So Justin Robert Young and I have been scoping out murder scenes, ancient burial grounds and sites of all out massacres in research for our Weird Things Live project (where we investigate paranormal phenomena in front of a live internet audience). On a recent moonlit night standing in the middle of a mass killing field I had an epiphany. What are we going to do when we make contact with some kind of demonic spirit that may have caused people to go on murderous rampages and infect the scene with some kind of contagious inter-dimensional gloom? We need protocols and stuff.

Sure, we’re skeptics and we don’t actually believe in ghosts and spirits, but to be scientific about it, we have to accept the possibility that our premise could be wrong and this stuff is pure concentrated wickedness. We have a moral imperative to do something when we come face to face with wicked evil supernatural forces. So I decided to develop a plan and protocol for capturing and containing all that evil we’re going to encounter for your entertainment pleasure. I’ll describe our method for the capturing process in a later post. Here I’ll describe how we plan to contain it for transport and permanent confinement.

Level 1: Ghosts aren’t real Our first level of protection is based upon the virtual scientific fact that ghosts aren’t real. While we’re confident this should protect us and you, it’s only our first defense.

Level 2: Physical confinement We’re going to use airtight glass jars to physically contain the malevolent spirits. If there is some unknown physical property to dark spirits (like some kind of intelligent airborne bacteria) this should help confine them inside a physical medium.

Level 3: Sacred ground Inside each jar we plan on putting dirt from some kind of sacred holy ground where spirits are able to chill out peacefully. Our plan is that this should contain the spirit long enough to transport it to our final containment area.

Level 4: Sacred seal Using the Egyptians as a guide, we’re going to seal the jar with some kind of inscription designed to keep evil spirits inside. As we know from movies, breaking sacred seals are a bad thing, so we’re going to get some and put them on our jars. So don’t break them.

Level 5: Super Evil Super Max We’ve staked out a couple of remote plots of land located near burial grounds. We plan to bury these jars of tortured souls in this resting spot that will then be festooned with a variety of religious artifacts. We plan on bringing in some kind of Holy Man (under blindfold) to consecrate the grounds. We also plan on creating a ring of powder and pouring holy water everywhere.

That’s just the starting point. Your suggestions are welcome. Our goal is to keep adding to our final resting spot of evil as we capture more spirits. For it to work we’re going to have to keep the actual location a very closely held secret. We don’t want some interlopers to stumble in there and unleash what may be the greatest concentration of evil ever.

If this sounds silly to you, ask yourself this: Would you want these jars filled with the presumed spirits of serial killers and maniacs under your bed at night? When asked if they’d briefly wear a sweater that belonged to a serial killer (dry cleaned no less) most people flat out refuse. I’m sure they’d be even less happy to have our jars buried in their garden.

Tracking down rumors of a “Spider Forest” in our own South Florida backyard, Weird Things editor Justin Robert Young and myself found ourselves ambushed whereupon Mr. Young was savagely attacked by a spider.  With Mr. Young locked in mortal combat with the beast, it was all I could do to shout encouragement and reach for my iPhone to try to capture the epic battle.  The climax of which is embedded below (Warning: not for the feint of heart).

As soon as we set foot in the forest we got the sense of foreboding that WE DID NOT BELONG THERE.  It wasn’t just the impossible number of spider webs and spiders that covered nearly every square foot of the forest, it was the sense that all of the webs were interconnected into one giant web that we had haplessly found ourselves walking into.  Every footstep into the forest sent a silent vibration on to the meta web letting the spiders know that prey had been ensnared.  A million eyes were upon us…

The deeper we went the darker it became as the foliage began to turn the forest into an arboreal cave.  The other animals one might find in the forest were deathly silent.  They were there to be sure, but moved around with a gallows quietness.  Further in it became apparent that we had stepped into a labyrinth from which we may never emerge.

