The Castle Of Terror Legend
WRITTEN BY CONTRIBUTOR AND FRIGHTENEER WALT BATYCKI
In 1908 the famous Tunguska Event occurred in Russia. The explosion over the sparsely populated East Siberian taiga flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, though much larger impacts occurred in prehistoric times.
A few weeks after the explosion,Dr. Luka Seltsam travels from Germany to Russia to survey the site and collect samples. **** “Luka Selstam” basically means “Rock Weird” in German.
Seltsam is a brash scientist that was recently banished from Leipzig University for “knowledge at the expense of ethics”. Using techniques many criticized as being “more mysticism than real science” Seltsam manages to uncover a strange crystal fragment that seems to defy many laws of the natural world.
Seltsam claimed his experiments with the crystal sample yielded fantastic results which were largely dismissed and mocked by the scientific community. He claimed the crystal was able to absorb the “life essence and consciousness” from living beings and in doing so the crystal showed signs of its own alien intelligence. Seltsam further claimed that after sufficient “nourishment” the crystal was able to grow and reproduce a nearly unlimited amount of other such crystals. The crystals were said to contain near infinite energy from “beyond our known sphere” and Seltsam made such mad claims as using the crystals to reanimate the dead, and to transform living beings into forms of “unearthly new life” as well as to see “wonders beyond the limits of our paltry three dimensions”.
Because of its supposed transformative powers, Seltsam called his wonder-crystal “Hecatium” in reference to the Hecate, Greek goddess of magic. Newspapers mocked Seltsam by instead calling his discovery “Monster-ium” and he was labeled a “Failed Frankenstein” which enraged him.
Seltsam fruitlessly tried to gain financial backing for his experiments but was universally shunned. In an effort to gain a patron he moved to Schenectady NY in 1912, setting up a laboratory in a stone building near General Electric headquarters. Seltsam had hoped to entice Thomas Edison to visit his laboratory and fund his experiments. Mr. Edison never did visit, and after being harassed with innumerable missives from Seltsam, he publicly called the man “A deranged and dangerous lunatic!” The Schenectady locals began to ridicule Seltsam and call him “Mad Doctor Schenect-enstein ”
Seltsam was somehow able to court foreign interests in financially backing his experiments. The Stone building where Seltsam conducted his experiments was expanded with many additions that included what appeared to be radio towers and massive holding tanks for chemicals which he assured the public were “perfectly harmless”. Because of the occasional screams and weird colored lights that emanated from Seltsam’s labs, the strange sprawling stone building was dubbed “The Castle of Terror”.
Seltsam briefly pursued Nikola Tesla to validate his “genius” but instead Tesla was repulsed. After his visit to Seltsam’s laboratory he declared it was “The makings of Hell upon the Earth! There may well be no defense against what horrors Seltsam invites into our reality.” Rumor has it that Tesla’s idea for his legendary “tele-force” weapon was actually conceived as a fail safe against what he witnessed in Seltsam’s lab.
At its peak of operation, the “Castle of Terror” employed about twenty people as staff. Employees and their families were housed on-site. Seltsam became very secretive and demanded absolute loyalty from staff. The entire operation became very much like a cult. High stone walls were erected around the ever-expanding research compound. People rarely left the labs. Children were educated at a makeshift school right there in the compound.
It was observed that excavation equipment and construction supplies continually entered the compound but nothing ever seemed to leave. As The Great War pulled the worlds focus to events in Europe, Seltsam and his mysterious experiments were largely ignored by the public for far too long.
Uproar and allegations concerning the welfare of the children living at “The Castle” came to a head around the same time as Federal agencies expressed concern about Seltsam’s experiments –and to which foreign power he was answering . A raid on the compound occurred in the early hours of October 28th.
Authorities were refused entry by Dr. Seltsam who proclaimed “Stop! You fools! My ultimate experiment is in delicate balance! Your interference will damn us all!”
Dynamite was eventually used to blast through the outer wall of the compound. Within minutes of authorities rushing into the main building it was noted that the sensation of tremors “Not unlike that of an earthquake.” shook the region. Fissures began to split the Earth all around the laboratories. Strange crystals began sprouting around the outer wall of the compound. One account describes them as “--growing from nothing to the size of milk-cans within seconds.” The crystal formations were said to be aglow with weird inner light. Several minutes after the initial tremors started the entire complex collapsed in on itself, becoming a pile of rubble in the center of a sunken crater. The Castle of Terror was no more, and the remains swiftly buried.
Miraculously no member of the government raid lost their lives, dashing out of the chaos in the nick of time. No one that lived or worked at the compound was ever seen again. Wild accounts given by the agents and officers on the raid have been dismissed as the product of hysteria or hallucinations caused by stress or airborne chemicals at the site. Still, tales spread across the region, tales describing an underground labyrinth, strange massive machines, and creatures that may have once been living men and beasts but which had become something not of this world.
Most chilling of all was the statement given by the agent who led the charge deep into the passages below the labs on the that fateful day. He described seeing Seltsam himself, his weirdly deformed flesh pierced by sprouting crystals, his eyes full of madness. Seltsam was climbing inside the chamber of a large machine that resembled a furnace. Seltsam paused just long enough to proclaim “Soon I will be one with the cosmos and all humanity will praise my genius!”
As he climbed into the machine, the ground shook and the room was filled with blinding light accompanied by a sound that “--was like grating metal and a thousand screams made into one noise”.
It’s now been over a hundred years since the Castle of Terror fell. In 1936 the Schenectady Armory was built on the very same site. Some say the real reason this spot was chosen was to have an armed response ready for whatever might still wander the secret halls and chambers buried below. Whatever the reasons, whatever the truth, we have uncovered access to what has been hidden for so long. Welcome to what remains of Dr. Luka Seltsam’s laboratories. Welcome to Dr. Schenect-enstein’s Castle of Terror! ------------------