Egyptian unrest; looters steal mummies and treasures

Looters attempted to run off with the skulls 2,000 year old mummies from Cairo's Egyptian Museum yesterday, but were fortunately caught by police and civilians. Also confiscated was a heavily damaged statue of Tutankhamun, broken by the criminals during the theft. Zahi Hawass, archaeologist and chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities stated that, "They tried to attack and rob the showcases of King Tut, but they failed. These people are criminals, they are not true Egyptians... the army are now guarding the museum and all the museums are now safe." A first-hand description of the looting can be found at Dr. Hawass' website. Dr. Hawass writes that "What is really beautiful is that not all Egyptians were involved in the looting of the museum.  A very small number of people tried to break, steal and rob.  Sadly, one criminal voice is louder than one hundred voices of peace.  The Egyptian people are calling for freedom, not destruction.  When I left the museum on Saturday, I was met outside by many Egyptians, who asked if the museum was safe and what they could do to help.  The people were happy to see an Egyptian official leave his home and come to Tahrir Square without fear; they loved that I came to the museum." Since the Internet is not working in Egypt at this time, Dr. Hawass faxed his update on Egyptian Antiquities to Italy.

It saddens me that people can become so desperate that they would, as Dr. Hawass writes, "rob their own country". Fortunately there are many standing up to the criminals, willing to protect the museums and countless irreplaceable treasures.   

The pyramids at Giza are now closed off by the military, a site that normally swarms with tourists. There are a lot of ongoing dig sites throughout Egpypt and given that the entire country is basically a museum, deep concern remains over many of the treasures and historical artifacts at risk during this time of protest and unrest.

I'll be watching this, as the rest of the world does too. Stay safe Dr. Hawass!

Ghost Hunters open The Spalding Inn

Now I might not watch the original Ghost Hunters all that often anymore (I once was a die hard fan and interviewed several cast members for various publications), due to the fact that I firmly believe that Jay and Grant and the whole crew have fallen victim to fakery (maybe they don't have a choice, maybe I'm wrong, but I really don't think I'm wrong), I still think they're pretty awesome guys (It's important to add here that I think the show started out real). So when I heard they opened The Spalding Inn, I was pretty psyched. Quite honestly, it is absolutely gorgeous and perhaps I'll make my way there sometime soon as my mother is *yells out* MOVING to New Hampshire in the spring. ...Verklempt... talk amongst yaselves...

The Spalding Inn Whitfiled, NH

For now, I only have second hand information.

Located in the North Woods of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, The Spalding Inn has thirty-six rooms and a family restaurant called "The 2 Kings Restaurant" as well as a pub to compliment, called "2 Kings Pub". Don't think too hard about the identities of the two kings.

The rates are reasonable and according to the website, so are the meals. The views look pretty delicious, too.

This upcoming weekend, February 2nd through the 4th, The Spalding Inn will host a TAPS Paranormal Weekend. Ghost hunting with these guys is actually really fun - I had the chance to investigate with Steve Gonzalves and that was a blast. If you're not a Ghost Hunters fan, no worries. The Inn is perfectly suited for weddings, romantic or family vacations and business meetings. There is, of course, a ghost hunting package - because duh! The Spalding Inn is allegedly haunted. You probably already guessed that. In fact, The Spalding Inn was featured on the SyFy show, Ghost Hunters (the crew of Ghost Hunters International served as investigators while Jay and Grant became clients).

Bipedal Gorilla. Evolution, in your face.

Gorilla Fight!!!!

Speaking of orangutans, I've got a really, really crazy video for you today. People on YouTube are claiming it's fake! Ironic, considering the whole theory of evolution and all. Despite the fact that evolution is pretty much widely accepted these days and has even been worked into some religious teachings, this is still a jawdropper.

And sorry to be misleading with my opener, but it's a gorilla. A silverback gorilla. Not an organutan. Had to work in a previous and somewhat related post.

