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JANUARY 16, 2011: For Don Shomette, coastal waterways in the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia region offer a treasure trove of history beneath the waves. "In the Chesapeake, there are a total of eight sunken fleets," he said. "It's the most fought-over body of water in the Western Hemisphere."[USA Today]
JANUARY 12, 2011: Darco Sangermano, 28, was hit in the temple by the .22 calibre bullet while wandering with his girlfriend through Naples – a city in Italy notorious for its rowdy New Year celebrations, often involving firearms and powerful fireworks. The bullet went through the right side of his head, behind his eye socket and lodged in his nasal passage but miraculously did no serious damage.Bleeding heavily, he was taken to hospital in an ambulance shortly after midnight, but while waiting to be seen by doctors he sneezed and the bullet shot out of his right nostril. [UK Telegraph]
JANUARY 10, 2011: Everyone curses the tax man, but Romanian witches angry about having to pay up for the first time hurled poisonous mandrake into the Danube River on Thursday to cast spells on the president and government. Romania's newest taxpayers also included fortune tellers — but they probably should have seen it coming. [USA Today]
JANUARY 6, 2011: While it seems pretty creepy that thousands of dead birds are falling out of the sky, millions of dead fish are turning up, and tens of thousands of dead crabs are littering beaches, it turns out these aren't the only bizarre mass animal deaths that have occurred over the years. [Huffington Post]
JANUARY 5, 2011: The Exorcist Files will recreate stories of real-life hauntings and demonic possession, based on cases investigated by the Catholic Church. The project includes access into the Vatican's case files, as well as interviews with the organization's top exorcists -- religious experts who are rarely seen on television. [Huffington Post]
JANUARY 5, 2011: When a creepy, hairless animal appeared in Nelson County, Kentucky two weeks ago, rumors swirled that it could be the legendary chupacabra, a mythic animal once dubbed by CNN as the "Bigfoot of Latino Culture." [Huffington Post]
DECEMBER 10, 2010: A tiny bone fragment could provide crucial information about the fate of Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared 73 years ago while flying over the Pacific Ocean in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.
Collected on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, the bone has raised the interest of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the Earhart mystery, as it may be from a human finger. [Discovery News]
DECEMBER 6, 2010: Admit it, there are some pretty weird places in the world. From Stonehenge to Easter Island to all the amazing ruins from past cultures in Mexico, the world is chockablock of bizarre sights worth visiting. Here are 11 of the most awe-inspiring and bizarre sights in the world. [Huffington Post]
DECEMBER 6, 2010: Encroaching seas in the far Pacific are raising the salt level in the wells of the Marshall Islands. Waves threaten to cut one sliver of an island in two. "It's getting worse," says Kaminaga Kaminaga, the tiny nation's climate change coordinator.
The rising ocean raises questions, too: What happens if the 61,000 Marshallese must abandon their low-lying atolls? Would they still be a nation? With a U.N. seat? With control of their old fisheries and their undersea minerals? Where would they live, and how would they make a living? Who, precisely, would they and their children become? [MSNBC]
INFORMATION RELATED TO OUR CURRENT DARK SMOKY BEINGS INVESTIGATION POSTED ON DECEMBER 5, 2010: See Polaris's newsletter article, Miracles Among the Lepers, for more information about Father Damien and leprosy in the Hawai'ian Islands.
DECEMBER 2, 2010: Amid all the discussion, anxiety and outrage over heightened airline security this holiday season, there’s one group of people whose important information is conspicuously absent: psychics.
There are thousands of people who claim to have psychic powers. Some, like convicted felon Sylvia Browne, are New York Times best-selling authors; others are seen on talk shows; still others, like Alison DuBois (of NBC’s Medium), serve as consultants for their own television shows. [Discovery News]
DECEMBER 2, 2010: NASA's secret is finally out: Researchers say they've forced microbes from a gnarly California lake to become arsenic-gobbling aliens. It may not be as thrilling as discovering life on Titan, but the claim is so radical that some chemists aren't yet ready to believe it. [MSNBC]
NOVEMBER 30, 2010: Some UFO sightings could be explained by ball lightning and other atmospheric phenomena, claims Australian astrophysicist Stephen Hughes.
The scientist has made a detailed study of an unusual event in 2006 when large meteors were observed over Brisbane. [BBC News]
NOVEMBER 19, 2010: Michelangelo's David might have held a secret weapon in his overly large right hand, according to new controversial research into the towering depiction of the biblical hero who killed Goliath.
Presented at "Florens 2010: The International Week of Cultural and Environmental Heritage," during a three-day tribute to Michelangelo’s masterpiece, the study concludes that David’s right hand is gripping the cylindrical fragment of a weapon. [Discovery News]
NOVEMBER 16, 2010: Researchers are uncovering the secrets of ancient civilizations who built fun house-like temples that may have scared the pants off worshipers with scary sound effects, light shows and perhaps drug-induced psychedelic trips.
The emerging field of acoustic archaeology is a marriage of high-tech acoustic analysis and old-fashioned bone-hunting. The results of this scientific collaboration is a new understanding of cultures who used sound effects as entertainment, religion and a form of political control. [Discovery News]
NOVEMBER 16, 2010: First there was Paul the octopus, now there's Bo Si, the "psychic" panda.
Bo Si picked a Chinese athlete to be the first gold medal winner of the Asian Games -- and Yuan Xiaochao promptly won for wushu, boosting the popularity of the 12 giant pandas at Xiangjiang Safari Park in Guangzhou.
But given China are so dominant, are favorites to finish top of the medals table and have the biggest squad at the Games, critics said it hardly proved Bo Si's telepathic powers. [Discovery News]
NOVEMBER 15, 2010: Pirates, sea battles, treasure chests, secret tunnels, old maps...any mention of the word "treasure" is bound to set our imaginations on fire. And though it often seems unbelievable or just plain stupid, human beings have continually been lured by the prospects of hidden treasure. [Huffington Post]
NOVEMBER 5, 2010: Britain's enigmatic "headless Romans" lost their heads far away from home, according to a multi-isotopic analysis of the 1,800-year-old skeletal remains.
Unearthed between 2004 and 2005 in a cemetery in York, England, the remains belong to 80 individuals, almost all males, who died violently at ages ranging between 19 and 45.
At least 46 of them had been carefully decapitated, with their heads placed by or between their legs or pelvis. [Discovery News]
NOVEMBER 4, 2010: Protection from the Sahara's howling dust storms may have helped the Sphinx maintain its steady gaze over the millennia.
Newly discovered walls on the Giza plateau were part of an enclosure to protect the Sphinx from wind-borne sand, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities says. [CNN]
OUR NEWEST INVESTIGATION EXAMINES A "HAUNTED" SCHOOL:The Dark Smoky Beings. In a particularly unusual expedition, the Outcast Earth team investigates a series of sightings of small, dark skinned beings that seem to spew smoke. The investigation centers around a Hawaiian elementary school where these strange beings are seen by staff, students and the authorities. But this isn't the first expedition the team's encountered that dealt with strange happenings at a school or university, such as the South Eugene High School [pictured left] in Oregon. You can revisit some of our previous school-based investigations by clicking on the links below.
