jamesscythe

[jamesscythe]

The World’s Fair 50th Anniversary

On 05/11/17 Creeper put up posters around Southampton advertising the 50th Anniversary of the Southampton World’s Fair.

The posters included the web address https://www.southamptonworldsfair.co.uk/, leading to a site with information about the history of the 1967 Southampton World’s fair and the 50th anniversary tour.

The site confirms that the Theatre of Fear tour dates and locations coincide with the World’s Fair anniversary tour.

The site includes a video presented by “Ed Granters”, who talks more in depth about the anniversary tour, as well as a password-locked page under the title “Ambassadors”.

The video and sound regularly glitches, and Granters’ eyes are replaced with the Stranger’s when he says his name, the word “fear” and when he mentions the “two unfortunate events” that took place at the original World’s Fair.

“Granters” (Anagram of Stranger)

“Fear”

“Unfortunate events”

During the video, Granters stands in front of a whiteboard which has the phrase “time out of phase” written on it, pointing to a diagram of the cylindrical towers which marked the entrance of the fair. The same phrase was written by James Scythe on his investigation into the Callous Heart and the Stranger, and can be seen in the Hiding With Boys video.

A model of the original fair is also shown in the video, with a cutout of the Stranger standing between the two towers.

Throughout the video, seemingly random letters appear on screen, mostly in the bottom right corner but sometimes in other positions. In order, they are:

K - 0:15 L - 0:19 J - 0:24 S - 0:35 F - 0:49 Y - 1:02 W - 1:12 T - 1:15 M - 1:17 L - 1:55 L - 2:09 J - 2:41 M - 3:01 W - 3:33

It has been found that the letters are the password for the Ambassadors page encrypted with a Caesar cipher. Using https://www.dcode.fr/caesar-cipher shows that “KLJSFYWTMLLJMW” shifted +18 spells “STRANGEBUTTRUE” which successfully unlocks the ambassadors page. Strange but True? was a paranormal documentary TV show running from 1993 to 1997 on ITV, exploring ghosts, poltergeists, aliens, etc.

The page appears to be blank but highlighting it reveals a hidden hyperlinked underscore which leads to a second page. This repeats again, and then the third underscore links to a page a containing another video.

The video opens with Ed Granters saying “Welcome, ambassadors.” and then alternates between glitch-y clips of bones, the Stranger, Granters, and static, with audio of eerie music, reversed speech, and screaming. The video ends with the sound of footsteps and the web address http://creepercult.com/adventure.

The adventure page has a countdown timer which has yet to start, and the J. M. Barrie quote “To die would be an awfully big adventure”.

[jamesscythe]

The World’s Fair and 404 Ink, part 2

On 25/09/17 Creeper posted a photo of a torn out page written by James Scythe with the caption “309.12″

The page reads “October 2014. The pages within consider a world in which I have found myself falling into, and need to document so the world knows. Though, if you’re reading this, God only knows what’s happened to me. If this is in your hands, do what you have to do to make everyone understand. I hope it never comes to that. J. Scythe.”

Rocksound and DIY magazine posted pictures of printed versions of the photo, both with “309.12″ written on the back. Rocksound’s image showed the photo lying on a purple envelope, suggesting the cryptic photos had been posted to the magazines.

on 26/09/17, Creeper posted an image with the same caption of the Southampton Guildhall clocktower, showing the time as 12:00.

If the 12 in the caption suggests the time of 12:00, the 309 could be interpreted as the date September 30th (30/9) as the posts were being made in the week leading up to this day.

On the third day, 27/09/17, Creeper reposted a crime scene photo from the Dolphin Hotel, with added text saying “What happened to @itsjamesscythe”

@itsjamesscythe lead to a twitter account in the name J Scythe. The profile picture is a photo of a child dressed as Captain Hook and the cover photo is a statue of Peter Pan in Kirriemuir, J. M. Barrie’s birthplace. The account has no tweets, but has liked a photo posted by 404 Ink, an independent alternative publishing company.

The tweet by 404 Ink appears to be a darkened photo of Will and Ian.

Lightened version of the photo tweeted by 404 Ink.

The homepage on 404 Ink’s site plays a pixelated video of Will and Ian tapping on the camera, overlaid with the text “DON’T BE A STRANGER 309.12″. The events page on the site lists every date of the Theatre of Fear tour, along with the correct corresponding cities. The events are titled “The World’s Fair Anniversary Tour”, confirming the link between the Theatre of Fear tour and the World’s Fair 50th anniversary tour mentioned on Strange Southampton.

