This video, filmed by the Greater Central Ohio Paranormal Society, is being touted on the main page of Ghost Videos as evidence of a ghost girl. Are we the only ones who don’t really see…..anything of interest at all?

We were saddened today to find out from Cryptomundo that Chris Davis, the originator of the South Carolina Lizard Man legend was shot to death at his home in a drug related incident.

According to Davis’ reports: on June 29, 1988 he was changing a flat tire at 2 AM on his way home from work, when he was attacked by a seven foot tall, humanoid, bipedal lizard creature. In Davis’ account he was able to start the car and drive away while the lizard man clung to the top, eventually falling off when Davis swerved the car from side to side.

This is how the American crypto-classic Lizard Man was born. The question now is will the story live on without its central character?

Check out this dramatic investigation of St. Peter`s Church in Essex.

The International Remote Viewing Association is having their 10th anniversary this year and are hosting a conference in Vegas starting today to celebrate. There press release on the event states:

For 20 years, the U.S. government trained soldiers and secret agents in the use of psychic powers to gain an advantage on enemies.
This weekend, the world’s foremost psychic warriors are coming to Las Vegas to share ideas about the techniques they used, including something called remote viewing.
Las Vegan Ret. Col. John Alexander was one of the insiders of the program. “Part of my time on active duty in the intelligence community was looking at psi phenomena. We were interested in what the Soviet Union was doing and in what could be done. One thing I’d argue, scientists argue about the scientific viability of this. The reality is, we had an operational unit that was out doing intelligence operations quite successfully,” he said.
The conference begins Friday at Green Valley Ranch. It includes speakers who were trained by the CIA, DIA, and Army Intelligence to rely in psychic insights to spy on the enemy.
Among the most dramatic successes was the use of remote viewing to discover the existence of an advanced Russian submarine that was previously unknown.
The conference kicks off at noon and is open to the public.

Though extrasensory perception (ESP) has never been proven in any form, the conference will provide a great opportunity to find out more about the U.S. Government’s whacky Cold War remote viewing research. You might not find evidence of the paranormal, but we can guarantee that you will see weird things.

Penn Bullock Reports:

Did Nikola Tesla prophesy the Internet in 1904? In the pages of Electrical World and Engineer, he envisions a global media system – based on the Telegraph:

“Much has already been done towards making my system commercially available, in the transmission of energy in small amounts for specific purposes, as well as on an industrial scale. The results attained by me have made my scheme of intelligence transmission, for which the name of “World Telegraphy” has been suggested, easily realizable. It constitutes, I believe, in its principle of operation, means employed and capacities of application, a radical and fruitful departure from what has been done heretofore. I have no doubt that it will prove very efficient in enlightening the masses, particularly in still uncivilized countries and less accessible regions, and that it will add materially to general safety, comfort and convenience, and maintenance of peaceful relations. It involves the employment of a number of plants, all of which are capable of transmitting individualized signals to the uttermost confines of the earth. Each of them will be preferably located near some important center of civilization and the news it receives through any channel will be flashed to all points of the globe. A cheap and simple device, which might be carried in one’s pocket, may then be set up somewhere on sea or land, and it will record the world’s news or such special messages as may be intended for it. Thus the entire earth will be converted into a huge brain, as it were, capable of response in every one of its parts. Since a single plant of but one hundred horse-power can operate hundreds of millions of instruments, the system will have a virtually infinite working capacity, and it must needs immensely facilitate and cheapen the transmission of intelligence.”

Tesla went on to build Wardenclyffe Tower, the world’s first prototype of a radio tower. It was designed not only to transmit sound, but also wireless electricity. The project was initially funded by J.P. Morgan. The House of Morgan, a book about the history of the financial firm, relates that Morgan visited and was impressed by the tower. Then he turned to Tesla and asked, “Where can I put the meter?” Tesla had no answer, funding was withdrawn, and the Wardenclyffe Tower later went bankrupt, dashing Tesla’s dreams of a world wide interconnected web that would come to fruition decades later.

You thought the Catholic Church was done persecuting witches. Well, they are at it again, this time in Stockport, UK.

High Priestess Amethyst Selmeselene (also known as Sandra Davis, grandmother of 11) attempted to rent out “Our Lady’s Social Club” for her group’s annual Witch’s Ball. When she went to pay for the venue she had secured, she was turned away and told that the Roman Catholic Church, which owns the facility, had blocked her from renting the center.

Her goal was to attract a crowd of people to do obscene and ungodly things like have a buffet dinner and dance to an ABBA tribute band.
Though we can fault High Priestess Selmeselene for her taste in music, we can’t fault her for wanting to get down and have a good time with her women’s group.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Shewsbury told Ananova News that “Parish centers under our auspices let their premises on the understanding users and their organisations are compatible with the ethos and teachings of the Catholic church.” And apparently that means a no go for pagan partying.

When will the Catholics leave those poor witches alone? When will they finally be free to dance to bad eighties music while talking shop around a bubbling cauldron? I guess the Church decided that if they can’t burn them, they should at least be able to ban them from their rec. center.

“Smoke usually looks smoky”, truer words were never spoken. Has Ms. Deana Smith never heard of smoke rings? Though Ms. Smith thinks it’s a sign from god and the UFO expert thinks it’s an extraterrestrial visitation, it is probably just a special effect smoke from the volcano ride at King’s Dominion, pictured below.

It’s funny how the media reporters didn’t bother do go check if this was a daily occurrence at the park, if they had bothered to film the volcano ride itself, they would have debunked this mystery much sooner, but it’s more fun to say the ring was made by aliens….or god.

Volcano Roller Coaster at King's Dominion

Here is a full length video of the mysterious smoke ring sans annoying nine second commercial and newscasters:

photo credit: ?Lady M?

Santa Maria Stella Maris church in Fiumicino, Italy has decided to stop offering holy water for members of the public to bless with, amid fears that the water may be being stolen for satanic purposes. Walter Palombi, Parish Priest told Italian Newspapers that:

“We have motives to believe that these are used for a ‘black mass’ (satanic mass). Usually the person who carries out these practices needs items that are ‘blessed’ as well as holy water.”

So no more holy water for the faithful Italians of Fiumicino. Satanic ritual scares became popular in Italy during the 1980′s and 90′s, more recently in 2004, fears of satanic ritual cults have sprung up again.

The Gray Brothers were filming their latest documentary called “Supernatural Investigator : The White Mountain Abduction” when they became the luckiest film crew in the world.

They were interviewing relatives of Betty and Barney Hill, the first couple ever to come forward claiming alien abduction, when the lights appeared in the sky. Perfect timing, and even more perfect timing to promote the documentary.

photo credit: John Biehler

Zwolen, Poland: The morgue technicians at a hospital found the body of an 84-year-old woman moving in her body bag. They immediately alerted doctors, who came in and verified that the woman’s vital functions had returned.

Her husband had called for an ambulance after she fell unconscious in a nearby village. She was then pronounced dead by a medical examiner at the hospital.

We don’t know many other details, but we do know that someone is going to lose their job over this. How creeped out would you be if you woke up in a body bag?

photo credit: aresauburn™

Space.com posted an article last week about a boy being hit in the hand with a meteorite. Since then the online community has been abuzz, some excited, some crying fraud.

The details of the event itself are sketchy and vague, though the meteorite reportedly left a scar on the boy’s hand before drilling a crater into the ground. We talked to Astronomer Phil Plait about the incident. He gives a great breakdown of the case on his website Bad Astronomy.

Us: So do you think it is at all likely that the kid was hit with a meteorite?

Phil: It’s possible, but there are too many holes in the story. I’m pretty suspicious of this for the obvious reasons — it’s pretty unlikely — but a lot of the story doesn’t add up. He was on his way to school on what’s obviously a suburban street, but no one else saw the flash, the bang, him getting hit? Plus, the Telegraph article misquotes the scientist, so it seems like this is less and less likely the more and more I look at it.”

The Bad astronomer alerted us to the existence of photographs of the boy, crater and meteorite on a German Newspaper’s website. He believes that the impact crater in the photo is probably a fake.

But if confirmed, this incident will be one of the only known direct meteorite strikes that has occurred since Ann Hodges was struck with a grapefruit size meteorite in 1954, the first known incident in human history. We aren’t holding our breaths just yet.

