At the Museum we have a number of specimens of animal oddities, including a number of two-headed animals. Many of these animals had no life. Nature was just too brutal to them. It’s wonderful to see someone who is a survivor.
This amazing animals was adopted and is still alive
According to this story in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, the animal was left outside a temple in Xinkou town, Tianjin. Because of the weight of his head he is unable to stand up and requires significant care. He was discovered and adopted by a Yang Jinliang. Because it is so young it must be fed with a bottle and Jinliang says it is able to eat from both mouths.
This is truly a miraculous story. We hope that the pig has a chance to grow up. We will provide more information as we hear it.
Visit the Museum this weekend and see our own amazing collection of animal oddities, including a number of two-headed creatures.
In 1994, researchers were planning to open a museum in Hakui, Japan, devoted to the history and evidence of UFOs. Amongst the 10,000 reports they had collected was a memo dated March 22, 1950 to FBI Director J Edgar Hoover from Federal special agent Guy Hottel, who was in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office. This is three years after the reported Roswell incident. Here are quotes from that memo:
“An investigator for the Air Force states that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico.
“They were described as being circular in shape with raised centres, approximately 50 feet in diameter.
“Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall, dressed in metallic cloth of a very fine texture.
“According to Mr [redacted], the saucers were found in New Mexico due to the fact that the Government has a very high-powered radar set-up in that area and it is believed the radar interferes with the controlling mechanism of the saucers.”
If we read that correctly that suggests that nine extraterrestrial bodies were recovered from the crash in Roswell and that someone has the bodies and the wreckage.
The Freedom of Information act has now revealed further FBI papers dated from 1994 which indicate concern about what information are contained in these files. The FBI apparently began to keep a close eye on the planned opening of the museum. One particular memo from January 1994 cites specific areas of concern including these statements by museum official, Toru Wada:
“In the future, we hope the center will become a focus of international attention in terms of collecting and disseminating information on UFOS.”
“The city has painstakingly acquired the documents over a 10-year period from such sources as the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).”
The memo also cites this statement by Josen Takano, a municipal employee who was interested in UFOs who had collected US information on the topic: “Takano said efforts are under way to gather even more information through a network of enthusiasts in 12 other countries.”
Cosmo Isle Hakui Photo by Hirorinmasa [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia CommonsWhat happened next may be more telling. The UFO center did not open as planned, but went through a lot of changes. It is called the Cosmo Isle Hakui. The building is still somewhat UFO shaped, but has placed much more emphasis on exhibits depicting NASA Space Research.
Did someone step in and change the course of the museum? There are rumors that some of the documents were actually seized by FBI agents, which is remarkable since this would be on foreign (if allied) soil.
There are critics who say that these memos don’t constitute any evidence and that the whole idea is just pure fantasy. Others point out that these documents are obvious indications that the government is hiding solid evidence on the nature of UFOs and the existence of extraterrestrials.
This flea preserved about 20 million years ago in amber may carry evidence of an ancestral strain of the bubonic plague. Photo by George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of Oregon State University [CC BY-SA 2.0]The flea in this picture could contain the ancestor to one of the most horrifying diseases known to the human race, the Black Death. Also called the bubonic plague, this disease killed an estimated 50 million people in the 14th century, or 60 per cent of Europe’s entire population.
Examination of this flea found droplets of the deadly bacteria on its proboscis (sucking mouthpart) and in its backside. This thing’s got it bad!
George Poinar, Jr., an entomology researcher in the College of Science at Oregon State University, told Discover News reporters “Aside from physical characteristics of the fossil bacteria that are similar to plague bacteria, their location in the rectum of the flea is known to occur in modern plague bacteria, and in this fossil, the presence of similar bacteria in a dried droplet on the proboscis of the flea is consistent with the method of transmission of plague bacteria by modern fleas.”
In other words, it looks like we’ve got a winner!
Just as the mosquito that started all the trouble in Jurrasic Park, this chunk of amber was pulled from a mine in the Dominican Republic. Is it possible that this bacteria could somehow be revived? It’s not likely. Generally things that have been trapped in rock for 20 million years are going to be pretty dead. However, we have discovered bacteria that can survive in space, so what do we know?
