The Pods

Take a look at this picture.

I go on and on about the Pale Men. I realize that I might sound like a broken record. But the fact is that the Pale Men are real: I've seen them myself, I know they're here. They're few. They are bound to water and fog. They cannot survive without either. And there aren't enough to pose any kind of threat.

But there could be. They could be coming back. They could be multiplying.

This isn't a recent photograph. It's part of my grandfather's collection. It could be anything, obviously, but I know that these are 'eggs' pulled from the Pale Men from the depths of the ocean onto the shore. What lies within, I don't know. And there are no reports of these pods after 1973, when this picture was taken.

The Keewaqu

Everyone's probably heard of the Wendigo; the ravaged, ravenous remnants of men possessed by darker things - forced, in their terrible hunger, to devour their own. The Wabanaki call these cannibalistic creatures keewaqu or kiwakwa.

Most of us, however, haven't seen one. I knew they existed, but I didn't know they existed here; not until I was shown a decomposing carcass...supposedly of kiwakwa.

This drawing is an artist's reconstruction of what this thing might look like, based on the remains we photographed: a pronounced spine, sharp claws, a huge mouth and a low, crawling gait. It could be an animal, sure, but I'm not sure which animal fits this description - or matches that appearance. And even if it isn't keewaqu, I still wouldn't want to meet this thing in the forest late at night. Or any time.

The Pale Men

My grandfather showed me a lot of things before he passed away, back in '93. He showed me things that I almost wished I hadn't seen. He showed me evidence that's completely irrefutable; evidence I cannot in good conscience show anyone - and wouldn't be able to, not unless I could take them to the spot my grandfather brought me to.

But he also left me some photographs he took. My grandfather was an avid photographer - with a taste for the esoteric - and he spent his whole life on Solomon Island, searching for evidence to the things he knew were real.

Like this photograph, which was taken in 1986.

My grandfather called them the Pale Men. They have also been called Nábleikr. They came from the sea, and they were first brought here by what I guess would be Vikings - a long time ago. According to my research, it would have been around 900 or 1000 AD, when Norsemen were rumored to have visited North America. Most vanished when the Vikings left, but some stayed behind - in the dark, cold water, waiting for...something? Someone? Occasionally they will rise up to the surface, go on land, searching... That's how my grandfather got this photograph.

He never told me what happened next.