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Cartoon Cat is a hostile cryptid and an urban legend created by artist Trevor Henderson. He is a giant feline creature who resembles a 1930s era cartoon cat, hence his name. Cartoon Cat first started appearing on the internet on August 4, 2018, when the first image of most likely the creature was posted online. In the picture, a creature similar to the Cartoon Cat is seen sitting behind the doors in an abandoned building, staring at the camera. Later on August 10, a second photograph was...

Iti Malia ♥️ There are people who have seen the unexplained … and there are people who haven’t. Balrogs love grilled Troll. 좆까, 김정은 ! YHVH = Behold the Nail, Behold the Hand The Mind of Albert Einstein: “The 4th world war will be fought with sticks and stones” “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” “If we knew exactly what it was we were doing, then it would not be called research, would it?” “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” “The greatest charity one can do to another is to lead him to the truth.” — St. Thomas Aquinas “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” — Bob Marley Living has always been a big part of my life. I was born at an incredibly young age and ever since then I have been alive. “An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will see it.” — Mahatma Gandhi “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King Jr. “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” — George Bernard Shaw “If ye love wealth better than liberty the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” — Samuel Adams You have pleased Cthulhu! He shall eat you second to last! “I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman.” “It’s no easy task freeing the ignorant from the chains they revere.” — Albert Einstein “The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” — Winston Churchill I am Макаре́вич I am half crazy Calabrese (All you Calabrese do the mambo like-a crazy) ¼ Russki and ¼ Polski “I’m not used to being loved. I wouldn’t know what to do.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald The University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople Buckle Down, Pilsudski, Buckle Down! @ Leanne’s Wedding! “The sun will rise; and we will try again.” In it’s day, the legendary Denbeigh Super Chauvinist Mark VIII Saloon (my *true* dream car) was widely regarded as the high-point of post-war British automotive design, rivaled only by the Austin A40 Somerset for its singular combination of styling and performance. Denbeigh Super-Chauvinist Mk.VII Saloon (T) The Super-Chauvinist retains all the beloved design of the Denbeigh .engineering practice. (R1) It has a truly robust hooter, excellent winkers and a first-class jack. (R2) Its performance is not torrid but beautifully matched brakes fade as one, and engine scream drowns all distracting sounds. (R3) Its leaking of petrol fumes is well nigh intolerable; luckily fuel is rapidly guzzled up by the engine before the driver can be overcome. Car and Driver Oh, and Jeffrey Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself! Check it out, eh. — Hillary Clinton Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting, For fear of little men; – William Allingham – The Fairies — Theodore Roosevelt And Always Remember: “You treat the room from the bass up.” “So round, so firm, so fully packed.” — Lou CostelloMy adult shopping shop! 포로 수용소 Konzentrazionslager, coming soon. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ― Stephen R. Covey ↑ GIF by ArMaP A Dillingham pilot says he spotted the creature while flying passengers to Manokotak last week. He calculated that its wingspan matched the length of a wing on his Cessna 207. That’s about 14 feet. “Rarely is the real cause of a problem located where the problem is manifesting.” — Owen Marcus MajorThanks to ALL of my registered subscribers! As of 21 January, 2022, there are 19,913! (wait, whAT?! ) I wanna see the DPRK up there. 624,956 malicious login attempts or brute force attacks, have been Hillary’d by our crack ϟϟ-trained “involuntary assisted suicide” troops. ↑↑↑ I did that! =D It was a trip! “I propose that we hit it hard and we hit it fast with a major – and I mean a major – leaflet campaign.” — Arnold Rimmer “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” — St. Catherine of Siena Truth is the greatest enemy of the state. “Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.” — Samuel Johnson There you go. • Zoë C West • Lorenza Lorenzi • Anastasia Panteleeva, Sia Model/owner of model Agency NexToModel • BigRedJill K Allen • Buddha Jones • Clint Eastwood • Wobbly Music • Black Smoke Trigger • Go-Go Ray, Drum Counselor • Mike Zito • Mauro Samuel • Rick Petrone • Jamie Petrone • Roger Waters • Tony Sarno • Tommy Emmanuel • Sam Gleason • Tom Ritchford • Tom Swirly • Adam Miller • Dame Evelyn Glennie • Søren Madsen • Ally Venable Band • Sadie Johnson Band • Samantha Fish Band • Kenny Wayne Shepherd • Folk Uke – Cathy Guthrie & Amy Nelson • Arlo Guthrie • Willie Nelson • Keith Richards • Jane Maya Rodriguez • Warren Huart Recording • Guitar Mastery Method • Michelle Augello-Page • Elan Mudrow – Smidgens poetry • Doug Skinner • Andy Raynor, M.Div. • Andy’s Books • John Anthony West RIP • JAW’s PhoenixFire podcast • Anyextee’s Adept Expeditions • Dr. Robert M. Schoch • Graham Hancock • Geocosmic Rex • Sacred Geometry International • Comet Research Group • Sacred Sites: Places of Peace and Power • Internet Sacred Text Archive • INFO – International Fortean Organization • Deliberate Dumbing Down • American Deception • David Dees Illustration • Sharkhunters International • Tifster Graphics • Golden Eye Publishing • Hitler In Argentina (& vicinity) • Robert Faurisson • Further Glory • Mike Campbell – world’s foremost Amelia Earhart authority • David K Bowman on Amelia Earhart • Mengele Agrartechnik • Thunderbird Photo • Aerial Anomalies • PRUFOS-Police Report UFO Sightings Organisation • I Am Dark Waters • >Arcane Radio • Eerie Lights • Patagonian Monsters • Cafe Enigma • Crypto4Corners (on FB) • North American Wood Ape Conservancy • The Crypto Crew • Texas Cryptid Hunter • Frontiers of Zoology • Frontiers of Anthropology • Bizarre Zoology • Ken Gerhard • Katy Elizabeth Champ Search • Deborah Hatswell UK Wildman British Bigfoot • Isaac Koi UFO Research • Dr. Bruce Maccabee UFO Research • Ignacio Darnaude Ufología Heterodoxa • Water UFO • The National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena • Breakthrough Initiatives • JFK Jr told the world who murdered his father • Pegasus Research Consortium • The Carl Sagan Portal • Alive Universe Space News out of Italy • QuickMap, a great tool for fine lunar viewing • Soviet Space Image Catalog • Laboratory for Comparative Planetology Archive • Sir Charles’ Shults Laboratories • Mars Global Data • Lunar Transient Phenomena • David Paulides’ Missing 411 • Missing Visualized • Annotations • Reddit’s NoSleep department • DiHydrogen Monoxide Reseach Division • BioFortean Review • Big Fat Furry Texan • USS Liberty Memorial • If Americans Knew • False “Nazi” Quotations • French Foreign Legion • Phoenix Tears • Essential Oils For Living • Robert Mittenmaier automotive artist • Fresh Water Spring Finder • Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center • Seismic Monitor North America • Eastern Intelligence Space & Survival Co. – Track NCoV & EQs & more • Tom Filogomo’s Top Shelf Studios • Connecticut Valley Chapter, BMW CCA • Trade Upholstery Company • Lon Strickler’s Phantoms and Monsters • Butch Witkowski • Sean Forker • Timothy Renner • Jane Maya Rodriguez • Jack Cary • Crypto Four Corners International • Eric Altman • Jay Bachochin • Rob Shaw • IG @makarevich.iggy • MeWe mewe.com/i/iggymakarevich • Parler @Iggymak • Sextoy.com, Affiliate adult toy store • High Strangeness Art, Zazzle store • What’s All This, Then?, old blog, my 2nd • High Strangeness, ancient blog, my first Josephine Blanco Akiyama, a name that needs no introduction to anyone interested in the history of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, and inarguably the most important and well known of the original Saipan eyewitnesses, died at 95 of a heart attack on Jan. 8 at her home in Foster City, Calif. Earlier today, Josephine’s son, […] Today we return for further examination of the remarkable deposit of evidence that American miliary personnel provided to Earhart researchers that solidified the undeniable fact of the presence and deaths of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan on Saipan. In my March 13, 2020 post, “Veterans recall seeing Earhart photos on Saipan” we began with Ralph R. Kanna, […] When it comes to dismissing the truth about the Saipan presence and deaths of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan following their July 2, 1937 disappearance, establishment “historians” and authors are unanimous in their rejection of the so-called “Japanese capture theory,” and insist, for any number of false and specious reasons, that the fliers could never […] Bill Prymak’s “The Impossible Coincidences” or “Is Everybody a Conspirator and Lying Through Their Teeth” (displayed in all caps) appeared in the February 1994 edition of the Amelia Earhart Society Newsletters. It’s a two-page discussion of the well-known “Broken Wing” description of the Earhart Electra on the ground — or possibly in the water — […] Today we return to our recent two-part post, “Amelia Earhart and the French Connection,” for a look at the original article as seen in the December 2000 issue of Air Classics magazine. You’ll find it differs in several areas from the version that found its way into the March 1998 edition of the Amelia Earhart Society Newsletters, […] no matter how much of a if a toddler hands you their ringing toy phone… “Now let me bring you up to speed …. we know nothing …. You are now up to speed.” — Inspector Jacques-Yves Clouseau The late, great JC Johnson This bipedal critter is what JC was hunting. My friend and mentor, the late, great John Anthony West with his daughter, Zoë. JAW at the Sphinx When life looks like easy street there is danger at your door Let’s go get us a I’M SERIOUS YO! Lt. Colonel Percival Harrison Fawcett British artillery officer, archaeologist and explorer. “Our” event, as described in the image above, took place in 1907 in the Reserva Territorial Madre de Dios, Peru. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti DPA IS ON MARS!

I just got around to watching the first few episodes of “10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty” from SpikeTV. This is another cryptid based TV show, but instead of being another pseudo-documentary about the cryptid, this show is based on the reality TV template. There are nine teams of two, one team is eliminated every episode after competing to see who brings the best evidence in for Bigfoot. The teams also have a smaller challenge during each episode, wherein they compete for advantages going into the main elimination competition. I am just going to start by saying, this show is terrible, and unless you have a huge interest in reality TV shows or Bigfoot, it is not worth watching. However, there are two highlights of the show. The first highlight is Dr. Todd Disotell. Dr. Todd already has a reputation among crypto-zoologists in that he is the one who tests material to see what type of DNA signature it has. Dr. Todd’s no nonsense approach to genetic testing is a breath of fresh air when it comes to this and other cryptid related shows. In “Bigfoot Bounty” the show’s producers gave him a state of the art mobile genetic testing lab. Dr. Todd is able to test the different samples brought in by the contestants in a matter of hours. I feel this testing lab is the best thing to come out of this show. The second highlight of this show is Natalia Reagan. Natalia is a field biologist and her job is to teach the contestants how to act like actual field biologists. Natalia is always instructing the contestants on how to take proper field notes and collect proper field samples. As an actual field scientist myself, I can greatly appreciate the fact that Natalia is teaching crypto-zoologists the basics when it comes to fieldwork. There are many tedious notes to be taken long before anything can be sampled in a lab. Natalia and Dr. Todd make a good point in informing the contestants that none of the samples will be tested unless they follow the proper procedures when it comes to collecting their samples. Another aspect of the show that I find funny is just how out of shape the contestants are. All but one team are either actual hunters or active Bigfoot researchers. However, one would not be able to tell that they spent anytime out in the field with just how out of breath they are on a simple hike. Beyond that, the way most of the contestants act when they are in the woods (they jump at any noise and think it is a Bigfoot) is highly suspicious to someone that has spent any amount of time hiking and camping. It appears to me that none of them has any basic outdoors experience. If it were not for Natalia teaching them what to do while in the field, they would just be running around scaring the hell out of each other. However, in the end Dr. Todd and Natalia cannot save this show. It is just another run of the mill reality TV show with standard made up drama between the contestants and added dramatic tension before each commercial break. In my opinion, this show is best left unwatched and forgotten. I do like Dr. Todd and Natalia’s attempt to bring some science into this show, but their efforts alone cannot save it. I hope that Dr. Todd and Natalia will end up with their own TV show one day; I would watch it. In addition, the mobile lab that Dr. Todd now has may lead to some awesome real biological discoveries.

Top 10 Cryptids and Unknown CreaturesCryptids are unknown creatures reportedly seen by people whose existence has not been verified by science. Some are large, while others may be small. Some are scary, while others are not. But which one is the scariest, or the coolest, or the best in your opinion. Bigfoot is most likely real. It its believed by people that Bigfoot is Cane from the bible, Because Cane killed his older Brother Able while he was working out in the fields and god put a curse/ punishment on him to make him look like that. It is very likely he still wonders this earth today The most iconic cryptid for sure. There actually may be the possibility that this thing exsists. It could very well be a descendent of Gigantopithechus. There's no way all of the thousands of bigfoot sightings were simply hoaxes or bear sightings. Plus, as the Patterson Gunlin Film is becoming more legit the more it is analyzed. Bigfoot is definitely a great cryptid and I'm looking forward to the day this elusive creature is finally discovered. There is a good possibility that Bigfoot could be out there, with all the sightings and trace evidence. I do believe there could be a Bigfoot out there. I believe in a lot of things, really. I'm curious and I keep an open mind. I believe in Bigfoot because I saw him when I was camping with my family. My brother's comment is exactly the same as mine, he kind of looked like a gorilla but this was in Australia and there are no gorillas so he or she is real. Love you My neighbors had alpacas and one night a pair of not-quite-dogs came in and just annihilated the alpacas. Get this; they tore a hole in the CHAINLINK FENCE to get to the alpacas. My neighbors shot and killed one of the "dogs" and it definitely didn't look like a dog. IT LOOKED LIKE A CHUPACABRA! (side note: I live in Arizona and really close to the border) Goat-Suckers, most sightings in Texas, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Mexico, Oklahoma, but legends originated in Puerto Rico. Many people think it's a Coyote with mange. But what explains the dead livestock drained of blood? They are real one of my moms friends (she is a scientist) has seen one. I also know how they were made Some think it's a dark angel, some think it's a demon, some thing it's an alien, but all agree that it is quite possibly the most terrifying of all American monsters. Mothman basically a real hero. He warns people of dangers before they happen now that is impressive. I was honestly shocked that he wasn't in Chernobyl HBO! An immortal creature that is singular and capable and saving and killing. What we need to find out is if Mothman is our friend or foe. The Mothman warns people of danger, so it's basically predicting the future. It would be helpful a lot of times. One person probably came up with this to spook others out but then every time someone saw a shadow or log in the water it was the "Loch Ness Monster" and that's probably how the legend was born. How is this real we have no proof people think this is a plesiosaur but people from scotland are saying that this dinosaur is dead before Loch ness If this is not a Plesiosaur what is it. Loch is an awesome short name for him he is awesome and I have seen a movie about him! He is the besstt! For years there has been a legend that a monster was roaming the Lake of Loch Ness Maby it's true? Likely an "extinct" giant ape species that lived in Tibet a few million years ago. As a TF2 fan the Yeti has grown to be my favorite cryptid. Watch the Jungle Inferno Short to see it in action. It is glorious. A yeti should've been in the movie , Frozen. He is the Himalayan Bigfoot. Some claim to have attacked while crossing the Himalayas. One of my favorite cryptids. It's said he was the 13th child of Mother Leeds. Tired of having kids, she said on the night she gave birth, "Let the Devil take this one", and she got her wish. It was born normal but just moments after being born it underwent a hideous transformation. It's head turned into a horse-like head, it's eyes glow red, it grew a pair of bat wings and a forked tail. Then with a blood-curdling scream, it ate the other twelve children then flew out the chimney into the Pine Barrens. Spooky yet interesting! I'm from nj. I've lived in the ol' pinewoods. I heard it once or twice before. Even stole some of my sheep. I moved the first chance I had. Never want to go there again. It looks like a gaunt horse with bat wings and a forked tail. Spooky and cool! One of my favorites! Imagine a deer with rabies, the Mothman, and a bat. That's basically what it is. To all who think it is childish to believe in aliens: IT'S NOT. Earth can't be the only planet in the entire universe with life on it. They are our there somewhere. But not in Area 51, Area 51 was were secret spy planes were made to spy on the Soviet Union. I believe aliens could be out there and among us, with all the space and other planets, you know? It's very aggressive and has attacked many people. A horrible creature, indeed. I think all of these are real, (Or have a creature like it) But maybe not all on earth They make a horrible wailing sound when someone is about to die. The fact that these things haven't been debunked yet (I mean, the Fiji Mermaid was debunked, but they're technically two different things,) makes me wonder what cryptozoologists are doing these days. They are real I tell you. Mermaids are real I love Werewolves. Many believe that the Beast of Bray Road and Michigan Dogman could be a type of werewolf. I always think of phineas or Lincoln loud turning into werewolves. A 30 feet long sauropod that is said to be a living dinosaur that lives in the swamps of Africa. One solid evidence that it exists is huge footprints with three claws. One of my most favourite cryptids of all time. It has the shape of a sauropod dinosaur, lives in the swamps of Africa and it's about 30 ft long which is kind of small for a sauropod but large for an African cryptid. Why the hell do I imagine this creature having Simba's voice? Ancient sauropod, like Brontosaurus is a likely explanation An Ogopogo is not a dinosaur, it has been seen 3 times and may end up resulting in another kraken story... a real animal, by the way mosasaurs aren't tea dinosaurs either People, Mosasaurs are not dinosaurs, and they are extinct, people can swim in this lake all they want. Yes this is the best cryptid but whatever you do don't swim in the lake that sea monster live cause that is the last time to see you alive. There are no dinosaur in this lake the person that said this is a 50 foot Mosasaur you are so wrong case you didn't know that is specific dionsaur is dead. One man claimed that the Grinning Man came up to his car one night and spoke to him telepathically. He told him that his name was Indrid Cold and that he meant no harm. He also had questions about UFO sightings. Could he be some kind of humanoid alien? I don't know, but he sounds creepy. I wouldn't want to meet him. A man named Woodrow Derenberger claimed that the Grinning Man came up to his vehicle one night and telepathically told him his name was Indrid Cold and that he meant no harm. And he seemed to have many questions about UFO sightings. An alien maybe? Also known as Indrid Cold, he has been spotted all over the states, especially West Virginia. one man claimed he spoke to him telepathically and asked about UFO sightings. Could he be some kind of alien? Whatever he is, I would never want to meet him. Also called Indrid Cold, he has been spotted all over the U.S. He sounds creepy and I would never want to encounter him. How nice and a pet unicorn would be quite cool. A horse with a horn. How cool is that! It has a horn duh I've always had some wonders about this creature, seems large, but it hides under sand. One of the scariest in my opinion. What is it? A demon? An alien? No one knows, but some people have came up missing... I think that most crypids are creepy and do belive of most of them. I think the creepiest one is the cemetary. What could it be? A demon? An alien? Whatever it is, it is spooky and interesting. I don't think these guys are creepy. I think they are adorable. This is real. It actually is just a giant squid wandering about in the ocean, not causing destruction by the first ship that swims past it. Just swims along with the blue. Some believe that the Colossal Squid might be some kind of Kraken. This one is very similar to Michigan's Dogman. Both are described as being a Werewolf, even though there are no eyewitness accounts of the beast shape-shifting from human to wolf. He's also called the Michigan Dogman and Wisconsin Werewolf. I love this cryptid. One of the best and most interesting in my opinion. Maybe, just maybe, Werewolves do exsist. Awesome if they did! One of my favorites. It's a malevolent cannibalistic spirit with the power to possess humans. All it does is eat and eat and it's never full. They can move through space so if a Wendigo decides to make you its next victim, there is no escape. However, there are ways to protect oneself from a Wendigo and kill it. But you must follow the procedure exactly or the Wendigo will be resurrected followed by it's bloody vengeance. And the death that follows will be slow and painful. It's a horrible creature, indeed! Growing up in the because area meant a lot of Wendigo legends in my childhood. This creature is just the front-cover cryptid for fans of the spooky side of cryptozoology. He's tall, human like, cannibalistic with lanky limbs and huge claws. Exactly what I envision when I think of scary, just beyond natural creatures. An evil spirit with an insatiable appetite, it possesses humans, mainly ones that indulge in cannibalism, and it loves flesh and blood. It's also very deformed. Also known as the Death Raptor, he is one of England's cryptids. He is often compared to America's Mothman.

