Tag Archives: mystery

Now You Can Own A Sasha Ivanic Jacket

The origin story of the quintessential “Slav” outfit…

A True Story Goes to Hollywood

Here is another fine article via friends at kommandostore.com- you can find your size and place your order here. In 1995, pilot Scott O’Grady was flying his F-16 on a mission during the Bosnian war, when his aircraft was destroyed by an SA-6 Missile.

SA-6/ 2K12 SAM surface to air missile launcher.

He survived by successfully ejecting from the aircraft, but was forced to spend nearly a week evading local military forces before he could be rescued by US Marines.

He wasn’t approached to consult on the making of Behind Enemy Lines, nor was he paid for the rights to his story. As one could imagine, lawsuits ensued and “Behind Enemy Lines” would later be presented as the story of a different person in a very similar set of circumstances…

Behind Enemy Lines, 2001

This action flick featured Owen Wilson playing Chris Burnett, a pilot who gets shot down over Bosnia on a reconnaissance mission. He ejects, but that’s only where his problems begin.

The lieutenant spends the rest of the film evading an extremely dangerous lone-wolf sharpshooter and the rest of the Bosnian-Serb military.

Almost immediately upon release, the movie was a cult-hit among firearms & military enthusiasts in the US. The main antagonist, Sasha Ivanic was in many ways the focal point of this obsession.

Sasha’s iconic track jacket became an “it item” among collectors, but it was nowhere to be found…

Stealing The Show

Ultimately the film’s legacy hasn’t been kind to its hero. Sasha Ivanic is such cool villain that despite having almost no lines, he completely steals the show.

Vladmir Mashkov, the actor playing Sasha, left such a lasting impression on audiences that he shaped Eastern European villains and anti-heros for years to come.

The protagonist of Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko Bellic, was based almost entirely on Sasha — Rockstar Games even intended to cast him for the role. GTA IV would go on to be one of the most celebrated video games in history, firmly cementing post-USSR “Slav” culture in the minds of millions.

Finding The Fit

Like many white whales we’ve chased, it all started with blurry photos circulating on obscure forums and social media pages. But try as we might, the search for the Sasha jacket always came up dry.

So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We went frame by frame through the original movie, painstakingly made our own artwork and mockups, and designed our track jacket from the ground up.

Why Sarajevo?

The 1984 Olympics in context

The Boycott Games

The Olympic games during the Cold War were notorious for boycotts organized by dozens of countries up through the 1980s.

Melbourne ’56, Tokyo ’64, Canada ’76, and particularly the Moscow Olympics in 1980 were all mired in international politics.

But in 1984, for the winter Olympics in Yugoslavia, there was a distinct (and welcome) lack of boycotts.

As a result the Sarajevo games had highest rate of participation of any Olympics during the Cold War. Unfortunately this moment of hope and unity was short-lived.

Civil war would divide Yugoslavia less than a decade later.

The Siege of Sarajevo

The siege of Sarajevo featured prominently in the opening chapters of the Bosnian war, and the brand-new Olympic facilities were caught in the crossfire.

As the battle intensified, Bosnian-Serbs famously dug in on the Bobsled/Luge track and used it as an artillery stronghold. To this day, you can still see firing ports drilled into the concrete.

The former olympic village was never redeveloped, and remains in ruins to this day…

…Just A Theory?

By late 2001, the Former-Soviet-Bloc countries were still in disarray, and ‘War On Terror’ was in full-swing.

In this post 9/11 world, films about the horrors of the Vietnam war, or the spy games of the Cold War just didn’t resonate. So, the way action movie antagonists were written had to evolve…

Real-world unknowns and fears drive how we write stories; whether it’s a humanitarian crisis inspiring movies about invading aliens from outer space, or zombies representing our fears around epidemics & disease.

Villains like Sasha Ivanic embodied this new era of guerilla tactics and hazy or mysterious motivations. Much like the terrorist groups feared by the public, there was no telling what they’d do next, or why.

Sasha’s Jacket begged some unknowns: Could Sasha have been an Olympian at Sarajevo? What was he really fighting for, or for whom? We never found out, but it’s part of what makes him so frightening and believable.

Sasha’s Legacy

Going on to inspire Anti Heros like Nico Bellic in GTA would be one thing, but he was certainly part of a larger trend of iconic Eastern European villains.

The Ivan Dragos of cinema were slowly replaced with the Vladimir Makarovs of video games, and with the re-opening of closed wounds constantly in Eastern Europe, Sasha’s morally grey character archetype continues to have a lasting relevance.

Sure, the boys in the Adidas track jackets were always there, but it was Sasha who made it the standard issue uniform.

