Damned Data

All this talk of blobsquatchery, but "what about the glitchsquatch?" as a colleague queried earlier. Generally speaking, all these technological anomalies may be catalogued under the banner of Metaphorteana, but let us continue now with the conspicuous traits of creatures in this cryptozoo. Etymologically, the term glitch means "to slip," and is often associated with the U.S. space program's slippage. In this regard there seems a lineage between gremlins and glitches carried out in the shadows of transportation technologies. Planes give way to spacecraft including UFOs. Perhaps piloted by gremlins in a transanimal phase towards glitchhood, UFOs are famous for interference with both physical and virtual modes of transport--as the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena has detailed. Glitches move from physical transport to disembodied transmissions of data across space and time. Operating in the zone of transmission or retreival of data, glitches collaborate with various paranormal mechanisms to make themselves known. In digital affairs, glitched produce is called data corruption. This is often linked to the notion of data or information loss, suggesting an absence of information. While intended information is often lost, there is also new information to be gained!

Noise is also a signal. As circuit-bending pioneer Reed Ghazala recalls in his inaugural encounter with metaphortean phenomena, circa 1967, "I closed the drawer and was immediately in the midst of some of the most unusual sounds I'd ever heard. Why? By pure accident, some unknown metal object had fallen against the exposed circuitry of the amp, shorting-out the electronics...[I thought] if this can happen by means of an accidental short circuit, what might happen by shorting things on purpose?" ( Bending the Headspace of Electronic Design)

The potential of uncovering previously imperceptible modes of understanding.

"A procession of the damned. By the damned, I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded." - Charles Fort, The Book of The Damned, 1919

Ghazala and Fort are not alone in the championing of damned data. There is a multitude of metaphortean research in our midst. Circuit-bending aside, some exciting explorations of data corruption include the efforts of Glitch Browser and Recyclism. Above you will find a glitchsquatch made manifest by Glitch Browser's paranormal processing.