Month: August 2015

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You might belong in a museum

phot of a mummy
This amazing mummy rests in peace at the Museum of the Weird

At the Museum of the Weird we feature a mummy that might date back 3000 years. The process of mummification is an ancient art practiced by the Egyptians to preserve and prepare the body for the afterlife. Elaborate tombs were built to house the preserved body along with belongings and largess that showed off the wealth of the deceased. The process was very detailed and took months to complete. Poor people could not afford mummification, but would emulate the process by wrapping their dead in linen. (Read details about mummification from the Ancient History Encyclopedia.)

While many details of mummification are known, it has not been regularly practiced for centuries. The modern practice of embalming is the way that we expect to be preserved. As you may recall in our article on postmortem photos, some bodies were viewed and photographed for years after they died.

However, interest in mummification has resurrected, so to speak. In 2012 a terminally ill man willed his body to scientists so they could try to replicate the ancient mummification process. The entire experiment was explicitly captured in the documentary show, Curiosity, Season 2, Episode 2: I Was Mummified. (It’s available to watch for purchase through many outlets. This clip will give you an idea if it’s for you.)

Of course, the art of mummification is not completely lost. The U.S. company, Summum, offers complete mummification services for humans and animals. Here is video from The Discovery Channel’s show One Step Beyond, where the founder of Summum tells a little bit about his inspiration and their process. He’s a little off the beaten track, but I guess you’d have to be.

The already have a number of people willing to pay for mummification. Does that mean we can expect to see more pyramids rising up around the U.S.? If you can afford it, maybe someday you’ll end up in a museum!

In the mean time, come visit ours on 6th Street in Austin, Texas.

 

 

 

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More than meets the eye

Photo of stone heads sticking out of the grind on Easter Island
Monolithic head statues of Easter island (Photo by Artemio Urbina and placed in the public domain)

If you have followed world mysteries you have undoubtedly come across the amazing head statues on Easter Island. These gigantic stone carvings depict proud heads, rising up out of the ground. If you’ve not followed them for a while you may have missed the activity over three last few years as archeologists have confirmed that these statues have full bodies and have been working to excavate them.

Called moai, these statues were created by the Rapa Nui people between 1250 and 1500 to depict worshiped ancestors. Many are near the quarry that bore the stone, but many others have been transported around the island.

For some time archeologists expected to find full bodies attached to the heads jutting out of the ground, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that serious excavation began to reveal these amazing monoliths. As you can see on their project web site there’s been a lot of progress. (This is really the site to dig into if you want to see all that has been done.)

This recent article from the Mirror in the UK highlights the discovery that the bodies are actually covered with intricate tattoos that have yet to be fully deciphered. For a quick view of what they’ve been digging up see this video.

https://youtu.be/zWj2keMob-c

It goes to show that even—or perhaps especially—with ancient mysteries there is more than meets the eye.

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When monsters attack

Several weeks ago we had a story about legendary monster, Godzilla, receiving official citizenship from Japan. That’s odd, since he spent a lot of time destroying Tokyo. That’s what monsters do, though. They attack, and not only in the movies. Here are a few real-world encounters with monsters from the news.

Giant Raccoon

Photo from World News Daily Report shows the horrific damage to the Bakers’ SUV caused by what they describe as a giant raccoon.

This article by the Weekly World News Report describes a bizarre incident in which a Montana couple is attacked by what they described as a giant raccoon about eight feet tall. Arthur and Helen Baker say they were driving on the highway when the creature appeared in front of them. It attacked their vehicle, smashing the windows and flipping the vehicle several times. It continued to attack until it injured itself on the broken windows.

Raccoons can get large, but none have been recorded to get that large, leading authorities to suggest that this encounter may have been with a bear. Even if that was the case, something that will attack and beat up a vehicle to that extent and go after the people inside is the stuff of which nightmares are made!

Russian Chupacabra

Carnage left from the mysterious creature in Russia that is killing chickens. Image © www.moe-online.ru

According to this article at rt.com, a mysterious creature has been killing hundreds of chickens in the Russian village of Davydovka in a methodical and, perhaps, intelligent fashion. Very little blood is found at the scene, putting it in line with Chupacabra legends. This is not the first time that attacks like this have been seen in Russia. A couple of years ago similar attacks happened in the Voronezh Region in April and two years prior.

