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Check out the Fortean Times. "The world of strange phenomena"

There is no such thing as "too cold to snow"

http://www.theweatherpredictio...

http://www.forteantimes.com/st...

There is no such thing as "too cold to snow"

http://www.theweatherpredictio...

http://www.forteantimes.com/st...

Two words:
1) somatic mutations: http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/somatic-mosaicism-and-chromosomal-disorders-867

2) mosiacs: http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/science/2368/chimeras_and_mosaics.html

Mutations happen all through the life of an organism. If that mutation happens in a germ cell (sperm or egg) the mutation is passed down to every cell in the next generation. However, if the mutation occurs in a somatic cell (non-germ cell), then when this cell divides (during growth) all the resulting cells carry the mutation.

In chimera (similar, but slightly different) you can have a person with one blue eye and one brown eye.

http://www.jir.com/

http://www.forteantimes.com/

enjoy

So Stan Gooch was right all along?
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/commentary/5176/the_doubly_divided_self.html

Another take.

Though the Lapp figure is clearly identified as a Tolkienesque Wose, the melding of pagan mythology with Christianity over the years is fascinating.

Even more interesting is the range of names attributed to this one figure. A small selection:
Chläus - Pretty standard
Kinderfresser - Child Eater
Old Scratch - Used for Satan directly in early America

And before there were elves there were the dark helpers with names like:
Black Peter
Claws
The Dark One
The Dark Helper

Anyhow - agreed that this thing go much further back than any add campaign. At least far enough back for the symbols to infiltrate and merge with ancient pagan teachings all over the world.

As a little off-topic trivia, slavery (as in the ownership of one human by another) only became illegal in the UK on 6th April 2010 (source).

Slavery was abolished in stages throughout the British Empire in the 19th Century but the status of slave was never acknowledged in the UK so it was never illegal to own one since they didn't exist!

Italian brothers Judica Cordiglia

There is also a marvellous documentary about these two guys.

The Soviets may have lost more cosmonauts than that.

This is a good read.

Lost in Space

NASA's success rate is extremely high? They've lost about 1 out of every 70 Shuttle launches, and that's manned spaceflight, with people getting killed when they fail.

... in comparison to the success rate of the Soviet program ...

Ironically, the most recent (May 2008) issue of the Fortean Times features an item on Clarke's recent (on his 90th birthday, to be precise) reiteration of his ongoing skepticism of UFOlogy in general (his quote: "They (UFOs, per the existing 'evidence') are not spaceships") and the ensuing uproar on the UFO boards.

Additionally, the same issue of FT notes that Clarke's first contribution to tasty paranormaloid TV, Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World (1980), has been reissued on DVD.

lots of time and expense.

The work has already been done.

look at http://www.forteantimes.com/review/HOAX.shtml

For some reason, this is what popped into my mind when I say the title of this article. :-)

"if cryptozoology is your thing, then my money's on the Yeti."

The Orang Pendek of Sumatra is a much more likely candidate IMO.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3734 946.stm

http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/182_orang1.sh tml

The Da Vinci Code is nonsense, second hand nonsense and false facts, written with all the style and formal elegance of a Post Office circular, My cat knows more about history, art history, architecture, oh yes, and aviation than Dan Brown. There are scores of sites debunking the thing; though most of these are apologists for Catholicism and Opus Dei there are a few that will set you straight.
Do yu really believe the Louvre pyramid has 666 panes of glass?

It does? This leads to two great thoughts - 1) Can I get a T-Rex steak somewhere? 2) It would be funny to see this argument used in a religious debate against an 'old earth' speculation, as at least one major Christian faith believes in the incorruptability of their chosen representatives. Maybe that T-Rex was a saint!

Well there was a documentary on radio 4 as has been mentioned.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137086&cid =11454994
Also in the current issue of Private Eye
And surely it was mentioned on your lug mailing list?
If it was in the Fortean Times then it would cover all my sources of information.
I don't see how it could get wider coverage ;).

I posted the following message on the Fortean Times website a few days ago (look for DPL - my handle - towards the end of the thread):

FT

btw, still no reply as yet!

I saw a great documentery on National Geographic Channel. I think that Leonardo did it and it could be the world first photograph. http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/110_shroud.sh tml

Did a bit of research, the programme was Proof Positive and the guy was David Moorhouse. Never heard of him myself, but Puthoff has. Nice quote:

"most skeptics are not skeptical enough - they tend to accept the given wisdom without questioning it."

The other magazines I subscribe to are:

The Diplomat (an Australian perspective on world affairs, but much more lightweight than the Economist)
History Today (British history magazine, which is what I'm studying. A bit too middle-brow though *sniff*)
Fortean Times (my favouritest mag ever, a monthly dose of high strangeness)
Skeptical Inquirer (a necessary counterbalance to Fortean Times)
The Skeptic (a necessary counterbalance to Skeptical Inquirer!)
Warship (an Australian naval history/news etc magazine, very much a small press sort of thing. Don't know if I'll keep it up, may look for something a bit more professional)

I probably don't need two skeptical mags. I do feel the lack of straight science in there; tried Scientific American for a while but it's a bit too detailed for me; New Scientist is more like it but as it's a weekly, between that and the Economist I'd never get to read any books! A compromise might be an astronomy (my first love) mag like Sky & Telescope, but then I'd like something with a bit more aerospace type stuff ... Oh well, I read too much anyway!