OCTOBER 29, 2010: As Halloween rolls gustily around the corner, some of us might wax nostalgic for the hallowed eves of yore -- when we ate our weight in sugary sweets, dressed up in uncomfortable costumes and listened to stories that we knew would give us nightmares. Just because we're older doesn't mean we can't indulge in that last tradition (or the first two, for that matter) -- even college campuses have their share of spooky lore. Below, check out 13 haunted college campuses and the tales behind their ghostly reputations. Is your campus afflicted by a wandering poltergeist? [The Huffington Post]
OCTOBER 28, 2010: At a time when the average person doesn't know what to fear most—terrorism, global warming, pandemics like cholera, economic collapse, random gun violence, rogue nuclear weapons—zombies are the monster du jour, encompassing all those things. Forget about vampires; they're for porn addicts and tweens. And werewolves? Well, finding those hairy beasts sexy just smacks of bestiality. Only zombies allow us to dream of saving the world a la Mad Max, and remind us that most of the time, we're just shabby, mindless drones. [Newsweek]
OCTOBER 27, 2010: This image provided by Virginia Commonwealth University MCV Campus Department of Radiology shows an x-ray image of a Civil War era doll, dubbed Lucy Ann, at Virginia Commonwealth University's Medical College of Virginia hospital radiological center in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010. The x-rays disclosed hollowed papier-mache heads that once could have contained quinine or morphine for wounded or malaria-stricken Confederate troops. [Yahoo News]
OCTOBER 27, 2010: In the steady barrage of images that make up the digital age, it's almost impossible to fathom a time when photographs of people were nonexistent. But rest assured, kids, that such a time did exist -- and it really wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things.
So the recent discovery of what appears to be two men near the river's edge in a photo of Cincinnati taken in 1848 is kind of a big deal among photography historians. {Yahoo News]
OCTOBER 15, 2010: The striking news on the appearance of a Bigfoot on Taibai Mountain in Xi'an, Shaanxi Provnice recently spread among local residents of Mei County located near the foot of Taibai Mountain. Is Taibai Mountain really home to a Bigfoot? [People's Daily Online]
OCTOBER 14, 2010: Dawn is the perfect time of day in the jungle – strips of dewy light cut through the cool haze before the power of the sun breaks through.
Eight feet below me, a couple of hog deer scatter from their resting place under a blanket of pungent-smelling bonmara. We have seen the tracks and we must be getting very close.
The hours tick by and the suspense mounts, but the beast we are tracking seems just out of reach. From my perch on the cushioned howdah I crane for a distant glimpse of the gargantuan creature – but the bush is still thick ahead. [Telegraph.co.uk]
OCTOBER 14, 2010: An Italian researcher may have discovered a huge network of earthworks representing birds, snakes and other animals in Peru, according to a study published on the Cornell University physics website arXiv. [Discovery News]
OCTOBER 12, 2010: Early humans may have evolved as prey animals rather than as predators, suggest the remains of our prehistoric primate ancestors that were devoured by hungry birds and carnivorous mammals. [Discovery News]
OCTOBER 11, 2010: Civilization, clearly, did not start in the 21st century. There are many places around the world that have been in existence longer than we can possibly imagine. Yet for every unvisitable Babylon, there are ancient ruins which represent our rich heritage that we can still visit. From Mexico to Iran, here are 17 of the most stunning lost places you can still visit. [Huffington Post]
OCTOBER 10, 2010: A group of Chinese scientists and explorers is looking for international help to mount a new search for the country's answer to Bigfoot, known locally as the "Yeren", or "wild man".
Over the years, more than 400 people have claimed sightings of the half-man, half-ape Yeren in a remote, mountainous area of the central province of Hubei, state news agency Xinhua said on Saturday.
Expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s yielded hair, a footprint, excrement and a sleeping nest suspected of belonging to the Yeren, but there has been no conclusive proof, the report added. [MSNBC]
OCTOBER 9, 2010: What is it with these UFO reports from China? Even though sightings of unidentified flying objects were initially reported weeks or months ago, the stories just keep generating headlines — for example, this week in The Sun, a notorious British tabloid. That report apparently related to a Sept. 11 sighting that led to the diversion of airline flights to Baotou in Inner Mongolia, as reported a couple of days later by People's Daily Online. (The Sun refers to the city as "Bootee.") [MSNBC]
OCTOBER 8, 2010: Anthropologists said on Friday they had confirmed long-running suspicions that a germ called Yersinia pestis caused the plague that wiped out an estimated third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages. Teeth and bones sampled from 76 skeletons found in "plague pits" in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands and sequenced for DNA intrusion are conclusive evidence that Y. pestis was to blame, they said. [Discovery News]
OCTOBER 8, 2010: Animals (not just people) likely have spiritual experiences, according to a prominent neurologist who has analyzed the processes of spiritual sensation for over three decades.
Research suggests that spiritual experiences originate deep within primitive areas of the human brain — areas shared by other animals with brain structures like our own.
The trick, of course, lies in proving animals' experiences. [MSNBC]
OCTOBER 6, 2010: Lichen are eating away at the Moai, the 400 volcanic stone heads that dominate the skyline of Easter Island. Earlier treatments to preserve these ancient monoliths at this World Heritage Site called for filling some of the most deeply corroded stones with concrete. Unfortunately, experts think that this treatment might have worsened the damaging effects of the wind and saltwater that batter the Polynesian island. In fact, the lichen may even be feeding off the concrete used to save the Moai. [Blog About History]
OCTOBER 3, 2010: Giant sea spiders the size of dinner plates. Wriggly creatures nicknamed "Squidworms" because of their strange-looking tentacles. A blind lobster whose Latin name means "terrible claw".
These are among the new types of animal discovered in the most ambitious-ever survey of the world's oceans, which concludes tomorrow with the publication of the first Census of Marine Life. [Telegraph.co.uk]
OCTOBER 2, 2010: Regardless of how much faith you hold in the supernatural, there are certain places in this world where even the bravest souls might think twice before spending the night. From notorious disaster areas to the sites of some of the most gruesome slayings to occur on both sides of the Atlantic, these are places that would likely qualify as haunted -- even if you don't believe in ghosts, vampires or sea monsters. [Huffington Post]
SEPTEMBER 29, 2010: Australian biologists say animals that have been feared extinct are often rediscovered, and conservation efforts too often focus on creatures that will never be found again. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 28, 2010: Long-lost footage of Neil Armstrong descending the ladder of the Apollo 11 lunar module will be screened in public for the first time in Sydney next week, a prominent astronomer told AFP. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 23, 2010: It's hard enough to make a good movie or TV show, but apparently some of the stuff you watch or listen to also contains secret hidden messages that only close examination will reveal. Or, at least, that's what countless conspiracy theorists around the internet would have us believe. [Cracked.com]
SEPTEMBER 22, 2010: Two spectacular new species of horned, triceratops-like dinosaurs have been found in southern Utah, report paleontologists. The ornately frilled rhino-sized dinos are more than just eye candy, however. They are deepening a mystery about a long lost island that supported a seemingly impossible number and variety of dinos at the same time. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 21, 2010: To drive away the waters and part the Red Sea, Moses needed a different location than previously thought, according to a new study on the miraculous biblical event.
Previous studies of wind, waves and bathymetry have called on hurricane strength winds blowing from the northwest to push away the water. This exposed a long reef which allowed Moses and the Israelites to escape the advancing cavalry of Pharaoh. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 21, 2010: While there is absolutely no doubt at all in my mind that many of the strange beasts that people such as me search for are indeed flesh-and-blood creatures of truly unknown origin and classification – such as sea-serpents, the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, and the monsters of Loch Ness, Scotland – others are clearly not physical beasts at all. [Mania]
SEPTEMBER 15, 2010: Russian explorers Monday said they had found a sailor's log from aboard a legendary Arctic expedition that vanished as it sought to forge through the ice-choked Northeast Passage in 1912.
