Coincidence? Time will tell.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Signals Detected from Newly Found Planet - Two Years Ago
In December of 2008, Dr. Ragbir Bhathal of SETI detected suspicious signals coming from space. He kept scanning for months but never caught the signal, again. However, a week ago the scientific community announced the discovery of an Earth-like planet - Gliese 581g - that just happens to be exactly where Dr. Bhathal picked up that signal two years ago.
Coincidence? Time will tell.
Coincidence? Time will tell.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
500 Foot Long Crack Forms in Michigan - No Explanation
Eileen Heider was relaxing in her recliner when she began to feel the chair vibrate. An explosion was heard and when she ran out to check on it she noticed a large crack had formed along her property.
So far, a gas eruption has been ruled out, but nothing else developed on this odd story all week. There's no fault line nearby, and no history of geological activity like this.
Here's a video, wherein a local man says his large pile of wood was knocked over in the explosion:
Since there's no crater, we can probably rule out ordinary explosives. No one has located an epicenter, yet, so we've got nothing to go on. Could there be a geyser or a volcano forming? That's pretty rare, but so is this incident. Also, there's a situation called Bradyseism in which the ground shudders like this due to underground magma fluctuations.
There's also the liquification phenomenon (which has been mentioned on some comment boards) where the ground suddenly acts like a liquid and sucks things up. Supposedly, this sort of thing happened a long time ago on an island inhabited with pirates, and many of the criminals on the island were trapped in the ground after it hardened and became meals for local animals. It's very creepy, but I don't see anyone describing that sort of thing, and it's a phenomenon that is usually observed in loose sandy soils - not clumpy moist soil with vegetation. Also, liquification isn't known to cause audible explosions.
But this sort of speculation is all we have, right now. Maybe we'll get some more answers, or maybe this mysterious crack in the ground will always haunt us.
Heider and neighbors heard an explosion-like sound Monday morning. Heider found the nearly 200-yard-long crevice, which measures five-feet deep in parts, Tuesday. (source)
So far, a gas eruption has been ruled out, but nothing else developed on this odd story all week. There's no fault line nearby, and no history of geological activity like this.
Here's a video, wherein a local man says his large pile of wood was knocked over in the explosion:
Since there's no crater, we can probably rule out ordinary explosives. No one has located an epicenter, yet, so we've got nothing to go on. Could there be a geyser or a volcano forming? That's pretty rare, but so is this incident. Also, there's a situation called Bradyseism in which the ground shudders like this due to underground magma fluctuations.
There's also the liquification phenomenon (which has been mentioned on some comment boards) where the ground suddenly acts like a liquid and sucks things up. Supposedly, this sort of thing happened a long time ago on an island inhabited with pirates, and many of the criminals on the island were trapped in the ground after it hardened and became meals for local animals. It's very creepy, but I don't see anyone describing that sort of thing, and it's a phenomenon that is usually observed in loose sandy soils - not clumpy moist soil with vegetation. Also, liquification isn't known to cause audible explosions.
But this sort of speculation is all we have, right now. Maybe we'll get some more answers, or maybe this mysterious crack in the ground will always haunt us.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
UFO Shuts Down Chinese Airport - AGAIN!
Once again, Chinese air traffic controllers have reported UFO activity in China:
It was first spotted by air traffic controllers in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, who noticed the mysterious figure on their radar screens.
After attempting to make contact with it - and failing - they sent out warnings to the airport in Baotou.
There's a video being circulated, but it's not very helpful. The witnesses in Hohhot said that they saw a tube-like object, and the video just shows some random lights. Often times, when UFO stories circulate an unrelated picture or video circulates with it; you can judge for yourself (the video is below). I think it's great that these sightings started with air traffic controllers and are actually documented. This is a very interesting trend. I'll update you if anything comes of this, I but I think the story will be forgotten soon. (Even though it's fascinating, and potentially important, things like this are quickly pushed aside for stories about celebrities.)
It was first spotted by air traffic controllers in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, who noticed the mysterious figure on their radar screens.
After attempting to make contact with it - and failing - they sent out warnings to the airport in Baotou.
There's a video being circulated, but it's not very helpful. The witnesses in Hohhot said that they saw a tube-like object, and the video just shows some random lights. Often times, when UFO stories circulate an unrelated picture or video circulates with it; you can judge for yourself (the video is below). I think it's great that these sightings started with air traffic controllers and are actually documented. This is a very interesting trend. I'll update you if anything comes of this, I but I think the story will be forgotten soon. (Even though it's fascinating, and potentially important, things like this are quickly pushed aside for stories about celebrities.)