In the black heart of the forest the attack occurred under most peculiar circumstances.  I was trailblazing and using my height to boldly knock down any webs that would impede our safe passage.  As I scouted ahead I heard a shout from behind.  I turned to see Justin punching into the air in a desperate attempt to defend himself from the vicious beast that was trying to devour him.

The spider moved too quickly to get an accurate description, but it was easily as large as my open hand.  I helplessly watched as the spider flew around Justin using its web to trap him.  No sooner would Justin try to swat at it then would the spider swing to the other side.  It became immediately apparent what the spider’s strategy was; like a great white shark or a crocodile that uses a victim’s thrashing to ensnare them deeper into their jaws, this cunning creature was using Justin’s furious energy to wrap him into its web so tightly there would be no escape and the spider could drain him of his vital life fluids at its leisure.

With the image of a comatose Mr. Young searing into my mind’s eye, knowing the spider’s devious intent to use its victims vain attempts to free himself against him, I knew I had but one solution: Render the panicked Justin Robert Young unconscious lest he trap himself so surely in the creature’s web the only escape would be through the shedding of his mortal coil.

I tried to plan the quickest and most humane strike.  A Ju-Jitsu punch to the head?  A Mui-Tai kick to the chest to knock the wind from his lungs, making him take pause?  All of this made complicated by my admittedly encyclopedic knowledge of martial arts techniques.  Had I wanted to kill my target the choice would have been immediately and the results deadly.  In this instance I deliberated for too long.  For this I apologize to Mr. Young.  My hesitation in striking him unconscious could have cost him is life.  A life I’m no doubt certain he would gladly sacrifice in the service of Weird Things, but a life stricken down too soon no less.

Instinctively pulling my iPhone from my pocket to capture this conflict, the spider suddenly changed its tactics.  It became clear that it had not been aware of my presence.  This is not an uncommon occurrence.  It’s been said that I have a preternaturally stealthy manner not unlike those invisible masters of Ninjitsu.  Some of this is second nature to me, part of it is due to training I received in certain places from people to whom I have sworn secrecy.  Once the spider sensed that I was there and all eight of its cruel eyes were locked on me its attack became a retreat.  In the presence of a greater predator it knew this battle could not be won.  For sure his plan to incapacitate Mr. Young was almost complete, but the moment I materialized into view it knew its hope of devouring Mr. Young unmolested was lost.

As quickly as it appeared, the spider faded back into the forest.  I had to resist every urge to leap off the trail chase after it and kill the beast out of loyalty to my friend, but vengeance had to be put on hold to make sure that Mr. Young was indeed okay.  As we made sure that he hadn’t been bitten and injected with some deadly venom, I realized that chasing after the creature would have been a very bad idea.  Its retreat could have been a ploy to separate the two of us to divide our efforts to defend ourselves.  My bloodlust impulse to seek out the foul creature and drive my fists into it carapace had to be abated.  Now was the time for logic and reason.

We hastily made our exit.

In retrospect we are left with several questions.  Since I was in the advance we know that the spider was laying in wait to attack.  There was no web for Mr. Young to step into.  Was this attack a genuine attempt?  Or was it a feint to test our defenses?  While my catlike ability to prowl unobserved may explain why the spider didn’t sense me and attack, it still doesn’t confidently explain why I wasn’t attacked at any point even though I was in the lead throughout the expedition.

I suspect the ambush was the forest as a whole trying to find out if it could pick off our party one by one from the rear until we were all ensnared.  Unsure of our who or what we were, it sacrificed one spider to find out.  I cannot say for sure what it made of us.  Clearly it saw Mr. Young as prey.  As for myself, I have no idea if it saw me as prey or predator.  I do know that I am happy that we escaped with our lives intact.  And next time, and there will be a next time, we will step into the forest more aware of its treachery and have perhaps some of our own to offer up in response.

In the meantime, although Mr. Young seemed unscathed beyond physical exhaustion from the ordeal, psychological speaking it was quite traumatic.  I know he would appreciate your well wishes to a speedy mental recovery.  Please let him know in the comments below that your thoughts are with him.