Ethereum Classic is an open, decentralized, and permissionless public blockchain, that aims to fulfill the original promise of Ethereum, as a platform where smart contracts are free from third-party interference. ETC prioritizes trust-minimization, network security, and integrity. All network upgrades are non-contentious with the aim to fix critical issues or to add value with newly proposed features; never to create new tokens, or to bail out flawed smart contracts and their interest groups. I really still don't get miners. How hard is it to mine on a pool that is not one of the top 3? Two pools own >50% of the mining power and no one cares anymore? Is it so hard and unthinkable for a large mining operation to solo mine or join p2pool? /r/Bitcoin [IDEA] Our cloud app has thousands of daily users with high performance PC and GPU. We want to offer them in-app credits for joining our mining pool. Please give us some suggestions how to make it properly /r/Bitcoin The idea of that as more people adopt Bitcoin the price will stabilize to its long term exponential curve. Here's why I think that's true. We're already seeing this. Check out the price charts to confirm. It makes sense. The ratio of seasoned Bitcoiners to new investors increases over time. N00bs are far more likely to panic sell for a loss. So as more and more Bitcoin users develop their strong aversion to selling, the sharp downward swings (caused by panic selling n00bs) are reduced in severity and frequency. Plus now we have larger, more wealthy entities who buy the dip. Microstrategy already publicly announced that they're doing this. So large dips are cut off before they gain any momentum. You'll only see large downward swings if someone cashes out a few million dollars in BTC all at once. But the severity of those dips will be blunted. Regular buyers: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust alone is buying more than 100% of the newly mined Bitcoins. Where do you think the extra Bitcoin is coming from? (BTW glorious nation of Kazakhstan just invested $700,000,000 in Bitcoin mining gear). Eventually this pool of existing Bitcoin that they're buying from will dry up more and more. That's without even considering the massive effect that the 4 year halving cycle creates. At the next halving 31months from now, the amount of new Bitcoin created gets cut in half again for the 4th time. This will run the well even drier. Let's say Grayscale continues to buy the same amount (even though they will definitely keep increasing their investment and other players will join in too). The faster the reserve of already existing Bitcoin is getting bought up, the faster the price goes up. The halvings increase this every 4 years. It is an absolute certainty that Bitcoin will outperform every alternative investment and one day replace or completely dominate every other type of money. And for the Bitcoin scaling issue, the lightning network has already solved that. It does a million transactions per second, and has the capacity to send 10 BTC at once, instantly, for a few Satoshis (practically free). The Bitcoin blockchain will always run right about at capacity. The lightning network has private transactions. How do we know that Bitcoin together with Bitcoin lightning aren't doing as much business as Visa? There is no limit for how high Bitcoin will go. Compare this with TSLA. Today they have a P/E ratio of 1145. Many will consider this to be overvalued. That limits how high the stock price can go. Plus, you can't spend stock. You HAVE TO sell it first. Bitcoin has no such limits. The price of Bitcoin can and will continue to go up exponentially over the long term. As volatility improves, the pace of price increase should increase as well. Accelerating acceleration. You never need to sell Bitcoin. Just spend it, unlike stocks or other financial instruments. Eventually, after 6 or 7 more halvenings, Bitcoin will have a market cap of higher than the rest of the world's wealth combined. Every step is there between here and then. Eventually government created fiat money will be nearly entirely worthless by comparison. This halving period will create another bull run as more institutional investors adopt the hold forever strategy. Volatility goes down. Bitcoin becomes more famous for its performance, draws deeper attention, converts more believers/investors, more people hold forever, Bitcoin price goes to infinity with no limit. It's just a matter of time. Bitcoin is the most genius thing I've ever seen. I’m a commentator for a tournament of nightmares. I’m not sure the participants are willing. You’d think being a psychiatric ward for 38 months would be enough to deter a guy from ever going back to a sport that involves watching human beings at the height of their physical prowess beat the living shit out of each other. Sometimes regulated, sometimes not. But, here I am, fresh outta the loony bin and reading the most unusual advertising slogan I’d ever laid eyes on; “The most terrifying tournament has come around once again! Conquer your fears in theNFC*…* literally.” This was the business card that accompanied my black envelope as it was handed to me on the discharge ward by a well dressed and gangly fella with an uncomfortable wide smile. He didn’t say much of anything, just that his name was “Watson” before bowing and holding up the envelope. “Heh, like the butler, right?” I said, taking the envelope from his plasticine hands. His smile ripples across his face and he nods slowly, his perfect hair unmoving in the strong wind before he turns on his heel and walks back to the black sedan. The cold air chilled my bones, and I pulled the medical bracelet from my wrist, grimacing at the marks underneath before following Watson to the Sedan and hauling my luggage into the trunk before setting off, not knowing how I came to even be there in the first place. I guess right now, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is where I am now and what I’m doing. "blood strewn across the canvas, frayed brain matter sailing across my head and splattering against the wall, a woman standing in a pool of blood as the deformed creature twitches on the ground" My name is Sal “Motormouth” Sabotta, I’m a sports commentator by trade. Be it combat sports, pro wrestling, death-matches or martial arts tournament, I’ve done it all. I won’t lie; Work can be hard to come by. I’ve spent months struggling for rent and resorting to less tried-and-true commentary methods in order to survive. That has, at times, involved trying my hand at some of the more underground competitions; unregulated fights, sick, illegal games bet on by people on the dark web and worse… Things I’m not going to detail here. Things I’m not proud to have taken a hefty pay-check for from greasy, sweaty fucks in Armani tracksuits and stinking of cheap booze and coke all the way up to well-dressed bitcoin farmers in their 20s who probably own child slaves. In short, I’m no stranger to the grim underworld or the secrecies with which they conduct their work. I see money and an easy way to make it with my voice; I don’t ask questions. So when I received an email the day of my discharge from the hospital and I’m told “you’ll receive a letter from Mr. Watson, take it and follow the instructions to the venue. Pay up front as agreed.”, I don’t question it. Especially when the note is personalised, and the doctor says my medical fees were covered. We drove past numerous landscapes, vistas and neighbourhoods before veering off into an industrial estate and entering an underground tunnel. Half a mile in, Watson stops the car and peers back, smiling. He directs a thumb to the service door in the side tunnel and rubs his neck, a scar running from ear to ear. Was he a former fighter? Gangster? I sighed and got out, still in my medical gown and hauling ass to the door. It opened before I could reach out and a tall, muscular woman in her late 30s greeted me with a smile. She was imposing, powerful in her gait, a black eyepatch with several seals adorning the sides accompanying a thick scar down her face did nothing to stop her beauty. She wore a tank top with a black cloak with white fur on the tops and sleeves, a thick black chain clasp around the neck. I won’t lie; she looked badass. Terrifying, but badass. “‘Bout time ya showed up, Sabotta!” She grinned and put a cinderblock of a hand on my shoulder. I’m 5’10 and 180lbs, but she made me feel like a child in front of her. The power emanating from her fist was unbelievable. “C’mon, the trial match is starting and I don’t want no tourney without a broken in commentator! You gotta know the ropes of this place!” “You know your driver was standing right outside when I was discharged, right? Couldn’t think to give me an extra day or two to freshen up?” I frowned. This wasn’t normal protocol, even for back-alley promotions like this. She just laughed at me and slapped my shoulder. “The tournament waits for nobody, Sal. Times a-wasting.” The hallway is dimly lit and the sounds of a ruckus above us are as impossible to ignore as the sounds of thudding, screaming and snapping. As we pass several doors with one-way mirrors on the front panes, I hear sounds I could have never placed in the animal kingdom or otherwise; gurgles, clicks, grunts and even otherworldly whispers. “What the fuck is that? You guys doing animal fights down here? I mean I called a monkey fight once, but it’s not exactly… pleasant.” I shuddered, thinking of the violence chimpanzees can inflict on one another, let alone humans. She never stopped walking or staring directly ahead when she responded.“Those ain’t animals. Not by a long shot.” Before I can probe further, I’m hurried into a changing room and practically swept off my feet by her strength. I turn back and she’s already poking her head out the door. “You’ve got 5 minutes, get your shit and head up the left stairs, Watson will guide you.” She grinned, and I saw gold filings in her teeth that glinted as much as her bedazzled eye patch. “Ya came highly recommended… I expect good things!” I do as instructed and within 5 minutes I’m back in my commentary clothes; an open buttoned Hawaiian shirt with my old Hotel Inertia shirt underneath, skinny black jeans and shimmering black shoes. I found some old slick gorilla powder in my hair and dusted it up, opting for the dishevelled look as I knew I’d be sweating by the end of the ordeal. “You shouldn’t bother putting in so much effort, y’know. They’re not gonna care how good you look, only how well you talk.” Standing in the doorway was a woman in her 40s, dark-skinned and hair clad in meticulous dreadlocks, tied back into a large bun with a pair draped down the sides of her head. She held a thick book in one hand and pocketed a serrated blade in the other before motioning to me. “We’ll have to do the pleasantries on the way, the match is starting and you don’t wanna miss that. The commissioner isn’t the type you want to upset. Especially when you’re not here by choice.” I looked for a moment, dumbfounded. “I’m here because I was invited, already got my pay from the woman who let me in.” I shrugged, pocketing the envelope and getting my equipment from the suitcase. The woman gave a sad smile and shook her head. “Of course you’d think that. She likes it that way. Bet she didn’t introduce herself either, did she? C’mon.” I follow her down and after a few minutes we come to a fork in the hallway, an elevator system to our right and a stairway to the left. Dutifully, Watson stood patiently, still grinning and motioning us to go up. Once we’re situated in our booth upstairs, I set my equipment up and look down at the table, expecting a slew of papers and fighter information in front of me. I look to the woman to ask, but she doesn’t break her stare in the darkness, looking down at the arena floor some 100ft below us.“You won’t need that. Not for this match.” The lights flicker on and the enormity of this venue reveals itself to me. It’s a structure of imposing steel, dried blood, claw marks and other unknown substances that littered the 40ft wide circular pit the fighters contested in, a black lift on either side from the fighters corners that I can only assume ascended up from their locker room area. Around them were chain-link fences that rose up to the audience stands above, situating around 300 people across all four sides. At the very top sat our booth, the commissioner’s office directly opposite, the judges booth to our right and the fight analysts/medical area to our left. Standing in the centre with a spotlight over them was the commissioner, microphone in hand and an energy that was almost palpable. “Ladies, Gentlemen and Freaks of all kinds out there in the universe. I welcome you once more to the annual Nightmare Fighting Championship Tournament! It’s been a long year, but we have new blood to pit against our resident night terrors and some fresh fears to feast on the fortuitous soul that frolics into their den. As always, our contestants will be fighting for their freedom, a chance to get their wish or to fight for the ultimate prize.” The crowd cheers and the majority are hidden behind thick plexiglass and lighting, but I can see some have Karate Gi’s, weapons in hand and others with demon masks as they whoop and holler. The clientele here were, at least in my estimation, experienced. But I was feeling a lump in my throat at that one phrase The Commissioner so surreptitiously added in without issue; “As always, our contestants will befightingfor theirfreedom*”* I leaned to the woman next to me and as if she knew what I was going to ask; she put a finger up and shook her head. Eyes awash with fear and a grimness I had only seen on that of trainers who knew their fighter was not ready for the bout ahead. She pointed the finger down to my machine, then to the pit. Turning it on, I looked down as the commissioner began to talk, readying myself to commentate on whatever weirdos came up to battle. “But before we get to that, we have an exciting exhibition match for our loyal supporters who bankroll this event every year. Without you elite few, we could not do this. You are the pound for pound goats of support! Now, without further ado; let’s get this show on the road!”The rest of the lights clicked on and spun around the venue as they raised the profile of the bout, the elevators both whirring into action as the right one arose first. “In this corner, from the marionettes shop and accompanied by his Bunraku doll “Mr. Stares”, it’s the man who pulls the strings… THE PUPPET MAN!” Out steps a tall, thin Japanese man in full clown makeup. His head shaven save for two ridiculous strands of hair stretched out and fluffed up to their limits, like red antennae. His eyebrows large m’s that practically cover his forehead, the nose a completely vacant slot with a black hole drawn in and the mouth… the fucking mouth was nailed shut. Literally. Sharp rusted nails had been hammered down through the lips with such force that they’d bent. A sickening crimson red face-paint stretched across the entire bottom half of his face, making it seem far larger by comparison. He carefully held a small bundle underneath a sheet and bowed deeply to the audience before standing at his designated spot. “In the other corner, from the streets of god knows where and the womb of someone who misses him… "Hulked Up" Michael O’Donnell!” I watched with wide eyes and a stomach threatening to evacuate its contents at any moment as the smoke cleared and a boy no older than 17 rushed out, beating his chest and screaming to the crowd as if he was the Incredible Hulk. I don’t know if they drugged the poor kid, but he clearly had no idea where he was. “There are no rules, no referees and judges only exist in case of a draw or unclear victory. Our commentary team will take over and we wish you a phenomenal match.” She drools a little before she speaks again, looking up at me and winking. “Let’s make this a violent one.” She snaps her fingers and leaps for the fence, climbing up with ungodly ease before sitting on her makeshift chair in her office. I have no idea what I’m seeing but every cell in my body is urging me to run; I feel my knees tense and my frame rise ever so slightly before the woman next to me puts her hand on my thigh, pushing me down with great force. “You have a job to do, so do I. Trust me, you think you can leave but if you get out of this chair, not only will YOUR life end. Mine will too.” She unsheathes the serrated blade and looks at me with pity. “We both have a part to play here, so put the headset on and let’s do our job, no matter how hard it is.” Hands shaking, I pick up the headset and connect it to the portable recorder and take a breath. “I… I need your name. What is it you do?” I stutter, trying to calm myself. She hands me a bottle of water as the surrounding lights dim and the spotlight focuses on the spectacle below. “I’m Madame Nelle Lockwood, cryptid hunter and your co-host to guide you through tonight. Good to meet you, Sal.” - NFC EXHIBITION MATCH: "Hulked Up" Michael O’Donnell vs The Puppet Man w/ Mr. Stares “Welcome fight fans from around the world, god knows how you’re listening to this or WHY, but here we are. I’m your host Sal “MotorMouth” Sabotta, wishing this was all a bad dream. Joining me this evening is our cryptid specialist and all round badass Madame Nelle Lockwood. How are you doing, Nelle?” She looks at me with a bewildered look on her face before blinking and coming to her senses. “Uhh… good! All things considered… boy, you really have a professional knack for this, huh? I can see why Commissioner Alduin brought you in." “Ahh, yes. That’s right, folks! NFC Commissioner Alduin invited me here personally and our exhibition match proves to be… challenging. Let’s check in on the action below.” I look down and see The Puppet Man sat down and gesturing to the figure under the sheet, like he’s got a negotiation going on. The boy, undeterred and furious, rushes towards him and takes his back, slapping his head and even pulling on his hair with extreme prejudice. “Well take a gander at that, that kid has absolutely NO fear. When I was his age, I would have stayed FAR the fuck away from a nightmare spectre like that. But hell, this is all part of the show, right? Hope they’re paying that poor guy down there a sizeable sum to throw a fight to a child. What do you think, Nelle; is this the weirdest make-a-wish fulfilment task or what?” I look over to her, hoping she’d indulge me and that I could believe this was just going to end with a pissed off actor storming away when the child hit him too hard. But Nelle was scanning her now open book and looking for information on dolls. “He’s talking to his doll because it’s desperate to be let loose. He’s trying to bargain with it to spare him. This is the nature of the puppeteer and his master.” She pushes the book to the centre of the table and shows me a faded illustration of a pristine Bunraku doll; a kind of meticulously crafted Japanese take on the ventriloquist doll. The limbs are thinner and the face is more minimalist, but still no more frightening. “They usually have a symbiotic relationship, but it seems this one obeys the doll and will not want to face more punishment.” “What do you mean more punishment?” I ask, looking back down at the feverish puppet man as he tries signing frantically under the sheet, even putting his head under as the kid bites his arm and kicks him, screeching. “The nails, Sal. Those aren’t to silence him, they’re to punish him.” The rest happened in slow motion; the sheet fell down. The puppet man stood up and walked to his side of the fighters corner, facing the elevator and placing his face into his forearms as he shook. The boy followed to keep attacking, but with one swift kick to the midsection, the boy was propelled back to the centre of the pit where the doll sat. If there was a human face, I didn’t see it. Instead, I was staring down at a small wood carved spider, the head sporting black geisha hair and the makeup still present, but rows of sharpened black teeth protruded from the clicking mouth and two larger eyes jutted out from the base of the skull, smaller ones dotted closely around it. It was like seeing a puppet ogre spider. “Looks like The Puppet Man has let Mr. Stares out to say hi and I can certainly see why he was under that sheet, this one isn’t pretty folks! The face doth fit the name. The question is, what’s he doing to do ne- “I didn’t need to finish the question. My hands shook, and the world spun around me as this creature crawled towards the still wheezing boy with ungodly speed and perched itself expertly beside him. I don’t know if it was my eyes or the distance from where I sat, but this was NOT a small puppet. He was easily half of the boy’s height and that became more unnerving when he reared up on his back legs, the head clicking up and the raspy voice hissing out like a gas leak in a building. “Hey, hey, kid! Wanna make a deal?” The kid rubbed his eyes, seemingly realising where he was as he calmed down and an air of utter confusion around him. “If you let me be your new master and you promise to take care of me, I’ll let you go!” His head spun around and the jaw clicked ferociously as he giggled, extending out a clawed paw. “Whaddya say?” The boy, still confused, slowly reached out his hand and the moment immediately reminded me of a slew of nature shows I’d seen as a kid; where a predator waits until the prey is lulled before striking. I felt the chill up my spine as he extended his hand and grabbed Mr. Stares. In that moment, he leapt up the arm and bore his way into the boy’s mouth, down his throat and shredded his flesh. The sound was so horrifying, so visceral that it outshines any backyard stabbing, joint snap or broken nose. The boy didn’t even have time to scream, he simply looked up with tear-stained eyes as the puppet disappeared. Then he started walking without him realising. He looked down at his limbs, terrified, looked over at The Puppet Master, who still had his head to the elevator and pleaded with someone, anyone to help him. I looked to Nelle who refused to take her eyes away, studying the battle in an almost morbid scientific curiosity, detached entirely from the scenario. I couldn’t fathom how she did it, how she ignored this boy begging us to get him out of there. I wanted to. Every instinct in me as a fight fan and a decent human was to scream “STOP THE FIGHT!”. But clearly, when my own life is at risk and money is involved... I am not a decent human. Instead, with bile in my throat and a sweating forehead, I did my job. “M-My goodness! The P-uppet, I mean, “Mr. Stares” has BECAME the puppet master, surely the fight will be over with our young competitor incapacitated? What does our commissioner have to say about this?” She stared at me, her one eye gleaming and her face elated with the violence. “It ain’t over yet, church boy. We haven’t even seen the finale, have we Puppet Master?!” She laughs and slaps her knee, the puppet master sobbing as he sinks to the floor and she continues. “He ain’t done feeding, not yet.” The way she said that word “feeding” nearly made me lose what food I had in me. That was a young man, somebody's baby boy… “What does she mean by that, Nelle? What is the strategy to victory here?” Nelle looked down at her book and traced her finger across a passage before wiping her forehead and pushing the locks aside. If her composure wasn’t breaking yet, it would do soon. “This kind of parasitic doll feasts on its prey and targets non-essential organs first, controls the host with the neurotoxin in its tail and then, when it’s finally content, it gives the brain a second injection.” “What happens then?” I asked, my own professionalism hanging on by a fucking thread at this point. She shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.“I guess you’ll see in a moment, I sure as hell don’t want to. Not again.” Before I can prompt her further, the boy lets out an ear-piercing shriek and falls to his knees, gripping at his head before it turned red, then purple and finally an ugly shade of puce before… The sound of a watermelon hitting the ground from a great height is the best comparison you’re going to get without making me want to rush to the toilet to puke for a third time. But that’s what happened. His head burst and chunks of his skull, flesh and brain matter sprayed the pit and the walls, some hitting my desk and making me audibly shriek, much to the commissioner's delight. “HA! You didn’t run! I like you, Sal. You pass for the tournament!” She hauls her body up and slams down to the pit, applauding as the microphone descends from the heavens. “And your winner; The Puppet Man and Mr. Stares!” The crowd erupts with applause as the weeping puppet man pulls the blood-soaked puppet out, places him under the sheet and silently begins to walk back to the elevator while attendees clear up the boy’s corpse. “What… what the fuck IS this place?” I ask Nelle, pausing my recording. “This is where nightmares are kept and set upon mostly unwilling competitors for the world’s amusement. You HAVE done dark web fights before, right? Mafia snitches being put into lions pits, bum fights, addicts fighting women to score… this can’t be THAT unusual to you?” I stared at her incredulously. Was that even a question? “I did the dark web ONCE and it damn sure didn’t involve monsters!” She scoffs and closes her book, stretching before looking at me with contempt. “Oh, it did. Just not the ones you hear about in fairytales. Good luck with the selection process. I’ll be back for the opening round. Don’t try to run, they’ll devour us both in minutes, if you think this is the pinnacle of what lurks beneath this club, you're in for a rough night.” She sauntered off, leaving me deflated, sickened and terrified. Unable to leave and frustrated to the point of tears that I couldn’t express that concoction of emotions, I did what I always do; I regressed and pressed “record” on the device as Commissioner Alduin continued. At that moment, however, I was deaf to it all. The gravity of the situation had fully enveloped me… They weren’t kidding about the unwilling participants, I just didn’t realise I would be one of them.On every side of me sits men and women with a desire for violence that goes beyond the norm, beyond the sane and beyond the boundaries of humanity.Below me are an untold number of creatures rattling their cages and howling for blood. Across from me is a woman so powerful she could crush my skull beneath her boot with the utmost ease if it so amused her. That invitation was nothing more than my own ransom note in pretty colours and flattering platitudes. I was in a tournament housing nightmares incarnate. And it would only get more violent from here on out. - The opening round was a blood bath. Ok, A little backround. I know hardware and networking. I can build just about any config of a computer. I understand overclocking and undervolting. I can invest around 2,700 for initial investment. So do I buy hardware to build a GPU miner with at least 6 cards or more? Probably RX580 as they are cheap and I have one in my rig. More on that later. Or do I a Asic miner like this I understand a GPU miner is multiple coins and not Bitcoin, and Asic is nothing but Bitcoin. I've done the math on the Asic miner and the ROI in about 3 months with a net gain of about ~10,000 USD a year @ .13 cents per Watt. I've had a hard time finding a solid or semi way of calculating the earnings for a GPU miner. Not only because it is many coins or dedicated to one coin, but there our other variables involved. However I have more control of the hardware if it fails. I dipped my toe into mining with my own rig that has a RX580 fatboy and a AMD Phenom ii x4 955 black edition. I overclocked the GPU and undervolted the CPU to reduce heat since it was hitting 62 cel. The GPU gets 12.5 sol/s and the CPU was getting ~322 h/s. All this added up to ~170 watts and a net of .00218322 BTC/Month. This was all done using Cudo as it was easy to find and setup just to test. This was just a test to see how it would work. I wouldn't use Cudo to full scale as it is a pool and the transfer to a Wallet is pretty steep in relationship to earns. I understand that in a pool you get your share based upon how much of the "work" you did to get find block. So do I build or buy? With that much computation power do I need to join a pool? What software is best for pool or alone? I am comfortable with CLI as long as it's well documented, but would like a remote GUI. Also what is the best wallet with the best fees for transactions. Currently using uphold since I use Brave. I think I covered as much as I could, if you have any questions let me know. Any advice would be great. If I should post this else where let me know please or I could just cross post it. TIA. Be safe, stay safe! Edit: Words and BTC earning was WAY off then I first typed this. Don't blindly follow a narrative, its bad for you and its bad for crypto in general I mostly lurk around here but I see a pattern