An Article on The Pale Mantis
By Henry Parkissel
Welcome to Oddity Watch, we are a team of indie paranormal journalists who have been travelling across the United States for the past few years documenting lesser-known supernatural phenomena. Our other pieces include “An Article on the Rodderson Experiments,” “An Article on the Valley of Laughing Children,” and most recently, “An Article on the Shadows of Kissmore Asylum.” In this article, I would like to first ask you, the reader, “are you afraid to die?”
A strange question to ask, yet in this article we will relive the memories of individuals who would hastily answer “no” to this question. Many religions believe in some form of continued existence after life, whether it be reincarnation or a promised paradise. Death is a very anxiety-inducing topic, yet everyone still asks themselves on occasion: “When will I die and how?”
The Pale Mantis does not offer an answer to these questions, yet it provides a unique opportunity to a few people to relieve themselves of the anxiety that comes with death. Despite this being the most widely accepted theory as to what The Pale Mantis’ purpose is, many who have experienced the effects of The Pale Mantis often end up deeply traumatized afterwards.
Again, the individuals in this article are deeply traumatized from their experiences. It is the official opinion of Oddity Watch that life is worth living. If you feel like you may be in a fragile place in life, then reader discretion is heavily advised.
Before we get into the testimonies of those who have had experiences with The Pale Mantis, I would like to first provide a description and a brief history:
The Pale Mantis is a flat, 7.6 cm X 3.8 cm, white or cream in color, piece of tumbled mutton-fat-jade, which has been carved into the likeness of a praying mantis. This object is often referred to as a “votive,” “talisman,” or a “coin” depending on theorized function of this item. The Pale Mantis was created approximately 550 BCE in Asia, though the exact country of origin is still up for debate. The Pale Mantis was ostensibly used for trade, believing it to bring good fortune and ward off evil spirits. That’s all we know of this object, and even that is speculation.
With this object, there is a set of instructions that one must follow in order to activate it.
If all conditions are met, simulated death will occur.
This may not seem like an appealing outcome, but those who have used it claim that knowing what happens after we die was valuable insight after using this object. The greatest question we will never know the answer to while we’re alive, that we could find out at any minute of any day, is “what happens after we die?” To some, The Pale Mantis offered to answer this question with seemingly no consequences.
Richard Clemmons
Richard Clemmons is a 62-year-old devout Christian. He first came into contact with The Pale Mantis after his mother, Gloria, passed away in 2004. While sorting through her belongings and seeing what he could donate to the church, Richard discovered a jewelry box. He could hear something sliding around inside of it, but when he opened the box, he saw that it was empty aside from the silk lining inside. After removing the silk lining inside the box, Richard discovered The Pale Mantis and a folded piece of paper with handwritten instructions on how to use it. Richard said that he had no interest in using it, but after some thought, he believed his mother left this for him to find so they could continue to communicate.
“It was like instead of her dying she just moved out of state, you know. She just moved but she left me her new address so I could come visit her sometime.”
This is what Richard said about his experience with The Pale Mantis:
It was the middle of the night, and I was laying in my mom’s pool with the mantis in my mouth, and I was just thinking “gosh, I probably look like the biggest weirdo right now.” My whole body was weak from hunger, I was worried that I would drown. Thinking back on it, I should have worn little water wings or something, the rules didn’t say anything about water wings. Regardless, I was floating and I just started thinking how excited I was to see my mom. To see heaven. I couldn’t wait to see how happy she was up there, to tell her how much I love her and miss her. Really, I couldn’t wait to say goodbye.
My thoughts felt very sleepy. It’s hard to explain, but they felt like they were fading from me. All light drained from my eyes. I was experiencing nothing. I don’t mean that I didn’t experience something, I’m saying that there was nothing around me, no light, no darkness, no sound, no temperature. Nothing. I remember trying to look around for a light to head towards. Again, nothing. My mom wasn’t here, and I wasn’t here. I was nowhere. I wasn’t even looking around, how could I? I had no body, I had no form. All I was were thoughts that were slowly dying out like a campfire. I tried to scream, I tried to do anything, but I was nothing. My thoughts were getting sleepy again.
