NIC: From Pacific Northwest Stories and Minnow Beats Whale, it’s Tanis. I’m Nic Silver. We’re telling the story of Tanis in order every two weeks, so if you haven’t listened to the first nine episodes, go back and start there. We’ll try not to get too far ahead by the time you get back.
NIC: Time for a quick update on a couple of things. First, the short story, “Where is Tanis?” by Jack Parsons, which we discovered may have been related to a couple of high-profile internet mysteries. MK’s friend is no longer working at TeslaNova Corporation, which I suspect, could be related to this podcast. I’m not sure how I feel about that. MK believes her friend is just fine and on a beach somewhere living off a monumental severance package. But I’m not so sure. So for now, there’s nothing new on the subject of the short story, “Where is Tanis?”.
The next update involves the death of Carl van Sant. I was able to speak with the coroner of record in the case and he told me that there was nothing suspicious at all about Carl’s suicide. But an informal chat with a friend of mine in the Mayor’s office and a nice bottle of single malt scotch revealed that the coroner I spoke with was not actually working the day Carl’s body came in. His name was on the death certificate but there was another coroner working that shift. She was willing to speak with me, but off the record. She told me that she believed Carl van Sant’s cause of death was “inconclusive.” I asked her why the report clearly indicated suicide, and she told me that that was above her paygrade.
Our final update, the industrial complex MK discovered that was connected to Parzavala remained locked up tight, and so far, my calls to the property management company continued to go unreturned.
NIC: So now what? Well, now it’s time to go into the woods. Time to pick up Melanie Nedved and drive forty miles along single lane logging roads in the mud and rain. Time to trek another long mile through densely overgrown forests until the path finally opens up and reveals another world. A world of rusted train bridges and abandoned cars nestled in a wilderness of dark secrets. It’s time to meet the Grackles.
After an uphill hike that felt like it would never end, we finally made our way through an almost impenetrable section of deep, low branches that eventually opened into a large clearing. There were a couple of small, wooden buildings, four or five ancient camper trailers, and the shell of two cars from the 1950’s. How two cars ended up here, miles up the mountain in the middle of such dense old forest, was just one of the many questions I’d be asking over the next forty-eight hours.
As we stepped off the path and into the clearing, as if he knew we were coming, a slim, narrow-shouldered, middle-aged, Caucasian man with long gray hair pulled into a thin ponytail stepped out of one of the small wooden buildings. He was joined by another… person. The second person was extremely tall. He pushed his way toward us using a long walking stick, but it didn’t really look like he needed it. This second figure moved like he was in charge, but I couldn’t see his face. The reason I couldn’t see his face is because he was wearing a long, bird-like mask.
The two of them approached Melanie with open arms, it was clear that she was welcome here. The older man called himself Carn, the masked man was Arl. Arl eventually took off his mask. He was Native American, good-looking with cool, serious eyes. There was no way to tell his age- he could be twenty-eight or forty-eight. They communicated with each other in a language other than English. I discovered later that it was a cross between Haida and a hybrid language called Haida-jargon. They said they wanted to show us something before we ate. Apparently, Melanie had told them we were staying for dinner. Interestingly, she appeared to tell them this in their own language.
NIC: The Grackles, there were now four of them- Carn, Arl, and a young couple, both Native, led us passed a fenced area that held a few horses and some goats, up a steep, thickly-wooded path that ran along a small creek, into another wide clearing.
This clearing was bustling with activity. There were six or so people working on a variety of…things. The whole place was some kind of scientific camp. The centerpiece of which was a large, makeshift array of what appeared to be personal use satellite dishes appropriated from DIRECTV or someplace similar. There were about twenty or thirty of them, but here, however, instead of point up into space to beam an episode of Friday Night Lights into your home, this satellite array was pointed down into the ground along the base of the trees that bordered one side of the clearing.
There were other electronic devices in the area as well, including a wide variety of ancient scopes, medical equipment, brand new cameras, and high-tech antennae. Everything appeared to be powered by a generator station that looked like it had been cobbled together by the production designer from The Road Warrior. There were around a dozen well-used gas-powered generators roped together in a mess of iron and rust. The whole place had a distinctly cobbled together feeling, but it felt like it had been cobbled together by people who knew exactly what they were doing. It didn’t look like much, but everything appeared to work.
We sat down to eat outside at a long table. The food was fresh and delicious. While we were eating, something remarkable happened. Two deer walked right up to the table. They were fearless. They were quickly followed by two more. The Grackles fed the deer from their hand, and one of them rested its chin on my shoulder and I fed it a bit of dandelion greens. It took the food as gently as a well-trained dog.
There was something else- something that unnerved me a little. When I looked into the huge, black eyes of the deer, I saw, or rather felt like I saw, a deep, clear intelligence. I’m sure it must have been the atmosphere and the fact that I hadn’t been sleeping much lately, but the effect was deeply, and profoundly unsettling.
NIC: After dinner, the Grackles entertained us with stories about the area, about the rabbits who gathered around the camp by the hundreds every full moon, about the strange behavior of the birds in the region- cannibalistic and violent, great blue herons, smaller birds running into each other mid-flight and falling from the sky.
The Grackles came across as hippies who wouldn’t look out of place wearing tinfoil hats and praying to the moon goddess. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but these eccentrics, most of them Native American, were, in reality, scientists, doctors, highly-educated and intelligent professionals that for whatever reason decided to set up some kind of ad hoc research facility deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, along the perimeter of one particular section of the forest. I asked them about their set-up, about the satellite array.