Tracks discovered at the scene are similar to a canine, but the methodology is very unlike what would be expected from a dog, wolf, or other similar predator.

Is it possible that this creature has somehow hitched a ride from Latin America to find new prey in Russia?

 Giant Squid Attacks Russian Vessel

What gods did the Russians anger? Not only are the chickens suffering, but here is footage of a fishing vessel attacked by a giant squid. This looks like something from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea! Can you imagine that just a few years the idea of a giant squid was considered myth and now we have this! Attracted by their catch the monster squid forced the crew to fight hard to drive it away.

https://youtu.be/fIKgNqlLU6c

Hopefully, most of us will never encounter a real-life monster. They will remain the stuff of nightmares and scary stories. These tales are a reminder, though, that any of us, at any time, may cross the threshold where the nightmare becomes real. Pleasant dreams!

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Are aliens below us?

Poster for the 1956 film Mole People (See it MST3K style)

People have been fascinated with the idea of a hollow earth and who might inhabit it for many years. Jules Verne penned A Journey to the Centre of the Earth in 1864. It’s the story of a group of explorers who find that there is a world buried beneath the Earth’s crust, a mysterious world lost to time.

The story has been made into film time and time again. There have also been films like The Mole People that have looked at fantastic civilizations that have lived beneath the Earth.

This is just fiction, though. Right? When Admiral Richard Byrd explored the North Pole he allegedly wrote in his diary an account of discovering a huge area that was lush and a meeting with beings who claimed to live beneath the earth. Is this a real accounting or a fiction attributed to Byrd? Byrd makes no specific claims about this in a 1954 TV Interview (see IMDB record). So, the hollow Earth idea is probably a myth, right?

Not so fast! in this collective-evolution.com article the author covers many reputable scientists and explorers who have expressed ideas of a hollow earth with a sort of sun at its center. This BBC Article describes test results showing that the earth’s core might actually have sun-like temperatures. An article published in Nature discusses discoveries that there could be a huge repository of water (think ocean) deep under the earth. Perhaps the idea of an subterranean world is not completely ridiculous.

Of course, the biggest argument against a Hollow Earth is how could we not know? Some suggest that we do know, or at least some know, and that the news is being kept from us for the same reasons that are applied to UFOs. There’s even discussion that the UFOs people see come from inner space rather than outer space. This video even suggests a Nazi connection!

The truth is probably out there—or in there, as the case may be. If there is an inner-Earth, how many other mysteries are connected with it? It could explain UFOs, strange creatures and maybe even more shadowy puzzles of the paranormal. Imagine if our encounter with an alien world is just a matter of looking below!

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US Navy swastika building on Google Maps mystery solved?

While browsing strange news I came across this item from 2007: Google Maps forces Navy to redesign swastika building. It tells the bizarre tale about the U.S. Navy, somehow, inadvertently put up this Navy Seal training building in the shape of a Swastika in 1967. A snapshot of the building from Google Maps is shown here from 2006.

Screen capture of Google Maps showing a building shaped like a swastika
Google Map Image, captured May 8, 2006 by Flickr user Si1very

What a mess! How could this be? How could they accidentally put up a building in the shape of a swastika? In 2007 we find the Navy response in this L.A. Times article, Navy to mask barracks shaped like a swastika. Here, they outline the Navy’s plans to change the aeriel view of the building with some additional construction and landscaping. So, what must it look like today?

I took a look and here is what I found.

Swastika_Building
This snapshot from Google Maps on 8/9/2015 shows the building still in the shape of a swastika. See the map view here. (Note, the actual map view could change at any time.)

What?! It still looks like a swastika! Nothing has obviously changed! What does this mean?

Now it’s time for a little speculation. I backed the view up a little bit away from the swastika and I saw another picture, as one generally does when one steps back from something. There are another pair of very oddly shaped buildings in line with the swastika building. Do these tell a different story. Here’s the snapshot from the map.

Screen shot of higher elevation with tow other oddly shaped buildings in line with the swastika.
Pulling back from the swastika building shows two other strangely shaped buildings.

Do you see it? Those two buildings could be airplanes, navy bombers flying toward the Nazi menace. Here, I’ve enhanced everything a little to tell the story that I see.