Ambam the gorilla lives in Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent, England. Oh, and this isn't the first time a gorilla walked upright. Plenty of them do it. This video just happened to go viral. In this zoo alone, walking upright seems a family affair.

"Ambam's father Bitam used to display the same behavior if he had handfuls of food to carry," animal keeper Phil Ridges said. "Ambam also has a full sister, Tamba, and a half sister ... who also sometimes stand and walk in the same way... We think he might use it to get a height advantage to look over the wall when keepers come to feed him. Ambam can also carry a lot more food if he stands and uses both hands, and walking on two feet also means he doesn't get his hands wet when it's raining."

Twenty-one year old Ambam is 485 pounds. Imposing, yes?

Enjoy!

George Washington in a box. ARE YOU KIDDING!?

My latest postings seem to be much, much less on the paranormal/weird side but sometimes I just can't help but share something! Like the following photo, for instance.

NCAA, Martin Luther King Day, South Carolina 2011

I won't say much about this except that NCAA - what were you thinking?

George Washington, our first president - in a box? Really?

... Really? To make things worse, G.W. has been similarly covered for the past four years at the same event.

Some things get me so annoyed/worked up/dumbfounded. This is one of those things. In honor of this ridiculous act of disrespect, I will usher in a new type of post, which will fall under the weird AND annoying/what!? what!? category and I will title them "ARE YOU KIDDING!?" posts.

 (Snapshot taken at the NAACP's 2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Columbia, SC shows a wooden box covering a statue of George Washington in front of the state house).

Orangutan's 97% same DNA as humans

While Chimps are 99% DNA doubles to the human species, scientists have just announced that the red-haired Orangutan comes in second at 97%. This study marks the first time that scientists have ever unraveled the endangered Orangutan species' genetic code. Orangutan is a combination of two Malay words which mean "forest man or forest people".

There are only about fifty-seven thousand wild orangutans left in the world, living in Borneo and the island of Sumatra. Due to deforestation, these numbers continue to dwindle.

Thirteen million DNA variations were studied by scientists, with apes from both locations, discovering that the two species split off 400,000 years ago (more recent than they thought). Some sections of DNA were closer to humans than of chimp DNA.

Current research shows that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor five to seven million years ago.

To see an Orangtan up close, there loads of fun to watch at the zoo. At the Philadelphia Zoo, for instance, you'll likely find the older female Sumatran orangutan Tua shying away from visitors beneath a blanket, while baby orangutan Batu plays pranks by trying to continuously yank the blanket off the female. Orangutan's have also attempted to draw in captivity. An orangutan will live ten years longer on average in a zoo, than in the wild. The average life span of an orangutan is forty years old.

Orangutan's can recognize themselves in a mirror and can also learn sign language.

Unicorns, rare white deer, need help in New York

While I'm not sure why on earth anyone thinks that a white deer looks anything like a unicorn (after all, the defining feature of unicorn is the horn on top of the horse's head), that's what they're calling them in New York. A herd of very, very rare white deer (white due to a recessive gene) are living in Seneca Couny inhabit a former Cold War Army Depot enclosed in a twenty-four mile fence. These sweet guys are so rare and beautiful that Lenape Native Americans believed they were something like ghosts and had magic powers.

In the early 1950s, two white fawns (baby deer) were spotted by the Commanding General and he adored them so much he forbid any GI's from shooting them. Today, Seneca County boasts the world's largest herd of white deer.

Sadly, business is looking to develop 7500 acres of the former army depot. Due to heavy economic problems in Seneca County, businesses are eyeing up the land that is being called "an economic goldmine". Others, the Seneca White Deer Organization in particular, want the land made into an official nature reserve. The White Deer group hopes to market their cause as a conservational issue (which it is!!!) and capture the hearts of people the world over. Nothing can happen yet, however, as the army owns the land until 2012. Given the fact that the economy needs fueling, maybe they can do both?
Help the White Deer!

