Horror Report

Tag: signs

  • Still seeing signs after 24 years

    Still seeing signs after 24 years

    It’s been 24 years since one of the most poignant movies we’ve ever seen was released.

    Signs, with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix.

    Over the past 24 years, I can’t even describe how many times I’ve watched this movie. To the point where, probably 23 years ago, my VHS copy was basically ruined from overuse. Somewhere in this house there’s a DVD that probably has plenty of dust on it now, but also plenty of scratches from the number of times it was put into a DVD player.

    We’ve hunted down any place streaming it for free. We’ve rented it probably way too many times from various streaming services.

    The movie was something in 2002.. it had significance and a message and touched on a connection between people…

    We are not a stranger to the critique that the graphics at the end are goofy.. the CGI alien imagery hasn’t exactly aged gracefully. We know people laugh at the water falling onto the alien’s shoulder. The movie has been mocked, parodied and satirized plenty of times since 2002.

    But in 2002, Signs was the Horror Report Movie of the Year.

    Here is a snippet of we immaturely said that year:

    You had to be there.

    You have to remember the context in which Signs arrived. M. Night Shyamalan had already given us The Sixth Sense, one of the greatest box-office sleeper stories of its time and a movie that completely changed the conversation around him.

    The entire country was talking about The Sixth Sense.

    And here’s something else that’s almost quaint to remember now: people actually tried not to ruin the ending. People enthusiastically wanted their friends and family to experience that ending in a theater the same way they did. Unless you went searching around the internet for somebody willing to spoil it, we somehow managed to remain relatively spoiler-free.

    Shyamalan followed The Sixth Sense with Unbreakable and then, in 2002, came Signs.

    And he used some of that same magic again. Except the ending of Signs wasn’t really about delivering another giant twist. It was something more meaningful.

    Yes, Signs is technically about an alien invasion of planet Earth and one small family’s fight inside a farmhouse outside Philadelphia to survive it.

    There are frightening images. There are jump scares. There’s an alien walking past a birthday party that probably scared the living hell out of plenty of people sitting in theaters in 2002.

    But if you’re watching Signs today simply for the jump scares or the alien effects, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

    Because that’s not really what the movie is about.

    It’s about a minister who loses his faith after his wife dies through what seems like the cruelest possible act of random fate.

    It’s about Joaquin Phoenix’s Merrill Hess, a man who once seemed destined for something greater but never quite got there. He had talent. He had promise. He had baseball. And now he’s working at a gas station and living with his brother.

    It’s about two children traumatized by the death of their mother, trying to understand their own grief while simultaneously watching their father transform into a different, almost unrecognizable version of himself. And in the middle of all of this, aliens invade Earth.

    The alien invasion is the metaphorical backdrop for everything else happening inside that farmhouse.

    Coincidences that might not be coincidences and faith lost and eventually rediscovered. Trauma, with grief and regret, all get incorporated..

    The question of whether the terrible and seemingly random things that happen to us have some meaning that we simply can’t see while we’re living through them.

    And how you keep the light on when the world around you suddenly seems filled with shadows.

    There’s another piece of the history that shouldn’t be forgotten.

    Signs was made in the shadow of September 11, 2001.

    The movie was being made during that period, and the bonus documentary material released with the film even captured members of the production discussing what it was like when 9/11 happened. As a matter of fact, filming started on September 12, 2001..

    It’s difficult to explain to someone who wasn’t old enough to experience that period just how much 9/11 permeated almost everything afterward.

    Movies. Television. Music. News. Conversations. Families. Fear.

    The country had suddenly experienced the horrifying realization that something almost unimaginable could happen on an otherwise normal morning.

    And then Signs came along with a family standing inside a farmhouse, watching television and listening to the radio as something unimaginable happened to the entire world outside.

    I don’t think you can completely separate those things.

    Maybe that’s one reason the movie hit so differently in 2002.

    And now 24 years have passed.

    We recently went back and watched Signs again. It’s currently streaming on Apple TV—which we’ll call “free” with the obvious asterisk that you have to pay for Apple TV to get that particular version of free.

    And boy, does 2002 look like 2002.

    There are VHS tapes and VCRs. Old baby monitors become an important piece of technology. There aren’t smartphones constantly buzzing with notifications. Nobody is refreshing social media looking for the newest shaky alien video.

    Instead, our protagonists watch television and listen to the radio to find out whether the world is ending.

    Of course things would be different today.

    But strangely enough, the important things wouldn’t be.

    Because Signs is grounded in something that technology hasn’t really changed.

    It’s not simply a horror movie.

    It’s a deeply profound story about a spiritual awakening during a horrific moment.

    Kind of like 9/11.

    And kind of like life itself for a lot of people.

    Over the past 24 years, I’ve told countless people to watch Signs. I don’t know how many actually listened. I don’t know how many watched it and thought I was crazy for loving it so much.

    That’s okay.

    I’ve also remained loyal to Shyamalan through some of the years when seemingly everybody else decided they were done with him.

    We’ve even told countless people to watch Lady in the Water, another movie people dismiss because they think the premise is goofy or the story is strange.

    But Lady in the Water tells you what it is. It’s a bedtime story.