True Cases Of Phantom Transmissions And Hijacked Television Signals

The call letters KLEE-TV had not been broadcast since July 1950, more than 3 years before a viewer in London, England picked up their transmission on his television set.

Adding to the mystery was the fact that while in operation KLEE-TV was based out of Houston, Texas- an entire continent and ocean away. Since this was an era before satellite t.v. transmission how could the images be picked up? Was it simply a hoax?

klee tv signal cardThough debunkers have stated that this story first appeared in Readers Digest, it actually was first reported in 1953 by TV Guide: a viewer based magazine that organized and listed television programming and reviewed highlighted television shows. Hugely successful and widely distributed- it seems counter-intuitive to consider how this might affect an already paranoid and anxious viewer body. After all, the Cold War and the Space Race were underway. Many Americans were building nuclear bomb shelters and keeping their eyes to the skies.

Television was still a new form of media and to many it transcended the boundaries of space of time.

It seemed possible that ghostly transmissions from another time and another place could occur. TV Guide pointed out in its story that at the time of the phantom KLEE-TV transmission, no other t.v. station in the world used those call letters.

For the next 12 year this enigma was forgotten but then in February 1962 Mrs. Rosella Rose of Milwaukee, Wisconsin witnessed the following. The KLEE-TV letters were flashed onto her screen as well as the images of an unknown man and woman arguing on a balcony, followed by the flashing of the word “HELP!” Then suddenly, her screen went blank. It seemed as though Mrs. Rose had witnessed an electronic netherworld. Could an alternate universe be superimposing its reality onto hers? The simplest answer is that Mrs. Rose was a victim of her time.

Phantom signal transmission in Stranger Things.
Phantom signal transmission in Stranger Things.

Perhaps as mentioned in Haunted Media Static and Stasis, “….The fleeting and inexplicable transmissions of KLEE are eerie in that they are symptomatic of a general loss of self presence felt socially in electronic communications as a whole.” I think it’s safe to say that Canadian Film Director David Cronenberg felt this way and successfully incorporated these themes into Videodrome. I think it’s also safe to say that the success of the recent Netflix series Stranger Things is due in some part to this notion of a technologically created netherworld. And what about the Australian reports of a Coke bottle and drinking flask being transmitted during the Moon Landing?

Today there are reports of phantom webcam transmissions, of strange beings quickly seen on a monitor or a tablet. If we are able to view images on our devices then is it so far fetched to imagine that we ourselves can be seen by others through our devices? And if that’s possible to what end are we being surveilled? For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.

The Max Headroom Signal Intrusion Incident of 1987

Captain Midnight HBO Transmission Hijacking

Recommended Reading- Haunted Media Electronic Presence From Telegraphy to Television by Jeffrey Sconce

Spooky Missing Persons Stories

David Paulides is an ex-cop on a mission. After years of investigating missing persons and studying thousands of missing persons reports he has discovered strange coincidences and similarities that he has documented clearly and factually in several of his books including Missing 411 which was the focus of lecture at the University of Toronto a few years ago.

When pushed for a theory on what is causing these events David is reluctant to offer one and instead maintains that his role is to continue to collect and organize the vast numbers of cases and wait for an answer to come from an external source.

Perhaps even from someone like you or me…..

Missing Persons Cluster Map North American Distribution Pattern Historical records reveal that missing persons have occurred in North America for hundreds of years and what connects these cases is both frightening and confusing. David has discovered geographical connections that include- national park locations, urban locations near bodies of water, boulder fields, mountain elevations and other seemingly ‘safe’ locations.

He has found that there are vast differences in distance between reported disappearance and body discovery (or in rare cases when the missing person is found alive). Often mysterious events occur prior to the disappearance such as indications of strange behaviors or distress. In one case a man had reported repeatedly via cell phone that “people were outside” and in another case a man had fired a weapon as if in self defense.

Many times personal items such as clothing are found but not bodies or not complete bodies. In some cases clothes are found in organized piles- as if they have been left behind carefully folded. Even more confusing is that this may occur during the Winter or at an elevated location where the idea of removing clothing simply does not make sense.

David Paulides Lecturing University Of TorontoDavid’s research has shown that oddly, many missing persons in these cases are highly intelligent and healthy individuals that include doctors, scientists and marathon runners. In other cases the victims are hunters or seasoned hikers- people who would actually be most likely to prevent outdoor mishaps.

During the question and answer period, David was quick to rebuff any suggestion of paranormal causes such as ‘alien abductions’ or ‘bigfoot’.

He works hard to ensure that his research is taken very seriously and shows absolute respect for surviving family members and that’s when the eerie reality set in: there does not seem to be any explanation as to what is happening and families are being torn apart with no hope of closure.

Check out David on YouTube or pick up one of his books from Toronto Book Shop conspiracyculture.com to learn much more. For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.