For decades mystery clouded the fate of the adventurer Georgy Brusilov -- captain of the first Russian crew to seek the elusive Arctic trade route from Asia to the West -- inspiring a generation of books and films. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 14, 2010: Last month, journalist Leslie Kean revealed shocking testimonials from government officials about unexplained behavior by unknown objects in the sky over many decades. Kean's book, the New York Times bestseller "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record" includes a foreword by John Podesta and first-person accounts written by over a dozen military and aviation witnesses and official investigators from around the world. [Huffington Post]
SEPETMBER 11, 2010: The thoughts are there, but there is no way to express them. For "locked in" patients, many with Lou Gehrig's disease, the only way to communicate tends to be through blinking in code.
But now, words can be read directly from patients' minds by attaching microelectrode grids to the surface of the brain and learning which signals mean which words, a development that will ultimately help such patients talk again. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 9, 2010: Researchers say they may have found further evidence for the existence of an unusual type of black hole. Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, an international team of scientists studied the images of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray source, HLX-1. [BBC]
SEPTEMBER 9, 2010: Cryptozoology, the study of “hidden animals”, concerns itself with animals whose existence has not yet been recognized by mainstream science. These animals, known as “cryptids”, are often the stuff of legends, written off as myths or elaborate hoaxes. Some famous cryptids are Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and El Chupacabra, all of which remain shrouded in mystery. However, many animals widely recognized today were once among these cryptids. The following ten creatures were once dismissed by science as products of folklore, imagination, or deception, but are now formally recognized as their own species. [Listverse]
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010: According to the BFRO, a dark, long-armed figure stood up and walked away from the edge of the river as the two whitewater row boats passed by. The location of the incident, and the physical appearance of the figure, and the behavior of the figure are consistent with a sasquatch. Nothing about the figure, or the incident in general, points to a hoax or a case of mistaken identity. [Phantoms & Monsters]
AUGUST 28, 2010: A family vacationing from Ohio says they spotted what they describe as a 30-foot long serpent like creature swimming in the water off Sand Key Park on Monday.
Was it another sighting of Normandy Nessie, the Bay area's version of the Loch Ness Sea Monster? [WTSP.COM]
AUGUST 28, 2010: Authorities say a man who was waiting with several friends for a "ghost train" from a North Carolina legend was killed when a real train came down the tracks. [Huffington Post]
AUGUST 26, 2010: The last thing Darlene Thompkins expected to see on her holiday was something she referred to as the 'Ootsa Lake monster'.
Thompkins who is holidaying in Burns Lake with her family from Edmonton, said she named the mysterious sighting in Ootsa Lake a monster because she didn't know what else to call it. [LDNews.net]
AUGUST 26, 2010: Bird calls ring from the forest, echoing amid the crumbling ruins whose darkened doorways have long beckoned explorers and scholars.
The Maya ancients who built the ruins of Kiuic (kee-week) here fled those doorways in a hurry, an international archaeology team now realizes. Left behind may be frozen-in-time clues to the fabled collapse of their civilization. [USA Today]
AUGUST 23, 2010: Alligators living in the sewers long thought to be an urban legend is now an urban fact. At least for one gator who really does live in New York City’s sewers. Several witnesses caught a glimpse of an urban legend becoming fact as an 18″ baby alligator emerged from an overflowing Astoria storm drain on Newtown Ave and 29th St. [You Bent My Wookie]
AUGUST 23, 2010: The subject of UFOs -- of intense interest to the general public -- is no longer something that reputable journalists will feel they need to avoid or dismiss as silly. Popular culture has distorted the facts about this compelling mystery, and a new book sets the record straight. "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record" (Harmony Books / The Crown Publishing Group) by journalist Leslie Kean pulls back the curtain on the incredible occurrences of unexplained behavior by unknown objects over many decades. [The Huffington Post]
AUGUST 22, 2010: The world is filled with secrets. Many of them it does not give up easily. Empires have risen and empires have fallen in the midst of mysteries-riddles that remained unsolved through the centuries. One such mystery has haunted the darker, steamier regions of the fabled land of the Amazon. The Amazon, that dark, forbidding river sluggishly twisting its way through Brazil and eight other South American countries. It is a river second in size only to the mighty Nile and it's so wide that no bridge passes over it. As far back as the Aztecs, legends have been spoken about the monster snakes. The Aztecs of central Mexico made it one of their most powerful gods: Quetzalcoatl. [www.Salem-News.com]
AUGUST 21, 2010: Woolly mammoths died out because of dwindling grasslands - rather than being hunted to extinction by humans, according to a Durham University study. After the coldest phase of the last ice age 21,000 years ago, the research revealed, there was a dramatic decline in pasture on which the mammoths fed. [BBC]
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 21, 2010: I'd like to have the email address for former member Cipher, as I would enjoy talking to him about his experiences. I will also be in Illinois for college this coming fall. –Tyler
WE REPLIED: Hi, Tyler! Unfortunately, we cannot share any private information, including email addresses, on our current or past members. We will, however, forward your message to Cipher should he be interested in contacting you directly. Thanks for visiting the site!
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 21, 2010: Hi there,
I'm from Saipan and I had no idea people conducted ghost investigations on my island.
Are you guys still doing those? – Tyler
WE REPLIED: No, sorry. Our visit there was quite a number of years ago and the team hasn't been back. Our mission is to travel as much as possible to see new locations and initiate new investigations, so it's rare that we'll do that in the same spot twice. We have heard from other residents of Saipan, however, that some of the island hauntings are well known and apparently there are local groups that have done ongoing investigations. You might look into that if you are interested. Thanks for writing!
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 17, 2010: Hello all,
I saw your notes on the Shinto Shrine in Saipan recently. We have been twice into the area and no success.
Would you happen to recall the directions to the shrine. We know it is in Kagman, in the vicinity of Kamuti/ChaCha Road and since your visit may be overgrown. The site is no longer maintained by the family.
Hope to hear from you.
Kind regards,
Teena
WE REPLIED: Hi, Teena... Sorry, I wish we could be of more help but the team's visit there was quite a number of years ago and memories have faded as to details and directions. Hope you find it!
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 15, 2010: I stumbled across some of your videos on youtube and wanted to let you know that I enjoyed them. I am interested in discussing things which most people call "the paranormal" with others that seek and or search through it. I am a hopeful skeptic and therefore cannot lend myself to instantly believe any story, despite the fact I was raised in a household which believed whole heartedly. In any case, thank you for the videos. -Xander "Rose Prince"
WE REPLIED: Thanks for your nice note, Xander... We agree... open-minded skepticism is always the best approach. Although all the team members believe in the possibility of paranormal activity, normal explanations are usually the correct ones in most of the cases we've seen. It's good to keep looking, though!
AUGUST 14, 2010: A Harrison County restaurant owner said she's heard people describe the mysterious creature as everything from "a lion to a cougar."
Others think it might be a bobcat.
A Kentucky Tech teacher who lives in Harrison County said her students refer to the movie Napoleon Dynamite, in which the title character sketches his favorite animal: a "liger," which might have magical powers. [Lexington Herald Leader]
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 13, 2010: your photo of gordon stewart northcott. hay I didn't know a colored one existed where did you find it? –Jennlee [A portion of the photo in question is shown right.]
WE REPLIED: Sorry to disappoint you, but that photo was "tinted" by our webmaster with the help of Photoshop. We've never seen a color one of him either.
