Since the first announcement of the Mars One program, people have either picked up the story and hailed it with headlines trumpeting our colonization of the red planet or they’ve been standing there with confused looks slapped on their faces. Media outlets have just accepted that Mars One is taking us to Mars and we should all be excited.

Now the curtain has been lifted on Mars One…

By an actual finalist who’s basically packed his bags and walked away from it all.

Joseph Roche, one of the final candidates for the one-way trip to Mars, has walked away from the program recently and is revealing everything that he’s experienced during his time with Mars One.

Originally media and Mars One reported that 300,000 potential one-way ticket holders had applied.

Roche claims it’s less than 3,000 applicants.

Mars One boasted of the lengthy interview process.

Roche says it came down to a 10 minute Skype interview.

Mars One claims that there are billions behind this whole program.

Roche revealed that applicants contribute financially by spending money on Mars One merchandise to earn points.

Mars One’s selection process sounds more like a cross between filling out a Jelly of the Month Club application, joining Amway and learning that QVC is going to launch one in every ten callers to the moon if they also purchase the bonus steel cutlery set.

Roche’s revelations came about because he’s worried just how badly this entire “program” could affect the popularity that space exploration is currently enjoying:

“My nightmare about it is that people continue to support it and give it money and attention, and it then gets to the point where it inevitably falls on its face. If, as a result, people lose faith in NASA and possibly even in scientists, then that’s the polar opposite of what I’m about. If I was somehow linked to something that could do damage to the public perception of science, that is my nightmare scenario.”

In response to Roche’s claims and the interviewer, Elmo Keep, the man behind Mars One, Bas Lansdorp responded to the allegations that Mars One is quickly falling apart:

So what is actually happening at Mars One? Who knows. But even with the two year delay Lansdorp announced? The first Mars One unmanned mission is only five years away.

In 12 years we’re either going to look back and laugh at Mars One…

Or we’re going to be crossing our fingers and holding our breath when those first four astronauts are sitting in a rocket aimed at the sky.

[Medium

Enzo Vincenzi had a poor financial outlook and worse stomach problems. He contacted a Santeria spiritual advisor to help him get his life back on track by cleansing himself of demonic spirits.

That didn’t happen.

Eventually Pacheco took Vincenzi to a lawyer, where he signed away his motel to her. Vincenzi did this in order to save himself from demonic spirits and attempts on his life, according the The Naples Daily News.

Pacheco then evicted Vincenzi.

He lost his Jaguar, pickup truck, motorboat and possessions after the eviction — but Pacheco and Torres deny taking his vehicles, according to court docments.

Now Vincenzi is suing Pacheco to get back his motel.

Don’t feel bad Enzo, we’ve all fell for the the ol’ Santeria Switcheroo at some point.

[Sun-Sentinel]

You know, we tend to lionize our cultural demon hunters: Van Helsing, Simon Belmont, Buffy Summers.

But you want to know when we don’t celebrate those who locate paranormal evil and vanquish it? When the acts of holy vengence look strangely like encouraging a populace to scar and murder their children because they cry too much.

Enter Helen Ukpabio, she is a Nigerian Pentacostal preacher who has made a reputation the world over for identifying children whose souls have been corrupted by Satan. She makes movies like the one you see above and her work is partly to blame for the trend in certain Nigerian villages to identify, beat, torture and sometimes murder children who are thought to be possessed by Satan.

And she’s here in America!

“Do you think Harry Potter is real?” Ms. Ukpabio asked me angrily, in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express where she was staying. “It is only because I am African,” she said, that people who understand that J. K. Rowling writes fiction would take literally Ms. Ukpabio’s filmic depictions of possessed children, gathering by moonlight to devour human flesh.

Still, “Saving Africa’s Witch Children” makes clear that many rural Nigerians do take her film seriously. And in her sermons, Ms. Ukpabio is emphatic that children can be possessed, and that with her God-given “powers of discernment,” she can spot such a child. Belief in possession is especially common among Pentecostals in Nigeria, where it reinforces native traditions that spirits are real and intervene in human affairs.

Such a screwed up story…

[New York Times]

It seemed like the perfect way spend a summer day in Silverton, Colorado.

For a mere $250 registration fee, Silverton-businessman Rick Lewis offered 400 people the chance to win a cool million bucks if they could only get one snapshot of Bigfoot. For your money, you also get to stay at the beautiful Kendall Mountain Resort for the weekend.

The website even boasts sponsorship from companies like Nikon and Kodak as well as government agencies including the U.S. Department of the Interior and Fish & Wildlife Service.

It was also fake.

Silverton town administrator Jason Wells says the Kendall Mountain Resort, which is owned by the town, has never been scheduled to host the $1,000,000 Hunt For Bigfoot. Wells says the resort is booked with a different event that weekend.

“I just want to make sure that we’re not somehow tied into this whole affair,” Wells said. “I don’t want a bunch of people showing up here who have paid $250 for there to be a lack of an event that’s got the town’s name in any way attached to it.”

Wells says Silverton is known for colorful characters, but he said this “dubious” hunt was “bizarre even for here.”

After being confronted by town officials over the false booking claim, Lewis says he was moving the contest to a town in Northern California but refused to say where, according to Wells.

The site is still up for now although registration is closed.

[Cryptomundo]