Archive for March, 2009

Unexplained Boom and Flash of Light Over Virginia

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Calls poured in to 911 dispatchers in Virginia on Sunday describing an unexplained loud boom and a streak of light across the sky. A space.com article published Monday called a Russian rocket falling back to earth the culprit:

The mysterious boom and flash of light seen over parts of Virginia Sunday night was not a meteor, but actually exploding space junk from the second stage of a Russian Soyuz rocket falling back to Earth, according to an official with the U.S. Naval Observatory.

But according to a livescience.com article published today, the Virginia boom couldn’t have been the Russian Rocket:

U.S. Strategic Command has since reported that the rocket re-entered Earth’s atmosphere near Taiwan, on the other side of the world, several hours after the reports of the fireball. So both its timing and entry location rule out the rocket as the explanation for the fireball.

Astronomers now believe that it was a meteor, but with only eye-witness testimony to go on, who knows what it was?

Chicago’s Mysterious Bubbling Creek

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Bubbly Creek looks placid enough in the photo above, but its shallow depths hold a gruesome secret. This small section of the Chicago River was named Bubbly Creek because of the bubbling gas coming off the riverbed below that has been present for the last hundred years.

So what makes the creek bubble? Rotting blood.

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A Medley of Bizarre Deap Sea Creatures

Monday, March 30th, 2009


Strangest Sea CreaturesFor more amazing video clips, click here

For those of you who enjoy gawking at some of the more bizarre denizens of the deep. Is that a lobster or an alien?

Iceballs From Outer Space!

Monday, March 30th, 2009
by Herbert Zodet, © ESO

Astronomers have identified two massive balls of ice, orbiting a dwarf planet on the fringe of our solar system. According to sciencenews.org:

You’d need a mighty tall glass to hold two space objects that researchers have now identified as ice cubes at the fringes of the solar system. The larger of the icy bodies is about the width of Ohio, the smaller about twice the length of Rhode Island. Both bodies are moons of the dwarf planet Haumea.

Now that’s a lot of ice. It’s nice to know that when we finally get around to colonizing the solar system that there will be no shortage of fresh water to be harvested from these two ice spheres and space objects like them.

More Loch Ness Strangeness

Monday, March 30th, 2009

ness2

For years enthusiasts of the weird have dredged and searched Loch Ness for a monster and come up empty handed. Little did they know that a real ancient oddity was standing right behind them. Archaeologists in Scotland believe that a boulder on a hill overlooking Loch Ness was carved and used as a marker by ancient farmers to track the spring and autumn equinoxes and thus know when to plant their crops. This civilization has long since vanished, apparently their knowledge of astronomy did little to save them from being devoured by Nessy.

Ghost Hunters Wheel Out The Tanks

Sunday, March 29th, 2009
The remote control tank, designed by Paul Bradford, the co-founder of Sonoran Paranormal Investigations (SPI)

The remote control tank, designed by Paul Bradford, the co-founder of Sonoran Paranormal Investigations (SPI)

When the ghost hunting going gets tough, it’s time to bring in the big guns. The big guns being the multi-terrain camera or MTC, designed specifically for paranormal investigation. We found an article about it over at paranormalnews.com. Though our mortal movements are limited by pesky obstacles, like walls and floors, ghosts have no such limitations and are able to move freely unhampered by solid objects. Until now, ghost hunters had to give up on their investigations when entities they claimed to be chasing went under houses or in to crawlspaces or attics. Now when a ghost you’re hunting goes where a human can’t follow, you can wheel out this baby and continue the chase.

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Traditional Prayer Outmoded by the Internet

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Do you feel you should pray more, but don’t have enough time to devote to traditional prayer? Some innovative entrepreneurs at informationageprayer.com may be able to help you out. They have created a web service that will pray for you for a nominal fee:

Information Age Prayer is a subscription service utilizing a computer with text-to-speech capability to incant your prayers each day. It gives you the satisfaction of knowing that your prayers will always be said even if you wake up late, or forget.

We use state of the art text to speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying. Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen.

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Bobcat Bar Brawl

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Cottonwood, Arizona locals hanging out at Chaparral Bar had their evening rudely interrupted by an unwelcome whisker clad intruder. As you can see from the bizarre security camera footage above, the cat attacked and injured two patrons. We bet the guys hanging out at the bar have never been so freaked out by a cat fight before. Some fled, some jumped up on stools and tables and some grabbed pool sticks to defend themselves in what must have been quite a scene.

The cat knows how to make an entrance, we’ll give it that. This wasn’t the bobcat’s first stop on its night out on the town. A woman phoned police from a Pizza Hut after she was scratched by the animal and when police got a second call around 11 pm informing them that an underage felid was wreaking havoc down at The Chaparral, they caught up with the beast in the parking lot, where they shot and killed it. Let this be a warning to all Bobcats who want to go out for dinner and drinks: steer clear of Cottonwood, Arizona.