Theories

404 Ink are set to announce their 3rd book “this week” according to a tweet by Stir Publishing on 21/09/17. This could be some form of diary by James Scythe, which the page posted by Creeper, Rocksound and DIY was torn from. This announcement is therefore likely to be posted at 12:00 on 30/09/17, as hinted in the clocktower tweet by Creeper.

There are 6 Theatre of Fear dates and 6 pavilions at the Southampton World’s Fair (“The Dream Pavilion, The Space Pavilion, The Triumph of Man, The Pavilion of British development, The Southampton Pavilion and centred around two giant cylindrical towers that greeted you on entrance.” - Strange Southampton), so tour dates may themed around these pavilions.

[jamesscythe]

The World’s Fair and 404 Ink, part 1

On 08/06/17, Creeper posted a map of the 1967 Southampton World’s Fair on their social media, along with a link to a new page on the Strange Southampton site, http://strangesouthampton.club/worlds-fair.html

Map of the World’s Fair. The tagline below the logo says “shake hands with the stranger of tomorrow”.

The page explains the history of World’s Fairs, as well as documenting the fictional Southampton event in 1967 (the real 1967 World’s Fair was held in Montreal).

According to the site, and a video posted on the Youtube channel Abandoned Southampton, there were reports of strange happenings and a “disruption” at the Southampton fair, though little is documented of what went on. The Strange Southampton site posted the top of a Daily Echo article about the disruption, simply showing a headline quote saying “You have nothing to fear.”

The “full” article appears in the video. The paragraphs are just filler text but the subtitle “suited man” can be seen, likely referencing James Scythe.

Rumours of a 50th anniversary tour are also mentioned on both the site and in the video, along with the suggestion that this means more light may be shed on the mysteries.

The following day, the Theatre of Fear tour was announced, though little else was posted mentioning or referencing the World’s Fair in the following months, aside from Will holding a New York World’s Fair mug in his Instagram story.

Theatre of Fear tour poster.

New York World’s Fair mug.

[jamesscythe]

Does this blog not have a header image or is it just not loading for me? Because if it's the former then damn that's really cool (totally adds to the creepy vibe), and if it's the latter then I'm sorry for bothering you. Cool blog btw.

it does not have one because i am #spooky and #mysterious (and too indecisive to pick one)

[jamesscythe]

A reversed version of the audio clip sent by the Strange Southampton bot, in which the Stranger can be heard saying “On the day of my second track, the rain will turn from blue to black.”

[jamesscythe]

The Ghost Walk

On 10/2/17, the Strange Southampton guild headed out on their ghost walk. They sent 6 photos to those who were watching, along with the following messages

I’m at St Michael’s Church, oldest building still in use in Soton - founded in 1070! Spooky fact: the vanished paranormal investigator James Scythe was spotted near here... and it was actually the last reported sighting of him!

Let’s hope nothing spooky happens tonight… Not in the mood for disappearing.

On way now to Southampton Old City Walls….

Local folklore states that 9th Century residents built these walls in an attempt to shield the city from Evil, not realising that the most malevolent threats would arrive by sea.

This is the Tudor House Museum! Local residents used to regularly call the Police reporting intruders in the house as the lights were on in the building. But when police arrived and investigated, there were no signs of a break in and all was well in the house, apart from the fact that the lights were on…. Calls stopped after a Medium was called in and it was realized that the spirit was most probably bored. The spirit was allegedly given a ball to play with. The ball disappeared and now the lights stay off. Nothing particularly spooky just yet, but we’ll keep going...

Okay, found a car park. So there’s this “game” right, that apparently allows you to travel to other worlds. Here are some rules I found on a Demonology website a couple of years ago. Probably all sounds a bit hokey to you right? BUT a trusted source of mine tells me she played this game once and it really worked, changed her whole opinion on things like interdimensional crossing and time travel. Anyway… I’ve never had the stones to try it, but I figure that with all the new interest in our website and guild I owe it to everyone to see whether this is all for real or not. I figure with Southampton being such a hotbed for mystical convergence, if this game is going to work anywhere, it’ll surely work here. I’m going to try and film what happens as I follow the rules step by step. Bear with me… 

They then sent 4 videos showing various stages of the elevator ritual. The videos became increasingly more glitchy as the ritual progressed.

In the video of the 9th floor, all of the lights were off. The person recording stepped out of the elevator and moved the camera around the room. As they moved back to face the original direction, the Stranger could be seen entering through a doorway on the far side of the room. The person ran back into the elevator and began frantically pressing buttons, dropping the camera to the floor.

The chat bot then sent a sound clip of reversed speech, and a series of runes which translated to “black rain”.