NIC: The tent I was sharing with Melanie was comfortable and more than big enough for two. A little too much wine and just the right amount of marijuana had quickly washed the terrifying tale of the Manitou from my mind, and I was feeling…good. Dinner was fresh and delicious and the last of the conversation was lighter, filled with laughter and comfort. When we were settled in for the night, I asked Melanie if I could turn on the portable recorder and ask her a couple of questions.
At first I thought they were deer or horses, but they were bigger. They were MUCH bigger, and they moved slowly. But I don’t know, I think the darkness must have been affecting my vision, the way you can stare at something and begin to lose clarity or control of what’s happening in the periphery. I was about to move in for a closer look when I saw the figure.
It was tall, incredibly tall, and slender. At first, I thought that it had to be Arl because it looked like it was wearing his long, bird-like mask. But this thing was at least four feet taller than Arl. And Arl was a tall man. It moved across the camp toward the thick shadow shapes, gesturing above its head with its arms.
I felt a fear like I’ve never felt before welling up inside me. A complete, full-body fear. A light, shaking, terrified gasp in the center of my being. The reason I didn’t hear myself cry out at the sight was because Melanie Nedved’s hand was suddenly over my mouth.
She pulled me back into the tent and told me that what was happening outside was private. I asked her what it was, what was out there, and she told me it was part of their research project. I asked her about the shapes and she told me that they let the horses and goats out to graze in the mornings. I explained that I didn’t believe that the shapes I had seen were horses or goats. She told me to get dressed.
We ate breakfast at the camp and then made our way back to the city. I tried to get more information about the Grackles, what I’d seen, where we’d been, but Melanie’s answers to my questions were terse, one or two words at most. She promised to get in touch if she heard anything from Veronika. When I got back into the studio, I went right to work looking into the Grackles, Veronika Pillman, Tara Reynolds, and top secret environmental research projects.
NIC: I dug through the information MK sent me on Dr. Carnahan. It was strange to see a face I recognized, the face of the ponytailed man who wouldn’t have looked out of place driving a psychedelic school bus through Burning Man, wearing a lab coat, leading an advanced symposium on biophysics.
Dr. Carnahan had definitely changed since he became a Grackle. Meerkatnip had dug up a few interesting things including some of Dr. Carnahan’s work during polyketides and biosynthesis. Something about evolution and survival mechanics. His work from this time period seemed to be focused on fungi and arthropods in particular. There didn’t appear to be anything at all related to those two studies in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, there wasn’t much at all on Carnahan after he started working for TeslaNova.
NIC: Morgan Miller was still officially off the grid, so I had no way of getting in touch with her. When she finally called, I was in a production meeting. When I stepped out of that meeting, I was handed a message. Morgan was going back for Sam. If I wanted to join, I needed to meet Morgan at Mama’s Restaurant in an hour. I rushed to the meeting but she was gone. A server told me I’d missed her by about twenty minutes. I arranged a few things at the studio and drove down to Everett. It was raining, the sky was a deep, gray cloak. I pulled up at the duplex about forty minutes later.
She told me she’d be right back with Sam and Morgan. But that wasn’t the case. Arcadia eventually returned to the living room with another young woman. She was similarly dressed with the same vacant, searching look behind her eyes. They handed me a cup of herbal tea and told me that Sam and Morgan would be right out. Then, they sat down beside me on the sofa, too close. I sat there for a while drinking tea, the two of them sitting on either side.
What began as a pleasant conversation about gardening and the quality of the sunlight streaming into the room had somehow evolved into a discussion about something Arcadia called ‘flow’ and the necessary and beautiful violence of pure, physical expression. I was getting a real Manson Girls kind of vibe, so I stood up and started towards the door.
That’s when I started feeling the effects of the drugs. The two women stood up and smiled and started trying to remove my clothing. I asked them what they’d given me, and they said it was molly. I asked them how much and they told me it was just enough for the three of us to have some fun. I activated the voice recorder on my phone and started trying to get them to confess to drugging me. That’s when the two tall, young men from earlier entered the room. I’m not sure what they had in mind for me because just then-
NIC: Morgan Miller had taken Sam Reynolds to a motel. Apparently, she’d convinced him that she had a sure-fire way to get his sister back. I spoke with Sam at the motel after the ecstasy wore off. He seemed a little thin, more than a bit tired, but otherwise fine. It turns out that Arcadia and her friend actually did only give me a small amount of ecstasy. I’d taken it before in college, so I recognized the feeling. I asked Morgan to keep an eye on me but I wasn’t all that worried. When the drugs finally wore off, I had to rush to get back to the studio in time to record an interview for The Black Tapes. I asked Morgan to call me later with an update.
NIC: I couldn’t argue with her there, Sam was safe and far away from those people. And if it took lying to him about his sister to get him out of there, I suppose it was worth it. I just wish her lie hadn’t involved me. In the end, however, I didn’t actually feel like I was any closer to finding Tanis than I had been when I met them. I felt like I had established the general area and the two research studies seemed important somehow, but I was experiencing a disconnect. I’d become so obsessed with finding Tanis that I had almost stopped considering what Tanis might actually be. So I decided to go back to the very beginning to Professor Adams and his work. Maybe I missed something, some clue from all those years ago. But before I could revisit Professor Adams, MK called with an update on the Cult of Tanis.
NIC: I wasn’t able to get permission to look inside the place MK told me was connected to Parzavala. Not because someone was trying to keep it a secret, but rather because it was impossible to ascertain who was actually responsible for the day to day operations of that industrial complex. The company listed on the lease was located in Russia and none of their contact numbers were active.