The arrow points at bacteria on the proboscis of this flea preserved in amber, which researchers believe may be an ancestral strain of the bacteria that causes bubonic plague. Photo by George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of Oregon State University [CC BY-SA 2.0]Another question is could an early form of this plague have been partially responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago? Research suggests that the big event was a large asteroid (and that more may be coming). But imagine the double-whammy of terrible disease and an astro-event!Poinar added “If this is an ancient strain of Yersinia, it would be extraordinary. It would show that plague is actually an ancient disease that no doubt was infecting and possibly causing some extinction of animals long before any humans existed. Plague may have played a larger role in the past than we imagined.”Hopefully all of this will remain scientific curiosity and we won’t have some strange event that brings on the zombie apocalypse. Though, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few cans of food and some extra water handy.
Imagine you are enjoying a pleasant walk in the woods on Vancouver Island. Suddenly, the air is pierced by a terrible howl. Your blood runs cold as you try to imagine what it could be. Is that a dog? Is it a man in agony? Is it something unearthly?
Residents of Alert Bay don’t have to imagine. They are experiencing it. Several residents have reporting hearing what some believe are vocalizations from Sasquatch in the area. A young man named Mackenzie Mountain managed to get a recording on his phone. CTV, Vancouver had this video report where you can hear some of the recording.
I have been searching for the original, but have had no luck so far. If anyone has a pointer to it I’d be much obliged.
British Columbia has historically had more sightings of Bigfoot than anywhere else in Canada according to records at the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. (California has the most recorded sightings in the world.) As the news story reported, people have not only heard these calls but they have seen creatures.
Also noted in the video, Vancouver Island does not have the sort of wildlife that is normally given as probable explanations for Bigfoot sightings. There are no bears or other such creatures on the island. It’s also remarkable that something could manage to stay hidden in such a small place. Vancouver Island is less than 3 miles across. This gives some weight to the idea that it could be some sort of inter-dimensional being.
Bigfoot researchers have taken an interest in the sightings and CTV had a follow up story with John Bindernagel who traveled to the area to get his own recordings. (See his web site. We have the Bigfoot cast he shows on his home page in our Museum!) You might be interested in his latest book, The Discovery of the Sasquatch.
Will this lead us closer to answers about Bigfoot? I’m always hopeful. As always, we wait and watch to see. Have you had a Bigfoot encounter? Tell us!
George Johnston, a barman in Dartmouth, Devon in England, captured something pretty weird at a corner called Deadman’s Cross. The location, shown here in Google Maps, doesn’t look like much, but at about noon from a perspective across the street this collection of street signs and a light puts out a very disturbing shadow. Here is Johnston’s original picture from Facebook, showing what appears to be man hanging from a post. What’s even stranger is that this intersection is called Deadman’s Cross because it used to be the sight of executions!
Obviously, this is just a strange trick of the light combined with pareidolia, our predilection for seeing meaningful patterns. (This has been sited as our reason for seeing people on Mars.) But is something like this really just a coincidence? After all, this picture has generated a lot of interest in this intersection. Perhaps this curiosity will cause someone to dig deeper into the history of these executions and people may be remembered who were otherwise lost to obscurity.
I was able to find little information about the history of Deadman’s Cross, and now I’m interested.
Shadows are fascinating. Several artists have harnessed them in bizarre works of art. Take some time to view this amazing exhibit by Tim Noble and Sue Webster who use light and artistically arranged piles of junk to create haunting images.
And who could forget this famous shadow moment from Nosferatu?
On Tuesday afternoon (9/29/2015) officers responded to an overturned truck in Garvin County, Oklahoma. This had a difference, though, as the truck was carrying bee hives. You’ve heard of situations when police show up to help at a scene and find those they want to help turning on them? That was the experience of officer Carl Zink who found himself trapped inside his cruiser while thousands of unhappy bees swarmed his vehicle.
What did he do? He did what many of us would do with a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He filmed it on his phone. Here is dramatic video.
Incredibly, Officer Zink was only stung once. Beekeepers showed up to cleanse the vehicle and get the bees safely reorganized.
Were the bees really attacking his truck in anger? Probably not. When bees have trouble with their hive they will swarm. The traffic incident probably put the bees into a defensive mode in the beginning, but very quickly their priority became to find a new home.
