Silence is golden

i am not sure, but two things i know for certain:

1. Silence is golden, or so they say. I find it a little uncomfortable, personally. I'd rather have a bit of soft rock on quietly in the background. Helps me relax, you see. Silence makes me a little jumpy. I guess I am one of the what Bukowski called 'silence haters'. For instance, since moving in with Kingsbury PI I no longer fall asleep to music. The time it takes me to fall asleep after turning out the lamp has gone from approx 10mins to approx 50mins. That's a fivefold increase. Does this suggest i am 5 times less relaxed in silence than i am with music of the appropriate style/volume?

2. A new contact I have made in non-case related activities looks like the smoking man from X-Files. Just moved down here from Edinburgh a couple of months back. Perhaps I should quiz him on EPPS?

Fox Lake area goods

S.E. of Twin Lakes, WI is a lake known as Fox Lake. I do not know if this is anything to do with the urban fox, but the area is known as a goods [sic?] photography spot and has yielded many 'great shots' over the years. There is also a 'Pell Lake' to the West of Twin Lakes. There are also lakes with names such as 'Wonder Lake' and 'Powers Lake'.

In short, Wisconsin [baby] is a very lakey area, and as such, seems to take on further importance in the case. Perhaps all of these lakes in close proximity are all testing grounds for soft cell activity, perhaps not.

The map co-ordinates of the area are found here. You may find other clues which I have missed in my haste.

Crying wolf...

Just been to the shoeshine. Collar up I squeezed through the trashcans and found the usual alley fire escape steps with the smells of curry and laundry. Jack the Squid hasn’t heard anything about wolves. Foxes, yes. He mentioned an Edinburgh University rabies research scene that he figured might be involved in the rumours I put past him. But I think whoever posted this information in the Forest Café was crying wolf. I might see if my EPPS man has put any new shots in his gallery lately...

More on EPPS...

More on EPPs, or so I think…

I currently have my fly-fishing guru staying nearby. He is in a tent somewhere in the region, but came by the caseroom for a couple nights including poker and records Sunday pm. Monopoly money. He got the stash but restricted pot with pinks and oranges removed halfway through for early bedtime, in my defence. No bluffing going on anywhere. Have you ever been in the Forest Café? He asks me. Naturally, such a hive of eco-villainy, soft seating and fair-trade coffee would have come to my attention. I have smuggled whisky into it on occasions(enforced alcohol ban after previous troubles) and quizzed the usual suspects within on bus/train survices to Gleneagles on G8 day. So, I tell him I know the place. He reports that they recently had a display up – a photographic display no less, documenting a mysterious project – a project that I find hard to believe, if I hadn’t been listening with my own ears to a direct witness of the displays. The project, supposedly, has happened in other urban areas, and is now taking place in Edinburgh. The nature of the project is the introduction into URBAN AREAS of wild animals. The examples mentioned were foxes and wolves. I suspect it may be a hoax, but then, I feel it warrants further thought and investigation. If it IS true, then Contact B’s secret fox in a location revealed to this investigator may be part of this project. But once again, out comes the old neglected question. WHY?

Here, my guru was helpful. (Noteworthy also that my guru is fresh from study in the field of rural planning.) Apparently, he says, the intention is to bring the country back into the town and city – to re-nature the urban environment. But releasing wolves into built up areas?? Foxes I could believe. I must search that ever-dependable murky backstreet the internet, and slip the shoeshine guy some pennies…

Whitby Discovery

Investigations in the Whitby region of East Cleveland UK have yielded vital clues and possible heavyweight evidence relating to the case. A task force was dispatched there by myself on a hunch while looking for Dan Stairs' presence in East Cleveland Ohio, USA. While reserching the US East Cleveland in Ohio, I came across various mentions of Whitby in East Cleveland UK. The town's name rang bells in the investigative chambers of my brain due to its similarity to the name of the WhitbyBoat company first identified in Michigan in the early days of this case. My hunch proved to be correct and the team returned with ample evidence of activity in the town. Here one of the team recount their experience first hand.

A handwritten cardboard sign was found situated on the lower step of a building entrance which opened onto a busy shopping street. The sign read 'part-time sales assistant wanted - must be a knitter - apply within'. This immediately struck me as pertinent to the case. I was tempted to go inside and apply for the job myself, to test the reaction of the staff already present, but my lack of knitting knowledge would have been a dea giveaway, so I settled for the covert approach, secretly photographing evidence whenever I got the chance.

Further up the steps were two permanent signs which read 'wool' and 'crafts'. Alarm bells were ringing in my ears as well as my brain by now. These permanent signs indicated to me that the building is being/has been used for woolcraft purposes for a long period. The handwritten sign is obviously temporary and can put on show or hidden away at a moments notice, allowing the group operating from within stractegic options as to when to advertise for 'help'.