What can I say about the Fortean Times? It's erudite, witty, quirky, and in all a very stimulating read.

www.forteantimes.com Chock full of oddness and humor.

Fortean Times, Private Eye, Macworld, Blender and Revolver.

I used to read Counterpunch, but got tired of Cockburn.

There was a small article in Fortean Times, two months ago I believe, that was essentially a 'build your own Atlantis' where all you had to do was find some submarine structures that vaguely fit Plato's description and call it Atlantis.

Heck, there is even an entire magazine Atlantis Rising which discusses the all so many possible places for Atlantis to be.

Fundamentally, though, to claim Atlantis is inside the boundary of the Mediterranian Sea seems slightly faulty, but then again ancient civilizations were sketchy on detail regarding the regions that seemed lifetimes away. It would be like asking an American which side of Africa Zimbabwe is on.

For those in the UK or with a Fortean Times subscription, there was a lengthy article on the alternative claims to the Wright Brothers in last month's issue, including some more on Richard Pearce and several other claimants. It's an extremely thorough article, including photographs and sketches, and well worth a read if you're interested in the topic.

Fortean Times is here if you've never heard of it before...

I remember seeing it on the BBC and there wasn't much news. Here's a BBC story that didn't say much. A google search for Rendlesham turned up a much better article here.

The only motivation I can figure out is that the book shares part of its name with a popular RTS. This is more off topic than our usual off topics.

The ancient astronaut theory, though not DEBUNKED, has often rested in shaky evidence, assumptions, and outright hoaxes. The Dropa hoax being a classic one - and toss in Strichin's bizarre mutilation of mythology, or Von Daniken's questionalbe ideas . . . the support for it isn't enthusing.

A good look at some of the Fortean Times issues will go a long way into putting these theories in perspective.

What's next, one of David Icke's books here? Bring on the Reptillians!

You should post that over to fortean times - they love that kind of stuff.

Am I the only one that read through half the main story, mis-reading every occurrence of Fortran as Fortean? I just surfed here from http://www.forteantimes.com, so imagine my surprise at what I thought was a major co-incidence.

• I don't know any references to back up what I'm saying
• I'm basing the information on a Fortean Time's article I read a few years ago

Given the above, I remember reading that one possibility for the Turin Shroud was that it was an early, and I mean early, photograph. Apparently, the Turks had developed a method of photography involving canvas and I -think- silver nitrate (maybe mercury?). This was in use during the 1500s, as far as I recally the article saying.

Now, the photography they were talking about wouldn't bear much resemblence to a camera as we would recognise it. I believe the subject had to be very still, covered in this impregnated cloth and then the light would do the rest.

I realise this is a very sketchy post, but I'm at work right now and really am not able to spend ages chasing down the relevant information. Just chucking this one out for a bit of interest really...

Cheers,
Ian

The highlights aren't vandalism of the spray paint and broken windows variety, but vandalism of a more artistic or pointed sort that often leaves the target looking better than before.

The really destructive vandalism, alas, is usually bought and paid-for, and protected by the powers-that-be. One way to reclaim private advertising in public places is to Convert Billboards to Chalkboards. This is one you can do in your spare time - hop to it!

The folks at Baby Smasher Industries will sell you some amended "instructions for use" stickers that show how restroom baby-changing stations are really meant to be population control devices.

The folks at Fortean Times have kept their fingers on the pulse of curious vandalism: Authorities in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, were called to the scene to investigate when fifteen trees in a city park were fitted with doorknobs and locks. Residents of a Rio de Janeiro slum painted all of the buildings in their neighborhood a uniform pale green, perhaps to confuse police.

In 1982, during the USSR-supported anti-Solidarity crackdown by the government in Poland, someone changed all of the signs at the “Stalingrad” metro station in Paris to read, instead, “Gdansk” (the city where the Solidarity movement was founded).

What would you do, given the inclination?

Fortean times has a nice archive of such simulcra

My particular favourite being "rasputin in the ear of a kitten". A definate sign of the lack of intelligence on this planet, at least.

For more on that moon thing, by the way, Fortean Times still have an old article up about it.

This surprises me, as Sony is one of the very few multinational corporations that have been open to utilizing their massive resources to investigating alternative or previously unexplored arenas. The revelation that Sony was investigating extrasensory perception in their very own ESPER psi-lab greatly increased my respect for them as open-minded, progressive scientists.

Therefore I am surprised that Ken Kutaragi came up against such resistance within Sony. But then, it's an enormous organization and I guess the ESPER-type culture may not have been prevalent throughout.

Asikaa

http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/97/moon.html for the responses.

These are quite a good (and funny) read.

http://www.primeline-america.com/moon-ldg/
http://www.angelfire.com/ut/aylett/eth69.html
http://batesmotel.8m.com/
http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/97/moon.html

Some people are crazy too, like this guy, who says the MOON is a fake.
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