15.12.11

Adventures in Fake Journalism: Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night


Okay, for a film never intended for release in North America (because of the - I assume - serious legal blocks to doing so), PA2:TN has some stunningly detailed fake journalism on display. Let's start with their fake search engine, shall we?



Ah, Go Search - is it any wonder you became the world's number one web search service? You have a button that says 'happy' on it!


The real gravy comes next, however - check this out:



Three google search results - all in English, and surprisingly detailed at that!

The Answer to Miracles and Paranormal Activities

Before we give you a scientific explanation to some paranormal activities, we will briefly take you through some famous example cases. The Story of the Borley Rectory Devil (England), the Rosenheim Poltergeist (Germany), The murder case of devil-possessed Katie (San Diego, US), The Glamis Castle (Scotland)....

(How great is it that they included famous paranormal incidents? I've added the links to web articles about them for convenience)

Woman dies in accident while on the run after murdering boyfriend

On 18th August, 2010, a car driving the street of San Diego, CA, ran over and killed murder suspect, Katie while she was on the run after murdering her boyfriend, the police says. The police have found videotaped recordings of numerous paranormal activities that is said to have taken place around Katie.

(Okay, the grammar is breaking down a little now, but how nice is it that, just like in a real search engine, the text they're looking for is highlighted? Also, I think the movie was set in 2008, since it came out in 2009...)

Woman said to be possessed by the devil kills boyfriend - NOA.com

On 11th October, Mr. Micah was found dead inside a house in San Diego, CA the police reports. The police have found records of Micah being attacked by his girlfriend with home he lived, and are currently in search for Katie. Also, it has been reported that these video recordings show various paranormal activities...

(Now the grammar is just a mess, and they don't know how last names work in North America - also the timeline is just getting weird, or maybe I was just confused. If Katie was run over in August 2010, did she just run around as a demon for two years until that car hit her? That would be odd.)

Impressive detail for a ten-second shot, right? It gets better when the character clicks on the third story, and we discover that an extended version of it was written:



(picking up where the last one left off)

and that Katie was displaying deviant behavior when she murdered Micah, the police said. The police are currently in search for Katie who has disappeared after the murder. The video recordings are currently being analyzed at the research institute. It is said that the video camera recordings found from Micah and Katie's house showed numerous incomprehensible footages. There were videos showing doors opening on its own, bed duvets turning over on its own, and one of Katie being dragged out of bed and out of her room while in her sleep by something invisible. There were many more footages of this sort, of objects moving about by itself, and things smashing to pieces, in the videos. Micah and Katie explain that these activities (unreadable) to the devil that is possessing Katie's body. There is a video showing Katie murdering Micah, and it has been reported that Katie was displaying totally abnormal behaviour while she killed him. The video footages are til being analyzed and no... (unreadable)

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The amazing thing? There's another half-page of this. Someone put in a lot of work for something that would likely never be read other than by creepy obsessives. I've got to tip my hat to PA2:TN - this is some of the most detailed fake journalism I've ever encountered. And we're not even done!

In a subsequent scene, one of the characters looks up devils - and the result: A fake website!



At first, I thought this had to be a real website, but when Google didn't turn up anything, I read a little closer:

About Devils

Devils are a supernatural being which are often symbolic for ideas within religious beliefs such as earthly desires, wickedness, and evil. They are often depicted in myths as something that tests the minds of saints or prophets for their faith in god.
The Term is used for anything that confronts god, and often used as a derogatory term for gods in other religions other than one's own. Most "devils" found in Christianity are often one of the above.
Devils in the Western culture are mostly depicted as seen in the illustration (see right). They take on human form with black to dark navy blue skin, red eyes, and pointed ears, wide mouths with sharp teeth, sharp claws and black bat-like wings. In Japanese, they can be counted as "persons", "spirits" or "bodies". The word "spirits" comes from the idea of counting the number of gods in Shinto religion. Example: "72 Spirits of Solomon".

The Western term DEVIL (or TEUFEL in German) derives from the Greek work DIABOLUS (####### in Greek) which is the equivalent of Satan in Hebrew. It is a word usually used for any beings that confront the idea of the Jewish/Christian God. However, the words "diabolus" as well as the Hebrew word "Satan" do not originally contain supernatural meanings. The original meanings of the words a "impeder" or "calumniator".
In the Letter to St. Timothy of the New Testament reads: "In the same way, their wives are to be...not malicious talks..." (3:11). The word "malicious" in the original text reads "diabolus".

On the other hand, the term "Demon" is translated into words such as "fiend", "evil god", "ghoul" or "genie" and is a word that is often used represent evil beings in texts outside of Christianity/ However, in using the word in daily practice, there is no precise line that strictly differentiates devils from demons.

The Derivation of Devils

In the Abrahamic religions, devils stood for supernatural beings other than the God HImself and his servants. As a monarchist religion, Judaism denies the gods of any other religion and referred to them as devils. The same belief seeped into other religions that derived from Judaism, namely Christianity and Muslim. The image of devils in the Western Christian worlds is derived mostly from the gods that people believed in the ancient Mediterranean world, the most widely known being the Baal or the Moloch gods. (These godships were already referred to as "Shedims", a Hebrew word meaning demons by the Jewish)

However, it is important to note the it was not true that every god other than the Christian God was regarded as devils. Some gods were incorporated into Christianity belief. Some good examples are the gods or a representation of a god in the Neo-Babylonian Empire, such as Michael and Bagrieal. They were incorporated into the Jewish religion as the heavenly angels as the postexilian Jews were greatly influenced by the Persian religions such as the idea of Amesh Spenta from the Zoroaster religion.
Stories of Michael and Garbriel can also be found in the Old Testament, and the come into play as archangels of Heaven. It is said that there are examples where through the generations, native European gods have turned into nymphs and fairies.

A Satan (the word originally meaning "tempter" or "seducer") was at first a device which God used to challenge or test humans. Therefore, in the Old Testament, although he was always an enemy to humans, he was at the same time a servant of God. Satan may also be referred to as the "archenemy" or the "arch nemesis", but he is treated- (CUT OFF)

(And over on the sidebar:)

The Possession:

The possession by the devil usually starts with the voice, and then the voice invades the body, finally taking over and possessing it.

The voice stage - voices can be heard from electronic devices, usually a small child's voice asking for help.

The invasive stage - the "devil" talks to the mind through respiratory sounds, (CUT OFF)

I've got to say - if this was all written by the filmmakers for a ten-second shot (and the out-of-nowhere nonsensical lines about Shintoism suggest that it was), my hat is off to them. Also, my fingers are tired.

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