More handwritten signage covered the walls of the corridoor so I walked in to take a look and found another handwritten sign, this time for 'Bobbins Postal Service'. The sign described a 'british wools yorkshire service' which can, and does, 'post wools, kits and exclusive design (in denim) all over the world'. The global aspect of their contact details suggests they are by no means an isolated operation and are in touch with other groups and/or indivuals potentially spanning the entire globe. Another sign, this one painted on a wooden A-board, showed that their output was not limited to deniim, with pure wools, aran and rowan yarn all represented.

A quick flick through a pile of second hand paperback books sat on a bench in the entrance corridoor revealed a book called 'warrimoo' by a Mary Patchett. The author's name struck me in its similarity to Melinda Packett, possibly an early version of the alias, or even inspiration for it, though this could just be coincidence. I cannot recall the subject matter of the book.

Stepping back outside the building in to the street (I noticed I was drawing attention to myself hanging around in the corridoor with camera being swivelled and pointed at every sign in sight and feared my intentions may be about to be discovered) I looked up to see a large model of a ball of wool with a pair of knitting needlers crossed through it, hanging above the doorway like a chandelier. The structure was pretty big and I was surprised not to have spotted it on my way in. My guess is it is the craft circle's emblem used to identify themselves to others. A hand-drawn image of he same structure appeared on a poster in the shop next door to the craft centre circled by the words 'Knit Happens In Whitby', which by now was sounding like an understatement to this investigator. It advertised a meeting for a 'newly established craft circle' to which 'all members were welcome'. Unfortunately, this is not occuring until the end of the month and it is unlikely we will have any agents in the area to attend. I can only surmise that the operation is being expanded in the aera, hence the need for new recruits. I wonder if the timing of the expansion relates to the beards presence on the UK festival circuit in any way. Incidentally, the shop this advert was placed in is called 'The Shepherd's Purse' which brings to my mind Regan's quote about the relative riches of the shepherd and the banker noted earlier in the case.

The other piece of possible evidence discovered was an advert placed in the window of a disused shopspace (opposite the Shepherd's Purse) which mentioned a 'cargo shed relocation presentation' something which sounds vague but ominous. Could be related to shipping cargo out of whitby to elsewhere, or the relocation of sheds (or other buildings) possibly mirroring the Michigan housing re-plan.

I have listed much evidence here but little theory. I shall tackle the evidence in this manner now...

The first thing I must focus on is the ball of wool and crossed needle motif the Bobbins group are using. It seems very similar to the marks of crossed needles made on the great lake cave paintings found in Lima by EPPS, as described by Safelight. This cross motif is the opposite of the rings found drawn around the great lakes on the wallmap of the military man who Phipps (the woodland ranger in Maryland) had contact with. This leads me to conclude that there are definitely military and counter-culture operations active in the same field - the military using the circle as their power symbol, and the underground group using the crossed needles as theirs. So, we are dealing with a game of noughts and crosses. As is known by anybody who has played the game, the centrespot is by far the most effective position to hold on the grid; without taking control of this spot, the game is almost lost by default. In our investigation, any form of midpoint seems to be empty. I do not know what this means, so draw your own conclusion. One thought occurs to me - if the military are aligned with the circular sumbol, it seems likely that closed-loop production methods are the realm of the military, not the counter culture. This seems all the more probable due to the amount of resources the military has compared to the likely resources of any kind of underground operation.



The existence of the Whitby group could well explain Regan's presence in the Wolds. My guess is that the Bobbins operation is being bankrolled by Kozyra and Reagan is there to oversee operations. A further guess is that the Whitby location was selected as a UK site due to the similarity of the name to Whitby Boat co. Searly is the most likely candidate to have chosen the spot, I would imagine. Whitby is also a harbour town, and with boats and water having much to do with the case this would seem to be a key feature of most locations. The water/boating savvy group no doubt chose the place as it provided a means to ship goods out to sea privately, avoiding official border crossing points. The synchronicity of the town's name providing confirmation that is was the right choice for the group to run an operation from.




Bobbins co. are no doubt shipping stuff to USA and also recruiting other craft circles in some global craftweb. It is highly possible that new recruits do not know the intended purpose of what they are making, knitting purely for pleasure or for social reasons. My guess is that only a few top brass in the organisation know the true agenda. The most likely suspects for this are Searly, Reagan, Costa, Kozyra, Melody Nelson, Melinda Packett, Cate, Grant, De Leon and Vandeloo. Some of these names may be aliases for the same person, but further research is required to confirm this.