Bobby Clarke, a ferry boat driver from Manitoba, took this Bigfoot footage in 2005. The short film, taken with an out of focus camcorder created lots of media buzz and lead to a Bigfoot investigation by now defunct news program “A Current Affair”. Cryptomundo recounts the incident and reviews the tape. Do you think it’s really worth a second look?

Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH

Down, down, two miles below the surface of a Greenland glacier, in sub-zero temperatures inhospitable to most existing life, a new form of bacteria was discovered frozen in time. A team of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania played microbial Frankenstein and revived the tiny bacteria now dubbed Herminiimonas glaciei.

The debate still continues over whether the bacteria had been reproducing at an incredibly slow metabolic rate for thousands of years, or if they lay dormant as spores for the elapsed time. Either way, the discovery of these microscopic critters gives insight into what bacteria might be like that exist in similar harsh climates on other planets.

This pulsating UFO over Erlanger, Kentucky caught the attention of a local camera man. It almost looks like a cursor on a computer for the first few seconds, before being shot up close.

Above is a stabilized version of the latest purported video of Champ the Monster of Lake Champlain. Compare that to the video of a common fresh water otter below, and the mystery of Lake Champlain starts to unravel. Check out the updated investigation on Cryptomundo.com, complete with enhanced videos of the sighting.

About a minute into this video you start thinking that this is just going to be a guy looking around his empty bathroom with a video camera for five minutes, but watch the sliding glass door of the shower. We don’t know why this guy had no audible reaction when he saw that ghostly figure, we would have been shouting expletives while running out the door.

photo credit: trodel_wiki

You thought that one natural disaster was bad enough, scientists have now concluded from a five year study on the island of Taiwan, that the typhoons wreaking havoc from the sky, are also responsible for earthquakes on the island.

Not to worry though, the tremors are a specific kind of quake known as slow earthquakes. According to Breitbart News:

Slow quakes entail a slippage in the fault that unfolds progressively over hours or days, rather than a sudden, violent release of the kind that destroys buildings and lives.

So these quakes are actually a good thing, dispelling potential energy over a long period of time that could have been unleashed in a short, devastating earthquake. Out of a total of twenty slow quakes detected by underground sensors in Taiwan, eleven of them coincided with typhoons, confirming that, at least in Taiwan’s case, natural disasters come in pairs.

Speaking of Richard Wiseman, we almost forgot to give you the results of the great twitter ESP experiment we posted on a couple of weeks ago. Watch this video that explains it all. Results were negative for proof of ESP.

Read Wiseman’s write up on it here.

Super-heavy element 112 is now on the scene, more than ten years since it’s creation at the Center for Heavy Ion Research in Germany. And it needs a name. Internet sensation Professor Richard Wiseman believes it should be called Kryptonite, and has started a campaign on his blog to make it so.

If you ask us, it’s about damn time someone put kryptonite on the periodic table. To get on board with the campaign please post your support on his site, and together we can make our universe a little more like the Superman universe.

Note: This won’t change much for the majority of the population, who always thought that kryptonite was an element anyway.

This video was taken on June 6th by a couple of guys who were lounging around at their Maryland apartment complex.

The Ishikawa region of central Japan has been receiving downpours of baby frogs this month. A number of cities, including Nanao and Hakusan have experienced hundreds of tadpoles falling from the sky.

The bizarre rain is a rare meteorological phenomena that has occurred before in many parts of the globe. The animals are usually fish or frogs and are often alive when they fall to the ground. Scientists have yet to explain the cause of this baffling occurrence, but one hypotheses suggests that the fish and frogs are swept up in strong winds from waterways before being dumped on the cars of unsuspecting Japanese businessmen.

Image Cedit: AP

The future of robotics is here and it has never looked so tasty. The star of the International Food Machinery and Technology Exhibition in Tokyo was the Okonomiyaki Robot, pictured above flipping pancakes on the griddle. The robot operates autonomously from mixing ingredients to serving up the hotcakes.

photo credit: phoenixlily

Portobello Aquarium, New Zealand: Sid the Octopus is finally set free after several successful escape attempts from his tank. An article in The Independent reports on his daring escape attempts:

Octopuses are some of the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom, it’s what makes them such good escape artists. Not having a spine doesn’t hurt either.

Somhlolo National Stadium, Swaziland

Muti is the Zulu word for lucky charms used in traditional tribal rituals. Swaziland soccer players often use them to curry the favor of the gods and increase their team’s chances of winning. At Somhlolo National Stadium, the football players have gone too far with their muti making ways, even stuffing muti underneath the artificial turf.

Things have gotten so bad that Swaziland’s sports minister is now filing criminal complaints and considering banning any team that defiles the $600,000 turf. Most of the holes, burned or cut into the turf are, unsurprisingly, close to the goals or towards the center of the pitch. Police are tepid with their pursuit, claiming that since most muti stuffing incidents happen at night, there is little they can do about it.

Now that we’ve learned that the police force of Swaziland doesn’t operate after hours, we anticipate the muti stuffing problem will continue to grow unrestrained. Also we are strongly considering throwing a Weirdthings party on the turf sometime in the not so distant future.

Penn Bullock reports:

Look at these silver pinpricks soaring through the sky. The videos were reportedly recorded on June 4 and 7 over Kariong, New South Wales, Australia. Are they spaceships? One of the videos, kindly brought to light by Phantoms and Monsters, seems to be shot from the beach; the other from an airplane or even a military jet.

These pictures were purportedly taken by a Hungarian military pilot of a clearly-outlined white disc hovering in the clouds. Whether the videos and pictures are authentic or not, we at Weirdthings can’t verify.

Penn Bullock reports:

photo credit: Markusram

Last week an Air France flight disappeared over the ocean on its way to Brazil, while flying into an electrical storm.

UFOlogist Michael Cohen believes that the plane may have vanished into one of two UFO vortex exits over Brazil. Following this line of reasoning, the plane’s disappearance into the vortex portends much worse in humanity’s near future. Rumblings in the ether indicate that the aliens are planning an imminent invasion. Phantoms and Monsters reports:

It appears a race in the nearby Andromeda Galaxy has ‘discovered’ us. These ‘unmanned’ surveillance discs have made their way home at some point and reported back on our existence. The floodgate has opened.

South-West China as well as Siberia are areas where the vortex is tipped to move to shortly.

Let me predict: Sightings of UFOs by will be unprecedented over the next few weeks. We are at a minute to midnight in terms of ending our isolation. Open unilateral contact is months, weeks, days or even hours away.

We are about to meet our universal brethren: are you ready?

And when Michael Cohen provides the “highly credible sources” he claims confirms any of his theory, then set your phasers to kill.

Tony Iommi, iconic lead guitarist from Black Sabbath is sixty one this year. He has waited many moons to impart his personal belief that ghosts exist upon us rock mortals, based on an encounter he had at Clearwell Castle when he was touring with Ozzy back in the day. Though he can’t recall whether he was with Ozzy Osbourne or guitarist Terry Butler at the time of the sighting.

The band had come to Clearwell Castle in Gloucestershire seeking inspiration for their new album in 1973. According to Iommi, a cloaked and hooded figure approached him and his companion in the dungeons of the castle, before turning into a room and miraculously disappearing. Spooky stuff, at least they managed to pull the acclaimed rock album ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ out of the dungeons of Clearwater Castle, along with themselves and their gear after the sighting.

We were scanning through the interwebs today and realized that for all the great ghost-based horror movies that come out of Japan, we almost never cover Japanese ghost stories. So we hit up youtube to find a Japanese ghost video, and this is what we came up with. Enjoy.

A Witch’s Bottle is a 17th century device believed to absorb and retain evil. Of course it was not the bottle itself that attracted evil, it was the witch’s potion held within it. When British researchers uncovered the most intact bottle ever discovered, they were sure to do a CT scan to identify its contents.

It seems British witches of 400 years ago liked to concoct a golden Witch’s brew. As was revealed by the CT scan, the contents were: pins, nails and urine. Hooray! This gives contemporary witches and wizards historical precedent for using human urine in their homemade potions today. MSBNC reported lead researcher Alan Massey as saying:

“the objects found in witch bottles verify the authenticity of contemporary recipes given for anti-witchcraft devices, which might otherwise have been dismissed by us as being too ridiculous and outrageous to believe.”

Score one for all you witchcraft urine masters out there!