AUGUST 13, 2010: A new detector could finally answer the question of whether the body of former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa is buried under cement at the site of the former Giants Stadium.
New cadaver sensing technology developed by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can detect not only dead bodies, but also trace amounts of the things that will kill you, including explosives, spoiled food, and carcinogens. [Discovery News]
AUGUST 12, 2010: On July 12 the remains of an 18th-century ship were found buried 20 feet below street level at the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. The question is -- how did they get there?
Nobody knows for sure -- yet. And even though there are timbers from the front half of the ship, nobody can identify what kind of ship it is because, among other mysteries, it’s not a design we’ve seen before. [Discovery News]
AUGUST 12, 2010: A simple slide show could be the next weapon against terrorists. Using a brain-electrode cap and imagery, scientists at Northwestern University can pick the date, location and means of a future terrorist attack from the minds of America's enemies.
The new research could not only stop terrorist attacks before they happen, but could also be used to help prevent other capers, or convict criminals after they break the law. [Discovery News]
AUGUST 11, 2010: Brazil has ordered its air force to document any UFO sightings and make the data available to researchers and the public.
A decree in the official gazette says the air force will register any sightings by military and commercial pilots, along with air traffic controllers. [Huffington Post]
AUGUST 11, 2010: At an estimated 13 pounds — bigger than most house cats — it was bigger than any other rat ever known. Bone fragments were excavated in caves in East Timor, located near the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, and scientists have now pieced together enough of them to describe the giant rat, which may have lived as recently as 1,000 years ago. People have lived in East Timor for 40,000 years, hunting and eating the rats. The scientists speculate that recent large-scale clearing of the rainforests for agriculture may have driven the rodents to extinction. The findings appear in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. [New York Times]
AUGUST 10, 2010: It is cramped, draughty and unlikely to win any design awards. But, according to archaeologists, this wooden hut is one of the most important buildings ever created in Britain.
The newly discovered circular structure – as shown in our artist’s impression – is the country’s oldest known home.
Built more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge, it provided shelter from the icy winds and storms that battered the nomadic hunters roaming Britain at the end of the last ice age. [Mail Online]
AUGUST 9, 2010: Ron Halliday has spent the last 30 years of his life trying to explain the unexplained. The author, whose books include UFO Scotland and Edinburgh After Dark, believes Scotland is now a haven of UFO activity.
In an exclusive interview with STV, Ron - a 60-year-old retired assistant registrar at Stirling University - said: "I think Scotland is like a world hot spot. All the UFO sightings. All the ghost sightings. All the monster sightings. Poltergeists. [STV]
AUGUST 5, 2010: Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower agreeing to a UFO cover-up during World War II? Sounds like something we might have seen during a flashback on an episode of The X-Files. But according to notes discovered within hundreds of previously secret "UFO files" released by the U.K. government's National Archives today, it actually happened. [Blastr]
JULY 28, 2010: London: A massive asteroid could crash into Earth in 2182, causing widespread devastation and possible extinction, scientists have warned.
The asteroid, called 1999 RQ36, has a one-in-thousand chance of actually hitting the Earth, but half of that risk corresponds to a potential impact in the year 2182, scientists from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain claimed. [zeenews.com]
JULY 28, 2010: Canadian archeologists have found a ship abandoned more than 150 years ago in the quest for the fabled Northwest Passage and which was lost in the search for the doomed expedition of Sir John Franklin, the head of the team said Wednesday. [Huffington Post]
JULY 28, 2010: America the beautiful, sure, but America the strange? You bet. The people at ShermansTravel.com have dug up 10 weird sites in America that run the gamut from natural abnormalities (albino squirrels, displaced deserts) to the just out-and-out odd (gravity vortexes, mystery lights). Hit the road this summer and seek out the curious and entertaining oddities sprinkled across the nation (many are conveniently located off major highways). Set out to scratch your travel itch, but count on scratching your head, too. Sneak a peek at all 10 weird sites with America's Weirdest Sites slideshow. [Huffington Post]
JULY 27, 2010: It seemed too good to be true: The discovery of a new painting by Caravaggio during the celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of his death. It turns out, it probably was.
Scholars unveiling the painting Tuesday concurred that the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" did not look like a Caravaggio, but rather like the work of one or more of his followers. This week, the Vatican newspaper, which first suggested the canvas could be the work of Caravaggio, shot down its own report and retracted the claim. [Huffington Post]
JULY 25, 2010: Two new photos, allegedly showing ghosts, appeared in the news this week. One was from a ghost tour of Mary King's Close in Edinburgh, Scotland. Actually the story presents two photos of two different tour groups, and supposedly the same blonde woman appears at the rear of both photos; they say she was not part of either tour group and therefore might be a ghost. There are a lot of things wrong with this allegation, of course: we don't know that it's the same woman (or that it even is a woman) and we don't know that the indicated person was not part of the tour group. Analysis of the photo as presented in the article is virtually impossible because it is too small and of insufficient resolution. [About.com]
JULY 23, 2010: Staff at one of Edinburgh’s spookiest tourist attractions have been left mystified after a ghostly figure showed up in the photographs of two separate tourists. Bosses at Mary King’s Close say the blond haired woman who appeared in images from two different tours was definitely not a customer. (STV)
WEBMASTER'S NOTE: OLD OUTCAST EARTH "FOE" ACCUSES THE TEAM OF FRAUD
We received news through our grapevine of friends and associates yesterday that our old foil, Jeremy Riposte, dropped a bombshell in the recent edition of his self-published newsletter entitled ANCIENT FOOTPRINTS. This is a publication he puts out several times a year to promote his paranormal / adventure tour business in Kaua'i. In it was an article entitled "Back from the Dead: When Paranormal Investigators Turn to Fraud."
You may have already guessed this, but the "fraudulent paranormal investigators" listed in the article are the Outcast Earth team members. Jeremy claims to have found alive "Meryl," the step-sister of our former team member Trespass whom we were told was killed in a boating accident years ago.
JULY 22, 2010: Scientists scouring the area around Stonehenge said Thursday they have uncovered a circular structure only a few hundred meters (yards) from the world famous monument.
There's some debate about what exactly has been found. The survey team which uncovered the structure said it could be the foundation for a circle of freestanding pieces of timber, a wooden version of Stonehenge. [Huffington Post]
JULY 21, 2010: Cambridge University experts believe the crudely etched circles are the Neolithic version of a modern office worker's scribbles on a post-it note.
The 6.6in (17cm) chunk of sandstone was discovered by an amateur archaeologist from the bottom of a deep quarry in Over, Cambs., during a university fun day. [Telegraph.uk.com]
JULY 20, 2010: Proton beams have shed new light on the origin of the longest of the Dead Sea scrolls, suggesting its parchment was manufactured locally.
According to a study carried out at the labs of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Catania, Sicily, the 28-foot-long Temple Scroll was made in Qumran, in what is now Israel, in the same area on the Dead Sea coast where the faded parchments were found hidden in caves half a century ago. [Discovery News]
JULY 19, 2010: Steve Feltham’s eyes and smile grow wide when the subject of the Loch Ness monsters comes up. “I think they’re out there, certainly,” he says, though he adds with a hint of sadness that it may not be true for much longer. He estimates there are probably a half-dozen creatures left in the lake (down from dozens in earlier eras) and will be fewer each passing year: “Sightings have declined. They’re gradually dropping off of old age, I think.” [Alibi.com]
JULY 16, 2010: After tens of thousands of years under the Siberian frost, a baby woolly mammoth is taking a summer vacation in southeast France.
