UPDATED: with test footage thanks to @LHymas on Twitter.

Aw hell yeah.

The Jetpack achieves with 30 minutes of flight time and is fueled by regular premium gasoline, though you will undoubtedly earn some disbelieving stares at the petrol station. Since it has been built according to ultralight regulations no FAA recognized pilot’s license is required to fly one in the U.S., though this will depend on a country’s specific requirements. However, despite being significantly less complex than a helicopter to fly as pitch and roll are controlled by one hand, thrust and yaw by the other, Martin Aircraft won’t let anyone take receipt of their jetpack before completing their specially-developed Martin Aircraft Company approved training program. The pilot must also weigh between 140-240 lbs.

It’ll cost you about 90k to get into the jet pack lifestyle and a waiting list has already formed.

[Business Week]

[Actual Test Footage Of Jet Pack!]

New archeological evidence proves that the China’s Western Zhou dynasty dabbled in human sacrifice roughly 2,700 years ago.

“In general, there’s been a tendency to describe Western Zhou as a more humanistic period, when the practice of human sacrifices”—which were commonplace during the preceding Shang Dynasty—”were waning,” Sena said.

“But I think the archaeological evidence shows quite clearly that human sacrifices persisted throughout the Zhou period as well.”

So now we know.

[National Geographic]

We have more footage of what can only be described as a tense stand off between one mountain man and a predatory Sasquatch. We talked about Tim Peeler in the most recent WeirdThingsTV but another local news station covered the battle and even advanced the story, revealing the technology Peeler plans on using to snap a picture of the beast.

Come back to WeirdThings for continued coverage of Tar Heel Bigfoot Watch…

All the best tech comes from Sci Fi and comic books, fact.

The United States Army has ordered a huge hybrid airship longer than a football field to watch over battlefields in Afghanistan by the end of 2011, according to the airship’s builder Northrop Grumman Corporation.

The company has received a $517 million Army contract to build up to three of the huge military airships, called the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles (LEMV). Such airships would serve as surveillance stations at 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) above sea level and could stay on watch for as long as three weeks at a time.

A LEMV would also have the capability to carry a 2,500-pound (1,113 kg) payload, and still zip along at 92 mph (148 kph) if necessary. The 302-foot (92-meter) airship would typically have a cruising speed of just 34 mph (54.7 kph).

How else are we supposed to launch our Howling Commandos from an airborne position?

[SPACE]

You’re on a boat (in the T-Painian milieu) off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. All of a sudden a random periscope pops up and looks you right in the face. You look back.

It recedes in the water. But no one will own up to owning the sub or being there when you saw it. Secret military mission? Gaudy millionaire hunting pirates? Psychedelic party submersible?

[Sun-Sentinel]

“Why do I need to buy windshield wiper fluid?” wheezed the Cheapest Man in the World. “I’m just going to shoot it out on the street!”

As it turns out, those who try and use tap water to clean the bug incrusted looking glass are likely poisoning themselves with Legionnaries’ Disease.

If you use standard tap water in your windshield washer fluid reservoir instead of a cleaner, you may have effectively turned your vehicle into a biological weapon. Sure, that sounds cool and all, but according to BBC News, the only person you’re going to be hurting is yourself. As it turns out, using plain water can cause the washer fluid system to become a breeding ground for Legionella bacterium – the same nastiness that causes Legionaires’ Disease and pneumonia. Spray your windshield and the bacteria becomes airborne, allowing it to easily enter your lungs and wreak havoc with your immune system.

Don’t be such a cheapskate. Buy the fluid. Save on antibiotics.

[BBC via Autoblog]

Beautiful hair…

[CNN]

Everyday this week… Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Survival Stories ever told.

What happens nine months after that stick bug from Disney/Pixar’s Bug’s Life and Dumbo get a little frisky one night at a Disney holiday party?

You get Ming Ming. The six-year-old Chinese boy was left alone sleeping in his apartment while his grandfather ran an “errand.” (I’m going to avoid making an opium den joke here.) Unfortunately, the poor kid woke up, freaked out and started wandering the apartment screaming for granddad. With no sign of him inside he wandered out onto the safety grate outside the window where the skinny little rascal promptly fell between two bars 8-stories to his certain death.

This is one of those moments where, if this were a movie, the camera would tilt downward following the trajectory of his death dive only to realize that halfway down he somehow wasn’t in frame anymore, and when the camera quickly tilts back up we’d all be met with the image of a screaming six-year-old boy hanging 80 feet in the air by…his ears.

Yes. His ears. (See, now the stick bug/Dumbo line doesn’t seem so silly after all, does it?)

Eventually firemen were able to force the bars apart and pull the little boy back into the apartment without either dropping him to his death or suffocating him.

No word on whether or not he still had the magic feather in his possession.

Your thoughts? I guess if you had to be dangling 8 stories off the ground by a body part it could be worse, right? Any thoughts on jokes I may have left out? Do you have a better survival story you’ve found lurking around the internets?

Well now…

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

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

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

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

[MSNBC]

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

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

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

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

[Inexplicata]

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

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

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

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

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

[Live Science]

Wenseslao Moguel is the guy you never want to run into at a cocktail party…and not just because of his hideous, gag inducing face. In fact, he plays a prominent part in my worst nightmare, if not directly, then at least in spirit.

Imagine if you will: you’re regaling the audience at large with your adventurous tales of daring do. You have their full attention with the story about your time spent in Nevada racing ostriches, you weave a tale of wonder with your hang gliding exploits, finally you have their complete admiration as you outline you time spent living on the streets and on other people’s couches as you wander the country without any meaningful possessions like some sort of extremely selfish Kane. But then, it happens.

Wenseslao Moguel steps slowly out from the shadows letting light fall ever so gently on his disfigured face. Somehow, everyone realizes for the first time that he’s in the room and his mere visage brings the laughter and carousing down to a muted hush. He whispers just one sentence.

“I was shot nine times by a firing squad, and once more in the face to ensure my death.”

HOW AM I (er…I mean…ARE YOU) SUPPOSED TO TOP THAT STORY?!?1?!

Allow me to set the stage. The year: 1915. The verdict: guilty. The revolution: Mexican.

Wenseslao (or Wenny as the kids in the school yard presumably called him) is sentenced to death without trial for his role as a soldier in the revolution. After being shot repeatedly he manages to wait until his executioners leave and somehow makes his way to safety and treatment. (I can only assume he ran across the Mexican wildernesses equivalent of Dr. McDreamy’s skilled surgical hands.)

Wenny then went on to live a long and full life touring with the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Oh, and he had a song written about him.

Man, I hope he’s never at the same party as me.

What do you think? Do you have a story that can steal this survivor’s thunder? What four survival stories could possibly be weirder than this one?

[via Pharyngula]