You can run Penguins, you can hide, but we will always know where you are, because you are swimming birds that poop a lot. We think we can count this as another unconsidered negative effect of being a flightless bird.

photo credit: Tom Scholes

The Loch Ness Monster and other dino-cryptids have captivated the imaginations and hopes of millions of people all over the world. It would be really cool if dinosaurs were still alive today. But how much truth is there to this claim? Are there really prehistoric giants currently roaming the earth or have they all gone the way of the fossils above? Benjamin Radford, renowned paranormal investigator tackles this very question in a Live Science article.

Penn Bullock reports:

George Adamski is one of the original, pioneering Ufologists. In 1946, while watching a meteor shower (when lights tend to streak through the night sky), Adamski and his friends noticed a cluster of lights in formation that they immediately identified as an alien mothership. Again that year, at the same California campgrounds, Adamski purported to take a photograph of a “cigar-shaped” mothership sailing in front of the moon. In 1950, the Caribbean island nation of Grenada put that photo on a stamp commemorating “1950: The Year of the UFO.”

Once a hang-out for flying saucers, the campgrounds where Adamski made the sightings have become a magnet for Japanese tourists.

Before Adamski died in 1962, leaving behind a rich legacy of UFO research, he may have served as a crucial interlocutor between an extraterrestrial civilization and world leaders on Earth. In October 1961, Adamski is purported to have gained access to President John F. Kennedy; he passed on to the President an message from his alien contacts warning of an impending world crisis. Exactly a year later to the month, in October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out. Some maintain that the alien prophesy, which Adamski conveyed to John F. Kennedy, prevented World War III.

Even more mysteriously, there have been suggestions that the aliens’ letter to Kennedy also contained an invitation to meet with them in California. According to Phantoms and Monsters, a website that details these matters, “there is important circumstantial evidence that President Kennedy accepted the invitation.”

The burning question Weirdthings is left to ponder: did little green men shoot Kennedy and frame Oswald? They would’ve been camouflaged perfectly on the grassy knoll.

Here is a snippet of a documentary about Adamski’s purported meetings with the pope, in which he delivered a gold medal possibly manufactured by aliens:

“Champ” the Lake Champlain monster is back bothering residents of Burlington, Vermont. The above image is a screen shot from the latest Lake Champlain monster video of a mysterious dinosaur like creature crossing the water. Alas we could not post it here because they took away the embed code, but Cryptomundo has a great write up on analyzing this latest video, as well as studying the history of the Lake Champlain Monster.

Screw expensive and ineffective cloud seeding, if your farmland is dry and infertile, try frog marriage, valued by Indian holy men as the most fun and creative way to end drought.

That may be the most adorable frog bride we have ever seen, but is froggy matrimony really the way to go to bring rain? For the sake of the people of Assam, we sure hope so.

The Venetian Hotel and Casino

One high roller, a Taiwanese Businessman identified as Mr. Yuan, lost two million dollars during his attempt to break the bank at The Venetian Hotel and Casino. Instead of blaming the cruel hand of fate and accepting the role of the dice, Mr. Yuan is suing The Venetian for his losings, claiming that The Venetian intentionally used Feng Shui to induce his losing streak. According to AFP News:

Yuan alleged that the Venetian dug a one-metre (40-inch) square hole on the wall of the presidential suite he was staying in April last year and covered it with a black cloth, said Apple Daily.

The casino also put two white towels in front of Yuan’s suite and turned on two large fans facing his room without notifying him, it said.

Yuan claimed that his luck turned bad after discovering the arrangements and that he went from winning 400,000 dollars to losing two million, the report said.

Those in the know understand that draping black and white cloths is done only in the event of a death in the family in Chinese culture, adding a twist of insult to top off the bizarre allegations. Instead of acquiescing to Mr. Yuan’s demands, the casino offered him $100,000 cash and another $100,000 to make this go away.

Something tells me that they just want Mr. Yuan’s repeat losing business. We don’t think the casino should give Mr. Yuan a penny for having a bad day at the tables. We thank Mr. Yuan for demonstrating the point that all the superstition in the world can never stop someone from being a sore loser.

Prof. Richard Wiseman

Today marks the beginning of the first ever scientific experiment conducted using Twitter. Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, has organized an remote viewing ESP experiment using the social networking tool.

Richard Wiseman, assisted by fellow researchers, will visit different locations around the UK and ask participants to “tweet” their impressions of the characteristics of the surrounding area. These participants will then be given a series of five photos to choose the correct location from. If anyone gets three hits, the odds of which are 1 in 125, the outcome will be considered statistically significant in proving the existence of ESP.

Wiseman, famous for conducting mass participation studies, has found the perfect online tool for extending his research, making him the first person I know of to use Twitter to do good in this world.

To participate, follow Prof. Wiseman on twitter at:

https://twitter.com/RichardWiseman

A classic pleasure cruise, traveling along Loch Ness, recorded strange sonar activity in the middle of its voyage on Thursday. Captain John Askew reported that these sonar readings were unique in his over fifteen years of working as a boat captain on the lake. The sonar readings, indicating a large underwater object, await scientific analysis. Could it be Nessie?

An Oxfordshire farmer woke up one morning to find this epic jellyfish crop circle in his field (or so he claims). The farmer, R. Spence, has submitted that no one has access to his land, leading us to speculate that a race of alien Jellyfish are trying to make a bold political statement. Notice how the aliens have been getting far more ornate with their crop circles since the first ones started popping up in the sixties, we wonder why that is?

We found this Video over at Randi.org. Looks like a bunch of Russians sitting around with their Babushka having a good time, until about five minutes in (the video is half an hour so fast forward) when he takes a set of cups and appears to miraculously break holes in them using only his mind powers and body energy.

Is this man’s show simple trickery or a miracle of a semi-religious nature? I talked to paranormal investigator James Randi about the purported miracle and he believes that this video is a demonstration of clever slight of hand, with possible explanations ranging from spray solvents to compact invisible lasers hidden in the sleeve. What do you think?

Since the dawn of civilization man has been asking the big questions: Why are we here? How did we come to be here? Is there a god? Is Bigfoot an alien?

Chris Noel, Bigfoot enthusiast, author and investigator may not be able to shed much light on the first three, but in an interview with the Tampa Examiner he tackles the big question of Bigfoot’s origins.

-For more great drawings and caricatures by Nick Worthey, check out his website.

Another Ghost Video. This one, taken in a Mexican Museum, has the added bonus of the security guards chatting it up about the improbable feat they’re witnessing.

photo credit: nicely85

Glowing Monkeys: The gift that all of us have always wanted but never dared admit it. Now our collective dream has become a reality. We are Weirdthings are pleased to announce that Japanese scientists have created transgenic glowing monkeys. Check it out.

British reality TV star Jade Goody lost her battle with cancer in March. Now her mother claims that she has been witness to two paranormal visitations from her daughter. Creepy stuff from the UK, find out more about it at Holymoly.com

Image Credit: Alison Smith

For those of you that didn’t check out Der Spiegel’s headlines for today, you might have missed the title of this article:

Man Uses Live Swan to Beat up Victim

We did a double take too. According to Der Spiegel: the assailant, a Mr. Sebastian P., grabbed a passing swan from the bank of the River Munich by the neck and wielded it like a club, repeatedly striking his victim with the feathery armament. His victim, an east German tourist identified as Steven L., was not harmed in the altercation, nor was the winged billy club used in the beating. The assault weapon flew away unharmed.

Now you can write this off as random drunken Germans beating each other with the most convenient hitting implement, or you could take a closer weirdthings look. We believe this was no mere drunken shenanigan.

There is only one ancient order that is trained in the art of hand to swan combat:

Ninjas!

Mr. Sebastian P. was obviously a very skilled practitioner of the ancient Japanese martial art of Swankuri. Why Swans? Think about it, swans are the perfect weapon. They are easily trained, heavy and dangerous when wielded by a professional. They are all terrain and easily transported (they cans swim and fly). And best of all, they blend in with their natural surroundings so your victim is none the wiser, until you open up a can of whoop-beak on em and by then it’s too late. Then you simply put the swan down calmly, walk away, and watch your murder weapon fly off into the sunset, setting off for it’s next post.

….But seriously….a swan…come on Munich.

An Indonesian Paranormal TV show is touting the above video as the real deal. This ghost video starts off looking like it’s going to be incredibly lame, with a person in a white gown slowly crossing the screen. Then suddenly with no explanation the figure takes to the sky, jumping to a tree before mysteriously exiting via the top edge of the frame. Why the cameraman didn’t follow eagerly with his lens? We don’t know.

