Part 4: Frontierland
Mountains - Splash and Thunder
As you pass out of Adventureland and into Frontierland, two faux mountains stand before you: Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. Ancient standing stones and large rock formations dot the landscape all around the world. As Alfred Watkins delineated in his book, “The Old Straight Track,” these stones mark the course of what he termed ley lines. It would take the work of later researchers, like Paul Devereux in his “Fairy Paths and Spirit Roads” to confirm that ley lines weren’t ancient roads, but in fact courses for esoteric energy. Our own Dr. Tyree has built on the research of these two and others to develop a psychic-scientific hybrid system for measuring and mapping ley lines.
My former assistant employed Dr. Tyree’s methods, and after his or her disappearance I reached out to the doctor for advice. She had never researched the Kissimmee site, since her area of expertise is Eastern Europe and Central Asia. When I sent her our findings, she got on a plane at once. Her first question when we met: why two mountains?
Why two mountains right next to one another? The artificial mountains are adjacent to but not actually on ley line nexus points. Traditional standing stones draw energy out of the earth for use in esoteric rituals. Splash and Big Thunder mountains seem to be drawing energy in from the park’s artificial waterways. Dr. Tyree began research on site in 2015, but it was only when she encountered The Sun Savaged Man that she understood what an error the Disney imagineers had made placing the mountains so close.
A hulking man in tight yellow shorts and a white tank top with an incredibly red, sunburned complexion as been reported in the area around the two mountains since January, 2001. He shuffles slowly through Frontierland, often standing in the middle of the path and staring up towards a point in the air midway between the two peaks. The scent of coconut oil and sweat permeates the air around him. Reedy Creek Estoeric Response does not take any obvious actions when he appears, and cast members studiously avoid the Sun Savaged Man. Dr. Tyree did not.
Attracted to the psychic blankness at the center of this sunburnt mountain of flesh, Dr. Tyree approached him and offered a bottle of water. The Sun Savaged Man fixed his tiny black eyes on the plastic container. Dr. Tyree reports a feeling of intense heat and overwhelming thirst, as if she’d become dehydrated. She does not know what happened to the water, but a moment later she was left holding a slightly warped bottle half-full of gray ash. The man was gone.
Thermometer readings in the area read the same as elsewhere in the park on any given day. But the Splash/Thunder Mountain area subjectively feels ten to fifteen degrees hotter than anywhere in the nexus. It is similar to the “cold spot” phenomenon reported in many haunted places. Dr. Tyree believes that the Sun Savaged Man is a manifestation of that hot spot, created when adrenaline from the two rides psychically combines with leakage from the ley line nexus on a hot day and so the Sun Savaged Man appears, a physical manifestation of heat exhaustion. So far he has remained harmless, but as global temperatures increase, so might the threat he represents.
It is now clear that the building of two artificial standing stones so close to one another has had a destabilizing effect on the Magic Kingdom. The unanswered questions: was this by Disney design or was it a mistake? Or was it due to the influence of some third, more malevolent force?
Chinese Laundry
Notice the wild west facade to your right. The Magic Kingdom’s lands don’t strive to recreate reality, but rather to make real the two-dimensional worlds of genre cinema. Frontierland is the great American Western brought to life. The inclusion of a faux Chinese laundry alongside saloons and stables fits the genre well, without being in and of itself enticing. No vacationer will be excited to explore a laundromat, so it fades into background detail, adding verisimilitude to the experience. But that door does open, and if guests only knew what lay beyond it, more than a few would come knocking.
Entering The Laundry has been Mel’s primary research goal since well before we started collaborating. When he was himself a cast member in the early 2000s, Mel heard many rumors about the Laundry. It was said to be an unmarked entrance into the Utilidor tunnels beneath the park. It was a place for VIPs and corporate executives only. There was supposedly an armed guard on the other side of the locked portal.
With our added resources and thanks to a tip from one of our supporters, we can say with some certainty that almost all those rumors are true. The exception being the guard, who is an advanced audio-animatronic security installation in the guise of Wyatt Earp armed with a stun gun, not a real pistol. A former corporate executive, who has since gone into hiding for unrelated reasons, gave Mel a first hand account of the interior.
The Laundry Club features the most advanced animatronics in the park and was, until Be Our Guest started serving wine with dinner, the only place in the Magic Kingdom that served alcohol. It is entirely staffed by automatons, who cater to the whims and desires of the elite few who are allowed past Wyatt Earp’s iris-scans. It maintains the Old West theme of Frontierland, but layers on an element of wild abandon and excess that participants have described as “drug-like.”
Time flows differently in the Laundry Club. This is the literal truth. While inside, time will pass at a different rate than it does outside. Sometimes an hour of external time will encompass up to five and a half hours inside. Other times, an hour spent inside will expand to seven and three-quarters hours in the rest of the park. In 2004, an executive from Siemens stumbled out of the Laundry shortly after sunset, but his body stayed on elongated time. Guests thought him a gravity-defying mime as he walked across Frontierland at one-fifth normal speed, his tie very slowly flapping in the wind, his untied shoelaces tripping him up so that he fell face-first into the cement over the course of four long seconds. RCER responders erected an emergency tent around the executive and shut down Frontierland for the rest of the evening.
