weird news – Page 17 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Guest Blogger

IS TIME TRAVEL CLOSE TO A REALITY?

Have we discovered the key to time travel?

I mention all the time how the scientists of Earth are making major breakthroughs and discoveries daily, well today is no exception!

A NASA-funded researcher at the University of Iowa has found in the Earth’s atmosphere what can only be described as ‘portals’, and they may actually have the ability to allow humans to travel through space AND time!

NASA writes:

A favorite theme of science fiction is “the portal”–an extraordinary opening in space or time that connects travelers to distant realms. A good portal is a shortcut, a guide, a door into the unknown. If only they actually existed….

It turns out that they do, sort of, and a NASA-funded researcher at the University of Iowa has figured out how to find them.

“We call them X-points or electron diffusion regions,” explains plasma physicist Jack Scudder of the University of Iowa. “They’re places where the magnetic field of Earth connects to the magnetic field of the Sun, creating an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the sun’s atmosphere 93 million miles away.”

Observations by NASA’s THEMIS spacecraft and Europe’s Cluster probes suggest that these magnetic portals open and close dozens of times each day. They’re typically located a few tens of thousands of kilometers from Earth where the geomagnetic field meets the onrushing solar wind. Most portals are small and short-lived; others are yawning, vast, and sustained. Tons of energetic particles can flow through the openings, heating Earth’s upper atmosphere, sparking geomagnetic storms, and igniting bright polar auroras.

NASA is planning a mission called “MMS,” short for Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, due to launch in 2014, to study the phenomenon. Bristling with energetic particle detectors and magnetic sensors, the four spacecraft of MMS will spread out in Earth’s magnetosphere and surround the portals to observe how they work.

Just one problem: Finding them. Magnetic portals are invisible, unstable, and elusive. They open and close without warning “and there are no signposts to guide us in,” notes Scudder.

Actually, there are signposts, and Scudder has found them.

Read more and watch a video explanation at NASA.gov

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Guest Blogger

NEW UPDATE ON THE ‘BALTIC ANOMALY’, COULD BE NAZI SECRET WEAPON

Turns out the anomaly might not be from out-of-this world but, from the first World War.

More and more progress is being made daily on researching this ‘Baltic Anomaly’ that was discovered some months ago while treasure hunters looked for sunken ships with sonar along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The newest info from the team reports that this may, in fact, not be a crashed UFO or even the Millenium Falcon as the sonar read-out suggests, but may actually be a secret weapon from the Nazi’s during the first of Earth’s World Wars.

Daily Mail Online writes:

Sonar scans have shown that the device, raised 10ft above the seabed and measuring 200ft by 25ft, could be the base of an anti-submarine weapon.

The weapon was built with wire mesh which could have baffled submarine radar, leading enemy craft to crash – much in the same way as turning out a lighthouse could be used as a weapon against shipping.

But now former Swedish naval officer and WWII expert Anders Autellus has revealed that the structure – measuring 200ft by 25ft – could be the base of a device designed to block British and Russian submarine movements in the area.

The huge steel-and-concrete structure could be one of the most important historical finds in years.

Autellus claims it would have been built of double-skinned concrete and reinforced with wire mesh to baffle radar – which could explain why the dive team’s equipment repeatedly failed near the mystery object.

‘The area was vital to the German war machine because most of the ball bearings for its tanks and trucks came from here. Without them the German army would have ground to a halt,’ explained one expert.

‘This device dwarfs anything ever found before and is an important weapons discovery,’ they added.

Explorer Stefan Hogeborn – who is studying the images for the Ocean X diving team – agreed: ‘It is a good candidate for the answer to this mystery. The object lies directly underneath a shipping route.’

‘It would be of enormous weight in steel and concrete. Other Nazi anti-sub anchoring devices were nowhere near as large,’ he added.

While the Ocean Explorer team is understandably excited about their potentially earth-shattering find, others are slightly more sceptical and are questioning the accuracy of the sonar technology.

IS THIS REALLY ‘THE BEST EVIDENCE OF THE PARANORMAL IN THE PAST 10 YEARS’

Dubbed 'The Ghost In The Tearoom' the apparition is shown circled in red.