Vyacheslav Agapov and Konstantin Chiliskin were unsuccessful, amateur treasure hunters from the Kaluga Region of Russia, who were searching for buried coins with a metal detector in Velino Village. Behind the long standing Velino Church, built in 1772, they struck pay day, or more accurately a jewel studded pot that contained religious icons. On the side of the pot was an engraving that read: ““Property of Velino Church”.

Both men immediately felt uneasy about the previous owner of their big find. After all, ancient Russian armies are one thing, god is in a league unto his own. But Apapov and Chiliskin did not let their apprehensions stop them from calling a friend named Roman, who immediately contacted antique dealer who offered the treasure hunters $20,000 for everything they had, no questions asked.

Moments went by as Roman, Agapov and Chiliskin tried to decide what to do with their loot, then apparently god stepped in to assist in their decision making process. Roman reported hearing a mysterious voice and feeling someone hit him on the back of the shoulder repeatedly. After this incident, the group decided it might be best to return the religious relics to the church.

These clips were taken at a house on Cleveland’s historic Franklin Avenue. Investigate, inspect, let us know.

photo credit: Loren Javier

Something is amiss in Siberia once again. The wild leek crop, that is a staple food of the Shor people of the Siberian tundra, is being gobbled up by an unknown creature. The cryptid takes only leek plants and leaves only numerous, large, mammalian footprints.

This is the same region that Cryptozoologist Igor Burtsev mounted his failed expedition to search for yetis sighted near Azasskaya Cave. Weirdthings reported on that back in March. Fourteen more sightings of a big-foot like creature with reddish brown fur have been reported in the region. Maybe Burtsev should try stuffing his tent with leeks and let the Yetis come to him next time around.

The Mayor of Newtown in the UK has called for a paranormal investigation at her Mayor’s Chambers after she apparently sensed an “otherworldly presence”. A British paranormal team was summoned to her office and found that they agreed with Mayor Sue Lawson’s assessment, read the full article in the County Times.

This video has been making its way around the interwebs in recent days. Looks like someone walking by, then a table moving to us. We’ll keep on searching.

You may have heard that Jennifer Love Hewitt just called it quits with her fiance, actor Ross McCall. But according to James Van Praagh, she could have saved herself a year of her life and horrible heart break if she had only known what he knew. The two work on the show “Ghost Whisperer” together. Apparently using his handy psychic sense to pick up the signals emanating from the ether of the universe Van Praagh was able to pick up and decode a spiritual signal telling him that the celebrity relationship was doomed. Praagh believed that McCall was afraid of the married life, but selfishly, did not tell Hewitt…why you ask? Well according to the Times of India Van Praagh said:

“I did not want to break her heart, knowing it would be broken in a few weeks anyway”

But exactly who is this James Van Praagh character and what are his psychic qualifications? The below video by visual artist Jose Alvarez (Perpetrator of the famous ‘Carlos hoax‘ in Australia is our favorite one about Van Praagh, and we believe that it says it all:

…and Part 2

Elmo doesn’t really love you, in fact, he wants to kill you. Or so found out a Florida two-year old named James when his talking Elmo doll started making death threats. Elmo was behaving well enough, until one day the adorable toddler’s mother changed the batteries and the doll’s language took a Chuckiesque turn. It stated saying “Kill James”. How creeped out would you be, if the doll you had bought for your toddler started ordering his demise?

After the family made a media stink about the incident last year, Fisher-Price, makers of the foul mouthed doll, promised to launch an investigation and replaced the offending, lovable, red mop-head.

-To hear an audio recording of the doll saying “Kill James” click here.

Check out the above video while we lament the state of popular media for ever allowing this to become news. From this incident we can surmise one thing about God: he draws like a five year old given crayons for the very first time. Though to be fair, salami might not be his best medium, toast has been shown to be a much more effective vessels for heavenly images delivered from on high.

We’re also glad to see that Nancy Simoes’ friends put her claim through rigorous analysis before accepting it as a bonafide miracle. As CBS4 reported on Nancy’s Neighbors comments:

“I totally believe her 100 percent,” said one neighbor. “Me too,” said another. For twenty years this South Florida family has fried salami as a breakfast meat. “We ended up all liking it. We just do it. No words come out. No letters. No circles. It’s just fried salami,” said Natasha Batista, who is the daughter of Simoes.

And that’s more than we need to conquer our incredulity. One point of contention, there are entities we know exist that like salami an awful lot. We think if there was anything paranormal going on here, the salami was trying to spell out the word DOG. A possibility apparently lost on Ms. Simoes.

This ghost video has been circling around the internet since 2007. Do you think it’s real “100% proof” of ghosts, or just a bizarre man screaming like a baritone school girl?

Above is a photo snapped of a purported apparition at the Jenner Museum in Gloucester, England. It was taken by BBC journalist Chris Sandys. Edward Jenner is the man who pioneered the smallpox vaccine and the museum that bares his name has been claimed to be haunted for years.

It seems convenient that so much press attention has been given to the ghosts in the attic at Jenner Museum, especially because they have a new exhibition called ‘Ghosts in the Attic’: From Smallpox to MMR. But the proprietors of the museum swear that the title is metaphorical and they did not have a hand in any sort of publicity stunt.

We at Weirdthings believe the photo above could be of….anything.

What does your ass say about you? Just ask Australian psychic Sharina, who claims that a reading of your posterior is more effective at predicting your future life success than a more traditional reading of your palms. Watch as she deftly maneuvers her hands, fondling the butt cheeks of fortune seekers. So does the shape of one’s ass really predict the shape of things to come? Here at Weirdthings, we question the efficacy of backside reading to yield insights into personality and suspect that psychic bottom readers may be the ultimate bottom feeders.

Neanderthals were one of our closest genetic relatives. The debate over whether they were a sub species of humans or a different species all together still rages. Knowing our shared genetic heritage, archaeologists like to speculate about interaction between humans and neanderthals.

Did we interbreed? Did we co-exist peacefully? Did we trade and barter? Well according to Fernandon Rozzi of Paris’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique instead of loving one of our closet relatives, we ate them. According to Live Science:

The evidence: a Neanderthal jawbone with marks similar to those left on bones of deer and other animals that Stone Age humans butchered, according to the Daily Mail.

“Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them,” Rozzi says.

Mmmmm….tasty ape man. It’s a tangled ancestral web we weave.

Local fisherman around Vietnam’s Lake Rung suspected changing weather patterns were the culprit when fish started dying off in large numbers last year. When they headed out last month to collect fish they caught around two tons of a strange, blob like, creature. The fish caught along side the blobs perished soon afterward. Touching the blobs brought itchiness and sore eyes Thanh Nien News reports:

“We didn’t know if they were animals or plants and began called them the “strange creature,” Xuan said.

She showed a bucket containing some bryozoans, adding that they had died after being caught a day earlier.

Yen, a worker at the cooperative, said the strange creatures stick themselves to the plants, bags, or the lake floor. He also said some were as small as a finger-tip but others weighed almost a kilogram.

That’s right, the fish-killing blobs are bryozoans. Byrozoans are tiny coral like animals that usually form rigid, calcium carbonate structures in salt water. This particular batch are known as Pectinatella magnifica and are a rare, gelatinous freshwater form of the species that can grow up to two meters. According to Vietnamese authorities, these massive blobs are a first in the nation of Vietnam and the government is working to contain the outbreak from spreading to other village lakes.

Penn Bullock Reports:

photo credit: King Chimp

It’s a scene straight out of a horror movie. A little boy tells his soccer mom that he saw a ghost last night in his room, and that the ghost also visited his little sister. The suburbs are safe, the mother thinks, and my son was having a bad dream. Two weeks later, at 2 a.m. she stumbles on a man next to her bed, lying on the floor, making not a peep. He’s wearing all black and escapes like a shadow “‘without saying a word.” There’s an unknown lurker in Fishers, Indiana, and he likes to visit children in their sleep. Does he sound like the boogeyman?

A similar drama transpired in New York City in 1927. Two little boys were playing in an apartment building hall. When their parents came to collect them, both boys had disappeared. One of them was found minutes later on the roof of the building. He told the adults that the other boy had been taken by “the boogeyman.” The boogeyman was Albert Fish, the most gruesome child rapist/serial killer in American history. Nobody believed the boy about the boogeyman until it was too late.

Here’s a question: would you rather find a real ghost or a black-clad intruder in your house?

