If you think people online are gullible now - believing every rumour of a celebrity death or a new movie release, based on a handful of tweets or a fan-made poster - then you should've seen what we were like back in the day. The internet was a new, wonderful place to interact with new, interesting people. That was all. Everybody was anonymous, sure, but nobody had any reason to lie, or make things up, did they? It was that sort of mindset that had people totally engrossed in the story of Ted The caver, which slowly unfolded on an old, janky Angelfire page supposedly dedicated to one guy's photos of spelunking. Which is how the site started off. All innocent and stuff, just Ted sharing pics of the caves he's explored, and funny stories involved in this high-risk hobby. Things started to get a little weird when Ted's online journal began to document a new "mystery cave" he and his friend Brad happened upon during a nature hike. Unaware that there were any such caves in the area Ted, Brad and later, their friend Joe, all start to literally and figuratively dig into the narrow passageways and impossibly tiny holes they discover beneath the surface. Obviously, because we've seen The Descent, that's when everything starts to go wrong. Ted's accounts become more fractured as he details encounters with strange hieroglyphics carved into the walls, wind that appears so deep there couldn't possibly be any, and ghastly screaming coming from deep within the bowels of the cave. The blog ends abruptly with Ted and Brad, having suffered hallucinations and nightmares for weeks after their last trip, resolving to "end things" with the cave, going in with a knife and a gun. The whole thing is really well done and spine-chilling. Just avoid the crummy film adaptation.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
