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Strange Little Shrine


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When hunting Redcap (GCJ05Y), after finding the cache, my son and I were on the way out when I noticed some flowers (fresh, no less) sitting on a hump of dirt about 75 feet from the cache. There were two cigarettes arranged around the flowers, making a strange little shrine.

 

Here's the log with a photo of it: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...4b-5a0720a9347a

 

Anyone found things like this before? I was a bit perplexed by it.

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While looking for a place to hide a cache I came across a very small light blue bridge with plastic flowers on the other side leading up and around a small bend. As I approached I could see a black board kind of thing, but the kind that you use eraseble markers on. Going on up you reached a clearing that had birthday balloons, christmas orniments ect. and was surrounded by more plastic flowers. When I looked at the board from the other side it said Michella We Love You. I suddenly remembered that the police had found a young girls body somewhere out in a wooded area. Said a prayer to the girl and her family as well as my own and left but I don't know if I will ever forget this one.

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Before I read inchoate 1’s post I looked at the picture and saw some baby pine tree next to the flowers. First thought was in memory of someone. That would freak me out. I have a massive phobia of dead bodies in the woods. That is one of the reasons I hate hiking in the woods but I’ll deal I like the woods too much. Even on my own 10acres I freak out. I was making trails up on my hill and was trying to push over an old stump and saw what looking like a hand in black gloves sticking up from under the side of the stump. I grabbed my chain saw and other stuff and ran down the hill. I made my mom go check it out. It was just some kind of mushrooms!

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I have repeatedly heard of somewaht elaborate shrines located in remote wooded areas in Central and Northern California, and in parts of Oregon and Washington state, and they apparently often involve found objects such as sun-bleached skulls of small animals, sea shells, bottle caps, beach pebbles, pottery, scrap metal, even hubcaps, and all kinds of little ornamental buttons, pins, pieces of dried wood and driftwood. The few that I have found have all been in canyons in the Big Sur area of California, including one rather elaborate one which sits in a canyon which runs E-W under Highway 1, with a small stream (replete with tiny hot springs along it) running from the mountains to the east and down the deepest part of the canyon to reach the ocean. I also know folks who have encountered similar shrines in the Santa Cruz mountains, especially around Boulder Creek.

 

In fact, the well-known science fiction and fantasy author James Blaylock, who lives in California and often uses Central and Northern California as the setting for his novels, has referred to these many shrines more than once in his books and he even uses a local name for the people (in his novels he hints that they are useally old burned-out hippies and nature worshippers) who place the shrines. I forget the exact name he gives them, but it is something like "the shellers"; I will try to find old copies of some of his novels lying around and look up that name, and if I can find it I will report it here. In fact, I believe that an old eccentric mystic named John whom I know, who now lives -- without electricity -- in a forest near Santa Cruz, has told me that he has, in days past, placed a couple of these shrines around the Santa Cruz area, mostly back in the eighties.

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It is possible the "shrine" you found was just an offering. Like going on a vision quest, many new agers make offerings about things which are meaningful to them. It is possible this person wanted to quit smoking, or even knew someone who died of a tobacco related disease. Often these people go to a meaningful place for them and leave their offering.

 

I have heard that where there is a big population of voodoo worshippers, chickens will be sacrificed by a railroad track or roadway, although startling to first come across, they are more detrimental to the chickens than to anyone else.

 

On the mushroom find. I had to laugh. That mushroom is actually called "dead mans fingers" because that is what they resemble.

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It is possible the "shrine" you found was just an offering. Like going on a vision quest, many new agers make offerings about things which are meaningful to them. It is possible this person wanted to quit smoking, or even knew someone who died of a tobacco related disease. Often these people go to a meaningful place for them and leave their offering.

 

I have heard that where there is a big population of voodoo worshippers, chickens will be sacrificed by a railroad track or roadway, although startling to first come across, they are more detrimental to the chickens than to anyone else.

 

On the mushroom find. I had to laugh. That mushroom is actually called "dead mans fingers" because that is what they resemble.

 

peou_xylaria_polymorpha.jpg

xylaria.jpg

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"I grabbed my chain saw and other stuff and ran down the hill. I made my mom go check it out. It was just some kind of mushrooms!"

 

I was going to make fun of you until I saw the pics. Creepy!

Aw hell, I'm still gonna make fun of you. Your mom? Shame on you! Don't you have a little sister? :tired:

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That deadmans finger is weird ! Since you know about that, maybe you can identify something else.

 

I used to work at a golf course. One day, we were working in a large ornamental display located under 3 very large pine trees. The constant shade meant there were always mushrooms growing there, but one day there was a plant that looked EXACTLY like a pile of entrails, like a rabbit or woodchuck had been eviscerated there.

 

The effect was so realistic, flies had gathered to it as well - I assume this is part of the organisms method of spreading spore ?

 

Anyways, thats the only time I've ever seen it. No one can tell me about it, and I've never been able to find a pic in books or on the web.

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That deadmans finger is weird! ...

 

I used to work at a golf course. One day, we were working in a large ornamental display located under 3 very large pine trees. The constant shade meant there were always mushrooms growing there, but one day there was a plant that looked EXACTLY like a pile of entrails, like a rabbit or woodchuck had been eviscerated there.

...

 

As for the entrails, it sounds like slime mold to me, which often looks like dog vomit. It could also have been entrails though. Did you taste them?

 

Also, there is another fungus I have heard referred to as Dead Man's .... Well, the latin name is Phallus impudicus.

