PHILIP STONE

GAYLORD, Mich. – A man threatened to blow up the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office unless someone was sent to arrest him, police said. Deputies with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office learned Saturday about a social media post in which Philip H. Stone, 37, of Gaylor, threatened to blow up their building if the department didn’t send someone to arrest him by Jan. 13, according to authorities. Stone also threatened to kill anyone who tried to arrest him for any reason and that his statement should be taken as a terrorist threat, officials said. He has ties to the Monroe County area and was upset about a pending Friend of the Court hearing, authorities said. Stone was formally arraigned Monday (Jan. 4) in Otsego County on one charge of making terrorist threats.

But the morals and pitfalls of dark tourism, and what constitutes acceptable behavior in such places, are becoming murkier in the social media age. As international tourism skyrockets -- in 2018, there were 1.4 billion international tourist arrivals -- interest in dark tourism is also escalating. "It's not as new as it may seem," says Peter Hohenhaus, who chronicles his experiences visiting dark tourism sites on his website, Dark-Tourism.com. Stone, of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research, goes as far as to say there's "no such thing as dark tourists." Pompeii, for example, may feel like a more "acceptable" dark tourism site, because the disaster occurred so long ago.