We all remember the Montauk Monster that washed up along the shores of Long Island last year. The above video was taken in Southold, NY of Montauk Monster 2. The people over at Montauk-monster.com think the two are the same beast, what do you make of it?

Penn Bullock Reports:

No – that’s not a small, cooked, headless chicken, but a 25,000 year-old statuette just unearthed in Germany. Archeologists are calling it the earliest known example of human pornography. When we at Weirdthings took a closer look, we observed, without arousal, the “dramatically exaggerated breasts” as put in the delicate words of the archeologists. The curves on this female form suggest, for one, that thin hasn’t always been in. 25,000 years ago, man’s ideal woman had the body of a boulder, chicken wings for legs, protruding, basket-ball-sized breasts, and no head. Imagine the pressure on women back then to live up to the ideal.

Penn Bullock reports:

This May, Madonna tried to nab another African child from Malawi. She had already adopted one in 2006, a boy named David Banda.

Mind you, David’s father didn’t approve of the adoption. Madonna waved him off as an illiterate primitive who couldn’t arbitrate over his son’s fate because he knew nothing. The father told the press: “These so-called human rights activists are harassing me every day, threatening me that I am not aware of what I am doing. They want me to support their court case, a thing I cannot do…” Madonna got his son anyway. Malawi courts tried to stop her, but she drove by them like a vir– juggernaut.

This year, she went shopping for a second Malawi child (collect the whole set!). The target of her demanding giving spirit was a 3 year-old girl named Mercy James. This girl, too, had a father who objected to the adoption. Even the maternal grandmother opposed it: “I did not want my granddaughter to be adopted,” she says, “but because they have been persistent enough, I have been forced to let my granddaughter go.”

Despite Madonna’s charming persuasive technique (harassment), the kidnapping was not to be. Malawi courts rejected the proposed adoption on the grounds that Madonna had not spent the requisite 18 months as a resident of Malawi.

Like any spurned, grief-stricken multi-multi-millionaire diva, Madonna did what she had to do: she turned to a psychic – nay, a prophet – named Mama Love, an obviously self-obsessed white lady who dresses like Shiva. Using Mama Love as a medium, the ether spoke to Madonna, counseling patience.

“You won’t get the adoption you are looking for because the spirit is trying to guide you to a higher maternal status. Wait two years. Follow my advice and you will become Mama of the world.”

So Madonna will soon seek to adopt all of us.

Image Credit: AAP

The crocodile hood ornament these Papua New Guinea men are sporting on the front of their car was not a gift from Pimp-My-Polynesian Ride. It’s a killer 13 foot female crocodile that has been terrorizing their village in Madang Province. They lured the beast to its death in the Gum river with a piece of lamb on a giant hook.

Rumor has it that seven locals have been murdered by the reptile and the young men pictured utilized techniques their people had used for many croc hunting centuries to subdue the brute. They then sent DNA samples off for testing in Australia, hoping to prove that this was the croc who claimed the latest victim, a 17 year old girl.

Steve Irwin would be proud.

Also, a male rumored to be her mate is still at large….could they have caught….the wrong croc?

Alison Smith Reports:

The United States Food and Drug Administration, apparently bored to tears by microbial face paint contamination, took a stand against General Mills in a warning issued on 5 May 2009 for claims made by the #1 toddler finger food – Cheerios.

The FDA’s warning stated that the claims made by General Mills regarding the health benefits of eating Cheerios (specifically, that doing so lowers cholesterol and prevents heart disease) would qualify Cheerios as a drug. Ignoring all the fun drug slang phrases I can come up with for this (“Dude, I’m so Cheerioed”), let’s get to the heart of the issue here.

First of all, a note to crappy researchers like David Theroux of The Independent Institute and Behind Blue Lines – oh my God, please Google before posting.

Theroux stated in his post:

According to CBS News, now the FDA has sent a letter to General Mills, the makers of Cheerios, warning them to stop including health claims in their advertising not because they are false, but because such claims make Cheerios a “drug” which “may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application.”

Mr. Theroux… let’s talk about regulatory institutions in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration of the United States regulates things like food, cosmetics, medical devices, veterinary medicine, etc, etc. They do not give a damn about advertising – false or otherwise. That falls under the purview of the Federal Trade Commission. The FDA is not concerned with how Cheerios is advertised, but how it is branded – and only researches advertising for a product if they are deciding whether to treat a product as a food or a drug… which, you may have noticed, is precisely what happened here. Additionally, the FDA didn’t even really need to look at Cheerios advertising. The claim is, after all, handily printed directly on the Cheerios box. That’s not advertising. That’s labeling.

And no one ever said the claims Cheerios makes are false. In fact, General Mills claims to have conducted a double-blind study of 135 individuals on Cheerios’ ability to lower cholesterol (though they have not offered the publication that contained the study).

As for the folks at Behind Blue Lines – well, they said the following:

At the rate we’re going, apples will be deemed an unapproved drug because of the old saying ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’.

No, Behind Blue Lines, that’s not the case at all. The FDA would, however, go after Dole if they put on their apple bags, “Also cures leukemia!”

The FDA’s definition for what constitutes a drug is as follows:

The FD&C Act defines drugs, in part, by their intended use, as “articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease” and “articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals.”

If General Mills says “Hey, our cereal prevents heart disease!” then they’d better damn well publish their clinical study and fill out that drug application unless you want there to be a bunch of dead people who say with their last dying breath “Screw you, Cheerios.”

Yeah, it’s totally weird that the FDA is this concerned with cereal, but that’s why they exist. I cannot fathom of a person who would eat Cheerios in lieu of taking medication, but then again, I know people go for chiropractic, and we all know that’s bull hockey.

This looks like just another car crash video until the dust starts to settle. Unbelievably we counted more than twenty people leaving that vehicle, leading us here at Weirdthings to speculate that the van was either full of clowns or was carrying a portal to another dimension.

Image Credit: j_naturalia_2

We know what you’re thinking, and no the Bird People have not decided to rise up against their human overlords….yet. The photo above depicts an individual fashioning the get up Plague Doctors wore when visiting patients during the Black Death in the 14th Century.

1/3 of the population of Europe was wiped out by the plague and the costume definitely reflects the creepiness of the times. Plague Doctors wore the frightening get up to mitigate their chances of catching the highly infectious disease, think of it as an archaic hazmat suit.

Now we get that the wide brimmed, black hat identified one as a doctor in those days, and that a long, tucked in cloak and leather breeches minimized skin exposure, but why would plague doctors want to appear to their patients as horrible birds? Were they trying to scare the bejesus out of their patients and the plague along with it?

According to Wikipedia, people of the day wrongly believed that the black death was being transmitted and spread by birds. Since Superstition abounded in the 14th century , it follows that if one dresses like a bird, the plague could be drawn away from the sick and on to the bird’s clothing (keep in mind medical science was non-existent at this time, they did what they could). The eyepieces of red glass were believed to shield the wearer from evil, which was obviously the root of the disease (they didn’t have the germ theory of disease back then either). But according to the same wikipedia article, the beak may have had a more practical use as well:

“The beak of the mask was often filled with strongly aromatic herbs and spices to overpower the miasmas or “bad air” which was also thought to carry the plague. At the very least, it may have served a dual purpose of dulling the smell of unburied corpses, sputum, and ruptured bouboules in plague victims.”

The kicker to all this is that the plague wasn’t being spread by birds, it was being spread by fleas, most often riding on rats, and the wicked cool get up the plague doctors wore probably provided a great carrier vehicle for fleas to get from place to place. The plague doctor get up has now entered the popular conscious as a hallmark of horror. Though plague doctors proved to be ineffective, the profession provided a convenient occupation for those who loved to poke bodies without being called a weirdo.

Image Credit: Visual Culture and BioScience

Penn Bullock reports:

In March 2008, a veterinarian identified a mysterious pig pathogen at two “swine production facilities” (the official euphemism for slaughterhouses) in Illinois. It contained “genes of both swine and avian influenza viruses.”

A government inspector from the USDA-ARS Virus and Prion Diseases of Livestock Research Unit (say that three times) wrote up the discovery in an esoteric trade journal, “Agricultural Research.” The report resurfaced inanely on a news aggregator, AllBusiness.com. It noted the nebulousness of the bird-swine flu and warned that it had the potential for a deadly pandemic. What it lacked was transmissibility to and between humans.

Exactly a year later, the so-called swine flu emerged at an unidentified pig farm in North America. Swine flu is a misnomer for this mongrel virus. According to the CDC, it’s actually a combo of swine, bird and human flues from Asia and North America.