• Buy White Deer Merchandise
• Become a member of Seneca White Deer - I'm doing it!
• Attend fundraisers
• Donate to Seneca White Deer
• Write a letter

Fix the economy - build a crop circle and say the aliens did it - charge money.

Seriously. If you build it, people will come. And they'll bring money if you ask them to. Even since the late 1970s when crop circles were all the craze, the alleged "phenomenon" has been under heavy scrutiny. In 1991, two men named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley announced that they were responsible for crop formations in 1978 that sparked a worldwide debate on the origins of the circles. People came from all over to visit the crop circles and even after 1991's revelation, crop circles are still turning up all over the world and much more complex than usual. Many are created by professional artists or people that just plain like to knock down wheat. Yet there are still hoards of people that shout E.T. when another one appears in a field somewhere in the world!

Just this week, a crop circle appeared in an Indonesian rice field, sparking local rumors that extra-terrestrials are at it again. According to the Associated Press, the formation resembles a 70 yard flower and is "clearly sculpted by humans". Twitter feeds are suggesting that a group of students may have created the crop circle. Sure enough, however, people are paying to see this thing and the UFO rumors haven't settled just yet. Locals claim they saw a tornado the previous night and their calling the circle a "footprint". It is pretty though, isn't it?

Believers in paranormal or ET-created crop circles continue to assert that while many of these field formations may be created by man, some of them may be otherworldly messages or phenomena. In several cases, witnesses claimed to spot balls of light (BOLs) over crop formations.

In one highly controversial and sensational video, BOLs lay out a crop circle in a matter of two seconds right for the camera. My verdict: Hoax! If I were watching the same scene unfold over a field, I definitely wouldn't say "This is amazing..." in a calm, cool tone as the videographer is (It is a hoax, by the way). I'd shout something to the tune of "HOLY ____" and probably drop my camera, maybe?

I could get into all the hub bub of crop circles and paranormal/alien theories but I won't waste my time or yours. They're fun and that's that. What's more interesting, I think, is how much we all want to believe in extra-terrestrial influences and messages in crops. That says a lot about us as human beings all over the world from different countries and cultures and how we feel about life and our place in the universe -- we want to know that something else is out there and that it's not just us... we want to believe that we're not alone?

Charlie Chaplin's Time Traveler DeBunked

Back in mid-October of 2010, a scene from Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus" (1928) went viral on the web. the clip shows the hustle and bustle of people in Hollywood attending a premier at then Grauman's Chinese Theater. Irish filmmaker George Clark made an odd discovery: a man (or a woman) walks into the scene wearing a long black coat and appears to hold something akin to a cell phone up to his/her ear.

An alleged time traveler, according to some. Jumping to conclusions, are we?

Since the video circulated on the web, much has been said against the time traveler theory. Here are some obvious flaws to the time traveler theory.

Time Traveler Theory Hitches:

• Even if someone had traveled back in time to 1928, cell phones would not work as there are no cell phone towers.
• Time travel is still very much theoretical.
• No one in the scene thinks anything of the alleged cellular phone, so if they're not worried - why are we?

Recently, the Charlie Chaplin Time Traveler clip was debunked. The alleged cell phone is actually an early form of a Siemens hearing aid, shaped much like a cellular phone and held up against the ear.

Taking Applications for Poe Toaster: The End of a 60 Year Tribute

Two things very close to my heart. Baltimore and Edgar Allen Poe's grave. Hey, it's not weird if you're an English major! (... or a history major.) As if The Baltimore Ravens' loss to Pittsburg last weekend didn't hurt enough, it seems the Poe Toaster has given up his annual appearance at Poe's grave at Westminster Hall Cemetary for good.

I spent an evening at Poe's grave back in 2008 and the experience sent chills up my spine. (again... English major.) The cemetary might have had something to do with that, too.

