I am beside myself.

I am of sound and able mind. That being said, I am convinced that the town of NOWHERE, Tennessee in MIDDLEOF County is wholly insane. It seems like the children of the corn have found a new residence, now calling NOWHERE ‘home.’

This is a story of deceit. This is a tale of mystery. I am so proud of the Sherlock Holmes tactics enacted throughout this saga to identify the girls for who they truly were. This is a true story, and has been recounted to the absolute best of my ability and memory. This is the story of two lonely girls who donned the personas of six imaginary friends. They created a Facebook account for each of these girls and then spent hours a week faking communication between themselves and adding new ‘friends’.

They continued to build relationships with these ‘friends’ but never anything inappropriate. They never tried to attain information. They didn’t attempt to elicit inappropriate photos, or even try to seduce them emotionally or physically.

They simply used a series of fake accounts to build fake relationships with a large amount of men, for seemingly no reason whatsoever. If we were the only ones affected by this ‘prank,’ we alone called for an investment of upwards of 12 hours a week to maintain the ruse.

I have met a large number of my real-life friends on the Internet. Some of them, I have never even met in real life! Most of these people I have at least been able to view via webcam. Others have sent me pictures of themselves holding signs that read, “Hi Mack!” As you would find in any demographic, there are good people out there. However, remember the adage, “If something seems too good to be true, it most likely is."

I write this story as a warning. In telling this story to my various classes, I have since found four other guys who have fallen victim to this same set of occurrences. Some of them have driven upwards of four hours to meet “Jenna” or one of her cohorts, only to find themselves stood up. I in no way discourage you from meeting people online. Please do! There is such an exciting world out there it would be a shame to miss out on every piece of it that you can taste. However, if you form any sort of bond or continued relationship with someone, do not hesitate to ensure that they are who they say they are, or you will wind up stalked by psychotic women.

Oftentimes as you indulge yourself in something, you begin to accept it as your only reality. I am no stranger to the online community. The further I have delved into the digital society that resides online, the more inclined I have become to abdicate any inhibitions I may have carried that would prevent me from considering the relationships I form online to be real. In my real life, I consider myself to be a quick and just judge of character. I can often foresee whether a newfound friendship will grow and become fruitful, or wither and die. Why, then, should my hastily developed friendships online be any less trusting?

I am not an idiot. In fact I am often guilty of over thinking situations to an extent much further than other people in related circumstances. I have done work for Myspace.com. I was one of the first people to join Friendster. I was one of the beta testers for both TheFacebook.com and Gmail. I am no stranger to online interrelations, and I am quite proficient in social networking. I operate most of my finances online, and operate small businesses that are almost entirely online based.

When I read accounts of similar occurrences, I always assume a superior intelligence to those affected. I sincerely hope that you believe me when I say that this is not the case, and I of all people am perfectly capable of sound and rational decisions.

This saga begins around a year and a half ago. Towards the beginning of the Summer of 2008, my good friend and confidant James received a Facebook Friend Request from a girl named Jenna Marie Clifton. Now, I am not a shallow person by any means, faithful readers. However, I am also not blind. This girl was a 10.

Jenna Marie introduced herself as a 2005 graduate from a school in Chattanooga. She had then gone on to attend the University of Tennessee Knoxville and was working on her Elementary Education degree. She was roommates with a girl named Roxanne James, who soon added James and joined the circle of friends. They seemed slightly inept in their Facebook usage; but had a string of wall-to-wall conversations amongst each other quite frequently. They each had a similar number of friends, in the hundreds, although most of their friends maintained distant contact with the girls themselves.

The back-story was weak, but it was legitimate enough to prove believable.

The girls began flirting innocently with James and Cory, inviting them up to 'party' in Knoxville and such. Their kinship grew over the course of the next few months as they talked fairly steadily. I was not introduced to the scenario, however, until Christmas break of that year. Cory, James, and myself were driving around in Rivergate exploring the night when Jenna Marie called James. I had only heard vague references to her, as she was not a major part of either of their lives, but she asked to speak with me anyway. I took James' phone and spoke with her for a brief matter of minutes.

She had a sweet, spirited voice; one that seemed to match the photos on her Facebook page that they showed me later that night. I immediately announced my doubt of her existence. "This girl cannot possibly exist!" I protested.

"I know," James agreed, "Girls like that don't use the Internet to meet guys. But she has to exist somewhere, whether it's the same girl that we're talking to or not is the only question."

"Agreed," Cory justified. "The chance of her being one and the same as the one on the phone is low, but just those odds is enough--look at her!"

