TheShadowlands.net is a wonderful web 1.0 archive of the supernatural

Good morning, afternoon, or whenever you read this. When I was in college, I became obsessed with ghost hunting. I was pretty sure the paranormal didn't exist, but, much like Agent Mulder, I want to believe. I would seek out stories of the supernatural and the macabre. Human violence really didn't interest me - I wanted things that went bump in the night. One night, alone in my college apartment, I was looking for information about black dogs - an omen in Scottish folklore. This brought me to a gloriously and unapologetically Web 1.0 website called TheShadowlands.net. A Bestiary of CryptozoologyThe website has been operating since 1994, just a short six years younger than I am, and possibly older than my wife depending on the month. What I found was a treasure trove of real people sharing their stories. There was no concern about clicks, content generation, or capitalizing off of sensational stories. It was just ordinary people, either emailed by the admin or gathered from other…