My producers submitted a petition for entry, but that was going to take time. So it was fortunate when a videotape, taken on somebody’s phone, suddenly showed up in my inbox. It was video footage, a kind of video tour of what the email claimed was Parzavala Communications. The subject of the email ‘Parzavala Pajama Party.’ I’m sure you can guess who sent it.
NIC: I felt like there was something missing. So I was driving back to Everett to ask Arcadia a few more questions and to confront them about drugging me. I took MK’s suggestion of bringing some back-up. He wasn’t exactly an Navy Seal, but he had spent time in Afghanistan.
NIC: The house was empty. It had been completely cleaned out, no furniture, no curtains, nothing at all. The Cult of Tanis was gone. If I was going to find out more information about whoever or whatever was behind their Tanis agenda, I wasn’t going to get it from them. I was standing there, in that empty house, with Geoff van Sant, wondering if he wanted to talk about his family’s experience with the Hale-Bopp comet, when my phone rang.
NIC: Next week we find out what Cameron Ellis had to show me and we take a look at the Cult of Tanis stuff MK emailed. Plus, more about Professor Adams and his theories of Tanis, along with both major revelations from both Morgan Miller and Melanie Nedved. It’s Tanis, I’m Nic Silver. We’ll be back again in two weeks, until then, keep looking.
Tanis is produced by Terry Miles. Produced, mixed, and edited by me, Nic Silver. Executive producers Terry Miles and Paul Bae.
NIC: For legal and safety reasons, we've elected to change some names, and leave others out entirely. We don't do this very often, but we're not willing to compromise people's safety for any reason.
Thanks again for listening to Tanis.
NIC: Time for a quick update on a couple of things. First, the short story, “Where is Tanis?” by Jack Parsons, which we discovered may have been related to a couple of high-profile internet mysteries. MK’s friend is no longer working at TeslaNova Corporation, which I suspect, could be related to this podcast. I’m not sure how I feel about that. MK believes her friend is just fine and on a beach somewhere living off a monumental severance package. But I’m not so sure. So for now, there’s nothing new on the subject of the short story, “Where is Tanis?”.
The next update involves the death of Carl van Sant. I was able to speak with the coroner of record in the case and he told me that there was nothing suspicious at all about Carl’s suicide. But an informal chat with a friend of mine in the Mayor’s office and a nice bottle of single malt scotch revealed that the coroner I spoke with was not actually working the day Carl’s body came in. His name was on the death certificate but there was another coroner working that shift. She was willing to speak with me, but off the record. She told me that she believed Carl van Sant’s cause of death was “inconclusive.” I asked her why the report clearly indicated suicide, and she told me that that was above her paygrade.
Our final update, the industrial complex MK discovered that was connected to Parzavala remained locked up tight, and so far, my calls to the property management company continued to go unreturned.
NIC: So now what? Well, now it’s time to go into the woods. Time to pick up Melanie Nedved and drive forty miles along single lane logging roads in the mud and rain. Time to trek another long mile through densely overgrown forests until the path finally opens up and reveals another world. A world of rusted train bridges and abandoned cars nestled in a wilderness of dark secrets. It’s time to meet the Grackles.
- NEDVED: We’re not far now.
- NIC: So, did Veronika say anything to you about Tanis?
- NEDVED: Xanu.
- NIC: Right, Xanu, sorry. Did you say about Xanu?
- NEDVED: A little.
- NIC: I’d really appreciate anything that you can tell me. Anything at all…
- NEDVED: You’re looking for it? Tanis? Xanu?
- NIC: Yeah, I’m looking for a map- a way to find it.
- NEDVED: Why?
- NIC: Well, somebody went missing- a woman named Tara Reynolds.
- NEDVED: And you believe if you find Tanis, you will find this missing woman?
- NIC: I hope so. I don’t know.
- NEDVED: The Grackles might be able to help.
- NIC: What exactly are the Grackles?
- NEDVED: Well, it’s kinda hard to explain.
-
After an uphill hike that felt like it would never end, we finally made our way through an almost impenetrable section of deep, low branches that eventually opened into a large clearing. There were a couple of small, wooden buildings, four or five ancient camper trailers, and the shell of two cars from the 1950’s. How two cars ended up here, miles up the mountain in the middle of such dense old forest, was just one of the many questions I’d be asking over the next forty-eight hours.
As we stepped off the path and into the clearing, as if he knew we were coming, a slim, narrow-shouldered, middle-aged, Caucasian man with long gray hair pulled into a thin ponytail stepped out of one of the small wooden buildings. He was joined by another… person. The second person was extremely tall. He pushed his way toward us using a long walking stick, but it didn’t really look like he needed it. This second figure moved like he was in charge, but I couldn’t see his face. The reason I couldn’t see his face is because he was wearing a long, bird-like mask.
The two of them approached Melanie with open arms, it was clear that she was welcome here. The older man called himself Carn, the masked man was Arl. Arl eventually took off his mask. He was Native American, good-looking with cool, serious eyes. There was no way to tell his age- he could be twenty-eight or forty-eight. They communicated with each other in a language other than English. I discovered later that it was a cross between Haida and a hybrid language called Haida-jargon. They said they wanted to show us something before we ate. Apparently, Melanie had told them we were staying for dinner. Interestingly, she appeared to tell them this in their own language.
NIC: The Grackles, there were now four of them- Carn, Arl, and a young couple, both Native, led us passed a fenced area that held a few horses and some goats, up a steep, thickly-wooded path that ran along a small creek, into another wide clearing.