Just before the last embers of my consciousness died out, a praying mantis that was pure white flew in front of me. To me, this mantis was the largest and smallest thing in existence at the same time. It was colossal enough that it seemed like it stretched across cosmoses, yet it was still just a speck in the nothingness. The mantis expanded, or maybe it exploded, and filled my eyes with the world again. Suddenly, there was no such thing as nothing, everything became something. I know this sounds incredibly vague and confusing, but it’s the best I can do to describe it.
The first thing I saw when I came back to life was the night sky. I remember thinking it seemed so small compared to where I just cam from. I spat that damn rock out of my mouth, climbed out of the pool and I cried my eyes out until sunrise. Once I got all my crying out, I looked in the pool for the rock, but it disappeared. I never did see my mom.
At this point I asked Richard if he was afraid to die. He said, “no, I don’t think so. If that’s what happens when we die, then I won’t know I’m dead, or that I had ever lived. But, if we do go to Heaven or Hell, well, that would be fine, too.”
Janet Fields
Janet is a 41-year-old woman who has self-diagnosed as having “Severe FOMO(Fear Of Missing Out).” In 2007 Janet began dating a woman named Olivia Kolbasz, who had a great interest in mysticism and the occult. As the relationship between Janet and Olivia grew more serious, Olivia began inviting Fields to participate in occult practices. One of Olivia’s friends, Xiomara Rojas, invited her to partake in a “special ritual” that Rojas promised would “blow their minds.”
The couple agreed and began to fast for 48 hours. While Janet was able to fast with no issues, Olivia developed health complications and had to end her fasting after 30 hours. Rojas did not participate in the fasting either, as she said that she was facilitating the ritual. Janet, not wanting to miss out on the opportunity, was eager to do the ritual.
Rojas, Olivia and Janet all met at a local lake at 3:00 AM where they walked into the water until they were waist deep. The Pale Mantis was placed on Janet’s tongue, she closed her mouth, and she was lowered until she was floating on her back.
This is what Janet said about her experience with The Pale Mantis:
Well, when I had closed my eyes, I felt like I was still in the water. Like, I knew I was in the lake, I could feel the water around me, and I could feel my girlfriend at the time holding on to my wrist. But I heard someone scream “HEY!” and when I opened my eyes, I was standing upright in a kitchen. It wasn’t nighttime, I wasn’t in water, I didn’t have The Pale Mantis in my mouth, nothing. It was very jarring, because it felt like I was in a dream, but I also had just come out of one. It was very difficult to, uh, discern what was real. In the moment I believed that what I was experiencing was real and I had just been dreaming. I mean, I had so many memories. Memories that are completely different than my real memories, but memories I still have to this day. I had a life where I woke up, I was an accomplished composer for TV shows, I had a nice house with a library and a little cozy breakfast nook. It was divine.
Then came the freckled woman with curly hair. She was in my house. I have no idea why she was in my house, but she seemed sad. I wanted to ask her “what’s wrong?” or “why’re you in my house?” but before I could she stabbed me with a large piece of glass. It was like a green, jagged triangle than she just kept plunging in and out of my chest. My breathing stopped. So did my heart. But my thoughts still swirled around my head, as if my thoughts was nothing more than heat leaving my body. The woman with the short curly hair looked me in my eyes, eyes that I was no longer seeing through, but could still receive vision through. She looked me in my eyes and said “I’m so happy for you.”
When my thoughts became sleepy, and room temperature, I woke back up. This time I was in the park. I had a book in my lap, but I must have fallen asleep. New memories came to me. I was an assistant manager at a successful retail store, this was my first day off in two months. I had a cat name Jessop. When I was four I bit into an apple and found a worm, I’ve never eaten an apple since then. The woman with the curls was sitting in a park bench across from me. We made eye contact and she pulled the large glass triangle out from her waistline behind her back. I threw my book at her and tried to run, but I felt a sharp pain at the base of my skull. I saw a bright, white light and then woke up at a bowling alley.
New memories flooded in. My head felt like it was going to burst. I was a Highschool drop-out, but I got my GED and eventually earned a masters in electrical-engineering. I kissed a boy one time, I didn’t like it. I’m afraid to talk to my dad. I went skydiving and loved it. The curly woman stabbed me in my eye. I was in a lot of pain the whole time my thoughts went to sleep.