As we prepare for tomorrow’s live hunt for what is known as the “Night Creeper”, we thought we’d share with you some photos from a recent reconnaissance of the area. Our first nighttime recon resulted in Justin and I getting stopped by the police FYI. It appears we’re not the only ones paying attention to the weird reports coming from the area.

What stood out most to us is the fact that this area forms a triangle with two other hotspots of unusual activity and they both have large bodies of water nearby that lead straight to the Everglades – a wild environment filled with cryptid and unusual phenomena.

On Monday night’s live show (9PM EST) we plan to go into a tunnel that’s the main access point between the wetlands and the area of interest. We’re not assuming it’s a cryptid or some other creature that’s been sighted. We just find it very interesting.

During our daylight investigation we found signs that something was living underneath there or at least spent some time there. The above photo shows a very large fish head that was dragged 10 feet above the bank into a dark corner. A raccoon or Gollum? We hope to find out.

Deep in the Amazon researchers are exploring the remnants of a city that dates back to 200 AD. Little is known about the inhabitants and some speculate that this could have been the source of the rumors of El Dorado. Click through for the video. Scientific American

The always provocative h+ magazine surveyed the experts at the Artificial General Intelligence Conference to get a grasp of when they though machines would get really smart.

The results are very interesting:

While the median guess is the 2020′s, some are saying we won’t see any robo super geniuses for a century or more. While we can appreciate their optimism in the delay of our demise, it feels a little bit like surveys of physicists in the 1920′s about the use of atomic energy as a weapon. That was considered a far off thing too…

How Long Till Human-Level AI?

Researcher Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University has developed a framework by which it could be possible to teleport energy vast distances. The implications for this are pretty amazing. Could we use this to power deep space missions? Teleport power from the sun? Build a Death Star? One can dream.

He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton’s balls. Measuring the state of the first ion injects energy into the system in the form of a phonon, a quantum of oscillation. Hotta says that performing the right kind of measurement on the last ion extracts this energy. Since this can be done at the speed of light (in principle), the phonon doesn’t travel across the intermediate ions so there is no heating of these ions. The energy has been transmitted without traveling across the intervening space. That’s teleportation.

link: Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy

What’s more awesome than a giant ancient crocodile? A really giant snake that ate it for lunch.

A 60-million-year-old relative of crocodiles described recently by University of Florida researchers in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology was likely a food source for Titanoboa, the largest snake the world has ever known.

link: Ancient crocodile relative likely food source for Titanoboa, largest snake ever known

Prolific Weird Things scribe Matt just posted his criticism of Avatar’s bioelectric network premise. Basically he feels that director James Cameron is trying to make it a parable of earth and our resource use – and that it’s an unfair comparison because Pandora has all sorts of nifty features like consciousness uploading that we don’t. I disagree.

The bioelectric network Matt takes exception to was just one example that Cameron was using to make a much more important point.

While on the surface Avatar seems to be have a hippy “save the rain forest” tone, it’s a lot deeper than that and has a scientific and ecological world view even a libertarian could agree with.

Resource use is a complicated issue. Cameron was trying to point out that we often don’t see the real value of the things in front of us. And he wasn’t suggesting the value of Pandora was the Na’vi’s religious beliefs – they didn’t seem to have any. A point the movie touched on a little and the accompanying Avatar field guide went into in great detail was all of the scientific knowledge of Pandora. Disease and starvation were problems facing Earth of 2154 and Pandora had solutions for that, but the government enforced monopoly of RDA (the company that runs things on Pandora) had no interest in shaking up the status quo. When the government won’t allow any competition, why change things? They had no interest in curing the problems of Earth using newly discovered Pandora science because as long as Earth was in a crisis the government backed their monopoly.