Basement/Lake

In reference to recent basement work regarding the monk and the band:

The basement has long been a stronghold of the underculture… As one investigator suggests, one place the ‘underground’ will naturally hide is in the actual underground. The underground stream, a below-ground flow of water, has long been a symbol of secret cultures, knowledge or traditions. The esoteric strands of crypto-religious and crypto-anthropologic study such as the nasorean / templar / celtic Christian traditions are one example. This example also, as with our case, supposedly utilised the literal underground, taking cover in catacombs under the temple of herod, for example, and leaving fish symbols on the walls. Our crossed knitting needles and 4 lakes found by ‘Epps’ in catacombs in South America, are comparable to this.

The basement, however, is no river, it is a lake. It is no tunnel, it is a cave. An enclave - a slab of crumbling concrete rather than a tarmac road. It leads nowhere geographically, but it persists. (On a four dimensional drawing of course, it would be a tunnel, a road, a river – spanning along the time axis as long as it persists to exist.)

If the basement is the cave / lake / cracking carpark, then the tunnel / river / road must be highway 61.

I have long been associated with an individual, a filmmaker of some avant-garde standing, working on a film treatment for a literal translation film version of the song Desolation Row. The film, as yet unfilmed I believe, is to be a veritable nighttime circus of characters. Einstein will have his electric violin; Ophelia will have her sad red light. The blind commissioner will be on the tightrope with a hand in his pants… The main dilemma of the film will be who is in and who is out of Desolation row. Who peeks into the place, and who mails postcards out of it?

As a row, ie. a street of dwelling houses, it is part cave, part tunnel. A basement that can be reached by tunnels - populated with the same characters as fill the covers of Monk’s and the Band’s 68 subterranean works. The circus is in town…

See also, the laughing lady – perhaps she ventured into the basement in Neil Young’s backpack, as he lay there with the full moon in his eyes, dreaming of replacement after the gold rush, and hoping what his friend said had been a lie. His friend could be Dean Stockwell, the spirit guide of Sam Beckett. The thing he said could be: ‘the gold rush is over; the gold is all gone’. Dean lived on the neighbouring ranch in the same canyon as Neil, and wrote the film screenplay of After the Goldrush, for which Neil wrote the soundtrack. The ‘band fair blowing’ in Neil’s head could be the Band, playing in Neil’s basement.

All just thoughts… Perhaps irrelevant to this particular case.

Radio Silence Broken

Consider the prolonged radio silence now broken. I have been catching up on the non-case aspects of my life since returning from Boston. Also, feraing they may be investigating us, i thought laying low on communications may force them to operate less covertly and come closer to us. This would appear not to have been the case, at least from my perspective, and we still appear to be working 'under the radar' so to speak.

Allow me to clarify my position on Ethan/Evan, for I fear I may have given a false impression of his significance (ot lack thereof): I was in Croatia based on a tipoff from one of Safelight's photojournalism associates, who had told me something unique and unknown was occuring there (details of which I cannot discuss at the time, though can confirm they are irrelevant to the Searly case). E was unimportant then and is likely so now; I mention him purely because he is the only Wisconsin kid I have met in person and may have been able to unwittingly pass on information of the local subculture, wooly or otherwise. Why he was alone I did not determine, which is why he stands out in my memory - as a detective I have a natural tendency for the unresolved to stick in my mind like a thorn. It is only with hindsight that he seems possibly significant, though I am not investing much in that 'theory'. Croatia does not seem to have any connection to the Searly case, though any coastal region can perhaps not be fully discounted without satisfactory evidence to the contrary.

Btw: Congratulations on your sporting achievement, though it is a shame there was no photo finish - I hate to see a good photo oppotunity go to waste. I picture you with dark locks streaming behind you in the wind as your opponent drifts gradually behind with cheeks puffing and eyes popping in exaperation, camera panning to record your victory against blurred backdrop of black n white treeline in distance. Perhaps a member of EPPS was there to capture it.

Speaking of EPPS, it is good to have this new lead courtesy of Lone Wolf's dream and your 'chance' meeting at the Cumberland Club. The question now begs, why would someone from as far away as Edinburgh be covering the catacombs of Peru? Some journalistic project perhaps, or something more sinister? If Contact B is well known as being someone who takes 'some great shots' he could be an in demand go-to guy for such specialist projects. I believe, based on recent revelations, that Contact B warrants further investigation. Perhaps you can find the missing catacomb images.

I will attempt to answer your further questions post haste.

The Big Fox

I believe I know who / what EPPS is. I have met him (or rather a member of the group) without knowing it. EPPS is none other than the Edinburgh Photographic and Photojournalistic Society, a covert branch of IPPS, the International Photographic and Photojournalistic Society (also sometimes referred to as the International Photo-Press Society). Bells rang when I first investigated the online works of Contact B, met in the Cumberland Club. It included stuff that could only be considered journalistic – including images of war graves and international conference attendees.

The Cumberland Club, I now realise, is the base of the EPPS. Contact B may even be the very same member who took photographic images while exploring the catacombs of Peru. He certainly will be aware of the images taken, with a personal interest due to his own great lakes background. I believe his allusion to an urban fox he has located, of which he refuses to tell the authorities the location, can only be code. An urban fox is a perfect symbol for an underground fugitive living undetected within a city, like so many of the individuals involved in this investigation.