The world’s leading epidemiologists are puzzling over the origin of the new bird-swine-human flu sweeping the world. For clues, they should refer back to that ominous case of bird-swine flu in Illinois. According to the government inspector, pigs awaiting slaughter were being piped contaminated water from nearby ponds – where migrating birds congregated. Some of the waterfowl had bird flu and, to put it impolitely, shat the virus into the water supply. A pig with swine flu drank the adulterated water. That unlucky pig became a laboratory in which the bird and swine flues merged genetically. That was in 2008. Did the 2009 swine flu virus come about in the same manner, through the same agricultural process?

The current 2009 swine flu and the obscure 2008 strain are not identical. The former is part of the H1 subtype of influenza, the latter the H2 subtype. Nevertheless, the 2008 outbreak is worth a long second look.

Check out this video of British graffiti artist Banksy’s latest New York exploit. The shop keeper actor is a great touch.

Here’s a link to the official site for the shop: Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grille

This is the highest quality video we could find to embed, for a higher quality video visit the BBC.

American Idol Contestant Allison Iraheta was the latest to be ousted. The judges blamed her performance, but could ghosts keeping her up at night be to blame?

A few days ago Allison claimed that the spirit of a previous inhabitant of the American Idol Mansion had been visiting her in the night, growling in her boudoir and making loud banging noises.

The residents of the house have lovingly dubbed the specter “Phyllis”. Other females that have since left the mansion claim to have caught sight of the ghost themselves, claiming that Phyllis appears as a white shadow. Funny though, It seems Phyllis doesn’t the like the men of the house, because no males in the idol crew have yet to report interaction with the ghost.

Queensland, Australia: Massive spiders have been invading the outback town of Bowen in recent days. Heavy, unseasonal rain has driven hordes of usually shy, behemoth Eastern Tarantulas (barking spider/bird eating spider) out of their hiding places in the brush onto the streets of Bowen. Local pest control experts have been hitting payday as thousands of calls ring in from around the town from desperate locals looking to get rid of the gargantuan arachnids. Eastern Tarantulas are among the world’s largest spiders as you can see in the video below:

We were perusing Weird Asia News when we stumbled across this freaky video of two female carp that look all too human.

The eerily humanoid eyes are made up of dots on the front of the fish’s heads. The two carps are female hybrids of the carp and the leather carp that have lived in relative obscurity since 1986 in Cheongju, a small South Korean town.

Only in recent years have they attracted national media attention from South Korean news outlets. Unfortunately, since they are both females, we won’t have any tiny humanoid carp swimming around, but it’s nice to know they got their 15 minutes of fishy fame. The carp will live out their days in a pond behind a 64 year old, Cheongju man’s home. Wait a minute! They say carp and leather carp hybrid, we ask what that 64 year old man was up to a little over 23 years ago.

Acclaimed paranormal investigator Alison Smith, has agreed to join our merry band of ‘Weird Thugs’ as we take on Coral Castle this Saturday, May 9. That’s right, a real, live woman at a paranormal investigation, who would have thunk it?

Read on about Alison and the investigation after THE JUMP…

Alison Smith is the Founder of Skeptical Analysis of the Paranormal Society. She is a former private investigator, and is currently employed as a Research Assistant with the James Randi Educational Foundation. Her articles on the paranormal and ghost hunting have been featured in eSkeptic, Skeptic Report, and the newsletter of the Secular Student Alliance. She has lectured on the paranormal at Dragon*Con, meetings of the DFW Ghost Hunters, and is scheduled to appear at The Amaz!ng Meeting 7. Interviews with Alison have been featured on Darkness on the Edge of Town radio show, the Skepticality Podcast, and the TANK Podcast.

On top of all that, she was the hot chick on TruTv’s ‘Door to the Dead’ pilot ghost hunting show.

-For more information and to find out how you can join us on our Coral Castle investigation click here.

-I have been giving some thought to what to call Weird Things enthusiasts…Weirdthingers? I finally came up with ‘Weird Thugs’ and tried it for the first time in this post, lemme know what you think.

Salma Hayek believes her 16-month old daughter Valentina sees ghosts. This according to Salma, who delivered the terrifyingly cute news on ‘The Rachel Ray Show’:

“Last night [Valentina] saw a ghost. I’m convinced. She woke up and her eyes were open. And she’s looking at one specific point and she’s going, ‘No no no no, au revoir,’ which means goodbye in French. And she’s looking at someone, but there’s no one there. I was so scared, and I’m like, ‘Yes, au revoir, whoever you are, get out!’ And then she started saying it in English, ‘Bye bye, bye bye!’…I guess she was trying in different languages to see what nationality this ghost was to go away. It was terrifying!”

Yes Salma, the only possible explanation for a baby babbling basic phrases while staring off into space is that she’s speaking to a ghost. Modern science just hasn’t figured out how to detect the phenomena that occurs daily throughout the world. And Salma thinks that Tom Cruise is ridiculous. He’d probably tell her that the trilingual toddler is attempting to communicate with her invisible body thetan for the first time.

You’ve all heard of the infamous case of the Virgin Mary Toast, but what happens when a holy image is seared into the cooking surface instead of the food? According to The Associated Press:

“The hottest thing on the griddle at the Las Palmas restaurant these days isn’t the food. It’s the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that a cook says she saw in the griddle. Restaurant manager Brenda Martinez said more than a hundred people have flocked to the small town of Calexico on the California-Mexico border to gaze at the image since it was discovered as the griddle was being cleaned.”

There have been no photo released as of yet, because the griddle in question has been “enshrined” in a storage closet for the time being. But if you need corroboration, a Mexican Wrestler, known as Mr. Tempest, stopped by the restaurant with a group of other Luchadors on his way to a bout, and called the griddle a miracle. So to give you an idea of what we’re talking about here, on the right is the Virgin Mary Toast that sold for $28,000 on eBay. We hope this incident gets just as many spoofs as the toast, but images on a griddle seem a little harder to replicate than images on a piece of bread.

Nessie sightings have been on the decline in recent years and kilt clad investigators seeking desperately to try dinosaur haggis for the first time have turned up nothing in the placid Scottish Loch. In light of Nessie’s waning glory, a new cryptid has emerged to Champion the waterways of the North Atlantic in its stead: The Channel Creature.

This video of the Channel Creature, reportedly taken off the shore of scenic Dover, has the crypto world abuzz. Many seem to think that Nessie’s salt water counterpart is the exact same Scottish Plesiosaur we already know and love. Speculation abounds that this sighting lends credence to the theory that Loch Ness has a secret underwater tunnel leading to the sea. Some even speculate that Nessie was moved to the ocean by concerned extraterrestrials . We say it’s foolish to assume the two are the same creature, it’s a big ocean out there and there is room for more than one water bound dinosaur in the UK’s lexicon of cryptids.

Or more likely still: the same mundane visual illusions that create pixelated, dark blobs in grainy videos taken at Loch Ness, are the same visual illusions that create pixelated, dark blobs in grainy videos taken on the shores of Dover.

Saturday, May 9, join us as the Weirdthings crew hits up Homestead, Florida to investigate Coral Castle. Coral Castle is made up of over 1,100 tons of Coral Stone. Amazingly the entire project was quarried, cut, carved and put in place by one man, a Latvian immigrant named Edward Leedskalnin. Leedskalnin apparently built the castle as a tribute to his fiance who left him the night before their wedding. The mystery of Coral Castle is how Leedskalnin pulled it off all by his lonesome. Since he was very secretive about his work and nobody ever saw him in the middle of actually building the thing, speculation that he used paranormal means, such as levitation, to build the site abounds. It took Leedskalnin from 1923-1951 to build the thing.

Investigation Info, after THE JUMP.

Was Coral Castle built through mystic and mysterious means by a magical Latvian or is something more ordinary afoot? Join us as we get all scooby-doo at 2 pm on Saturday, May 9st in Homestead, and together, we’ll get to the bottom of this.

Coral Castle is located at:

28655 South Dixie Highway
Homestead, FL 33033
(305) 248-6345

-e-mail sean@weirdthings.com to let us know you’re coming.