This clearing was bustling with activity. There were six or so people working on a variety of…things. The whole place was some kind of scientific camp. The centerpiece of which was a large, makeshift array of what appeared to be personal use satellite dishes appropriated from DIRECTV or someplace similar. There were about twenty or thirty of them, but here, however, instead of point up into space to beam an episode of Friday Night Lights into your home, this satellite array was pointed down into the ground along the base of the trees that bordered one side of the clearing.
There were other electronic devices in the area as well, including a wide variety of ancient scopes, medical equipment, brand new cameras, and high-tech antennae. Everything appeared to be powered by a generator station that looked like it had been cobbled together by the production designer from The Road Warrior. There were around a dozen well-used gas-powered generators roped together in a mess of iron and rust. The whole place had a distinctly cobbled together feeling, but it felt like it had been cobbled together by people who knew exactly what they were doing. It didn’t look like much, but everything appeared to work.
- NIC: So what are you doing with all of those satellite dishes?
- GRACKLE: We’re studying the perimeter of a specific area- charting changes in a variety of environmental factors.
- NIC: What specific area?
- GRACKLE: It’s a region in the forest. We believe there are unique features.
- NIC: What kind of unique features?
- GRACKLE: We’ve prepared your cabin.
- NIC: Oh…we’re not going to be able to stay, we’ve got to get back.
- GRACKLE: Dinner is in an hour.
- NIC: (whispered) We can’t stay, I need to get back.
- NEDVED: We can’t go back, not until the morning.
- NIC: What?
- NEDVED: We’ll never find our way out of here in the dark.
- NIC: So what? We’re staying here?
- NEDVED: Yes.
- NIC: In one of those tents?
- NEDVED: In one of those tents, yes.
- NIC: Have you stayed out here before?
- NEDVED: I have.
- NIC: So why is Arl wearing that bird mask thing?
- NEDVED: It’s the mask of a medieval plague doctor.
- NIC: Okay…so…
- NEDVED: They put herbs and other succulents inside the mask to filter the air.
- NIC: Why? Is there something dangerous in the air?
- NEDVED: You’ll be fine. You should get ready for dinner. There’s a wash station just over there beside the kitchen.
-
We sat down to eat outside at a long table. The food was fresh and delicious. While we were eating, something remarkable happened. Two deer walked right up to the table. They were fearless. They were quickly followed by two more. The Grackles fed the deer from their hand, and one of them rested its chin on my shoulder and I fed it a bit of dandelion greens. It took the food as gently as a well-trained dog.
There was something else- something that unnerved me a little. When I looked into the huge, black eyes of the deer, I saw, or rather felt like I saw, a deep, clear intelligence. I’m sure it must have been the atmosphere and the fact that I hadn’t been sleeping much lately, but the effect was deeply, and profoundly unsettling.
NIC: After dinner, the Grackles entertained us with stories about the area, about the rabbits who gathered around the camp by the hundreds every full moon, about the strange behavior of the birds in the region- cannibalistic and violent, great blue herons, smaller birds running into each other mid-flight and falling from the sky.
The Grackles came across as hippies who wouldn’t look out of place wearing tinfoil hats and praying to the moon goddess. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but these eccentrics, most of them Native American, were, in reality, scientists, doctors, highly-educated and intelligent professionals that for whatever reason decided to set up some kind of ad hoc research facility deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, along the perimeter of one particular section of the forest. I asked them about their set-up, about the satellite array.
- NIC: So, why are your satellite dishes pointed into the ground instead of up into space?
- GRACKLE: Why look into space? It’s empty. The biggest mysteries remain right here on earth.
- NIC: What kind of mysteries are you looking for?
- GRACKLE: The kind of mysteries that exist just below the surface.
- NIC: The surface of the Earth?
- GRACKLE: For a start. Have you heard of the Manitou?
- NIC: I think so. Isn’t that like a native spirit of the forest or something?
- GRACKLE: It’s an ancient term dating well back way before Europeans set foot on this continent. Buffalo, the insects, the caribou, and the underwater things- you must offer gifts when travelling through their worlds.
- NIC: Through their worlds? What kind of gifts?
- GRACKLE: Gifts of true value. You must give away something of yourself to secure safe passage.
- NIC: And…if you don’t offer a gift?
- GRACKLE: One night, a long time ago, a man lost his daughter. She went out to fetch water from the well and did not return. It is said that a man went walking through the woods, trying to speak with the stones to find his missing daughter.
- He walked and walked for days and nights, talking to the streams and the leaves, who would whisper their answers. “She passed this way.”
- He kept walking until he came to a clearing, there, he saw his daughter. She was standing in the middle of the grass, barefoot, staring up at the night sky.
- He was about to call her name when she turned around and motioned for him to be quiet. At that moment, something moved out of the woods, something dark and it was hard for him to make out the shape when he was looking directly at it.
- If he looked- if he turned his head a little, he found it looked like a kind of buffalo, maybe, but much bigger and it moved in a way that was not the way a buffalo moved.
- As his daughter fearlessly stepped toward the lumbering beast and lowered herself onto the grass, the man yelled and ran towards his daughter. She screamed and as the man ran forward, he realized his daughter was alone in the field. He looked around for the…whatever it was…but if it was ever there, it was gone now.
- His daughter was crying and she looked into his eyes and told him, “You’ve killed me.” Suddenly her face thrust forward into the ground and her back arched up into the sky. The man was thrown back as his daughter wailed in agony.
- He watched from where he landed a few yards away as a large bird’s head tore itself from his daughter’s back. The beak was first, proceeded by a deep ripping and tearing sound, then the head, one huge, black, shining eye, covered in his daughter’s blood. Overcome with primal fear, he ran.
