2012 – Page 23 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Guest Blogger

NEW VENTURE PLANS TO MINE ASTEROIDS FOR MINERALS

Do asteroids passing near Earth have minerals worth mining for?

A new investment from famous director James Cameron and friends, Google’s chief executive Larry Page and its executive chairman Eric Schmidt have given themselves the lofty goal of mining asteroids that come near Earth for precious minerals.

BBC News writes:

Details have been emerging of the plan by billionaire entrepreneurs to mine asteroids for their resources.

The multi-million-dollar plan would use robotic spacecraft to squeeze chemical components of fuel and minerals such as platinum and gold out of the rocks.

The founders include film director and explorer James Cameron as well as Google’s chief executive Larry Page and its executive chairman Eric Schmidt.

They even aim to create a fuel depot in space by 2020.

However, several scientists have responded with scepticism, calling the plan daring, difficult and highly expensive.

MAN COVERED WITH OVER 330,000 BEES

32-year old She Ping wearing over 300,000 (almost 73 pounds) of bees!

Bee-daredevil (didn’t know there was such a thing), She Ping donned a suit consisting of 330,000 bees that weighed up to 73 pounds the other day at an attempt to break the world record for, well… wearing bees.

Sadly, his attempt was in vein due to the fact that another man, 42-year-old beekeeper Wang Dalin, that wore a suit of 613,500 bees that weighed 136 pounds in July of 2011.

Wang Dalin in Shaoyang City, Hunan Province, China on July 17, 2011.

The Time writes:

She Ping, a beekeeper and farmer near the southwestern Chinese city of Chonqing, attempted to set a record for the most bees worn on a human body. And while he successfully donned a buzzing, swarming bodysuit weighing 33.1 kilograms (73 pounds), due to the vagaries of international bee record scoring, he may have fallen short of his goal.

While She’s estimated 331,000-bee feat might sound like a lot, and while he handily beat the previous Chinese title-holder Ruan Lianming (who wore 26.8 kilograms of bees in 2008), that might be only one of the record holders he’s contending with.

The details are a bit murky…But all these accomplishments may be for naught. The website of the Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t mention any of the Chinese bee-fashionistas; instead, it lists one Vipin Seth as wearing the world’s “heaviest mantle of bees.”

The Indian man wore a calculated 613,500 bees in his 61.4 kg mantle—which translates to a whopping 136 pounds and 4 ounces worth of bees, nearly double She’s recently-reported record.

CHICKEN BORN WITHOUT EGG!

This story flips science, and the age old question of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” right on it’s head!

The chick shown above was born out of its’ mother alive and hopping around, not inside an egg which, as we all know, is not how chickens are supposed to be born.

BBC news writes:

A Sri Lanka hen has given birth to a chick without an egg, in a new twist on the age-old question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.

Instead of passing out of the hen’s body and being incubated outside, the egg was incubated in the hen for 21 days and then hatched inside the hen.

The chick is fully formed and healthy, although the mother has died.

The government veterinary officer in the area said he had never seen anything like it before.

PR Yapa, the chief veterinary officer of Welimada, where it took place, examined the hen’s carcass.

He found that the fertilised egg had developed within the hen’s reproductive system, but stayed inside the hen’s body until it hatched.

MEN IN BLACK PAY HOTEL A VISIT, ARE CAUGHT ON SECURITY CAMERA

As if things weren’t creepy enough for the staff of a hotel that had recently had a UFO sighting, they were apparently paid a visit by the enigmatic figures known as “men in black,” which often appear on the scene shortly after a UFO encounter.

Afterwards, one of the hotel staff decided to check the security cams, and sure enough the MIB were captured by the hotel’s cameras. If real, then this would mark the first time the mysterious “men in black” phenomenon has been recorded on video.

MIB — Could these figures be the mysterious "Men in Black"?

Ghost Theory writes:

From the Aerial Phenomen Investigations Team in Maryland comes this unique case with an exceptionally unique footage. According to the API Team, a recent UFO investigation case in Maryland received some attention from two strange looking men dressed in all black and looking so alike, that employees thought that they might be twins. They wore the exact same clothing, hats, and even had the same facial features. The men were captured on a hotel’s security camera entering the lobby in a straight strut.

According to those employees who talked to the men, they described them as tall, with extremely pale skin and no visible facial hair. Including no eyebrows and no eyelashes. Their eyes were described as being “so big and so blue, that they almost hypnotized..”

Here’s a clip of the actual footage:

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Guest Blogger

NESSIE CAPTURED ON SONAR

Has the Loch Ness Monster known as 'Nessie' been caught on sonar?

This mobile phone photo supposedly shows the sonar read-out of what is said to be the Loch Ness Monster herself, Nessie.

Has she finally been discovered or has someone gotten a little ahead of themselves?

The sonar image showing a large, unidentified, living object deep underwater was recorded by Loch Ness boat skipper Marcus Atkinson.

Cryptomundo writes:

Questions are being raised a day after news of the new sonar image became widespread.

First off, it has been brought to my attention, as noted at the “Loch Ness Investigation” site of Dick Raynor’s, that,

“From time to time people on boats see unusual images on their fish-finder sonar screens, and if they are on Loch Ness there is always the possibility of accidental misinterpretation.”

Exampled explanations are shown here.

But perhaps truly damning, this year “Cruise Loch Ness” are running special monster hunting trips with underwater cameras on the boat skippered by…Marcus Atkinson – the man behind all the publicity of this new “discovery.”

Therefore, some locals are questioning Atkinson’s big splash in the media this week. Is it a marketing move?