Baby Khroma, one of the oldest intact mammoths ever found, went on display in a French museum Friday - after it underwent special tests to ensure it was no longer bearing the anthrax believed to have killed it. [Huffington Post]
JULY 16, 2010: The enigmatic smile remains a mystery, but French scientists say they have cracked a few secrets of the "Mona Lisa." French researchers studied seven of the Louvre Museum's Leonardo da Vinci paintings, including the "Mona Lisa," to analyze the master's use of successive ultrathin layers of paint and glaze - a technique that gave his works their dreamy quality. [Huffington Post]
JULY 16, 2010: An extraordinarily toxic bacterium harbored by the "infernal" Styx River might have been the fabled poison rumored to have killed Alexander the Great (356 - 323 B.C.) more than 2,000 years ago, according to a scientific-meets-mythic detective study.
The research, which will be presented next week at the XII International Congress of Toxicology annual meetings in Barcelona, Spain, reviews ancient literary evidence on the Styx poison in light of modern geology and toxicology. [Discovery News]
JULY 15, 2010: Workers at the World Trade Center site are excavating a 32-foot-long ship hull that apparently was used in the 18th century as part of the fill that extended lower Manhattan into the Hudson River. It's hoped the artifact can be retrieved by the end of the day on Thursday, said archaeologist Molly McDonald. A boat specialist was going to the site to take a look at it. [Huffington Post]
JULY 14, 2010: Scientists who exhumed the remains of several members of the Medicis, the clan that dominated the Florentine Renaissance, have conclusively dismissed the theory of family murders, solving a more than 400-year-old cold case. Malaria, not poison as long rumored, killed Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his second wife, Bianca Cappello, according to research to be published in Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. [Discovery News]
Today, Ruby is a largely forgotten ghost town located near the Arizona - Mexico border. But a century ago, Ruby was a prosperous gold mining community and one of the few "civilized" outposts on a rugged desert frontier. This newsletter, and the accompanying video by the same title, provides the Outcast Earth team's firsthand look at Ruby and an investigation into twin homicides that may have left some lingering spirits among its crumbling buildings. Visit the Outcast Earth YouTube page by clicking here.
JULY 9, 2010: Remote and mysterious Easter Island is bracing for an influx of tourists and problems with Sunday's solar eclipse that is being seen as a mixed blessing for the tiny Pacific territory.
The Chilean island of only 60 square miles is expecting an estimated 4,000 visitors, doubling the population of the barren isle which already suffers from water pollution and deforestation. [Discovery News]
JULY 9, 2010: Where did all the mammoths go? It's a subject that has fascinated naturalists for 300 years. Scientists generally agree that most mammoths died off gradually during the late Pleistocene, probably due to a combination of hunting from humans and environmental change. They've also known that a few isolated mammoth communities managed to survive into the Holocene, which began about 10,000 years ago. [Discovery News]
JULY 7, 2010: ONE OF THE greatest Warner Bros. cartoons of all time is the one about the singing frog. A construction worker demolishing an old building finds a time capsule in the cornerstone. When he opens it, out leaps a grinning green frog, which commences to dance and sing old show tunes: "Hello, my baby... hello, my honey... hello, my ragtime gal...." The construction worker is amazed and quickly sees that this astonishing find will make his fortune. He quits his job and opens a theatre starring his talented amphibian. When the curtain rises on opening night, however, the frog just sits and croaks. [About.com]
JULY 3, 2010: The ancient Romans slaughtered dozens of babies at a villa in England’s Thames Valley, a new study into the tiny remains has revealed.
Located in Buckinghamshire, just northwest of London, Yewden Villa, as the site is known, was excavated in 1912 by Alfred Heneage Cocks, a naturalist and archaeologist. [Discovery News]
NOTE FROM THE WEBMASTER: Recently, we were contacted by a visitor to our website who was a student at Oregon State University during the Nancy Jean Wyckoff murder. Nancy is pictured to the right. You can read about this crime and the haunting legend it may have contributed to by clicking here. The following is the visitor's account of those dark days:
To Whom It May Concern,
I was a student at Oregon State University during the time of the Marlowe Buchanan murder of Nancy Jean Wyckoff in Poling Hall, 5th floor I believe. My best friend lived on the same floor as Nancy Wyckoff and had asked me to stay overnight that night. For whatever reason I refused. I remember my mother waking me up the next morning saying that there was a murder in Poling Hall during the night. I contacted my best friend to see if she was okay, and thank God she was. She stayed at my parents house for the next week because she was too afraid to go back to school and of course the dorm. Many women didn't return to classes right away after that murder. It was a terrifying time at the University. Pranks were being played on students such as you mentioned with the concrete blocks, not just concrete chunks being dropped off of various buildings. I was not aware however that Marlowe Buchanan was behind those "pranks". A body (turns out it was a mannequin) was thrown off of one of the dorms roofs. There were incidents around town that happened supposedly caused by "the murderer", but later were found to be caused by a few histrionic and attention seeking girls in the town. Male students formed an "escort" service for female co-eds, walking them to the library or other areas of the campus after dark. One of these escorts was Marlowe Buchanan. Corvallis Police Department invaded Poling Hall after the murder was discovered and they required residents to give fingernail scrapings and pubic hair samples. My best friend who was from the San Francisco area was so traumatized that she went back to San Francisco shortly after that incident. For a tiny town like Corvallis this murder was huge news. I was from New York and never expected that a murder could happen in such a tiny "backward" little town such as Corvallis. One of the interesting things about this case was that after Buchanan was found to be responsible for the murder, his parents asked that their son be allowed home for the weekend stating that he was an honor student and that they would watch him closely during that weekend visit! Fortunately the judge said no. I remember Nancy Jeans mother saying that "Nancy was a " '70's girl" (whatever that was supposed to mean). I believe that Nancy and her family were from California. From what I can remember Marlowe Buchanan because he was underage, did no prison time. He was sentenced to the Oregon State Hospital, the state mental hospital in Salem, Oregon for psychiatric treatment. I forget how many years Buchanan "served" at the hospital, I believe it was something like 3 and 1/2 years. It was a frightening time for everyone.
JULY 2, 2010: Global warming is turning out to be a savior for archaeologists like Craig Lee from the University of Colorado at Boulder, who are finding ancient relics in recently melted ice patches.
Lee's lucky strike is the oldest known atlatl dart, an early wooden spear-like hunting weapon, in the Rocky Mountains [Discovery News]
JUNE 30, 2010: An image taken in 2008 by the Gemini Observatory has finally been confirmed to be the first direct image taken by a ground-based telescope of an "alien planet" (a planet outside our solar system).
As Geekosystem notes, "While we have images of other alien planets -- a.k.a. "exoplanets" -- such images have been composed via indirect means of observation, such as gravitational fluctuations, rather than as true photographs." [Huffington Post]
JUNE 29, 2010: A group of researchers affiliated with legendary Big Foot Hunter Tom Biscardi left North Carolina Sunday after spending Saturday night camped out in the woods near Highway 18, south of Morganton, to investigate a recent footprint sighting.
The researchers set up cameras but said they didn’t find anything. They told Eyewitness News that they will evaluate what they do have and determine if they will return to look again. [wsoctv.com]
JUNE 29, 2010: Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for a weird monstrous looking bright green gas cloud floating in intergalactic space.