Snapshot of Google Map is highlighted with red over the swastika building and blue over the buildings that could be bombers
Enhanced view shows what could be bombers flying toward the swastika

Are these buildings actually a memorial for the air battle against the Nazis in World War II? They very well could be! The strange airplane tail shape in the buildings is obvious.

If this is the story, why is the Navy shy to share it? Did the architect do it as a personal statement and never told his secret?

We may never know the truth, but it’s a fascinating mystery.

Know of any other architectural mysteries? Share it with us!

 

 

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Spider zombies

A while back we told you about the tarantula hawk, the most painful wasp in the world, that hunts tarantulas. Apparently spiders and wasps have a rivalry as big as cats and dogs because here is another spider-hunting wasp, but this one is just weird!

Japanese scientists reported in the Journal of Experimental Biology have observed that the wasp known as the reclinervellus nielseni somehow manipulates a spider to build a special web for its young. In return for this kindness the spider is devoured by the young as they come of age. Here is disturbing video of what happens.

https://youtu.be/ggk2qwOwDRA

No one is sure how the wasp and its young manipulate the spider. Perhaps it injects a hormone that confuses the spider’s normal behavior. If you’d like to dig into the the scientific data is available.

In my experiments with people I do influence minds, but it’s nothing at all like this! Some of the things that happen in the animal kingdom, particularly with insects, is just plain unpleasant! I’m starting to actually feel sorry for spiders. The wasps are giving them a really hard time.

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Photographing the dead

Victorian photo of a dead woman gracefully reclining on a couch.
Postmortem photo of a young woman

Yesterday I talked about a couple celebrating their wedding in a funeral home. Today we turn to actually celebrating the dead in a way that seems to be lost.

You may think that photographing everything is a new phenomenon. Though they didn’t have social media, the Victorians captured many images of life, and death. The woman seen in this picture is dead. It was common practice to photograph the dead in elegant remembrances. These photos give the appearance of a loved one who has simply been caught napping.

Victorian postmortem photo of a woman in a black dress laying with her eyes opened
This postmortem photo has the woman’s eyes open.

In some cases they eyes were opened for the photograph, giving a weird effect. They stare out, strangely.

Victorian color photo of a young black boy standing behind his dead brother who lays on a couch
A brother looks over his dead sibling

It was common to have people pose in the photographs, a tableau of living and dead together. Some of these pictures are incredibly poignant, such as the brother looking over his sibling, apparently napping on the couch.

Victorian postmortem photo of a standing fireman with a drawin showing the rig to pose him
This rig allows the deceased to be posed in a standing position.
JohnOconnor-postmortem
A strange, standing photo of a man two years after his death

Of course, the dead did not simply recline. Elaborate rigs were designed to pose a corpse standing. Some of the photos resulting from this technology are pretty bizarre, as the dead stand proudly, or lean jauntily, sometimes surrounded by friends and family. The photo of John O’Connor shows him standing with a couple of gentlemen two years after his death! The card is from the Livingstons Undertakers. Is this a sample of their embalming work?

There are a few photographs that seem to show the dead hanging around for some time between their death and their burial. It’s possible that, since news and people traveled more slowly in this age that they kept the embalmed bodies on view for much longer before they were buried.

Victorian postmortem photo of a teenage girl sitting with handwritten notes around
Notes around this photo indicate the emotion associated with the death and the reluctance to let go

These images are weird and heartbreaking. The emotion is clear in the faces of loved ones included. It’s also interesting the number of children that appear. “Go over there, Timmy, and hold your sister’s cold, dead hand for the man.”

Of course, our modern society has become quite removed from the process of death. Perhaps they were all simply much closer to it, so it wasn’t unusual. I think these are all a good defense if you decide to take a selfie with the deceased at the next funeral.

I’ll close out with a few more striking pictures. I find them all fascinating. Many more can be easily found on the Internet.

A sweet-looking young girl lies as though napping.
A sweet-looking young girl lies as though napping.
A dead girl stares wildly as she poses with her family. Note the base of the stand at her feet.

 

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Beginning at the end

Wedding photo of Asian couple in a coffin.
Couple celebrate their wedding in the family funeral home.