Poe, originally buried in 1849 in an unmarked grave, caught the attention of the media and his mother-in-law Maria Clemm in 1860 when reports circulated that his resting place was overgrown with weeds. Judge Neilson Poe ordered the creation of a marble headstone and promised a worried and distraught Maria Clemm that the grave would be better maintained. The headstone fell off of a train and crumbled to pieces. Neilson Poe, without the funds to build another stone, did not order a second one.

In 1895, Miss Sara Sigourney Rice launched a movement that would provide a monument for the dead poet. Half the cost of the new stone was raised by 1871 through donations by students and friends while the remaining funds were gifted by George W. Childs of Philadelphia. George A. Frederick, the architect of Baltimore's City Hall designed the monument for Poe and was dedicated on November 17th, 1875. According to The Edgar Allen Poe society's website, "Among those in attendance were John H. B. Latrobe (one of the judges who awarded Poe the Baltimore Saturday Visiter prize in 1833), Judge Neilson Poe (Edgar’s cousin) and Walt Whitman (the great American poet, who actually met Poe once). Letters from H. W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, William C. Bryant and Alfred Tennyson were read. The remains of Virginia Poe, buried in 1847 in New York, were brought to Baltimore and added to those of Poe and Maria Clemm in 1885. Thus the three who had struggled together as a family for so many years were reunited for eternity".

Beginning in 1949 (The Baltimore Evening Sun reports it first in this year), in the darkness of the night of Poe's birth, a cloaked figure has visited the monument every year, always leaving three roses and a bottle of cogniac. You can visit the Poe house in Baltimore to see some of the tributes left behind.

Famous Poe Toaster Photo

Last year, the Poe Toaster, as this mysterious stranger has been dubbed, did not show up on the anniversary of Poe's birth. Over a dozen spectators stood on the street across from the cemetary in the rain and freezing temperatures to wait all night. They never saw the Poe Toaster enter the cemetary, nor was anything left at the grave. Four imposters came and went - one out of a limo, two women and one older man - all in plain sight. This year it seems, the original Poe Toaster was absent again, leaving many to assume that he might have passed away.

Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House told the Associated Press, "I think we can safely say it's not car trouble, and he's not sick. This doesn't look good."

Upon realizing that the Poe Toaster was not coming, spectators crossed into the cemetary and paid their own tribute to Baltimore's beloved poet. Jerome stated that he will return in 2012 to wait for the Poe Toaster but if the cloaked stranger does not appaer, that will be the end of the annual vigils at Westminster Hall.

Hark the Raven, nevermore.

There's No Place Like Home... UFO's Over Bel Air, Maryland, US

As a child, I spent about ten years of my life living in Bel Air, Maryland. A childhood friend claimed to see a similar orb as described below out in the sky as he sat with his dad on their back deck. I've always been on the fence regarding UFO's (but I leave the possibility open). When I saw this story coming right out of my childhood hometown, I just had to share.

The sighting above occurred in October of 2010. Still can't figure out what road this is. For a time, that interested me more than the orbs floating off in the background. I gave up.

The following sighting listed in the MUFON CMS report occurred on January 10th 2011:

For the past two months I've been seeing strange lights and aircraft in my area around Bel Air, Maryland. After seeing them on a regular basis I went out and bought a video camera so I could document these sightings.

I started to notice these lights almost every night usually around 7:00PM EST. They appear very low in the sky, usually over trees and sometimes they can be extremely bright. At times they appear to pulsate and move extremely slow. Generally they hang around for 5-10 minutes before fading out. Sometimes when they fade out and start moving away they start to blink a red light or strobe light like you would see on a standard aircraft. However I can assure you that these objects do not behave like standard aircraft.

I have also seen and filmed several large black triangle aircraft with 4 bright head lights. They fly extremely low maybe 200 feet off the ground and are almost completely silent. Sometimes they turn the head lights on and off while flying. I had one fly directly over my head one night while I was filming and even though it was only 200-300 feet above me I couldn't hear any sounds coming from it until it was directly over my head. Once it was over my head it sounded like a jet engine but the craft appeared to be a black triangle shape. It was very eerie to have such a large object flying that low and right in front of me yet completely silent until it was directly over my head.