When the audio clip was reversed again so that the speech could be understood, the Stranger could be heard saying “On the day of my second track, the rain will turn from blue to black.” which was interpreted to mean that on the day that the second track of the Stranger EP was released, a new song - Black Rain - would be released. Track 2 of the Stranger, Valentine, was released on Valentines Day the previous year, so Black Rain would be released on 14/2/17.

[jamesscythe]

2/2/17

On the date written on the business card (2/2/17) a chat bot for the Strange Southampton Facebook page became active

The bot offered 3 mysteries to talk about: The Callous Heart gang, The Stranger and James Scythe, leading to 3 possible conversations

The Callous Heart Gang

What do you know about The Callous Heart? (response) To be honest, not much is really known about them beyond their existence as some sort of “street gang”, seemingly only based in and around Southampton. Have you ever seen any members yourself? (response) I love new stories like this. Was this in Southampton? (response) Well, I has to have been, right!? Where in Southampton? (response) Oh yeah, 4 other people saw someone there too. Thanks for the report! They seem to be exclusively young, no-one has ever reported the existence of any senior ranking gang officials or adults wearing the mark of the Callous Heart. Some people think that at a certain point, members ‘age out’ of the Callous heart and take up a normal life but I believe I have come upon a much more disturbing truth, one that is staring us all right in the face… (response) THE CALLOUS HEART DO NOT AGE! Yep, this is a gang of the eternally young. Last December I managed to grab some photos of Callous Heart gang members hanging around the city at night. Check these out... (photos of Callous Heart members from the Strange Southampton website). I’m surprised the photos came out in all honesty. I've heard so many stories about people taking pictures of them and the picture comes out blank or blurry.

The Stranger

So, what do you know about The Stranger? (response) He’s always described in the same way: a very tall, genderless being in a long black cloak. The face is sometimes described as being painted like a mime, and then others describe it like a mask - like one of those Japanese Kabuki stage masks. What do you think it is? (response) Oh yeah, 4 others thought that too. What’s pretty consistent in every report is how intensely terrifying the Stranger is. One of the popular theories in our club discussions is that he is actually a manifestation of sadness. What do you think about that? (response) Yeah, we feel like sightings of The Stranger always seem linked with fear and grief. If you research it, the most legitimate accounts of a cloaked figure haunting and threatening Southampton date to the Edwardian period and the sinking of the Titanic. Scholars attribute that to the fog of grief which shrouded the city at the time of that disaster, the shock of the events lead to mass hallucinations, as Southampton mourned its dead.

James Scythe

You want to talk about James Scythe? Hopefully you know more than we do, otherwise this will be a short chat. Do you know where he is? (response) We don’t know where he is. We’ve been following the news stories and the whereisjamesscythe.co.uk website but honestly don’t know any more than that. Obviously we’ve heard he was supposedly an agent of a Government branch that investigated strange cases. We read that he came here to investigate the Stranger and the Callous Heart which are local myths here, but we only heard about that AFTER he disappeared. Do you know anything else about the case? (response) Oh yeah? Tell me more... (response) Okay, that’s interesting. I’ll definitely discuss that with my fellow guild members.

After the conversation, the bot would invite people to be updated on a ghost walk: “Anyway, it’s been really cool chatting to you, we should definitely talk more and stay in touch. Actually... some of us are going on a bit of a ‘ghost walk’ around Southampton soon, and we were thinking we might send live updates from our page for people who are interested in all these mysteries. Would you be interested in receiving these updates?”. Those who agreed would be contacted again on the day of the ghost walk.

[jamesscythe]

The Funeral

Pre-orders of Eternity... included an entry into a competition for tickets to an ‘intimate event’ in January 2017. On 16/01/17, winners were contacted and provided with the details of the event

Those who RSVP’d received the following email in the week before the event

The Event

Members of the band intially spent the morning pretending to be in the north of England rather than London where the event would be held, and that they would not be presentm, but by 3pm announced on twitter that they would be making an appearence

Upon entering the venue, attendees were greeted by a man in a suit who shook their hands, told them “I’m sorry for your loss.” and handed them an order of service

Funeral music was being plaid in the background, members of crew and staff were dressed in suits and the venue was decorated with candles and a flower arrangement of the Callous Heart

Callous Heart flower arrangement

Order of service announcing the death of three songs: Novena, Into The Black and The Secret Society. “Novena and Into The Black were born on the 14th of July 2014. Both born of the same mother, they lived a fruitful life and spent a long time travelling the breadth of Britain together. They first revealed themselves to the world at the Joiners Arms in Southampton on the 1st August 2014. But it’s better to burn out than to fade away, the two sadly died on January 31st 2017. The Secret Society was born on the 19th of February 2016, she was a shy soul and as a result didn’t see the outside world until today. This is not to say her life was of little or no worth, some even say that without the weight of others judgement, age is a much more profound concept: ‘Because we’re young, they don’t think of us’, she sang until the day of her untimely death on January 31st 2017.”