    And underneath that strange bedtime story is another profoundly human idea about trauma—how it changes a person, how it can change the soul and how accepting what happened to you can become part of reclaiming your identity.

    Maybe that’s why these movies have stuck with me.

    Because Signs, to some degree, healed me in 2002.

    And for the past 24 years, I’ve gone back to it during moments when I needed some spiritual healing or maybe just an awakening.

    I know.

    It’s just a movie.

    But after watching it this many times over this many years, there’s still something nagging at my mind.

    If an alien invasion ever really happened, maybe the aliens really would be stupid enough to invade a planet covered in the one substance capable of killing them.

    Maybe water really would do it.

    Who knows.

    But something else seems far more believable.

    If an alien invasion happened today, there would be families inside farmhouses, apartments and homes across the world going through exactly the same struggle as the Hess family.

    Because right now there are already plenty of people fighting profoundly deep battles trying to figure out who they are, what they believe and how to put themselves back together after something changed them.

    Twenty-four years of technological advancement hasn’t changed that.

    Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix’s characters didn’t have smartphones, social media or most of our modern conveniences.

    But they had exactly the same emotions we have today.

    Trauma and heartbreak.

    Fear and hopelessness.

    Resilience and courage.

    And the desperate search for some kind of meaning in the face of an earth-shattering crisis.

    That’s what Signs is.

    So watch it again.

    Don’t worry about whether the CGI alien looks convincing in 2026.

    Look at the people inside the farmhouse instead. And maybe see if you can reclaim a little bit of the spirit you had when you first watched it all those years ago.

    And if you’re watching Signs for the first time?

    This is what we said about the movie during our “movie of the year post” 24 short years ago, without grammar corrected 🙂 :

    Priests are scandalous all around us. Elders are corrupting minors. Television ads are selling sex to children. Government is selling our secrecy for safety and we let them. Politicians who lie and cheat and steal to get their positions of power are corrupting institutions of power we once respected because our founding father gave us a reason to. We have no heroes anymore, we, often times and in many individual cases, have nothing to have faith in. SIGNS illustrates to us that faith has faith in us to make the right choice, to see the signs. A glass of water is half full. In this film it matters.

    Everything matters. It’s the ultimate message for life Shaymalan wanted to send. It’s also the ultimate reason I chose this film as the movie of the year. It gave me a glimmer of hope. It made me wonder. It made me think about things in a different way. It filled me with spirit, I left the film each time feeling more faithful and spiritual than any church service on earth can make me. I saw the SIGNS. I just hope I never close my eyes again.

    HORROR-REPORT’S FILM OF THE YEAR 2002: SIGNS

    Don’t watch it as a 24-year-old alien movie whose special effects you’re supposed to judge against what Hollywood can create today.

    Watch it as a story about people trying to survive something they don’t understand.

    Maybe, somewhere in their struggle, you’ll recognize a little bit of your own.

    And maybe you’ll find one of the signs you’ve been looking for.

  • The comet may not have a tail but it could have small alien ships deployed

    The comet may not have a tail but it could have small alien ships deployed

    Avi Loeb is back — at this point he’s basically our best friend in the UFO world. In his latest review of the 3I/ATLAS comet, he indicates that the newest photographs show evidence of thrusters. Yes, thrusters. And there are even claims that additional “ships” may have separated from a so-called “main mothership.”

    On the surface, it all sounds like pure science fiction. Total fantasy. But here we are in 2025. We’ve all lived through enough strangeness to know that nothing is off the table anymore. And the thing about Loeb is — he actually backs this with data.

    Loeb writes in his blog

    “Given that a large number of jets appear in many directions, the reported non-gravitational acceleration of 3I/ATLAS requires much more than 10–20% of its initial mass to have been ejected near perihelion. Only a fraction of that mass carries an excess momentum in a preferred direction. This means that the cloud of debris around 3I/ATLAS must represent a substantial fraction of its initial mass for a natural comet. However, technological thrusters could give the object a boost with much less mass jetted out at a higher speed.”

    He then asks the simple but massive question:

    “Is the network of jets associated with pockets of ice on the surface of a natural cometary nucleus, or are they coming from a set of jet thrusters used for navigation of a spacecraft?”

    And the answer Loeb gives?

    “We do not know.”

    3I/ATLAS is expected to make its closest approach to Earth on December 19, 2025.

    Stacked telescope images reportedly show a “large glowing halo extending out to half a million kilometers” with at least seven distinct jet structures. That’s not typical comet behavior. That’s weird behavior. According to Loeb — Harvard astrophysicist, not random guy on Reddit — this thing is acting unlike anything we’ve documented before.

    I’m not sure if the world is paying attention. We are. And a handful of scientists and space-watchers are. But this feels like a much bigger deal than it’s being treated as.

    Even if 3I/ATLAS turns out to be a completely natural comet, the oddities alone suggest something rare — something we don’t commonly see in our solar system. That alone is exciting, possibly even paradigm-shifting.

    But if Loeb is right… and if these jets are not natural outgassing… and if this object is maneuvering…

    Well, then we’re looking at something even more profound.

