Well now…

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

After the blaze erupted, first respondents included local fire and police officers, as well as officials from the Department of Irony and Metaphorical Symbolism.

[MSNBC]

The premiere site for paranormal sightings in Latin America, Inexplicata, prints this tale from a Mexican pilot. Word around the hangers is a white arrowhead has been eye balled a few times by different flight crews.

“Dear Ana Luisa – My best regards to you. This photograph was taken by Fausto Abaroa on May 21st as an Aeromexico 737-800 approached Mexico City along the San Mateo air corridor. The same image shows a black flying object that dangerously escorts the passenger jet.

“It should be noted that the allowed distance between one airliner and another is one mile (1209 meters) as per SVRM Regulations for passenger aircraft navigation in Mexican airspace.

Read the original post for the full letter. Could it be an unregistered aircraft? Military prototype? UFO?

[Inexplicata]

Dolphins emit a calming noise that notifies all other dolphins to chill out when dolphin emotions run high and a dolphin fight is about to break out… dolphin-sytle.

The burst-pulsed sounds are used “to avoid physical aggression in situations of high excitement, such as when they are competing for the same piece of food, for example,” said lead researcher Bruno Díaz of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Sardinia.

Bottlenose dolphins make longer burst-pulsed sounds when they are hunting and at times of high aggression, he said, and these calls allow each individual to maintain its position in the hierarchy.

“Burst-pulsed sounds are used in the life of bottlenose dolphins to socialize and maintain their position in the social hierarchy in order to prevent physical conflict, and this also represents a significant energy saving[s],” Díaz said.

So next time things are about to break down at a bar late night, make like a dolphin and croak out a low burst-pulse sound. Then leave the story of what happened in the comments.

[Live Science]

[via Pharyngula]

Sheep are being brutally murdered in the United Kingdom country side. Who’s to blame? Psychotics? Hellfire ritualists? Revenge-driven sheep?

In one man’s opinion, it’s proof of UFO visitation.

In rural Britain, dead sheep are being found by famers with mysterious – and gruesome – injuries. Mike says a “highly active” area in the UK includes Shrewsbury, Dartmouth and parts of Wales.

“We’re talking about some fairly remote areas,” he said

“These injuries to the animals – the animals are invariably killed – are very specific. If you’ve seen some of the bodies that I’ve seen, it’s just absolutely incredible.

“The flesh appears to have been cauterized indicating some sort of thermic lance or micro-sonic wand has been used. We’re talking incredible technology. There is never any blood.”

Ahhh, the tell tale signs of the thermic lance or micro-sonic wands…

[BBC News]

A Maryland court has struck down a county law that barred fortune telling as a violation of free speech. Just as I foresaw in the espers of time!

Judge Clayton Greene Jr., who wrote the court’s opinion, concluded that while fortune-tellers may sometimes deceive their customers, it’s not up to the court to pass judgment on the validity or value of their soothsaying.

“If Montgomery County is concerned that fortune-tellers will engage in fraudulent conduct, the county can enforce fraud laws in the event that fraud occurs,” Greene wrote in the majority opinion.

The suit was brought by a man who was denied a business license for his fortune dispensary in 2008.

[Business Week]

Add communal to the list of adjectives used to describe roaches. New studies show that the disgusting insects will choose to eat together even if other options present themselves.

Cockroaches prefer dining as a group it seems. New research shows the pesky critters cluster and remain feeding on one lump of food even if another morsel exists nearby.

The result demonstrates that cockroaches possess a collective decision-making process previously thought to exist only in highly social species, such as ants and bees, according to the study scientists.

Family dinner, yet another trait that roaches share with the cast of Jersey Shore.

[Live Science]

Sure, it’s a weather phenomenon and not mystical mischief makers of lore. Still, pretty cool.

[Science Daily]

Legend tells of an intensely insular, physically tiny race that lived in the north of Japan thousands of years ago before humans settled there. Brent Swancer of Cryptomundo takes a fascinating look at who they were and why they might be closer to hobbits than modern day dwarves.

[Cryptomundo]

Why is it that time travelers always so sloppy?

Whenever you hear of someone in the news evoking the time travel defense, it’s always for bad stuff like accidental deaths, murders or elaborate plots to kill someone who eventually ruins the planet. Or something.

Is it too much to ask for a man to come forward or backward in time and just mind their business? Take notes, talk to the natives, enjoy our flavored iced coffees and GTFO.

Then again, maybe only the sloppy time travelers are the ones who get caught merc-ing random civilians with bizarre tales like the one below. At that point the blame really lies on the supervisor that sent them back in the first place. Now all we have to do is invent a time machine so we can subpoena him for his clear negligence.

Towards the end of July 2009, New Zealander Mark Paul Warren, 26, was found not guilty, by reason of insanity, of killing two people in 2007 by driving dangerously near Auckland airport at Mangere. Warren, who had no licence, had been travell­ing at 166km/h when he smashed into another car; passengers in both cars died, while Warren and the other driver spent months in hosp­ital. After he told police that he had been in a time machine and needed to exceed 100km/h to become invisible, he was committed to a facility in Hamilton specialising in treating acute mental illness.

Read the whole story for a few more real life time traveller stories. And if you are reading this and are in fact from another spot on our time line, seriously, try the iced coffees. They are de-lish.

[Fortean Times]

The sun has awoken from his slumber and you will feel his wrath upon your global positioning satellites and financial services.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, explains what it’s all about:

“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we’re getting together to discuss.”

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled “Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts.” It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

A lot of this could be avoided with preparation by those who run the satellites. So we have that going for us.

[NASA]

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