Is the crypto creature known as Bigfoot really a religious icon doomed to walk the Earth for his sins? What could possibly doom one man to such a hell?

What if I told you that man was Cain. He who killed Able. Son to Adam and Eve. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

This theory comes according to a 2008 paper by then-Mormon Mentality blogger Matt Bowman. He bases his theory on a 1835 letter describing a meeting between David Patten and Cain.

Patten described the encounter thusly:

“He said he was a very miserable creature, that he had earnestly sought death during his sojourn upon the earth, but that he could not die, and his mission was to destroy the souls of men. I rebuked him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This is further corroborated by a 1919 manuscript which included a reference to an attack by a hairy, talking humanoid described as Cain.

As far as Bigfoot lore goes, this theory provides an out for at least one major hole. Bigfoot would be an immortal creature and not a new species which would explain why he’s so elusive. It’s far more of a challenge to catch one man than a thriving, natural animal bloodline.

Thanks to Tijuana Taxi on Twitter for this tip.

[Syracuse.com]

Oh, Satan you crafty devil. Roughly a year ago, Ol’ Scratch apparently planned a “Halleujah Fest” as a clever marketing ploy because the whole demon thing didn’t test well with church-going demographics. Pastor Terry Anderson exposed the Enemy’s plot last year:

“I heard on the radio of a church advertising a Halleujah Fest. It’s going to be next Sunday, October 31st. Halloween. And, they’re having a Hallelujah Fest not to call it a Halloween celebration. … It’s a Hallelujah Fest where you come with masks, either a animated mask or make your own mask or come as Cinderella come as Dracula come as Jesus come as John the Baptist. It’s a Hallelujah Fest and I think it’s an insidious, clever move of the Devil to have something for Halloween and tack Hallelujah on it and make it seem like it’s not witchcraft. … I don’t think you oughta tack Jesus to Halloween to try to sanctify the devil’s holiday.”

Satan: The Don Draper of Cosmic Evil.

[YouTube]

You might not have noticed, but the world has ended. Harold Camping, the Oakland-based soothsayer who predicted that the world would end in 1994 and in May of 2011 once again foresaw that today would be judgement day. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “But wait, I just bought some Mountain Dew at Safeway and nothing was different. The world can’t have ended.” That’s what you think!

Harold Camping, the Family Radio evangelist who wrongly predicted doomsday back in May, thinks the real end of the world could be today.

In a message on his Web site, Camping declared that today, “at this point, looks like it will be the final end of everything.”

…

Camping also seems to have learned how to better hedge his bets this time “I really am beginning to think as I restudied these matters that there’s going to be no big display of any kind,” he said in an audio address after suffering a stroke in June. “The end is going to come very, very quietly.”

So there! The world totally ended. You were just too busy playing demonic video games and reading satanic books to notice.

[Washington Post]

According to a new documentary airing in Europe, the God of all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam… had a wife.

And her name Asherah.

And she has largely been scrubbed out of the Bible.

And she is probably pissed.

“You might know him as Yahweh, Allah or God. But on this fact, Jews, Muslims and Christians, the people of the great Abrahamic religions, are agreed: There is only one of Him,” writes Stavrakopoulou in a statement released to the British media. “He is a solitary figure, a single, universal creator, not one God among many … or so we like to believe.”

“After years of research specializing in the history and religion of Israel, however, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable conclusion that God had a wife,” she added.

Stavrakopoulou bases her theory on ancient texts, amulets and figurines unearthed primarily in the ancient Canaanite coastal city called Ugarit, now modern-day Syria. All of these artifacts reveal that Asherah was a powerful fertility goddess.

The Asherah theory has been around since 1967 but the recent work of Exeter’s Francesca Stavrakopoulou is most credible evidence found to substantiate the claim.

[Discovery]

Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Inventions ever conceived.

I think we established that you can always count on Japanese folk and the military to come up with some off the wall inventions but let it be known here and now and for the rest of time that there is only one place to go for a truly weird invention. The apex of oddball, the zenith of zany, the pinnacle of peculiar…the culmination of crazy, the…nadir of normal (I’m running out of steam here gang. I hope that was enough for you. OH, WAIT! One more…), the summit of strange; I’m speaking, of course, of Scientology.

It’s now more commonly know as the E-meter but the Hubbard Electrometer was originally used by L. Ron Hubbard in 1968 for a (*ahem*) scientific experiment with the intention of discerning whether or not tomatoes experience pain.

Crazy? Probably.

Ahead of his time? Definitely.