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
New Ape Discovered
As Cryptomundo tells us, a new type of ape has been discovered. A new sort of crested Gibbon is recognized in the Asian rainforests. There are new creatures being identified like this every year - is it completely ridiculous to think that Bigfoot might be next? I don't think so.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The Horror of Sleep Paralysis
Most paranormal enthusiasts have read about sleep paralysis, or, at least, they've read about "Old Hag Syndrome" or one of the many names it goes by outside of the medical community. Colloquially, these stories span cultures and centuries but are all basically the same. The sleeper awakes to find out they cannot move. This is accompanied by an odd sense of danger and the frightening image of something staring at them in the darkness. Some describe an old woman staring down at them, others a shadowy ghost, and others a demon. All of the descriptions seem similar, though.
Medical science brought us closer to understanding this after discovering REM atonia. This is the "override" switch in your brain that keeps your body still while you sleep. After reading about this, I thought an episode of sleep paralysis would be a fun experiment and hoped it would happen to me. I came to regret that.
I had long forgotten about REM atonia by the time it happened. In the middle of the night, my eyes opened and I didn't know why. Surely, I had heard some sound or some noise in the apartment, but I couldn't remember. Something had startled me, however, because I was frightened. Very frightened. Had I heard someone break in through the window? Or did I hear someone yelling? No, I couldn't remember anything at all. I just knew this overwhelming feeling of dread like I had not ever known. I've lived in bad neighborhoods and been through some rough scrapes, but this feeling of fear was much worse than anything I had been through. For the first time in my life, I was certain that something horrible was going to happen to me and that I was powerless to stop it from happening.
Then, I saw it. Someone standing right in front of me. Had they been there the entire time? I couldn't see them well in the darkness, but a person was standing just a few feet away and staring at me while I laid on my side. I am normally very calm under pressure, but I wanted to scream. I stared in horror at the thing that stared back at me. I couldn't see its eyes, but I could feel it looking at me in the dark. What was it doing? How had it gotten there? And why did it awaken the darkest fears within me?
And why the devil couldn't I move? I just laid there in my fear thinking that I was paralyzed out of horror. I don't know how long it lasted, but I must have finally fallen asleep. When I awoke I had vivid memories of the thing and I looked around the room for signs of an intruder. I knew I wouldn't find anything, and I didn't. I sat up in bed thinking about the horror for a long time. Finally, from the recesses of my mind, I remembered sleep paralysis and REM atonia. I breathed a sigh of relief.
It might sound silly, but these happenings are very frightening, and I now understand why someone might need therapy after such an experience. As for the medical explanations that I turned to for comfort, why does every victim of sleep paralysis see the same ghastly shape before them? What causes the inexplicable feelings of dread? Is it impossible that this is the way certain metaphysical creatures terrorize us? Could it be that demons walk among us and this is how they interact with us? Or is it just the way chemicals in our brain react when our REM cycle is off its axis? I don't know, and no one seems to have answered this mystery completely, yet. But if this happens to someone I know, I'm going to be very understanding - it is a horrifying thing.
Medical science brought us closer to understanding this after discovering REM atonia. This is the "override" switch in your brain that keeps your body still while you sleep. After reading about this, I thought an episode of sleep paralysis would be a fun experiment and hoped it would happen to me. I came to regret that.
I had long forgotten about REM atonia by the time it happened. In the middle of the night, my eyes opened and I didn't know why. Surely, I had heard some sound or some noise in the apartment, but I couldn't remember. Something had startled me, however, because I was frightened. Very frightened. Had I heard someone break in through the window? Or did I hear someone yelling? No, I couldn't remember anything at all. I just knew this overwhelming feeling of dread like I had not ever known. I've lived in bad neighborhoods and been through some rough scrapes, but this feeling of fear was much worse than anything I had been through. For the first time in my life, I was certain that something horrible was going to happen to me and that I was powerless to stop it from happening.
And why the devil couldn't I move? I just laid there in my fear thinking that I was paralyzed out of horror. I don't know how long it lasted, but I must have finally fallen asleep. When I awoke I had vivid memories of the thing and I looked around the room for signs of an intruder. I knew I wouldn't find anything, and I didn't. I sat up in bed thinking about the horror for a long time. Finally, from the recesses of my mind, I remembered sleep paralysis and REM atonia. I breathed a sigh of relief.