repeating over and over again here and in multiple communities so I have to post. I'm just posting this here because I appreciate the fact that this sub is a place of free speech and maybe something productive can come out from this post, while bitcoin is just fucking censorship, memes and moon/lambo posts. If you don't agree, write in the comments why, instead of downvoting. You don't have to upvote either, but when you downvote you are killing the opportunity to have discussion. If you downvote or comment that I'm wrong without providing any counterpoints you are no better than the BTC maxis you despise. In various communities I see a narrative being used to bring people in and making them follow something without thinking for themselves. In crypto I see this mostly in BTC vs BCH tribalistic arguments: - BTC community: "Everything that is not BTC is shitcoin." or more recently as stated by adam on twitter, "Everything that is not BTC is a ponzi scheme, even ETH.", "what is ETH supply?", and even that they are doing this for "altruistic" reasons, to "protect" the newcomers. Very convenient for them that they are protecting the newcomers by having them buy their bags - BCH community: "BTC maxis are dumb", "just increase block size and you will have truly p2p electronic cash", "It is just that simple, there are no trade offs", "if you don't agree with me you are a BTC maxi", "BCH is satoshi's vision for p2p electronic cash" It is not exclusive to crypto but also politics, and you see this over and over again on twitter and on reddit. My point is, that narratives are created so people don't have to think, they just choose a narrative that is easy to follow and makes sense for them, and stick with it. And people keep repeating these narratives to bring other people in, maybe by ignorance, because they truly believe it without questioning, or maybe by self interest, because they want to shill you their bags. Because this is BCH community, and because bitcoin is censored, so I can't post there about the problems in the BTC narrative (some of which are IMO correctly identified by BCH community), I will stick with the narrative I see in the BCH community. The culprit of this post was firstly this post by user u/scotty321"The BTC Paradox: “A 1 MB blocksize enables poor people to run their own node!” “Okay, then what?” “Poor people won’t be able to use the network!”". You will see many posts of this kind being made by u/Egon_1 also. Then you have also this comment in that thread by u/fuck_____________1 saying that people that want to run their own nodes are retarded and that there is no reason to want to do that. "Just trust block explorer websites". And the post and comment were highly upvoted. Really? You really think that there is no problem in having just a few nodes on the network? And that the only thing that secures the network are miners? As stated by user u/co1nsurf3r in that thread: While I don't think that everybody needs to run a node, a full node does publish blocks it considers valid to other nodes. This does not amount to much if you only consider a single node in the network, but many "honest" full nodes in the network will reduce the probability of a valid block being withheld from the network by a collusion of "hostile" node operators. But surely this will not get attention here, and will be downvoted by those people that promote the narrative that there is no trade off in increasing the blocksize and the people that don't see it are retarded or are btc maxis. The only narrative I stick to and have been for many years now is that cryptocurrency takes power from the government and gives power to the individual, so you are not restricted to your economy as you can participate in the global economy. There is also the narrative of banking the bankless, which I hope will come true, but it is not a use case we are seeing right now. Some people would argue that removing power from gov's is a bad thing, but you can't deny the fact that gov's can't control crypto (at least we would want them not to). But, if you really want the individuals to remain in control of their money and transact with anyone in the world, the network needs to be very resistant to any kind of attacks. How can you have p2p electronic cash if your network just has a handful couple of nodes and the chinese gov can locate them and just block communication to them? I'm not saying that this is BCH case, I'm just refuting the fact that there is no value in running your own node. If you are relying on block explorers, the gov can just block the communication to the block explorer websites. Then what? Who will you trust to get chain information? The nodes needs to be decentralized so if you take one node down, many more can appear so it is hard to censor and you don't have few points of failure. Right now BTC is focusing on that use case of being difficult to censor. But with that comes the problem that is very expensive to transact on the network, which breaks the purpose of anyone being able to participate. Obviously I do think that is also a major problem, and lightning network is awful right now and probably still years away of being usable, if it ever will. The best solution is up for debate, but thinking that you just have to increase the blocksize and there is no trade off is just naive or misleading. BCH is doing a good thing in trying to come with a solution that is inclusive and promotes cheap and fast transactions, but also don't forget centralization is a major concern and nothing to just shrug off. Saying that "a 1 MB blocksize enables poor people to run their own" and that because of that "Poor people won’t be able to use the network" is a misrepresentation designed to promote a narrative. Because 1MB is not to allow "poor" people to run their node, it is to facilitate as many people to run a node to promote decentralization and avoid censorship. Also an elephant in the room that you will not see being discussed in either BTC or BCH communities is that mining pools are heavily centralized. And I'm not talking about miners being mostly in china, but also that big pools control a lot of hashing power both in BTC and BCH, and that is terrible for the purpose of crypto. Other projects are trying to solve that. Will they be successful? I don't know, I hope so, because I don't buy into any narrative. There are many challenges and I want to see crypto succeed as a whole. As always guys, DYOR and always question if you are not blindly following a narrative. I'm sure I will be called BTC maxi but maybe some people will find value in this. Don't trust guys that are always posting silly "gocha's" against the other "tribe". EDIT: User u/ShadowOfHarbringer has pointed me to some threads that this has been discussed in the past and I will just put my take on them here for visibility, as I will be using this thread as a reference in future discussions I engage: When there was only 2 nodes in the network, adding a third node increased redundancy and resiliency of the network as a whole in a significant way. When there is thousands of nodes in the network, adding yet another node only marginally increase the redundancy and resiliency of the network. So the question then becomes a matter of personal judgement of how much that added redundancy and resiliency is worth. For the absolutist, it is absolutely worth it and everyone on this planet should do their part. What is the magical number of nodes that makes it counterproductive to add new nodes? Did he do any math? Does BCH achieve this holy grail safe number of nodes? Guess what, nobody knows at what number of nodes is starts to be marginally irrelevant to add new nodes. Even BTC today could still not have enough nodes to be safe. If you can't know for sure that you are safe, it is better to try to be safer than sorry. Thousands of nodes is still not enough, as I said, it is much cheaper to run a full node as it is to mine. If it costs millions in hash power to do a 51% attack on the block generation it means nothing if it costs less than $10k to run more nodes than there are in total in the network and cause havoc and slowing people from using the network. Or using bot farms to DDoS the 1000s of nodes in the network. Not all attacks are monetarily motivated. When you have governments with billions of dollars at their disposal and something that could threat their power they could do anything they could to stop people from using it, and the cheapest it is to do so the better You should run a full node if you're a big business with e.g. >$100k/month in volume, or if you run a service that requires high fraud resistance and validation certainty for payments sent your way (e.g. an exchange). For most other users of Bitcoin, there's no good reason to run a full node unless you reel like it. Shouldn't individuals benefit from fraud resistance too? Why just businesses? Personally, I think it's a good idea to make sure that people can easily run a full node because they feel like it, and that it's desirable to keep full node resource requirements reasonable for an enthusiast/hobbyist whenever possible. This might seem to be at odds with the concept of making a worldwide digital cash system in which all transactions are validated by everybody, but after having done the math and some of the code myself, I believe that we should be able to have our cake and eat it too. This is recurrent argument, but also no math provided, "just trust me I did the math" The biggest reason individuals may want to run their own node is to increase their privacy. SPV wallets rely on others (nodes or ElectronX servers) who may learn their addresses. It is a reason and valid one but not the biggest reason If you do it for fun and experimental it good. If you do it for extra privacy it's ok. If you do it to help the network don't. You are just slowing down miners and exchanges. Yes it will slow down the network, but that shows how people just don't get the the trade off they are doing I will just copy/paste what Satoshi Nakamoto said in his own words. "The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale. That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server." Another "it is all or nothing argument" and quoting satoshi to try and prove their point. Just because every user doesn't need to be also a full node doesn't mean that there aren't serious risks for having few nodes For this to have any importance in practice, all of the miners, all of the exchanges, all of the explorers and all of the economic nodes should go rogue all at once. Collude to change consensus. If you have a node you can detect this. It doesn't do much, because such a scenario is impossible in practice. Not true because as I said, you can DDoS the current nodes or run more malicious nodes than that there currently are, because is cheap to do so Non-mining nodes don't contribute to adding data to the blockchain ledger, but they do play a part in propagating transactions that aren't yet in blocks (the mempool). Bitcoin client implementations can have different validations for transactions they see outside of blocks and transactions they see inside of blocks; this allows for "soft forks" to add new types of transactions without completely breaking older clients (while a transaction is in the mempool, a node receiving a transaction that's a new/unknown type could drop it as not a valid transaction (not propagate it to its peers), but if that same transaction ends up in a block and that node receives the block, they accept the block (and the transaction in it) as valid (and therefore don't get left behind on the blockchain and become a fork). The participation in the mempool is a sort of "herd immunity" protection for the network, and it was a key talking point for the "User Activated Soft Fork" (UASF) around the time the Segregated Witness feature was trying to be added in. If a certain percentage of nodes updated their software to not propagate certain types of transactions (or not communicate with certain types of nodes), then they can control what gets into a block (someone wanting to get that sort of transaction into a block would need to communicate directly to a mining node, or communicate only through nodes that weren't blocking that sort of transaction) if a certain threshold of nodes adheres to those same validation rules. It's less specific than the influence on the blockchain data that mining nodes have, but it's definitely not nothing. The first reasonable comment in that thread but is deep down there with only 1 upvote The addition of non-mining nodes does not add to the efficiency of the network, but actually takes away from it because of the latency issue. That is true and is actually a trade off you are making, sacrificing security to have scalability The addition of non-mining nodes has little to no effect on security, since you only need to destroy mining ones to take down the network It is true that if you destroy mining nodes you take down the network from producing new blocks (temporarily), even if you have a lot of non mining nodes. But, it still better than if you take down the mining nodes who are also the only full nodes. If the miners are not the only full nodes, at least you still have full nodes with the blockchain data so new miners can download it and join. If all the miners are also the full nodes and you take them down, where will you get all the past blockchain data to start mining again? Just pray that the miners that were taken down come back online at some point in the future? The real limiting factor is ISP's: Imagine a situation where one service provider defrauds 4000 different nodes. Did the excessive amount of nodes help at all, when they have all been defrauded by the same service provider? If there are only 30 ISP's in the world, how many nodes do we REALLY need? You cant defraud if the connection is encrypted. Use TOR for example, it is hard for ISP's to know what you are doing. Satoshi specifically said in the white paper that after a certain point, number of nodes needed plateaus, meaning after a certain point, adding more nodes is actually counterintuitive, which we also demonstrated. (the latency issue). So, we have adequately demonstrated why running non-mining nodes does not add additional value or security to the network. Again, what is the number of nodes that makes it counterproductive? Did he do any math? There's also the matter of economically significant nodes and the role they play in consensus. Sure, nobody cares about your average joe's "full node" where he is "keeping his own ledger to keep the miners honest", as it has no significance to the economy and the miners couldn't give a damn about it. However, if say some major exchanges got together to protest a miner activated fork, they would have some protest power against that fork because many people use their service. Of course, there still needs to be miners running on said "protest fork" to keep the chain running, but miners do follow the money and if they got caught mining a fork that none of the major exchanges were trading, they could be coaxed over to said "protest fork". In consensus, what matters about nodes is only the number, economical power of the node doesn't mean nothing, the protocol doesn't see the net worth of the individual or organization running that node. Running a full node that is not mining and not involved is spending or receiving payments is of very little use. It helps to make sure network traffic is broadcast, and is another copy of the blockchain, but that is all (and is probably not needed in a healthy coin with many other nodes) He gets it right (broadcasting transaction and keeping a copy of the blockchain) but he dismisses the importance of it UYT Main-Net pre-launching AMA successfully completed with a blast 7 pm, 29th September 2020 Beijing time the UYT Main-Net pre-launching AMA successfully completed with a blast! Here is a full record of the AMA: Host: Hello everyone, it’s a great honor to host the first AMA of UYT network in China. Today, we have invited the person in charge of UYT Dao. Let’s ask Mr. Woo to introduce himself Woo: Hello, I’m Ben. I’ve met you in the previous global live broadcast. I’m the director of UYT Dao and the founder of IGNISVC. At present, I’m the CEO of the TKNT foundation and have been engaged in the blockchain industry. Q1. At present, different types of blockchains have emerged, but cross-chain interaction is still suffering a lot. In your opinion, what is the necessity and significance of cross-chain? Answer: The full name of UYT is to unite all your tokens, which is to integrate all public chains and increase the liquidity of the whole industry. Our purpose is not to create another public chain, but to become a platform for the exchange of value, technology, and resources of all public chains. What we need to solve is that each individual chain can circulate with each other. The full name of UYT is to unite all your tokens, which is to integrate all public chains and increase the liquidity of the whole industry. Our purpose is not to create another public chain, but to become a platform for the exchange of value, technology, and resources of all public chains. What we need to solve is that each individual chain can circulate with each other. Q2. The founder of Ethereum, V Shen, once wrote a cross-chain operation report for bank alliance chain R3, which mentioned three cross-chain methods. Which one does UYT belong to? Can you briefly introduce the cross-chain solution of UYT? Answer: In Vitalik’s cross-chain report, there are three main cross-chain methods. The first is that both parties do not know that they are crossing the chain, or that they cannot “read” each other, such as the centralized exchange. The second way is that one of the links can read other chains, such as side-chain / relay chain. That is, a can read B, and B cannot read a; The third is that both a and B can read each other’s, which can achieve the value and information exchange between a, B, and the platform. UYT belongs to the third kind. Our new official website will be online soon. Here are a few simple points: first of all, the architecture of UYT includes relay chain, parachain, parathreads, and bridges. In terms of ductility, it has exceeded almost all the public chains currently online. In the UYT network, there are four kinds of consensus participants, namely collector, fisherman, nominator, and validator. The characteristics of this model are: first, all people can participate without loss. Secondly, as long as anyone makes more contribution to the ecology, he will get more rewards, otherwise, he will receive corresponding punishment. The underlying layer of UYT is the substrate, which uses the rust programming language. Rust is committed to becoming a programming language that can solve the problems of high concurrency and high-security systems elegantly. This is also a great advantage that we are different from other blockchain projects in technology. Q3. What are the roles in the UYT network? What are their respective functions? Answer: After the main network of UYT is online, there will be four roles: collector, fisherman, nominator, and validator, which is totally different from the current system of the test network. The collector, in short, is responsible for collecting all kinds of information in the parallel chain and packaging the information to the verifier. Fishermen, to put it bluntly, is fishing law enforcement, which specifically checks out malicious acts and gets rewards after being checked out. The nominator, in fact, is a group of rights and interests. The verifier is its representative, and they entrust the deposit to the verifier. Verifier, package new blocks in the network. It must mortgage enough deposits and run a relay chain client on a highly available and high bandwidth machine. It can be understood as a mining pool. It can also be understood as the node in the current UYT DAPP. Q4. What is the mining mechanism of the UYT network? The only way to obtain UYT after its issuance is to participate in mining activities. In the initial stage, the daily constant output times of UYT are set to 1440000, and the cycle of bitcoin is halved. Mining rewards can be obtained in the following five ways: 1) Asset pledge mapping mining 2) Become the intermediate chain node of uyt network 3) Recommendation and reward mechanism 4) Voting reward 5) UYT network Dao will take out 10% of gas revenue from block packaging for community construction and reward of excellent community personnel Q5. The rise and fall of the blockchain are very fast. In order to give investors confidence, is there a detailed development plan, implementation steps, and application direction of UYT network in the next few months? Answer: UYT Network test network has been running stably for a year. After the main network is launched, all mechanisms will undergo major changes. The relationship between the UYT test network and the main network can be understood as the relationship between KSM (dot test network) and dot the main network, and the feasibility of the technology can be reflected more quickly by the UYT test network because of its faster timeliness and all future technology updates Some will move to the main network after the stable operation of the test network. In order to give users a better experience and give more rewards to excellent nodes, all Dao organizers are working hard for it. The development team has completed the cross-chain of bitcoin and some high-quality Ethereum based tokens in the early stage, and now the code has all been open source. For other mainstream currencies, community members can apply for funds to develop. In order to develop the ecology and make a better technical reserve, we will set up a special ecological development fund when the main network goes online. The transfer bridge is our key funding direction. The maximum application amount of a team is as high as 100000 US dollars. In addition, if other public chains want to connect to UYT, they will get technical support. In order to encourage developers to participate in ecological construction, Dao also launched a series of grants to support development. Developers can directly pull the better applications on Eth and EOS directly, or develop new products according to their own advantages. These directions are now the focus of funding. Due to the early online testing time of uyt network, it is based on the earlier version of substrate1.0. The on-chain governance mode can only be realized after the upgrade of 2.0 is completed. At present, the upgrading work is going on steadily, and the on-chain governance will be implemented in the main network with the launch of the uyt main network. As a heterogeneous cross-chain solution with high scalability and scalability, UYT network can perfectly bridge the parallel encryption system and its encryption assets in theory, and its wide applicability in the future can be expected. Therefore, we do not limit the areas where UYT network will play its advantages and roles. But in the general direction, there will be mainly DEFI and DEX ecological plates. From the industry, it can cover a wide range of fields, not only finance but also games, entertainment, shopping malls, real estate, and so on. Q6、How can UYT help DEFI? Answer: UYT network can not only link different public chains but also make parallel chains independent and interlinked. Just like the ACALA project some time ago, it has successfully obtained Pantera capital’s $7 million saft agreement. Although the concept of DEFI is very popular now, all DEFI products are still in the ecology of each public chain, and the cross-chain DEFI ecology has not been developed. UYT is to achieve cross-chain communication, value exchange, and develop truly decentralized financial services and products. For example, cross-chain decentralized flash cash, cross-chain asset support, cross-chain decentralized lending, Oracle machine, and other products. At present, our technical team is also speeding up the construction of infrastructure suitable for the landing of more DEFI products and services and is committed to creating a real cross-chain DEFI ecology, which is only a small step of UYT’s future plan. Q7、TKNT should be one of the hottest projects in the UYT ecosystem recently. Please give us a brief introduction to the TKNT project and the value of TKNT in the UYT ecosystem. Why can TKNT increase 400 times in 7 days? And what is the cooperative relationship between UTC and TKNT? Answer: I will answer each project from the technical and resource aspects. Let’s first introduce UTC. UTC is the token of Copernican network and the first project of UYT game entertainment ecology. In the future, it will be responsible for linking. Due to the high-quality public chain in the entertainment industry, because of the limited slots of UYT, each field will seek a high-quality partner and help the partner become the secondary relay chain of UYT. After the main network of UYT goes online, many chains will want to access UYT Greater value circulation, due to the limited external slots of UYT, the cost is also very high. At this time, you can choose to connect to UTC first, and then connect UTC to UYT. With more and more links with UYT, it will gradually evolve into a secondary relay chain of UYT network. UTC’s resources, online and offline, offline payment and offline entity applications, also have a very large community base. The ecological partners have very good operation experience in the game industry. They will use blockchain technology to change the whole game entertainment industry to make it more transparent and fair. At the same time, there are enough entity consumption scenarios. This is also UYT Because of the reason why the network chose to cooperate with it, the UTC project has been supported by the UYT ecological fund. The support fund includes that after the main network is launched, it will also be the first ecological cooperation project supported by UYT. Because of the online time of the main network of UYT, UTC can’t directly form a chain at present and will give priority to issuing on Ethereum. TKNT is a new concept project TKN.com TKN is the largest online centralized guessing game platform in the world at present. TKNT mixes bet mining and DEFI, so it can carry out fixed mining through platform games, build a system that can realize game participation and in application payment in all Dapps based on ERC20, and combine with various financial services. The reason why TKNT has created a myth of 400 times in 7 days is that the TkN platform has a buyback plan. As we all know, the online quiz game entertainment platform has an amazing profit. Every quarter, the profit will be used to buyback. The strong profit support has led to the huge increase of token. In the future, all users can use UTC to participate in TkN games. Therefore, the main network of UYT is that Line is also of great significance to TKNT. With the maturity of UYT ecology and technology, TKNT can have a more powerful performance. If TKNT wants to link more public chains, it needs to access UYT network, and realize a bigger vision with cross-chain interaction of UYT. After TKNT was launched on the exchange, the highest price has risen to $14, and now it has dropped to about $2.50. You will see that it will once again set a record high and create greater miracles. You will also see that $3 will be the best buying point for TKNT, because there will be several major moves in TKNT, and the global MLM plan will be launched on October 7 in Korea, China, and other countries There will be many marketing teams in Europe to promote TKNT, including DAPP.com As a shareholder of TkN, TKNT will also make every effort to promote TKNT. Secondly, TKNT will be launched next month on the largest digital currency exchange in South Korea, and Chinese users will see the shadow of TKNT on Binance in November. Of course, the decentralized trading platform of UYT will also be launched in the future. Q8. What is the significance of the launch of UYT’s main network for the industry and ecology? Answer: UYT is one of the few cross-chain platform projects in the industry at present. There are many public chains and coin issuing projects. Why? Because of less work, more money. However, there are very high technical and capital requirements for cross-chain and platform. This barrier is very high, so almost no project side is willing to do this. But once this is done, it will be of great significance to the whole industry of digital currency and blockchain. Because it will subvert the current situation of the whole currency circle and chain circle acting on their own, and the painting land is king. Let each independent ecosystem achieve a truly decentralized and trust-free cooperative relationship. This huge change will promote the whole industry to develop into a healthy and virtuous circle macro ecosystem. Q9. The slogan of many project supporters is that UYT should surpass Ethereum. What is the difference in technology between