Swarming bees collect on a tree Photo by fir0002 | flagstaffotos.com.au [GFDL 1.2], via Wikimedia CommonsAccording to this Washington Post article a swarm of bees can happen under many circumstances. When a hive grows too large the old queen will fly off with a contingent to find a new home and a new queen will be formed in the existing hive. Of course, if the home is threatened the bees will have to swarm to find a new one.
In fact, bee expert Thomas Seeley says that honeybees are at their safest when swarming. He explains that a swarm of bees has no home to defend, they are simply in transition, so they are less likely to be aggressive. If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.
If you encounter a warm of bees you should do what they did in Oklahoma. Contact a beekeeper who can deal with them safely. Our bees are currently in decline with a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. Because of the importance of the bee in agriculture (and much of our other plant life) loss of bees would have a serious impact on our future. Any time you can save a colony of bees you help to maintain and grow that population. Look for a local beekeeper association for help.
Just like our friends, the spiders (who may rain down upon us or build giant creepy webs) bees have a special place on the planet. They may be weird, but they are important.
It’s 1917 and there is a deal of controversy about a new book called Jap Herron. Why the controversy? The publishers claimed that the book was written by Mark Twain, dictated through a series of sessions with a Ouija board. The book can be read in its entirety through the publicdomainreview.org site. This was weird in a number of ways. Twain was one to poke fun at such things. In 1866 he wrote an account of attending a seance in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise.
Twain’s family was not happy about the book. His daughter Clara sued to halt publication. The woman who published the work, Emily Grant Hutchings, was not interested in a court battle, so she agreed to halt distribution and most copies were destroyed. It is a blessing of the technical world that we can have access to it at all. I hate when any kind of creation is completely destroyed.
While Twain was the most famous, he was not the only author said to reach across the veil and type their works through a planchette. In 1913, a 17th-century woman named Patience Worth, who said she was killed in an Indian raid, began to communicate with Pearl Curran. Shortly after the first sessions, Patience began to dictate poetry, novels, and plays. The link between Pearl and Patience became so strong that they were eventually able to abandon the board and the words just came into Pearl’s mind so she could speak them outright. (Dictating one letter at a time must be grueling!)
Jane Roberts began communicating in 1963 with an entity that identified itself as Seth. Over time they accumulated a good deal of information that was published as The Seth Material. I also found some interesting video on YouTube of Roberts talking about her encounters with Seth. All of this work seems more geared to spiritual teaching rather than literature.
Recently, the band The Mars Volta claimed their album The Bedlam in Goliath was inspired by a Ouija board. This NPR review lets you hear some of the album and considers the Ouija claim. There is also a YouTube video of an interview with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez(WARNING: CONTAINS SOME ADULT LANGUAGE) where he talks about the more troubling aspects of that experience.
If we consider talking boards to be gateways to other worlds and other beings why wouldn’t they want to express themselves? It seems like a great way to keep in touch with one’s public. Of course, who gets the royalties?
If you are in the Austin, Texas area, I will be participating in a special event presented by the Austin Horror Society centered around talking boards. It’s at Sherlock’s pub on Tuesday, October 13th and it’s free! See more on the Facebook event.
If you are reading this then it means that we all survived the Blood Moon phenomenon on Sunday and we got through 9-28-15 without being sucked into an artificial black hole or anything. Now NASA announces that they have found actual liquid water on Mars. Did you miss it? Here’s the announcement. Don’t worry. It’s short!
So, what does this mean? It means that we don’t always know what we know and we don’t know what we don’t know. Just a few years ago the article A Tale of Planetary Woe was published on NASA’s Science News web site. In it the author says :
“Mars today is bitter cold and bone dry. The rivers and seas are long gone. Its atmosphere is thin and wispy, and if Martian microbes still exist, they’re probably eking out a meager existence somewhere beneath the dusty Martian soil.”
While it’s true that we have not discovered a lush oasis on Mars, we’ve found that it’s a little less desolate. Does that translate into a Martian civilization? Probably not. However, it seems to be a moving target.
In 2009 scientists believed they had identified fossilized bacteria in a meteorite with Martian origins. This suggests that there was some sort of life, if only microscopic, long long ago. However, the idea of liquid water erodes the idea that life “could not exist” on Mars, making it “probably doesn’t exist.” That leap is huge.
This kind of exploration is literally not an exact science. It is finding information, making the best sense of that information with existing knowledge and then digging deeper. I’m very happy to move from “bone dry” to “under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars.” Now the idea of water can be part of the thinking about Martian exploration. As that thinking adapts the methods for exploring adapt and we’ll find new things because we begin to look for them.
The existence of water certainly changes the views of a manned expedition to Mars (actually considered by 2030). It’s all very exciting news.
Of course, we hope that none of this is disrupted by the actual martians! Remember this guy?
Photo from Mars rover shows what appears to be a human doing something to the machine.
If the Martians do appear, we hope they are wise and wonderful like it Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.
One of our Museum guests poses with Emily, the haunted skeleton. Alas! No ghosties.
When someone in the Museum seems to have an especially strong connection to Emily, our haunted skeleton, I always try to take a couple of photos of them standing next to her. I take two so that I can see any differences between them. If I was using a proper camera rather than my phone I’d use the automatic feature to take several frames. That way if there is any sort of anomaly such as an orb I have a better chance to catch it.
The idea of photographing ghosts is almost as old as the camera itself. The first reported ghost photo was taken by a man named W. Campbell in 1860. It was a picture of a chair which, when developed, was found to contain the ghostly figure of a boy. Early camera technology was primitive and very long exposures were required to get a good image. Everyone had to remain very still for a minute or so. Any movement or someone stepping in or out of the picture would create a ghostly apparition. Campbell maintained that this was not the case in his photo. (I looked but have not yet found a copy of this image to share.)
First spirit photo taken in 1872Photo of Mary Todd Lincoln with the apparition of Abraham behind her
However, after the rise of spiritualism, people began trying to capture images of ghosts on camera. The original king of spirit photography is William H Mumler. His first spirit photo shows the apparition of his deceased wife. Mumler became the first one to do portraits of people that contain ghosts. His most famous one is probably the photo he took of Mary Todd Lincoln which shows her husband standing behind her in an apparent gesture of tenderness.
Remember that these were in the days before digital photography and enhancing photos with Photoshop (or the freely available GIMP). Everything had to be done on glass plates. If we assume the Lincoln photo is faked it still shows a remarkable amount of skill!
Others began to do spirit photos. William Hope started his own line of photos in 1905. Here are examples of his work.
A ghostly hand rises up to rap on the table during a seance.
This man appears to be surround by swirling mists of energy.
Of course, with all of these apparent fakes does that mean that there were no legitimate spirit photographs taken? Before you decide you might want to take a look at this photo gallery from the folks at paranormal.about.com. These are the cream of the crop from many, many submissions that people receive.
We actually have a video, recently received from a guest that shows some unusual activity. We need to mask a child’s face for privacy reasons but the we will share it with you. If you have ghostly photos you have taken, please share them with us! You might be featured in a future blog!
Lee works on another of her macabre dollhouse scenes
This kindly grandmother was a master of creating intricate dollhouse scenes…with one small twist. Her scenes depicted detailed accounts of actual murders.
Frances Glessner Lee, born in 1878, developed a fascination with forensic pathology, something that was distinctly not ladylike for her time. In the 1940s she began to construct a fascinating series of miniature dioramas that showed details of various crime scenes. They were used to instruct investigators about finding clues and correctly viewing a site. They are still used to day.
Looking at these tiny little snapshots of murder created with toys is quite disturbing. The detail is equal to anything one would see on CSI. Each scene is clearly from an older time, showing quaint iceboxes and a day before televisions dominated the home.
Here is an example of Lee’s gruesome creations
Details of bloody walls, bruising and wounds on a body, discarded objects and murder weapons are all intricately reproduced. It is simultaneously compelling and horrifying, as though Ken finally slipped and went on a rampage.
You can see detailed views and explanations of Lee’s works on the Death in Diorama web page. While the images are compelling all on their own, the detailed analysis of what the viewer should consider from each scene is fascinating.
Of course, there is a documentary about Lee, her work and the influence it has had and continues to have on training forensics experts. This video is an NPR story about the film, Of Dolls and Murder. Narrated by John Waters, this film is an eerie glimpse into the world of murder in miniature. Frances Glessner Lee is one weird grandma!