- His shame eventually caught up with him and he went back to his only child, but she was gone. Her blood, the only thing that remained, had almost completely soaked into the earth. There were grubs, insects, slugs and snails, all kinds of small, earthy creatures had flood upon the scene, and there were more coming.
- The man felt snails crunching and slugs mashing under his feet as he ran. He continued to run away from that clearing.
- Legend has it that he’s still out there, running through the woods, running from the Manitou and the memory of what happened to his daughter.
- NIC: What happened to her?
- GRACKLE: As demanded by the spirit of the forest, she gave the Manitou a gift.
NIC: The tent I was sharing with Melanie was comfortable and more than big enough for two. A little too much wine and just the right amount of marijuana had quickly washed the terrifying tale of the Manitou from my mind, and I was feeling…good. Dinner was fresh and delicious and the last of the conversation was lighter, filled with laughter and comfort. When we were settled in for the night, I asked Melanie if I could turn on the portable recorder and ask her a couple of questions.
- NEDVED: What do you want to know?
- NIC: Well, is there anything you can think of, anything Veronika may have mentioned about Tanis or Xanu?
- NEDVED: Let’s call it Tanis from now on, it’s probably easier.
- NIC: Okay.
- NEDVED: It’s not…uncomplicated, trying to describe the thing that you’re calling Tanis.
- NIC: Veronika said it was complicated?
- NEDVED: Yes.
- NIC: What about the word ‘runner?’ Do you remember her using that word?
- NEDVED: Veronika was interested in this kind of stuff, yes. Tanis, Runner, Seeker, these are the words that she would use. I…I overheard her, occasionally.
- NIC: Okay. Is there anything else you can remember Veronika saying? Anything- maybe something about a map?
- NEDVED: Yes.
- NIC: Really? What did she say?
- NEDVED: You definitely need a map.
- NIC: (laughs) Oh. So, what’s special about this part of the forest? Is-Is this Tanis?
- NEDVED: It’s time to sleep.
-
At first I thought they were deer or horses, but they were bigger. They were MUCH bigger, and they moved slowly. But I don’t know, I think the darkness must have been affecting my vision, the way you can stare at something and begin to lose clarity or control of what’s happening in the periphery. I was about to move in for a closer look when I saw the figure.
It was tall, incredibly tall, and slender. At first, I thought that it had to be Arl because it looked like it was wearing his long, bird-like mask. But this thing was at least four feet taller than Arl. And Arl was a tall man. It moved across the camp toward the thick shadow shapes, gesturing above its head with its arms.
I felt a fear like I’ve never felt before welling up inside me. A complete, full-body fear. A light, shaking, terrified gasp in the center of my being. The reason I didn’t hear myself cry out at the sight was because Melanie Nedved’s hand was suddenly over my mouth.
She pulled me back into the tent and told me that what was happening outside was private. I asked her what it was, what was out there, and she told me it was part of their research project. I asked her about the shapes and she told me that they let the horses and goats out to graze in the mornings. I explained that I didn’t believe that the shapes I had seen were horses or goats. She told me to get dressed.
We ate breakfast at the camp and then made our way back to the city. I tried to get more information about the Grackles, what I’d seen, where we’d been, but Melanie’s answers to my questions were terse, one or two words at most. She promised to get in touch if she heard anything from Veronika. When I got back into the studio, I went right to work looking into the Grackles, Veronika Pillman, Tara Reynolds, and top secret environmental research projects.
- (phone ringing)
- NIC: So were you able to connect the Hanslope Park info on Haidagurl and Tara Reynolds?
- MK: Not exactly.
- NIC: "Not exactly", what do you mean?
- MK: (clears throat) Well, outside the existence of the British research study itself, I couldn’t pull anything new from Hanslope Park related to HaidaGurl that hadn’t been redacted. Except for the fact that the research station was located in the Pacific Northwest, in the same general area that Tara Reynolds disappeared.
- NIC: Well, that’s something.
- MK: Yeah, it took a lot of…digging to find that tidbit.
- NIC: By digging do you mean bribing?
- MK: I do!
- NIC: Okay, so more Bitcoin?
- MK: PayPal’s fine for this guy.
- NIC: Okay, just let me know where to send it.
- MK: It’s in your email.
- NIC: Of course it’s in my email.
- MK: (deep sigh) Yeah.
- NIC: So what was a British study looking for in the woods of the northwest?
- MK: I’m not sure they were looking for something.
- NIC: No?
- MK: No. I think they were looking AT something, something that was already there.
- NIC: I thought you didn’t find anything.
- MK: I didn’t say that.
- NIC: Okay, what did you find?
- MK: Okay, let’s start with Tara Reynolds.
- NIC: Okay.
- MK: She was working for your new best friend, Cameron Ellis’s company, TeslaNova, on their top-secret research project.
- NIC: Yeah, with the Russians, apparently.
- MK: Yeah, right. Did you ask Ellis about Tara Reynolds?
- NIC: Yeah, of course. He told me I’d have to stop releasing this podcast and stop research into Tanis before he’d be willing to tell me anything about anything.
- MK: (laughs) Well, I looked into the names of your two Grackles, Carn and Arl.
- NIC: Okay. Anything there?
- MK: Well, it was tough without any last names or previous job titles.
- NIC: (laughs) Yeah, I imagine.
- MK: Pretty much impossible, actually.
- NIC: Of course. But?
- MK: But there was something, or someone.
- NIC: What? Who? What thing?
- MK: A guy named Jonathon Carnahan, a biophysicist who worked for TeslaNova from ’02 to ’09. His friends call him Carn, apparently.