Certainly, Contact B (B for Brian EPPS, perhaps), does also photograph real urban foxes, however I am now certain that he and I were thrown together on that fateful night for reasons other than the discussion of actual ‘foxes’. Rather, it was understood that the fox in question was a ‘big fish’ in our investigations.

I feel sure from our investigator’s earlier contact with EPPS that they must also be following the case closely. They may know more than ourselves. They may even be in contact with the group/s or individuals involved, possibly in a partisan, non-neutral way. Certainly, my Brian EPPS was insistant the cover of the BIG FOX in question was on no account to be blown.

I must return to the Cumberland Club…

E.P.P.S.

Further sifting of my communications has brought to my attention your theory of existing on the stateline as a means to evade the law. It is out of the box yet obvious all the same. A fantastic theory which could, if achieving a certain threshold density, exist as a self-sustaining organism, or culture, akin to yeast in the demijohn of a home winemaker. This is something worth investigating, but given their lack of discovery, the likelihood is that such communities, if they exist at all, must do so in destinations remote from urban or other densely populated areas. Of course, living subterraneanly would allow one to evade the law by vertiginous means.

Heard from Lone Wolf, who has also been pursuing dream-based investigations. I quote; "Had a dream the other night about someone named Epps. Thought it was someone already mentioned in the case, but the Epps surname was an acronym." There could be mileage in this.

Also in the mail was the white window envelope of dubious postage. Who knows how long it has been sitting there in the hallway corner, slightly raised by the curled corner of the straw mat? Its contents tie in with recent revelations. The idea of that which isn't, or is barely seen yet is still there, is at the foundation of our investigation. One thing I forgot to mention about Dan Stairs' proposal is that he was proposing fibres which would allow for the owner to re-model them at will by the means of easily achievable conditions: take your t-shirt, stick it in the microwave for a minute then mould it into a bowl to eat your soup from; wash it out, soak it in warm water and mould it into a pair of sandals. Think of the implications if such attributes could be achieved on an architectural scale.

In Reply

Ah, your inquistive nature serves you well, as does your skepticism. You were absolutely right to suspect that Epps and Epstein are corruptions of the same name - we are investigtors by nature and profession, after all. However, you were also right to conclude that they are in fact different people - a coincidence which would be far too canny, something from the realm of fiction, even. I can assure you that I have met Dr. Epstein in person on several occasions over recent years, him being an acquaintence of my wife from her Ph.D. days. He is a brilliant yet quiet man, a professor of theoretical physics who lectures at a noted British university - I forget its name - not one of the big three, but certainly a well respected red-brick. To my knowledge, he has no understanding of, nor interest in, photography, and has certainly never displayed any attention toward my Nikons when they have been lying around the home. In the interests of the profession, I am happy to casually raise the subject at our next acquaintence should you wish me to.

From Kojak 400asa

I assume ‘Dr Epstein’ and the mysterious photojournalist ‘Jacob Epps’ are not one and the same man? Coincidences do occur, especially with so many names floating about in investigations. To suppose that one must be a pseudonym or corruption of the other, in this investigator’s opinion, would be unprofessional, and amount to little more than an unfounded conspiracy theory. On this basis I will lay the similarity aside, and concentrate on digging up more on the case of Melissa Parrish and Belinda Erkhart living together in hiding under the assumed joint name of Melinda Packett while constructing with others a giant state replica from wool, with involvement in some form from the Peruvians.

Further Evidence of the SA influence in the Woolgate affair

As investigations progress across Europe, Safelight is proving to be most insightful and has now provided further corroboration (as yet untested) of South America's role in Woolgate. He recalls a discussion he had with a fellow photojournalist while waiting in a temporary military installation to be flown out of the middle east circa 2004 after completing a 7-month embed with an unnamed batallion. This photojournalist, believed to be Jacob Epps, recounted a project he undertook in 1996 to photograph the catacombs of the latin american region.

In Lima, Peru, Epps claimed to have found (and taken photographic evidence of) a strange secret room in the catacombs which boasted a large map of the united states crudely yet accurately engraved on it's wall. There were minimal details and markings on the map - no towns or cities for instance, but apparently the Great Lakes were all marked on the map, with 4 of them distinguished with large crosses.

The strangest detail of this story as Safelight recounted it, was that Epps seemed convinced the lines from which these crosses were constructed appeared to look like two knitting needles overlayed in a cross arrangement. Whether this was deliberate or an accident achieved through the crude method used to make the engravings is as yet unknown, but Safelight has agreed to make off-the-record enquiries within his press contacts to track down Epps, or at least some of the photos he claims to have taken in the underground networks of SA.