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As for the entrails, it sounds like slime mold to me, which often looks like dog vomit. It could also have been entrails though. Did you taste them?

 

Also, there is another fungus I have heard referred to as Dead Man's .... Well, the latin name is Phallus impudicus.

 

Yes, I too though of the Phallus family of stinkhorn fungi, such as Phallus ravenelli (they are quite common in the Fall in the forests here in the Appalachians in Central/Western Maryland), but it really sounds more like it was large slime mold on the move. Have never seen Puallus impudicus in my fungi-hunting days here on the east coast.

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... The effect was so realistic, flies had gathered to it as well - I assume this is part of the organisms method of spreading spore ?

 

Anyways, thats the only time I've ever seen it. No one can tell me about it, and I've never been able to find a pic in books or on the web.

 

Was it orange with green goo on it and stinky?

(yes, this is a serious question)

 

We had an orange growth in our yard that smelled just AWFUL - in fact, that's how I found it - and had flies all over it. Finally I found an old man who knew what it was. This was called "Stink Horn" and each individual one looked like a rotting carrot and smelled worse. He said the smell was in fact to attract flies to spread spores/pollinate it. I don't know how that worked, having never seen another one.

Edited by caledonia
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I found a cache called The Talc Mine Cache here in Northern Nevada last Friday. The cache is not in the mine but near it. I took a flash light and went into the mine. The mine had very interesting carving all along the walls. At the end of the mine was a small room with alcoves carved into the walls. Each of these alcoves had candles and bleached animal bones. Since this is in a fairly remote area in the desert I'm not sure I'd want to meet the people that do their thing in this mine :rolleyes:

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I found a cache called The Talc Mine Cache here in Northern Nevada last Friday. The cache is not in the mine but near it. I took a flash light and went into the mine. The mine had very interesting carving all along the walls. At the end of the mine was a small room with alcoves carved into the walls. Each of these alcoves had candles and bleached animal bones. Since this is in a fairly remote area in the desert I'm not sure I'd want to meet the people that do their thing in this mine :rolleyes:

 

GREAT story! Thanks for telling us about this find!

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I don't know if this practice is popular in other parts of the country, but here in Northeastern PA, when someone dies in a car accident (especially a young person), there will frequently be a roadside shrine placed there. One near us has been maintained for TWENTY years now. Another has a huge wooden cross with a stone retaining wall and the girl's name on it. Some are small (just a wooden cross and flowers), while some are very elaborate and even get seasonal decorations (plastic angels and wreaths for Christmas, Happy Valentine's Day balloons, etc.). We pass one daily that often has jugs of cider near it, and another had a giant Slurpee display for a while. One of the first caches we found has a small and rather touching and pitiful shrine near it, and cachers have mentioned it in their logs. The shrine is hidden behind a guardrail, and you inevitably walk past it to access the cache.

 

Now that I think about it, last year there was a newspaper article about the dilemma faced by road crews when the winter plowing has the potential to wreck one of these shrines. The article advised people to place them far enough back from the road to prevent them from interfereing with the snowplow!

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I have seen many types of alters/shrines, indoors and outdoors ........some were as small as a few acorns and a small candle placed in a circle. In February I came across a big one in the woods near the American river in California. All of the people that I know who use this form of spiritual expression have earth based beliefs.

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I found an unusual shrine two years ago that still defies explanation... particularly where it was found in thirty feet of water during a search and recovery dive.

 

The shrine was constructed of six to ten inch stones piled to mimic the size and shape of an adult's casket. The shrine was adorned with a three foot high concrete statue of a frog wearing a crown. Each of the four corners of the "casket" were adorned with foot long rubber skeletons with their feet weighted down, leaving their skeletal bodies floating upright.

 

The truly bizarre aspect of this unexpected find was that the dive site was strictly sand to a depth of forty feet, and then progressively deeper silt as depth increased to one hundred and ten feet.

 

Rocks of any size are difficult to find in the 211 acre pond, so unless the shrine builders collected all of the pond's rocks in construction of the shrine, they must have had to carry hundreds of pounds of materials in with them.

 

<_<

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I don't know if this practice is popular in other parts of the country, but here in Northeastern PA, when someone dies in a car accident (especially a young person), there will frequently be a roadside shrine placed there. One near us has been maintained for TWENTY years now. Another has a huge wooden cross with a stone retaining wall and the girl's name on it. Some are small (just a wooden cross and flowers), while some are very elaborate and even get seasonal decorations (plastic angels and wreaths for Christmas, Happy Valentine's Day balloons, etc.). We pass one daily that often has jugs of cider near it, and another had a giant Slurpee display for a while. One of the first caches we found has a small and rather touching and pitiful shrine near it, and cachers have mentioned it in their logs. The shrine is hidden behind a guardrail, and you inevitably walk past it to access the cache.

 

Now that I think about it, last year there was a newspaper article about the dilemma faced by road crews when the winter plowing has the potential to wreck one of these shrines. The article advised people to place them far enough back from the road to prevent them from interfereing with the snowplow!

 

That's very common down here (the New Orleans area). One family lost their 4 children when the car they were riding in went into a bayou. I pass this area almost daily, and there's always something out there for the kids' birthdays, holidays, etc.

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Along the route to Flow of the Haw most cachers encounter this gnome out in the woods about a mile from the trailhead. (He's the little stoic guy in the front, the one in back is my buddy jackcachenc. ;) There are some homes a coiuple hundred yards to the east of the trail, but you are pretty much out there at this one.

 

I believe the gnome in question is actually a wizard.

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