- NIC: What does he look like?
- MK: I sent you a photo.
- NIC: When?
- MK: Do you ever check your email?
- NIC: Yeah, of course! When did you send it?
- MK: Five minutes ago.
- NIC: (scoffs) Um…yeah! That’s him. He was in the Pacific Northwest at that time?
- MK: Mm-hmm. 2009 when Haidagurl was doing her thing, he was in the same area working for TeslaNova.
- NIC: Well, that can’t be a coincidence.
- MK: Yeah, I think it probably can. It most likely isn’t.
- NIC: Okay. Was Carnahan working on the same project as Tara Reynolds?
- MK: That would be my guess.
- NIC: But no corroborating evidence?
- MK: Sorry, okay, I gotta run. Anything you need me to look into? Anything else?
- NIC: Well, maybe there’s something more on the origins of the Cult of Tanis?
- MK: Yeah, I doubt it, but I’ll check it out.
- NIC: Okay, thanks.
- MK: Yeah, you betcha.
- (Skype disconnects)
NIC: I dug through the information MK sent me on Dr. Carnahan. It was strange to see a face I recognized, the face of the ponytailed man who wouldn’t have looked out of place driving a psychedelic school bus through Burning Man, wearing a lab coat, leading an advanced symposium on biophysics.
Dr. Carnahan had definitely changed since he became a Grackle. Meerkatnip had dug up a few interesting things including some of Dr. Carnahan’s work during polyketides and biosynthesis. Something about evolution and survival mechanics. His work from this time period seemed to be focused on fungi and arthropods in particular. There didn’t appear to be anything at all related to those two studies in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, there wasn’t much at all on Carnahan after he started working for TeslaNova.
- ALEX: Day four continued. The bridge wasn’t there. It was there now, of course, but it hadn’t been there when we reached the river. The Runner is upset by the bridge, very upset. Her hands were shaking as she tied a bit of dark red string around a tree, and for the first time, she looked scared, well and truly frightened.
- There are wondrous things. There had been a loud, deep screaming behind us as we moved out of the cover of the trees into a clearing on the bank of the river. The Novelist, the Zealot, and I turned at the sound of that screaming. When we turned back, the bridge had appeared. The Runner had warned us not to look back, but that was hours ago and the screaming we had heard was alarming, horrifying. Now, the Runner appears whether or not we should move forward.
- The Zealot is arguing aggressively for continuing the journey. The Novelist and I are tired, uncertain. It was at this point that the Zealot started yelling at the Runner and when the- (tape cuts off abruptly).
- The nights are the worst, the darkness is an assault. The Blur is awake, restless, as if it knows that something is close, something powerful. The silence is unnerving, the lack of sounds, the lack of nature, but there’s something else. There’s a spot in the darkness that’s darker than the dark, if that makes sense. I started seeing it after I noticed the Blur inside me. I didn’t think much of it at first, just a shadow in the darkness, a trick of a small amount of moonlight or something, but…now…I know that’s not the case. It’s something old, ancient. I see it. The darkness. All the time. I believe it’s following me. I know it’s following me.
- Imagine you turn out the light in a room, maybe the bathroom, put a towel under the door and stare into the darkness. Your eyes adjust and it’s dark, but now…imagine there’s a corner of the dark room that’s suddenly darker, just a hint at first, a trick of your eyes maybe, but this darkness just feels different somehow- thicker and aware. It’s darker than the rest of the darkness and it’s different, very different. You know it’s aware, that it’s watching you, and somehow you understand. You know with absolute certainty that it’s never going to stop. There are dangerous things.
NIC: Morgan Miller was still officially off the grid, so I had no way of getting in touch with her. When she finally called, I was in a production meeting. When I stepped out of that meeting, I was handed a message. Morgan was going back for Sam. If I wanted to join, I needed to meet Morgan at Mama’s Restaurant in an hour. I rushed to the meeting but she was gone. A server told me I’d missed her by about twenty minutes. I arranged a few things at the studio and drove down to Everett. It was raining, the sky was a deep, gray cloak. I pulled up at the duplex about forty minutes later.
- (loud knocking, door opens)
- NIC: Hi, I’m looking for Morgan Miller and Sam Reynolds.
- ARCADIA: Come in.
- NIC: Oh, I can-I can just wait outside.
- ARCADIA: Please, come inside.
- NIC: Uuuumm…..okay….
- (door shuts)
-
She told me she’d be right back with Sam and Morgan. But that wasn’t the case. Arcadia eventually returned to the living room with another young woman. She was similarly dressed with the same vacant, searching look behind her eyes. They handed me a cup of herbal tea and told me that Sam and Morgan would be right out. Then, they sat down beside me on the sofa, too close. I sat there for a while drinking tea, the two of them sitting on either side.
What began as a pleasant conversation about gardening and the quality of the sunlight streaming into the room had somehow evolved into a discussion about something Arcadia called ‘flow’ and the necessary and beautiful violence of pure, physical expression. I was getting a real Manson Girls kind of vibe, so I stood up and started towards the door.
That’s when I started feeling the effects of the drugs. The two women stood up and smiled and started trying to remove my clothing. I asked them what they’d given me, and they said it was molly. I asked them how much and they told me it was just enough for the three of us to have some fun. I activated the voice recorder on my phone and started trying to get them to confess to drugging me. That’s when the two tall, young men from earlier entered the room. I’m not sure what they had in mind for me because just then-
- (Insistent banging on door)
- MILLER: Let him out or I’m calling the cops.
- (door opens)
- NIC: How did you know I was in there?