The tribal village of Siadimal, India has emptied out in recent days. No, it’s not Diwali yet, the villagers of Siadimal have fled because of a witch’s curse. A witch’s curse that they claim has caused a mysterious disease to infect several people. The Times of India reports:

“More than 10 villagers have been suffering from an unknown fever for the past two months. There is no sign of improvement despite medical treatment,” said a villager on condition of anonymity. “In the past, alleged witchcraft has claimed many lives in our locality. We suspect this may as well be the act of a witch,” he added. The villager said the women are putting up with relatives in other villages. “The men are now in search of a powerful tantrik, who can counter the evil spell and also punish the culprit,” he said.

Ten bucks says, that if they are looking to pay a tantrik to confirm their suspicions, they will find a witch real fast.

Superstition abounds in rural India, often ill-understood illnesses are attributed to witchcraft and sorcery. Those determined to find a witch are going to find a witch, and local authorities are concerned that yet another innocent person is going to be murdered in the region by superstitious villagers. In 2007, three women and a man were beheaded in the nearby village of Pratappur after they were accused of sorcery.

-For more on North India witch hunts and murders see the documentary “Indian Witch-Hunt” by author and journalist Sohaila Kapoor.

Stop! Hold it, put down your mask and pick up your pork chop. There is no need to worry your weird heads about swine flu anymore. The nasty virus that originated in Mexico has already claimed many lives, and cases are being reported all over the world, with more than sixty cases in the United States alone thus far. But today you can breath a sigh of relief because swine flu is actually no big deal. So say epedimiologists? So say medical doctors? No! So says famous psychic to the stars Peggy Rometo, and she should know, she works with celebrities.

Read on to hear Ms. Rometo’s take on the current crisis…

When Peggy is not casting star signs and teaching reiki, she spends some time waxing prophetic on international issues. Women On The Web caught up with her to ask her predictions on the impending doom that is swine flu, and lets just say, she puts our minds at ease:

wowOwow: Will swine flu become a global pandemic?

Peggy Rometo: No. This is an ailment that reminds me of Legionnaire’s disease; it’s dangerous, but can be contained. This will not be a deadly epidemic like the Black Plague, or strike in numbers anywhere near those of AIDS or cancer. There is legitimate concern; this is clearly an issue the medical profession needs to address, which they are doing. But stress breeds stress; and it’s important to remain calm and attentive, and to follow through with common-sense measures such as hand washing.

wOw: How long will concern about this disease be front and center?

Peggy: It will be a lead story in the news for the next four to six weeks. Then it will recede — similar to the trajectory of Mad-Cow Disease. It will, however, remain in the background for a very long time. We just won’t live and die by it.

There you have it, specific claims, straight from the psychics mouth. Looks like we don’t have much to worry about guys. She goes on to predict more reassuring news, like there will be fewer than ten deaths in the United States due to the virus.

We were wondering why the best medical minds in the universe are so stymied by swine flu, when Peggy sees so clearly, so we decided to call her and ask: How Do you know what you know? We called her office several times today and no one picked up, so until she does, the mystical source of her swine prophecy remains a mystery. Where Peggy got her degree in epedimiology, we don’t know, but as always with psychics, it’s better to trust blindly than to ask questions, especially when these answers about swine flu are particularly comforting.

photo credit: mctheriot

Chillicothe, Ohio is known for many things, it has a cool name, it was the first state capital, but Chillicotheans never expected they’d be known for their wild emu population. For those of you not in the emu know, emus are a large, flightless species of bird native to Australia. That means: Not indigenous to Ohio, how they got there is a mystery. Where do these Ohio Ornthicryptids come from, and have they been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Psychics are no good at finding missing people, but what about missing pets? The almost tragic tale of Tinker Bell the chihuahua begins at a flea market her owners were attending. Tinker Bell was standing on the roof of her owner’s trailer when a sudden 70 mph gust of wind blew the bite sized canine away. Lavern and Dorothy Utley, Tinker Bell’s owners, were distraught and spent two whole days searching Waterford, MI for their pooch. Finally, in desperation they hired a pet psychic, who reportedly lead them to a wooded spot about a mile from where the dog was lost. Tinker Bell was waiting there unscathed.

We thought a dog being blown off of a trailer was a little odd as well, we speculate that Tinker Bell is actually a witch.

I know, I know, we thought it was weird for the Pope to be in Australia as well. Wait a minute, that’s no Pope. That’s no Pope at all. That’s just a wily man protesting the Pope’s visit during World Youth Day. Charges were dropped earlier this week against Ian Bryce, the perpetrator of the hoax, who took to the streets of Sydney in his makeshift Pope Mobile to protest the Pontiff’s arrival. He had been formally charged with distracting motorists on the day of his protest, so we’re sure that all of you out there who were rooting for Ian will be most pleased to hear the court’s decision.

Our beloved Michael Jackson is making his re-debut into the world of pop in London in July. Understandably, Jacko is concerned about ghosts and spirits possibly throwing his game off in the days leading up to his big comeback. So he recently pulled out of a deal to rent an 18th Century Foxbury Mansion in Kent because it is reportedly haunted. A video of the mansion and its haunted past made by Jackson’s aides prompted him to cancel his rental that he had already sunk nearly a million pounds into. But hey, when you don’t want ghosts to scare the children, what else are you going to do? Strange, Jackson looks positively thrilled with ghosts and ghouls in the above photo.

The origins of this video are confusing, apparently it has been making the rounds in Russia as a real sighting of Bigfoot somewhere in the English speaking world. Experts have determined this video to be a hoax. What do you make of it?

Picture of Holton House Bead and Breakfast, the most haunted building in Kansas.

We know you Kansans have been waiting, and finally the Top 5 Most Haunted Places in Kansas have been announced! And unsurprisingly a former mortuary tops the list. Here are the results:

1. Holton House Bed and Breakfast- Holton
2. Constitution Hall- Topeka
3. St. Mary’s Church- Kansas City
4. Hotel Josephine- Holton
5. Holton Country Club- Holton

Hotels, Churches and Old Buildings, just like everywhere else. Now we’re expecting a lot of good investigations and pictures from you Middle of the Country folk, so get hunting. To find the original post on Ghost Tours of Kansas’ website click here.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the Bunyip, it’s Australia’s folklore equivalent of Bigfoot. Aborigine myth tells of a large, furry, wetlands creature that was described as “demon” or “devil” in their native tongue. When western settlers came to colonize Australia, the legend of the Bunyip grew to much larger proportions, but there has still never been a single confirmed sighting of the cryptid.

Mike Conley from McDowell News has suggested that a now extinct marsupial, called the Diprotodon, might hold the key to the mystery.

Artist’s rendering of a Diprotodon. Image Credit: ArthurWeasley

Diprotodon was the largest species of marsupial ever to walk the earth. It’s extinction 40,000 years ago coincided with the arrival of humans. Might it be possible that a few of these beasts lived on in the Australian Outback, undisturbed till much more recently? Could aboriginal myths about the legendary Bunyip have been past down from tribes and people that actually lived at the same time as the Bunyip? We like to speculate.

photo credit: RaeA

Image Credit: Twinmama

Not one, but two paranormal conventions took place this last week in Salem, MA. The above photo shows serious paranormal enthusiasts and convention goers enjoying each others company (not really). Both Ghostock 7 and Witch School International’s “Three days of Wicca, Witchcraft and High Ritual” wrapped up a week long bout of investigating, speaking and witching it up. The town of Salem, which usually has no paranormal convention going on at any given time, had a perfect storm of conventions and doubled its paranormal population for the week.

The depraved Neural Interface Technology researchers at University of Wisconsin Madison have unleashed a device of unspeakable evil. Just to clarify: We think direct brain/computer interfaces are nifty and are important science. But with great power comes great responsibility. We must use these tools to aid the forces of good in this world. And when you take a technology so cool and important and then use it to breach all standards of human decency, good women and men everywhere need to make a stand.

-Find out what is so heinous about twitter AFTER THE JUMP….

The Twitter menace has taken the internet and media by storm, shortening attention spans and making twits everywhere think that anyone cares that they decided to buy chocolate milk instead of regular milk five minutes ago. With this new technology, all of the thousands of miscellaneous thoughts that rattle through people’s brains each minute will be uploaded to the internet. It won’t be long until we reach a critical mass of mindless and superfluous information.

The Twitter conspiracy reaches to the highest level of government, celebrities and CEOs everywhere are rushing to become twits. But there is hope: We were heartened to see Jon Stewart decrying the evils of Twitter on The Daily Show last night. For twitter to triumph all that needs to happen is for us good, decent technophobic folk to do nothing. Needless to say, the human race can ill afford to waste time. Quick and decisive action must be taken to stop this research that would allow the thoughts of millions of twits everywhere to flow unfiltered through the internet, inundating our online space with the mundane details of the lives of tech heads. And that is a scary thought indeed.