Though we knew that his statement was intended as a joke, we all nodded in unison. We are not shallow people.

The girls soon began adding me on Facebook as well. There was Jenna Marie Clifton, the spunkiest of the set. She lived in a house in Knoxville with her roommate Roxanne James. They were all extraordinarily beautiful and seemingly intelligent—but everything exchanged was tinged with an aura of forgery. Others were briefly introduced but were never major players in this dramatization. There was Illiad Noel Lane. Some girls only contacted James, and the rest of us never heard about them. Such was the case with and Hilary DeVille.

James, myself, and Cory are all spectacular men. We have personalities and charm that exceed most others of our gender, and are not bad looking in any sense. Cory is 6'7" and is midway through attending medical school. Jet is James' roommate and was also subjected to these shenanigans. He has done modeling in the past! That being said, without being won over in person, it is not likely that some of the most beautiful women in the state would approach us online and begin swooning in such frenzy. That’s why we rely so heavily on our humor, wit, and charm. Girls of this caliber require auditory cues and social peacocking—not something we are capable of mastering through ‘about me’ sections.

We are not losers who are being taken advantage of. We have no problem meeting girls. There is no reason for her to feel superior to us in any way, even if she really was the pretty girl she was pretending to be. I hope from my writing you are able to infer that I am quite intelligent; and none of us are bad looking. To assure you of this, our photos are included below:

Despite the fact that James looks remarkably similar to Mitchel Musso, we are pretty unique, good looking young men.

Perhaps rather than feeling demeaned, I should feel honored. Clearly these girls viewed us as social obstacles; men superior to them in a way that they had to hide behind beautiful masks just to get us to talk to them. I want to be very clear to all of my readers: I am cool with whoever you happen to be. I am not shallow and if you can prove to me your self-worth, I will love you.

What is remarkable about these interactions is that she never made any direct attempts to attain anything embarrassing. If I were the one to be conducting such a hoodwink, I would eventually ask for naked pictures or try to engage the other person in some sort of embarrassing sexual escapade via text or record it over the phone. Jenna did not do this. She was never overly flirtatious, and she did not even hint at any motive other than friendship. She was just a passing, “hello,” when we were online at the same time. She would call me occasionally to see how my day/week was; but never even seemed interested beyond checking in. This lasted a month shy of a year.

Cory, James, and myself all agree that a substantial amount of time never passed without hearing from the girls at least once. Almost like clockwork, after roughly a month into a lapse of communication, Jenna sent me a Facebook Instant Message Friday night at about 2am.

“Mack?” she innocently quipped.

At this point I had long lost her phone number, and clearly she had done the same with mine. We began catching up and as I decided to go to bed she gave me her phone number and asked for me to call her later. I saved her number; but did not give her mine in return.

The next day she was on even later. I had gone downtown with my friends, and did not return until about 3. She sent me another late night IM, and we chatted until about 3. Facebook was operating at its full efficiency, dropping most of our exchanges and indicating quite regularly that the other had falsely signed off. I texted her.

Our exchange was innocent and brief; but it allowed her access to my mobile cellular device—a privilege she quickly abused. She called me at 4:30 am, and again at 5:15. No matter how hot you are, ladies, that is annoying.

Things were still progressing slowly; a trait that seldom occurs in pranks of this caliber. It was carefully, meticulously, and safely executed to cover these girls’ tracks. We searched through their friends on Facebook, very few of which seemed to actually know them in real life. There were enough who did that clouded our doubt; though it was still present. As it turned out, these two girls had created close to a dozen individual Facebook accounts and feigned interaction between each of them on a near-daily basis just to uphold this mirage. That’s determination. I started getting suspicious on Sunday after Jenna called me. We talked for close to an hour, and she even handed the phone over to Roxanne—who I was familiar enough at this point to call Roxy—so that we too could ‘catch up.’ There were absolutely two distinct voices, but there were so many distractions. I distinctly heard a train in the background. She also claimed that there was a gaggle of boys trying to get in from the back deck after they had locked them out; though neither myself, James, or Cory has ever spoken to a gentleman while on the phone with them.

My suspicion grew until curiosity took over and I began doing some detective work. She told me that her roommate and she were majors in Elementary Education at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. My best female cohort, Brianna, attends UTK and is very socially adept. I began by asking her if her, or any of the other girls in her photographs looked familiar. An expected, “no” was all I needed. Brianna hooked me up with a link to their student directory. Neither Roxanne James, Jenna Marie Clifton, nor any of their other aliases appeared in the directory. Strike two.

