Archive for 2011

Swamp Monster Threatens New Zealand Railway Project

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

An Auckland, New Zealand railway tunnel project is on hold pending discussions that it will anger and destroy the home of Horotiu. When angered, these mythical creatures will attack humans, and in fact they are believed by some to be responsible for many road deaths.

But Horotiu, a mythical monster, put the NZ$2.6bn ($2.1bn) project in doubt after an indigenous Maori board protested that it will destroy grounds once patrolled by the taniwha (pronounced “tani-fa”).

Glenn Wilcox, a member of the Maori Statutory Board, which protects Maori interests, complained that the plan did not take into account the monster, which “was here first”.

Ranginui Walker, a respected Maori elder, said at the time: “You have to placate local demons, deities, taniwha.

Of course, the creature has now opened a Twitter account to make it easier to follow what is going on in his life.

[Center For Fortean Zoology Australia]

Heavy Winds Causing Waterfalls To Flow Upwards

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Heavy winds near Sydney are pushing these waterfalls right back up the cliff.

[Gizmodo]

Podcast: Sweaty Asteroid Of Revenge

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Skitched 20110225 175343

The boys are joined by old friend Brett “The Amtrekker” Rounsaville as Justin schemes up the perfect murder plot which comes dangerously close to his interaction with one of his fellow panelists. Andrew dreams of a beautiful future where we all live on hollowed out space rocks and are delighted by it. Brian wields a razor with deadly accuracy, but will it put him on the wrong side of our new robot overlords?

Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s new book The Chronological Man: The Monster In The Mist for only 99¢ at Amazon.com by clicking the image below!

Skitched 20110621 210403

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Guatemalan Sinkhole Opens Under Bed

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Another sinkhole has opened in Guatemala, right under a woman’s bed. While she was sleeping. The sound of a gateway to hell being opened under her bed is what woke her up.

About a million things are terrifying about this. A few feet to the side and poor Inocenta might have plunged into the sinkhole as she stepped out of bed. A few feet wider and it could have swallowed her whole bed. Or just the fact that in Guatemala, you could be walking down the street or eating at a nice restaurant one moment and find yourself devoured by the earth the next.

[Gizmodo]

The Worst Diseases You Can Get From Caving

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Wired has catalogued the worst diseases you can catch underground. They are, in no particular order:
  1. Histoplasmosis – also known as Cave Disease or Spelunker’s Lung, is caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum and primarily affects the lungs. It is fatal if untreated, and hey, it grows in soil contaminated with bat droppings.
  2. Rabies – Bats make up a quarter of the rabid animals reported to the CDC. Enough said.
  3. Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever – Found in equatorial African caves, this cousin of Ebola incubates in fruit bats that live in caves and mines.
  4. Leptospirosis – Also known as Rat Catcher’s Yellow, this is caused by infection with bacteria of the genus Leptospira which grows in water contaminated with the urine of bats and rats. Do not drink cave water.
  5. Cave Fever – Also known as relapsing fever, this disease comes from getting bitten by infected ticks.

I think the real lesson here is that bats are filled with disease.

For a casual tourist, like the 500,000 annual visitors to Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, walking through a cave is essentially as safe as walking down the street. It is the sport cavers, those who crawl through muck and mud into little-explored crevices, that must protect themselves from things living on bats, rodents, ticks and other bugs, Igreja said.

Igreja surveys the classic and emerging cave-borne diseases in the June 10 Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. We’ve collected a gallery of the offending cave fauna, along with tips about how to keep sickness away next time you’re slithering among the stalagmites. Note: None of these diseases are exclusive to caves. Strange bugs can strike almost anywhere.

[Wired]

“Sea Monster” Carcass Washes Ashore in Britain

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

And by sea monster – I mean most likely a whale.

‘It’s like nothing we have ever seen, it almost looks pre-historic,’ he told the Sun.

Curled up by the foot of sand dunes was the 30ft-long body of the unidentified animal with head, tail and teeth all discernible.

Experts are now examining the pictures with one suggesting it could be the body of a whale.

A spokesman for the Natural History Museum said: ‘We have spoken to one of our mammals curators, and they have confirmed the animal is probably a long-finned pilot whale – Globicephala melas.

