nearby city.  What they found can only be described as "disturbing".
They had discovered a "Tower of Silence" also known as a dakhma.  There are around 70,000 active members of the religion called Zoroastrianism, which dispose of their dead in this manner.  The believe the soul cannot truly be freed until it is eaten by vultures. The strange thing about this instance is that there were no animals to be found other than maggots on the bodies themselves, and that the bodies the officials were able to look at did not look like any carrion birds had been eating the bodies.
The central pit in the middle had a pool of blood in it that they estimated had to be over a foot deep and was far more than the bodies around the central circle could have produced even if they were fully drained.  The stench emanating from the central pit was overwhelming and many of the people became nauseated as soon as they neared it.
The officials had photographs of the missing persons and they could not identify any of the bodies as the people who were missing.  They also noted that many of the bodies were of people in their mid-20's to 30's, not something that is usual in these situations, however it was noted that there were no immediate signs of violence to end their lives.
The officials and a few villagers were only at the site for 45 minutes to an hour before someone accidentally kicked a bone into the center pit.  When it hit the surface of the blood, the coagulated surface broke and a gas bubble exploded up and out of the pit.  The people who were nearest the pit were immediately rushed to the hospital and quarantined for infection prevention.
The people who were quarantined became delirious within hours and the next day they became violent, trying to attack hospital staff and screaming they were infected with the blood of Ahriman (The rough equivalent to satan in Zoroastrianism.  Within three days all of the infected people had died due to fever.
Indian officials organized another trip to the dakhma in order to investigate further.  They had full hazmat gear and medical staff ready in case another incident happened like the day before.   When they arrived at the site, the bodies were all missing and the pit was completely drained of blood.  There were no traces of the bodies and attempts to analyze the DNA of the few pieces of skin and hair they found came back incomplete or were unable to be tested.
A few of the officials repelled down into the pit, where they found several grates on the ground that had pipes attached to them. The pit itself was around 60 feet deep and the stain from the blood was 8 ft up the wall.  Officials also sent samples of the blood back to the lab, and when it was tested the results were mostly inconclusive, but over 1,000 unique DNA identifiers were found.  When they tried to use sonar imaging to find out where the pipes went, they could find no evidence of the pipes anywhere outside of the central stone tower.
Since 2003, the site has been quarantined and monitored by local government officials.  The area has had no activity since that time, other than curious villagers looking to see the site.
One person I found on an online forum who is familiar with the religion speculated that the people were practicing some kind of worship of Ahriman, and the site was a profane shrine to him, and when officials found it, they moved to another location where they will not be bothered.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Polybius Update

I posted a link to this blog on a few forums, there were a few arcade people said they believe that had these arcade cabinets in Oregon...
Pixieland
Aladian's Castle
Arcade Hotel
Games 1 2 3
And a few people said they saw something they believed to be the game in areas outside of Oregon
Gamecon(Chicago, IL)
Gamesworld Arcade (New York, NY)
ARCADE(New York, NY)
Coin-OP Land(Louisville, KY)
Genie Arcade (Omaha, NE)
Genie Arcade (Denver, CO)
Ticketland (Fort Collins, CO)
Disney Arcade (Orlando, FL)

All of these listings are speculation.  These were reported to me by people that said the remember these games from a long, long time ago

Game of Insanity...Polybius

Polybius, the video game of legends.  It is often talked about, yet no one has come up with any concrete evidence that it has ever existed other than in the minds of people, planted by some teller of urban legends long ago.   In this blog I'm going to delve into the mysteries of urban legends and the weirdness of the world. 
Polybius is said to have appeared in several arcades in the Portland, Oregon area, and I have heard a few reports of it showing up in arcades in New York, LA, and Chicago area.  It is said to resemble the game Tempest which if you aren't familiar with; I have linked to a wikipedia page explaining what that game is so you can picture what Polybius might be like. 
Polybius was reported to be a "tube shooter" game with vector graphics.  Many people who have said they played the game reported night terrors, amnesia, suicidal thoughts, insomnia, a feeling that someone is always around them, nightmares, and a constant feeling of forebooding or dread.  It was reported that players would experience euphoria, vertigo, seizures, and muscle spasms during gameplay.  There were also a number of reports of people becoming addicted to the games, going as so far as threatening violence against the arcade owners when the cabinets abruptly dissappeared. 
The game is reported to be developed by Ed Rotberg, and the company named by most is Sinneslöschen, however I have heard one account where the person said it was in association by Mammon's Software.  Mammon is an alternative name for Satan so I can't vouch for the validity of this claim. 
The only picture I can find of anything resembling a screenshot clearly shows Sinneslöschen as the publisher at least. 
There were a number of reports of men in black suits coming into the arcade and hooking equipment to the machines to gather data. 
There were a numer of developers and publishers in the 1980's that came and went without ever having national distribution, so it is entirely plausible that there was a company that put a few cabinets in arcades and a few people got addicted.  If the company went bankrupt, the cabinets might have been pulled after they could not be repaired after the could not get any spare parts for them. 
One more interesting thing to note is that there were reports that a Polybius cabinet appeared in a storage locker in Newport, Oregon.  The locker was auctioned off, and the reported new owner said that it very clearly said Polybius down the side.  The owner wished to remain anonomyous, and the cabinet dissappeared after the auction. 
If you have any information relating to this game, please feel free to post your email in the comments section.  I will be posting at least once a week with more strange urban legends.