-Sean’s twitter account name is seanmccabe88.
-For unsubstantiated evidence that Twitter can make you immoral, click here.

photo credit: mahesh_f

A species of tyrannosaur discovered in Western China in recent days stands up as tall as an average human, much smaller than its more recent and well known descendant T-rex. Cooler still, Xiongguanlong baimoensis, is an intermediate species between smaller ancestors and the massive man eating beast we all know and love:

So, the meat-eating biped also fills the size gap that accompanies the time gap in the fossil record, falling between small ancestors such as Guanlong wucaii — a lithe, half-meter–high creature that lived about 160 million years ago — and multiton behemoths such as Tyrannosaurus rex, which stood about 4 meters tall at the hips and lived between 68 million and 65 million years ago.

-Check out the whole article at Science News.

We know what you’re thinking. Is that a massive Native American wearing headphones or a natural geographic feature created by soil erosion? Weirdthings.com investigated, and after a little plinking around on the internet, we were gravely disappointed to find that it was the latter. Located near appropriately titled ‘Medicine Hat’, Canada, this large physical depression is called the Badlands Guardian.

For years it was famous to locals for appearing to be a Native American from the air. Then an oil well and road were built and made the Badlands Guardian a modern man with the gift of nifty iPod headphones. Lynn Hickox originally discovered the site, then local radio broadcasters had the community vote on what the apparent figure would be called. I think the people of Alberta chose right. Badlands guardian is a bad ass name.

We’d like to think that the aliens got bored with crop circles and decided to get a little more artistic.

The classic dead Bigfoot photo above first appeared on Cryptomundo in 2006. Now artist David Lowe has created a series of photoshopped images depicting how the image was created. Needless to say, the featured cryptid never did exist. Check out this great piece of critical thinking at Cryptomundo.com.

Mr. Barnabas Kazibwe Mutume: Purported Faith Healer
Image Credit: MICHAEL J. SSALI

You’d think the Catholic Church would be more supportive of its faith healing clergy members. A couple of days ago, Bishop John Baptist Kaggwa of Masaka, Uganda, suspended local Sacristan Mr. Barnabas Kazibwe Mutume from his priestly duties. Why? Because of his purported ability to heal the sick and downtrodden with prayer. News of Mutume’s miraculous healing powers has spread by word of mouth, causing those in need of medical attention to try out spiritual healing in desperation. And thousands of all denominations have flocked to his makeshift church to be healed.

What is his secret healing method you ask? He simply prays for them, reciting holy words familiar to the Catholic Faith. But he also encourages them to pray for themselves, giving other Catholics prayers to recite on their own and encouraging Muslims and Protestants to pray in their own way.

Protestants and Muslims and faith healers, oh my! Needless to say, all this interfaith hubbub did not sit well with the Catholic Church. According to the Sunday Monitor:

John Baptist Kaggwa…says [Mutume's] healing powers are not in line with the Catholic doctrine and that he is increasingly finding it hard to guide him…On March 14, bishop Kaggwa put a ban on the pilgrimages by all Catholics, warning that whoever goes there to pray or to seek help would be suspended from sacramental life and in the event of their death no Catholic prayers would be said during their burial.

Harsh Kaggwa, real harsh. Even so, there are no shortage of healed people willing to vouch for Mutume’s gift from god, even if the Pontiff and his posse aren’t down with it. The Church put together a crack squad of priests to monitor the miracles of Mutume and in part, based their ban on lack of substantiating evidence that Mutume’s miracles heal anyone, making the Catholic authorities the unlikely skeptics.

-For anecdotes and reports of Mutume’s miracles, see the original Sunday Monitor Article.

The Skeptical Analysis of the Paranormal Society, founded by Alison Smith, has been hunting ghosts since 1996. Is this video proof of a ghostly specter, or an effective demonstration of how we often misinterpret everyday occurrences as fantastic and paranormal?

-Hint: It’s the latter.

While we’re still on the subject of the earthquake, more Italian weirdness has come of it. 15,000 year old caves, once used by local inhabitants, have been found under the City of L’Aquila, near the epicenter of the quake. The largest of the vaulted caves was found near the bus terminal of the regional capital, where the sediment shook loose to reveal the ancient cavern. Archeologists are abuzz over the new ruins.

-Read the original article here.

The object in this video is a purported UFO spotted in the hours leading up to, and just after the major earthquakes in Italy on April 6th. Mr. Antonio Urzi spotted the craft moving over Milan and took the above footage.

The people over at naturalplane blog believe that a UFO sightings in the vicinity of a natural disaster might be more than just coincidence.

Pilgrims have been flocking to the small, Central Mexican town Muñoz de Domingo Arenas to witness a reported miracle at a burger shack. But are the fries really just that good, or is there an apparition of Jesus reflected in the glass window of the building? You guessed it, it’s the latter. We think the below quote from the Latin American Herald sums it up nicely:

“The image can only be seen at night because it is produced by the reflection cast by a lamp of a post and the shadow of a tree, said the daily Reforma, which published a photo of the place with the image and the pilgrims in front of it… Meanwhile, hamburgers and hot-dog sales have boomed thanks to the faithful flocking in.”

It makes good sense from a practical viewpoint to have a miracle at a burger joint. If you want your spiritual and stomach needed sated in one go, but don’t have the time or money to go see Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, then Muñoz de Domingo Arenas is the place for you.

Lake Kanas is China’s deepest freshwater lake. It is also home to Chinese equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster. The video above shows a scene of something moving quite quickly over the surface of the water. It’s not really clear what it is, but this video is just about as compelling any video evidence that has ever been put forward supporting the existence of Nessie (i.e. Not very). Check it out and let us know what you think.

Aerial photo of Lake Kanas

Archeologists have uncovered an ancient wooden replica of Stonehenge at the Hill of Tara in Ireland. Pictured above is an artist’s rendering of the massive ring as it would have looked in its heyday. Scientists speculate that it would have taken an entire forest of trees to provide enough wood for it’s epic circumference.

More monumental goodness after the jump…

The Hill of Tara is a large archeological complex that houses over thirty other ancient monuments, like the famous Lia Fáil pictured below. Tara was said to be the seat of the High King of Ireland, or at least the sight for coronation ceremonies and sacral ritual. The Lia Fáil served as the coronation stone for incoming kings and the large wooden henge encircled the pit and mound of ritual, separating the outside world from the inner sanctum.

This is a major discovery among the 150,000 ancient shrines and monuments that litter the country of Ireland, shedding light on our weird ancestors and how they partied.

1 minute and 48 seconds into the above video you see a strange ball of light that appears to leap across the screen from one grouping of clouds to another just as the plane is taking off from the aircraft carrier. This video is being touted on youtube as proof of UFOs. But is the freaky ball of light an object in the sky or something much closer to the camera?

Workers constructing a Dungeon Attraction at historic Warwick Castle were put off there work by Site Manager Paul Woodfield’s encounters with a ghost. Claiming to have seen a figure of a slender man wandering the grounds, the head of the project ordered his workers to halt construction until the ghostly apparitions could be explained. These reported ghost sightings come during efforts to build a tourist attraction that would include actor’s dressing up as ghosts and the undead to frighten visitors in the “Torture Chamber”. Wait a minute….construction site, spooky castle, unexplained hauntings, actors dressed like ghosts….this sounds suspiciously like an episode of Scooby-Doo.

Archeologists have been unearthing massive structures in the Jordan Valley that appear to be shaped like feet when viewed from the sky. The ancient structures, that date back to the 12 Century BCE, were apparently used as rallying point for troops and ceremonies. The discovering team pondered the Ancient’s decision to shape the structures like feet:

“The ‘foot’ structures that we found in the Jordan valley are the first sites that the People of Israel built upon entering Canaan and they testify to the biblical concept of ownership of the land with the foot,” said archaeologist Prof. Adam Zertal of the University of Haifa, who headed the excavating team that exposed five compounds in the shape of an enormous “foot”, that it were likely to have been used at that time to mark ownership of territory.”

The sites have been shown to be consistent with the biblical description of “Gilgals”, Hebrew for camp, a term used heavily in the bible. These foot shaped structures would be the first archeological evidence for the existence of Gilgals if so. The above photo still kind of looks like an ear to us.

-For further reading click here.