There appears to be no good reason for that story to have been post-dated, if written in 1987.

That explanation doesn’t inspire confidence. This note definitively says that it was at that time set in the future, though the explanation as to why isn’t that clear. In fact it’s far closer to Ted’s story they may be nearly identical.īut there’s a disclaimer there, claiming that it was ripped off by “Ted” and, again, written in 1987. Although the details are the same as in “Fear of Darkness”, this one lacks an ending, and has more dates. Here it’s called “The Terror in Hupman’s Cave”.

I did a search for Thomas Lera and found a few things:įirst another, possibly earlier version of the story at this page : So either it was set in the future or updated, but not to 2004. The story, however, begins with the date of December 30th, 2001. Another thing about it is despite a paragraph at the start about it being taken from a journal entry with italics interspersed later(as in Ted’s), the ‘journal’ is in a far more narrative style.Ī copyright notice in the corner reads “Thomas Lera 1987-2004”. It’s almost exactly the same story as Ted’s, except there’s an ending to the story. In that file, the title of the story is “The Fear of Darkness”. The story linked to was from an web-archived page, and the link given was here: Ted’s page appeared in 2001 and, as I recall, was updated in real time. I don’t know more about Ted, or indeed if more is known.īut someone on the linked thread pointed to, and a few other messages around the web, indicated that the story was written in 1987 by Thomas Lera. It’s generally acknowledged that ‘Ted’ made up the story and is alive and well, although the pictures suggest some effort went into making it. One of the recent requests for scary story led to a link (possibly it was an older thread linked in that one) to the story on “Ted’s Caving page”. This is not about whether the events in the story actually happened as described. That done, I want it be clear, from the start: To read “Ted’s Caving Page” unspoiled, go to this page first:

Cave Post Offices by Thomas M. Lera