WEEKLY WEIRD NEWS – Page 42 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Guest Blogger

RARE WHITE BEAR FOUND IN GREEN FORESTS!

The "Spirit" bear aka the Kermode bear, or just plain "the white bear", lives in the forests of British Columbia amongst it's black bear bretheren.

A magnificent and extremely rare animal has finally been spotted and captured on film by wildlife photographer Paul Nicklen in Canada.

Although it looks like a polar bear has gotten loose from a local zoo and has wandered off into the woods, this beautiful white bear is there on purpose, courtesy of mother nature!

With only 200 of these guys running around in the wild, a sighting is extremely rare, and taking photographs of the “Spirit” bear is even rarer.

The uber-rare white bear dealing with it's common brother invading his territory, the black bear.

One man has the patience enough to have made these pictures possible, Paul Nicklen waited and wandered the deep and dense forests of British Columbia, Canada all for the chance of getting a glimpse of, and photographing what he’s dreamt of since he was a child, and for that we must thank him.

So, thank you Paul Nicklen!

The Daily Mail writes:

You could be forgiven for thinking it was a polar bear that had wandered off the ice and somehow found itself in a forest. But this golden, almost white, beautifully unique creature is in fact a white variant of the North American black bear known as the spirit bear.

The animal, also known as the Kermode bear, lives among more conventional-looking black bears in the dense green forests of British Columbia in Canada.

Once thought to be a myth, these legendary creatures are now so precious to the people of British Columbia, the Government has made it an offence to shoot one – with a fine of up to $100,000 CAD. Wildlife photographers now travel from across the globe for the chance to capture the white bear on camera, which are virtually impossible to photograph, due to their scarcity.

But one lucky photographer who captured this series of images of the spirit bear in it’s natural habitat is Paul Nicklen. The 43-year-old from Vancouver, Canada, said: ‘This little bear is amazing its pure white, it’s not a polar bear and there are only 200 left in the world – it’s more rare than a panda.

30,000 YEAR OLD PLANT RESURRECTED!

Here is a plant that lived among woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers, brought back to life in present day.

We’re already able to recreate the world as it was thousands and thousands of years ago using data, science, and computers, but now we’re getting closer and closer to being able to bring that prehistoric world to life in our current reality.

Scientists from Russia have extracted ancient fruit, frozen in permafrost, hidden by a prehistoric squirrel over 30,000+ thousand years ago to regenerate a plant/flower that existed when ancient creatures like woolly mammoths, and even sabre-tooth tigers roamed the Earth.

Discover Magazine writes:

Fruits in my fruit bowl tend to rot into a mulchy mess after a couple of weeks. Fruits that are chilled in permanent Siberian ice fare rather better. After more than 30,000 years, and some care from Russian scientists, some ancient fruits have produced this delicate white flower.

These regenerated plants, rising like wintry Phoenixes from the Russian ice, are still viable. They produce their own seeds and, after a 30,000-year hiatus, can continue their family line.

The plant owes its miraculous resurrection to a team of scientists led by David Gilichinsky, and an enterprising ground squirrel. Back in the Upper Pleistocene, the squirrel buried the plant’s fruit in the banks of the Kolyma River. They froze.

Over millennia, the squirrel’s burrow fossilised and was buried under increasing layers of ice. The plants within were kept at a nippy -7 degrees Celsius, surrounded by permanently frozen soil and the petrifying bones of mammoths and woolly rhinos. They never thawed. They weren’t disturbed. By the time they were found and defrosted by scientists, they had been buried to a depth of 38 metres, and frozen for around 31,800 years.

TEST-TUBE BURGERS AVAILABLE THIS YEAR!

Shown here is real "meat", actually growing in a lab!

Our world grows more artificial by the second, especially when scientists are racing to come up with solutions to some serious problems we’ll be facing in our future.

One of those problems being the shortage of food to come as our population grows exponentially larger and more crowded. If these scientists, currently working on creating artificial meat in test tubes, are successful, hopefully hunger won’t be such a big problem for the world as it today with thousands dying daily due to starvation.

What these researchers are hoping to do is eventually create a factory-like setting to mass produce the “burgers” and distribute them to the world after they get the first one official, which would be no earlier than October of this year.

The Telegraph writes:

By generating strips of meat from stem cells researchers believe they can create a product that is identical to a real burger.

The process of culturing the artificial meat in the lab is so laborious that the finished product, expected to arrive in eight months’ time, will cost about £220,000 (EUR250,000).

But researchers expect that after producing their first patty they will be able to scale up the process to create affordable artificial meat products.

Mass-producing beef, pork, chicken and lamb in the lab could satisfy the growing global demand for meat – forecast to double within the next 40 years – and dramatically reduce the harm that farming does to the environment.