Mel has confirmed that Reedy Creek Esoteric Response operates the Laundry. It seems they use it as a venue to meet with concerned executives and to woo reluctant business partners into supporting RCER’s initiatives and policies. It might be reasonable to conclude that not only time, but minds are altered in the Laundry. I suspect it plays an important role in ensuring that Disney corporate authorities outside of the Kissimmee Ley Line Mandala remain supportive and confident that it’s responsible and profitable to keep the parks open despite the esoteric risks.
Rafts to Tom Sawyer Island
Tom Sawyer Island is anomalous in the Magic Kingdom. There are no rides on the island, and very little in the way of special effects. It’s an open area to explore, a place to discover hidden caves and cavort in Twain-themed play areas. Against all respectable standards of crowd-flow engineering, it’s hard to get to: you must wait and ride over on a motorized raft. There is no walkway or tunnel for guests. It’s meant as a nostalgic refuge from the frenzied pace of the rest of the park, but most of the crowds see it as a waste of time and ignore it completely. In this case, there is wisdom in the actions of crowds. Tom Sawyer Island may be the most psychically dreadful locale in the Magic Kingdom, if not the entire Kissimmee Ley Line Mandala.
I first became aware of Disney World’s esoteric phenomena when I was brought in to consult on an investigation into a notorious case of possession that occurred in 2001 and had its origins on Tom Sawyer Island. I will publish an article on that sad case on the Epcult.com web site. For purposes of this walking tour, I must stress this point: if you have a history of spirit possession, temporal instability, or sensitivity to unstable esoteric energies, do not set foot on Tom Sawyer Island.
Our own Dr. Tyree cannot venture onto the island. She has boarded the raft five times, each during a different phase of the moon’s cycle, but can never make herself leave the boat. She finds this frustrating, as you might imagine, and remains determined to find a way ashore, perhaps through the Utilidoor tunnels beneath.
Mel reports no difficulties and has noticed no ill-effects. Dr. Tyree suggests that Mel and other, non-sensitive guests might be under the influence of some sort of manipulation by Reedy Creek Esoteric Response, a kind of psychic deadening. There is good evidence that RCER employs subsonic subliminal messaging (see Tomorrowland), and the noisy engines of the rafts might provide cover for a sort of esoteric vaccination designed to insulate guests from harm.
I believe that the RCER policy toward Tom Sawyer Island is focused on containment rather the elimination of the esoteric chaos. Leaked memos from 1987 and 2009 show that RCER officials have repeatedly asked that the island be shut down, but the corporate officials at Disney refuse to even discuss it. It is an attraction personally designed by Walt Disney, and it holds a special place in the park’s history, as does its original version in Disneyland.
Having been duly warned about the dangers, our tour continues on the island itself.
The Caves
As you walk the paths of Tom Sawyer Island, stay alert for shadowy, scuttling animals in the bushes. You’re unlikely to see them except out of the corner of your eye. Unless it’s within an hour before sunset, they won’t make any noise. If you do hear a faint moaning in a high-low-high pattern, stand still and close your eyes until the sound fades away. Since the Island closes at dusk, there’s no need to fear what might come out at night. You must be gone by then.
There are three cave tunnels on Tom Sawyer Island, all of them of course artificial. They are dark and full of nooks and crannies for something small to hide in. Usually, this is a child hoping to scare a sibling or parent. Their laughter brings a little levity to these foreboding passages, but it would be a mistake to imagine this the happiest place on Earth or any world. Since my initial encounter with a spirit or temporally shifted animus on the island in 2001, it is not safe for me to enter any of the caves. Mel has done brave work trying to investigate them, but their esoteric nature remains shrouded behind a veil of psychic antipathy.
The most popular cave is Injun Joe’s. It is also the most overtly macabre in design, while being the least perilous in esoteric terms. Especially notable is the cave feature sculpted into the form of a gaping, monstrous face, lit from within by colored lights. While it might frighten children, it is in fact a point of stability on the island, largely because it is the one place where Reedy Creek Esoteric Response has made a concerted effort to penetrate the esoteric veil. It is a point of contact with the mysterious forces on the other side. Here is where one would leave a Carrion Coin, which we shall discuss in the next section.
Old Scratch’s Mystery Mine, originally called Magnetic Mystery Mine, has been the site of repeated phantasmal manifestations ever since the park opened. Do not enter it by yourself. First reported in 1974, a tall, gaunt figure with a featureless, egg-shaped head followed three guests through the tunnels, always appearing in the shadows behind them. This figure, known now as Old Scratch (interestingly, named that before Disney changed the name of the tunnel), is suspected of causing creeping, incurable madness in solitary guests on at least seventeen occasions. Lone travelers who reported being touched by Old Scratch start to develop hallucinations and temporal confusion within ten months of contact, and lose all touch with reality within five years. The long period between contact and esoteric symptoms makes proving causality difficult in a court of law or apparently a board room. There is no known cure.