UYT network and Ethereum? Answer: Thank you so much for supporting UYT. In fact, the correct understanding is that UYT is the next era of Ethereum. First of all, UYT has a different vision from Ethereum. Before the emergence of UYT, Ethereum, and EOS, no matter how well they developed, belonged to the era of a single chain. The popular metaphor is a LAN. However, UYT can realize the interoperability of each chain and bring the blockchain into the Internet era. Secondly, UYT is far superior to Ethereum in technology. It mainly includes three aspects: shared security, heterogeneous cross-chain, and no fork upgrade. In the case that Ethereum 2.0 has not been implemented, UYT is the most friendly bottom layer for the DFI projects and other Dapps on Ethereum. Now, the hair chain architecture substrate of UYT is compatible with Ethereum smart contract language solidity, so eth developers can easily migrate their smart contracts to UYT. Up to now, there is no good solution to the congestion problem of Ethereum, while UYT network not only solves the network congestion problem. What’s more, UYT can easily realize one-click online upgrade, instead of having to redeploy a set of contracts on Ethereum for each version upgraded and then require users to follow them to migrate the original assets from the old contract to the new contract. Developers can quickly and flexibly iterate their own protocols to change their application solutions according to the situation, so as to serve more users and solve more problems. At the same time, they can also repair the loopholes in the contract very quickly. In the case of hacker attacks, they can also solve the hacker stealing money and a series of other problems through parallel chain management. We can find that for Ethereum, UYT not only solves the congestion problem we see in front of us but also provides the most important infrastructure for the future applications such as DFI on Ethereum to truly mature into an open financial application that can serve all people. It also opens the Web 3.0 era of the blockchain industry. In terms of market value, Ethereum currently has a strong ecological construction, with a market value of US $40 billion. UYT will also focus on the development of this aspect after the main network goes online. No matter in terms of market value or ecological construction, I have enough confidence in UYT, after all, we are fully prepared. Q10. What is the progress of the ecological construction of UYT? What opportunities do current ecological partners see in UYT or what changes may be brought about by UYT ecology? Answer: After the main network of UYT goes online, there will be a series of ecological construction actions, and more attention will be paid to establishing contact with traditional partners. Cross-chain decentralized flash cash, cross-chain asset support, cross-chain decentralized lending, Oracle machine, and other products will also be the key cooperation direction of UYT. UYT will give priority to the game and entertainment industry because this industry is most easily subverted by blockchain. As the ecological construction of UYT gets bigger and bigger, the future slots will become more and more expensive. The earlier you join UYT ecology, you will get more support from the ecological fund because the ecological fund is also limited. From the perspective of token value-added, all the project parties will cooperate with the project side in the future, and the project side needs to pledge a certain number of UYT to bid for slots, except for ecological rewards, others need to be purchased from market transactions. The difference between the pledge here and the pledge we understand is that the UYT of the ecological partner participating in the auction pledge cannot enjoy the computing power for mining. UYT main network has several opportunities for Eco partners to look forward to, the first point is bitcoin, bitcoin will be later than other assets late, but eventually, all the bubble and value will return to BTC, after the wave of DeFi bubble elimination, the focus will be very much in the bitcoin. UYT ecology can provide a more mature bottom layer for defi. In addition, now Ethereum’s DEFI is that of Ethereum and ERC 20 tokens, and the outbreak point of bitcoin has not yet arrived. Therefore, the DEFI of UYT ecology may be the next opportunity, which is a good opportunity for everyone. The second opportunity is that after the main network goes online, the future UYT ecological projects will compete to bid for slots. In fact, the original intention of UYT is to realize the interconnection of all chains. The chain outside the UYT ecology also needs to communicate. The third is cross-fi. The BIFI is hatched on Ethereum, and the def on UYT can realize multi-chain operation. For example, TkN games or future UTC game platform users can call bitcoin on the UYT chain. This form only belongs to the decentralized finance in the cross-chain era of UYT, which can be called cross-fi. Q11. Which exchanges will UYT go online next? What is the online strategy like? Answer: As the founder of ignisvc and as UYT As the head of the Dao organization, we have always had good cooperative relations with major exchanges all over the world. TKNT will appear in several exchanges one after another. Hitbtc exchange in the United Kingdom, Upbit and Bithumb Exchange in South Korea, Bitfinex exchange in the United States, Binance exchange in China, BKEX exchange, and Kucoin exchange in China are all our partners, and they have been paying close attention to UYT Development, UYT is the public chain with the largest user base and the highest community participation in the cross-chain field, so the future value is immeasurable. If we have to go to the exchange, then we will choose one of the above exchanges to launch. But the vision of UYT is to create a fairer, safer, and transparent circulation in the field of digital currency, and users can master all the assets by themselves, Therefore, in the beginning, there is a simple DEX on the UYT wallet, which is a simple matchmaking transaction and is also an on-chain transaction. After the completion of the UYT DEX, more transactions may occur in the UYT DEX. However, after the main network of UYT is online, centralized exchanges can directly access the block data synchronization of UYT, and it is not ruled out that some exchanges will directly go online for UYT trading. Such exchanges will not enjoy the support of the ecological support fund of UYT. The network project is a community-led project. Each cooperation plan of the exchange will be carried out in the way shared by the community in the future. Dao organization can only implement it according to the voting results. Q12. What are the plans for the promotion of ecological development and market by the launch of UYT main network? Answer: The launch of the main network will be completed around October 15. On the offline side, due to the epidemic situation, we will jointly organize corresponding market activities with nodes in different countries. At present, there are three large-scale offline meetups that have been identified. We will also start a global roadshow when the epidemic is over. On the online side, we have opened online Wechat, Kakao, Twitter, Reddit, and telegram communities. We will carry out AMA activities in various countries and promote them all over the world in various ways. Of course, we will launch MLM plans and cooperate with more marketing teams. Staking in Compendia and how its approach differs from other (D)PoS networks In this article, we'll be discussingstakingand how it works in Compendia. There are several misconceptions out there that arise due to the way staking is utilized across different networks. Compendia use a novel way of staking, by combining the way it locks funds to earn more coins in recent proof-of-stake (PoS) networks - with the aspect of vote power traditionally seen in delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) networks. Staking in (D)PoS networks vs. Compendia Staking (commonly misspelt as 'stacking' or 'steaking') is the process of leveraging an acquired amount of coins/tokens from a certain blockchain to contribute to the network, by holding them in an address and using an (either online or offline) wallet client to earn revenue based on the amount of coins/tokens held. PoS (proof-of-stake) networks In traditional proof-of-stake networks such as Stratis or Cardano requires users to purchase a certain amount of coins, place those in an online wallet and letting the wallet client emulate a certain amount of computing power - which is in turn used to mine/forge new blocks to the blockchain. In more recent proof-of-stake networks such as Cosmos, users are required to lock their funds in an address - with a cooldown period added when wanting to unlock those funds. This way, coins are taken out of circulation rather than just being held (but still immediately spendable) as with Stratis/Cardano. In both situations, anyone can contribute to the network by staking and the more coins staked, the higher likelihood of mining/forging a new block and earning the block reward. You can earn individually from staking, or join a pool. DPoS (delegated proof-of-stake) networks In delegated proof-of-stake networks, such as ARK or EOS, there are only a set number of nodes (known as validators, block producers or delegates) that are allowed to forge new blocks. In ARK, there are 51 forging delegates and we will use this amount as an example. Contributors have to gain votes from other network participants, who pledge their account balance as votes, and once they have a total amount of votes that put them into the top 51, they will be able to forge blocks and earn rewards. The account balance of participants who vote for a forging validator remain unlocked and therefore it is possible to immediately spend funds held in an address. The amount of votes per address varies across different DPoS networks, but the principle is the same: one coin means one vote power. You can only earn individually if you are one of the top validators; otherwise, you have to vote and receive a portion of rewards from a forging validator. Compendia In Compendia, the above two methods are combined into a new dynamic: staking your BIND locks up your funds for a set period (3 - 6 - 12 months) as in proof-of-stake networks, but it does NOT grant the ability to earn. You will still need to vote for a sharing validator, like in delegated proof-of-stake networks. What does staking do then, if it does not let you earn on its own? Staking your BIND for a set period applies a multiple (5x - 7.5x - 10x) to the voting power of your staked balance. This means that one staked BIND is no longer counted as one vote, but as 5 votes (or 7.5 votes, or 10 votes - depending on the lock period). This way it increases your potential earnings when you vote for a sharing validator. So, by pledging to lock your funds for a certain amount of time and thereby decreasing the circulating amount of BIND, you will be able to earn more with the same amount of coins than if you would not stake, and only vote. When staking, your BIND will go through 5 different phases: Grace: when your stake transaction has been created, you have a 1 hour period in which you can cancel it. Powering: after the initial grace phase, your stake is powering up. There is no vote power bonus yet, and this phase takes 47 hours. Active: when the powering phase ends, your stake is active and now provides the bonus vote power that corresponds with your lock time. Release: after your lock period has passed, your staked coins will be released and grants half the initial vote power bonus. Redeemed: if your staked coins have been released, you can redeem them back to your wallet. After ~14 days, you have full control of your staked coins again. In the future, you'll be able to redeem your stake before the release period at the costs of having a portion of the deposit slashed. Securing the Network DPoS delegates/validators secure the blockchain through forging blocks, and in the case of Compendia, there are 47 validators (rather than the 51 in ARK) and each active validator forges one block every 6 seconds. Therefore 47 new blocks are forged every 4.7 minutes (6 * 47 = 282 seconds = 4.7 minutes). In a similar way to proof-of-work networks such as Bitcoin, a block contains transactions and the validator that forges them receives a proportion of the transaction fee (described in the Fee Removal Model further below). Supply Inflation DPoS chains typically have fixed inflation based over several years, this is to help control the coin supply in circulation. Inflation comes from Delegate/Validators forging new blocks as described above. The effect of validators forging new blocks increases the supply by either ß3.9 per block (if ranked 6th to 47th), or ß4.84 per block (if ranked 1st to 5th). The Compendia blockchain produces around ß1,753,200 - Per month Block rewards are controlled through an annual milestone which is fixed in the current networks config. This can only be updated if the 47 validators reach consensus and accept the potential change. The milestones for BIND are as follows: Rewards (Top 5) Deflationary Effects In general DPoS blockchains allow voters to vote, allocating their wallet weight to a specific delegate/validator and receiving rewards commensurate to weight. This helps control inflation as the coins are out of supply when being used to vote, but the coins are not locked for a fixed time, a voter can move some or all funds at any time. What differentiates Compendia? The key difference is that staked coins are locked for a fixed period, either 3, 6, or 12 months (as described above). The coins are effectively locked out of supply, by incentivising voters to lock their coins for the maximum period of 12 months. This helps offset the increase in supply through forging rewards. At the time of writing, ß11,816,021 is currently locked into staking, given the current BIND supply (i.e nOS to BIND) ß112,894,676, around 10% of all BIND in circulation is locked out of supply for the staking periods highlighted earlier. With the current staked coins, it would take just over 6 months for inflation to offset the monthly forging reward increase. Fee removal model. Compendia also offer another deflationary measure through a sophisticated fee removal model. TheFee Collection and Removal Modelworks as follows: - 100% of collected fees up to the amount equal to the block reward in a block are permanently removed from circulation. - 50% of any remaining collected fees are also removed from circulation. - The other 50% is awarded to the forging validator. This fee system helps with combating possible shifts in Vote Power going from voters towards validators during times of increased transaction activity on the network. Summary The Compendia Team has a clear understanding of the tokenomics of a blockchain, lessons have been learned from earlier DPoS implementations and new strategies have been deployed to ensure a fairer, more balanced approach to DPoS tokenomics. If you have enjoyed reading this blog please consider voting for validators BFX & Cryptomanic. Thank you the year 2020 in Bitcoin Cash so far: a detailed history the year 2020 in Bitcoin Cash so far: a detailed history What follows at the bottom is a four page long chronological overview of what happened in BCH in 2020 so far. To make it more digestable and fun to read I start with my narrating of the story. My attempt was to remain as objective as possible and "let the facts speak for themselve" with everything sourced. I also link to manyread.casharticles, the decision of which are the important ones to include is certainly not easy, I count on the rest of the community if I overlooked anything important. summary & my narrating of the story: The year started out relatively calm, with cashfusion in "the news" and an older ongoing controversy between Amaury and Roger Ver being worked out. Starting Jan 22nd all debate broke loose with the announcement of “Infrastructure Funding Plan for Bitcoin Cash” by Jiang Zhuoer of BTC.TOP. To illustrate this point 2 days later coinspice ran the title " Roger Ver Praises Vigorous Debate, [...]" and 6 days, less than a week, later Chris Pacia made a read.cash post titled "The 253rd "Thoughts on developer funding" Article" which might have been only a slight exaggeration or he might have been counting. Part of the reason of the tsunami was the lack of worked out details. By the time of Pacia's post a lot had changed: Both BU, Bitcoin Verde and a group of miners had made announcements not to go along with "the plan". On feb 1st, the second version of the IFP was announced by Jiang Zhuoer in a post “BCH miner donation plan update”. Two weeks later on Feb 15th, the third iteration was announced by Bitcoin ABC which was to be activated by hashrate voting and on the same day Flipstarter was introduced, a sign of the search for alternative solutions. After a few more days and a few more people coming out more against the IFP (including Jonald Fyookball, Mark Lundeberg & Josh Ellithorpe), BCHN was announced on feb 20th with a formal release a week later. Also feb 27th, the DAA was brought back into the conversation by Jonathan Toomim with his " The BCH difficulty adjustment algorithm is broken. Here's how to fix it." video. By early march the IFP was effectively dead with its author Jiang Zhuoer vowing to vote against it. This became clear to everyone when ABC, a day later sudddenly shifted gears towards non-protocol, donation based funding: the IFP was dead. End march ABCs 2020 Business Plan was announced as a way to raise $3.3 million. Mid april to mid may was the high time for voluntary funding with four node implementations and General Protocols, a BCH DeFi Startup successfully raising funds. By May 15th, the 6th HF network upgrade things had pretty much cooled down. The upgraded included nothing controversial and even saw an unexpected doubling in the unconfirmed transaction chain. June 15th a month later things started to heat up again with the BCHN announcement to remove the "poison pill" or "automatic replay protection". 8th Jul Jonathan Toomim posted "BCH protocol upgrade proposal: Use ASERT as the new DAA" which promised the solution to the long dragging DAA problem. Jul 23th however an unexpected twist occurred when Amaury Séchet posted "Announcing the Grasberg DAA" an incompatible, alternative solution. This, again, sparked a ton of debate and discussion. Grasberg lasted just two weeks from Jul 23th to Aug 6th when ABC announced its plans for the november 2020 upgrade but it had successfully united the opposition in the meanwhile. ABCs plan for november included dropping grasberg in favour of aserti3–2d and introducing IFPv4. Now we're here August 8th, the IFP which was declared dead after just over a month (Jan 22-Mar 5) is now back in full force. The rest of the history is still being written but if p2p electronic cash is to succeed in any big regard it's very thinkable that these events will get into history books. Important resources:coinspice IFP timeline&Compiled list of BCH Miner Dev Fund posts, articles, discussions History Jan 13th : “Do CoinJoins Really Require Equal Transaction Amounts for Privacy? Part One: CashFusion” article by BitcoinMagazine [source] Jan 13th : “Clearing the Way for Cooperation” Read.cash article by Amaury Séchet [source] on the controversy with Roger Ver about the amount of donations over the years Jan 22nd : “Infrastructure Funding Plan for Bitcoin Cash” IFPv1 announced by Jiang Zhuoer of BTC.TOP [source] IFPv1: 12.5% of BCH coinbase rewards which will last for 6 months through a Hong Kong-based corporation & to be activated on May 15th Jan 22nd : ”Bitcoin Cash Developers React to Infrastructure Fund Announcement: Cautiously Optimistic” coinspice article including Amaury Séchet, Antony Zegers, Jonald Fyookball & Josh Ellithorpe [source] Jan 23rd : Jiang Zhuoer reddit AMA [source] [coinspice article] Jan 23rd : Vitalik weighs in with his take on twitter [source] Jan 23rd :” On the infrastructure funding plan for Bitcoin Cash” article by Amaury Séchet [source] [coinspice article] in which he proposed to place control of the IFP key in his hands together with Jonald Fyookball and Antony Zegers. . A group of 7 to 12 miners, developers, and businessmen in total would get an advisory function. Jan 24th : “Bitcoin.com's Clarifications on the Miner Development Fund“ which emphasizes, among other things, the temporary and reversible nature of the proposal [source] [coinspice article] Jan 24th : “Little Known (But Important!) Facts About the Mining Plan” Read.cash article by Jonald Fyookball in which he defended the IFP and stressed its necessity and temporary nature. Jan 25th : massive amounts of public debate as documented by coinspice [coinspice article] with Justin Bons, Tobias Ruck and Antony Zegers explaining their take on it. Jan 26th : public debate continues: “Assessment and proposal re: the Bitcoin Cash infrastructure funding situation” Read.cash article by imaginary_username [source] which was noteworthy in part because the post earned over Earns $1,000+ in BCH [coinspice article] and “The Best Of Intentions: The Dev Tax Is Intended to Benefit Investors But Will Corrupt Us Instead” by Peter Rizun [source] Jan 27th : “We are a group of miners opposing the BTC.TOP proposal, here's why” article on Read.cash [source] [reddit announcement] Jan 27th : Bitcoin Unlimited's BUIP 143: Refuse the Coinbase Tax [source][reddit announcement] Jan 28th : “Bitcoin Verde's Response to the Miner Sponsored Development Fund” read.cash article by Josh Green in which he explains “Bitcoin Verde will not be implementing any node validation that enforces new coinbase rules.” [source] Jan 28th : “Update on Developer Funding” read.cash article from Bitcoin.com [source] in which they state “As it stands now, Bitcoin.com will not go through with supporting any plan unless there is more agreement in the ecosystem such that the risk of a chain split is negligible.” And that “any funding proposal must be temporary and reversible.” This announcement from bitcoin.com and their mining pool lead the anonymous opposition miners to stand down. [source] Jan 28th : The 253rd "Thoughts on developer funding" Article – by Chris Pacia, to tackle the “serious misconceptions in the community about how software development works”. He ends on a note of support for the IFP because of lack of realistic alternatives. [source] Feb 1st: “BCH miner donation plan update” IFPv2 announced by Jiang Zhuoer of BTC.TOP [source] Which changes the donation mechanism so miners directly send part of their coinbase to the projects they wants to donate to. It would be activated with hashrate voting over a 3-month period with a 2/3 in favour requirement. The proposal also introduces a pilot period and a no donation option, Jiang Zhuoer also says he regards 12.% as too much. Feb 7th: Group of BCH miners led by AsicSeer voice scepticism about the IFP during a reddit AMA [source] Feb 15th: “On the Miner Infrastructure Funding Plan” article by Bitcoin ABC [source] In which they announce they will implement IFPv3 in their upcoming 0.21.0 release. This version has amount reduced to 5% of block reward and will go in effect with BIP 9 hashratevoting and a whitelist with different projects. Feb 15th : “Introducing Flipstarter” [source] Feb 16th :” Bitcoin.com’s stance on the recent block reward diversion proposals” video by Roger Ver on the Bitcoin.com Official Channel. [source] > Ver called Zhuoer’s IFP “clever” but ultimately “problematic.” [coinspice article] Feb 16th :” BCH miner donation plan update again” read.cash article by Jiang Zhuoer of BTC.TOP [source] In which he briefly outlines the details of IFPv3 Feb 17th : “Latest Thoughts On Infrastructure Mining Plan” post by Jonald Fyookball [source] Feb 17th : “Regarding the Bitcoin Cash Infrastructure Funding Plan, I am certain now that it should be scrapped immediately.” tweet by Mark Lundeberg [source] Feb 19th : “Thoughts on the IFP - A Dev Perspective“ read.cash article by Josh Ellithorpe [source] Feb 20th : “Bitcoin Cash Node” post announcing the new node implementation [source] Feb 20th : First “Bitcoin Cash Developer Meeting” After IFP Proposal [source] Feb 24th : “Flipstarter 500k, 6 independent campaigns” post announcing the goal to “fund the BCH ecosystem with 6 independent campaigns and an overall 500,000 USD target” [source] Feb 27th : BCHN Formally Released [source] Feb 27th : “The BCH difficulty adjustment algorithm is broken. Here's how to fix it.” Video by Jonathan Toomim [source] Mar 3th :” Bitcoin Cash Node 2020: plans for May upgrade and beyond” post by BCHN [source] Mar 4th :”Author of the Bitcoin Cash IFP [Jiang Zhuoer] Vows to Vote Against It, Using Personal Hash in Opposition” [source] Mar 5th :Bitcoin ABC announces their 2020 Business Plan Fundraising for later in march [source] Mar 15th : “EatBCH campaign funded! Next: node campaigns.” campaign funded after 11 hours [source] Mar 30th : Bitcoin ABC 2020 Business Plan [source] $3.3 Million Fundraiser [source] Apr 17th : Five flipstarter node campaign launched. [source] Apr 26th : BCHN flipstarter campaign successfully funded. [source] Apr 27th : VERDE flipstarter campaign successfully funded. [source] May 4th : KNUTH flipstarter campaign successfully funded. [source] May 7th : “BCH DeFi Startup General Protocols Raises Over $1 mil“ [source] May 8th : BCHD flipstarter campaign successfully funded. [source] May 9th : Deadline for node campaigns, ABC flipstarter campaign not funded. [source] May 14th : “With IFP Defeated, Bitcoin ABC, ViaBTC & CoinEX CEO Publicly Consider a Bitcoin Cash Foundation” [source] May 15th : deadline for ABC fundraiser campaign, ends at 55% completed. [source] May 15th : 6th HF network upgrade -> new opcode op_Reversebytes, increased of the chained transaction limit from 25 to 50, and the improved counting of signature operations using the new “Sigchecks” implementation [source] with the “Controversial Funding Plan Rejected by Miners” [source] May 25th : “Announcing the SLP Foundation” [source] Jun 15st : “BCHN lead maintainer report 2020-06-15” announcement to remove the Automatic Replay Protection (a.k.a. the Poison Pill) from BCHN in november [source] Jun 16st : “So [BCHN] is going to fork off from BCH at the next upgrade. Same old story. […]” tweeted Vin Armani [source] Jun 21st : “Why Automatic Replay Protection Exists” post by Shammah Chancellor [source] Jul 7th : “The Popular Stablecoin Tether Is Now Circulating on the Bitcoin Cash Network” [source] Jul 8th : “BCH protocol upgrade proposal: Use ASERT as the new DAA” post by Jonathan Toomim [source] Jul 18th : “$6M Worth of Tether on the Bitcoin Cash Chain Highlights the Benefits of SLP Tokens” [source] Jul 23th : “Announcing the Grasberg DAA” post by Amaury Séchet[source] Jul 24th : “Thoughts on Grasberg DAA” post by Mark Lundeberg [source] Jul 29th : CashFusion security audit has been completed [source] Jul 31st : Electron Cash 4.1.0 release with CashFusion support [source] 4th year, august 2020 – 2021 Aug 1st : “Bitcoin Cash: Scaling the Globe“ Online conference for ForkDay Celebration [source] Aug 2nd : >“Is there going to be a fork between ABC and BCHN?” > “IMO it is very likely. If not in November, then next May.” – Amaury Séchet Aug 3rd : “Dark secrets of the Grasberg DAA” post by Jonathan Toomim [source] Aug 3rd : “Joint Statement On aserti3-2d Algorithm“ post by General Protocols, including Cryptophyl, Read.cash, Software Verde & SpinBCH [source] Aug 3rd : Knuth announces they will be implementing aserti3-2d as DAA for november. [source] Aug 3rd : Amaury rage quit from the developer call [source] Aug 4th : “But why do people care about compensating for historical drift? Seems like a tiny problem and if it's causing this much social discord it seems not even worth bothering to try to fix.” Tweet by Vitalik [source] Aug 5th : “Bitcoin Cash (BCH) November 2020 Upgrade statement” signed by BCHD, electron cash, VERDE, BU members, BCHN developers, Jonathan Toomim, Mark B. Lundeberg and many others [source] Aug 5th : “BCHN FAQ on November 2020 Bitcoin Cash network upgrade” [source] Aug 6th : “Bitcoin ABC’s plan for the November 2020 upgrade” [source] the announcement that they will drop Grasberg in favour of aserti3–2d (ASERT) and will also include FPv4 in which 8% of the blockreward goes to ABC as development funding. Aug 7th : “Joint Statement from BCH Miners regarding Bitcoin ABC and the November 2020 BCH Upgrade.” Read.cash article by asicseer [source] stating “Over recent months, most miners and pools have switched to BCHN, and presently operate a majority of BCH hashrate.” Aug 7th : “Simple Ledger Protocol's Joint Statement Regarding Bitcoin ABC on BCH's November 2020 Upgrade” read.cash post by the SLP-Foundation [source] INTRODUCING XERXES FINANCE – THE NEW REVOLUTION OF CRYPTO Xerxes Finance is the next generation of deflationary index fund, but kinda’ a little bit different. It is