I woke up again, and again. I lost count how many times I woke up, and the curly woman stabbed me with the same piece of glass. It was always in her right hand. Her hand was always bleeding from holding the glass. I died. I died. I died. I have so many memories from those lives now, it’s like I have no memories at all. I can’t remember if I was an orphan, or if my mom baked me cookies every weekend for doing all of my chores. I have nothing to remember, because I have too much to remember.
At this point, I asked Janet if she was afraid to die. She said “No. Why would I be? I have died so many times, at this point I am more afraid that I would wake back up.”
Sam Benevento
Sam Benevento is a 24-year-old person who found The Pale Mantis in on a trail while hiking through a national park in 2017. Curious as to what it may be, Sam began researching online to find some answers. Instead of finding answers through an online search engine, Sam was emailed the list of instructions on how to use The Pale Mantis from an unknown email address. Once Sam wrote down the instructions the email allegedly deleted itself.
Based on the high-strangeness of the situation, Sam decided to put the instructions into practice. After 48 hours of fasting, at approximately 11:30 PM, Sam placed the object in their mouth and laid in a kiddy pool that they purchased specifically for this ritual. Believing this could be good content for a video on social media, Sam decided to record the ritual from start to finish.
This is what Sam said about their experience with The Pale Mantis:
I was in the pool, and I honestly didn’t feel anything. I was there for like, an hour before I got cold and got out. When I took [The Pale Mantis] out of my mouth, it was black, which I thought was weird but I kind of just chocked it up to it being a weird chemical reaction to saliva or something. I put it down on the kitchen counter and went to bed. I woke up and figured I should check the camera I set up to film my whole ‘ritual.’ There was just static, which was a bummer, but I was only in the pool for an hour, so it’s not like I lost any good content.
From there, I just continued with my life, I threw the rock away, went to work, came back home, and went to bed. I lived life totally normally for five years. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then on my birthday, as everyone was singing “Happy Birthday,” all of my friends and family died. All of them. My dad broke the glass off a blender, turned it on and stuck it against his throat. My mom chugged a bottle of vodka, wrapped duct tape around her whole head and made herself choke on her own vomit. My friends went outside, started a lawnmower and… ah, you get the idea. The part that really stuck with me was that they kept singing “Happy Birthday,” right up until they physically couldn’t.
I was relieved when I woke up in the pool again. It was just a dream. I spat the rock out of my mouth, it was still black. I lived my life exactly as I had the first time I got out of the pool. My life was a five-year long Déjà Vu. Then, on my birthday, my family died again. It was different, this time. They killed each other this go-around. My dad got my best friend with some hedge clippers, my friend got my mom with a lighter and some aerosol spray. It just turned into a bloodbath. Then I woke up in the pool again. Five years passes, my family dies, I wake up in the pool. Repeat.
At this point I asked Sam if they were afraid to die. They said, “no. It’s been about five years since I got out of the pool from the last time. My birthday is coming up.”
Raquel Young
Raquel Young is a 29-year-old financial counselor who had her purse stolen by an unidentified man while she was on her daily walk to work downtown. Days later, the purse appeared in front of her apartment door. All original contents inside were missing, except for one new object. The Pale Mantis.
Raquel contacted police to see if the object she had found in her purse could be evidence, an officer went over to Raquel’s apartment to take her statement. Seemingly, the officer wrote down every word that Raquel had to say, however, when the officer left, he handed her a pink carbon copy of what he had written down. It was the instructions on how to use The Pale Mantis.
This is what Raquel said about her experience with The Pale Mantis:
It was all just so weird, you know? Nothing made sense. I had a friend from work convince me to follow the instructions that the officer handed me. I told him that I couldn’t do it alone, so he said “I’ll keep you safe, Annie.” Some friends call me “Annie” because of my freckles and curly hair. I thought the fasting was going to be the hardest part, honestly. I love food, and for me to go three hours, let alone two DAYS, without food… that was a feat. Anyways, my friend and I sanitized the hell out of that stone because I’m really not looking to get hepatitis A-Z.
