Years ago, I came across a book title and description that gave me one of those "I have to read this book!" gut punches. However, the book was incredibly rare and impossible to find. Not because it's really old nor because some conspirators decided the information was "too important" for us little guys. It was actually a limited, local print run by an author in Southern Illinois. It was a personal passion project for Jim Jung. He died shortly after and his wife had a second edition published and said, "that's it."

I scoured the internet trying to find a PDF, but got nothing. I scoured every bookshop within 3 hours of where it was published (Carbondale, Illinois), but got nothing. I set up alerts on Amazon, eBay, and Abe Books. Finally, I got a notification of a copy for sale (only the second I'd ever seen) and immediately bought it. I believe it was a like 3:00am. I was pumped, to say the least.

Why is this book so important to me? In the text, Jung lays out a theory. It's not HIS theory, but it is a theory that he went out into the field and verified. It's proof that folklore is influenced by subterranean currents in our reality. Literally. Following fault lines in Southern Illinois ("Little Egypt") he went to places where faults ran directly under towns, homes, cemeteries, parks, forests. He asked residents there about supernatural stories or experiences. He mapped out the affects of seismic activity. Then, he took the stories and published a book.

When I got and read the book, I was confounded. It's a map...but in words. I had to see the stories. So, I pulled up a fault line map of Southern Illinois and then began my painstaking work. I read every story, did my best to find the exact location of each one and put them on a map. Every pin told a story. Then, I overlaid the map of stories to the map of faults. I eliminated fringe accounts and it left me with an insane visual.

I'm ready to share that and have added a page dedicated to that map. It's interactive and you can click each pin and read the story. 

View both maps, HERE