- MILLER: I called the studio.
- NIC: Oh, that makes sense.
- MILLER: Are you high?
- NIC: I think so.
- MILLER: Great.
NIC: Morgan Miller had taken Sam Reynolds to a motel. Apparently, she’d convinced him that she had a sure-fire way to get his sister back. I spoke with Sam at the motel after the ecstasy wore off. He seemed a little thin, more than a bit tired, but otherwise fine. It turns out that Arcadia and her friend actually did only give me a small amount of ecstasy. I’d taken it before in college, so I recognized the feeling. I asked Morgan to keep an eye on me but I wasn’t all that worried. When the drugs finally wore off, I had to rush to get back to the studio in time to record an interview for The Black Tapes. I asked Morgan to call me later with an update.
- NIC: Hello?
- MILLER: Hey, it’s Morgan.
- NIC: How’s Sam?
- MILLER: I’m…I’m not sure. I-I’d like to call a deprogrammer.
- NIC: Really? He seemed okay when I was there.
- MILLER: You were on drugs.
- NIC: Well, I wasn’t that high. Was I?
- MILLER: Have you learned anything new about Tara Reynolds?
- NIC: Not much, only that a member of a group of fringe scientists might have been involved in the same research study.
- MILLER: What kind of study?
- NIC: Well, it’s not entirely clear. Tara’s voice recordings indicated that they were studying a cabin with strange properties, that’s the place where Tara disappeared.
- MILLER: What kind of research do the fringe scientists do?
- NIC: Well, I’m not exactly sure.
- MILLER: Were you high then as well?
- NIC: Well, I wasn’t high the entire time. They were studying the insects and the foliage, I think. They were entomologists, biologists, anthropologists…the guy I think might have been working where Tara disappeared is named Carn. Jonathon Carnahan, he’s a biophysicist.
- MILLER: I’ve never heard of him.
- NIC: Well, are you familiar with a lot of biophysicists?
- MILLER: Quiet a few.
- NIC: Oh.
- MILLER: I’ve been looking into the Cult of Tanis for a long time.
- NIC: Right, well, speaking of the Cult of Tanis-
- MILLER: Yes?
- NIC: Sam told us he believed they were going to help him find Tara.
- MILLER: That’s what they told him.
- NIC: Alright, so do you have any idea about how they planned on doing that?
- MILLER: They told him that "the Navigator knows the way."
- NIC: The Navigator?
- MILLER: They told Sam the Navigator knows the way to World of Eld Fen. They said that’s where Tara’s being held.
- NIC: Old Fen?
- MILLER: Eld Fen, Old Fen, he or it, I don’t know. It has many names, apparently.
- NIC: Okay. (laughs) What does that mean?
- MILLER: They’re fucking crazy. I told you.
- NIC: So what did you end up telling Sam to get him to go with you?
- MILLER: I told him that you found Tanis.
- NIC: So that’s why he was asking so many questions.
- MILLER: Yes.
- NIC: You lied.
- MILLER: It worked.
NIC: I couldn’t argue with her there, Sam was safe and far away from those people. And if it took lying to him about his sister to get him out of there, I suppose it was worth it. I just wish her lie hadn’t involved me. In the end, however, I didn’t actually feel like I was any closer to finding Tanis than I had been when I met them. I felt like I had established the general area and the two research studies seemed important somehow, but I was experiencing a disconnect. I’d become so obsessed with finding Tanis that I had almost stopped considering what Tanis might actually be. So I decided to go back to the very beginning to Professor Adams and his work. Maybe I missed something, some clue from all those years ago. But before I could revisit Professor Adams, MK called with an update on the Cult of Tanis.
- MK: These people are into some crazy shit.
- NIC: Sounds like you found something.
- MK: Oh yeah. What would you like to hear first? Lord of the Rings crazy or real world crazy?
- NIC: Wow, um…let’s go with the real world.
- MK: Okay, I’ll email you the Dungeons and Dragons-y shit.
- NIC: Okay.
- MK: Okay, so I cross-referenced a few seemingly unrelated documents and found an earlier incarnation of the Cult had filed for tax free status.
- NIC: Really?
- MK: Yeah, status they never received, but that set of files led me to a series of self-help style cottages that turned out to be cult related.
- NIC: Tanis cult related?
- MK: Not exactly, but they shared a few members.
- NIC: Well, that’s interesting.
- MK: Mm-hmm. If you like that, there’s one more connection I think you’ll find extremely interesting.
- NIC: What is it?
- MK: The one of the members that looks like he was probably the leader of self-help cottage group was a man named Nathaniel Carter.
- NIC: Doesn’t ring a bell.
- MK: Nor should it, turns out he’s another ghost.
- NIC: But it sounds like you were able to find something.
- MK: Parzavala.
- NIC: Really?
- MK: Yep. The address of the Parzavala Communications industrial complex was listed as his address of employment on documents from fifteen years before he spent time at the Cult of Tanis cottage compound.
- NIC: The company name was Parzavala?
- MK: Not exactly, but because the address was the same I cross-referenced the name of his company with Parzavala and it turns out they’re related.
- NIC: So he was working for a Parzavala subsidiary?
- MK: Not working for.
- NIC: No?
- MK: No. He was running it.
- NIC: Really?
- MK: Yeah. It was some kind of biotech company?
- NIC: Well, I think it’s time I had a look inside that industrial complex.
- MK: I don’t think that’s a particularly great idea.
- NIC: No?
- MK: No, not without some back-up.
- NIC: I’ll be fine.
- MK: Yeah?
- NIC: Yeah.
