Table Of ContentThis edition first published in 2017 by New Page Books,
an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
With offices at:
65 Parker Street, Suite 7
Newburyport, MA 01950
www.redwheelweiser.com
www.newpagebooks.com
Copyright © 2017 by Nick Redfern
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser,
LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.
ISBN: 978-1-63265-112-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
Cover design by Howard Grossman/12E Design
Forest image by photocosma/depositphotos
Interior by Gina Schenck
Typeset in Minion Pro and Nollanaama
Printed in Canada
MAR
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter
“When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.”
—Robert Browning,
The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child's Story, 1842
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to give my sincere thanks to all of the following people,
without whom this book would not exist: my good friend and tireless literary
agent, Lisa Hagan, for all of her hard and dedicated work; everyone at
Career Press, including Michael Pye, Laurie Kelly-Pye, Jeff Piasky, Lauren
Manoy, Gina Schenck, and Adam Schwartz; Allison Jornlin, for sharing
with me her insights into aspects of the Slenderman phenomenon; Tea
Krulos, for a thought-provoking and revealing interview; Robin Swope, who
went beyond the call of duty in terms of giving me his views on the
Slenderman; Ian Vincent, for nailing the connections between the
Slenderman and the field of Chaos Magic; Jenny and Loren Coleman, whose
work in the field of the Slenderman has proved to be invaluable; David
Weatherly, for kindly sharing with me several cases from his files; Mike
Huberty, who demonstrated to me that Waukesha, Wisconsin, is a place
filled with paranormal activity; close friend Kimberly Rackley, who
generously agreed to be interviewed on the issue of her personal encounters;
Olav Phliips, of Paranoia Magazine, for an eye-opening insight into the
Slenderman phenomenon; and, finally, my good mate Simon Wyatt for his
phenomenal artwork of the Internet's most infamous monster.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
“THE BEST, NEW MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE”
CHAPTER 2
“IT TENDS TO FREE ITSELF FROM ITS MAKERS' CONTROL”
CHAPTER 3
“MAGIC AND FICTION WERE STARTING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION”
CHAPTER 4
“IS ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM BUT A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM?”
CHAPTER 5
“FEAR OF THE GAS MAN”
CHAPTER 6
“CONSUMED BY THE SLENDERMAN”
CHAPTER 7
“WAUKESHA REMINDS ME OF A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
CHAPTER 8
“THERE WILL BE NO SAFETY IN THIS HOUSE”
CHAPTER 9
“DEMON-POSSESSED”
CHAPTER 10
“EVIL LIES IN WAIT FOR AN EXCUSE TO BLOOM”
CHAPTER 11
“SLENDERMAN IS A PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF OUR FEAR OF DEATH”
CHAPTER 12
“AND IN DID COME THE STRANGEST FIGURE”
CHAPTER 13
“A SLIM MAN IN A DARK SUIT”
CHAPTER 14
“I KNEW IT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO KILL HER”
CHAPTER 15
“A TALL, DARK, AND TERRIFYING ENTITY”
CHAPTER 16
“HIS ARMS ARE IMPOSSIBLY LONG”
CHAPTER 17
“THERE'S NO STRUCTURE TO THE FACE”
CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
Imagine the scene: It's the dead of night and you are fast asleep. Suddenly,
things change radically and you find yourself far from asleep; you are now
wide awake but unable to move. You are completely paralyzed. You try to
cry out but it's no use. Your heart pounds and your head spins chaotically.
Worse still, you see hunched over in the shadows of the bedroom an eight-
to-nine-foot-tall skinny and emaciated creature. It is dressed in an old-style
black suit, and has a pale face that lacks eyes, a nose, ears, and a mouth. As
for its arms and legs, they are almost like those of a spider: long, thin, and
spindly. Rubbery, octopus-like tentacles protrude from its torso; they wave
and flicker ominously in your direction. To your horror, the night-fiend
slowly moves toward you and leans over. Its foul breath makes you wretch.
It whispers that you are about to die or that it is coming to take your soul.
Maybe you will be its eternal slave in its forested, ancient abode. Now in a
state of complete terror, you finally manage to cry out and wake up in a cold
sweat. The terrible thing is suddenly gone. You have just had a trauma- and
fear-filled encounter with the Slenderman. But, mark my word, he will be
back. He always comes back eventually.
The Slenderman has curious origins. He began “life” purely as an Internet
creation, specifically the work of a man named Eric Knudsen. In June 2009,
Knudsen, via the pseudonym of “Victor Surge,” uploaded a couple of
doctored photos of the Slenderman to the Something Awful website forum.
In no time at all, others began writing and posting their very own tales of the
Slenderman. Short stories, blogs, novels, online games, chat-rooms, and
more soon followed. Then, something menacing and sinister happened:
People all across the world began to see the Slenderman. Not just on the
Internet, not in novels or in the pages of comic-books, but in their homes. In
their bedrooms. In mysterious woods. In dreams that rapidly escalated into
full-blown nightmares.
The Slenderman had come to life.
Since 2009, countless numbers of people claim to have seen, and been
attacked, plagued, and terrified by this skeletal, pale giant in black. But how
could such a thing have happened? Is the creature a Tulpa, a Buddhist word
that means “thought-form”? When enough people believe in something, the
theory goes, that same something can stride out of our darkest imaginations
and right into the heart of our own reality. By accepting without question the
idea that the Slenderman is more than just a piece of Internet fiction are we
also giving him some degree of life? Maybe even independent life? If so,
can we extinguish that life? If not, does that mean the Slenderman is here to
stay?
Another theory suggests that the Internet is slowly becoming self-aware.
Could the online world into which all of us are hooked be the culprit? In
September 2012, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article titled “A
self-aware Internet not so far-fetched” and asked, “Could the internet “wake
up”? And if so, what sorts of thoughts would it have? Would it be friend or
foe? They are important and integral questions, and particularly so when it
comes to the matters of the Slenderman and what it really is (Falk, 2012).
Is the Internet turning against us—in a situation not unlike the vast Skynet
system in the Terminator movies—and attacking us with digital equivalents
of our very own online nightmares? Could those same digital equivalents
take a running leap out of the Internet and into our very homes? And,
particularly so, the Slenderman?
There is no doubt that the saga of the Slenderman has reached extremely
disturbing proportions both on the Net and in our world. In 2014, Newsweek
reported, “In late May, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin,
two 12-year-old girls allegedly lured a friend into the woods and stabbed her
19 times.” The terrible attack was undertaken all in the name of—yes, you
guessed it—the Slenderman. It was an affair that shocked the people of
Waukesha to their very core and gave the Slenderman the widespread
infamy he was surely craving (Jones, 2014).
In a January 24, 2015 article that appeared in the U.K.-based Birmingham
Mail newspaper (titled “Spooky Slender Men spotted in Cannock”), the
editor Mike Lockley wrote that an investigation
...has been launched in the Midlands following four sightings of
Slender Men—long, stick-thin specters feared around the world....
Slender Men have been a part of global folklore for centuries. They
may be known by different names, but their harrowing, elongated
appearance remains the same around the world (Lockley, 2015).
More and more people are following, and arguably even worshiping and
devoting their lives to, the Slender-man as he becomes ever stronger and
more physical in our world. Where did he come from? What does he want
from us? What are the many witnesses to the Slenderman telling us? Is there
just one creature, or are we looking at multiple Slendermen? How can we
stop him from terrorizing and torturing us? Can we stop him? Or has he
become an unstoppable, unbeatable nightmare?
These, and many more, are the questions asked and answered in The
Slenderman Mysteries: An Internet Urban Legend Comes to Life.