Some pretty bold claims are being made about recent cctv footage released from a local teamroom, Curiositeaz Vintage,
in Perth. He’s called in some specialists of the Paranormal Investigation Scotland team to take a look at it and they are very excited by what they’ve seen. So excited that they’re saying that this mans footage may, in fact, be the best evidence of paranormal activity that we’ve seen in the past 10 years.

How incredible!

But, we’ve looked long and hard but can’t seem to find the footage anywhere online. Well, we look forward to the day he releases the video to the public, since… you know, that is the evidence.

Daily Record of Scotland writes:

A CAFE owner has called in the ghost-hunters after claiming to have seen a spirit on his security camera.

Chills went down Dan Clifford’s spine when he checked his CCTV and saw what he’s convinced was a ghostly apparition hovering over a table set for two.

He summoned a team of ghost specialists, who said the sighting – said to be a figure of a woman – was the most striking evidence they had come across in almost 10 years.

Dan, 35, said yesterday: “The first time I saw the shadow moving on the camera my heart went nuts. I thought there was an intruder in the shop.

“But when I looked closer I realised it couldn’t be a live human being – I could see right through it.”

The CCTV image was taken in the dead of night after something set off a motion sensor. And Dan claims it’s not the only evidence of ghostly goings-on at his Curiositeaz Vintage Tea Room in Perth.

He said: “Over the past few months, all the staff have experienced something.

“Some have heard voices. Others have witnessed chairs moving and one was pushed forwards and felt a chill right down their spine.

“We’ve also had a number of mediums stopping in because they felt something when they walked by.

“Some have told of feeling the presence of a woman, which fits with our newest image.

“I have always believed in the spirit world but I’d never experienced anything like this until we opened Curiositeaz less than a year ago. It’s all been very exciting.”

Tonight on JOURNEY INTO TWILIGHT: Hypnosis and Past-Life Regression

Reviews were admittedly mixed for our premiere, but we hope you’ll give the program a chance to get our legs and our audience as we welcome Hypnotist, James Hazlerig. We’ll talk about some of the weird news, such as the hypnotist in Quebec who had to get his mentor to come in and break his audience out of a trance. James will also talk about the unusual area of using hypnosis to tap into our past lives.

Tune in live to call in with questions or save the podcast for later. Tonight’s episode airs live at 8:30pm Central, Thursday, July 12th, 2012 (if the show has already aired, you can always catch the episode on our Blog Talk Radio widget on the right side of the page).

Tune in for an all new experience, and join us as we Journey Into Twilight together.

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Guest Blogger

MAN BUILDS HIS OWN VIRTUAL REALITY GIRLFRIEND

Using Augmented and Virtual Reality, one man has built his own girlfriend! *Photo courtesy of Alsionesvx

…and i don’t blame!

One, possibly lonely, hacker in Japan has decided that a cat or dog wasn’t quite the companion he was looking for after having so much trouble finding a girlfiend. So, what to do? Just build one of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Well, actually… I did, but didn’t have the know-how or quite the creepiness that this guy does.

Future Of Tech on MSNBC.com writes:

In a slightly creepy but undoubtedly impressive feat of DIY electronics, an evidently lonely Japanese hacker has put together a virtual girlfriend through a combination of motion-tracking hardware, video goggles, and some scavenged 3-D game assets.

A video on YouTube, originally posted at Hack a Day, shows the view through a pair of video goggles that have been augmented with an Asus Xtion motion-tracking tool, essentially an off-brand Microsoft Kinect. This helps track his motion and the environment, and is assisted by some augmented-reality software that places virtual items on the image.

The last ingredient is, of course, a popular Japanese virtual pop idol. Hatsune Miku has starred in many games and concerts, and clearly the builder, known at the moment only by his online handle “Alsionesvx,” is a fan. He collected some 3-D models and animations from a portable game that has some augmented reality functions and merged them with his hacked-together environment.

Now Hatsune Miku not only appears before him at the park and in his apartment, but follows him when beckoned, is blocked properly by things like trees, and even casts a shadow. He interacts with her, as well, flipping her tie and patting her head.

MUMMIES MADE OF DIFFERENT BODIES FOUND IN SCOTLAND

This female mummy was found comprised of at least 3 different people.