Now you have to keep in mind that Aberdeen Proving Grounds is not far from Bel Air, so any sightings occurring within the area need to be taken with that in mind. However, these "crafts" are moving in such a way that seems very inconsistent with any known military craft. Am I right?

UFO Sightings in Maryland since 11/2010

An earlier MUFON CMS report from late 2010: This report is being filed by the Maryland Mufon State Director on behalf of a witness and a reporter that wish to remain anonymous. This a report of a "first-hand" report.

On December 30, 2010, an individual traveling north on Rt 109 north of Poolsville, MD., passed the curve north of the Jerusalem Road intersection and encountered a stopped vehicle in the road ahead of him.

He looked left (west) and saw the object [a dark "square" (diamond?), approximately 50 yards on a side, fixed white light on all four corners, about 75 yards west of the road over a farm field, about 1000 feet lower than normal approach altitude into Dulles International Airport, moving such that a corner was the forward point) moving slowly (direction not given). He initially thought it was a helicopter.

He turned off the car radio, opened the window to listen, and heard nothing. Two vehicles traveling southbound also saw the object and stopped. The weather that evening was mostly clear with some high clouds.

Giant concete home construction in the Ozark

More fodder for the conspiracy theorists or maybe not at all.

A home near Highlandville, MO, US that rumors claim will be built entirely out of concrete and bullet-proof glass, will span the length and width of about one acre on a five hundred acre stretch of land. The structure itself will boast a nice 73,000 square feet of room. Let's compare, shall we?



http://www.ozarkmountains.org/


The average US home size in the last 5 years comes to about 2300 square feet. The not so average? Take Bill Gates' house. 66,000 sqaure feet. The White House is smaller, coming to 55,000 square feet. The "mansion" in Highlandville could potentially fit twenty-six average sized homes (and more!) in the space it occupies.

According to blueprints, there are plans for fifteen bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms, a two story library and a two story great hall. All big, of course. Big means BIG. The basement alone is 2300 square feet and will apparently be used mostly for storage purposes. That's a lot of stuff.

All in all, so what? The biggest house in America. Move that bus! Congratulations, Huff family. Wait, no.

The deed to the land names Steven T. Huff. Online records of political campaign contributions show a Steven T. Huff of Leesburg, VA - an engineer and chief technology officer of Overwatch Systems, Ltd. Overwatch's website states that the company “delivers multi-source intelligence (multi-INT), geospatial analysis and custom intelligence solutions to the Department of Defense, national agencies and civilian organizations. ... More than 25,000 analysts in the U.S. Department of Defense and the larger intelligence community utilize Overwatch solutions.”

So why all the concrete and bullet-proof glass? Planning and zoning restrictions are allowing only one family to occupy the "residence" at a time and that doesn't sound much like a home. Steven's brother, the project manager, suggested that the concrete structure in progress is actually an insulated concrete structure protecting the real building going on inside. According to onlookers, builders and equipment arrive daily and it's been going on for a full year.

Horns on humans. For real.

"Doctors say they don't know what caused it," Huang Yuanfan of China tells the press, "But if they try to take it off it will just come back." Yuanfan is 84 years old and lives in Ziyuan, China. The it he's referring to turns out to be a three-inch horn growing out the back of his head.

Seriously? Yes. Seriously.

What started out as a small lump, Yuanfan attempted picking at it and even tried filing it off. Nothing worked, however, as the protrusion continued to grow.

In fact, this has happened before. More than once. Last year, a 101 year old Chinese woman made headlines with not one, but two horns growing on her head. The second horn, in its earliest stages, is shown here. A mother of seven, her family expressed worry.

During the same year, another Chinese woman made the news with a 6 1/2 inch horn growing out of her forehead. The horn curled down over her face and was growing for 4 years. Another similar case occurred in 2006.