As instructed by the email, after the first band guests approached the man in the suit who had handed out the order of service leaflets. To those who followed the instructions correctly, he gave small brown envelopes which had “...a letter bomb with no address.” printed on them. Inside the envelope was a business card with a link to a Facebook page for Strange Southampton, along with a hand written date: 2/2/17

The Facebook page already had several posts, linking to articles about supernatural events and areas in Southampton, and a link to Keep It Real Paranormal Events, a similar group but with real members - not associated with Creeper or the James Scythe mystery.

Creeper later claimed on Twitter that there was no man in a suit

Creeper came on to a recording of Satan Is Real (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdJ_AXje5iI) and played a full set, performing The Secret Society, Novena and Into The Black for the final time. Before playing Into The Black, Will sang the first verse of Hey Hey, My My by Neil Young: “Out of the blue and into the black / You pay for this, but they give you that / And once you're gone, you can't come back / When you're out of the blue and into the black”

[jamesscythe]

the 2nd of October

Suzanne

Daniel P. Carter’s “Rockest Record” on the 2nd of October was a premiere of Creeper’s new single, Suzanne.

The song was introduced with an imitation of the Tower of Terror pre-show video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV1Ma6ee42M)

“[...] UK, 2015. Amidst the rain and the gutter of a haunted maritime city in the high winter, the Dolphin Hotel was an intimidating presence in its own right. A beacon for the ghost-hunter and paranormal media elite. Now, something is about to happen that will change all of that. A man will vanish into thin air. The time is now, on the evening very much like the one we’ve just mentioned. Tonight’s story is somewhat unique, and calls for a different kind of introduction. So without further ado, live worldwide on the BBC Radio One Rock Show, here is the introduction to the first full length album, Eternity, In Your Arms, from the band Creeper. This is Suzanne.”

The Video

After the song aired, the band posted a promo clip for a music video to be released at 10am the following day, focusing mainly on some graffiti on a wall saying “the stranger is always watching”. Unlike the “beware the callous heart” graffiti on from The Honeymoon Suite video which was on a replica of the Southampton sign made by the band, the graffiti was found on a wall under a bridge near Southampton Central Station.

The video opens with the statement “In late December 2015, a paranormal investigator known by the name of James Scythe disappeared in Southampton. The following video contains footage recovered from cassettes found at the site of his last known location.” The video contains clips which appear to be filmed by James: the graffiti from the preview, him holding the rosary which is picture on http://whereisjamesscythe.co.uk/ from the scene of his disappearence, the outside of the Dolphin Hotel, polaroids from the hotel room, a leaflet for the stranger walk, the Stranger in a park, the Stranger staring through the glass window of a door, the Southampton Guildhall, and the Stranger leaning through a door way.

The Lyrics

Several quotes from the September 28th phone calls were lyrics to Suzanne.

The second and third chorus originally featured the lines “Do you believe in Rock n Roll? Can music save your mortal soul? Can you teach me how to dance real slow?" from American Pie by Don Mclean. On 11/01/2017, the audio on Spotify changed, so that the Don McLean lyrics were replaced with “From the river where you lost control, to the summer that you let me go, I felt the pieces fall apart real slow.”. The band answered no questions about this, only tweeting “He’ll meet you in the river down below.”

Eternity, In Your Arms

The album was announced to be released on the 24th March, 2017 with the tracklist 01. Black Rain, 02. Poison Pens, 03. Suzanne, 04. Hiding With Boys, 05. Misery, 06. Down Below, 07. Room 309, 08. Crickets, 09. Darling, 10. Winona Forever, 11. I Choose To Live. The phone calls on the 28th of September referenced many of these track titles, as well as the release date.

Preorders bundles for the album included a tshirt design with praying, assumed to be James’ due to the rosary, and two missing fingers on the left hand (the hand which James injured in the car crash.)

[jamesscythe]

Heaven Knows Hell’s Gates Are Near

On the 28th of September, in the lead up to the release of Suzanne, the following photo was tweeted

Unlike the prerecorded messages played on the South Coast Coroners number, calls to this number were answered by real people, it usually took several tries to get through and every phone call was different

Phone Calls

“James? James? Is that you James?”

“He’s in your garden, he’s watching you.”

“He’s in your house.”

“Are you looking for Madeline? I’ll go get her.”

“Love is dead, hang your head.”

“Hi, you’ve reached the Dolphin Hotel, would you like to make a reservation? We have room 309 available.”

