Imagine you were far away from home and you found a monster. Not a metaphor, but a genuine, grotesque oddity.

What would you do with it?

I have in my possession a copy of Modern Reports: Or Select Cases, Adjudged In The Courts Of King’s Bench, Chancery, Common Pleas And Exchequer. Volume The Third, printed in Dublin in the year 1794. Thanks to the magic of the internet, you can read along at home.  This volume includes:

“A Collection of several Special Cases adjudged in the Court of King Bench in the last Years of the Reign of Charles the Second in the Reign of King James the Second and in the first and second Years of King William and Queen Mary. Together with the Resolutions and Judgments thereupon.”

Don’t worry; this is not an English history lesson, all you need to know from this paragraph is that this book covers legals cases from roughly the 1680’s – 1691. While doing some research I came across Case 81: Sir Thomas Grantham’s Case.  But, before we get into the details of the case – who was Sir Thomas Grantham?

Sir Thomas Grantham was your typical bad-ass 17th century British naval commander. He was an English tobacco trader and naval officer, commander of the naval fleet of the British East India Company. In 1676 he helped put down Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia, and in 1684 he put down another insurrection in Bombay. He helped build forts and was made Admiral and knighted by King Charles II. Oh yeah, and he wrote a book about his adventures called An Historical Account of Some Memorable Actions, Particularly in Virginia; Also Against the Admiral of Algier, and in the East Indies: Perform’d for the Service of his Prince and Country. Also available due to the magic of the internet!

If an “s” looking like an “f” makes you want to punch something, here is the modern “translation”.

Sir Thomas Grantham’s Case
He bought a monster in the Indies, which was a man of that country, who had the perfect shape of a child growing out of his breast as an excrescency, all but the head. This man he brought hither, and exposed to the sight of the people for profit. The Indian turned Christian and was baptized, and was detained from his master.

The master brought a homine replegiando.

The sheriff returned, that he had replevied the body, but did not say, the body in which Sir Thomas claimed a property; where-upon he was ordered to amend his return.

And then the Court of Common Pleas bailed him

Enough history and legal jargon; what does this actually mean? Well apparently old Sir Thomas was travelling around the East Indies, trading and putting down rebellions, when he came across a man with a perfectly formed child’s body growing out of his chest – minus the head. I am having a hard time visualizing this. Did it have arms and legs? I am having strong Quato flashbacks right now. Sir Thomas decided to supplement his Admiral’s income and start his own private one-show circus around England.

Then one day, the man converted to christianity and was baptized, and Sir Thomas had him taken away. It doesn’t really say who took away the man, but I am thinking that there is a connection between the conversion and the taking. Not to be outdone, Grantham dropped a writ of de homine replegiando in the court. Homine replegiando is latin for “replevying of a man” and was used to regain possession of property, goods, or services wrongfully taken or detained; it was also regularly used to protect parental rights.  The sheriff replieved the man and then the Court of Common Pleas bailed him out from custody of the sheriff and returned him to Sir Thomas Grantham.

I should note that my knowledge of English common law is limited to what Google can tell me, so I may be interpreting this passage completely wrong. However, it seems to me that Sir Grantham got his “monster” back and I can only imagine that he continued his circus act around the country.

Researchers mounted the Maritime Laser Demonstrator, a solid-state laser, aboard the USS Paul Foster, a decommissioned destroyer. Off the central California coast near San Nicholas Island on Wednesday, the laser fired a 15-kilowatt beam at an inflatable motorboat a mile away as both ships moved through the sea. As the above video shows, there was a flash on the boat’s outboard engines, igniting both of them in seconds, and leaving the ship dead in the choppy waters.

Note that this was only 15 kilowatts on their way to 100+ kilowatts needed for burning missiles from the sky.

[Wired]

Back in 2008 a stick-figure creature got busted creeping around Fresno backyards and was dubbed The Nightcrawler. Recently, new footage near Fresno shows two creatures that are very similar. Check out the videos below. The kind of look like marionettes, which is actually even more disturbing to me than unknown creatures.  What do you guys think?

Another video with more information:

[Phantoms and Monsters]

Physicists have just announced the discovery of something that falls outside the current understanding of particle physics. While zipping particles through Fermilab’s Tevatron collider they noticed that things were getting weird. While creating subatomic particles as a byproduct of these collisions, they can determine the various particles created in these collisions by looking at the energy of the jets. They can also use the Standard Model to predict the expected values created in these events, unless things get weird, and as stated before, things got weird.