inspired from the project XMM- Momentum (XMM) and the first Bitcoin of DeFi; Statera (STA). Xerxes Finance is an investment program and consists of two deflationary assets named: Xerxes (XXS) and Spartans (SPR). Our big focus is the development of a strong and large community, we see the value of the currency in its community, and will ensure the long term durability of development, innovation and use of these two tokens. INTRODUCING XERXES Xerxes (XXS) is a deflationary asset and will be the main token of the project. The supply is low, about 10,000 and it has a burning rate of 1% of every transaction and will be stopped when 1,000 XXS left, it can be monitored on etherscan. XXS as an index fund is good in Xerxes Finance ecosystem. It will be considered as an ETF (Exchange- Traded-Fund) and will be paired on Ethereum. It will openly access for people to earn passively through staking, rewards and liquidity mining. Since its deflationary, people who contributes to token lock, and providing liquidity to such pool can help promote its scarcity, the more they hold, the more they earn. If the demand is high, then the price may eventually go up. One of the utilities of this token is staking token. Users simple need to buy and hold the tokens to take part. We intend to make that base utility work first before adding in more, but there is a lot we can do including adding in governance rights and opening up more ways for users to interact in Xerxes Finances ecosystem. The pool will level up through the staking tiers. So, when more users join, everyone levels up together. You can then hold more tokens to get a greater share of the pool. Hodlers are incentivized to keep hodling, to earn from staking and liquidity mining. Liquidity mining, is a way to generate rewards with cryptocurrency holdings. In simple terms, it means locking up cryptocurrencies and getting rewards. In many cases, it works with users called liquidity providers (LP) that add funds to liquidity pools. What is liquidity pool? Its basically a smart contract that contains funds. In return for providing to the pool, LPs get a reward. That reward may come from fees generated by the underlying DeFi platform, or some other source. Some liquidity pools pay their rewards in multiple tokens. Those reward tokens then may be deposited to other liquidity pools to earn rewards there, and so on. You can already see how incredibly complex strategies can emerge quite quickly. But the basic idea is that a liquidity provider deposits funds into a liquidity pool and earn rewards in return. Its more than a meme coin, its Defi. INTRODUCING SPARTANS (SPR) One of the deflationary assets in Xerxes Finance ecosystem is Spartans (SPR), it has a supply of 300, no presale. Its also deflationary with a rate of 1% burn on every transactions. It can be obtained from staking XXS and rewards for being a liquidity provider. Will be live on uniswap shortly, and will be added multiple pairs. TwitterWebsiteTelegramRedditMedium All you need to know about Yield Farming - The rocket fuel for Defi Source It’s effectively July 2017 in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi), and as in the heady days of the initial coin offering (ICO) boom, the numbers are only trending up. According to DeFi Pulse, there is $1.9 billion in crypto assets locked in DeFi right now. According to the CoinDesk ICO Tracker, the ICO market started chugging past $1 billion in July 2017, just a few months before token sales started getting talked about on TV. Debate juxtaposing these numbers if you like, but what no one can question is this: Crypto users are putting more and more value to work in DeFi applications, driven largely by the introduction of a whole new yield-generating pasture, Compound’s COMP governance token. Governance tokens enable users to vote on the future of decentralized protocols, sure, but they also present fresh ways for DeFi founders to entice assets onto their platforms. That said, it’s the crypto liquidity providers who are the stars of the present moment. They even have a meme-worthy name: yield farmers. https://preview.redd.it/lxsvazp1g9l51.png?width=775&format=png&auto=webp&s=a36173ab679c701a5d5e0aac806c00fcc84d78c1 Where it started Ethereum-based credit market Compound started distributing its governance token, COMP, to the protocol’s users this past June 15. Demand for the token (heightened by the way its automatic distribution was structured) kicked off the present craze and moved Compound into the leading position in DeFi. The hot new term in crypto is “yield farming,” a shorthand for clever strategies where putting crypto temporarily at the disposal of some startup’s application earns its owner more cryptocurrency. Another term floating about is “liquidity mining.” The buzz around these concepts has evolved into a low rumble as more and more people get interested. The casual crypto observer who only pops into the market when activity heats up might be starting to get faint vibes that something is happening right now. Take our word for it: Yield farming is the source of those vibes. But if all these terms (“DeFi,” “liquidity mining,” “yield farming”) are so much Greek to you, fear not. We’re here to catch you up. We’ll get into all of them. We’re going to go from very basic to more advanced, so feel free to skip ahead. What are tokens? Most CoinDesk readers probably know this, but just in case: Tokens are like the money video-game players earn while fighting monsters, money they can use to buy gear or weapons in the universe of their favorite game. But with blockchains, tokens aren’t limited to only one massively multiplayer online money game. They can be earned in one and used in lots of others. They usually represent either ownership in something (like a piece of a Uniswap liquidity pool, which we will get into later) or access to some service. For example, in the Brave browser, ads can only be bought using basic attention token (BAT). If tokens are worth money, then you can bank with them or at least do things that look very much like banking. Thus: decentralized finance. Tokens proved to be the big use case for Ethereum, the second-biggest blockchain in the world. The term of art here is “ERC-20 tokens,” which refers to a software standard that allows token creators to write rules for them. Tokens can be used a few ways. Often, they are used as a form of money within a set of applications. So the idea for Kin was to create a token that web users could spend with each other at such tiny amounts that it would almost feel like they weren’t spending anything; that is, money for the internet. Governance tokens are different. They are not like a token at a video-game arcade, as so many tokens were described in the past. They work more like certificates to serve in an ever-changing legislature in that they give holders the right to vote on changes to a protocol. So on the platform that proved DeFi could fly, MakerDAO, holders of its governance token, MKR, vote almost every week on small changes to parameters that govern how much it costs to borrow and how much savers earn, and so on. Read more:Why DeFi’s Billion-Dollar Milestone Matters One thing all crypto tokens have in common, though, is they are tradable and they have a price. So, if tokens are worth money, then you can bank with them or at least do things that look very much like banking. Thus: decentralized finance. What is DeFi? Fair question. For folks who tuned out for a bit in 2018, we used to call this “open finance.” That construction seems to have faded, though, and “DeFi” is the new lingo. In case that doesn’t jog your memory, DeFi is all the things that let you play with money, and the only identification you need is a crypto wallet. On the normal web, you can’t buy a blender without giving the site owner enough data to learn your whole life history. In DeFi, you can borrow money without anyone even asking for your name. I can explain this but nothing really brings it home like trying one of these applications. If you have an Ethereum wallet that has even $20 worth of crypto in it, go do something on one of these products. Pop over to Uniswap and buy yourself some FUN (a token for gambling apps) or WBTC (wrapped bitcoin). Go to MakerDAO and create $5 worth of DAI (a stablecoin that tends to be worth $1) out of the digital ether. Go to Compound and borrow $10 in USDC. (Notice the very small amounts I’m suggesting. The old crypto saying “don’t put in more than you can afford to lose” goes double for DeFi. This stuff is uber-complex and a lot can go wrong. These may be “savings” products but they’re not for your retirement savings.) Immature and experimental though it may be, the technology’s implications are staggering. On the normal web, you can’t buy a blender without giving the site owner enough data to learn your whole life history. In DeFi, you can borrow money without anyone even asking for your name. DeFi applications don’t worry about trusting you because they have the collateral you put up to back your debt (on Compound, for instance, a $10 debt will require around $20 in collateral). Read more:There Are More DAI on Compound Now Than There Are DAI in the World If you do take this advice and try something, note that you can swap all these things back as soon as you’ve taken them out. Open the loan and close it 10 minutes later. It’s fine. Fair warning: It might cost you a tiny bit in fees, and the cost of using Ethereum itself right now is much higher than usual, in part due to this fresh new activity. But it’s nothing that should ruin a crypto user. So what’s the point of borrowing for people who already have the money? Most people do it for some kind of trade. The most obvious example, to short a token (the act of profiting if its price falls). It’s also good for someone who wants to hold onto a token but still play the market. Doesn’t running a bank take a lot of money up front? It does, and in DeFi that money is largely provided by strangers on the internet. That’s why the startups behind these decentralized banking applications come up with clever ways to attract HODLers with idle assets. Liquidity is the chief concern of all these different products. That is: How much money do they have locked in their smart contracts? “In some types of products, the product experience gets much better if you have liquidity. Instead of borrowing from VCs or debt investors, you borrow from your users,” said Electric Capital managing partner Avichal Garg. Let’s take Uniswap as an example. Uniswap is an “automated market maker,” or AMM (another DeFi term of art). This means Uniswap is a robot on the internet that is always willing to buy and it’s also always willing to sell any cryptocurrency for which it has a market. On Uniswap, there is at least one market pair for almost any token on Ethereum. Behind the scenes, this means Uniswap can make it look like it is making a direct trade for any two tokens, which makes it easy for users, but it’s all built around pools of two tokens. And all these market pairs work better with bigger pools. Why do I keep hearing about ‘pools’? To illustrate why more money helps, let’s break down how Uniswap works. Let’s say there was a market for USDC and DAI. These are two tokens (both stablecoins but with different mechanisms for retaining their value) that are meant to be worth $1 each all the time, and that generally tends to be true for both. The price Uniswap shows for each token in any pooled market pair is based on the balance of each in the pool. So, simplifying this a lot for illustration’s sake, if someone were to set up a USDC/DAI pool, they should deposit equal amounts of both. In a pool with only 2 USDC and 2 DAI it would offer a price of 1 USDC for 1 DAI. But then imagine that someone put in 1 DAI and took out 1 USDC. Then the pool would have 1 USDC and 3 DAI. The pool would be very out of whack. A savvy investor could make an easy $0.50 profit by putting in 1 USDC and receiving 1.5 DAI. That’s a 50% arbitrage profit, and that’s the problem with limited liquidity. (Incidentally, this is why Uniswap’s prices tend to be accurate, because traders watch it for small discrepancies from the wider market and trade them away for arbitrage profits very quickly.) Read more:Uniswap V2 Launches With More Token-Swap Pairs, Oracle Service, Flash Loans However, if there were 500,000 USDC and 500,000 DAI in the pool, a trade of 1 DAI for 1 USDC would have a negligible impact on the relative price. That’s why liquidity is helpful. You can stick your assets on Compound and earn a little yield. But that’s not very creative. Users who look for angles to maximize that yield: those are the yield farmers. Similar effects hold across DeFi, so markets want more liquidity. Uniswap solves this by charging a tiny fee on every trade. It does this by shaving off a little bit from each trade and leaving that in the pool (so one DAI would actually trade for 0.997 USDC, after the fee, growing the overall pool by 0.003 USDC). This benefits liquidity providers because when someone puts liquidity in the pool they own a share of the pool. If there has been lots of trading in that pool, it has earned a lot of fees, and the value of each share will grow. And this brings us back to tokens. Liquidity added to Uniswap is represented by a token, not an account. So there’s no ledger saying, “Bob owns 0.000000678% of the DAI/USDC pool.” Bob just has a token in his wallet. And Bob doesn’t have to keep that token. He could sell it. Or use it in another product. We’ll circle back to this, but it helps to explain why people like to talk about DeFi products as “money Legos.” So how much money do people make by putting money into these products? It can be a lot more lucrative than putting money in a traditional bank, and that’s before startups started handing out governance tokens. Compound is the current darling of this space, so let’s use it as an illustration. As of this writing, a person can put USDC into Compound and earn 2.72% on it. They can put tether (USDT) into it and earn 2.11%. Most U.S. bank accounts earn less than 0.1% these days, which is close enough to nothing. However, there are some caveats. First, there’s a reason the interest rates are so much juicier: DeFi is a far riskier place to park your money. There’s no Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protecting these funds. If there were a run on Compound, users could find themselves unable to withdraw their funds when they wanted. Plus, the interest is quite variable. You don’t know what you’ll earn over the course of a year. USDC’s rate is high right now. It was low last week. Usually, it hovers somewhere in the 1% range. Similarly, a user might get tempted by assets with more lucrative yields like USDT, which typically has a much higher interest rate than USDC. (Monday morning, the reverse was true, for unclear reasons; this is crypto, remember.) The trade-off here is USDT’s transparency about the real-world dollars it’s supposed to hold in a real-world bank is not nearly up to par with USDC’s. A difference in interest rates is often the market’s way of telling you the one instrument is viewed as dicier than another. Users making big bets on these products turn to companies Opyn and Nexus Mutual to insure their positions because there’s no government protections in this nascent space – more on the ample risks later on. So users can stick their assets in Compound or Uniswap and earn a little yield. But that’s not very creative. Users who look for angles to maximize that yield: those are the yield farmers. OK, I already knew all of that. What is yield farming? Broadly, yield farming is any effort to put crypto assets to work and generate the most returns possible on those assets. At the simplest level, a yield farmer might move assets around within Compound, constantly chasing whichever pool is offering the best APY from week to week. This might mean moving into riskier pools from time to time, but a yield farmer can handle risk. “Farming opens up new price arbs [arbitrage] that can spill over to other protocols whose tokens are in the pool,” said Maya Zehavi, a blockchain consultant. Because these positions are tokenized, though, they can go further. This was a brand-new kind of yield on a deposit. In fact, it was a way to earn a yield on a loan. Who has ever heard of a borrower earning a return on a debt from their lender? In a simple example, a yield farmer might put 100,000 USDT into Compound. They will get a token back for that stake, called cUSDT. Let’s say they get 100,000 cUSDT back (the formula on Compound is crazy so it’s not 1:1 like that but it doesn’t matter for our purposes here). They can then take that cUSDT and put it into a liquidity pool that takes cUSDT on Balancer, an AMM that allows users to set up self-rebalancing crypto index funds. In normal times, this could earn a small amount more in transaction fees. This is the basic idea of yield farming. The user looks for edge cases in the system to eke out as much yield as they can across as many products as it will work on. Right now, however, things are not normal, and they probably won’t be for a while. Why is yield farming so hot right now? Because of liquidity mining. Liquidity mining supercharges yield farming. Liquidity mining is when a yield farmer gets a new token as well as the usual return (that’s the “mining” part) in exchange for the farmer’s liquidity. “The idea is that stimulating usage of the platform increases the value of the token, thereby creating a positive usage loop to attract users,” said Richard Ma of smart-contract auditor Quantstamp. The yield farming examples above are only farming yield off the normal operations of different platforms. Supply liquidity to Compound or Uniswap and get a little cut of the business that runs over the protocols – very vanilla. But Compound announced earlier this year it wanted to truly decentralize the product and it wanted to give a good amount of ownership to the people who made it popular by using it. That ownership would take the form of the COMP token. Lest this sound too altruistic, keep in mind that the people who created it (the team and the investors) owned more than half of the equity. By giving away a healthy proportion to users, that was very likely to make it a much more popular place for lending. In turn, that would make everyone’s stake worth much more. So, Compound announced this four-year period where the protocol would give out COMP tokens to users, a fixed amount every day until it was gone. These COMP tokens control the protocol, just as shareholders ultimately control publicly traded companies. Every day, the Compound protocol looks at everyone who had lent money to the application and who had borrowed from it and gives them COMP proportional to their share of the day’s total business. The results were very surprising, even to Compound’s biggest promoters. COMP’s value will likely go down, and that’s why some investors are rushing to earn as much of it as they can right now. This was a brand-new kind of yield on a deposit into Compound. In fact, it was a way to earn a yield on a loan, as well, which is very weird: Who has ever heard of a borrower earning a return on a debt from their lender? COMP’s value has consistently been well over $200 since it started distributing on June 15. We did the math elsewhere but long story short: investors with fairly deep pockets can make a strong gain maximizing their daily returns in COMP. It is, in a way, free money. It’s possible to lend to Compound, borrow from it, deposit what you borrowed and so on. This can be done multiple times and DeFi startup Instadapp even built a tool to make it as capital-efficient as possible. “Yield farmers are extremely creative. They find ways to ‘stack’ yields and even earn multiple governance tokens at once,” said Spencer Noon of DTC Capital. COMP’s value spike is a temporary situation. The COMP distribution will only last four years and then there won’t be any more. Further, most people agree that the high price now is driven by the low float (that is, how much COMP is actually free to trade on the market – it will never be this low again). So the value will probably gradually go down, and that’s why savvy investors are trying to earn as much as they can now. Appealing to the speculative instincts of diehard crypto traders has proven to be a great way to increase liquidity on Compound. This fattens some pockets but also improves the user experience for all kinds of Compound users, including those who would use it whether they were going to earn COMP or not. As usual in crypto, when entrepreneurs see something successful, they imitate it. Balancer was the next protocol to start distributing a governance token, BAL, to liquidity providers. Flash loan provider bZx has announced a plan. Ren, Curve and Synthetixalso teamed up to promote a liquidity pool on Curve. It is a fair bet many of the more well-known DeFi projects will announce some kind of coin that can be mined by providing liquidity. The case to watch here is Uniswap versus Balancer. Balancer can do the same thing Uniswap does, but most users who want to do a quick token trade through their wallet use Uniswap. It will be interesting to see if Balancer’s BAL token convinces Uniswap’s liquidity providers to defect. So far, though, more liquidity has gone into Uniswap since the BAL announcement, according to its data site. That said, even more has gone into Balancer. Did liquidity mining start with COMP? No, but it was the most-used protocol with the most carefully designed liquidity mining scheme. This point is debated but the origins of liquidity mining probably date back to Fcoin, a Chinese exchange that created a token in 2018 that rewarded people for making trades. You won’t believe what happened next! Just kidding, you will: People just started running bots to do pointless trades with themselves to earn the token. Similarly, EOS is a blockchain where transactions are basically free, but since nothing is really free the absence of friction was an invitation for spam. Some malicious hacker who didn’t like EOS created a token called EIDOS on the network in late 2019. It rewarded people for tons of pointless transactions and somehow got an exchange listing. These initiatives illustrated how quickly crypto users respond to incentives. Read more:Compound Changes COMP Distribution Rules Following ‘Yield Farming’ Frenzy Fcoin aside, liquidity mining as we now know it first showed up on Ethereum when the marketplace for synthetic tokens, Synthetix, announced in July 2019 an award in its SNX token for users who helped add liquidity to the sETH/ETH pool on Uniswap. By October, that was one of Uniswap’s biggest pools. When Compound Labs, the company that launched the Compound protocol, decided to create COMP, the governance token, the firm took months designing just what kind of behavior it wanted and how to incentivize it. Even still, Compound Labs was surprised by the response. It led to unintended consequences such as crowding into a previously unpopular market (lending and borrowing BAT) in order to mine as much COMP as possible. Just last week, 115 different COMP wallet addresses – senators in Compound’s ever-changing legislature – voted to change the distribution mechanism in hopes of spreading liquidity out across the markets again. Is there DeFi for bitcoin? Yes, on Ethereum. Nothing has beaten bitcoin over time for returns, but there’s one thing bitcoin can’t do on its own: create more bitcoin. A smart trader can get in and out of bitcoin and dollars in a way that will earn them more bitcoin, but this is tedious and risky. It takes a certain kind of person. DeFi, however, offers ways to grow one’s bitcoin holdings – though somewhat indirectly. A long HODLer is happy to gain fresh BTC off their counterparty’s short-term win. That’s the game. For example, a user can create a simulated bitcoin on Ethereum using BitGo’s WBTC system. They put BTC in and get the same amount back out in freshly minted WBTC. WBTC can be traded back for BTC at any time, so it tends to be worth the same as BTC. Then the user can take that WBTC, stake it on Compound and earn a few percent each year in yield on their BTC. Odds are, the people who borrow that WBTC are probably doing it to short BTC (that is, they will sell it immediately, buy it back when the price goes down, close the loan and keep the difference). A long HODLer is happy to gain fresh BTC off their counterparty’s short-term win. That’s the game. How risky is it? Enough. “DeFi, with the combination of an assortment of digital funds, automation of key processes, and more complex incentive structures that work across protocols – each with their own rapidly changing tech and governance practices – make for new types of security risks,” said Liz Steininger of Least Authority, a crypto security auditor. “Yet, despite these risks, the high yields are undeniably attractive to draw more users.” We’ve seen big failures in DeFi products. MakerDAO had one so bad this year it’s called “Black Thursday.” There was also the exploit against flash loan provider bZx. These things do break and when they do money gets taken. As this sector gets more robust, we could see token holders greenlighting more ways for investors to profit from DeFi niches. Right now, the deal is too good for certain funds to resist, so they are moving a lot of money into these protocols to liquidity mine all the new governance tokens they can. But the funds – entities that pool the resources of typically well-to-do crypto investors – are also hedging. Nexus Mutual, a DeFi insurance provider of sorts, told CoinDesk it has maxed out its available coverage on these liquidity applications. Opyn, the trustless derivatives maker, created a way to short COMP, just in case this game comes to naught. And weird things have arisen. For example, there’s currently more DAI on Compound than have been minted in the world. This makes sense once unpacked but it still feels dicey to everyone. That said, distributing governance tokens might make things a lot less risky for startups, at least with regard to the money cops. “Protocols distributing their tokens to the public, meaning that there’s a new secondary listing for SAFT tokens, [gives] plausible deniability from any security accusation,” Zehavi wrote. (The Simple Agreement for Future Tokens was a legal structure favored by many token issuers during the ICO craze.) Whether a cryptocurrency is adequately decentralized has been a key feature of ICO settlements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). What’s next for yield farming? (A prediction) COMP turned out to be a bit of a surprise to the DeFi world, in technical ways and others. It has inspired a wave of new thinking. “Other projects are working on similar things,” said Nexus Mutual founder Hugh Karp. In fact, informed sources tell CoinDesk brand-new projects will launch with these models. We might soon see more prosaic yield farming applications. For example, forms of profit-sharing that reward certain kinds of behavior. Imagine if COMP holders decided, for example, that the protocol needed more people to put money in and leave it there longer. The community could create a proposal that shaved off a little of each token’s yield and paid that portion out only to the tokens that were older than six months. It probably wouldn’t be much, but an investor with the right time horizon and risk profile might take it into consideration before making a withdrawal. (There are precedents for this in traditional finance: A 10-year Treasury bond normally yields more than a one-month T-bill even though they’re both backed by the full faith and credit of Uncle Sam, a 12-month certificate of deposit pays higher interest than a checking account at the same bank, and so on.) As this sector gets more robust, its architects will come up with ever more robust ways to optimize liquidity incentives in increasingly refined ways. We could see token holders greenlighting more ways for investors to profit from DeFi niches. Questions abound for this nascent industry: What will MakerDAO do to restore its spot as the king of DeFi? Will Uniswap join the liquidity mining trend? Will anyone stick all these governance tokens into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)? Or would that be a yield farmers co-op? Whatever happens, crypto’s yield farmers will keep moving fast. Some fresh fields may open and some may soon bear much less luscious fruit. But that’s the nice thing about farming in DeFi: It is very easy to switch fields. It is a good time to reflect on the departure direction of DeFi https://preview.redd.it/7qgmezggsnj51.