[Cryptomundo]

 

New Order Of Insects Discovered

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Scientists have announced the discovery of an entire new order of insects that has recently been excavated in South America dating from the Lower Cretaceous period, between 146 and 100 million years ago.  Both adults and larval stages of the fossilized insects were found and they have been named Coxoplectoptera.

“They are believed to be a type of mayfly that is now extinct, but their appearance is perplexing as the adult wing shape is more like that of a dragonfly while the legs resemble those of a praying mantis.

Meanwhile, the larva looks like a freshwater shrimp with large antennae and multiple legs, and probably lived as ambush predators in river beds, partly buried in the mud.”

[The Epoch Times]

 

Chinese Man Drinks Gasoline Regularly

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

71-year-old stonecutter / bamboo weaver Chen Dejun drinks gasoline. And he isn’t dead. Apparently, he drinks it because it helps his chest pains from emphysema. Doctors theorize that he must have developed an immunity to gasoline.

71-year-old stonecutter and bamboo weaver Chen Dejun has been guzzling the stuff for half his life to quell his chest pains. But he hasn’t died.

Can we just break that down for a second? Dejun says he drinks about 3 to 3.5 liters of kerosene and/or gasoline a month. Over 42 years, that means he’s sucked down around 1.5 tons of fuel in his lifetime. That’s about 535.5 gallons, enough to fill up a Corvette almost 30 times, according to calculations by Jalopnik’s editor Ray Wert.

[Gizmodo]

 

Owl Leaves Body Print On Window

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

That is not a ghost owl. Apparently an owl hit a window so hard that it left a perfect owl print behind. Authorities state the owl survived but that the experience was “uncomfortable”.

“This would have been very uncomfortable for the bird but thankfully it looks like it survived as Mr and Mrs Arnold couldn’t find it anywhere close by. Sadly, many birds aren’t so lucky.”

[BBC]

Loud Boom Rattles North Georgia

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Residents near Gainesville, GA have reported loud booms and streaks across the sky. Dobbins Air Force Base said they do not know anything about it, but they are looking into the issue.

AccessNorthGa.com received calls between 10:00 and 11:00, the first about 10:40 from the McEver Road/Browns Bridge Road area. The caller said it shook her house and wondered if it might have been a sonic boom, caused by a jet breaking the sound barrier.

A second caller, a few minutes later, said he was sitting by his pool on Mountain View Road, which is off McEver, and saw a “streak across the sky,” followed by the loud noise, leading to some speculation that it was a sonic boom caused by a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere.

Lt. Col. James Wilson, a spokesman for Dobbins Air Reserve Base, said the noise was probably not caused by a plane approaching or leaving the base, which is in Marietta. He said the Dobbins flight schedule does not indicate any aircraft would have been passing through the area at that time.

[AccessNorthGA]

Referee Materializes Out Of Nowhere

Thursday, July 7th, 2011
This video from the 2009 NHL Western Conference finals was just recently posted and even though there must be some explanation for what is going on here, I have yet to figure out how he did it. I am pretty sure this is why Chicago lost.

[Deadspin]

Tomb Of Stone Age Humans, Otters Found After Freak Accident

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

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A tomb containing several Stone Age generations of human remains dating back up to 5,000 years, along with a few otter skeletons of the same era, have been located on an island in Northern Scotland. The Tomb of the Otters, signifies the most important neolithic find this region has seen in over 30 years.

So, why are there otter bones amongst the final resting place of so many humans? Apparently the tomb wasn’t used very often and someone forgot to close the door when they left.

“It suggests the tomb was not entirely sealed and that otters were trampling in and out a lot” throughout the tomb’s use, (county archaeologist for Orkney, Julie) Gibson said.

“For that to occur, you must think there was a gap of a year or two” between grave visits or burials.

The site was discovered when a resident attempted to level an area of his property to give himself a better ocean view. You know, to see the otters.