We look forward to the day when an especially weird couple chooses to tie the knot at the Museum of the Weird. (We can totally make that happen with an in-house officiant!)

However, until that happy day, we always like to look at the bizarre ways that people celebrate their unions. Earlier this month, a couple in Ohio had their wedding in her family funeral home. According to this article in The Huffington Post, Chelsea and Barry Lesnick exchanged vows at the Brunner Sanden Deitrick Funeral Home & Cremation Center which has been run by her family for years.

“We really didn’t think of it as weird, for our mindset, because we deal with death all the time. It’s the family business,” Chelsea told Huffington. “But talking to other people about it, like friends and Barry’s family, they were a little weirded out by the idea. They were a little skeptical, thinking, ‘How is this going to work? Are there going to be dead bodies everywhere?'”

Having made the acquaintance of a lovely Austin funeral director, I have seen her approach funerals as a celebration of life. That would make it a very fitting place for a wedding.

Of course, there are those who take a darker view. An Austin cake maker, Natalie Sideserf, created a most unusual cake for her marriage to husband, David. Being horror fans, they celebrated with cakes depicting their own severed heads. See this video.

 

https://youtu.be/bCoSS1YgDqo

Isn’t it wonderful when weird people find each other? Weird weddings are proof that a couple belongs together, with a celebration as unique as they are. We raise a toast to all of you lucky couples. Of course, if you are looking for a perfect way to start your weird life together, we always have some room to celebrate amongst the mummies and shrunken heads.

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Open wide

What in the world is going on here?

B&W Photo of a woman with a strange photographic aparatus aimed into her mouth.Is this woman the subject of a bizarre experiment? Is this a sort of torture? Is this man using a robot to extract something from her throat?

This is actually an image from a Bell Laboratories ad from Life magazine in 1947. This technician is using an elaborate apparatus to film this woman’s vocal chords. This does not look comfortable! It reminds me of the scene from Ghostbusters when Venkman hooked people up to electric shock equipment to test ESP. Haven’t seen it? It’s worth a look. Even if you have seen it, it’s worth seeing again.

Will people in the future look back at our sophisticated scientific apparatus and laugh at how crude and barbaric it is? I can’t even begin to imagine. Considering how much that picture makes me cringe, however, I’m guessing that they will.

So, what kind of images did they get? Here is an example of footage taken by Bell Labs.

Amazing!

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Tickets please

Funny ghost poster.
Poster in the London Underground takes a no-nonsense view of ghosts. Screen readers refer to this text.

I admit, I’m fond of the British. They generally have an admirable calm and dignity that is worth imitating. Submitted for your perusal is this poster, found in a London Underground, addressing the presence of spirits. It’s obviously a joke—and a good one—but reports of ghosts in the tube system are commonplace.

This Daily Star article describes encounters with “a girl with ‘coal-black pits for eye sockets’” that first emerged in the 1980s, and is still making appearances. Other regular encounters include the mad ghost of Sarah Whitehead, also known as the Black Nun, who haunts the Bank Station.

Of course, London is not the only place with haunted trains. According to this Silicon India News article there are ghosts spotted in stations all over the world. Here are a few doozies:

  • Caobao Road Subway Station in Shanghai, China, has frequent break downs that seem to get better once the trains are free of the station. One story suggests that a man was dragged onto the tracks by a spirit!
  • Panteones Metro Station in Mexico City—the name literally means “Graveyards”— was built near two old cemeteries.  Workers hear mysterious knocks on the walls and have seen indistinct, shadowy shapes moving around. Screams are sometimes heard along the tracks.
  • Guards at Waterfront Station in Canada have seen a number of bizarre reflections of past passengers. One saw a 1920’s flapper complete with music from the era that vanished as approached.
  • Connolly Station in Ireland was badly damaged during a 1941 bombing attack. A soldier in grey has been seen roaming the platform and a guard watching the security camera saw two figures in military gear who disappeared when he investigated.

Why do ghosts return to these subways? Do they think of them as special places? They are certainly places where people have spent a lot of time. When I die I hope I don’t find myself trapped in someplace that was part of my day-to-day, mundane world. Imagine spending the afterlife sitting at that red light, or trapped behind a keyboard?

We’re interested in your weird travel encounters. We’ll share the interesting ones here.