The mysterious cloud was discovered in 2007, by Dutch school teacher Hanny van Arkel while combing though images for the Galaxy Zoo galactic classification project. [Discovery News]
JUNE 28, 2010: An enigmatic character, dubbed "Horse-Boy," has appeared on Google Street View in Aberdeen, Scotland, and has generated considerable buzz and speculation by Internet users the world over. The man can be seen standing against a wall in a purple shirt and brownish pants wearing a large horse mask.
The BBC writes, "Dozens of BBC news website users have e-mailed from across Europe to say they know who horse boy is." Some have even sent in photos of the mysterious "Horse-Boy." [Huffington Post]
JUNE 28, 2010: A site at Marden, near Devizes, rivalled Stonehenge and Avebury in its day, says English Heritage.The group is about to undertake a six-week dig at the site close to the village, starting on June 28. Unlike Stonehenge and Avebury, Marden Henge no longer has any surviving standing stones, but its sheer size is astounding. [This is Wiltshire]
JUNE 25, 2010: A "psychic" octopus is said by its aquarium owners to have predicted the country's football team will knock England out of the World Cup.
When consulted, Paul the octopus chose a mussel from a jar with the German flag on it ahead of one in a similar jar bearing the cross of St George.
The two-year-old cephalopod has a record of predicting past German results in this manner, his owners say. [BBC]
JUNE 25, 2010: Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared 73 years ago while flying over the Pacific Ocean in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator, may have survived several weeks, or even months as a castaway on a remote South Pacific island, according to preliminary results of a two-week expedition on the tiny coral atoll believed to be her final resting place. [Discovery News]
JUNE 23, 2010: France has her share of cryptozoological beasties; in the Auvergne, at the Château de Villeneuve-Lembron, there are two delightfully non-pc murals. One shows the Chiche-face, a sort of starveling she-wolf who eats only obedient wives. These are rare; thus the creature’s emaciation. Opposite is the Bigorne, a bloated, scaly monster with a triple tail that lives exclusively on husbands ruled by their wives. These are many; thus the creature’s obesity [Foretean Times]
JUNE 22, 2010: Twenty-first century laser technology has opened a window into the early days of the Catholic Church, guiding researchers through the dank, musty catacombs beneath Rome to a startling find: the first known icons of the apostles Peter and Paul.
Vatican officials unveiled the paintings Tuesday, discovered along with the earliest known images of the apostles John and Andrew in an underground burial chamber beneath an office building on a busy street in a working-class Rome neighborhood. [Yahoo News]
JUNE 17, 2010: A surveillance camera may have captured the moving image of a ghost, seen in this video. The motion-sensing alarms were triggered at the Habitat for Humanity store in Franklin, North Carolina. The police responded but could find nothing amiss. When store employees checked the surveillance video footage, however, a mysterious figure can be seen moving across the warehouse. The ghostly figure appears near a closed door, walks down a few steps and then across the area. [About.com]
JUNE 16, 2010: Professor David Fontana took a deep breath and opened a side-door into the mechanic’s workshop. He peeked inside but could see virtually nothing through the murky gloom. “Well, here goes,” he mumbled as he stepped into the workshop.
An icy chill rippled slowly down his spine. He looked up, momentarily startled by what he saw. A small piece of engine casing appeared to be levitating a few feet in front of his nose. It tilted slightly to the side and then flew directly towards him. He ducked aside as it whizzed past his head and smashed into the wall behind him. [News Monster]
JUNE 16, 2010: Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of Caravaggio, but 400 years later some of the mysteries surrounding the death of the artist may never be solved.
After a year of digging and analyzing centuries-old bones, the researchers said Wednesday they have identified a set of bones they believe to be Caravaggio's, though they admit they can never be 100 percent certain. [Huffington Post]
JUNE 15, 2010: He was 10 feet tall, with a long beard and yellowish-blond hair, Tim Peeler says.
And in the early-morning hours of June 5, Peeler told authorities, the creature – a Cleveland County version of Bigfoot – wandered onto Peeler’s property in the rural northwest part of the county.
The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office has filed the case as a “suspicious person report” but says it is keeping an open mind. [Charolette Observer]
JUNE 12, 2010: Early in 1943, Allied forces were massing along the coast of North Africa, preparing to make a push across the Mediterranean. They’d settled on strategically important Sicily as a target… but they needed to convince the Germans that they were aiming somewhere else.
How did they do it? With a great deal of imagination, and the dead body of an unfortunate Welsh laborer who’d died from eating rat poison. [NPR]
JUNE 11, 2010: A Soviet robot lost on the dusty plains of the Moon for the past 40 years has been found again, and it is returning surprisingly strong laser pulses to Earth.
"We shined a laser on Lunokhod 1's position, and we were stunned by the power of the reflection," says Tom Murphy of UC San Diego, who leads the research team that's putting the old robot back to work. "Lunokhod 1 is talking to us loudly and clearly." [NASA]
JUNE 11, 2010: Back in college, when I was majoring in English, I read Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, in which he sings of himself, it's true (in his most famous poem, "Song of Myself"), but he also sings the glories of nature -- including comets and meteors. Specifically, he describes with great accuracy a "strange huge meteor procession," raising questions about whether his inspiration was an actual event. Now that question seems to have been answered by a team of astronomers at Texas State University-San Marcos, headed by Donald Olson, who has earned a solid reputation over the years as one of the pioneers of "forensic astronomy." [Discovery News]
JUNE 10, 2010: Brad Pitt may have no use for religion, but his psychic tells Life & Style he is very spiritual and often seeks divine advice. [Huffington Post]
JUNE 10, 2010: Back in August of 1996, headlines around the world were ablaze with three remarkable words: "Life on Mars!" The evidence was circumstantial but compelling: a Martian meteorite recovered in the Antarctic contained what seemed to be fossilized bacteria. NASA's breathless press conference breaking the news, which pre-empted daytime programming, signaled that the discovery should be taken very seriously. But before long, scientists came to the general conclusion that it was probably all just a mistake. Never mind. [TIME]
JUNE 10, 2010: What happens when we die? Do we rot into the ground, or do we go to heaven (or hell, if we've been bad)? Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots. [Huffington Post]
JUNE 7, 2010: How did the world's largest living reptile, the saltwater crocodile, reach so many South Pacific islands separated by huge stretches of water despite being a poor swimmer? Apparently, like a surfer catching a wave, these goliaths can ride currents on the ocean surface to cross large areas of open sea, researchers now reveal. [Yahoo News]
JUNE 7, 2010: Archaeologists believe they have found the world's best-preserved gladiator cemetery in York after unearthing skeletons that suffered the kind of violent injuries usually sustained in a Roman amphitheater, researchers said on Monday.
The York Archaeological Trust has dug up 80 skeletons that date from the first century AD to 4 AD. They were found at the Driffield Terrace site in York where excavation work started in 2004. [Discovery News]
JUNE 7, 2010: Ray Midgett hunts the Corolla beaches on the Outer Banks of North Carolina almost every day.
"Beachcombing, or metal detecting, or relic hunting is in my blood," said Midgett, a retired government worker who hits the sand between October and April.
"There are so many shipwrecks up here, it's just beautiful." [CNN]
JUNE 6, 2010: One small step for man, one giant leap for modern art?
Andy Warhol and five other artists likely left a 1969 calling card — a so-called moon museum of six sketches etched in miniature on a penny-wide ceramic chip — on the Apollo 12 lunar lander, an upcoming PBS show concludes. [USA Today]
JUNE 3, 2010: The unknown visitor came from deep space. It passed nearly as close to the Earth as the moon on May 21st. Its spectrum didn't match any known asteroid. At a feeble absolute magnitude of +28.9, the traveler must have only been about the size of a truck.