Maybe if we had listened to L. Ron when he told us he had proven that tomatoes effectively scream in pain when they’re sliced then we wouldn’t have run into that huge Killer Tomato problem we had just ten years later when they finally rose against their transgressors.

Woe is man’s hubris when confronted with the threat of mutant tomatoes with a taste for human blood.

Also, it’s worth noting that the Hubbard Electrometer is basically just a device that measures electrical resistance but with the not-to-be-trifled-with addition of an unproven assertion.

I could be wrong, but it feels like the Hubbard Electrometer is just one step off from me gluing macaroni to the side of a toaster oven and declaring that it can sort ghosts by height. (Hmm…I might be on to something there. Yeah…the Rounsaville Ghosterganizer, coming to a Target near you.)

That’s the last of them gang. What do you think? Who’s going to top the heap in this week’s Weird Off? Will it be:

1. The Solar Powered Bra

2. Military Vuvuzelas

3. Baby’s First Ball Gag

4. The Scan Toaster

5. The Hubbard Electrometer

What order would you put these weirdest of weird inventions in?

In other news: Our pushy and megalomaniacal editor here at weirdthings.com, Mr. Justin Robert Young, has insisted that next week’s Weirdest Topic needs to be both topical and summer related…so he’s suggest Weirdest Murders of All Time. Get pumped, people.

Each week, Weird Things’ own Matt Finley breaks down one of the oddest elements of our culture in a feature we call Monster Of The Week. This week we chronicle the Rougarou. Come back Wednesday and Friday for more!

The Protestants have always seemed happy with limiting the fate of sinners to eternal suffering in a big torture cave filled with fire and basically every type of snake. Leave it to the Catholics to throw an Earth-dwelling, flesh-eating mutant into the mix.

The French emigrates of the Cajun community had it pretty lousy even before the bloodthirsty, wolf-headed Rougarou shambled out of the swamps all parched and grumpy. A cultural casualty of the French and Indian War, the Cajuns (then known as Acadians, Acadia being the ye olde moniker for the eastern coast of Canada and northern tip of Maine) were ousted by the British. Some were returned to sender on French-bound ships, while others found themselves scurrying southward in search of a replacement home. French-speaking and accustomed to a maritime lifestyle, the Canada-forsaken exiles headed southward through the states, wending their way to the coast of Louisiana, where they could comfortably re-settle along the waters of the Gulf, in a region owned and operated by the French government. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the wandering Acadians, France had recently signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which, among other things, ceded control and ownership of Louisiana to the Spanish government. Sácre bleu!

Fortunately, both the newly empowered Spaniards and the hang-dog former French Canadians were fervent Roman Catholics, and got along well enough that the Cajuns were allowed to hang out and roll how they rolled. After the Revolutionary War (in which many land-snatching-limey-despising Acadians fought with gusto), thousands of Cajuns returned to New Orleans and Southern Louisiana, some arriving haggard and powder-stained from the battlefront, and others showing up nauseous and gaunt after government-authorized emigrations from France. Resettled and reunited, the former Acadians started a new life amid the swamps, bayous and prairies of Louisiana, where, every spring, the Rougarou lifts his nose and sniffs the air, canvassing the ether for the acrid hint of sin. Upon finding it, he narrows his eyes and bounds onward toward the smell, goaded onward by the promise of struggling, guilty meat, and the colorful warning mess it will leave on the ground.

Click AFTER THE JUMP to find out how even you could become a Rougarou!
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Every generation of teenagers has their own “outsider” sub-culture. Goth, hippie, punk, raver… All pleasantly strange without being scary. But as yet another sign we live in the future, teenagers have finally found a way to freak out even the most die hard counter-culturist. At over a dozen high schools in San Antonio, TX teenagers are transforming into werewolves.

While there isn’t much supernatural about these teens (they put together outfits made of fake tales, novelty contacts, fangs, and dog leashes to approximate the real thing) there is plenty weird about it. The kids involved don’t find it terribly odd though.  To them it’s not a gang or a cult or a sign they need therapy. They consider their pack a support system, which is a something they’ll desperately need to make it through High School dressed as werewolves.

Is this happening elsewhere, or is it just a Texas thing? If you’ve seen a pack of wolves in your town let us know in the comments!

Golems, zombies and familiars – three cultures worth of mystical servants rendered, willingly or by force, from the wilds of nature and the bare, lumbering essence of humanity. This Monday, Wednesday and Friday – His Master’s Voice.