I put the stone in my mouth, laid in my apartment’s pool at around 1:00 AM. The effects were immediate. I was downtown, but everything was milky in color. Even the sky had a white, creamy tint to it. I thought it was really, really cool at first, but that was before the man in fur came up to me. He was standing with his back facing me. He was tall, um, almost seven feet tall. I’m not sure if he was wearing a fur coat, or… I don’t know. He asked me, “what am I to you?” I had no idea where I was, what I was doing, who this guy was. I didn’t know. That’s what I said. I don’t know.
I was lifted off the ground, into the air. High into the air. Above all the buildings. I felt the air become freezing. Then I dropped. You know how they say if you fall from a high enough distance, you pass out before you die? That’s not true. Not for me at least.
I didn’t pass out. I didn’t die. I felt all the pain from the fall. My skin tore apart on the side that didn’t hit the ground. I felt my own blood rain down on me. My bones were splintered, my eyes halfway out of my skull… on the OTHER side. I was a puddle. My body then began to rapidly heal, which was ironically more painful than the fall. I felt my blood rush back into my ballooning veins. My bones snapping back into place felt just as painful as them breaking in the first place. My skin burned as it fused back together.
When I felt like I could stand up again, I didn’t. I played dead. I could still feel the phantom pain shooting through my body like an electric storm. But then I heard the deep, resonant voice ask me once again, “what am I to you?” I didn’t answer. I laid on the ground, hoping he thought I was dead. But after about ten seconds, the ground became hot. Searing. My skin stuck to the milky ground and peeled off as I desperately to run away. I smelled my own body cooking off me. Bacon. It smelled like bacon as my blood evaporated from my veins and my eyes dried into flakes.
I healed again. Again, it hurt. Again, he asked, “what am I to you?” I told him to kiss my ass and then huge chunks of green glass start falling from the sky. I get cut to ribbons. I heal. Then I get hit with the question again, “what am I to you?” I grab a shard of glass laying next to me and tell him, “you’re a fucking asshole, you’re pain, you’re nothing but pain.” The man in fur turns around, says “I am Frigid Sable, and I am life.”
I’m squeezing this hunk of glass with all my strength, now. Blood is gushing from my hand and I’m ready to stab this asshole. But then, a sudden realization clicks in my head. Life is pain. Once I realized that thoughts exploded in my head, almost too fast to feel like they were my own. Life is pain, we are made of the same atoms as everything else, yet we are chosen to feel pain. It doesn’t stop until we no longer exist. We are destined to suffer. Frigid Sable shook his head and took me to a young woman who needed to learn that the pain stops when we die. Frigid Sable had me kill her over, and over, and over again. By the time she disappeared, I did, too. I ended up back in my apartment pool with my friend from work. I spat that stone out of my mouth and never bothered to even look for it.
I asked Raquel if she knew of a woman named “Janet Fields,” but she said no. I then asked Raquel if she was afraid to die. She simply said, “no.”
Frigid Sable
I asked all interviewees if they knew who “Frigid Sable” was. These were their replies:
Richard: ”Yes… and no. When I died, I knew of him. I never met him. I experienced nothing. The only thing I saw was a praying mantis, and that brought me back to life.”
Janet: ”Yes. Frigid Sable… towards the end of my numerous deaths, he asked me, “what am I to you?” I didn’t know. I didn’t answer. I was confused. Every time he asked and I didn’t answer, the curly woman came after me with that hunk of glass. I never answered him. Not once. I died every time I didn’t answer. The last time I came back to life with a whole lifetime of memories, Frigid Cold asked me, “what am I to you?” I was desperate. I had already died so many times. I just said, “an angel.” Frigid turned around, opened his mouth, and a pure white praying mantis flew out. That was the end of my deaths. I came back to the real world.”
Sam: ”How do you know his name? Frigid Sable. The backwards man in fur. On my last birthday, he appeared in my home. I’m not sure if he had been there for all my other birthdays, but this was the first time I noticed him. It was about that time when my friends and family were supposed to be killing each other. But, they just… froze in place. I’ll never forget his voice.