[Nat Geo]

Icelandic Town Under Siege By Rock-Throwing Elves And Hidden Folk

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Bolungarvik, Iceland is under attack by unexplained dirt and rocks that is raining from the sky. While government officials are looking for a rational explanation, the locals are convinced that a recent project that used dynamite on the land has thrown nature, and the elves out of balance. The townspeople are trying to appease the elves with songs and prayers.

The town of Bolungarvik has been experiencing a rash of unexplained rocks and dirt that rain from the sky, bombarding the town and scaring its residents. Although the local government believes a rational explanation can be attributed to the falling debris, locals believe that supernatural forces are behind the attacks. Elves and “hidden folks” are to blame.

Recent construction of a new avalanche defence barrier required the dynamiting of local land, something said to be a big no-no in the land of elves. In the folklore, any disruption to the harmony of nature must be balanced out and carried out respectfully. I know that in Iceland, some people believe in the powers of ley lines and they are said to be used by elves, gnomes and fairies. Obstruction to these lines or paths could bring havoc to a person’s life.

[GhostTheory]

California Man Fears Murder Charges After Killing Two Sasquatches

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Plumas County CA  Google Maps

A California hunter is fearing for his livelihood after killing a mother Sasquatch and one of her children on a desolate road. According to web rumors culled by BigfootSightings.com, the man is worried that the killing violates his California hunting license which strictly regulates what can and cannot be killed. Bigfoot is nowhere to be found on the list of animals appropriate to kill. Furthermore, new DNA evidence about the elusive Bigfoot could prove the animals to be partially human which could open him up to murder charges.

The story is that a hunter in Plumas County, CA was threatened by a female Bigfoot, old enough to have gray hair. She was, according to him, blocking the road and making gestures that made him feel threatened, so he got out of his vehicle and shot her.

Then he says there were two young Sasquatches in the forest nearby, obviously upset by the female’s death. The hunter is reported to have shot and killed one of them.

The story continues that there were two other hunters with him. One became hysterical and they took away the rifle and wouldn’t let him shoot the third Bigfoot.

Trial of the century?

[Bigfoot Sightings]

How One Russian Trucker Became BFF With Visiting Aliens

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Oleg Kirzhakov began November 2nd, 1989 as a Soviet-era, long-haul trucker in Mother Russia. He ended it as best friends to a race of aliens that shared his love for Bigfoot and promised to never be farther than 15 seconds away from him should he ever get into trouble.

En route from the northern territory of Arkhangelsk to capital city Moscow, he and his partner Nikolai stumbled upon what looked to be roadside construction equipment. What they found was something far more important. It was a UFO, complete with a sheen metal exterior, a electronic field that cut off electricity to Oleg’s rig and a telekinetic bond that projected a screen into Oleg’s field of vision so they could communicate.

After a bizarre request for matches, which Oleg fetched only to have a black “mass” come off the ship to retrieve, the curious truck driver decided it was time to get some answers. He boarded the ship.

The recess was a three- dimensional information screen, on which I was shown the interior of another sister ship, with the same moving ‘masses’ (during the demonstration, the two ‘masses’ in our ship were motionless).

Then, they showed a ship in space, among the stars, and at the end of the demonstration, they showed the presenter of a Soviet television program called Vremya.

Oleg couldn’t help but ask a few more questions:

“I asked question after question. The answers I received were heard in my head before I saw them on the screen. I asked, ‘What kind of ship am I on now? What kind of propulsion system do you use to make it fly?’

In response I was told that this spacecraft was a scout ship and used electromagnetic fields to fly. I was also told that they were studying our planet, which they need as a springboard to the future.

In response to my question ‘Do you have any connection with Bigfoot?’, they said, ‘Yes’ and added that they watch Bigfoot continuously.

You love Bigfoot? I love Bigfoot! We totally need to hang out more! When… will… I see you guys again…?

“Then I asked, ‘Is it possible to see you once again?’ They said, ‘If you are in danger we will find you within 15 seconds’.

Oleg de-boarded and got back in his truck while the ship enveloped itself into a ball of light and silently shot to the stars.

Best friends in the galaxy.

[UFO Casebook]

Fireball Filmed In Mexico

Monday, July 4th, 2011
And now for your 4th of July viewing pleasure, a fireball falls to Earth over Mexico.

[GhostTheory]