NIC: I wasn’t able to get permission to look inside the place MK told me was connected to Parzavala. Not because someone was trying to keep it a secret, but rather because it was impossible to ascertain who was actually responsible for the day to day operations of that industrial complex. The company listed on the lease was located in Russia and none of their contact numbers were active.
My producers submitted a petition for entry, but that was going to take time. So it was fortunate when a videotape, taken on somebody’s phone, suddenly showed up in my inbox. It was video footage, a kind of video tour of what the email claimed was Parzavala Communications. The subject of the email ‘Parzavala Pajama Party.’ I’m sure you can guess who sent it.
- MK: You have no way of knowing it was me.
- NIC: That’s true.
- MK: And nobody will have any way of knowing that some extra bitcoin suddenly showed up in my account.
- NIC: It is untraceable.
- MK: For most people, yes.
- NIC: (laughs) Right. So we should talk about the mysterious videotape of Parzavala that suddenly showed up out of nowhere.
- MK: Sure, what do you want to know?
- NIC: What was all that stuff in the basement?
- MK: I’m working on a list of model numbers, serial numbers, and brands.
- NIC: Thanks, but could you just generally sum it up for the listeners?
- MK: I’ll do my best.
- NIC: Okay.
- MK: Okay, well, it was mainly medical and zoological equipment.
- NIC: Zoological?
- MK: Mm-hmm. It was definitely top of the line.
- NIC: That’s not surprising, I guess.
- MK: In 1985.
- NIC: That’s a while back.
- MK: It sure is.
- NIC: What area of medical or zoological study was the equipment being used for mostly?
- MK: Biology, mostly. They were using it to research Mollusca- gastropods to get a bit more specific.
- NIC: Mollusca? Mollusks?
- MK: Yeah, gastropods, mostly snails and slugs, but it looked like they were also researching the evolution of cuttlefish.
- NIC: Of cuttlefish?
- MK: That’s right. It’s all in the video and then again on the list.
- NIC: And this Nathaniel Carter, he was involved in research there? At Parzavala?
- MK: Yeah, definitely, it looks like he was pretty high up there as well.
- NIC: So the same guy who was running a Tanis Cult, self-help commune was running research at Parzavala?
- MK: Looks like it.
- NIC: Any idea where he might be now?
- MK: Back to being a ghost, I’m afraid.
- NIC: I kind of knew you were going to say that.
- MK: (sarcastic) Wow, we’re really getting to know each other.
- NIC: (chuckles) Yeah, soon we’ll be finishing each other’s-
- (Skype disconnects)
NIC: I felt like there was something missing. So I was driving back to Everett to ask Arcadia a few more questions and to confront them about drugging me. I took MK’s suggestion of bringing some back-up. He wasn’t exactly an Navy Seal, but he had spent time in Afghanistan.
- VAN SANT: So, you basically brought me along to help protect you from having a threesome?
- NIC: (laughs) That’s funny.
- VAN SANT: No, I’m kidding, I get it. A friend of my aunt’s knew some of those Hale-Bopp, comet people with the running shoes.
- NIC: Really?
- VAN SANT: Yeah, man, these cults can be some messed up shit.
- NIC: Well, this is it.
- VAN SANT: Do the honors.
- NIC: All right.
- (knocking)
- VAN SANT: ( rustling around, keys jinging) Ah. Classic.
- NIC: What…are you doing?
- VAN SANT: Key under the mat, alright? (key turning in knob)
- NIC: Well…
- VAN SANT: Anyone asks- it was me.
- NIC: We can’t just-
- (door opens)
- NIC: I don’t know, I mean this just-
- VAN SANT: Come in and-
- NIC: This just seems like-
- VAN SANT: Come in and shut the door.
- NIC: Okay...
- (door closes)
- VAN SANT: Hello? What? You’re taking your shoes off?
- NIC: Yeah, I don’t wanna…
- VAN SANT: You’re a gentleman.
- VAN SANT: All right, there’s gotta be a light switch around here somewhere.
- NIC: Holy shit.
NIC: The house was empty. It had been completely cleaned out, no furniture, no curtains, nothing at all. The Cult of Tanis was gone. If I was going to find out more information about whoever or whatever was behind their Tanis agenda, I wasn’t going to get it from them. I was standing there, in that empty house, with Geoff van Sant, wondering if he wanted to talk about his family’s experience with the Hale-Bopp comet, when my phone rang.
- (phone ringing)
- NIC: Hello?
- ELLIS: Nic, its Cameron Ellis.
- NIC: Oh, hello. How are you?
- ELLIS: I’m fine.
- NIC: Great. So, what-
- ELLIS: Listen, I was the one who purchased Carl van Sant’s tapes and audio equipment.
- NIC: Yeah, I kinda figured that might be the case.
- ELLIS: Would you like to hear what we found?
- NIC: You found something?
- ELLIS: Yes.
- NIC: What is it?
- ELLIS: I’ll have to show you.
NIC: Next week we find out what Cameron Ellis had to show me and we take a look at the Cult of Tanis stuff MK emailed. Plus, more about Professor Adams and his theories of Tanis, along with both major revelations from both Morgan Miller and Melanie Nedved. It’s Tanis, I’m Nic Silver. We’ll be back again in two weeks, until then, keep looking.
Tanis is produced by Terry Miles. Produced, mixed, and edited by me, Nic Silver. Executive producers Terry Miles and Paul Bae.
NIC: For legal and safety reasons, we've elected to change some names, and leave others out entirely. We don't do this very often, but we're not willing to compromise people's safety for any reason.
Thanks again for listening to Tanis.