“Frigid Sable. Cold, raspy and echoing—like he was speaking from inside a cave. He asked me, ‘what am I to you?’ I told him that he was a demon. Frigid Sable turned around, and asked, ‘do you know how to kill a demon?’ I shook my head, ‘no.’ Frigid Sable replied, ‘with love.’ There was a silence after what he said. Frigid Sable put his hand up to his ear and said, ‘can you hear it? The applause? The beautiful applause? It’s for us, Sam. This could be the end. If love is what kills a demon, do you think that you hate me… enough to love me?’”
”I woke up in the pool shortly after he asked me that. When I spat the stone out of my mouth, it was its original creamy white color. The first thing I did after getting out of that pool was check the video camera I had set up. I think I was still soaked and didn’t even bother to dry off. I lived around 25 years while I was in that pool, but the camera had only been filming for eight minutes. I fast forwarded through the tape to see if anything stood out. Something did. Something definitely did.
Circled around the pool, there were around 10-12 pale, fleshy figures clapping over me. They disappeared through static just before I woke up. When I looked around the pool, all I saw were footprints.”
Aubrey Moss
Aubrey Moss is a 27-year-old hairstylist who came into contact with The Pale Mantis when she received a mysterious package in the mail. Inside the package was the object and a handwritten list of instructions on how to use the object. Aubrey initially threw the object away, but several days later found the object back in her home. Aubrey decided to keep the object, but keep it in her junk drawer. Several days later the object returned to the original location it had returned to before. Aubrey left The Pale Mantis in the same location that it had returned to twice, now. Several hours later she began to feel nauseated and was unable to eat. The following days she had vomited almost instantly every time she tried to eat. Unknowingly, at exactly 48 hours since her last meal, she felt compelled to follow through with the ritual.
This is what Aubrey said about her experience with The Pale Mantis:
I was hungry, tired, sick and had this strange, burning need to follow the instructions. I- I don’t know why I did it. It was like something was grabbing each part of my body and moving them for me. I had the stone in my mouth and I walked to the nearest body of water, barefooted mind you. The closest body of water was a dirty creek that runs through my neighborhood. I laid down in it and felt the world melt away.
When I woke up I was in a warehouse. Everything was milky white. The floor, walls, sky… everything. There were mannequins all around me, they had their heads turned away from me. As I started to explore the warehouse, the mannequins snapped their heads around to look at me. They were me. Well, not ME, but, they looked like me. They were clearly made to look exactly like me, even down to the tattoo on my chest.
They moved in a very… I don’t know… choppy manner? Like, herky jerky. They all had knives in their hands. I ran away. I ran away and… I don’t know, I was mad. I was mad and frustrated and done with this bullshit. I just remember so much anger inside of me before I woke up in the creek. I spat the white stone out of my mouth and smashed it in two against a rock in the creek.
I thought it’d be over right then and there, but that was only the beginning. I get random calls through the day from an unknown number. Anytime I answer I just hear creepy voice ask, “what am I to you?”
I’ll hear applause behind closed doors in my home, but when I open the door there’s nothing. The TV isn’t on, no one is in the room. Sometimes at night I’ll see a pile of clothes on the floor, and when I turn the light on I see a… a contorted human scurry under my bed. When I check under my bed there’s nothing there. Hours will go by in minutes and I have no idea how. I’ve lost my job for being six hours late to work, but I thought I was 15 minutes early.
Sometimes when I’m crossing the street at night, it’ll be so dark that all I can see is the road. That’s all there is, the road. I crossed the road for an hour one night, dodging cars coming at me in every direction. I just want it to stop.”
At this point, I asked Aubrey if she was afraid to die. She said “Yes. I don’t want to die. I love my life, my old life. It’s not much but it’s all I have.”
After Aubrey’s claim that she had broken The Pale Mantis, I reached out to experts in the field of Oddities and Curiosities to ask what they believe has happened upon breaking The Pale Mantis, and if they believe the curse could be broken. They replied back to me saying, “The Pale Mantis does what it wants. If it wants to break, it will break. It has broken hundreds of times before and will break hundreds of times after. However, the number of people it has broken, will always overshadow how many times it has been broken.
Thank you for reading another article from Oddity Watch. New articles on the horizon include our investigation into the Chicago Cannibal Cop, The Radio Bride, Elves of Spencer High School, and more! Remember, stay weird, stay odd!