The Escape Tunnel beneath the Fort Langhorn play area is the narrowest, most mysterious cave on the island. Mel, rightfully fearing Old Scratch, has focused his research here. Disney Cast Members who enter the cave always radio in before entering, and usually wear either a blue nametag or a pair of blue rubber gloves. Multiple former cast members have reported that there is a hidden doorway in the cave, but that it does not connect to the Utilidoor system. Hidden cameras and audio recording devices left behind in the cave cease to function after sunset.
In order to overcome these obstacles, Mel resorted to non-electronic means. He secreted a 16mm camera with low-light film and a series of trip wires. This purely mechanical method has succeeded on two of his eleven attempts to capture esoteric evidence on film. Because of the low light and high speed of the phenomena, the evidence is blurry.
In both instances, the camera captured two individuals leaving the cave, one male, one female. Both appear almost identical in height and weight. Both were nude and hairless. In the first case they appeared to be of Asian ancestry, in the second Caucasian. They appear in the cave exit, walking towards the camera. On appearance, their feet are several inches above the ground, but touch the ground after three steps.
As Mel notes, and I concur, they appear to be stepping out of some other cave, perhaps in another dimension or possibly in another time, that overlaps with our world. Where they go remains a mystery for now. In the interest of public safety, I shared our findings with RCER, but as is their policy they did not acknowledge my contact or even admit to their own existence.
The Liberty Belle
A working Mississippi steamboat was integral to Walt Disney’s vision for the original Disneyland and when construction of Disney World began, it was guaranteed that the Florida park would have its own Mark Twain inspired boat and thus its own artificial river. In esoteric terms, this was a dire mistake. But in the late 1960s, no one in the Disney company was thinking in esoteric terms. No one knew about ley line mandalas or the destabilizing effects of poorly grounded flowing water.
The Rivers of America surrounds Tom Sawyer Island, a circular course with a hidden track that guides the Liberty Belle along its set path. The water is dyed to make sure the track, and everything else remains unseen beneath the murky water. Every so many years, the “river” must be drained to clean and maintain it. Doing so reveals a macabre treasure trove of items guests have dropped or thrown into the water: phones, jewelry, souvenirs, coins, and bones. The bones are mostly turkey legs and some chicken bones. Mostly. Other animal and even human bones are alleged to have been found as well, but I cannot yet confirm this rumor.
Thanks to the unchecked energies in the water, when a coin minted before 1972 comes to rest near one of those many, many bones, an esoteric reaction takes place. The result is what I have termed Carrion Coins - a piece of legal tender that has absorbed both the energy of commerce and the taint of death. Carrion Coins can be used in several morbid transactions within the Kissimmee Ley Line Mandala, none of which are safe or advisable. The most dangerous and mysterious is right aboard the Liberty Belle riverboat.
A Carrion Coin placed in the monstrous mouth in Injun Joe’s cave on Tom Sawyer Island, folded in a piece of leather with a date and time burned into, makes an appointment with unknown entities. The appointment must be at night, and must be sometime before the next full moon. The meeting takes place in the small salon area on board the Liberty Belle, and lasts only for the duration of one circuit around the Rivers of America. Only those who made the appointment can be present in the salon, or the “host” will not manifest. In 2016, on a Tuesday night in early January, Mel and Dr. Tyree had such an appointment. Each colleague has a different account of events.
“There was just a voice,” Mel recalls. “Not a man or a woman, more like a computer. It spoke in a mishmash of languages. I heard some English words. ‘Epoch’ or “Epic’ and ‘Shame’ or ‘Change.’ It talked for thirty, forty seconds. Then I asked it for its name. I asked it a bunch of questions. Dr. Tyree just had her eyes closed, was wandering the little room. Kept bumping into things. The voice talked again, or maybe just made noises. I couldn’t make out individual words. I think now maybe it was singing. No music though. Just noises.”
“There was the sudden smell of eucalyptus,” Dr. Tyree remembers. “Strong, as if an essential oil were wafted beneath my nose. It was almost immediately replaced with the intense odor of burning fat, rich, savory, but charred. I closed my eyes. Mel kept asking inane questions, but there was no response. The smells came and went in rapid succession, leaving no trace. An impossible olfactory barrage: lilac, feces, seaweed, sulfur, maple syrup. There was no psychic impression at all, no sense of an entity. Just smells.”
Both agree that the experience seemed to last only moments, but in fact took the entire seventeen minute journey around Tom Sawyer Island. Mel’s audio recording captures all the expected sounds of the attraction, with no sounds from either investigator or the mysterious voice. Confused, they started discussing what had happened. As soon as they disembarked, a newfound antipathy reared its head, and the former colleagues began screaming insults at one another until park security intervened.
They now refuse to talk, even over the phone, and will fly into a rage if in they are forced within forty feet of each other. It is, I must admit, very frustrating.
As we disembark from the Liberty Belle, we find ourselves ready to move on to our next episode in that bastion of patriotism and occult paraphernalia, the intriguing streets and shadowed chambers of Liberty Square.