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=af548c50ffe0568e2c49c6de1f14e298ae8a4ee3 In which direction should DeFi develop in the next step? The market is changing dramatically. The past few days have been like riding a roller coaster. But after several rounds of fluctuations, the DeFi segment in the stock market is still unabated. However, the hidden worries lurking under the surface are always existing. Almost all resources in the DeFi ecology are on Ethereum. However, there are problems with the DeFi network built by Ethereum, such as the single system performance brought by the foreseeable homogeneous sharding in the future, high gas fee, low security, and low scalability, etc. These vulnerabilities make the many applications hard to use on the DeFi network, including high-frequency trading and the transaction matching modes (We use the Uniswap asset pool model today.) The problem with ETH1.0 is that the performance is limited, and all the transactions are mixed without any organization. Although there is composability for the DeFi applications, the network needs to operate both DeFi applications and other transactions or DApps. Network congestion and skyrocketing gas fees As we all know, Ethereum relies on the consumption of GAS to run its economic operation. Every step of the chain requires the consumption of GAS. Bitcoin plummeted by almost 50% to $3,800, and ETH fell as much as 65.2% just on March 12 and 13, 2020. The plummet caused a run, the Ethereum miner fees that carried a large number of DeFi and DApps skyrocketed, and the network was also congested. The Ethereum GAS fee increased to 10 times of the usual, and the GAS fee was once as high as 1 ETH to successfully package transactions. After that, because the lending operations of DeFi applications require frequent interaction with contracts, the gas fees on Ethereum have also remained high. Problems inherited from ERC20 tokens are affecting the DeFi products on Ethereum. If you use Ethereum’s native token ETH, the operation is simple. As long as the ETH is transferred to the contract of the target DeFi application, the contract operation will be the same as when we use cash to invest in stocks or wealth management products. No other operations are required. However, the operation of tokens minted using ERC20 contracts is very different from native ETH, regardless of whether the tokens minted by these ERC20 contracts are well-known. Before trading, the ERC20 contract first authorizes the DeFi platform’s contract to transfer a specified number of ERC20 tokens on the account, such as USDT, USDC, or WBTC. After approval, the DeFi contract is called to transfer money. The intuitive understanding is to avoid frequent password input in small transactions, we authorized Paypal to open a password-free payment, so that the payment can be directly deducted during consumption. It sounds convenient, but is it that good? There is a crucial problem here: if the DeFi contract is malicious during the approval process, this DeFi contract has the right to transfer all the ERC20 tokens on our account to any account. It is similar to that we authorize Paypal to perform a password-free operation of the balance, but if a hacker attacked Paypal successfully, this hacker could transfer all our money to his account. Similar things have happened before. There is a famous project called Bancor, which used to rely on the type of authorization contract for ERC20 processing. However, there was a bug in the contract that allowed the contract to transfer the tokens in the user’s wallet to any hacker designated address after the user was authorized, which caused a loss of almost 100,000 US dollars. The loss was not so significant because it occurred in the early stage of DeFi development. If it happens today that the DeFi asset scale on Ethereum already reached hundreds of millions, it would cause severe damage to the entire Ethereum ecosystem and the development of DeFi. Cold shard and hot shard DeFi needs composability, convenience, and a stronger capability of anti-run. If the throughput is insufficient, sharding technology can be introduced, which is what ETH2.0 does. However, due to the combinability of DeFi, these applications tend to aggregate into one shard, which is prone to clustering effects. This will result in different shards gathering different contents. This is called hot shards and cold shards, which are analogous to different types of cities such as metropolises as New York and Tokyo, and other places like Kyoto and Alaska. Some places have become Wall Street, while other places may become scenic or living areas. Because of the aggregation of different functions, different shards will have different features. It is quite unwise to develop algorithms to forcibly redistribute load balancing on shards. This is equivalent to using a simple system to determine the development of a complex system, much like a planned economy. However, we can design different features in advance to make them more capable to display their own features, just as humans transformed and utilized the natural resources based on their understanding of nature, thereby improving efficiency. That means, to set up some shards with different performance and even different consensus algorithms (e.g., the features of PoW and PoS are different). Maybe there will be a major financial shard, like London, or two other special shards with their own features, like New York City and Chicago. Financial shards require high throughput and high cost. These are called hot shards, which carry large-value transactions, otherwise, the gas fee may be too high. Most people will live in the countryside, which means cold shards here. When you need the hot shard features, you don’t need to live in Manhattan, nor do you need to travel to Manhattan occasionally. Most of the time, you will live well on another shard. When one really needs to run on a DeFi shard, it only takes a few minutes of cross-shard transactions. But the problem generated from this is that since each shard has its own features, it may cause the shards to be independent. What we need is that shards can be harmonious but keep their differences, that is, cross-sharding DeFi needs to be achieved. Today’s multi-chain heterogeneous technology can contribute to solving this problem. Only by solving these problems can more DeFi applications be stimulated. In our opinion, a mature DeFi platform must have the following features: Higher Efficiency: Have faster concurrent processing capabilities, i.e., high TPS. Lower Gas Fee: Lower gas fee can stimulate the enthusiasm of DeFi users and even catalyze the development of high-frequency trading. More Secure: There are fewer interactive processes in the contract, at least structurally to avoid the problems ERC20 caused due to the different permissions, which leads to complicated interactions and lengthens the operation chain and increases loopholes. Easier to Use: Various multi-native tokens can be used to pay gas fees during transactions, and thus no need to use designated tokens to pay gas fees. Easier Combination: It can support the combination of a wide range of contracts, including the combination of different consensus in the same chain, ledger structure, and other elements, and even cross chains, making DeFi a real “Lego”. Multi-chain heterogeneous + DeFi, one unhindered currency is helping to reach the perfect Multi-chain heterogeneity has formed “cities” and “villages”, and DeFi has become the financial center among the cities. Since we use cities for comparison, how can we avoid each city’s independent governance and link up the chains of urban interests to form a greater network? The answer is the same as in real life, that is, the so-called currency everywhere. Ethereum also provides currency, but this currency is not only inefficient, but also indirectly causes security risks. If you want long-term development, such a design is unreasonable. In the QuarkChain mainnet, multi-native tokens are our primary function for building the next generation of DeFi. Multi-native tokens have basically the same status as QKC in the QuarkChain system. They can call contracts, perform cross-chain operations, and pay gas fees under certain conditions. Native tokens can achieve all of QKC’s functions, including cross-chain transactions, except participating in QKC governance. Most of the non-native asset inconvenience problems faced by Defi can be solved. In the future contracts, the functions of native tokens will be exactly the same as QKC, with the last barrier to the application of multi-native tokens being removed. This also avoids the problem of reducing the security of the entire DeFi system due to the ERC20 token’s authority issue. Next, we will launch our DEX, and then users will have the true feeling of the unimpeded DeFi platform on QuarkChain. Thus, the last piece of the puzzle of multi-chain heterogeneous + DeFi + multi-native tokens has been fulfilled, which brings cost efficiency, user easiness, and security to a new level. Ethereum’s performance and contract security restrictions have affected development. After our repeated introduction and numerous testing, the multi-native token function is ready to be officially delivered to the community. Soon, community members can mint their own tokens and use them to transfer funds (including cross-sharding), pay gas fees, directly call smart contracts, etc. In conjunction with the DEX that we will launch in the next step, users can actually experience the convenience and innovation brought by multi-native tokens to the blockchain system. To verify the validity of this theory, we recently launched the Game of DeFi Campaign. In the last stage of the campaign, we launched a simple DEX application and a game: QSwap — the multi-native token version of Uniswap, and Element Miner — a fun mining trading game. This is the new value that DEX and game-based mining will be able to bring to DApp and DeFi applications based on the verification of multi-native tokens with the game format. Because the gas fee is low enough, every step of the operation will be on the chain to ensure security. Meantime, instead of ETH’s high gas fee, which made users either high-cost and low-efficiency, or low-cost and low-security, the multi-native token proves the real security and convenience. Our Game of DeFi Campaign has already entered the final stage. There are still millions of QKC reward pools waiting for the users to share. Users can download QPocket wallet to participate in this event. Phase III: King’s Landing — Dex and Liquidity Mining In this phase, all the community members can have the experience to use our two new products: QSwap: Multi-native token version Uniswap Unlike Uniswap, which can only support ERC20 tokens, QSwap supports multi-native tokens. Thus, no extra pre-authorized approval is required in the process, and any multi-native token can be used to pay gas fee ( not only QKC ). Users will get a better experience and maintain more security by avoiding granting unlimited authorization. Moreover, there will be a much lower gas fee due to sharding technology provided by QuarkChain infrastructure. Element Miner: Interesting mining and trading DApp game The player’s goal is to collect 5 elements to join the reward pool. However, since these elements are reinforcing to each other (just like the mining throughputs from different projects are different), using QSwap will be the most efficient approach. One last question: This DeFi campaign uses test tokens. What if the network uses tokens with real value? AMA Recap telos Foundation with Crypto Hunters On August 02, 2020 at 12:00 WIB Indonesia Time / August 01 2020 at 10:00 PM ( PST ) in the Crypto Hunter Telegram Group, AMA TELOS started with Mr.Douglas as guest speaker and Gus Fahlev from Crypto Hunters as moderator. When campaigning, 10 lucky AMA participants when asking questions on Google forms and AMA sessions will get a total TELOS ( TLOS ) prize of $100. The following is a summary of AMA questions and answers announced by the moderator and Segment 1 Question 1: Can you explain us, what is Telos? Answer: Telos is a blockchain platform for smart contracts. It is a low latencya new block every half second, high capacitycurrently in the top 2 blockchains in transactions per day, according to Blocktivity.info, and no transaction fee blockchain. Telos also has many unique features that allow developers to make better, dapps, such as our Telos Decide governance engine. Question 2: what ecosystem is used by telos? Answer: Telos is its own Layer-1 blockchain, not a token on another blockchain. The technology behind Telos is EOSIO, the same technology used by EOS and WAX, for example. Question 3: I see that Telos uses EOSIO platform, what are the very significant advantages that distinguish Telos from other projects? Answer: Telos uses the EOSIO platform but we have built several additional tools. Some of these add more security and resiliency to the blockchain, such as testing block producers and removing non-performant ones, but most are related to development. Telos provides attractive development tools that arent available elsewhere. Telos Decide is a governance platform that lets any group create self-governance tools easily. These run on Telos at very little cost and can provide all kinds of voting, elections, initiative ballots, committee management and funds allocation. Telos also has Telos EVM, an Ethereum virtual machine that can run Ethereum Solidity contracts at hundreds of times the speed of Ethereum and with no costs. Another Telos technology that is deploying soon is dStor, which is a decentralized cloud storage system associated with Telos so that dapps can store files controlled by blockchain contracts. Question 4: At what stage is Teloa Road Map now? what are the latest updates currently being realized? Answer: Telos launched its mainnet in December 2018 and has so far produced over 100,000,000 blocks without ever stopping or rolling back the chain. This is likely a record for a public blockchain. We have an ongoing group Telos Core Developers who build and maintain the code and are paid by our Telos Works funding system that is voted by the Telos token holders. Telos is a leader in blockchain governance and regularly amends its governance rules based on smart contract powered voting called Telos Amend. You can see the current Telos governance rules as stored live on the blockchain at tbnoa.org. The most recent updates were adding new features to Telos Decide to make it more powerful, implementing EOSIO v2.0 which increased the capacity of Telos about 8-10 times what it previously was, and implementing Telos EVM on our Testnet. We are currently working on better interfaces for Telos Decide voting, and building more infrastructure around Telos EVM so that it is ready to deploy on our mainnet. Question 5: Is telos currently available on an exchange? and is it ready to be traded? Answer: Telos has been trading on exchanges for over a year. The largest exchanges are Probit, CoinTiger, CoinLim, and P2PB2B. Other exchanges include Newdex and Alcor. We expect to be listed on larger exchanges in the near future. Question 6: Now is the time when defi tokens begin to develop, can telos be categorized as a defi project? and what strategies for this year and in the years to come prepared by telos? Answer: Telos is a smart contract platform, but it already has many DeFi tools built for it including REX staking rewards with a current yield of ~19% APR, smart contract controlled token swaps (like Bancor) with no counterparty called Telos Swaps, a common liquidity pool/order book shared by multiple DEXs to improve liquidity called EvolutionDEX. Wrapped BTC, ETH, XRP, EOS, and other tokens can be brought to Telos and exchanged or used via smart contracts through Transledger. We have more DeFi tools coming all the time including two new offerings in the next few weeks that will be the first of their kind. Question 7: Governance is an important topic in blockchain and Telos is considered a leader in this area. Why is that? Answer: Telos is among the top blockchain projects in terms of how it empowers its users to guide the growth of the chainalong the likes of Tezos or new DeFi tokens that offer governance coins. Telos users continuously elect the validating nodes, called Block Producers, that operate the network based on a set of governance documents such as the Telos Blockchain Network Operating Agreement (TBNOA). These are all stored entirely on-chain (viewable at tbnoa.org) and can be modified by smart contract through blockchain voting using Telos Amend. You can see examples of this at https://chainspector.io/governance/ratify-proposals Telos also has a robust user-voted funding mechanism called Telos Works that has funded many projects and is one of the more successful blockchain incubators around. Voting for all of these can be done in a number of ways including block explorers, wallets like Sqrl (desktop) and Telos Wallet (mobile), telos.net and Chainspector (https://chainspector.io/governance/telos-works). But Telos goes beyond any other chain-level governance by making all of these features and more available to any dapp on Telos through Telos Decide governance engine, making it easy for any dapp or DAO to add robust, highly customized voting. Segment 2 from google form Question 1: Defi projects are now trending whether telos will also go to Defi projects, to increase investors or the community? Answer: Yes, we have several DeFi tools on Telos that can work together: Telos Swaps is an automated, zero-counterparty token swapping smart contract where you can exchange any Telos tokens you may want at any time. Telos has DEXs and uses a common order book called EvolutionDEX that's available to any DEX so that a buy order on one can be matched against a sell order on another. This greatly increases liquidity for traders. We have staking rewards though the Resource EXchange (REX) with rewards currently at about 19% APR. We also have "wrapped" BTC, ETH, and other tokens that can be traded on Telos or used by its smart contracts at half-second transaction times with no transaction fees. This makes Telos a Bitcoin or Ethereum second layer or state channel that's much faster even than Lightning Network and has no fees once the BTC has been brought to Telos. Question 2: Telos aim is to build a new global economy could you explain how whole ecosystem works? There are already many centralized competitors so what is decentralization aspect in telos? Answer: Telos is one of the most decentralized blockchain's in the world. It is operated by 51 validators (block producers) who validate blocks in any month. These are voted for on an ongoing basis by Telos account holders. Telos is also economically decentralized with no large whales like Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP or EOS because Telos never performed an ICO and limited the size of genesis accounts to 40,000 TLOS max. Telos is also geographically decentralized with users and block producers on every continent but Antarctica and in numerous countries. The is a large amount in North America and Western Europe, but also in Asia, Australia, and large contingents in Latin America and Africa. Telos has had a Block Producer in Indonesia since the beginning and some dapps on Telos are based in Indonesia as well, like SEEDS, for example. Question 3: Most investors focus only on the token price in the short term instead of the real value of the project. Can #TELOStell me the benefits for investors holding #TELOSthe long term? Answer: That's true about crypto speculators and traders, certainly. Traders are usually looking for coins with good positive momentuum that they hope will continue. But these are often pump and dumps where a few people get in early, pump the price, and then get out at the expense of new investors. That's very unfortunate. Telos isn't like this. One reason is that there aren't large whales who can easily manipulate the price. Telos seems to be greatly undervalued compared to its peers. Telos has capacity like EOS and well above XRP, XML, Tron, Ethereum. But its value is miniscule relative to these. Telos is a leader in blockchain governance like Tezos but its marketcap is tiny in comparison. Telos onboarded 100,000 new accounts last month and is appearing in the leading crypto press every week with new dapps or developments. So there's some disconnect between the value of Telos and the price. In my experience, these tend to equalize once more people learn about a project. Question 4: Eos Problems and How Telos Will Solve Them? Answer: Telos originally set out to solve problems with EOS. It was successful in this and now Telos stands on it's own and our roadmap is more about empowering users. In short, these are some of the EOS problems we already solved: RAM speculation - Telos had a plan to reduce RAM speculation through a published guidance price that has been extremely successful. The RAM price is guided by market forces but has remained within 10% of the guidance price since launch. CPU resources - Telos implemented the Telos Resource Improved Management Plan many months ago which was a 7-point approach to making EIDOS-type resource mining unprofitable on Telos. It has largely been successful and Telos has not experienced any resource shortages. Exchange Collusion/Voting - Telos governance does not permit Exchanges to vote with user tokens. This prevent voting situations seen on EOS or STEEM. Block Producer collusion - Telos has minimum requirements for block producers and do not allow anyone to own more than one block producer. Those who are found doing so (there have been about 3 cases so far) have been removed and sanctioned in accordance with the rules of the TBNOA. Question 5: What ecosystems do telos use? and why telos prefers to use EOS network over BEP2 or ERC20? what layer is used telos, can you please explain? Answer: uses the EOSIO protocol because it is the fastest and most powerful in the world and it also receives the fastest upgrades and ongoing development compared to other blockchain technologies. EOS and WAX also use the EOSIO protocol but they are completely different chains. Telos is a Layer 1 protocol, meaning that it is its own blockchain that other dapps and smart contracts deploy upon. One thing that happens when a blockchain like Telos has much, much higher speed and capacity than others like Bitcoin or Ethereum is that Telos can actually run those other blockchains better on its own platform than they can natively. For example, a number of tokens can come in to Telos as wrapped tokens. BTC, ETH, XRP are all current examples of tokens that can be on Telos as wrapped tokens. Once there, these can all be moved around with half-second transaction times and no transaction fees, so they are a better second layer for Bitcoin or Ethereum than Lightning Network or Loom. Telos can also emulate other chains, which we are doing using Telos EVM which emulates the Ethereum Virtual Machine at about 300 times faster and with no gas fees or congestion compared to Ethereum native deployment. Telos can run Ethereum (Solidity) smart contracts without any changes required. Telos EVM is already deployed on the Telos Testnet and will move to our mainnet soon. So anyone who wants to run ERC-20 tokens on Telos can do so easily and they will be faster and with much less cost than running the same contract on Ethereum. Segment 3 free asking Question: I am happy to see new things created by the Telos team. Like What concept did you build in 2020 to make Telos superior? Answer: Currently, I think Telos Decide is the most unique and powerful feature we have built. There are all kinds of organizations that need to vote. Apartment buildings, school boards, unions, tribes, youth sports leagues, city councils. Voting is hard, time consuming, and expensive for many. Telos Decide makes voting easy, convenient, and transparent. That will be a major improvement and disrupt old style voting. It also goes for buisnesses and corporate governance. Even before COVID it was important, but now people can't really gather in one place so fraud-proof voting is very important. No one has the tools that Telos has. And if they try to copy us, well, we are already way out ahead working on the next features. Question: If we look about partnerships, Telos has many partnership ! so what's the importance of that partnership for Telos? And How will you protect the value of Telos to your partners or investors ?? Answer: Many of the partnerships are dapps that have decided to deploy on Telos and receive some level of help from the TCD or Telos Foundation to do so. Once a dapp deploys on a chain, it really is like a long term partnership. Many dapps will become block producers as well and join in the governance of Telos. I suspect that in a few years, most block producers will be the large dapps on the platform with just a few remaining like my company GoodBlock. Of course, we will have our own apps out as well so I guess we'll be developers too. Telos is very fiscally responsible for investors. We spend little. There has not been any actual inflation on the chain in almost a year. (The token supply has remained unchanged at about 355M TLOS) we are actively working with dapps to bring more to Telos and exchanges and other services like fiat on- and off-ramps to increase value for users. Question: In challenging crypto market condition any project is really difficult to survive and we are witnessing that there are many platforms . What is telos project plan for surviving in this long blockchain marathon? In this plan, what motivates long term investors and believers? Answer: True. While we currently have a low token price, Telos as a DPOS chain can be maintained and grow without a massive army of miners and still maintain BFT. But the risk is really not whether Telos can continue. Already there are enough dapps that if the block producers went away somehow (not gonna happen) the dapps would just run the chain themselves. But with 100,000 new users last month and new dapps all the time, we are looking to join the top 5 dapp platforms on DappRadar soon. Survival as a project is not in question. One of the big reasons is that we never did any ICO and Telos is not a company. So regulatory risks aren't there and there's no company to go bankrupt or fail. We have already developed a bootstrapped system to pay block producers and core developers. So we aren't like a company that will run out of runway sometime. Question: Could you explain what is DSTOR? What will it contribute to your ecosystem? Answer: dStor is a decentralized cloud storage system that will have the performance of AWS or Azure with much lower costs and true decentralization. It's based on a highly modified version of IPFS that we have applied for patents for our implementation. It means that dapps will be able to store data like files, images, sound, etc. in a decentralized way. Question: Trust and security is very important in any business , what makes investors , customer and users safe secure when working with TELOS?? Answer: Telos is decentralized in a way that's more like bitcoin than other blockchains (but without the whales who can manipulate price). There was never any single company that started Telos, so there's no company whose CEO could make decisions for the network. There are numerous block producers who decide on any operational issue that isn't clearly described in the TBNOA governance documents. And to get to an action, 15 of the 21 currently active BPs need to sign a multisig transaction. So that's a high threshold. But also, the TBNOA speaks to a large number of issues and so the BPs can't just make up their own rules. Since there are really no whales, no one can vote in any kind of change or bring in their own BPs with their votes. This is also very different from other chains where there are whales. Telos is not located in any one country, so our rules can't be driven by one nation's politics. All in all, this level of decentralization sets Telos apart from almost any blockchain project in existence. People don't have to trust Telos because the system is designed to make trust unnecessary. 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Other countries with heavily distributed servers are the USA, Canada, the UK, Spain, Finland, and Austria. This is perhaps due to cheap electricity costs, as mining activity can be costly and usually takes place near the pool. Centralization of BCH Mining Pools Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Mining Pools Explained Best ... Created By : Redfeather @ : http://grephaxs.com This is Redfeather from Grep Haxs in this video we will be talking about how to join a Bitcoin mining pool bu... Bitcoin mining pool slushpool offers a new AI and a powerful dashboard. This tutorial will demonstrate how you can setup a worker on slushpool to mine bitcoi... What is a mining pool and why is it best to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on mining pools? Here is our review and explanation of mining pools, how ... Every BitClub member will help lead on the procedures from the mining pool by "chipping in" Bitcoin to cover that. This particular repurchase strategy is what allows us to continuously develop and ... How to make your own bitcoin litecoin dogecoin mining pool Part 2 - stratum server - Duration: 6:44. whatthefluxable 44,761 views. 6:44.