On present day Earth the difference between poor countries and rich countries has very little to do with natural resources. The countries with the highest GDPs are the ones that export information technologies and have a scientifically literate population. If your wealth comes from just pulling things out of the ground, you’ll eventually run into trouble when you don’t have anything more to pull out of the ground. Making matters worse, because your entire industry is tied up in what’s basically unskilled labor, you never develop schools and training that put you on a forward path.

Pandora, like Earth, is filled with incredible scientific knowledge with practical applications on Earth. The message of the movie was that the RDA was ignoring that because the could only see the value of one resource. Like an American car company or 90′s OS maker, they had no vision of the future other than their own.

The greatest wealth of the 21st century is probably going to come from biotech. Fuel, food, medicine and materials are going to come from us exploiting genes of various life forms on our planet. Scientist-entrepreneurs like Craig Venter are collecting vast databases of all the genetic information on our planet so they can engineer microbes that can turn CO2 into fuel or create new medicines. This is made possible by studying how life on Earth functions and then using what we’ve learned to create new technologies.

The moral of Avatar is that the greatest resource is knowledge – scientific knowledge. If the RDA saw the wealth that was around them besides the mineral they were after they would be even richer and life on Earth would be much better. The best capitalists are the ones that look to the future. Cameron, a physics major, explorer and multi-millionaire knows this and his movie reflects this value.

Immortality, plentiful resources and endless energy could happen in the 21st century – as long as we see the world around us and learn how to use its resources wisely.

Florida is under attack from giant snakes. If that’s not bad enough, in a turn fit for the SyFy channel, authorities now worry that different breeds of python may be merging together into some new kind of “super snake”. From the Sun-Sentinel:

…state environmental officials worry that the rock python could breed with the Burmese python, which already has an established foothold in the Everglades. That could lead to a new “super snake,”…

The rock python, native to Africa is know for eating crocodiles and even children. If it breeds with the more common Burmese python, the hybrid could end up being even meaner and larger than either individual species.

The semi-good news is that the cold weather is bringing them out into the open and killing a few off. The bad news is that we might be left with really hardy snakes seeking out warm places. Did we mention that Weird Things HQ is located in Florida right off a canal?

link: Pythons in Everglades: African rock pythons add to worries about snakes in Everglades – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

According to some scientists at the Daily Mail, the answer is yes. A long term global warming trend due to CO2 emissions doesn’t preclude the possibility of nature deciding to flip the bit at least for a few decades and make things cooler.

Even though United States and other parts of the world are experiencing record cold temperatures, climate scientists are quick to point out (and rightly so), that doesn’t change the fact that CO2 absorbs infrared energy that would normally bounce back into space and that we’re producing a lot more CO2 than ever. The big question is how much does this CO2 contribute to global temperatures and how much warming is due to other natural factors?

The debate gets sticky when people claim it’s either one or the other. Professor Mojib Latif, a UN scientists and leading member of the IPCC is a global warming scientist who fully accepts that CO2 is a contributing factor to climate change – but questions how much. Global warming proponents are critical of him for suggesting that not all temperature increase is due to man made CO2. Global warming deniers (not the same as skeptics) are upset that he still believes CO2 is a contributing factor.

His data is based upon the role the oceans play in contributing to global temperatures. He attributes the latest cooling trend to ‘multi-decadal oscillations’ (MDOs). He called the current cooling temps back in 2008. His research goes on to indicate that we could be in for a several decade long mini ice age before things get warmer again thanks to nature and man-made CO2.

If this is the case, then there’s an argument to be made that we should be thankful of all the CO2 we put in the atmosphere, because the winters are going to be milder than they would have had we miraculously stopped producing CO2 in the 1990′s.

The more we study climate, the weirder it gets. A recent study mentioned here at Weird Things a few weeks ago pointed out that core sample data indicates that historical temperature changes can come a lot faster than previously thought. Frequent mini ice ages may be the norm. You can read the Live Science article here: Big Freeze: Earth Could Plunge into Sudden Ice Age

The Daily Mail: The Mini Ice Age Starts Here