It might sound silly, but these happenings are very frightening, and I now understand why someone might need therapy after such an experience. As for the medical explanations that I turned to for comfort, why does every victim of sleep paralysis see the same ghastly shape before them? What causes the inexplicable feelings of dread? Is it impossible that this is the way certain metaphysical creatures terrorize us? Could it be that demons walk among us and this is how they interact with us? Or is it just the way chemicals in our brain react when our REM cycle is off its axis? I don't know, and no one seems to have answered this mystery completely, yet. But if this happens to someone I know, I'm going to be very understanding - it is a horrifying thing.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Is Hollywood Responsible for the Patterson -Gimlin Bigfoot Video?
You've all see it, by now. The famous Patterson-Gimlin video is a source of great debate for Bigfoot enthusiasts and debunkers, alike. (You can watch it here.) If it's not real, then it must be a guy in a suit, right? And rumors abound that one person or another in Hollywood is responsible for the suit. Case closed, for the skeptic. But it's just not that simple when you do your homework.
Let's examine the video just a bit before looking at those claims, and bear in mind that this thing was filmed in 1967. BigfootEncounters.com has a wonder .gif file that stabilizes the shaky image from the film. People love to complain about the film quality, but Bigfoot enthusiasts actually spent a lot of time working on these videos to make them as clear as possible. Here it is:
Now, we can see what we're working with. Does it look like Hollywood's work? Before you answer, let's consider Hollywood's work. In 1968, on year after this video was made, Planet of the Apes would be nominated for an academy for costume design. There's a good photo of one of these costumes here (I can't find a royalty free image, otherwise I would post one on my site.) As you can see, it's a good mask with a leather jacket, long pants, boots, and hairy gloves. It's good costume work, and certainly deserves the nomination it received. But it's not as good as the Bigfoot costume, above. A big-budget Hollywood film ought to have better effects than a homemade film done by amateurs.
Moving ahead a decade or so we meet the mighty Chewbacca. Here we finally have a full body suit of an ape-like creature. However, take a good look at Bigfoot, up there. Chewbacca had a human-sized suit covered in hair. If the Patterson-Gimlin film is a man in a suit, then he's in one sophisticated suit. It's got a greater range of motion than a Hollywood suit, and you can see that Bigfoot has flex in his hands and feet, and the muscles in his face move when you look closely. Chewbacca's feet look like hair boots rather than actual feet. (I'm not knocking Star Wars, mind you.) Also, it has often been pointed out that the subject of the Patterson-Gimlin film has ridiculously long arms. It would take a circus freak to fit into that costume.
The point? If this is a man in a suit, it's the most advanced suit ever filmed in its time.
There are claims that this person or that person in Hollywood made the suit. The problem? There's no proof. Phillip Morris claims that HE made the suit back in the day, but his story is full of holes. He says that he made the arms long so that an actor could hold a stick in his hand to control the entire arm. That sounds nice, but it doesn't make since. In the video, you can see the individual fingers moving, and that's not possible if the hand doesn't actually fit the glove. It may be possible to set up some sort of rig that moves the fingers independently, but we are talking about some serious technological sophistication for a suit made on a small budget in the 60's. We're talking about a real contortion act mixed in with a suit more advanced than anything Hollywood ever did until the 90's (if at all). Not to mention, Phillip Morris runs a costume business, and this sort of thing would be really good for sales - and his business partner is the only person to corroborate his story. (Lots of people have claimed responsibility for the suit; if I listed them all we would be here all day. Bottom line? None of them have even the most superficial proof.)
One last thing. Let's take a look at Brian Dunning's words on the matter. For those of you who don't know, Dunning is a skeptic who takes great pride in not believing in anything. I'm not sure if he's a nihilist, but he abhors any belief in the supernatural or things like UFOs or monsters. However, his words on the Patterson-Gimlin film are interesting:
Let's examine the video just a bit before looking at those claims, and bear in mind that this thing was filmed in 1967. BigfootEncounters.com has a wonder .gif file that stabilizes the shaky image from the film. People love to complain about the film quality, but Bigfoot enthusiasts actually spent a lot of time working on these videos to make them as clear as possible. Here it is:
Now, we can see what we're working with. Does it look like Hollywood's work? Before you answer, let's consider Hollywood's work. In 1968, on year after this video was made, Planet of the Apes would be nominated for an academy for costume design. There's a good photo of one of these costumes here (I can't find a royalty free image, otherwise I would post one on my site.) As you can see, it's a good mask with a leather jacket, long pants, boots, and hairy gloves. It's good costume work, and certainly deserves the nomination it received. But it's not as good as the Bigfoot costume, above. A big-budget Hollywood film ought to have better effects than a homemade film done by amateurs.