The most universally liked person is a high honor, and a very tall order to fill. That means the 7.753 billion people on the planet need to not only have heard of who the person is, but also find them to be admirable in some way. If there's anyone we know, they have to have some level of notoriety because of their deeds, their celebrity status, online or television personality, or accomplishments. We tend to idolize celebrities because we can peer into their lives and feel like we know them. The bits of their personality that are shown to us tend to be the most likeable if their PR is doing a good job. It's also possible that they're just a genuinely good person. Redditor bpm918 asked: "Who do you think is the most universally liked person in the world?" Here's a list of people who's got their PR down pat, or are maybe legitimately good at their core. A Russian Commander. "That one Russian commander who decided not to nuke America, which would’ve led to probably the entire world getting destroyed, anybody who knows of him should like him." "Vasily Arkhipov. I think you're right. Everybody should know about him and what he did back in 62 during the October crisis." "Sadly he was viewed as a coward when he returned home and died a unsung death as an alcoholic. Even though he is one of the few people in the history of the world who saved humanity from ourselves." "This almost happened twice." "Stanislaw Jewgrafowitsch Petrow is the one who didn't nuke America after an ICBM launch was miss-detected. Vasily Arkhipov didn't nuke some American ships when his got attacked. Both probably prevented a third world war, before today I have only ever heard of Stanislaw Jewgrafowitsch Petrow." "Ironically, the Petrov incident occurred shortly after the release of War Games, a film that examines the possibility of an accidental nuclear war due to a computer game being misinterpreted as Soviet aggression." "Maybe he saw the movie. the movie saved mankind lol." "It is entirely possible that it did or at least helped. It is known that President Reagan watched the film and then discussed it with Congress, his advisors and his joint chiefs of staff. Reagan's interest in the film is credited with leading to the enactment 18 months later of NSDD-145, the first Presidential directive on computer security. It is not too far a stretch to suspect it may also have been a concern in the back of his mind as he oversaw thawing of relations from 1985-1989 during his 2nd term." Broadcaster David Attenborough. "I was thinking David Attenborough." "David Attenborough went through a little phase of being disliked. I think he published a story about how we all need to cut back on airline travelling because it's killing the planet, but the same paper also mentioned how many airline miles he'd done that year for filming." "Personally I still like the guy." "Between his personal airline miles and the message from his content its still a net positive in my opinion." The kindest painter, Bob Ross. "Pretty sure it's only in the US and few western countries." "Not true at all. Everyone I know over here who knows of Bob loves Bob. (Over here = African Country with an Arab/Muslim majority: Morocco)." "I'm from Eastern Europe and I love this guy. I'm really bad at drawing and it was never my passion, maybe at some point when I was a kid but it doesn't really matter. My point is even though I'm not an artsy person I just love listening to his voice, it calms me." Actor Keanu Reeves "No I hate Keanu Reeves!" "...No, no, I can't do it. I tried, but you're right, I just can't hate Keanu!" The late actress Betty White. "This was the answer I came here for." "Can't wait for her to turn 100 years old. I hope she's in a good health although we don't know how long she's going to last." Our neighbor Mr. Rogers. "I'm still upset with whoever started chopping onions in the theater during Won't You Be My Neighbor." "We found his Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood online at the beginning of everything shutting down and did some binging. Incredibly soothing and left me in tears regularly." "I didn’t have tv growing up, so wasn’t familiar. My wife did though. He says things even adults need to be reminded of time and time again." The late actor, Robin Williams. "I miss him." "He is a national treasure and he will be missed. I couldn't imagine anybody else playing the genie from Aladdin." Singer Dolly Parton. "I have never heard anything close to a negative word about Dolly. Came from nothing....100% self-made...never promotes herself...self deprecating. Only brings good to the world. Love that woman." "They explore this in the podcast 'Dolly Parton's America.' And they don't just speculate on it, they look at case studies, how widely known she is, and how widely liked she is. She tops all the lists." "How can you not like her? She is beloved by both traditional Southern conservatives and progressive liberals (esp. GLBTQ+). She has big international appeal, too. Nelson Mandela played 'Jolene' over his prison’s loudspeakers because it sustained hope that his movement’s cries for freedom would be heard. Wow." "Dolly Parton is beloved in the US (and apparently in South Africa), but I'm not sure the rest of the world knows her too well as an activist..." "I'm a Brit. I'd say she's pretty well-known here for her non-musical activities too. Love her!" The late Steve Irwin. "Oddly, when Steve Irwin first became famous he was criticized for tormenting wildlife, putting his children in harms way, and he and his wife being a couple of loons. I find it fascinating to see his legacy turn around via echo chambers." "My observation is that opinions of Steve Irwin are quite split, so I’m not sure he could be considered as universally liked." These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh MyyyHave you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ... Universally, Grandma's are pretty great. "Either Mom or grandma." "As a mum, I can confirm that it is Granma. Mums say kids HAVE to do things they don’t want to AND say they CAN’T do things they want to." Dame Julie Andrews. "Dame Julie Andrews." "Like 20 years ago Anne Hathaway was on Conan and said that Julie Andrews “swore like a sailor” when they were working on Princess Diaries." "Rowan Atkinson? I bet Mr. Bean plays well all over the world. Hundreds of millions of people could love that dude and never even hear him say a peep. Eliminates a lot of potential controversy." "Probably 15 years ago I found myself on a Pakistan International Airlines flight. Just one of those things. And they put Mr. Bean on a loop on the in-flight TV for 3 hours and nobody did anything but laugh at Mr. Bean the whole flight." "Right up there with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Perfect physical comedy that transcends culture." Steve from Blues Clues. "Steve from Blue's clues." Steve, the actor who played Steve on the kids show, just recently came back to social media and it absolutely blew up. "Our national treasure, Danny DeVito." "Danny DeVito is a beautiful human being. When the girl that played Matilda had her mom go through cancer treatments and she couldn't take care of her, Danny DeVito and his wife took her into their home and cared for her." "It never fails to make me laugh that he plays such a monumental a**hole on always sunny, yet is universally loved." "No but Danny Devito was the reason I didn’t kill myself. I also named my service cat after him 💕 he’s honestly such a good guy." "True true true. Cuz he’s never gonna give you up." "There's a channel on YouTube called I think tekkitrealm. A large portion of his content is Rick rolling people in the most creative ways, everyone. Celebrities, world leaders, Rick Astley himself. He has world records and Rick rolled Guinness book when they were trying to verify him." "Here is a video of him Rick rolling YouTube users with a paid ad... it was actually very funny." Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. "Not sure how this isn't a top vote. Even for people that don't like his movies or acting in particular, I'd say they're generally aware of all the charity and stuff he gives away to deserving people, and has been completely scandal free as far as I know. Beyond that, he is always smiling and speaks in a way that people enjoy listening to, both his voice and manner of communicating. Highly likeable guy." "Just me but has he made a mistake yet? If not, is he human?" "Weird Al Yankovic, unless you ask Coolio." "Now Coolio respects him and they have amicable relationship." "The Bob Ross of music." Aw, that's cute. "You, the person reading this." "Dude I have a list of people who hate me longer than the lines at Comic con in 2019." Well, maybe it's not universally true. Most of these suggestions had at least a few commenters who disagreed with them. No one person can truly be universally liked. But they can absolutely come close, and with that comes great responsibility. Did they live up to it? If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ - Who in this world is almost universally loved by all (celebrities ... › - 96.1 KWS - Who is the most universally liked person in the ... › - Who is the most universally well-liked person in the world? : r ... › - Who is the most universally liked person? : r/AskReddit › - World's most admired 2020 | YouGov › - Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century ... › - How Dolly Parton became the world's best-loved celebrity - BBC ... › - Is there any American person who's universally well-liked? - Quora › If you've never seen the comedy classic, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," there is a scene where Arthur, King of the Britons, encounters a black knight guarding a bridge. Arthur quickly figures out the stalwart knight will not let him pass, so the two do battle, with the king severely injuring his enemy in the process. He cuts off all his arms and legs. Yet the black knight persists, insisting his injuries are, "but a scratch." Turns out this happens to people in real life, not so much with swords and knights, but with can openers and ice skates. "What was your “‘Tis but a scratch!” moment?" It comes out of nowhere, and that could be the leading cause to why you might not notice right away. You want to get back to work, or your shopping, unaware you're missing your kneecap. It's Just Really Good Makeup "Worked at a haunted house that took place an in an old soap factory. During rehearsal one night, I tried to go down a narrow staircase in the dark, tripped down the stairs and fell into a conveniently-placed shopping cart." "My shins were bleeding all over but I didn’t notice until like fifteen minutes into rehearsal and that’s only because somebody said something." No, I Only Want You To Look At This Injury, Not That Injury "I once dropped a piece of ducting at lowes (home improvement chain in USA) and tried to catch it, slicing my thumb and palm. Not too bad, but bleeding a bit. Clenched a tight fist to stop the blood and found an employee to ask for a bandaid, he looked at me and ran off to grab some and he came back with a handful. I was confused, only took two because it wasn't THAT bad and went to the bathroom to clean my hand and put on the bandaids." "4 hours later I was scratching my leg at home and felt something weird. Looked down and there was a 4in long very bloody gash down my left shin that I had no idea about. Wasn't that deep but was rather long." "That poor employee probably thought I was crazy, and I felt silly." "Another time I was using an axe to chop up a branch and the head bounced funny off a knot and took a glancing blow at my shin. The only part of that I felt was the bruising from the impact. I couldn't even tell where the cut was without looking" "Point is I am now convinced that shins feel no pain from cuts." So Bad You Need A Shot Out Of It "I'm a very clumsy person, especially when it comes to the kitchen. However, every time I've cut myself with a knife or a can, or burnt myself, it has been something I'm able to fix at home, with a bandage or over the counter medicine." "A couple years ago I was opening a can of beans, and had my middle finger extended when I was opening it. Unfortunately, I pulled the ring too fast, and the lid sliced my middle finger. I thought it was just another cut, so I went to my first aid kit, grabbed bandages, and went to the bathroom to clean the wound and apply pressure. I made a mess of the floor and my bathroom with the blood dripping." "Nonetheless, no matter how long I kept pressure on it, the wound kept bleeding, and I was unable to put the bandage on it. I lived with my parents, so I asked them for help. They tried to cover the wound, but blood kept coming out. We gave up, decided it was time for the ER, and had to get stitches and a tetanus shot. I got a scar out of it, and lost my now bloodied beans, but fortunately the lid managed to miss the tendon, so I didn't lose mobility." Injuries are somehow worse when no one is around to help. That makes the situations when someone is there to tell you you're bleeding out the side of your head a little easier to stomach. A Boss Keeping An Eye Out For You "Sliced my hand during work from finger to elbow and tore the skin nearly clean off." "At first I went, this is fine I just gotta get a bandage." "Boss yelled at me and took me to the hospital." No Help To Be Found "Had a grinding wheel disintegrate, and a piece of it slammed into my thigh. Felt like a strong slap at the time, so I just hissed, rubbed it a little like a bruise, and went on back to what I was doing. About 10 minutes later noticed my sneaker was wet inside and saw the whole leg was covered in blood and the shoe was soaked." "It wasn't a bruise lol, that piece split the skin and muscle pretty deep. And since it was in a remote location, there was no immediate opportunity to get it sutured, so now I have a mouth-sized and shaped scar there." Don't Tell Mom "When I was a kid we had this old go kart thing that I sat on while my older brother pulled a rope tied to it. We went around in circles then after landing from a small bump, my right leg got stuck between the front wheel & frame or so, next thing I know almost my entire right leg was drenched in blood." "My brother took some cotton balls & bandages and started cleaning the blood, as we swear not to tell mom. Somehow turns out the cut wasn’t even that big or deep, only got a small band aid, not even needed at that. So in conclusion my skin is made of rubber and my blood flows like pulp." If there's anything this entire discussion has taught us is that the human body going into shock can lead to some truly terrifying moments. Makes You Wonder How Someone Doesn't Need Their Knee "Took a spill at night while inline skating. Got up, felt some blood on my knee but kept doing some more runs." "Got home and every other step I left a bloody footprint. My mum started screaming and I discovered I'd basically torn my knee cap off." "Oof that escalated quickly" Can You Hear This? "Kind of a same thing happened to me when I was making our yard look cleaner with my 1960 Fordson Major tractor. Left-side axle snapped in half and I fell down a deep ditch." "I just climbed the ditch like "Well that was something" I walked inside to ask my dad to help me with my tractor but my mom came screaming at me in panic as my right ear was torn in half." "I was so confused but she took me to the mirror. We went to hospital and I got stiches. Only started to feel pain in the morning." "The tractor had mine modified cockpit from a valmet or something. It was only made of iron so it wasn't that soft. That cockpit was totaled and so could have me if it didn't land on its wheels. It could of been deadly." Listening To Doctors. What A Unique Concept. "i walked around for over a week with a broken shoulder because i thought it was just a sprain. when i finally saw the doctor, i was like “i’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain.” doc was like “judging by the bruising, it is very much broken.” x-rays later confirmed." Don't try to tough it out. Get out the antibiotic ointment, grab the bandages, and just take it easy for the rest of the day. No need to be a Black Knight about the whole thing. Want to "know" more? Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. We are currently in a market that favors workers over employers – many workers feel empowered to seek out different positions and have reevaluated what they want in their careers amid the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many workers left their jobs in search of greener pastures because they were ready for a change, and others were more than happy to leave behind toxic workplaces that only burned them out. As you can imagine, they've become rather adept at noticing red flags during the interview process and beyond. People shared their thoughts with us after Redditor taylortaylortaylorrr asked the online community, "What is a red flag from an employer that people might not immediately recognize as a red flag?" "It can be hard to tell..." "When an employee quits or gets fired from the job and the company doesn't hire anyone new to replace them." " It can be hard to tell as a red flag at first, but the temporary workload they added to your own over that was left over after the person left, slowly becomes your new permanent workload, without any changes to your pay or benefits to compensate for the additional tasks." "The further out it goes without the position being filled, the larger and more obvious the red flag becomes." Very good to know. Not only will the red flag become more prominent but the likelihood of burnout will increase as well. "The CEO/boss/whatever drives a conspicuously expensive car." This does say a lot about company leadership, particularly if the rest of the workers are feasting on scraps. "If it's a private/family company..." "If it's a private/family company, do a Google search for '[company name] defendant' and '[company name] plaintiff.' "If the company has been sued, or is in the habit of suing others, that can be a red flag- although something there are legit reasons for. But it's something worth paying attention to." You probably wouldn't want to be involved with a company that could land you in legal trouble, would you? "If the company brings alcohol..." "If the company brings alcohol into the office for 'end of week' sessions on a regular basis. I know they can be fun but it's a stupendously bad idea for all kinds of reasons and if leadership hasn't figured that out then I'd think twice before joining." This is a big reason why it is so important to have boundaries to work and your personal life. Alcohol can certainly make things messy. "If it's a job in a manufacturing or distribution facility, is it messy or tidy? Messy, cluttered facilities are indicative of poor management, plus they can be dangerous." Dangerous indeed. That's how lawsuits happen! "Pay attention to the feeling in your gut. If something feels 'off,' then it probably is." Probably the most important piece of advice here, arguably. If it doesn't sit right with you, it's probably for an excellent reason. "When you don't get a review..." "When you don’t get a review until you ask for a raise. Then, all of a sudden, your work is being questioned and you’re being berated." How convenient, right? Many people fall into this trap and it exhausts them. Talk about toxic workplaces! "I know people..." "I know people (rightfully) like to hate on HR, but if a company brags about 'not having an HR department to deal with,' expect them to be very disorganized at a minimum." You definitely want an HR department! Not having one can create an environment in which so many boundaries are crossed. "It tells me that..." "Open interviews. It tells me that people leave faster than you can bring them in, and with good reason." This often happens in fast food establishments, which have very high turnover rates. While horrible customers are one thing, bad management definitely contributes to the revolving door effect in these establishments. "If you’re being interviewed/hired and they tell you have/will have multiple managers to report to. Basically if there is not a clear chain of command." "What’ll happen is eventually one manager’s directions, goals or instructions will conflict with the other’s, and you’ll get caught in the middle of it. And one or both will use it against you in performance reviews." This is crucial to remember – a clear chain of command is important, with each party willing and able to take responsibility for their part. Anything less can backfire. Now that you've listened and absorbed some of these, you're bound to feel more empowered, right? Now get out there and slay your next interview. And remember – trust your gut. Have some advice of your own to give? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below! Want to "know" more? Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Computers are not everyone's strong suit. Generation z is now reaching adulthood, and they've had computers, smart phones, and iPads since birth. For anyone in an older generation, this wasn't the case. Computers weren't even advertised for the home until the Superbowl of 1984, and even then it was priced at $2,500. Come the turn of the 21st century, computers are a staple in the home, but the advancements in the last two decades have left some people scrambling to keep up. Things that might seem basic to some are shockingly uncommon to others. Redditor Dark-Matter-7935 asked: "What is a basic computer skill you were shocked some people don't have?" Prepare to be blown away. "Not knowing what double click means." "Click... 3 seconds later click." "Either they single click everything, or they double-click everything." Just read the screen. "Reading! As a tech supporter I get the stupidest questions:" "Client: There is a prompt here that says "your computer needs to reboot to finish installing updates. click here to restart" what does that mean?" "Me: It means your computer installed updates and needs to reboot." "Client: How do I do that?" "Me: Click on the prompt to restart." "The longer you work in IT, the more you realize that people who say 'I'm not good with computers' actually mean that they can't be bothered to use a search bar...or even just f*cking read what's right in front of them." How to search the internet. "You'd be surprised how many folk don't know what to type in to search engines to find what they're looking for." "Don't tell them; this is my job security." "Yea forreal. Family/friends having tech problems? I google it. Customer asking me a question? 'Let me get that information for you' as I disappear behind the counter." And how to search your computer. "Been working in IT long enough to where people not having basic computer skills doesn't shock me anymore. But still, how do people never figure out that you can search for programs in the start menu?" "'My Outlook is gone!'" "Hits start and types Outlook." "'Oh, there it is! How'd you find it?'" "The amount of people that can't function if there isn't a shortcut on their desktop is astounding." Changing the desktop background. "My college roommate didn't know he could change his desktop background. He was blown away and went to show it to one of our other friends, who was also blown away because she didn't know you could change the background." "I remember this exact same thing happening with a friend... in 1996. We all gathered around to marvel at her background being the block of trees with gold frames." Finding the right cable for the job. "Shape recognition. Does the end of the cable look like the hole in the machine? It's amazing how many people can't figure that out at work." "'I had to cut off some of the pins to make it fit...'" "Actually had this happen once with a 4G dongle. We told them to plug in their SIM card into it. They had a full size SIM and the dongle took full size cards. Instead they found the micro SD card slot on the dongle and literally cut their SIM card down to fit into that slot." Copy and paste. "Copy and paste shortcuts." "I caught a coworker flipping back and forth between tabs while retyping a paragraph. When I showed her how to copy and paste, her response was 'I can't keep up with all this new technology.'" "I am 38. She is 40." "My dad is 73, wasn't at all computer literate, taught himself how to install Linux and definitely knows how to copy and paste." "I think sometimes it's a choice to not learn stuff like that. Everyone has priorities, and it's perfectly fair if computer literacy isn't yours, but of course you won't 'keep up' if you choose not to try." A URL is not for Google. "Not knowing how to enter a URL. I've tried to get people to enter a URL over the phone and they just put it in the Google search bar (usually after first going to google.com)." "I'm always surprised how many business owners go to their own website by typing it in Google then clicking the link. Bookmark that sh*t at least!" "I encounter this issue EVERY time I ask someone on the phone to 'Go to logmein123.com' and they inevitably then reply with 'which one do I click?' TYPE IT IN THE F***ING ADDRESS BAR!" "Unless they’re intentionally trying to make the business website rank higher in the search engine lol." Refusing to believe their tech needs power. "Them: My computer turns on, but my monitor doesn’t show the picture!” "Me: Is your monitor plugged in and connected to the back of your PC?” "Them: No, I needed to use that outlet so I unplugged it." "I worked tech support for an ISP and we had a storefront where customers could bring devices in for config. Had a lady once bring a router in with no power supply. She was dumbfounded and almost irritated when I told her I couldn't work on it. She said 'Why does it need a power cord? It's wireless!'" "Wanted to kill myself daily at that job." "My buddy has a customer come in and complain the phone they sold them died. The battery was just depleted, and the man was irate when told that he had to plug his phone in the charge it every day. He tried to get a discount because he was told it was wireless so he assumed it would just charge itself via magic cell signals or something, and then he complained that his 'old phone' never needed charging." "I assume his old phone was just a corded home phone or something." With technology changing all the time, we may always need a tech support person to help us figure out what's going on. Though, with more reliance on technology, we might need to better increase our computer literacy so everyone is on an even playing feild. The hopefully our IT servicers won't want to pull their hair out with every client. Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Living close to the Everglades, weird wildlife encounters don't really seem all that "weird" anymore. South Florida is some next-level wilderness. Every now and then, though, you hear about an encounter with something that shouldn't be there. Sometimes it's an escaped or released exotic animal; hurricanes have destroyed countless wildlife enclosures and some people don't realize how big that cool pet is really going to get and choose to set it loose. Sometimes it's a "skunk ape." Florida's version of a 'bigfoot' sounds a little easier to believe when you factor in the huge number of primate enclosures that have been destroyed over the decades. We have established populations of things like monkeys, pythons, and boars now. Why not gorillas or orangutans? They're both tall upright hair covered primates that might match the description. Except skunk ape stories go back way before zoos and the exotic pet industry. Reddit user cruzer58b asked: "Those of you that TRULY believe you have seen a cryptid (Bigfoot, jersey devil, etc.) what’s your story?" South Florida isn't the only place the wild gets weird. OBVIOUSLY. Look at what these Reddit users have experienced. The Thing Hunting OrcasMarine Life Beauty GIF by OceanaGiphy "I was on a ferry for a school softball trip, off Kodiak island AK, 2014. I was 18." "A whole bunch of us had snuck up to the deck around 11pm to watch the waves and generally be teenagers on a boat without supervision. It was 11pm in May in Alaska so the sun was thinking about setting but it was still bright outside." "So we’re just doing our thing and we notice a pod of orcas swimming with the ferry’s wake, which is very cool but not, like, unusual." "If you’re familiar with the dimensions of an orca fin you know they’re about 4-6 ft in height and look like big black spikes coming out of the water. Being Alaskan teenagers, we were very familiar. This is important." "Orcas travel and hunt in pods of anywhere between 15-40 whales. Apex predators. The beautiful demon murderers of the sea." "Total a**holes. Top of the food chain." "So we saw this pod of orcas swimming with the boat, counted around 10- 15, with some babies scattered in there. Very fun to watch for the good 30 minutes to all go by. We tried to get pictures, but it was just dark enough that our shitty 2014 phone cameras weren't much good." "Another 30 or 40 minutes go by and we’ve all pretty much sobered up and it’s about to finally get dark and we’re cold and sleepy and about ready to go in." "We haven’t seen an orca for like half an hour, and then one of the girls spots another one and points it out. So we all turn and look at the whale's dorsal fin - but one dorsal fin is immediately followed by another, and another, and another, and then two more, and then two more after that, in two separate rows, and they’re taller, by a LOT, and jagged, like some have whole chunks torn out of them, and they’re all 8-10 feet high." "And all these fins are attached to ONE creature." "We can just barely see its back slicing through the water, covered in these rows of spikes, and it just. Keeps. Coming. This thing is like 20 or 30 feet from the ferry, running parallel to it, and we are all transfixed." "This wasn't a small group - there’s like 9 or 10 of us and no one is saying a word because we’ve all turned to look at a whale and we are all now watching something that is like, horrifically, terrifyingly obviously NOT a whale." "Someone tries to take a picture but it’s too dark at this point and the only reason we can see this thing is the light cast from ferry portholes, which is a take as old as time when it comes to things that you REALLY f*cking wish you had a picture of." "But we all stand there completely scared stiff and in awe and we watch this thing just KEEP surfacing for a good 6 or 7 minutes which means that whatever it was was LONG. Like..... 60 or 70 feet long." "And covered in enormous spikes. Spikes that looked like they’d won thousands of battles with god knows what." "It took what felt like an eternity for any of us to say anything after the last of it disappeared back into the strait." "I mean if you and like ten of your friends had just all seen something that all science had DEFINITELY pointed to not existing, and you had all seen the same exact thing, AND it was very OBVIOUSLY trailing, nay, HUNTING, not one but 15 something APEX F*CKIN PREDATORS, what do you even say to break that silence?" "That’s the thing that eats me about the whole thing, is it was hunting. It was following them. It was literally hunting about 60 tons of toothy, angry, intelligent apex predator." "Every once in a while one of us will hit another one of us up and check in, like 'Do remember this? Was I hallucinating? Did we all see the same, insane, worldview-melting, terrifying thing that night?' And the reason I KNOW we did is because none of us talked about it." "Not during the trip, not after, not to any of our friends because how the f*ck do you even tell someone about something like that?" "Now we have almost 10 years between us and that night I assume some of them have probably told people, I know I tell people, because I’ve seen a LOT like that in Alaska and I’m That B*tch." "And also because there’s a very rich history among native Alaskans of a Something that lives and hunts in the waters around Kodiak and it’s important to tell its story because someday it’s gonna eat a little too much plastic and no one will ever watch it hunt a pod of orcas terrified from a boat ever again." The Cutest CryptidArts And Crafts Love GIF by NickelodeonGiphy "One night I was driving home at around 2 AM and this tiny, tiny white creature (probably as tall as a Pringles can, though maybe a bit smaller) walked across the road in front of my car." "I hadn't thought about this in a while but here's what I can remember: The bottoms of its "legs" ended in what looked like flowy bits or ribbons, and it was almost translucent. I could almost see the road THROUGH the creature." "It walked at a kind of jaunty pace, just like a person might walk. The best way to describe it is like that super steppy walk that the dwarves sometimes do in Snow White, or Mickey Mouse does sometimes." "I slowed my car down but was afraid to stop it completely, and the thing disappeared as my car went 'through' it." "Honestly it was so f*cking cute that I wasn't even scared, but I was shaken up by having seen something like this." "I couldn't believe what I saw, so I called my then-boyfriend and frantically described the creature. He told me that it sounded like the Fresno Nightcrawler, and when I got home and looked it up, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE." "I had never heard about them before. I do not live in California, not even close. I still have no clue what it was." The SwimmerMichael C Hall Night GIF by DexterGiphy "I used to go running and take a break at a train bridge in Iowa city when I went to school there." "I did a lot of night runs. Sometimes, only after dark, I'd hear something swimming around at that train bridge. Maybe human or deer sized." "One time, It was late and I heard it again. But this time, I could see something dark on the water. Looked like a profile of a very large head." "I said 'hello, someone there?' " "It stopped dead still and looked at me. It was dark but I could tell it was looking right at me. This went on for 30 seconds to a minute. It then went under, and I never saw or heard it again." "I told myself it was a person swimming. But why not say hi back? Also, where did it go under to?""It was a slow river, I would have heard it surfacing or getting out of the water unless it went over a hundred feet." "That's the closest thing to a cryptid I've seen and known about." "Some people are saying beavers and otters. I've seen river otters (but not in the US), it was far too big to be a normal sized one. I've never seen the 6 ft ones, and I don't think they live anywhere near Iowa." "It was much too big to be a beaver too, I see those all the time, and they're usually denoted by telltale signs such as dams and chewed trees. Also, I've never seen beavers active at night only during the day." "I think it was probably just a person, maybe a homeless person who wanted to not be bothered by me." "As I said, that's the closest I've come to seeing a cryptid, I know the original post asked for people that are 100% sure, but it was late at night and it felt appropriate to tell that story." Orangutan/Lemur Hybridorangutan GIFGiphy "When I was 14 or so in 2003 I saw what looked like an orangutan/lemur hybrid watching me from the trees." "When it realized I was looking at it, it took off into the trees and disappeared. This was in Western NC, nothing like that should have been around here." "For a few years I looked for articles about someone’s escaped exotic pet but never found anything. Eventually just wrote it off." "Years later I heard a Lore episode about the Pukwudgie and I immediately got chills because the description matched what I saw. I’m still not sure what happened." "Few months ago I was dumb enough to wander into the same patch of woods. I got nailed by a rock and when I looked up I saw a small outline ducking around like it was watching my reaction. Again, when it recognized I was looking at it, it took off." "I don’t know what happened but I also don’t really plan on going back." Hopefully A Bearred dead redemption bear GIFGiphy "About 16 years ago I lived in the rural areas of Kansas, town was about 6 miles from my house." "At night while I was waiting for sleep I stared out of my window and look out into the darkness. Normally I would see owls, possums, racoons, coyote, etc all just minding their business doing animal stuff." "And I could always hear them. Loud and clear." "One night as I am trying to get to bed I watch and listen for the wildlife and on this night there was none to be heard or seen. Being a kid I thought nothing of it." "Until I saw a HUGE black figure moving on four legs." "I could swear I had seen a brown bear this thing was THAT massive. Except we lived in midwest Kansas. We have no bears." "Cows and horses are too tall and not wide enough for what I saw. Plus our neighbors all had cattle so I was familiar with what they look like at night." "People suggested it could have been one of the massive dogs like a malamute or leonberger or something. Maybe it could have been, but they are still too small for what I saw." "Never saw it again" "There are bears in Colorado, Arkansas, Missouri, And a bit in Oklahoma. Kansas is in the historic range of black bears as well." "I don't think it's a stretch that one may have wandered in from a surrounding state." "This would relieve years of stress and the itch of the unknown if I could get confirmation that it was, it is how I always make it out in my head. A really big bear." The Big Bluetrailer GIF by Jurassic WorldGiphy "Been deep sea fishing a few times. You NEVER see schools of fish so far out, but once we saw this massive shadow moving FAST. It couldn't have been a whale, they don't move like that. The skipper stared at this mass of blue with me for about 20 seconds before it was gone and swore it was a megalodon. i'm not convinced but I have never seen a school of fish that far out in the ocean ever." "It could be a large species of squid such as Colossal or Giant Squid. They are found world wide. It's odd they would come to the surface, but it's not to weird." "Other options are Sunfish, Oarfish, or Large Shark." "I’m a firm believer there has to be some kind of megalodon or something out there, we just don’t know enough about the ocean" When It Looked At Chandlerscary jack the giant killer GIFGiphy "My friend was at a camp with me and we were in the same cabin, we all stayed up late we got tired and went to sleep." "My friend, lets call him Chandler, and I stole some instant coffee packets from the kitchen and we had them in water at night. Chandler didn't have a good caffeine tolerance like me so he stayed up a bit after all of us went to sleep." "I asked him what he was going to do and he said he brought a novel and he was going to read it until he fell asleep." "It was about 1am and we are all peacefully sleeping and then we hear the biggest scream. Chandler was crying and shaking in his sleeping bag and everyone in our cabin came over to see what was wrong and to help him out." "He screaming really loud and if that didn't wake up other cabins and the teachers then his loud crying after did. Soon all the teachers were inside out cabin and I had to stay on my bunk bed to not be squashed." "Chandler told us that he saw a ghost wandering around our cabin. He said he also heard the wind breeze while the ghost was moving. Another guy in my cabin backed him up saying he also heard that." "Chandler was sent home and everyone continued the camp, however, it felt really weird. I talked to him a lot when we all got home and he told me more details." "He told me he looked at the ghost for about 3 seconds because he was too shocked to say anything. The ghost was not white look in movies, it was transparent and BARELY visible." "He told me it looked like a little boy. The little boy was not in our school uniform, but in really old fashioned clothes. Chandler told me he wasn’t too scared of the boy in those 3 seconds but shocked because it was a ghost." "Then what really screwed him was after those 3 seconds when his brain clicked and he screamed." "The ghost boy turned and looked at him "with shallow, lifeless eyes" and then rushed out of the cabin. This was the wind sound Chandler and my cabin mate heard." "Then I remember distinctly what Chandler said because if I was him, I would doubt everything I know. He said 'That ghost looked at me, with no expression, and even though it was only for a split second, it felt like an eternity. I knew it wasn’t just my mind playing tricks when I saw his eyes. There was no soul in them, like it had been sucked away.' " "I find it really weird because Chandler is the most honest guy I know and he seemed really traumatized." "I was considering if it was the effect of the coffee, but he had it the night before as well and didn't see and hallucinations. Plus he was a regular drinker and he loved the taste even though it made him stay up." "This story shakes me to this day." "Not A Deer"Busch Beer GIF by BuschGiphy "Alright it’s finally my time to shine!" "The area I live in has a very active deer population. They’re constantly getting hit by cars at night in my area and people constantly have to be on the lookout for these dudes." "So one night I’m driving home from my friends house around 1am. I’m going pretty slow because the place near my house has a pretty big deer family who loves the area (around 6-7 of them)." "So I’m driving up a hill going around 30mph and I had to slam on my breaks cause a 'deer' runs in front of my car." "I don’t know if it was because it was super late at night and I was tired or what. But I sh*t you not, this was not a deer." "It kind of was, but it had one too many legs and too many eyes. I only saw it for a second cause it ran past my car. But it was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen." "It was pretty quick when it went by my car, but the 'tail' for sure was a leg, I can say that for certain." "I even looked it up later and there is a commonly seen cryptid called the “Not a Deer” so that’s just my fun little cryptid story." Jellyfish In The Airjellyfish GIF by Monterey Bay AquariumGiphy "Walking through the woods in the southeast US for fun I walked through a field where there were tiny fluorescent jellyfish-like things floating through the air. Maybe half an inch to 2 inches in size." "I initially thought it was some kind of plant spores or something moving in the wind but when I looked at them closer they were actually moving independently." "That was about 2006. I spent months going through those woods and that field over and over again with a camera trying to find them but I've never seen them since." My long-term readers will know I'm super sketched out by orcas and have essentially written off Argentina because their orcas hunt on land. Alaska clearly needs to get scratched off my list, too. Anything big enough to hunt orcas is certainly big enough to hunt Ericas and I'm not trying to be on anyone's menu. Kthankxbye, giant spiky sea thing. Want to "know" more? Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.