Object 2010 KQ, what are you? Is this a scouting ship for Stephen Hawking’s hypothesized evil aliens planning a mass invasion of Earth? [Discovery News]
JUNE 2, 2010: MENTION THE USE of a Ouija board to a paranormal research group these days and you’ll get a lot of head shaking and statements about “opening portals” and “demonic entities”. Mention it to religious fundamentalists and you’ll practically see them shudder and back away on shaky legs, as if the board was created by Satan himself as a means of enslaving human souls. [About.com]
MAY 30, 2010: Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old tomb of the ancient Egyptian capital's mayor, whose resting place had been lost under the desert sand since 19th century treasure hunters first carted off some of its decorative wall panels, officials announced Sunday. [Huffington Post]
MAY 28, 2010: Field&Stream.com has many readers, and naturally the editors get a lot of mail. Some of it offers praise or suggestions. Some of it offers criticism and anger. And sometimes - every once in a great while - some of it broaches subjects and asks questions so profound we feel compelled to share with readers. Such is the case with this letter (portions of which are published below) from one Odie Ellis.
Mr Ellis, it seems, wants the federal government to list Bigfoot under the Endangered Species Act. No, really. [Field & Stream]
MAY 26, 2010: A number of sightings have been reported over the years at the New Lanark World Heritage site in the Clyde Valley, but there has so far been no evidence to back up witnesses' claims.
But CCTV footage of the hotel’s rear car park captures an image that staff are convinced is in fact a ghost. [STV]
MAY 26, 2010: At the age of 17 he began dissecting corpses from the church graveyard. Between the years 1508 and 1512 he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti, known by his first name the world over as the singular artistic genius, sculptor, and architect, was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes. [Huffington Post]
MAY 25, 2010: The house made famous in the 1979 film "The Amityville Horror" is up for sale in New York – ghosts not included.
The five-bedroom Dutch Colonial went on the market Monday for $1.15 million. [Huffington Post]
MAY 22, 2010: Paranormal researcher Javier Ortega provides insight on a video currently circulating that purportedly shows the ghost of a girl at a home in Lima, Peru. According to the reporter on the video, "What you are seeing is not a recreation nor a fabricated camera trick. It's the photograph of a ghost. It's the spirit of a little girl who died in this house in Magdalena, and who has remained here in the shadows, hidden between the walls of the home.
MAY 21, 2010: A snaggle-toothed, furry creature with a bald face and a rat’s tale has mystified natives in northern Ontario, but they have a name and a history for it.
“The elders used to see it a long time ago,” the manager of Sam’s Store in Big Trout Lake told the Star on Friday.
“No one has seen one for 40 years or so. The elders have a word for it: omajinaakoos. In English, it means ‘the ugly one’.” [thestar.com]
MAY 20, 2010: Airborne lasers have "stripped" away thick rain forests to reveal new images of an ancient Maya metropolis that's far bigger than anyone had thought. [National Geographic]
Emails? Yes, we get lots of them. In response, the Outcast Earth website now provides a convenient email feedback service which will allow our visitors to comment on the various bulletins posted on this page, or any material posted on the site. Just click on the icon you see to the left. All emails will be reviewed for their appropriateness and then posted on this page. The newest material is posted at the top of the page and progresses downward. 
JANUARY 5, 2011: The Exorcist Files will recreate stories of real-life hauntings and demonic possession, based on cases investigated by the Catholic Church. The project includes access into the Vatican's case files, as well as interviews with the organization's top exorcists -- religious experts who are rarely seen on television. [Huffington Post]
DECEMBER 10, 2010: A tiny bone fragment could provide crucial information about the fate of Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared 73 years ago while flying over the Pacific Ocean in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.
Collected on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, the bone has raised the interest of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the Earhart mystery, as it may be from a human finger. [Discovery News]
DECEMBER 6, 2010: Encroaching seas in the far Pacific are raising the salt level in the wells of the Marshall Islands. Waves threaten to cut one sliver of an island in two. "It's getting worse," says Kaminaga Kaminaga, the tiny nation's climate change coordinator.
NOVEMBER 19, 2010: Michelangelo's David might have held a secret weapon in his overly large right hand, according to new controversial research into the towering depiction of the biblical hero who killed Goliath.
Presented at "Florens 2010: The International Week of Cultural and Environmental Heritage," during a three-day tribute to Michelangelo’s masterpiece, the study concludes that David’s right hand is gripping the cylindrical fragment of a weapon. [Discovery News]
NOVEMBER 15, 2010: Pirates, sea battles, treasure chests, secret tunnels, old maps...any mention of the word "treasure" is bound to set our imaginations on fire. And though it often seems unbelievable or just plain stupid, human beings have continually been lured by the prospects of hidden treasure. [Huffington Post]
NOVEMBER 5, 2010: Britain's enigmatic "headless Romans" lost their heads far away from home, according to a multi-isotopic analysis of the 1,800-year-old skeletal remains.
Unearthed between 2004 and 2005 in a cemetery in York, England, the remains belong to 80 individuals, almost all males, who died violently at ages ranging between 19 and 45.
At least 46 of them had been carefully decapitated, with their heads placed by or between their legs or pelvis. [Discovery News]
NOVEMBER 4, 2010: Protection from the Sahara's howling dust storms may have helped the Sphinx maintain its steady gaze over the millennia.
Newly discovered walls on the Giza plateau were part of an enclosure to protect the Sphinx from wind-borne sand, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities says. [CNN]
OCTOBER 11, 2010: Civilization, clearly, did not start in the 21st century. There are many places around the world that have been in existence longer than we can possibly imagine. Yet for every unvisitable Babylon, there are ancient ruins which represent our rich heritage that we can still visit. From Mexico to Iran, here are 17 of the most stunning lost places you can still visit. [Huffington Post]
OCTOBER 9, 2010: What is it with these UFO reports from China? Even though sightings of unidentified flying objects were initially reported weeks or months ago, the stories just keep generating headlines — for example, this week in The Sun, a notorious British tabloid. That report apparently related to a Sept. 11 sighting that led to the diversion of airline flights to Baotou in Inner Mongolia, as reported a couple of days later by People's Daily Online. (The Sun refers to the city as "Bootee.") [MSNBC]
OCTOBER 8, 2010: Animals (not just people) likely have spiritual experiences, according to a prominent neurologist who has analyzed the processes of spiritual sensation for over three decades.
Research suggests that spiritual experiences originate deep within primitive areas of the human brain — areas shared by other animals with brain structures like our own.
The trick, of course, lies in proving animals' experiences. [MSNBC]
OCTOBER 4, 2010: This Bing Video explores the possibilities.
SEPTEMBER 28, 2010: 
SEPTEMBER 23, 2010: It's hard enough to make a good movie or TV show, but apparently some of the stuff you watch or listen to also contains secret hidden messages that only close examination will reveal. Or, at least, that's what countless conspiracy theorists around the internet would have us believe. [Cracked.com]
SEPTEMBER 21, 2010: To drive away the waters and part the Red Sea, Moses needed a different location than previously thought, according to a new study on the miraculous biblical event.