“According to project spokesperson Giovanni Punzi, there were around 253 more electrons and muons created than expected compared to a background of about 10,000 such particles. Such jets could be created by a previously unknown particle about 160 times the mass of a proton, although we stress that’s only one possibility.”

So what are the other possibilities, if it isn’t a new previously unknown particle?

1. Fluke

2. Mistake

3. New, unknown feature of the Standard Model

4. A new fundamental force.

[io9]

“The most important thing this discovery tells us is that there are quite likely to be other large fishes in the Amazon yet to be discovered and described.”

[NewScientist]

According to statements released during a recent conference on the phenomenon of Satanism at Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome, there has been a surge in requests for exorcists which correlates with the rise of the Internet. The claim is that the web has increased access to information which has, in turn, increased the number of satanists. People love to Google the devil.

I will be the first to admit that my knowledge about demon possession and exorcism is sorely lacking and based on horrible sources. Most of my exorcism knowledge revolves around what I saw in Constantine and I am pretty sure all we need is a mirror and maybe an alcoholic priest. However, I am not sure how an increase in the number of satanists increases the number of demon possessions? Are the satanists putting demons into people? I always just kind of assumed they were independent contractors and possessed whoever they wanted. Maybe being a satanist increases your chances for possession.

How can you tell if your loved one is possessed by a demon and needs a professional exorcist?

“That could be indicated by radical and disturbing changes in the person’s behaviour and voice, or an ability to garble in foreign languages or nonsensical gibberish.”

OK, that might not work for all cases; how can you tell if your loved one is possessed by a demon and not just drunk?

“Father Gabriele Amorth said people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron, scream, dribble and slobber, utter blasphemies and have to be physically restrained.”

Vomiting shards of glass and iron. Got it, thanks.

[The Telegraph]

[Gizmodo]

As the family enjoyed their time in the outdoors, a 200-pound spotted eagle ray suddenly leapt out of the water and into the boat, landing right on top of Jenny.  The animal was so large and heavy, her family couldn’t get it off of her.

Luckily, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission boat was nearby and heard the family’s screaming and came to the rescue.  Miraculously, neither Jenny or the ray seemed worse for wear after the four-minute encounter.

[Cryptomundo]

A cobra has escaped from its enclosure and is on the loose at the Bronx Zoo.  Everything is FINE, just stay away from the Reptile House.

“While the roughly 20-inch-long Egyptian cobra – a highly venomous species of snake – has been unaccounted for since Friday afternoon, zoo officials say they’re confident it hasn’t gone far and isn’t in a public area. Its enclosure was in an isolation area not open to visitors.”

[Aol News]

As many of you may remember, last year J. Craig Venter and his team created the first synthetic life form by replacing the genetic code of the bacterium Mycoplasma capricolum with DNA that they created themselves. In order to create and identify thier own DNA, they composed it from two quotes. One quote was from Richard Feynman (and was actually misquoted), and the second quote was from James Joyce’s A Potrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Not long after this announcement Venter received a cease and desist letter from the Joyce estate claiming violation of fair use. So now there is a situation where life was created using information that falls under copyright and is faced with a cease and desist letter. Does this mean that the life must be destroyed? The bacterium has already reproduced and is a viable life form.

“Which brings to mind the question…are we now nearing a point where copyright law can result in the retraction of a life form?”

It will be interesting to see where this case ends up.

[Forbes via Tor]

[The Occultist]

Although slowly killing the trees, the phenomenon is seemingly helping the local population. People in Sindh have reported fewer mosquitos than they would have expected given the amount of stagnant water in the area. It is thought the mosquitoes are getting caught in the spiders’ webs, reducing their numbers and the associated risk of malaria.

[NewScientist]

“[It] just latched on to my shoulder, and I went back and it’s a gray squirrel,” victim Kevin McDonald told the TV station.

McDonald was shoveling snow outside his home when the sneak attack began. “He was holding on. He wouldn’t let go. I was finally able to get him off, and as soon as I got him off, he just jumped right at me again.”

Iran decided that they needed a spy drone that looks like something from a bad 1950s movie. Released at an exhibition, the machine is named “Zohal” and at least it has some modern characteristics.

The flying machine is equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS (Global Positioning System) and two separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality and is able to take and send images simultaneously.

Zohal uses a small, portable navigation and monitoring center for transmission of data and images and can fly in both outdoor and indoor spaces.

[Fars News Agency]