PRESIDENTS MEETING WITH ALIENS? OF COURSE!

President Eisenhower meeting with other government officials.

Some believe the leaders of the free world have been meeting with and receiving information from alien beings since the beginning of the American Presidency, and it seems one believer has found some proof that a number these meetings actually took place, with President Eisenhower at the helm, on several occasions, and has even spoken out on the radio to argue his side.

What do you think?

Leave us some feedback in the comments section below and let us know if you think our leaders have leaders… of the alien kind.

Daily Mail writes:

Former American President Dwight D. Eisenhower had three secret meetings with aliens, a former US government consultant has claimed. The 34th President of the United States met the extra terrestrials at a remote air base in New Mexico in 1954, according to lecturer and author Timothy Good.

Eisenhower and other FBI officials are said to have organised the showdown with the space creatures by sending out ‘telepathic messages’. The two parties finally met up on three separate occasions at the Holloman Air Force base and there were ‘many witnesses’. Conspiracy theorists have circulated increased rumours in recent months that the meeting between the Commander-in-Chief and people from another planet took place.

But the claims from Mr Good, a former U.S. Congress and Pentagon consultant, are the first to be made publicly by a prominent academic. Speaking on Frank Skinner’s BBC2 current affairs show Opinionated, he said that governments around the world have been in regular contact with aliens for many decades.

DOES DEVIL’S HOLE REALLY EXIST?

"Devil's Hole" by photographer Pamela Smith.

There’s plenty of stories that tell a tale of an endless, bottomless pit that houses all kinds of wonders and supernatural beings down in its’ depths.

Supposedly, there’s one right here in America, hidden in the forests of Washington and only one man claims to have ever seen it.

Komo News writes:

ELLENSBURG, Wash. — From Bigfoot to the disappearance of D.B. Cooper, the Pacific Northwest is full of mysteries. Another mystery buried deep in the hills of eastern Washington keeps resurfacing. Ellensburg and its surrounding valleys and Manastash Ridge are beautiful in any season. Some believe what lies beneath is a deep, dark hole with supernatural powers.

A man named Red Elk is one of the only people alive known to have ever seen the mysterious hole. A Native American Shaman, or medicine man, Red Elk said his dad first showed him the hole in 1961. “He said ‘This is an endless hole,'” Red Elk said. Red Elk’s been back many times and said strange things happen every time he goes near it. “People get it confused with what I call the devil’s hole,” he said.

Many locals claim to know about the hole, but it didn’t become phenomena until 1997, when Mel Waters went on the Coast to Coast radio show with Art Bell. “I brought the dogs with me.” Waters said on the show. “They wouldn’t go anywhere near the damn thing.” Waters said the hole had a three-foot stone wall around it. It seemed bottomless to him, so he used an old shark fisherman’s trick — sending thousands of feet of fishing line down.

“What I did, was I sent down a roll of lifesavers,” he said. “So when it hit water the lifesavers would dissolve.” But the lifesavers came back up whole — no water — so how deep was this hole? Waters said he believed it descended miles into the earth and he heard strange stories about its powers. “One guy claims that he threw his departed canine down into the hole,” he said. “He swears the dog actually came back to him.”

GHOST OF NUN CAPTURED IN PHOTO!

While creating a panoramic photo, Jonathan Curran got a shot of something extra that wasn't supposed to be there.

There seems to be a magic quality to photographs that allow them to capture moments in life in a way our brains never could.

Whether it’s a photo from a memorable party you had with friends at the end of the year, or just a snap shot of scenery you’d love to capture, there’s always a little something extra in there that makes you feel good when looking at them and recalling the memories and emotions of that moment in time.

Photographer Jonathan Curran, got a lot of something extra in this panoramic photo he created in the way of a mysterious figure, seemingly staring directly into the lens, that wasn’t shown in any of the other pictures that were taken just moments before and after.

Is this a person wrapped up and posing for a picture, or the ghost of a nun caught on camera?

Galway Independent writes:

A photo that appears to capture a ghostly image of a nun on The Long Walk has been causing a stir in the city this week.

Local photographer Jonathan Curran was taking a series of 13 photographs of the picturesque area in an attempt to create a panoramic view when he came across something very unusual in one of his shots.

One of the images, which were taken less than a minute apart, appears to show an isolated female figure with the appearance of a 19th century Claddagh nun. Mr Curran said he was “freaked” to discover the strange appearance on the camera and checked the other 12 images but the elderly woman did not appear in any of the other pictures.

“The image was not visible either before or after the photograph was taken and was not captured in any of the other photographs, either going or coming. She just seemed to appear for a moment and then disappear. There were other people on the Long Walk that day, but they seemed oblivious to her presence,” he explained.

