The following, Case #21, contains two items. The first item is a blog post on a website, nonfictionfear.com. In the post, the writers report an incident of cannibalistic murders involving men dressed as Santa Claus. The second is a video that started as a harmless internet meme.

Item 1: A blog post from nonfictionfear.com

The website, nonfictionfear.com, gained popularity due to their finding and breaking of a story they humorously call “Santabalism”: On Christmas Eve, 1996, there was a brutal cannibalistic massacre in Silverridge, Colorado. According to the site, 12 men dressed in Santa suits were found murdered in a forest. The men were not simply dressed as Santa, but had taken on the physical attributes of typical “Santa Claus” as we know it, down to full grown white beards.

They had been eaten alive, by each other.

No one reported the story, and police did not release the details, but nonfictionfear.com made it household news.

Nonfictionfear.com is not around anymore, and I find it peculiar that with the reports here, a list of the victims’ names or surviving families have not come about.

Item 2: An internet video.

This 30 second video starts innocent enough – a well known Christmas song plays, a decorated Christmas tree twinkles, stockings are hung on a mantle. Santa Claus enters the scene, and is about to put a present under the tree.

We soon see that the present is a severed arm, tied in a bow.

The music falters and futzes, and the video is cut off as the Santa walks away.

The video began as a popular, yet creepy, internet meme. On December 23, 2009, it was sent to email inboxes all over the country, seemingly by the email account of a relative or close friend. The subject line was “You better watch out.”, referencing the popular Christmas song “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”.

Inside the message was a link to the video, and the words: “You better not cry…”.

On December 24, 2009, the now-notorious video was shown in the small town of Skirville, Alabama, prior to the annual showing of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. The local television network had no knowledge of how it could have ended up in the broadcast. They blamed a local group of well known hackers, who had disrupted local programming before.

The viral video could be the hackers. Yet, in the coroner’s recent report of the “Santas” in Caverton, there was an estimated time of death for the last-killed Santa at 8:00PM. This is the exact time the video was shown on televisions in Skirville, Alabama.

I can only cautiously deduce that this jolly propaganda holds some sort of message. To whom this message is meant for and what it says, I do not know.