The point? If this is a man in a suit, it's the most advanced suit ever filmed in its time.
There are claims that this person or that person in Hollywood made the suit. The problem? There's no proof. Phillip Morris claims that HE made the suit back in the day, but his story is full of holes. He says that he made the arms long so that an actor could hold a stick in his hand to control the entire arm. That sounds nice, but it doesn't make since. In the video, you can see the individual fingers moving, and that's not possible if the hand doesn't actually fit the glove. It may be possible to set up some sort of rig that moves the fingers independently, but we are talking about some serious technological sophistication for a suit made on a small budget in the 60's. We're talking about a real contortion act mixed in with a suit more advanced than anything Hollywood ever did until the 90's (if at all). Not to mention, Phillip Morris runs a costume business, and this sort of thing would be really good for sales - and his business partner is the only person to corroborate his story. (Lots of people have claimed responsibility for the suit; if I listed them all we would be here all day. Bottom line? None of them have even the most superficial proof.)
One last thing. Let's take a look at Brian Dunning's words on the matter. For those of you who don't know, Dunning is a skeptic who takes great pride in not believing in anything. I'm not sure if he's a nihilist, but he abhors any belief in the supernatural or things like UFOs or monsters. However, his words on the Patterson-Gimlin film are interesting:I'm not a Bigfoot believer but I will give credit where credit is due. The Patterson-Gimlin film looked like a real animal to me. The Discovery Channel's "duplication" of it looked ridiculous. It looked nothing like a real animal, and certainly didn't remotely resemble the subject shown in the Patterson-Gimlin film. Chewbacca looked more real than the Discovery Channel's Bigfoot suit. Hollywood's state of the art in gorilla suits in 1967 were Planet of the Apes and The Galileo Seven episode of Star Trek. Two loggers with no previous gorilla suit experience made a suit that was better than today's state of the art, and certainly light years ahead of the 1967 state of the art. I'm not saying the film's real, I'm saying give credit where credit is due, and admit that if it is a fake, it's astounding. If you disagree then go through a stabilized version frame-by-frame as I have.
The half dozen or so Hollywood special effects artists who have since "come forward" to claim that they were responsible for the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot suit, and the dozens of guys who have "come forward" to claim that they were the guy wearing the suit, are no more evidence against the film than Ray Wallace's wooden feet are evidence that no real Bigfoot footprints exist.
Critics of the film also say that the creature's behavior is unrealistic. I have no knowledge of what a real Bigfoot's behavior might be, but I have encountered bears half a dozen times, and they acted exactly like the Patterson-Gimlin creature: just walked away, unconcerned, with maybe only a look or two back.
The Patterson-Gimlin film is not an open-close case. It's an impressive film no matter what the truth behind it turns out to be. Did two guys with a tiny budget make the world's most advanced special effects costume? Or did they capture an image of an unknown creature? Patterson spent a lot of money looking for further evidence of Bigfoot, and when he died he was still telling people it was real. Gimlin, his partner, can be found attending Bigfoot conferences also claiming the video is the real thing. This video is a real mystery - not something that can be written off easily.
The half dozen or so Hollywood special effects artists who have since "come forward" to claim that they were responsible for the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot suit, and the dozens of guys who have "come forward" to claim that they were the guy wearing the suit, are no more evidence against the film than Ray Wallace's wooden feet are evidence that no real Bigfoot footprints exist.
Critics of the film also say that the creature's behavior is unrealistic. I have no knowledge of what a real Bigfoot's behavior might be, but I have encountered bears half a dozen times, and they acted exactly like the Patterson-Gimlin creature: just walked away, unconcerned, with maybe only a look or two back.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Witches and UFO Links
Just on the heels of my post about Mexican witches is this list of ten famous witches burned by the church. I suspect there's more than simply a suspicion of witchcraft behind these killings (it was rarely so simple), but it's still an interesting list.And you can also check out Cracked.com's article 5 UFO Sighting That Even Non-Crazy People Find Creepy. For a humorous website, it's not a bad list.
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