Today: Golems

A standby of early Jewish legend, Golems – humanoid beings shaped from clay and imbued with a mystical life force – were said to serve holy men, and could be used protect the Jewish people during times of conflict and social unrest. The most famous golem tale is set during a rash of anti-Semitic riots in Prague, where a racist priest incited his followers to storm the Jewish ghettos. In response, Judah Loew ben Bezalel, a powerful Rabbi, summoned a golem and commanded it to defend his people and assist in rebuilding their ruined homes. The golem was so devoted to his protective mission that he began violently attacking Catholic inciters, forcing Bezalel to return him to an inanimate state.

According to golem aficionados, a regular human can only shape the Earth into a figure of a man; a practiced, fervent Rabbi can, through a sacred ritual – usually a Hebrew inscription etched into the creature’s head or onto a scrap of parchment pressed into the golem’s body – give the figure life as a conscripted servant of God; God, and only God, can provide a soul, thus converting the being from an earthen grunt into a free-thinking man. Scripture actually portrays Adam as the first golem, a status he retained for only the briefest 12 hours between his construction and his ensoulment.

Not all golem lore is all half-guilty persecutor-maiming victory and triumph–even in the 1600s, many Jewish scholars felt that the ability to divinely summon life was a power that only God should possess. As these authors transcribed their interpretations of Jewish legends, classic golem stories became less about triumphant brandishing of sacred energy and more about the steep price that comes with divine dabbling, a narrative that Mary Shelly echoed in response to the foolhardy bravura of intermittently resurrection-obsessed Romantic Age science. It’s these tales of well-meaning hubris run amok that German filmmaker Paul Wegener embraced in his golem trilogy, the last of which, 1920’s “The Golem: How He Came into the World” immortalized the image of Bezalel’s creature setting fire to the ghetto and laying waste to Prague’s already-suffering Jewish community.

Wednesday – Zombies

Weird Things Culture Researcher Matt Finaly takes a weekly look into the social, political and cultural climates of a populace at the time it was affected by a legendary paranormal, extraterrestrial or cryptid phenomenon. It appears on Tuesdays…

In 1837, something dark and quick began hunting women on the streets of London, pouncing upon them from the shadows and going to work on their clothes with razor talons and flaming breath, only to disappear seconds later, leaping silently over impossibly high hedges and rooftops, leaving behind only the shrill, hollow ghost of maniacal laughter and, of course, a panicked victim.

Descriptions of Spring Heeled Jack varied over the 65 years that he laid siege to London’s gas lit back alleys and dark urban bowers, but early witnesses (somewhat) consistently agree that he sported large pointed ears, an equally pointy nose, bulging eyes, sharp claws, the ability to breathe fire and a penchant for agile escapes via inhumanly powerful jumps (hence his media-coined moniker).

John Thomas Haines’ 1840 play, Spring-Heeled Jack, the Terror of London, marked the first official appearance of Jack in a popular entertainment (he had already become a staple of various Punch and Judy street puppet shows), which was followed by a rash of both sightings and corresponding sensationalized fictionalizations throughout the 1840s and ‘50s. In the name of both topicality and word economy, however, we aim to focus on the years prior to Jack’s assimilation into the everyday pop cultural dialogue of Victorian England.

Accepting, as many experts do, that the initial attacks between 1837 and 1838 were perpetrated by a still-anonymous (though one Henry de La Poer Beresford, dubbed “The Mad Marquess,” is a prime suspect) malicious, costumed prankster, and noting that the perpetrator’s image and misdeeds became the stuff of pop culture legend, the question must be posed: What overriding cultural factors contributed the specific physical attributes that the misogynistic hoaxer built into his monster? In short, why was a quick-footed, fire-breathing demon the obvious avatar for blind dread and mass hysteria in 19th century London?

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During the course of this holiday weekend packed with alcohol, fire works and alcohol it’s likely you worried about your mortality. Well take heart in the tale of James Leininger, a young boy whose family claims he is the reincarnated soul of a World War II fighter pilot.

Leininger first began spooking his parents with a preternatural understanding of antique military aircraft, followed by gory crayon drawings of aerial battles with Japanese airplanes which gave way to horrific night terrors involving a violent, suffocating death inside a cockpit. Little Jimmy’s parents eventually narrowed down which soldier’s soul was trapped inside their son after the boy mentioned a specific aircraft carrier he was stationed on.

They’ve since “confirmed” their findings with the pilot’s family and war buddies.

Also, you can read about this experience in their NEW BOOK Soul Survivor AVAILABLE NOW at all your finer literary retailers.

Thanks to Weird Things reader John Houdi for the tip on this story.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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