Human horns are not limited to China it seems. In Yemen, 2007, a 102 year old man named Saleh Talib Saleh was reported in the Yemen Observer to have grown a horn at age 78.

"One day, as I was touching the surface of my head, I felt a very thick and hard layer of substance on my head," Saleh told the Yemen Observer. "At that time we didn't have the medical institutions like we have today, so I ignored it and did not focus too much on it because it didn't bother me at all. Every week, it seemed to grow bigger and harder."

In this particular case, the individual broke the horn off once it reached 19 inches long in 2006. Only days afterward, the growth continued.

Each of the horns resembles what is called a cutaneous horn, a funnel-shaped protrusion that are usually only a few millimetres long. Cutaneous horns are composed of compacted keratin, which is the exact protein we have in our hair and nails which forms horns, wool and feathers in the animal kingdom. The underlying causes of cutaneous horns are the common wart, skin cancer and actinic keratoses, sections of scaly skin that develop on skin heavily exposed to the sun - in these cases, the face and head. Doctors do acknowledge that the length of the horns mentioned here are unusual.

Aflockalypse: The Debate Continues Over Mass Animal Deaths

The term Aflockalypse, a term referring to the mass animal die-offs occuring early in 2011, got started with conspiracy theorists and became a laughing matter with Saturday Night Live (see photo).

No laughing matter, however, is the fear and debate resulting from the seemingly unending reports of mass animal deaths occuring the world over since New Years Eve 2010.

Just yesterday, California reported about 100 birds died and were found near Highway 101 near the Wine Country region.

So far the public has been presented with many rational explanations for the mass deaths such as cold weather, movement of the earth's magnetic pole, blunt trauma, H1N1, disease and fireworks. While scientists are continuing to examine dead birds in the US, conspiracy theorists are busy tying loose ends together. Government testing, the end of times. Some really complex theories have tied the murder of John Wheeler in Delaware earlier this year to a WMD cover-up related to the animal deaths.

Fact is, over ninety mass animal deaths have been recorded over the past year and that's basically normal. The problem is that we're so tied to our cell phones and computers and the incoming news seems like something we've never heard before - because we've never heard it before!

Mass Animal Deaths Attract Attention

Mass animal deaths are not unusual. As the daughter of an environmentalist educator, I know this to be true. However, there's nothing normal in my small opinion, about the number of animal species seemingly singled out in many parts of the world to be instantly struck down out of the sky or washed up on shore. Yet I can't help but wonder - if this is all a big coincidence and disease, trauma, H1N1, cold waters, etc. are to blame - is the Internet and the media to blame for all the hype? Information travels fast. Much faster than ever before. Perhaps we're seizing each event too quickly, without realizing that normal die-offs just haven't been sensationalized like this before. Or maybe not...

The alleged culprits for the sudden deaths? Indigestion for the seven-hundred turtle doves that rained down over Faenza, Italy last Wednesday, January 5th, 2011. Fireworks blamed for the hundreds of jackdaws that fell dead to the ground in Sweden (A truck driver tried to take the blame as well, claiming he ran them over but yet there was no outward phsyical damage).  Fireworks were also blamed for five-thousand blackbirds and starlings littered roads in Beebe, Arkansas in the US on New Years Eve 2010. Over 100 miles away one-hundred thousand drumfish washed up on shore, an event said to be unrelated. The cold. The cold. The cold. More of the cold. The list goes on...

• Hundreds of dead snapper fish found on the shores of Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand.
• Forty-thousand dead crabs on the shores near Kent, England.
• 450 birds fallen dead in Louisiana, US.
• Two-million dead spotfish in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, Us.

And I can still go on... and on...

• Manatees in Florida (just a few)
• Starfish and Jellyfish in South Carolina
• 150 Tons of Talapias in Thailand
• Hundreds of fish in Aulstralia
• Snappers and Penguins in New Zealand

You can't help but get caught up in this, right? I haven't even documented them all. If you want to keep track, you can visit BuzzFeed's interactive map.