A little over 10 years ago, archaeologists in Scotland found a set of 4 skeletons that dated back to almost 3,500 years ago but, there was a problem.

Every other bone or so dated back to a different time, some of them 100 of years apart! How could this be?

LA Times writes:

An international team of archaeologists have discovered that two mummies found on an island off the coast of Scotland are, like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, composed of body parts from several different humans. The mummified remains, as much as 3,500 years old, suggest that the first residents of the island of South Uist in the Hebrides had some previously unsuspected burial practices.

The West Coast of South Uist was densely populated from around 2000 BC until the end of the Viking period around AD 1300. Researchers led by archaeologist Michael Parker-Pearson of the University of Sheffield have been working at a site near the modern graveyard of Cladh Hallan, which gives the site its name. The team has so far excavated three roundhouses from a village that was apparently occupied from around 2200 BC to 800 BC. A little more than a decade ago, they found the two skeletons under one of the houses, as well as the remains of a teenage girl and a 3-year-old child.

The two primary skeletons were buried in a fetal position and showed evidence of having been preserved. Chemical evidence suggests they were mummified by being placed in nearby peat bogs for a year or longer. The high acidity and low oxygen content of the bog prevents bacteria from breaking down body tissues. After preservation, the skeletons were apparently removed from the bog and buried.

But the skeletons did not “look right” to the researchers. The female’s jaw didn’t fit into the rest of her skull, for example. Closer examination of the male, they reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science, showed that arthritis was present on the vertebrae of the neck, but not on the rest of the spine. The lower jaw had all of its teeth, while the upper jaw had none; but the condition of the lower jaw’s teeth showed that they had been paired with upper teeth. The team concluded that the skeleton has been assembled from parts of at least three bodies, some of which were separated by several hundred years of time.

EX-CIA AGENT FINALLY SPEAKS ABOUT ROSWELL CRASH

The CIA are said to have covered up the Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash of 1947.

The 65 year anniversary of the famous crash in Roswell, New Mexico was July 8th and one man decided it would be the perfect time to give his input on the matter. He might actually know what he’s talking about, after all, he was an agent of the CIA for 35 years and rather high-up as well.

Huffington Post writes:

Happy anniversary, Roswell, N.M. It was 65 years ago today that the Roswell Daily Record blasted an infamous headline claiming local military officials had captured a flying saucer on a nearby ranch. And now, a former CIA agent says it really happened.

“It was not a damn weather balloon — it was what it was billed when people first reported it,” said Chase Brandon, a 35-year CIA veteran. “It was a craft that clearly did not come from this planet, it crashed and I don’t doubt for a second that the use of the word ‘remains’ and ‘cadavers’ was exactly what people were talking about.”

Brandon served as an undercover, covert operations officer in the agency’s Clandestine Service for 25 years, where he was assigned missions in international terrorism, counterinsurgency, global narcotics trafficking and weapons smuggling. He spent his final 10 years of CIA service on the director’s staff as the agency’s first official liaison to the entertainment and publication industries. It was during this time, in the mid-1990s, that he walked into a special section of CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., called the Historical Intelligence Collection.

“It was a vaulted area and not everybody could get in it,” Brandon told The Huffington Post. “One day, I was looking around in there and reading some of the titles that were mostly hand-scribbled summations of what was in the boxes. And there was one box that really caught my eye. It had one word on it: Roswell.

BIGFOOT HAIR SAMPLES SOLD AT AUCTION TO MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD!

Certified Genuine BIGFOOT Hair? We sure hope so! Only time will tell but, the adventure begins now!

You’ve read that right, folks! We have gotten ourselves a hold of quite the crypto-important find here, a set certified genuine BIGFOOT hair samples all the way from Washington state!

We ran into a story posted over on one of of our favorite Bigfoot related websites, bigfootlunchclub.com, the other day that spoke of a man that had some hair samples in his possession. When we learned that they’d be up for auction this weekend, we knew immediately we had to have them!

Owner and operator of Museum of the Weird himself, Steve Busti, made sure that would most certainly be the case.

For when a possible answer to the mystery of Bigfoot comes calling, he has got to try and answer!