“All I wanted was a hand to hold to watch the world explode.”

“He’ll meet you in the river down below.”

“Loving you is killing me.”

“James? James, is that you? Please call me back.”

“James? James, is that you? You keep calling and not saying anything, we’re all worried about you.”

“Peter, how do we get to Neverland?” “We fly, of course!”

“Strange Southampton guild, hello, who is this?”

“He’ll come to see you, in the window of your home.”

"Hello?” “Hi, I'm looking for James Scythe.” “Are you one of Maddie’s mates?” “Uh, yeah.” “Maddie! It's one of your prick mates!”

“The rain will turn from blue to black.”

“Hi, you’re through to the Stranger Boutique, where misery never goes out of style, how may I help?”

“To return is a promise I can’t make. You see, we together have The Callous Heart, because Callous Hearts don’t break.”

“Poison Pens.”

“I Choose To Live.”

“Black Rain.”

“You’ll die alone.”

“Misery never goes out of style.”

“I see your cards: I see the stranger, I see the lover and I see the inquisitor.”

“If you have a romantic partner nearby you should beware the Callous Heart.”

“Your friends become the echoes of the life you left behind.”

“I wanna die holding hands.”

“NOW! NOW! NOW!”

Guitar being played

Listing the songs on the Stranger EP

Speaking in other languages

Person on the other end becoming upset at the mention of James and telling the caller not to call again

Person on the other end saying James was getting ready for a date with Suzanne

A conversation with atomic records talking about lots of calls for preorders and to check back on October 2nd

Playing A Pirate’s Life from Peter Pan

A hotel saying room 309 is booked until March 24th 2017

Reversed recordings of talking

[jamesscythe]

Hangman

Following the “disappearance” of Creeper, the bands twitter account began only posting photos from http://whereisjamesscythe.co.uk/

On the 5th of September, they tweeted a hangman with the date 2/10/16, captioned “Soon, the search begins.” 

The following day, they tweeted a Southampton address, which had previously appeared on a leaftlet for a “Stranger walk” on http://strangesouthampton.club/the-stranger.html, along with a photo of a phone box at the location

(The map is not actually of the Southampton address)

The phone box had stickers for a psychic named Madame Darling. Calling the number on the stickers started off a hunt for letters around Southampton which would fill in the hangman

LOCATION: Phone box CALL: 01628904133 MESSAGE: “There you are, I knew you’d ring. What does your future fold for you? I see… I see you walking outside the Southampton Guildhall, yes maybe making a wish and throwing a penny into the fountain… looking closely at the water, yes that image is very clear to me now. Before you go, make sure you remember the letter S. Take it with you, it will be important later on. Good luck traveller.” LETTER: S NEXT: Fountain

LOCATION: Fountain EMAIL: fountain@whereisjamesscythe.co.uk MESSAGE:

LETTER: U NEXT: the Joiners

LOCATION: The Joiners EMAIL: club@strangesouthampton.club MESSAGE:

LETTER: Z NEXT: Library

LOCATION: Libray EMAIL: james@whereisjamesscythe.co.uk MESSAGE:

LETTER: A NEXT: West Park Road car park 

LOCATION: West Park Road car park EMAIL: roof@whereisjamesscythe.co.uk MESSAGE:

LETTER: N NEXT: Oxfam Music

LOCATION: Oxfam Music EMAIL: store@strangesouthampton.club MESSAGE:

LETTER: N NEXT: Pier

LOCATION: Pier CALL: 01702806101 MESSAGE: “Hello again. I suppose congratulations are in order as you’ve reached the end of your search. But you’ve gone too slow while the hangman awaits. To crack this case you’ll have to do better. Here’s a final clue to close this matter: remember purple missing letter.“ LETTER: E FINAL CLUE: R (descriptions on missing posters for the band members all end with the line “Last seen wearing black and puple clothing.”, the missing letter from “puple” being “R”.)

The letters spelled out "Suzanne” in order (the first sticker in the phone box mentions a Suzy) although it’s possibly worth noting that the N from Oxfam was originally up at the Joiners, leading us straight from there to the pier and spelling out “Runes” in the wrong order with the letters we had, which was when Creeper posted a series of runes on twitter which we translated to spell out “you have missed something important”.

On the 10th of September, Creeper began a daily, starting at “22 days, 7 hours, 54 minutes, 55 seconds.” The countdown would end on the 2nd of October, the date mentioned in the phone call. The countdown tweets were accompanied by photos of the band members which often subtly referenced horror movies, and ended with “We’ll die holding hands.”

At “1 day. 6 hours, 39 minutes, 59 seconds.” the post instead included the following photo, featuring the hangman again, references to the letter hunt along with a photo of Daniel P. Carter. The clock face shows the time as 3:09, a reference to the hotel room James Scythe disappeared from.

“Suzanne” would fill the first line of the hangman, and the final clue, purple’s missing letter, “R” would go on the two purple lines. We guessed the other 3 words would therefore read “Radio One Rock Show”, hosted by Daniel P. Carter who is pictured. We interpreted this to mean a song named Suzanne would debut on the Rock Show the following day. This was confirmed when they tweeted the picture again around midday the next day with “Suzanne” and the “R”s filled in, and the time on the clock changed to 19:00, the time the Rock Show would begin.

[jamesscythe]

Where Is James Scythe?

Summary

With the second EP they introduced the Callous Heart gang with the backpatches.

Their Halloween Homecoming show in 2015 was heavily themed and playing in the background all night was a fake radio show called CRPR radio playing old music (I don’t actually remember anything that played but I’m gonna go with 60s era because that’s the vibe it gave me and the Spectral Sceptic podcast says the majority of Callous Heart sightings have been in the 60s). The presenter kept giving warnings about the Callous Heart gang, describing their backpatches and appearance, and then before Creeper came on stage it had sounds of people breaking into the studio and taking it over.

The preorder for the third EP had the South Coast Coroners tshirt which had a phone number on it; when you called it, it would play a song that sounded like some sort of lullaby but it was too low quality to make out any words so we haven’t worked out what it is. Once the song finishes, you would receive a text saying “where is James Scythe?”. This was the first mention of him.

The third EP also introduced the character the Stranger, a cloaked figure that has various influences from sleep paralysis hallucinations and Pazuzu from the Exorcist to Tick Tock the crocodile from Peter Pan.

The night after they played Leeds Festival (August 27th), pictures of static kept being posted from their Twitter account and the tweets kept being deleted a couple of minutes later. The band tweeted saying they were being hacked and that they weren’t the ones posting the static and had been deleting the tweets. Then, all of their accounts went down, including all their personal twitters and facebooks and instagrams and the band’s accounts on all social media as well; everything to do with them was gone.

After the accounts disappeared, we called the South Coast Coroners number again and it played the same song but sent a new text with a link to a website: whereisjamesscythe.co.uk.

The website has lots of information about the disappearance of a man called James Scythe. You can look yourself, there’s a lot on there - missing posters, news articles, information about his life and job, evidence photos from the scene of his disappearance in the Dolphin Hotel in Southampton, and a video of the Stranger that seems to have been filmed by him and a link to his podcast The Spectral Sceptic.

The podcast has 20 episodes titled after famous urban legends and conspiracy theories. The point of the podcast seems to be to critically analyse the stories and explain/debunk their supernatural elements (similar to the purpose of his previous job). The first 19 episodes contain nothing but static noise, but the 20th episode talking titled The Callous Heart and The Stranger explains the stories of the two Southampton phenomena and how he believes they’re connected, and explains them through links to alien abductions, gangs and sleep paralysis - I’ve got a more detailed description of the podcast that I’ll throw in at the end or you can just listen to it: https://soundcloud.com/james-scythe

The video of the Stranger on the last page of whereisjamesscythe.co.uk was found in James’ abandoned hotel room and seems to suggest that the Stranger was involved in James’ disappearance.

Another evidence photo from the hotel room shows a scrap of paper with an address for the websitehttp://www.strangesouthampton.club/. This site contains similar information to the podcast about folklore in Southampton written by an unknown contributor. There are pages dedicated to The Callous Heart and to The Stranger full of information along with pages pages titled ‘Ghost Walk’, 'Tudor House’, 'Merchants Hall’, 'South Western Hote’ and 'UFOs over Southampton City Center’. This seem to be site or instances of supernatural events in Southampton such as hauntings or obviously UFOs but all of these pages redirect to a 404 error. The author of this website mentions in the page about the Callous Heart that it’s come to their attention that a former “Ombudsman of the Preternatural” arrived in Southampton and had been asking questions about the Stranger and the Callous Heart. We know this to be James as Ombudsman of the Preternatural is an apt title for James’ former job as described by whereisjamesscythe.co.uk, an OTP badge was found at the scene of his disappearance, and James would have been asking questions about these two subjects for his podcast. The author says they want to track down James to interview him as they believe James will be able to fill in the blanks of their own research on the Callous Heart and the Stranger. In an update the author says they failed to find James despite looking all over, but managed to photograph Callous Heart members after a day of door to door research. The author of strangesouthampton.club doesn’t believe the members of Creeper to be the immortal members of the Callous Heart, but instead “art crudely imitating life”, however his own photos of Callous Heart members appear to feature Will and Ian, as well as 'Madeline’, the girl from the Stranger album cover.

On August 28th, the band’s official Facebook page reappeared, and posted the missing poster for James Scythe as well as new missing posters for everyone in the band, claiming they had disappeared while travelling back to Southampton from Leeds. The bands Twitter reappeared later in the day, posting the phone number, James’ missing poster and an article about James’ car crash in 2006 in which his wife died.

All missing posters have a phone number to contact with information - the same number from the South Coast Coroners shirt. We tried calling the number again and instead of playing the song as it had been for months, it played a recording of what sounds like an artificially lowered voice, saying “on the second of October 2016, we’ll die holding hands”.

The Podcast

says he’s had a long week

podcast episode posted a “day late”

chose this subject for the episode because he’s received numerous emails about the cases

spent lots of time on the case

stranger case and callous heart are separate but both centred in southampton and he thinks they’re linked

covered southampton before in conspiracy theories about the sinking of the titanic

the mediaeval house and tudor house mentioned as having supernatural events

lots of ufo sightings in the city, mentions daily echo article about ufos and southampton group 'sufog’, oldest ufo group in the uk

youth gang named the callous heart has been in Southampton for over 100 years and has supposedly always been the same people not aging

documented earliest in newspaper in 1903

1930 newspaper article describes them as 2 girls and 7 boys with heart patches on their backs

appeared threatening but didn’t actually seem to commit crimes

no photographic evidence - account: saw 5 of them in his shop and kept a camera under the counter in case he saw them again, they returned 5 years later and he took photos of them, no images came out when they were developed, thinks they’re ghosts

Southampton proud of the stranger, offering a stranger walk like ghost walks

stories of the stranger involve a a visit from a tall stranger at night in a cloak with a skeletal face

people normally see him during sleep paralysis, seeing him in the corner of the room

sometimes speaks in a low voice

first account is from 1850, intruder in house in Shirley, man woke paralysed, saw a tall figure in the hallway, had too duck to get through the door frame into the room, didn’t talk just stared, purple mouth

another sighting in 1962 - woman staying with a friend and sleeping on the sofa, saw him staring through the window, seemed familiar and then she felt paralysed

tall genderless, long black cloak, painted face or mask, every report makes him sound intensely terrifying

always tied to themes of death - haunted a family after the death of a grandparent

james says that his whole life and show is about being sceptical and taking apart the myth

doesn’t doubt there was a gang, many gangs exist for a long time ie the scuttlers in manchester

thinks gang could have recruited younger members in the 30 years between first two sightings

thinks papers using fear to sell copies, exaggerating them

majority of reports in the 60s - birth of British counter culture

thinks it would have been an easy and appealing way for kids of that era to rebel

his explanation: gang members grow up and are replaced by younger people, camera that’s been under a counter for years wouldn’t work well

stranger mimics typical stories of ghost or alien sightings - visits occur at night when victim’s in bed

explains first ever alien abduction report as being influenced by media and pop culture - h.g. wells selenites, more ufo sightings while x-files was airing

thinks all people who have seen the stranger were experiencing sleep paralysis and hallucinating visions of the stranger

1850 first report of stranger, in 1843 Dickinson published Christmas carol, Scrooge visited by 3 ghosts, 3rd ghost described as scattering gloom and misery, tall, presence filled him with dread, didn’t speak, ghostly eyes, hooded phantom, suddenly disappears

thinks this character had a profound effect on the person, they therefore hallucinated the character during sleep paralysis, described it as a stranger in their house and the name stuck

word of mouth spreads the story, people become afraid of the stranger and he therefore begins to appear in their sleep psychosis episodes

people experience the same supernatural phenomena because people themselves spread it around

thinks they’re linked but are polar opposites of eachother - callous hearts never grow up and stay young forever whereas the stranger is a grim reaper who represents death and time ticking down

immediately after he says this about the stranger he starts to sound distressed and nervous and stuttering “i’m gonna …… i’m gonna have to go…… bye” and ends the podcast

Theories

James disappeared from room 309 of the Dolphin Hotel. The band had a “mysterious adventure” in room 309 of a hotel several months back which Will tweeted about the next morning, you can read a compilation of the tweets here: http://www.upsetmagazine.com/read/hotel-hell-creeper-story/. We’re now unsure whether this really happened or whether it was planned as part of the lead up to their disappearance. We can’t find any solid links between what supposedly happened to Creeper in their hotel and what has happened to James Scythe. Additionally, an evidence photo shows zener cards laid out for a zener test with evidence markers 2, 3 and 9. It seems out of place for the marker for 9 to be next to 2 and 3 as the rest of the numbers up to 10 are in order, so it has obviously been set up so that “309” is spelled out on the table with an out of place circle zener card not relevant to the test making up the 0 between 3 and 9.

Zener cards are use to conduct experiments for extra sensory perception (ESP), most often clairvoyance. James appears to have conducted a zener test by laying three cards face down on the right and then laying another three face up to the left of them as a prediction of what the three face down cards would be. An overturned card on the right shows that he predicted the square correctly. The band posted this evidence photo on Twitter on the 29th captioned with “+” suggesting that the next card to be overturned would be the cross which he would also therefore have predicted correctly. The results from this test therefore suggest that James had psychic abilities.

As shown in his podcast and by his former profession, James is supposedly sceptical of the preternatural and has spent his life logically explaining such things away, however the presence of a zener test and an EMF reader in his room suggest that he may have been beginning to believe in them; his obsession with the case of the Stranger could be explained by him believing it to be linked to his wife’s death. This would explain the photos of his wife in the room. Also, the EMF reader is in his bag which is purple, we think this might be signifcant because of the lyric in Astral Projection “purple and true, I do this all for you”. Alternatively, he states in his podcast that the Stranger sometimes begins to haunt people who have experienced grief such as the passing of a loved one, so the Stranger may have began to haunt James after his wife’s death.

The knocked over bin in his room, the incomplete zener test and the fact that all his belongings remain suggest that he either left in a hurry, or perhaps he was taken by the stranger

The video of the Stranger which was found in the hotel room has been posted from a YouTube channel under the name James Scythe. The description of the channel is “The Spectral Sceptic”, the same as the title of his podcast. We believe that this mystery is leading up to the release of Creeper’s first full length album, and that it will be titled The Spectral Sceptic. (This fits with the titles of the previous two EPs which have been about the Stranger and the Callous Heart. Its clear that their next release will be about James and as a former “Ombudsman of the Preternatural” you could say he was professionally sceptical of spectres).

There are many links to Peter Pan throughout the story thought none of them have helped lead us to anything which we think might be the next stage - There are various lyrical references to Peter Pan in Creepers songs: Henley’s Ghost has the line “tell John I miss him, tell my brother of my love”. In Peter Pan, Wendy’s brothers are called Michael and John. Also, J. M. Barrie’s inspiration for the character Wendy was his friend’s daughter named Margaret Henley, hence the title Henley’s ghost. Creeper have also previously introduced a character Madeline, the girl on the Stranger album cover. She has only come up briefly so far in the James Scythe story; several photos of her appear on strangesouthampton.club where the author is excited to have finally taken his own photos the Callous Heart gang. She’s mentioned in the lyrics of Black Mass (“Madeline, your friends don’t understand the thing we have” / “Madeline, when you were young did you think we would wed”) and is believed to be tied to Wendy in the same way that the Stranger is tied to Tick Tock. There are therefore split ideas about whether Black Mass is from the perspective of Peter Pan or the Stranger. Finally, the ending of Astral Projection (“That place between sleeping and awake, that half dreaming space is where I’ll always keep you”) is almost a direct quote from Tinkerbell at the ending of Hook (“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I will always love you Peter Pan”). - Peter Pan was written by James Matthew Barrie. J. M. Barrie was born in Kirrimuir, Scotland before moving to London. This is described on whereisjamesscythe.co.uk as exactly what James Scythe did. J. M. Barrie married Mary Ansell, whereas James Scythe married Mary Darling, which is the name of the mother in Peter Pan. - James Scythe checked into the Dolphin Hotel on the 23rd of December 2015. The original Peter Pan play began on the 23rd of December 1904. - In photos of the scene of Scythe’s disappearance, evidence bags state that evidence was recorded by Matthew Barrie. - As well as sharing a name with J. M. Barrie, he also shared a name with Captain (James) Hook. Last names are also similar, a scythe being similar to a hook. Captain Hook’s hook is always on his left hand, and a news article on whereisjamesscythe.co.uk describes James severely injuring his left hand in a car accident (note that the grim reaper in the callous heart logo holds the scythe in its right hand). - The band have mentioned in several interviews that the Stranger is tied to Tick Tock the crocodile, and similarly represents the things that you fear as well as time ticking away. In Peter Pan, Tick Tock is to blame for Hook’s missing hand, so we believe that the Stranger may have been to blame for the car crash which injured James’ hand and killed his wife. - the Callous Heart are supposedly immortal and never age, much like Peter Pan and the lost boys. The band themselves have previously described the Callous Heart as being a gender-neutral lost boys.