‘LONGEST EVER’ GREAT WHITE SHARK CAUGHT IN MEXICO

Here’s just one more reason for me not to venture out into open water, among the hundreds of other reasons I’ve gathered thus far.

Two men fishing in the Sea of Cortez for small fish caught something a little bigger than a tuna when they hauled up their net. In fact, they may have caught the biggest and longest great white shark on record!

The giant 2000 lbs shark being pulled onto shore.

Grind TV writes:

Two commercial fishermen in Mexico received the surprise of a lifetime Sunday when they hauled up a great white shark measuring nearly 20 feet and weighing about 2,000 pounds, according to local news reports. The rare catch of such a large white shark — at 20 feet it’d be among the longest ever recorded — was made in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez near Guaymas, by fishermen who thought they had merely scored a large haul of much smaller fish as they hoisted up their net.

“We were amazed and immediately realized that we had a huge, dead, great white shark, and then we thought what are we going to do?,” Guadalupe, one of the fishermen, said in an interview with Pisces Sportfishing, which is located in the Baja California resort city of Cabo San Lucas. The other fisherman was named Baltazar.

The shark was dead when it was brought to the surface. The fishermen, whose skiff measures 22 feet and is powered by a 75-horsepower outboard, required an hour to tow the carcass two miles to the coast. About 50 people helped drag the behemoth onto dry sand. Milenio News reported the length of the fish to be six meters, or 19.8 feet.

‘GRASPER’ THE NOT-SO-FRIENDLY GHOST

Queen's Arms Pub frequent guest, Ashley Beland.

Well here’s one ghost, named ‘Grasper’, has been getting a little too friendly for the owners and customers of a bar in Birmingham.

It seems this spirit that lingers around is always in a frisky mood and pinches guests and staffs behinds all the time!

Not a bad way to spend the afterlife, I suppose.

The Sun writes:

Terrified regulars at the Queen’s Arms have been keeping their backs to the wall since they realised the randy ghost was stalking the bar.

And it has become so bothersome that the exasperated owners have had called in a team of ghostbusters to give the saucy spook the bum’s rush.

Staff at the Birmingham city centre boozer have nicknamed the ghost Grasper after they described feeling a “firm pinch” to the buttocks.

Assistant manager Paula Wharton, 41, initially believed the tweaks on her body were muscle spasms.

She said: “One night three of us were talking and I mentioned that I’d felt this pinch on my bum, and everyone else said that it had happened to them too.

IS THERE A WHITE BIGFOOT?

A recently released video has re-sparked some interest in the all mighty cryptid, Bigfoot. Yet, this time instead of being silver or brown, he’s solid white.

Our friends over at Cryptomundo.com have posted an extensive video breakdown of some fantastic footage that has surfaced of a white bigfoot captured on a trail camera the property owner had set up.

Cryptomundo writes:

We’re not sure how recent this alleged Bigfoot footage is that M.K. Davis has in his possession, but it shows an amazing white Bigfoot on all-fours, and then getting up on two legs, sprinting out of view at an incredible rate. According to Davis, this alleged white Bigfoot came from the southern part of the United States. Davis also points out the sheer size of the Sasquatch compared to the cow in front of it.

Accompanying the footage is a “howl” audio lasting about 3 seconds. You can listen to this towards the end of the breakdown.

HOMEOWNERS SUE TO GET OUT OF HAUNTED HOUSE

Michele Callan and Josue Chinchilla's and their haunted house in New Jersey. (image credit abc news)

Now, I’ve heard plenty of ghost stories about homes so spooky and ‘haunted’ that terrified residents flee the house the house in horror, never to return again. Never have I heard of said residents actually taking it a step further like Michele Callan and her fiance, Josue Chinchilla have by suing their landlord for the trouble and stress they’ve had to endure, with their children, since moving into the home in New Jersey and living with the unseen and troublseome housemates.

ABC News writes:

A New Jersey couple is suing their landlord for a refund after they said paranormal activity caused them to flee their rental home.

Michele Callan and her fiance, Josue Chinchilla, moved into the home in Toms River, N.J., with Callan’s two children on March 1 and were immediately spooked…

At first they chalked it up to the adjustment period of moving into a new home. But things only got spookier, they said. Doors opened and closed. The family even claimed they recorded strange voices whispering, “Let it burn.”

The new tenants said that between the menacing voices, flickering lights and clothes mysteriously flying from their closets, they couldn’t take it anymore. They fled the three-bedroom home and checked into a hotel, where they said they have been living since March 13.

FLYING CAR FROM THE FUTURE IS HERE

The Terrafugia Transition Flying Car converts from street-legal to flight-worthy in minutes.

Now, this may not be the super-futuristic flying car you might have seen in amazing movies like “The Fifth Element”, but sure beats one that doesn’t fly.

Wired Magazine writes:

There’s a flying car coming to the New York International Auto Show this week. The Terrafugia Transition is a two-seat airplane with foldable wings, four wheels and turn signals. Over the past few years the Massachusetts company has called its creation a “roadable aircraft” and lately, a “street legal airplane.” But ahead of the Transition’s first appearance at an auto show, it’s perhaps more appropriate to simply call it what it is: a flying car.

Terrafugia and its Transition have been around for several years, but until now the company has largely stuck to the aviation community. But Terrafugia co-founder and CEO Carl Dietrich says that looking at the people who have placed orders for the $279,000 vehicle, they thought it would be worth looking outside the aviation world.

“We’ve noticed in our order backlog there are actually a fair number of people who are not currently pilots who are putting deposits down to order a Transition.”

So the company is coming to New York to gauge interest in a flying car from the non-pilot sector of the public, hoping the attraction of a flying car can create a few pilots and most importantly, customers.