Previous studies of wind, waves and bathymetry have called on hurricane strength winds blowing from the northwest to push away the water. This exposed a long reef which allowed Moses and the Israelites to escape the advancing cavalry of Pharaoh. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 15, 2010: Russian explorers Monday said they had found a sailor's log from aboard a legendary Arctic expedition that vanished as it sought to forge through the ice-choked Northeast Passage in 1912.
For decades mystery clouded the fate of the adventurer Georgy Brusilov -- captain of the first Russian crew to seek the elusive Arctic trade route from Asia to the West -- inspiring a generation of books and films. [Discovery News]
SEPTEMBER 9, 2010: Cryptozoology, the study of “hidden animals”, concerns itself with animals whose existence has not yet been recognized by mainstream science. These animals, known as “cryptids”, are often the stuff of legends, written off as myths or elaborate hoaxes. Some famous cryptids are Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and El Chupacabra, all of which remain shrouded in mystery. However, many animals widely recognized today were once among these cryptids. The following ten creatures were once dismissed by science as products of folklore, imagination, or deception, but are now formally recognized as their own species. [Listverse]
AUGUST 21, 2010: Woolly mammoths died out because of dwindling grasslands - rather than being hunted to extinction by humans, according to a Durham University study. After the coldest phase of the last ice age 21,000 years ago, the research revealed, there was a dramatic decline in pasture on which the mammoths fed. [BBC]
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 21, 2010: I'd like to have the email address for former member Cipher, as I would enjoy talking to him about his experiences. I will also be in Illinois for college this coming fall. –Tyler
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 17, 2010: Hello all,
I saw your notes on the Shinto Shrine in Saipan recently. We have been twice into the area and no success.
Would you happen to recall the directions to the shrine. We know it is in Kagman, in the vicinity of Kamuti/ChaCha Road and since your visit may be overgrown. The site is no longer maintained by the family.
Hope to hear from you.
Kind regards,
Teena
VISITOR COMMENT RECEIVED ON AUGUST 13, 2010: your photo of gordon stewart northcott. hay I didn't know a colored one existed where did you find it? –Jennlee [A portion of the photo in question is shown right.]
AUGUST 13, 2010: A new detector could finally answer the question of whether the body of former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa is buried under cement at the site of the former Giants Stadium.
New cadaver sensing technology developed by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can detect not only dead bodies, but also trace amounts of the things that will kill you, including explosives, spoiled food, and carcinogens. [Discovery News]
AUGUST 5, 2010: Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower agreeing to a UFO cover-up during World War II? Sounds like something we might have seen during a flashback on an episode of The X-Files. But according to notes discovered within hundreds of previously secret "UFO files" released by the U.K. government's National Archives today, it actually happened. [Blastr]
JULY 28, 2010: Canadian archeologists have found a ship abandoned more than 150 years ago in the quest for the fabled Northwest Passage and which was lost in the search for the doomed expedition of Sir John Franklin, the head of the team said Wednesday. [Huffington Post]
JULY 27, 2010: It seemed too good to be true: The discovery of a new painting by Caravaggio during the celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of his death. It turns out, it probably was.
Scholars unveiling the painting Tuesday concurred that the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" did not look like a Caravaggio, but rather like the work of one or more of his followers. This week, the Vatican newspaper, which first suggested the canvas could be the work of Caravaggio, shot down its own report and retracted the claim. [Huffington Post]
WEBMASTER'S NOTE: OLD OUTCAST EARTH "FOE" ACCUSES THE TEAM OF FRAUD
JULY 19, 2010: Steve Feltham’s eyes and smile grow wide when the subject of the Loch Ness monsters comes up. “I think they’re out there, certainly,” he says, though he adds with a hint of sadness that it may not be true for much longer. He estimates there are probably a half-dozen creatures left in the lake (down from dozens in earlier eras) and will be fewer each passing year: “Sightings have declined. They’re gradually dropping off of old age, I think.” [Alibi.com]
JULY 16, 2010: An extraordinarily toxic bacterium harbored by the "infernal" Styx River might have been the fabled poison rumored to have killed Alexander the Great (356 - 323 B.C.) more than 2,000 years ago, according to a scientific-meets-mythic detective study.
The research, which will be presented next week at the XII International Congress of Toxicology annual meetings in Barcelona, Spain, reviews ancient literary evidence on the Styx poison in light of modern geology and toxicology. [Discovery News]
JULY 9, 2010: Remote and mysterious Easter Island is bracing for an influx of tourists and problems with Sunday's solar eclipse that is being seen as a mixed blessing for the tiny Pacific territory.
The Chilean island of only 60 square miles is expecting an estimated 4,000 visitors, doubling the population of the barren isle which already suffers from water pollution and deforestation. [Discovery News]
NOTE FROM THE WEBMASTER: Recently, we were contacted by a visitor to our website who was a student at Oregon State University during the 
JUNE 29, 2010: A group of researchers affiliated with legendary Big Foot Hunter Tom Biscardi left North Carolina Sunday after spending Saturday night camped out in the woods near Highway 18, south of Morganton, to investigate a recent footprint sighting.
The researchers set up cameras but said they didn’t find anything. They told Eyewitness News that they will evaluate what they do have and determine if they will return to look again. [wsoctv.com]
JUNE 28, 2010: An enigmatic character, dubbed "Horse-Boy," has appeared on Google Street View in Aberdeen, Scotland, and has generated considerable buzz and speculation by Internet users the world over. The man can be seen standing against a wall in a purple shirt and brownish pants wearing a large horse mask.
The BBC writes, "Dozens of BBC news website users have e-mailed from across Europe to say they know who horse boy is." Some have even sent in photos of the mysterious "Horse-Boy." [Huffington Post]
JUNE 16, 2010: Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of Caravaggio, but 400 years later some of the mysteries surrounding the death of the artist may never be solved.
After a year of digging and analyzing centuries-old bones, the researchers said Wednesday they have identified a set of bones they believe to be Caravaggio's, though they admit they can never be 100 percent certain. [Huffington Post]
JUNE 10, 2010: Brad Pitt may have no use for religion, but his psychic tells Life & Style he is very spiritual and often seeks divine advice. [Huffington Post]
JUNE 10, 2010: Back in August of 1996, headlines around the world were ablaze with three remarkable words: "Life on Mars!" The evidence was circumstantial but compelling: a Martian meteorite recovered in the Antarctic contained what seemed to be fossilized bacteria. NASA's breathless press conference breaking the news, which pre-empted daytime programming, signaled that the discovery should be taken very seriously. But before long, scientists came to the general conclusion that it was probably all just a mistake. Never mind. [TIME]
JUNE 7, 2010: How did the world's largest living reptile, the saltwater crocodile, reach so many South Pacific islands separated by huge stretches of water despite being a poor swimmer? Apparently, like a surfer catching a wave, these goliaths can ride currents on the ocean surface to cross large areas of open sea, researchers now reveal. [Yahoo News]
JUNE 6, 2010: One small step for man, one giant leap for modern art?
Andy Warhol and five other artists likely left a 1969 calling card — a so-called moon museum of six sketches etched in miniature on a penny-wide ceramic chip — on the Apollo 12 lunar lander, an upcoming PBS show concludes. [USA Today]
MAY 26, 2010: At the age of 17 he began dissecting corpses from the church graveyard. Between the years 1508 and 1512 he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti, known by his first name the world over as the singular artistic genius, sculptor, and architect, was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes. [Huffington Post]
MAY 25, 2010: The house made famous in the 1979 film "The Amityville Horror" is up for sale in New York – ghosts not included.
The five-bedroom Dutch Colonial went on the market Monday for $1.15 million. [Huffington Post]