The Loch Ness Monster is turning Japanese

Sunday, March 29th, 2009
An artists model of Kusshi, the Japanese version of the Loch Ness Monster.

An artist's model of 'Kusshi', the Japanese version of the Loch Ness Monster.

The Loch Ness monster’s lesser known Japanese counterpart, called ‘Kusshi’ by locals, has been enticing Hokkaido Cryptozoologists for decades. cryptomundo.com has a full report documenting the history of ‘Kusshi’ sightings.

When Vultures Collide

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Imagine this: You’re in the car, sipping on your morning coffee, jamming along to the radio…then whack…vulture to the face!

Disney’s Junglebook has lead us all to believe that vultures are the inane hippies of the bird family. Vanessa Hurtado knows better. Her pleasant morning was ruined abruptly when a turkey vulture crashed through her windshield. Thankfully she lived to tell the tale. The vulture was not so fortunate. An NBC New York article about the incident informed us that this isn’t the first time a Vulture/Motor Vehicle incident has occurred in New Jersey. In 2004 a motorcyclist took a vulture to the head and did not survive.

If you think those sound like bad days, a woman boating in Florida last year was killed when a 200 pound eagle ray soared out of the water and slammed into her body. Both the ray and the woman were killed on impact. So the next time you feel safe operating a motor vehicle or boat, just remember, you’re not safe on land or at sea.

Haunting – Based on truth or total fiction?

Friday, March 27th, 2009

horror

The new horror flick ‘The Haunting in Connecticut’ claims to be based on the true story of a family that rented a house in Connecticut in 1986, not knowing it was haunted, and became the unwitting victims of demons.
Benjamin Radford over at livescience.com has turned his skeptical eye on this claim. Take a look.

Buddha and Jesus: Both Ukrainian

Friday, March 27th, 2009

According to Dr. Valery Bebik, a professor and deputy principal at Ukraine University:

”It is quite possible that Buddha belonged to the Scythian nation of Budins that lived on the territory of Ancient Ukraine during the first or the second millennium BC. The name of the nation is still preserved in the names of Ukraine’s contemporary settlements-Seredina-Buda, Buda, and some others,”

This head turning statement is not the first Bedik has made in recent years. Bedik, who also heads up the All-Ukrainian Association of Political Sciences, claims Jesus for Ukraine as well. Are two of the most popular spiritual leaders of all time actually Ukrainian, or does Bedik have nationalism on the brain?

-An article on Dr. Bebik’s comments.

Housing Developers Find Megalithic Stones

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Sarsen Stones, like the ones pictured above in Avebury, have been found in an unlikely place. A housing development project in Swindon, UK, has unearthed what appear to be sarsen stones. If they do turn out to be the real deal then this is an important archeological find. Are they natural, or are they man made? Find out more at Archaeo News.

-An article about the Swindon Stones.

Druid: The Other White Meat

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

When you think stone henge cannibalism isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But according to a new National Geographic News article the Druids may have ritualistically and zealously practiced cannibalism. This shouldn't come as a major shock. After all, Historical Roman accounts didn't have much favorable to say about them:

Julius Caesar, who led the first Roman landing in 55 B.C., said the native Celts “believe that the gods delight in the slaughter of prisoners and criminals, and when the supply of captives runs short, they sacrifice even the innocent.”

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They sound like cheery London gents. Mmmmm….that's good Druid.

-Link to the article

Mystery Cat on the prowl in Poland

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Grainy camera footage of the beast.

A big cat, caught on tape, has been attacking livestock in Poland, freaking out local farmers and residents. Poland doesn't have much in the way of big cat populations, so a mystified group from the Krakau Zoo took hair samples from dead animals to determine the beast's origins.

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Believers In Life After Death Cling To Life

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Polls suggest that 95 percent of the population of the United States believe they will survive their own death. I can’t help wondering how many people who claim such belief really, in their heart of hearts, hold it. If they were truly sincere, shouldn’t they all behave like the Abbot of Ampleforth? When Cardinal Basil Hume told him that he was dying, the abbot was delighted for him: ‘Congratulations! That’s brilliant news. I wish I was coming with you.’ The abbot, it seems, really was a sincere believer. But it is precisely because it is so rare and unexpected that his story catches out attention….wouldn’t you expect that religious people would be the least likely to cling unbecomingly to earthly life?

-From “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins

A study published last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association might shed some light on Dawkins’ question. The Study is called ‘Religious Coping and Use of Intensive Life-Prolonging Care Near Death in Patients With Advanced Cancer’. Researchers interviewed hundreds of patients with advanced stages of cancer at Hospitals and Cancer Centers around the US. The results are quite interesting. According to a livescience article about the study:

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