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It's not real, but if enough people believe it, it becomes real.
This may sound like something profound, but it's a truth of everyday life. Religions have started this way. Someone told a story to explain how the world was created. Suddenly, there is a Supreme Being, a god. The same with the myths of fire, the underworld, and so forth. At various points in history, these stories were held as truth, and their subjects - the gods - worshipped in magnificent temples.
Modern evidence of this comes in the form of the movie The Blair Witch Project. Two men created a fictitious storyline, sent three young actors into the woods for a few days, and ended up with a sensation (not to mention, rather well off financially). The movie's web page boasts a "timeline" of the Blair Witch, who supposedly terrorized children and caused other people near a small Maryland settlement to disappear. The actors portray filmmakers who go into the woods to learn the truth. They, too, supposedly disappear. Their film and logs are found a year later, buried where no human being could have hidden them.
The scary thing about the movie is that the young actors' fear is real. They had no script. They received daily instructions in the form of notes from their director. Then, the film crew proceeded to mess with their minds. The screams, the jerky camera shots, are all first hand proof that these three were frightened. But they aren't fleeing the Blair Witch. The Blair Witch is not real.
People are taking the story as fact, though, despite repeated media reports to the contrary. The Maryland town where these hauntings reputedly took place has been overrun by tourists. Questions are being asked which no one can answer, because there are no answers.
It is all a matter of belief. If one person believes in something, it might not hold water, as they say. Get a dozen, two dozen, or a few hundred believing something, and it can cause problems. A walk through a quiet forest can become quite an adventure when a person sees malevolent witches behind every tree. Businesses can go bankrupt, if the population moves from a town because what was once a peaceful haven away from the city has become a tourist center.
The old saying ran something like, "Don't believe everything you read, and only half of what you see." Well, it's time for a reality check: Don't believe what they put in movies. Even the most thoroughly researched biography has elements of fiction in it, because no one knows exactly what the subject was thinking at any given point in his life.
The Blair Witch Project may be a good movie - a good horror movie, or whatever genre it fits into - but it definitely is not real. The hype on the web is just a marketing ploy, publicity for an otherwise obscure film that might not have made it beyond the accolades at the Sundance Film Festival.
When a real movie comes out about a real witch (and it can be proven as such), that'll be the one to see!
- Quill