    A lot of people have laughed at Loeb over the past few years. Some still are. But the more images that come in, the less funny this comet looks. There’s something off about it. Something that doesn’t fit.

    Alien spacecraft? Let’s not go that far yet.

    But weird?
    Yes.
    Deeply, undeniably weird.

    And sometimes weird is where everything starts.

  • The Knowing: Life of intuitives

    The Knowing: Life of intuitives

    In the winter of 1966, the people of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, began whispering about a strange winged figure with glowing red eyes that appeared at the edges of town.

    The sightings, later tied to the legend of the Mothman, took on an eerie tone when several witnesses claimed they felt more than just fear in its presence—they felt a deep, certain knowledge that something terrible was coming. A year later, in December 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed, killing 46 people. Whether you see Mothman as a supernatural messenger or just a story wrapped around a real disaster, the accounts are rooted in something profoundly human: the experience of having a gut feeling that the future has already been decided.

    A recent UK Times article, “How Your Body Predicts the Future,” tackled that very phenomenon.

    This is the opening of the very interesting article:

    As a professional and Olympic goalkeeper, Briana Scurry never looked at her opponent as she approached a penalty kick. At pivotal moments, she says, “my MO is to not even look, and just focus on what I need to do, on my preparation for everything”.

    But in the Women’s World Cup final in 1999, the USA were tied with China and the game came down to a shootout, watched by 91,000 people inside the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and up to 40 million at home. Scurry had failed to save the first two kicks. On the third, facing Liu Ying, Scurry did something differently.

    “As I was walking into the penalty area to present myself for the save, I heard something in my mind say: ‘Look’,” Scurry says. She heeded the call. “I watched her approach the penalty spot, which is something that I didn’t normally do, and I knew right then that that was the one I was going to save.”

    In that split second before Ying kicked, Scurry says, “time slowed down. Everything she did was slow motion and very clear. She opened her hips up, she approached short from the same side, I saw the inside of her foot she was using, so I knew exactly where she was going before she kicked the ball.”

    It explained that what we call intuition is not a prophecy from the beyond but a rapid, almost invisible process in the brain. Without our conscious awareness, we absorb tiny cues from our surroundings—changes in facial expression, a shift in the air, even faint environmental signals—and our brain knits those pieces together into a conclusion before we’ve had time to reason it out. That conclusion often arrives as a quiet certainty, one that feels as if it came from nowhere.

    The article also drew a line between true intuition and anxiety. Intuition tends to feel calm and steady, the kind of insight you can sit with without urgency, while anxiety is loud and insistent, driving you toward action through fear rather than understanding.

    I’ve had moments that made me wonder which side of that divide I was on. Once, driving on a rural road, I felt with no logical reason that a deer would cross ahead. I slowed down, and sure enough, a mile later it happened. Another time, I bought a raffle ticket convinced (like …convinced) that I would win. I did. Of course, there are countless other days when I’ve bought tickets and lost or driven without seeing a thing, and those moments vanish from memory. That’s part of the trap: we remember the eerie hits and forget the ordinary misses, which makes the rare times our gut is right feel supernatural.

    Lately, the internet has been resurfacing clips of Sylvia Browne, the gravel-voiced psychic who dominated daytime talk shows in the 1990s and early 2000s.

    Lately, the internet has been resurfacing clips of Sylvia Browne, the gravel-voiced psychic who dominated daytime talk shows in the 1990s and early 2000s.

    Sylvia Browne’s persona was built on certainty.. telling grieving families exactly what had happened to missing loved ones, forecasting apocalyptic events, making sweeping predictions on live television. Sometimes she was right, but often she was not. In one notorious case, she told the parents of Amanda Berry, who had been kidnapped, that their daughter was dead. Amanda was found alive years later. Yet Browne’s unwavering confidence kept audiences hooked, because people are drawn to anyone who claims to pierce the veil of the unknown.

    This is where I think the “Sylvia Browne Effect” comes into play. When public psychics deliver their visions with theatrical conviction, they blur the line between genuine, personal intuition and staged prediction. For believers, it can feel like proof that the paranormal is real; for skeptics, it’s a reason to dismiss all gut feelings as trickery. The problem is that both reactions miss the point. Intuition is a real cognitive process, shaped by our experiences and environment, but it can be warped by bias, fear, or desire, and that’s where performance and reality start to overlap.

    For those of us who enjoy the paranormal and horror, knowing this doesn’t take away the thrill. It can actually make it more intense. There’s still room for the mystery.. it is the moment when your stomach drops or the air feels different, the hair-raising sense that something’s about to happen. But there’s also the awareness that our brains are extraordinary pattern-recognition machines, capable of keeping us alive in ways we don’t always understand.

    When I think of the Mothman legend, I don’t just see it as a cryptid tale. I see it as a metaphor for that strange overlap between belief and biology, between the stories we tell to explain our instincts and the quiet, relentless work our minds are doing behind the scenes.

    The challenge is not to choose one over the other, but to hold both in our hands at once…the science that explains so much, and the shadow of the unknown that keeps us looking over our shoulder.

    Because sometimes, the most chilling part of an encounter isn’t what you saw, but the feeling you had about it before you even knew it was there.