I even went so far to call Mellow Mushroom, her claimed place of work. They had never heard of her either. As if this wasn’t evidence enough of a charade that had lasted well over a year, I checked her alumnus status at the High School in Memphis that she claimed to have attended. Oh, the glorious capabilities of the Internet.

With this significant amount of proof, you would think that I would resound myself victorious. Perhaps I should have. Instead, I contacted James and Cory and they assisted me in the investigation. We decided it would be best to pay for an online background check. Skeptical of its affluence, we hesitated for a few hours. Finally we made the purchase and discovered that the phone number that had been contacting us all these months belonged to an Emily Ursula of NOWHERE, TN. At this point I think it’s premature to release her full address.

I went to Google Maps and looked at the StreetView of her house, and after driving around a very short distance, found a train track. It was certainly within distance to be responsible for the train noises we heard on the phone in previous conversations. This was her. It was solved.

This was a remarkable discovery. Emily Ursula. A friend of one of James’ actual friends. She was tangible. She existed. He had spoken to her. She claimed that the girls were friends of hers and that they actually existed. She spoke with James once, as a fluke, and then disappeared from communication altogether.

Bearing this new information in mind, I used Facebook to view all of her friends. It took me over an hour to peruse each of her friends, as well as their extended arrays of friends, searching for a familiar face. Victory presented itself as I recognized the face of the girl who had been talking to us for so many months, though she bore a name I had never heard: Angelica Pickles. (Clearly, this is not her real name--but as she never did anything wrong to me, I feel releasing her real name would be more of a burden than she deserves.) My research had paid off—I had found the girl whose photos were being stolen, recycled, and masqueraded under.

I immediately sent Angelica a message alerting her to what was going on, hastily informing her that her that her image was being used to seduce a slue of men into friendship with whom they believed to be her. Should you read this, Angelica, I apologize if I creeped you out—but I assure you I had nothing to do with this charade.

After speaking with Angelica long enough to confirm that she was absolutely the true personality behind the face which I had grown so accustomed to, I called “Jenna Marie Clifton.”

No answer.

She texted me back that she was at work, and I told her that I wanted to know who she really was. That I know she wasn’t the girl in her pictures, and that she was busted.

She still denied my accusations!

I asked, “Who is Angelica Pickles?”

“I have no idea??” was her response.

“Well I am talking to her right now and she is very alarmed to hear what you have been doing.”

“Well why don’t you go f**k her then dude! Peace out!”

The gig was up. Immediately, Jenna Marie Clifton’s Facebook profile disappeared. Roxanne James vanished instantly as well. No more Illiad Noel Lane. All of her imaginary friends began to dissipate.

Emily Ursula blocked me, but did not delete her profile. This had to be her.

Hilary DeVille, another link in this chain, also kept her profile up. Hers was particularly interesting because she had over 1,600 friends on Facebook. There were pictures of Hilary and Emily together, as well. They were friends, and this was proof. Bingo.

Remembering that we heard multiple female voices, we now had their identities with near absolute certainty.

Stephen introduced the next section of this story as an overzealous bombastic explosion of Mack Lunn fury when he told it at lunch today. I think that’s an adequate description.

He went on to say that most people would have taken matters to the police, and reported the girls for whatever charges we could scrounge up. Identity theft, fraud, whatever we could twist the law into accommodating.

Unfortunately, I do not seem to have the better judgment instilled in most people, and have no ability to realize where or when to draw lines. I push the limits in everything I do; and exceedingly so when I am angry.

I was furious.

I am going to be very careful in the next section to assure no admittance of guilt. I have a fairly secure idea as to what happened, though I cannot be quite sure who was responsible. I suppose for storytelling purposes, Xavier and Reptar would be sufficient code names.

Reptar found their Gmail addresses and they got to work immediately. Xavier started with Hilary’s, and guessed the answer to her “lost password” question on his first attempt. He changed the password, and the security question, and then had her Facebook passwords sent to this address. He was in not only the E-Mail that she uses to handle her photography business, but also to her personal Facebook account.

Despite this so-called professional business, her photography seems mediocre at best. It is understood that although she receives payment for her work, she most likely does not run a licensed business of any kind, and is in fact just a girl with a camera in a town where real photography is unreachable.

Reptar and Xavier squirreled their way around as quickly as possible to gain as much information about both of them as possible.

One of her clients was online through Gmail, so that Xavier could send her instant messages. It was a woman who had discussed hiring Hilary to take pictures at her wedding. He sent her a message that said, “Hello, how are you?”

“Good.” She responded, “What are you doing?”

Xavier quickly answered,“Pooping.”

“Thanks for sharing. Ew,” she contested.

Reptar logged on at this point and took over the conversation, asking advice on what to do should there be blood present in your stool.

They are very mature young gentlemen.

Xavier realized that Hilary was probably going to contact Facebook and at the very least have her account deactivated, so he changed her status as indicated in the following picture:

(Click to Enlarge)

Fifteen minutes later, ‘Jenna’ called James in a panic asking how he was doing this. We now had the upper hand. She began screaming and cussing that what we were doing was illegal and she was outside the police station about to report us. He said he had no idea what she was talking about, but if she went in there talking about a hacked Facebook profile, she was likely to get laughed back out onto the street. I quickly received the same phone call and answered appropriately in the same manner. They screamed that they were going to the police and hung up.

Almost immediately, Xavier and Reptar lost access to both her Gmail and Facebook accounts. As they realized this, my phone rang from yet another strange number.

[Let me preface this next section by assuring you that I have the utmost respect for those who uphold our justice. Had I believed that I was actually talking to an officer of the law, I would undoubtedly have cooperated with them politely and with a high level of respect. Please understand, though, that I had been dealing with people who lied about their identity for over a year, and the last thing I expected was for this number to actually come from the Sheriff's department.]

Mack: Hello?

Caller: Who is this?

Mack: Who the f**k is this? You don’t call someone and ask who answers, are you rude?

Caller: Who is this?

Mack: YOU ARE D**N RETARDED. Why don’t you tell me who the f**k this is before you start asking me any questions, mother f**ker.

Andy Griffith: What if I told you this was Officer Griffith (I will be using the name Andy Griffith from here on out because the man on the phone whom I spoke to ended up being a gentleman and I will preserve his identity for the time being.) with the NOWHERE County Sherriff’s department in NOWHERE, Tennessee and I have a squad car coming to your house right now with a warrant for your arrest?

Mack: I’d tell you to s**k a d**k and come the f**k on. You show up at my house and we’ll just see who gets f**king pistol whipped.

Andy Griffith: Sir might I inform you that I am an officer of the law, and if you don’t take this seriously you WILL go to jail.

Mack: What’s your badge number, mother f**ker?

Andy Griffith: 207.

Mack: That’s awfully short for a badge number.

Caller: Is it?

Mack: Yeah it is. Why don’t you call me back from a number where this can be recorded?

Caller: I don’t really have the technology for that…but I will try to call you back through our dispatch line. Let me try that. It will take about fifteen minutes.

Mack: Seeya, p***y.

I have a strong feeling that these girls are doing this to many more guys than just myself. Emily Ursula, once her identity had been established, stated that there were over 30 people involved with this experiment. Whether she was lying or not is up to your own determination, but it is creepy nonetheless.

I have already found several guys at my school alone with very similar circumstances, as stated before. I cannot stress how eerie this is.<

A friend of mine from California read the story and is afraid that they've even attempted this scheme on him!

These girls have devoted countless hours to upkeep of these profiles so that they will look real. They download each of Angelica Pickles’ newest Facebook photos to their computer and then upload them so that they retain credibility. This process is tedious, and they have done it for hundreds of pictures! Who of sound mind has time to waste doing this?

Although I am unaware of their intentions, I now have their home addresses, phone numbers, and most importantly identities. Whatever it is that they are trying to do—a social experiment, kidnapping, who knows?—I urge you not to fall for it or feed their flames.

It isn't likely that the same girls are doing this to everyone who has similar stories; but it is a bit concerning. Is there a social network out there where girls compare tactics to confuse men, for no reason whatsoever? It seems to be an epidemic.

If you deal with people on the Internet, be sure you know who you are talking to. Everyone has a camera phone these days. Everyone has access to a webcam. If they won't identify themselves in a way that eclipses doubt... they are probably not real. I am sorry.

Take whatever steps necessary to affirm anyone’s identity that you have not met—I’m sure if they are real they would appreciate it if you would do the same.

Emily, Hilary--

Although I am not doing this to be malicious, I would like you to know that you are responsible for your actions. This is the website that will show up first when you google either of your names.

I realize that you go to small religious schools and this would undoubtedly be an embarrassing cross to bear, considering that the few people who aren't related in NOWHERE county undoubtedly know one another.

I would like an apology.

I would like an explanation.

I cannot fathom what posessed you to waste so much of your time with a prank that had no ambition!

I am even more confused why you wasted my time, James' time, Cory's time, or Jet's time?

I have opened up comments to this story, so if you have a similar story please share it. I'd be glad to publish it and link it, even anonymously if you would prefer.

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