MYSTERY OF BLUE FAMILY REVEALED!

The "Blue Family", parents Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith with all seven children, four of them blue!

What we see in this photo from the late 1800’s seems too weird to be true but, is in fact, reality!

Turns out that a little bit of recessive genes mixed with some inbreeding turns your skin blue! Who knew?!

The Daily Mail writes:

In the Appalachian Mountains rests a medical oddity so unusual that it at first seems a massive hoax.

Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky – who can trace their roots back to a French orphan – started producing children who were blue.

As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes, intermarriage and inbreeding, members of the Fugate family were born with a rare condition that made them visibly discoloured.

The mystery behind the astonishing picture of the Fugates, which has been baffling people for years, appears to have finally been solved.

It began when Martin Fugate, a French orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky’s Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century.

He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith – who had a very pale complexion – and their union formed a genetic mutation that resulted in their descendants being born with blue skin.

THIS ISN’T SLOW MOTION, IT’S A RACE!

Even though these guys look stopped, and they are, they're actually racing for a world title!

Some one has dug up some very interesting footage of a Sprint Match World Championship race from 1990 that is bizarrely slow for the first few laps, with the racers even coming to a complete stand-still at one point, before ending with an incredibly fast last lap.

Many things have changed over the years but here’s a sport that hasn’t changed much, few know exist and even fewer particpate in, yet still lives on in relative obscurity.

The 1990 World Chamionship race:

The 2006 World Chamionship race:

And sometimes, hitting those high-speeds doesn’t end up so well:

The Now I Know daily newsletter writes:

Webster’s Dictionary defines “sprint” as “to run or go at top speed especially over a short distance. As an example, the dictionary states “[t]he bicycle racers sprinted for the finish line.” When we think of sprints, we think of races like the 100 meter dash — where speed rules. But when it comes to bicycle sprints — sprint races, that is — that’s not quite the case.

Bicycle sprints — sometimes calls “match sprints” — are three lap races pitting two cyclists against each other. The races are typically 1,000 meters (1 kilometer) long although smaller arenas feature 600 meter races. Cyclists are able to bike the 1,000 meters in short order: the world record in completing the distance is a mere 58.875 seconds. But many match sprints can last much longer than that. The one seen below? It lasted nearly five and a half minutes.

WOOLLY MAMMOTH FILMED IN SIBERIA?

Is this a real Woolly Mammoth, thought to have gone extinct over 3,000 years ago?

This is a remarkable sighting if you can believe your eyes!

This fuzzy still frame from a video posted on Youtube seems to show a Woolly Mammoth in Siberia crossing an icy, flowing river in the heart of winter.

Although, on closer inspection, it seems a bit more likely to be a very large bear carrying a rather large fish. What would be the “trunk” of this beast doesn’t articulate like your average elephants would, doesn’t seem to be connected judging by the color seperation that happens where the link to the head would be and it seems to be dangling and moves only with the rushing of the water hitting it.

Here’s the footage shot by a government engineer while surveying for the new construction of roadways in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia. You be the judge of what you see and leave us some feedback!

The Sun writes:

A BEAST lurches through icy waters in a sighting a paranormal investigator thinks could prove woolly mammoths are not extinct after all.

The animal – thought to have mostly died out roughly 4,000 years ago – was apparently filmed wading through a river in the freezing wilds of Siberia.

The jaw-dropping footage was caught by a government-employed engineer last summer in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia, it is claimed.

He filmed the elephant-sized creature as it struggled against the racing water.

Its hair matches samples recovered from mammoth remains regularly dug up from the permafrost in frozen Russia.

NEW CONTENDER FOR WOLRDS SHORTEST MAN!

The newest person to vie for the spot of world's shortest man, Chandra Bahadur Dangi.

Each and everyday brings something new and fascinating when part of your job is googling “weird news”, and today’s no different!

Here we see Chandra Bahadur Dangi, possibly, the newest addition to the Guinness World Record Book for the title of “World’s Shortest Man”.

Living in Nepal, he’s been out of sight and unable to communicate with the world at large, which is why this is the first we’re hearing of him. Good luck to the man and the guinness officials heading out to his village right now to take the actual measurements.

Here’s some video of Chandra walking about in his village with some average sized friends:

The Huffington Post writes:

A 72-year-old man may soon have a new title: The world’s shortest man.

The man in question is Chandra Bahadur Dangi, who lives in a remote valley in southwestern Nepal, and, according to some sources is just 22 inches tall.

Officials from Guinness World Records are currently on their way to Dangi’s village to verify the claim or see if it’s just a tall tale.

While it might seem strange that someone as short as Dangi could go unnoticed for so long,MyRepublica.com claims that was because he lived in such a remote village with no access to communication.