Many commenters on past articles relating to the location often reassure readers that this is a legitimate company, run by the youngest son of the Neal Family, an optometrist (hence the word "OCULUS"). But what most commenters don't seem to account for is that the company's website on the business' general info is listed as heavensgate.com .
Why the connection? Perhaps some local kids thought to crank up the urban legends with this addition to their information? Please comment if you can shed light on this disturbing facet.
Disinfo.com poses a fantastic question about the temple's Heaven's Gate Connection:
If the Heaven’s Gate cult committed ritual suicide in 1997, why is their website listed with a business that wasn’t established until 2009?
The "REDDIT /NOSLEEP" Development:
A REDDIT user took the infamously eerie driven "NOSLEEP" sub-reddit to stir more crazy into the Temple's lore, seemingly taking the urban legend of sinister under workings a step further with a first hand account:
Near my house, maybe twenty minutes away, is this really bizarre street of houses. It’s off the beaten path, smack dab in the middle of an area full of little country houses and farmlands. You drive down a one-lane gravel road with houses (really nice houses, actually – two stories, big garages, big windows. You get the idea.) on either side of you until you arrive at this miniature cul de sac.
Right when you pull into the turn around there are large pyramids on either side of the street, separating the gravel road from paved street. Starting at the pyramids and wrapping around the paved road are cobbled stone walls surrounding the property, leading up to a giant gate. Absolutely huge – as tall, if not taller, than a house. On top of the gate is imagery depicting what looks like a lion fighting some sort of dragon, topped with decorative leaf designs. Through the gates and down a grey-paved path, is the thing that really takes the cake: a giant statue of what I’ve assumed is an Anubis.
It’s awesome, to say the least. I found this place around two years ago when a past friend took me to gawk at this amazing property. Since then I’ve visited it every so often, not that much, until recently. My boyfriend, Mitch, had never seen the property. I decided to take him down there, let him get a look at it since I thought it was so cool, and he immediately took to it – not that I blame him. He found the whole area just as cool as I did – though instead of just gawking at the property, he wanted to do some research into it…
The post goes on to describe the home, and surrounding homes, being lit all hours of the day with each their drive ways fastened with white vans. Its interesting to note that they report their radio being unresponsive near the compound. They say their research led them to understand that the compound claims to be a sort of Eye Clinic (Thus the "Oculus") and here is where it gets stranger still; the poster describes being blankly stared at through the windows of the homes, no matter the time of day, by a multitude of residents who remained motionless.
As we started to visit it more frequently, I noticed that these people would always stop and stare, no matter the time of day – though if it was daylight, everyone from every house would exit their homes and walk up to the end of their driveways to watch us drive down, then back up. One time when turning around, two men and a women were standing at the neck of the roundabout, staring at us before walking away back into the always-lit house. Spooky, but like I said, I found that kind of thing to be awesome.
The poster goes on to corroborate much of the aforementioned research, exclaiming public records that showed that there was a building permit for underground tunnels and claims that many of the forum users who claimed to know "the real story" were drastically different from one another and mostly, from users out-of-state. But the poster concludes with what may be the most unnerving of accounts attributed to the compound:
Mitch and I drove down there, just wanting to look at it like the statue-stakers we had become, only to find the place completely dark. The houses weren’t lit up, the garages that were often times open were closed, even the house at the bottom of the street that always had every room lit was pitch-black. Nothing. The only lights on the street came from the under-lit Anubis statue. It was strange. Even our radio worked. When we turned around we noticed that every single white van was missing from it’s usual place. Confused, we drove home.
Everyday since then we’ve been seeing this strange looking man. He’s tall, well-dressed, wears a black fedora (or something similar to it) that covers up curly black hair. He’s fairly tan with what appears to be dark-colored eyes. Honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed him appearing everywhere we went if I hadn’t spotted him outside my bedroom window on multiple occasions (note: I live in a one-story house, so he’s very easy to see right outside my window). Every time he’s come around my home he has one of these nondescript white vans (I should have mentioned, but these white vans are the sorts with no side windows – only blacked-out windows on the front doors, wind-shield and back two doors), though I haven’t noticed it around my school or work place.
I know that I was doing the same thing by driving by their place to gawk, but it wasn’t like I followed themeverywhere they went. Nor do I have a really awesome statue in my lawn that begs people to come see it. Or attached to me, considering this guy is everywhere I am. He started with my bedroom window then moved to my school, my work, and occasionally, if I stay up later, he moves and stares in through my living room window. It’s creepy.
I’ve called the police but he’s never around when they arrive.
The thing that spurred me to even make this post was that last night, just a few minutes before midnight, I heard a knock on the door. I saw him stand there for a second, looking in through my door’s window, before walking off. I waited around thirty minutes before actually opening the door to find an envelope on my home’s welcome mat. I picked it up and brought it inside. Within was a note, with only the words:
“Here we are.” On it.
Now its important to note that much of our research into the place has found a large number of posters/commenters on other websites claiming to be neighbors to the family who resides in the compound, and one consistent claim is that the family is of Egyptian heritage (thus the statues and the description of the man from the Reddit User) and are profoundly private. Now, we here at Esotericana realize that the SUBREDDIT /NOSLEEP is continually overwrought with what could be considered "CREEPY PASTA" or internet scary stories, so embellishments would have been warranted. That being said, if the family of Egyptian Optometrists were exceedingly private, we don't find anything odd about the residents wanting people to vacate their premises. That said, this whole take is life-giving to the mythos at large.
THE LEY LINE THEORY:
Damascus, Oregon is thought to be built on top of a "Ley Line:"
From Wikipedia:
1. Ley lines /leɪ laɪnz/ are supposed alignments of numerous places of geographical and historical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths, natural ridge-tops and water-fords.