Decemystery (2024) 3: The 8-Foot-Tall Alien of Fort Wayne

 

Anyone who’s known me for even the slightest bit of time knows that if there’s one thing I’m adamant about, it’s the existence of extraterrestrial life.

In my humble opinion, it’s completely outlandish and downright foolish to think that we’re alone in the universe. While we may not have concrete proof of aliens yet, my tinfoil hat likes to believe that we’ll get a confirmation in my lifetime.

However, despite such adamancy on my end, I don’t blindly believe every single claim made or label every UFO report or sighting as real. After all, it’s remarkably easy to fake both. A creative mind can weave a believable tale, and basic photographic trickery can make a convincing flying saucer image. I’m sure that I could achieve the former if I put my mind to it. The latter less so; I’m certain it would look like trash. Then again, that would be par for the course with most UFO pictures, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, I bring this up because it’s time for us to head back into the realm of extraterrestrials and to do something a little bit different.

You see, in this blog’s life, I’ve covered a lot of weird alien sightings, and I don’t mean traditionally weird. I mean things that are just purely outlandish. I’m talking about stories of aliens that resemble metallic flowers, telepathic brains, beer cans, an “arboreal abomination” (that’s still a wickedly awesome name), multi-colored pyramid, penguins, tree stumps, a giant slug, a cloud, and aliens that apparently carjacked two drunk guys in Idaho.

Today, I want to ease off the weirdness. I know that’s really uncharacteristic of me, but I think it’s healthy if we don’t examine an absurd alien sighting. Instead, I want to look at one that’s just a really tall extraterrestrial. For those who think there won’t be an annual helping of “what kind of alien is this,” don’t worry; there’s a really weird alien sighting planned for near the end of the month. As it stands, though, I want to focus on a more traditional alien sighting.

Hailing from the great state of Indiana, home to the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway and more colloquially known as the “Middle Finger of the South,” today’s Decemystery story is The 8-Foot-Tall Alien of Fort Wayne! Come along, dear reader; it’s time to head to the land of the Hoosiers and see if extraterrestrial life walks among us!

Decemystery (2024) 2: The Gargoyle in the Shrubs

If you read yesterday’s write-up to the then, then I mentioned that I would be revisiting a website called “About.com” this month. Well, I mentioned that because—surprise, surprise—we’re visiting it today!

For those who don’t know, I found out about “About” last year while I was looking for stories on sustained_disgust’s Obscure Unsolved Mysteries Iceberg. The site is now defunct, but a lot of incredibly strange and fascinating stories were archived via the Wayback Machine. I covered a plethora of them last year, and I have every intention of going through even more this year.

While that does mean I won’t get to look for additional details online, I’m not too upset. After the 30,113-word-long behemoth that was Decemystery 2024’s inaugural story, I feel like taking it easy and conveying a short and strange tale of the Fortean is preferable to overexerting myself and suffering from severe burnout. The last thing I desire is to have this series go incomplete because I thought it would be a good idea to force myself to do something I don’t want.

Anyway, let’s get back on track. With an archive that has enough material to sustain me for a year, choosing a story is easier said than done. There were numerous cases that I wanted to cover, but I felt that if I went with the first thing I saw, I would miss out on an even better story on another case. Well, lo and behold, that feeling proved to have merit!

As I was eating dinner one night, snooping around About’s archives, I came across a story entitled “Gargoyle in the Shrubs.” This caught my eye for two reasons. The first was that stories of gargoyles are quite interesting. Reports of them are, for some peculiar reason, not unheard of; I would like to do a lengthier write-up on them, but my mental health has an allergy to them, along with writing prior to the halfway point of the year.

The second is that last year, I wrote about a story called The Gargoyle at the Window, which was also from the depths of About’s archives. So, I figured that it would be fun to cover another story about a gargoyle. Who knows, maybe it’ll become a Decemystery tradition, like covering stories from the Conspiracy Iceberg!

Anyway, enough blabbering; it’s time to get into the story. Come along, dear reader, as we dive into the story of The Gargoyle in the Shrubs! Also, doing intros has become much easier since last year’s Decemystery duology.

Decemystery (2024) 1: The Nickelodeon Hamster Wheel Broadcast

Let’s play a game. It’s called “What would Vertigo’s autobiography be called?” Personally, I think it would be entitled “What if My Life Wasn’t a Roller Coaster Designed By Satan?”

The reason for such a morbid title is that, ever since I began this blog, even-numbered years in my life have been plagued by a plethora of obnoxious issues. Meanwhile, odd-numbered years have been generally good. Well, for the most part. 2021 wasn’t very good, but I digress. You can’t win ‘em all, especially when you have undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder.

You especially can’t win ‘em all when dealing with brain fog; COVID and hypomania overlapping is just about the most fog-inducing thing I’ve experienced since entering Silent Hill, and it’s because of that fogginess that 2022 was the year without a Decemystery; thank God I made up for it last year. Too bad I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from all of that writing. I still haven’t fixed that, by the way. I wonder how my hands will feel when I finish this year’s Decemystery!

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with the introduction to Decemystery 2024? Well, as you can likely guess based on the comically small number of blog posts this year, bipolar overtook my life again—and so did COVID! Wow, it’s like a greatest hits album from 2022, only the so-called “hits” all suck like black holes.

Thankfully, the album was cut short because it must have been produced by the world’s worst record producer. So I was spared the indignity of dual-action brain fog that made it feel like my brain was the basis for a David Cronenberg remake of John Carpenter’s The Fog. Only instead of disgruntled ghosts, it was a mental illness and respiratory virus.

On the flip side, it’s currently August. That means, once again, I’m on the clock. So, much to my dismay, I had to scrap a lot of the grander and what would have undoubtedly been much lengthier stories that I had wanted to do this year. Maybe they’ll be written about in 2025. Who knows; I’ve always sucked at abiding by a schedule throughout my adult life. Regardless, if you were hoping for me to cover Sam the Sandown Ghost Clown, you’re out of luck.

Despite that setback, five stories managed to survive the purge; I’ll be sure to mention that when I get around to writing about them. Until then, it’s time to finally jump to today’s story. Honestly, it’s one that I, oddly, have never really considered writing about.

Internet mysteries, much like lost media, are, more often than not, something that I turn a blind eye to. There are enough YouTubers who cover them, and my input is far from worthwhile. I know that may seem like I’m selling myself short, but I genuinely do not believe my input means that much when countless other content creators have thrown their two cents into the ring—and they tend to be far better researchers than I am. Also, they have better production quality. All I have is text and still images. They have narration and fancy moving pictures.

However, despite that, there are a few exceptions I’m willing to make. Namely the much sillier and more outlandish Internet mysteries. I’ve also made a couple of exceptions when it comes to lost media, and I have no doubt that I will do so in the future. As for why I made an exception with this particular case, that’s easy. I thought it provided the perfect blend of strangeness and downright goofiness for me to leap back into the world of writing.

In other words, it was all but screaming my name. Thankfully, it didn’t actually do so. If it did, I think I’d have a much more horrifying story to write about.

Anyway, enough rambling. For the sixth time in this blog’s history, it’s time for Decemystery to begin—possibly the fifth time if you wish to count the duology last year as one entity. Personally, I don’t, but I digress once more. Come along, dear reader; it’s time for us to go over the truly odd tale of The Nickelodeon Hamster Wheel Broadcast! And with that, Decemystery 2024 begins now!