The folks over at GrindTV.com have written a few words about the auction:

The Nacogdoches Auction in Nacogdoches, Texas, sold a vintage bedroom set, antique dolls, a 1950s Schwinn bicycle, antique furniture and a lock of hair from … Bigfoot. Wait, what?! Hair from Bigfoot? Uh, yes, hair from Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch.

With a bid of $225, Steve Busti was the lucky winner for what actually appears to be hair from — something.

“I’m excited,” Busti said by phone soon after Saturday night’s auction. “I’m really looking forward to having the hair tested. If they come back with some unusual result, it could really change things. This could really be like the smoking gun, if you will, that will prove the existence of this animal.”

Busti owns the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas, and plans to add the hair to an existing Bigfoot exhibit that includes alleged Bigfoot tracks in plaster casts.

We appreciate the mention and you can read the rest of the story over at www.grindtv.com

Obviously, there’s always the chance of not actually being from a bigfoot but, that’s why we’ll be sending it in for DNA testing as soon as possible and you, our readers of the Weekly Weird News, will be the first to hear what the results are.

We couldn’t be more excited to be involved with the Bigfoot community and hope we can contribute our own research, findings, and now, quite possibly, actual evidence of the sasquatch himself, Bigfoot.

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Guest Blogger

BLOOD-RED RAIN FALLS IN INDIA

Poor residents of Kannur, India… for Thursday must have been one creepy day.

This small Indian village took a page right out of the classic horror movies when the streets literally ran red, not with blood mind you, but with blood-red water from a crimson colored summer shower!

That’s right, it wasn’t some freak accident or farmer taking care of some animals that stained the ground such a sad shade, turns out that with the right combination of pollutants, rain water that collects as clouds in the sky may actually undergo a chemical process and change from the usual clear we are used to, to a deep, deep red.

The Time of India writes:

Though not for first time in the state, red rain in parts of Kannur on Thursday did create some panic and curiosity among the residents in the district. The strange phenomenon happened around 6:50am and lasted for 15 minutes. People in the 1km area in and around Edachery in Puzhati panchayat panicked as their courtyards turned blood red after rain.

Kannur block panchayat president Shaija M, who collected the sample of the rainwater, said the water was as dark as black coffee and had the smell of raw beetroot. “I thought someone killed some animal and its blood got mixed with water on the courtyard,” she said.

Read more at timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Guest Blogger

‘SPACING OUT’ TALKS UFO’S AND SPACE EXPLORATION IN NEW WEB SERIES

'Spacing Out' explores UFOs, space, the search for extraterrestrial life, etc.

Thanks to a new web series from the great folks over at Openminds.tv, you now have an amazing, nightly news-esque way to get your fix of all things UFO and space exploration related!

Maureen Elsberry and Jason McClellan take a different approach to presenting the sci-fi happenings from around the world that usually get dismissed or pushed aside for more something more ‘entertaining’ . They’ve stayed in the format of your favorite local news station just giving you the facts they have, letting you take a look at the evidence and, allowing you to make up your own mind, just the way it should be.

The Huffington Post writes:

If you’re tired of the nightly local “eyewitness news” and would like to see more stories about UFOs and the search for aliens, try “Spacing Out.”

No, it’s not a state of mind. Rather, it’s a weekly webseries that presents the latest otherworldly news on UFOs and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in a format similar to a traditional news broadcast. But instad of 30 minutes of news, sports highlights and the weather, “Spacing Out” is all about the general mysteries of the universe.

Produced by OpenMinds.tv, “Spacing Out” debuted on May 4 and is co-hosted by Jason McClellan and Maureen Elsberry, who offer a fresh take on how UFOs and related topics are presented to the public.

The hook of the show features interviews with top researchers, journalists, media personalities and scientists — whether it’s photographic and video analysts in the UFO field or people who are scientifically searching for ET.

“We structure it in an eyewitness news format to give more of an objective view of all the subjects,” Elsberry told The Huffington Post. “This keeps it more easily digestible for both the general public and not just hard-core enthusiasts. In a news format, you’re able to objectively present facts and then let viewers formulate their own opinions.”

Read more at huffingtonpost.com or watch episode of 9 of spacing out right here, featuring some awesome UFO footage: