The resurfacing of the Mexican flying witch video and my digging up of previous comments seems to have raised an eyebrow or two.

So to compare and contrast let's look at another recent report that Inexplicata has just covered, which presents a much better case than the one we discussed. It was observed for longer (and in detail) and it didn't behave like a balloon. It also seems to have had other unusual effects and the observers certainly thought there was something odd going on. This is awfully different to a video of something no one thought was anomalous at the time, but seems to have been made "spooky" by a quick switch of soundtracks.

Anyway back to the current case. Inexplicata do another good job of translating the texts for us and there was a follow-up investigation which seems to have helped address the question of whether or not the object videoed was a balloon and there are good arguments to suggest it isn't:

1. The recording has a 12-minute duation, and if we add to this the observation time through binoculars, the sighting was around 15 minutes, an uncommon period of time when we deal with balloons, as these are carried away by the wind, and it is hard to see them for an extended period of time.

2. At a given point in the video, the object or alleged humanoid makes descending movements, then remains static for a while and subsequently rises again. This ascending and descending isn't quite so common with balloon.

3. At two moments during the recording, the dogs' reaction can be heard. The appear to be keening or expressing fear. This does not occur when balloons are involved, unless it is a huge coincidence (the witness has 2 Labrador Retrievers).

Source (original)

Hat tip

There are also some bits of video:

While we can't say for sure, this certainly makes a better arguement that something odd was going on, which would fit with other cases we have reported, from India, Poland, Romania, ancient China and Mexico/US. Now, while some, like the British and Thai cases have turned out to be balloons, we have to judge each case on its merits. For example, the flying horse looked awfully suspicious but tests did show a simple balloon couldn't have been easily misidentified and, while it can't rule out fancier trickery, it does show it is often worth digging into these strange cases - even if, sometimes, they end up looking a distinctly weak.

In writing my contribution to the next volume of Darklore (coming soon) I have come across a number of cases in which something seems to "switch off" the occupants of a car only for them to come to again later further along their route, usually still driving along happily.

Later, most have had their memories hypnotically "recovered" and they go on to describe strange encounters with aliens in UFOs. Now, of course, it could be the aliens are doing some hi-tech hijinks and somehow making it all work seamlessly. However, I tend to follow Kevin Randle et al in The Abduction Enigma - that the recovered memories are closer to some form of collaborative fiction than actual accounts of lost events (see also Susan Clancy's Abducted). Obviously, if you believe that the aliens did it, then "case closed", and you can go and do something else rather than read the rest of this post.

If you are more of the thinking that these people have had something odd happen to them, but we aren't 100% sure what it is, then there is a mystery at the heart of this* - why don't they crash the car?

Beyond the Blog looks at this:

the fact that abductees lose time and end up having covered ground is intriguing. Is there a known phenomenon that could account for this? In a much more innocuous way, there is.

You’re reading a book.

Suddenly your mind wanders. Eventually, your attention returns to the words, but wait a minute! You’ve continued to read and have to go back to where your mind wandered – AND, time has passed.

Is this a mind mechanism whereby a person could succumb to cultural input, fantasise an abduction event, and simply continue driving whilst it’s going on? Colin Wilson often writes about the ‘robot’ who often takes over his standard tasks.

Source

Hat tip

I am reminded of the case (names and details escape me but I'm sure someone will post a comment with the specific info) where two men are driving their car in Central/South America and suddenly come to by the side of the road. One recalls a UFO and the other only the back of a truck/bus. Some would claim the more mundane memory is a "screen" memory but could it be the other man's mind was trying to fill in blanks?

It'd make a fiendish weapon (point click and the person is still
concious and breathing but goes into standby mode - Mind Taser!!) but, of course,
it almost sounds like some fancy form of brainwashing - the "robot"
would certainly seem ideal for training as a Manchurian Candidate.

So what about the mechanics of this? Does the robot take over smoothly and then hand control back? Are there people driving around the roads completely on auto-pilot?

There is a further worrying thought: What if the robot co-pilot doesn't work all the time? What if some of these people die in a car crash? This might suggest that some of these cases are hidden in the "fallen asleep at the wheel" section of the road death statistics.

It certainly is an odd state of affairs, we often let our subconscious do the mundane things and in fact some of the work better when you don't think about them (try concentrating hard on making yourself walk and it is a tricky task). This may also be at the root of the existential angst Charlie Brooker recently discussed. However, the processes involved in something that seem an order of magnitude more complex (and odder?) aren't very clear to me. So perhaps it is the aliens dicking around with us after all!!

* This mystery still stands for aliens but as their technology is assumed
to be so fancy it does indeed approximate magic, then you explain
almost anything at the wave of a "wand".

Make Magazine #13 is out and it is a magic special:

In this issue of MAKE, you'll perplex your pals and confound your colleagues with wooden blocks that seemingly pass through solid objects, balls that float, pens that dance at your command, and more. You'll also learn how to grow a half-ton pumpkin, make an irresistible fishing lure for 3 1/4 cents, build an air-powered "boom stick," and fashion a baseball cap that can wirelessly turn off obnoxious TV sets.

The best thing is that the issue also includes an article by Gareth Branwyn about Jack Parsons, which also includes the comic book version (right) of the Howard Hallis lenticular we discussed a couple of years ago (almost to the day).

Looks interesting - I am not sure how to get my hands on a copy. Perhaps the power of magic will work.... Nothing yet

Hat tip (via)

The Ohama wildlife park in Sakai, (Osaka Prefecture) Japan has had to enforce a strict 'no feeding the animals' policy after a number of its Macaca mulatta monkeys have ended up looking like this:

Thanks to well-meaning visitors who threw treats to the monkeys, a number have put on so much weight they struggle to move around their enclosure. An average Macaca mulatta monkey should apparently weigh in at around 20lbs - some of these massive monkeys tip the scales at a whopping 4st!

source (and image credit)

Miss Pokeno aka Alannah Currie (you may remember her as being a Thompson Twin) creates furniture with a twist.

Classing herself as an 'armchair deconstructivist', she quite literally takes chairs apart (in one instance, throwing a chair off a cliff only to reconstruct it again and sell it for £5000!) and adds her own individual flourishes such as with her latest exhibiton, England Bloody England, which include - for example - from a chaise longue which includes a swan attached to its arm rest to below, a wingback chair with a pair of entwined foxes. As a vegetarian, she sources animals that have either died from natural causes or roadkill. 

Her aims: the animals act as a memento mori1 and help to create a piece of functional furniture which "confronts the idea of comfort".

"When you sit on them, you question the notion of comfort: what's behind you, what had to die to make the chair. I have deep-rooted problems with the notion of comfort. The ultimate comfort would be lying in am upholstered coffin."2

The "Collection of Chairs to Honor the Godless" will be on display from the 8th May at The Ragged School, London.

As well as being a talented musician and upholsterer, Miss Pokeno - the name derives from a town in her native New Zealand - originally courted controversy back in 2003 with a series of images created for a pressure group which called for a halt to genetically modified crops and organisms being released into the NZ environment.

Currie, who before returning to England in 20043, created the startling images - showing women hooked up to milking machines - for MaDGE (Mothers against Genetic Engineering which she co-founded) that were then displayed on billboards to a mixed reaction from the public and politicians alike.

image source

Hat-tip

1 & 3 To Die For - Guardian.co.uk

2 Alannah Currie: From 1980s synth-pop to 'armchair deconstructivist' - The Independent

While we were nursing the site through its problems a multi-limbed news item passed under our radar and, as the spider lamb and 5-legged deer prove, we like nothing more than, say, a 6-legged kitten:

The kitty, named Hex, was born six weeks ago with two extra legs coming from her stomach.

She does not use the extra limbs, instead they trail around her as she walks, although her middle set of legs sometimes get in the way.

But vets say she is likely to die if she does not go under the knife to have the extra limbs removed.

Source

Here is a video report:

I checked for an update and didn't find one, which we'll take as a good sign.

Six-legged cows

April had other 6-legged beasties in store like this cow from Germany:

There is also one from Cambodia (not sure of the date but it was added to YouTube in response to the kitten video):

A baby dropping ritual? How does that work? Well you take a baby up to a high place and... well let Reuters tell the story:

Muslims in western India have been observing a bizarre ritual - they've been throwing their young children off a tall building to improve their health.

The faithful have been observing the ritual at a shrine in Solapur, in western India's Maharastra, for more than five hundred years.

They believe it will make their children strong and say no accidents have ever happened.

Still not believing it? Then watch the video:

Hat tip

The story of the flying Mexican witch caught on tape has resurfaced thanks to that mighty paragon of truth, The Sun:

Now Mexico’s leading Ufologist Anna Luisa Cid says the sightings were true after carrying out her own investigations.

She said: �I think that the possibility is there. An imaginary object is not recorded on film, nor it produces over 40 witnesses.�

Nuevo Le�n UFO club managed to film the spooky flying character.

And policeman Leonardo Samaniego also claimed a floating person had dropped out of the sky and landed on his bonnet.

Ms Cid told the Ghosttheory.com website: �In conclusion, from my professional point of view, both cases are real.

Source

Hat tip

The problem is, we highlighted how this was a clear hoax/fake back in June 2007. When the full clip (with the original soundtrack, not the one usually shown with the X-Files music over it) is played it reveals people spotting it and wondering what it is until a woman gets some binoculars and sees it is a balloon, after which everyone has a joke about it.

Now, I suppose, this shouldn't surprise me about The Sun but it does make me wonder what kind of investigation "Mexico’s leading Ufologist" did, as the solution has been out there for a while now and it wouldn't take much digging to stumble across it. To be honest the bulk of her focus, as explained to Ghost Theory.com, concerns the report from the police officer and adds more details, like the fact the witch fell onto his patrol car and seemed to do physical damage to the vehicle. Its presence also interfered with the radio (but not the lights and siren) before he collapsed unconscious.

It is difficult to say much about his story though (people have made up wild stories as covers for some other, usually embarassing, occurence) and so we are left again with the video. If, as claimed, it was filmed by the local UFO Club then they clearly have access to the full footage with the soundtrack (which must be a record of them at the time) then someone somewhere along the line is being disingenuous.

Again we see that you can't kill a good story, despite clear evidence of having a mundane explanation, and that like the undead this will keep rising from the grave every now and again. I will be keeping a eye out for it and will shout "But it is a balloon!!" when I spot it lumbering back.

The idea of memetic engineering and even meme war (was the Cold War an example?) and now an example turns up discussing a rather obscure comic book title.

The 99 got on my radar because of the involvement of John McCrea and the amount of mainstream press attention it got (unusual unless you were making Batwoman a lesbian or something), but it appears there was another angle which caught the eye of some clever types in Washington - the ability to win hearts and minds, where the bombing/surging has the opposite effect.

Scott Atran is an anthropologist who studies the kids who keep Al Qaeda and its spinoffs going. They're young people like the ones who grew up to blow up trains in Madrid in 2004, carried out the slaughter on the London underground in 2005 and hoped to blast airliners out of the sky en route to the United States in 2006.

Atran has looked at whom they idolize, how they organize, what bonds them and what drives them. And he's reached an unconventional but, to me, convincing conclusion: what has inspired the "new wave" terrorists since 2001 is not so much the Qur'an as what Atran calls "jihadi cool." If you can discredit these kids' idols (most notably Osama bin Laden), give them new ones and reframe the way their families and friends see the United States and its allies, then you've got a good shot at killing the fad for terror and stopping the jihad altogether.

For Atran, a senior fellow at the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, this is pretty much Public Diplomacy 101. But he's found that the battle of ideas is not just hard to win in the field, it's a very tough slog at home. In Washington last year he was briefing White House staffers on his findings when a young woman who worked for Vice President Dick Cheney said in the sternest tough-guy voice she could muster, "Don't these young people realize that the decisions they make are their responsibility, and that if they choose violence against us, we're going to bomb them?"

...

So when Atran went back to Washington to brief National Security Council and Homeland Security staff in January this year, he went armed—with comic books. He wanted to show that nothing cooked up by the Bush administration's warmongers and spinmeisters comes close to delivering the kind of positive messages you can find in a commercial action adventure series called "The 99."

99 superheroes embodying the many attributes of Allah, some trickier to interpret than others, as the article says: "I'm looking forward to a superhero called Latif, the subtly kind."

This isn't some Western imposition of a good idea (which would just be awfully embarrassing) but the work of a many who knows his onions:

A graduate of Tufts University in the United States with a triple major in clinical psychology, English literature and history, the 37-year-old Al-Mutawa also has a keen sense of symbols. Mainstream comics in the West have drawn heavily on Judeo-Christian narratives and iconography, he says. Why not create a cast of characters whose powers echo Muslim history and traditions? And because his company, Teshkeel, is the distributor of Marvel and DC comics in the Middle East, Al-Mutawa knows just where to find top writers, pencilers and inkers to make his new publications as polished as any on the market.

...

In fact, these comics are tapping into many of the same themes exploited by bin Laden, who is, after all, bent on world domination. The message that Islamic civilization once was a mighty realm of learning and science is dear to jihadi firebrands, who tend to pine for days of old when Muslim knights were bold. The seminal treatise of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's leading ideologue, is called "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner." But the narrative in "The 99" is a great deal more accessible and potentially more inspiring to the eight-to-14-year-old crowd who will provide us with the next generation of suicide bombers—or not.

As Scott Atran points out, these kids dream of fighting for some meaningful cause that will make them heroes in their communities. Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri—and Arab satellite television and in some cases their own experiences—have convinced them that fighting against the most powerful country in the world and its allies is the most heroic thing they can do.

No, "The 99" comic books are not going to solve that problem. Their circulation is in the tens of thousands at this point, while bin Laden's violent message gets out to billions. But comic books are "likely to be a lot more helpful than our bullets and bombs in attracting young people away from jihadi cool," says Atran. They might even help convince Washington that "knowledge is the true base of power." But maybe that's hoping for too much.

Source

Hat tip

I suppose it is a start that at least someone is thinking of a more nuanced approach (despite the scary reaction he got), although you never know - perhaps someone is already working on something a bit more spectacular.

Alex Cox is great. I remember loving his appearances on Moviedrome, not just because of the great films he showed, but because his intros were always excellent and insightful. The young chappie who replaced him was not as good, but they were big shoes to fill.

I also loved his Repo Man, God knows how many times I've watched it over the years, and now the sequel - a decade after it was written - has arrived: Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday.

After Repo Man, I became interested in the idea of a sequel. Specifically - what had happened to Otto, during his ten-year absence from earth? And what would he make of the changes which had taken place in his absence? Otto, it would appear, has been held prisoner, in great luxury, on the planet Mars. Now he has returned to earth, and changed his name -- to Waldo." Waldo, recently returned from Mars, is forced to choose where his allegiance lies -- his boss, Duke Mantee, or the sex goddess, Velma; money or knowledge; the past or the future; Earth...or Mars?

As with so many cross-media projects these days it is appearing in graphic novel form, although I hope someone will eventually give him the cash to make it into a film.

Here is the trailer:

You can also read a sample chapter on the official website (you will need the Flash plugin though).

Hat tip

Book

Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday
Amazon.com

No sign of it on Amazon.co.uk but up until a few hours ago they were offering free P&P on international orders at the publishers (not sure if the offer has ended now).

People often ask: if there is so much CCTV coverage (especially in the UK) then how come an alien, UFO, cryptid or other strange beast been caught on camera?

Well perhaps it has:

Hat tip

Hmmmmmm. Does that not whiff a bit? I think you have to run through a few checks first: For example: Is it narrated by someone from Star Trek? Uh oh!! OK it isn't Shatner but I'd say that is a mark against it!!

The problem is that CCTV is now so ubiquitous, and the core of so many "caught on tape" shows as well as making appearances on the news, we tend to believe what we see in that format. Which means it is wide open to pranksters.

Pranksters like this chap:

This is actually part of a trend in guerilla film-making using the "tools of oppression" for creative purposes:

We are in the back streets of Cambridge on a warm April afternoon, armed with a handheld video receiver, a small portable screen and a short antenna. There are eight of us: film-makers, activists and a couple of curious hangers-on, all about to engage in in film-making's latest form of subversion. We are spending the afternoon "video sniffing".

Video sniffing encourages people low on resources, but high on imagination, to create their own media. Our mission is to capture the live feed from the network of CCTV cameras that stand sentry over so many shops and street corners in Britain. The handheld receiver allows us to scan, or "sniff ", wireless transmissions and view them on the screen without the owner's knowledge or consent.

...

once you've scanned the video, you can just as easily record it, and then use those recorded images to make your own movies.

A group of homeless teenagers in Southend-on-Sea did just that. With the help of the art collective Mongrel, they made a short film using images they had taken from the very cameras that had been installed to spy on them. After a day on their bikes mapping the network of nearby cameras, they acted out a short script right there in the street, and then "borrowed" the images from CCTV.

"The law surrounding video sniffing is a grey area in the UK," says Valentine, whose film The Duellists was shot entirely on surveillance cameras in a Manchester shopping centre. Even so, you are about to see more of this clandestine form of film-making in the coming months. Channel 4 has just screened four in its Three Minute Wonder slot, and there is a whole festival of films shot on CCTV in Aberdeen next week.

The strangest of these is the featurelength Faceless, produced and directed by Manu Luksch and Mukul Patel, with a voiceover by Tilda Swinton. It's a science-fiction movie set in a dystopian future in which time itself has been annulled, leading the world to exist in a state of permanent present.

Source

Here is a short version of The Dueliststs:

Also a trailer for Faceless:

So a lot of fascinating uses for CCTV - you can clearly see the blurring of fact and fiction, as well as the potential for staging a big hoax, the question is has it already been done?

Torchwood

In Torchwood they make good use of modern technology (often playing off concerns about it) and they feature a mysterious disappearance caught on CCTV in the episode "Adrift", which is awfully similar to the video at the start. Skip forward to 4 minutes 10 seconds if you don't want to sit through it:

We looked at the Concrete Pyramid Theory last year and it is one that seems not to want to go away.

The article starts discussing a material science course the MIT where they are having fun building replica pyramids out of the kind of ingredients that the Egyptians had to hand (which sounds like a good fun course!!). However, the interesting thing for me is the final part about people investigating this theory, because we looked at Barsoum's work following up on Davidovits ideas, and now we find out what happened next, and it isn't pretty:

Hobbs describes himself as "agnostic" on the issue, but believes mainstream archeologists have been too contemptuous of work by other scientists suggesting the possibility of concrete.
more stories like this

"The degree of hostility aimed at experimentation is disturbing," he said. "Too many big egos and too many published works may be riding on the idea that every pyramid block was carved, not cast."

...

The idea that some pyramid blocks were cast of concrete-like material was aggressively advanced in the 1980s by French chemical engineer Joseph Davidovits, who argued that the Giza builders pulverized soft limestone and mixed it with water, hardening the material with natural binders that the Egyptians are known to have used for their famous blue-glaze ornamental statues.

Such blocks, Davidovits said, would have been poured in place by workers hustling sacks of wet cement up the pyramids - a decidedly less spectacular image than the ones popularized by Hollywood epics like "The Ten Commandments," with thousands of near-naked toilers straining with ropes and rollers to move mammoth carved stones.

"That's the problem, the big archeologists - and Egypt's tourist industry - want to preserve romantic ideas," said Davidovits, who researches ancient building materials at the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France.

In 2006, research by Michel W. Barsoum at Philadelphia's Drexel University found that samples of stone from parts of the Khufu Pyramid were "microstructurally" different from limestone blocks.

Barsoum, a professor of materials engineering, said microscope, X-ray, and chemical analysis of scraps of stone from the pyramids "suggest a small but significant percentage of blocks on the higher portions of the pyramids were cast" from concrete.

He stressed that he believes that most of the blocks in the Khufu Pyramid were carved in the manner long suggested by archeologists. "But 10 or 20 percent [of the blocks] were probably cast in areas where it would have been highly difficult to position [whole stone] blocks," he said.

Barsoum, a native of Egypt, said he was unprepared for the onslaught of angry criticism that greeted peer-reviewed research published two years ago by himself and scientists Adrish Ganguly of Drexel and Gilles Hug of France's National Center for Scientific Research.

"You would have thought I claimed the pyramids were carved by lasers," Barsoum said.

Fort would have had a field day with that!! Science should always be about testing theories (a negative result is still an important result, after all) not about defending your theories from anyone suggesting something different.

On a sidenote I think I might have raised an eyebrow at a paper from Barsoum, Ganguly and Hug!! Affectionate boyscouts from Mars? Just writing that makes me think we might get some odd traffic from Google in the near future.

Source

Hat tip

This cropped up in a police report a week ago. but with little extra information and so, as it sounded too much like The Entity (although it may be based on a true case, similar claims emerged from the Smurl Haunting), I stored it away for future reference. Well now is the future (when compared to back then) and we have got a slightly more detailed report:

Two Washington State women claim they've been sexually attacked by ghosts.

The Federal Way Mirror newspaper reports the two have filed police reports.

According to the police report, the women came to the Federal Way Police Department and told officers a paranormal person has been placing sensors on their bodies and having intercourse with them.

...

It's an odd case for cops and reporters.

But it's right up Ross Allison's alley. He's a ghost hunter.

He went to the apartment building where the women say a spirit has haunted them for two years.

With the sci-fi channel hit 'ghost hunters', paranormal popularity is soaring.

And Allison says as the number of ghost shows grows, so do spirit sightings.

He says candid questions help ghost hunters sort the eerie from the unstable.

The maintenance man in charge of all the units told me the women keep calling him, saying the ghosts are raping them on weekend nights. He says he told them to call police.

Police say they don't have any investigative leads.

Ross Allison says he'd need a psychic to check.

The women were nowhere to be found.

And, there was no sign of the ghost, either.

Source

blank" title="Open in new window">Hat tip

So what to make of it? Well it could be put down to a hoax but it seems to have some backstory to it. It could be folie à deux, however, could there be something behind this?

I'm not suggesting an actual spectral sex attacker (although you can't rule it out, I suppose) but I am reminded of Popo Bawa, the sodomising demon of Zanzibar. In that previous look at the phenomena I wondered about contagious sleep paralysis (as studies have shown it can be induced and you can actually defend yourself against them) and this report has the hallmarks of an incubus attack, a legend which seems to have its roots in parasomnias.

It'll be interesting to see if the researcher tracks the women down and gets a more detailed report from them. If it seems to confirm my speculation, I'd recommend taking them to a sleep lab and seeing what they can find.

As we are still in the early stages of the climate change crisis we won't even be able to predict some of the outcomes, as this news report underlines:

Times columnist Nick Kristof recently highlighted economic research showing that climate change may be driving up the rate of executions of suspected witches in East Africa.

Tough times in the Congo may have been behind the recent witchcraft panic there, where police arrested 13 people accused of using black magic to shrink men’s penises.

University of Chicago economist Emily Oster also found a surge in witch hunts during Europe’s “little ice age,” from the 1500’s to late 1700’s.

Source

Hat tip

There is a probably a tabloid headline in there along the lines of: "Well climate change mean you are better hung or will your willy wither in the heat?"

We are back and on a new server, the blog and forum seem to be working OK but there are a few non-critical bits and bobs that need attending to so bear with us while we tinker.

Now all our problems are behind us we can move on to bigger and better things. Stay tuned CoW Fans!!

We saw some strange alien simulacra a while back and now another has popped up.

The little yellow man was spotted setting up home in Earlham Grove and has been seen two days in a row.

David and Ann Lawrence saw their new neighbour and decided to get snap of the creature.

Ann said: "The house has had an extension built and since then, the sun shining on the window has created this image on the wall opposite.

"We think the house is vacant at the moment, so he obviously chose it as a safe haven."

Source

Hat tip

Personally, I think once was one of those freak occurrences. Twice suggests something more sinister is taking place. We often think aliens would travel here in body (or even that they are made out of meat) but surely a society with vastly higher technology would find betters ways of probing other worlds, perhaps by projecting light forms across space (it travels at the speed of light after all!!). I, for one, welcome our new photonic overlords.

Other simulacra

We have a fondness for this as seen by the Jesus Spud Pose and Jesus.

Witnesses at the Florida Hospital Medical Complex in Orlando said an image that seemed to depict Jesus Christ crying mysteriously appeared on a hospital window.

Members of a crowd that gathered at the prayer garden window said an image of the Christian savior in profile mysteriously appeared and disappeared hours later

Source

Unfortunately there are no photos as I was curious as to how someone could cry mysteriously but if his Dad moves in mysterious ways then it should be no surprise his Son can do something similar.

Other recent simulacra news includes a frowning tree (clearly not as much fun as a singing ringing tree):

Source

The two topics oddly merging twice - with the appearance of Jesus when a tree was cut down in the wood of a tree and on a bedroom door. What wood Jesus do indeed!!

It is an age-old conundrum and one that causes both sides of the debate to get awfully worked up. I won't bother to link to all the sites on this (just Google it) but there is a good overview at About.com, touching on Rupert Sheldrake's work and other potentially related phenomena, like animals that undertake remarkable journeys to find their owners again.

As I'm sure you'll quickly spot the fact that there is a big problem here as the examples are purely anecdotal and wide open to our imposing our own ideas on animal behaviour. As we are in dire need of data, Skeptico set out to test this and the results were fascinating:

They provide a more extensive transcript of the experiment and point us on to DogsThatKnow.com for more on this.

I think one intriguing aspect of this is that it also holding a mirror up to us. There are some of us who clearly want to believe and others that don't want to. I found myself realising I miss having a dog around the house, which rather clouded my judgement. So I can't imagine this is going to convince many people one way or the other but if we want to address this once-and-for-all then it is only going to be through experiments like this and asking questions of the research as the comments are doing over on You Tube.

In the end I am happy to see attempts to get the debate out of the rut it was in. What the outcome will be, though, isn't that clear at the moment.

Hat tip

Book

Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home by Rupert Sheldrake
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com

Manchester looks like the place to be if you are dead, not that I'm expecting an influx of undead expats (although I'm keeping my fingers crossed for it). We recently reported that the Germanic Ghoul Gunter von Hagens had launched his Body Worlds 4 at the Museum of Science and Industry, where I say a great exhibition on Bog Bodies a year or so back - a topic I have been fascinated in since finding a copy of Glob's classic volume on the family bookshelves.

So you can imagine my excitement when I find out that the region's most famous bog body, Lindow Man, is going to be the centre of an exhibition at the Manchester Museum. It looks like it will be intriguing too:

Source

Care Bear? Yes I assumed this was some fine specimen of Cave Bear found in Care Caves..., or something. Oh no it isn't. It is a Care Bear. Read on:

Perhaps most unusual of all, Susan Chadwick – a former member of the Lindow Primary School Choir which even made a record about Lindow Man – has put a Care Bear in the exhibition.

"This has importance for Susan because as a six-year-old she had to go into hospital for an operation around the time Lindow Man was discovered," said Bryan.

"Her parents gave her the Care Bear for being brave, and she associates this with that time, and with Lindow Man himself because there are strong community feelings still about him.

"He was, and is, regarded as a neighbour, an ancestor."

This is part of making it a broader story:

Bryan interviewed people who had been involved in the Lindow story – including the men who found him – inviting them to contribute items to the new exhibition.

They were displayed alongside those directly relating to Lindow Man himself, such as a traditional implement for peat cutting. He also talked to a forensic scientist and a landscape archaeologist. Druid priest Emma Restall Orr contributed a mead horn and crow feathers, which Pagans believe have links to the dead.

Source

So, if all goes to plan, I'm planning on visiting Body Worlds and Lindow Man on the same day, in my own like corpse-athon.

We have seen fake flying witches in Mexico and now a vampire woman is said to have been sighted in Malaysia:

Sightings of a pontianak (woman vampire) captured on video have caused a stir among locals in Malacca, reported Harian Metro.

For the past fortnight, droves of people have gathered at a bridge near Jalan Pulau Gadong, Malacca, where the 50-second video-clip was purportedly filmed.

...

The video clip, circulated via mobile phone, shows a woman with long black hair and clad in a white cloth floating in midair while whimpering.

A receiver of the video clip told the Malay daily that he had heard many stories about the pontianak.

“Some say she would appear like a damsel in distress but when approached, she would turn into a pontianak.

“I’ve also heard that the police were called in by several men who stumbled upon the apparition, who was asking if they had seen her missing child.

“As soon as the police arrived, she would turn into her true self and disappear,” he said.

Source

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The best I can tell this is the video mentioned - don't hold your breath though:

It might look better on a cameraphone but I can't make anything out. There is always the hope that cameras being almost ubiquitous in mobile phones could, once-and-for-all, solve a lot of the world's mysteries, but instead they just supply murky footage which only adds to the mess.

We recently looked at high strangeness in Argentina and now Inexplicata bring us other reports from Brazil! As this quick introduction suggests it is very weird down in that neck of the jungle:

Our research shows that two groups of entities may be taken into consideration: 1) Strange beings linked to the apparition of UFOs (bearing in mind that Brazil is foremost among the nations with the greatest number of sightings, landings, contacts, abductions, etc.; 2) Giant cats, winged creatures, hairy humanoids, dwarves, sea monsters, gigantic serpents, etc, which steer the investigator toward a cryptozoological or paranormal phenomenon.

We start with the more obvious aliens (those associated with flying lights/vehicles) and what is interesting is that the early reports are largely of humans, although some giants and some are dwarves. As with a lot of things it starts getting freaky as we approach the sixties:

Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, August 28, 1963. At 7:15 p.m., three boys were standing in the backyard of their home in Belo Horizonte's Sagrada Familha neighborhood when they noticed an large, transparent luminous sphere descending toward them. One of the occupants of the sphere was a tall, slender man, some 2 mts. in height, dressed in a "scuba diver's outfit" and with an entirely bald head contained within a massive helmet. The man was earless and noseless, red-skinned, and had a single large dark eye, withouth eyebrows or eyelashes, in the middle of its face. This case was not investigated until the summer of 1965, when it was brought to light by Brazilian researcher Hulvio Brant Alexio.

...

Sao Joao, state of Pernambuco, September 10, 1965. Antonio Pau Ferreira, a 45-year old farmer, was startled to behold two disk shaped objects no larger than 1.50 meters wide and 60 centimeters thick, which disgorged two small beings of a generally humanlike appearance, beardless, with reddish-brown skin and waxen complexions. They wore form-fitting outfits.

...

Itaperuna, December 20, 1971. Manuel da Silva Souza witnessed a strange discoidal object on the ground. Standing beside it were 4 diminutive humanoids with bare round heads, thin noses and slanted eyes, wearing emerald colored clothing. The beings appeared to be mouthless.

...

1973 (precise date unknown). Bernadette Gómez, adopted daughter of General Moacyr Ulloa, was taken to some location in the Amazon where she witnessed an extraordinary blue light which produced a normal sized entitiy wearing a tight-fitting outfit. The creature cured the young woman of a disease known as Mal de Chagas -- a fact corroborated by Santa Lucía Hospital in Rio de Janeiro.

Paciencia, Rio de Janeiro, September 15, 1977. Antonio La Rubia allegedly encountered an unknown object resting in the middle of a football field. Upon turning away from it, he was faced by three robot-like figures measuring some 1.20 meters. The robots had antennae which extended over their heads like footballs, in whose center was a band of tiny transparent mirrors in shades of blue. They had thick bodies and appendixes resembling arms whic thinned out toward their ends (La Rubia compared them to an elephant's trunk). The witness claims having been abducted by these creatures.

This one is worth highlighting, as it is so close to some appearances of the BVM and you can only conclude the interpretation is down to the witnesses beliefs (or those of the researcher who got to her first):

Sao Paulo, August 25, 1968. María José Cintra, a worker at Serafim Ferreira Hospital, was startled to encounter a strange woman with fair skin, wearing a light blue cloak over a silvery coverall with tight cuffs. The entity floated into a pear-shaped object which floated less than a meter off the ground.

So, on to mystery beasts (although the distinction may not always be clear) - this first demonstrating the foul odour sometimes associated with Bigfoot (which is so powerful it has burnt people's nostrils), also note some think it is an undiscovered giant sloth and others pin it down as a man-beast - the Brazilian Bigfoot:

Cuenca del Urubu, 1930 (precise date unknown). For over 60 years, persistent rumors concerning the existence of a giant apelike being in this region have run along the length of the Urubu River. In this reference, a Brazilian who formed part of a ten-man expedition ran into a massive hairy creature which growled as it walked and left in its wake "..a bitter and penetrating odor..." Despite having fired at it a number of times, the animal escaped. The hunter believed that it was the Mapinguary, Pelobo or Pe de Garrafa.

...

Sao Paulo, February 21, 1994. David Oren, a Brazilian explorer, went in search of an enormous creature which traditionally roams the Amazonian jungles. The Mapinguary, Preguica Amazonica or Pé de Garrafa has been seen since before 1930 by a variety of witnesses. According to Oren, the time is right to send out a serious expedition to find it.

...

Xurucus, Recife, February 3, 1983. A number of people claim to have seen gigantic green creatures, some 3 meters tall, with box-shaped heads and square legs, exiting a cave located near Xurucus. The main witness is farmer Geraldo Cordeiro.

...

Tres Lagos, Matto Grosso do Sul, March 14, 1995. Wilson Dourado de Paula, a well-known soccer player, was attacked by a wolf man (lobizón) in Tres Lagoas at 1:30 a.m. as he left a family reunion. He described the creature as measuring some 2 meters in height and having fiery red eyes, a pointd tail and entirely black in color. He had to cast a stone at it, since it very nearly seized him. Witnesses to the event were Aníbal José Pedro, 43, and Dirceu Arruda, 52.

...

San Roque, state of Sao Paulo, October 7, 1996. Farmer Eduardo Roberto de Moraes stumbled upon a number of claw-shaped footprints deeply etched into dry, hardened soil. Some of the prints measured up to 40 cm. (13 in.) in length. Tufts of brownish-grey hair were found tangled in a local fence. To judge by the footprints, the creature would weigh some 200 kgs. (440 lbs.). According to the testimony of two witnesses who encountered the creature, it resembled a dog standing some 5 feet tall, with large black eyes, long fangs and a body entirely covered in dense yellow fur. A mane of sorts ran down its back. The entity was able to walk grotesquely on its two hind legs or on all fours. SAMIZDAT correspondent Encarnación Zapata García submitted the hair samples to the Universtiy of Sao Paulo to have them analyzed.

Unfortunately, there no report on the outcome of those wolfman DNA tests. If anyone knows then let us know

Source

Hat tip

As always we recommend the piece in the Humanoids book about South American sightings.

Charles Bowen (ed.) (1974)
The Humanoids
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com