When we talk of cryptozoology and cryptids we tend to first jump to the obvious cases – Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, The Chupacabra, Mothman, and The Kraken. Various species of creatures are encompassed in these cases, such as primates and apes, possible living dinosaurs and mis-identified or unknown bird life. All of these creatures have various sizes and forms, and can clearly be seen when they make themselves observable, scaring and mystifying those who come into their path. But what about the worms, the eerie little creatures that give us a creepy feeling. But still, regular worms are quite harmless and pose no real threat to us, except for the ones that infest the human body and cause a lot of menaces. Now imagine these creatures in a horrifying red color, a monstrous mouth with suckers and spikes, and an attack on sight attitude. These are the notorious Mongolian Death Worms. The origin of this deadly worm’s appearance stories go as far as 1000 years but in 1922, Mongolian Prime minister talked about the appearance of this worm as a ‘sausage-like’ shape and around two feet long. With no distinct head or legs, this worm reeks of poison and would kill anyone within the instant of merely touching it. In 1932, the same man who cited the Prime Minister, published writings where he described the habitat for this creature is a dry, hot, and sandy area, specifying the western Gobi desert region. In 1987, the Mongolian death worm was also reported to have an underground route creating disrupted sand waves as it moved. In this decade this worm got another local name called “olgoi-khorkhoi” after people were convinced that this deadly beast lived among them. But later on, it was confirmed as a specimen of Tartar sand boa. The behavior of the giant worm was predatory especially for camels; it is capable of inhabiting the animal’s intestines and laying eggs in it. Besides infestations, this slithering cryptid is claimed to have a yellow-ish venom that can corrode metal. The venom can also be sprayed by this worm-like snake species. One who is misfortunate enough to come in contact with its venom will face an excruciating pain followed by death. Many expeditions and exploratory researches have been conducted to find this cryptid who has induced a great deal of fear and chaos among people. Till now, a lot of theories are also being considered for this monster to be related to some family of lizards or amphibians. This means it might not be a ‘worm’ after all. Some independent and daring ones have also managed to set up specialized traps for these unidentified species. All these suspicions and folktales are being passed on for decades from one village to another through travel and trade, and then more easily through television and media.

Kidrobot x City Cryptid Artist: Charlie Immer The Kidrobot x City Cryptid Dunny Art Figure Mini Series is on its way to www.kidrobot.com this Friday, July 27th and we are continuing the journey of showing off this immensely talented collection of artists with Charlie Immer. Below are a few questions we asked Charlie about himself and his piece, take a look! - What does ART mean to you? It means I can express my ideas both grand and mediocre. - Your Art is clearly recognizable – what are three words YOU would use to describe your art? ICKY , FUNNY , VIBRANT - What was your favorite class growing up in high school? The NO JUDGEMENT art class of course - Where did you first get your interest in human anatomy/Skeletons? Disney’s Silly Symphony Skeleton Dance cartoon from 1929 - What kind of movies do you find yourself watching the most? I like gross-out spooky movies. - What’s one moment of feedback positive or negative you were given on your art that you will always remember? I showed my dad a painting of a rotting head and he said I should paint horses. - Tell us about your Character from City Cryptid: Ningen. What’s his personality like? What’s his full name? Where did this character originate from and how does it play to the cryptid theme? Docile unless disturbed. (It is disturbed in my version). Full Name: Icee Origin : The slushy waters of the Antarctic ocean. - What made you want to be a part of the City Cryptid Mini Series with Kidrobot? Cryptids are awesome and I wanted to learn more about them. - Is this your first piece you have done with City Cryptid and Kidrobot? Yes it is. - Why do you think this Mini series fits into the social scene/political situation/current everyday life or do you think it was just for fun? As I mentioned before its important to remember that in this world mysteries remain.

Whitley Strieber: Author and renowned lecturer Mysterious and provocative stories about what could be the most magical corner of the magical British Isles. Paul Sinclair walks many a dark and misty path in his ongoing effort to discover and understand. I urge you to pick up Truth Proof 4. You will not put it down until you read the last, delicious word. And then you will ask yourself, “when will there be more?” A wonderful combination of delight and wisdom. Howard Hughes: Broadcaster, journalist and presenter of “The Unexplained” podcast I've known Paul since he started his researches... He did his first audio interview with me. In my radio lifetime I've spoken with hundreds of authors and researchers... And I know Paul to be honest, diligent, hugely committed and hardworking — He writes compellingly, three-dimensionally and from the heart. "Truth Proof 4" is the latest in an excellent line - another "must read”. Nick Pope: Author and former Ministry of Defence employee The latest in this ever-growing series of Truth Proof books features UFOs, cryptids and other high strangeness, resulting in a fascinating blend of paranormal phenomena, with more than a dash of the dark side. The mix of fascinating cases and insightful analysis makes for a book that will generate a lot of interest, discussion and debate. Dr Irena Scott: Author, scientist and UFOlogist: Sinclair enters the complex and controversial world of high strangeness and gathers vast information to affirm this and show the happenings are real. He has spent much feet on the ground time gathering witness accounts. A book of real people and real experiences that you can't put down. John Dennison ★★★★★ Over the years having read many many books on UFOs and strange phenomena I would put Paul's books in the top bracket. Just finished Truth Proof 4 and it had me hooked start to finish. In fact I didn't want it to finish, I wanted more. Anyone remotely interested in cryptids, UFOs or just the downright strange needs to read not just this book but the full truth proof series. Stephen Bradshaw ★★★★★ Paul Sinclair stands out from his peers with original and first-hand accounts. Honest and open reporting, an absolute delight to read. Paul's books just get better and better. If you want original work and pain-staking research then these series of books are a must read for anyone interested in UFO's and the paranormal. Bob Brown ★★★★★ Paul is number 1 in the field of researching the strange and unusual; you must read the book! Terry Brown ★★★★★ I found out about Paul's work a good few years ago from a close friend of mine. After a quick browse I noticed he was a author of a couple of books. Out of interest I ordered the first book then after that I must admit I was curious to what was in book 2. Again the 2nd did not disappoint. Since then I followed all of Paul's work and the way the books are written and edited with a clear written out description of the area, with photos and drawings — it's almost like being there. All the research and accounts in book 4 are fascinating — some accounts are a bit out there but worth reading as the area is a area of high strangeness. Altogether I thoroughly enjoyed this title and I highly recommend reading it. It's worth reading from Paul's first book to his recent I find this would give the reader a good understanding into the research and a idea of the area covered. Simon Laxon ★★★★★ Just finished reading and was not disappointed. I became aware of just how much research Paul does for each volume, after reading Truth Proof 1, 2 & 3. He never fails to challenge the "norm" and delves deep into each sighting and report. The reader is left to make their own conclusions, however improbable the outcome. I am now looking forward to reading Truth Proof 5 and watching Wolf lands. I highly recommend buying and reading this book. Gren ★★★★★ I first heard Paul on a Howard Hughes podcast about 2 years ago then when lockdown landed, and I was always in the garden - then I began to listen more and more to him then found out about the truth proof books. I bought the latest edition Truth Proof 4 last month and it has not disappointed me. The book is a great addition to the truth proof collection. I could not recommend this book enough and I'm hoping for more to come from this great author, and, with any luck I will pay a visit to the areas in question. Paul is a very dedicated and hardworking author creating debate and interest and deserves a lot of credit. Steve Lewis ★★★★★ A My favourite book written by Paul so far, testimonies by first hand eye witnesses, not sensationalised.. I couldn’t put it down. Worth every penny. 5 stars Mr Sinclair Richard Burdett ★★★★★ Just finished reading Truth Proof 4 and it didn't disappoint! It's so informative and intriguing that I'm now going to re-read it. So if you are intrigued by UFOs, strange lights, aliens, cryptids, 'big cats', and much more, this is a must read! I believe in Paul's sightings and the quality of other witness reports because he always comes across on the radio and online as enthusiastic, intelligent, sincere, and down to earth. Couple that with his detailed research in the field, (usually very scary places), so the 'Truth' doesn't really need much, if any, further 'Proof' Enjoy ! Nicola ★★★★★ A compelling read! Thoughtful, fascinating and well researched. Once again, another outstanding book. The proof is out there… what do we do with it? Debs S ★★★★★ Absolutely fantastic book! I've read all my Truth Proof books 3 times each and Night People twice! I know for a fact how much hard work and effort goes into Paul's research. And if he was in any doubt of the authenticity of something, it wouldn't be included. Well done on another excellent book Paul x x x Philip Walters ★★★★★ Hi Paul. "Brilliant".. is how I would describe Paul Sinclair's latest book Truth Proof 4, which I believe is his best to date. He is also a fine author whose work into the paranormal phenomena is now being recognised around the world for his dedicated research on UFOs and the even stranger accounts concerning cryptid reports that seem to have always been a part of the local folklore of East Yorkshire, where he has lived, in Bridlington, for the last 30 years. One of his greatest qualities is his personal need to investigate places of high strangeness such as the Bempton Cliff tops spending long hours, plus a small fortune trying to photograph usual light forms suspended over the North Sea seen by many witnesses over the years. There are very few men like Paul out there desperately wanting to inform the general public about what the government-controlled mainstream media don't want you to know about: creatures that aren't supposed to exist.

At the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum, visitors are transported back to the early 1900s. In the home that the world’s greatest aviator grew up, you can’t help but feel attached to the period of history that raised Amelia. The American Sign Museum is dedicated to the art and history of commercial signs and sign making. The American Sign Museum is proud to be the largest public museum dedicated to signs in the United States! Covering more than 100 years of American sign history in 20,000 square feet of indoor space, the museum is a walk through the ages of technology and design. The Andy Warhol Museum is a 7- floor gallery and exhibition with an underground level that houses The Factory education studio and conservation lab. Established on May 13, 1994 and located on the North Side across the 7th Street Bridge from Downtown, the museum houses over 3,000 Warhol pieces, including films and videos by the artist. The Annie & Abel Van Meter State Park park boasts over 1,000 acres of trails, freshwater marshes, lush forests, and camping. The Missouri’s American Indian Cultural Center is also located within the park and features exhibits detailing the nine tribes that inhabited the region, namely the Otoe-Missouria, Osage, Delaware, Ioway, Ilini-Peoria, Kanza, Kickapoo, Sac and Fox, and Shawnee. The Aronoff Center for the Arts is better known to Cincinnatians as simply The Aronoff – a nod to Senator Stanley Aronoff, whose vision for a performing arts center in his hometown came to fruition in 1995. The Audubon Center at Riverlands represents a unique and innovative partnership between the National Audubon Society and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Audubon Center is situated within the 3,700 acre Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary, which offers prime prairie, wetland, and lowland forest habitats for both resident and migratory birds. The Bethel Historical Society and Museum was established in 1972 and currently operates the museum in the Grant Memorial building. The Bethel Historical Society purchased the Grant Memorial building from the Village of Bethel, February 5, 2019. We have since expanded the displays into most of the building. Built in 1872, the Cairo Custom House Museum is full of historical significance. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Cairo Custom House was originally used as the location for collecting tariffs on imports being traded along the Mississippi River. When you visit Cape Disappointment State Park today, you certainly won’t be disappointed in what you find. It’s an amazing park that’s home to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.Perched on a cliff 200 feet above the pounding Pacific surf, the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center shares the story of the Corps of Discovery’s journey, focusing particularly on their Pacific Coast stay during the winter of 1805-1806. Carnegie Museum of Art is often considered the first museum of contemporary art in the United States. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, the museum’s first art gallery was dedicated for public use on November 5, 1895, and initially was housed in what is now the main Carnegie Library in the Oakland neighborhood. The Carnegie Science Center sits directly next to the Ohio River and is recognizable by its giant Weather Cone that sits atop the building! Since its opening in October of 1991, the exhibits have been constantly evolving and drawing visitors in, with numerous expansions having since been made onto the original museum. It has won the National Award for Museum Service and is a place recognized and loved by both Pittsburgh locals and newcomers. The Cascade Locks Historical Museum is located in one of three original locktender’s houses, built in 1905, in the Port of Cascade Locks Marine Park. The Museum overlooks the original lock and canal built in the late 1800’s. The Chilo Lock 34 Visitor Center and Museum occupies the former operations building at the former Ohio River Lock and Dam #34, which the Army Corps of Engineers decommissioned in 1964. Chilo Lock 34 Memorial Park gives visitors to the area the chance to learn more about the local history of transportation along the Ohio River. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma’s new Choctaw Cultural Center, which tells the 14,000-year-history of the Chahta people and represents more than a decade of research and work in creating the space, officially opened July 23 on the prairie land of southeastern Oklahoma in Durant. Featuring rich interactive and immersive exhibitions and engaging programs and activities, the Choctaw Cultural Center showcases the Nation’s treasured history and culture, and serves as a place to gather, learn, and preserve the Choctaw spirit and way of life. Located in scenic Eden Park, the Cincinnati Art Museum features a diverse, encyclopedic art collection of more than 67,000 works spanning 6,000 years. In addition to displaying its own broad collection, the museum also hosts several national and international traveling exhibitions each year. Visitors have to step into the Union Terminal to understand just how remarkable it is. When it was built in 1933 as a train station, it featured the largest half-dome in the world and today it remains the largest in the Western hemisphere. One of the absolute best attractions and pillars of Cincinnati Ohio is the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. This unique and diverse park is consistently rated among the best zoos in the United States. Coeur d’Alene’s Old Mission State Park is home to the oldest standing building in Idaho. In 1831 several Northwest tribes sent a delegation to St. Louis to find out more about the blackrobes. Father Pierre-Jean De Smet. S.J., responded to the request and came to the area in 1842. The current site was chosen in 1846 to build the Mission of the Sacred Heart. The actual building took place between 1850 and 1853 and construction was carried out by Jesuit missionaries and members of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. The exhibits shown at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center range greatly and are quite eclectic. A visit to the museum can give you the opportunity to learn about racial justice, gay rights, women’s empowerment or you may see the eclectic clown exhibit that was showcased here several years ago. Dedicated to the Expedition, this rest area combines the “basic essentials” with artistic displays depicting the Corps trip through this area in 1804 and 1806. You’ll find unique canoe-shaped seating outside, several large murals inside, a compass medallion on the entryway floor, and eight terra cotta sculptures adorning the exterior of the building. Plus, the names of each Corps member are listed on limestone blocks which circle the facility. Possibly the only professional printmaking studio and gallery on a Native American reservation, Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (CSIA) is located on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in the foothills of Oregon’s Blue Mountains. Olde England and history come alive in Historic Downtown Cambridge from November to early January with lifelike characters representing scenes from Victorian society. Experience the many displays in this public art exhibition as you take a stroll amidst Cambridge’s charming streetscape. The Downtown Maysville Historic & Entertainment District offers up its vibrant history while embracing its boundless future. Through architecture, significant sites, attractions, parks, shopping, dining and local watering holes, Maysville is a small town that lives big. Located in Dufur, Oregon offers the visitor grand vistas, great outdoor recreation, and a glimpse into another era. Wheat fields and cherry orchards dot the hills that surround the town and provide the largest sweet cherry crop in the world. The Eulett Center sits at the entrance to the Edge of Appalachia Nature Preserve in West Union, Ohio. The nature preserve protects 20,000 acres of pristine forestlands, prairies, ravines, and slopes. Designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1974, it is easily one of the most biologically diverse areas in the Midwestern United States. The United States was greatly influenced by English art and culture in the years after the American Civil War, which coincided with Queen Victoria’s reign in England. Atchison was no exception, there were many homes that could have been mistaken for those of the British aristocracy. On July 30, 1804 the Corps of Discovery were encamped at what is now Fort Atkinson. While there, William Clark wrote, “The Situation of this place which we Call Council Bluff… a Spot well calculated for a Tradeing establishment… & well Situated under the command of the Hill for Houses to trade with the Natives a butifull Plain both abov and below.” While Lewis & Clark did happen upon this location and set up camp for two nights at the fort, interestingly enough they were not the only adventurers to come across Fort Belle Fontaine during the exploration of the newly acquired settlement from the Louisiana Purchase. One of the most intact historic coastal defense sites in the United States, Fort Columbia is situated atop Chinook Point and was built between 1896 and 1903. It was finally decommissioned in 1947. Today, this former military installation is a 618-acre state park that makes up part of the Lewis & Clark National and State Historical Park. Apart from its connections to the Lewis & Clark expedition, Fort Osage is rich in history so much so that in 1961 it finally became registered as a historical landmark.Built under the direction of General William Clark, joint commander of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition, Fort Osage was established in 1808 as a military outpost in the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. These days, however, Fort Osage provides an opportunity for visitors to tour the reconstructed site and experience living history. Each year, the Fort Osage Education Center provides educational programs to thousands of students. With the planned 1907 construction of a railroad bridge across the Missouri River from Pierre to Fort Pierre, the Chicago and Northwestern railroad track was quickly laid from Fort Pierre to Rapid City. Along the route, depots were built to handle the passengers and freight along with providing supplies for the early steam engine powered trains. The Fort Pierre depot was completed in 1906 and served the community for over 50 years. Eventually trucks, cars, and airplanes largely replaced trains for personal travel and freight movement. By 1964, the railroad abandoned many depots, including the Fort Pierre depot, and the buildings were sold as surplus. This National Historic Landmark was built in 1764 as a small defensive redoubt and is the only surviving structure of Fort Pitt — a key British fortification during the French and Indian War, which also served as the western headquarters of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Situated inside Fort Stevens State Park at the mouth of the Columbia River, Point Adams has served as an important landmark for centuries. When Europeans first arrived in the area, it was the site of a large Clatsop settlement, and William Clark noted eight large houses on the site when they sailed past in 1805. The purpose of the Gallia County Historical Society’s is to bring the community the resources that have been so painstakingly gathered to reflect the history of Gallipolis and the surrounding Gallia County. The Harmony Hill Historical Museum features displays of artifacts and offers an extensive research archive of Clermont County history. The museum highlights the history of Williamsburg and Major General William Lytle, the “Father of Clermont County.” The Headwaters Heritage Museum is operated by the Three Forks Area Historical Society as a non-profit organization, and works every day to provide visitors with the intimate details of the area’s rich history – one that is deeply connected to the eventual creation of the modern United States of America. Along the shores of the Snake River south of Lewiston, Idaho is Hells Gate State Park and the Lewis & Clark Discovery Center. The location has historical significance due its being a former Nez Perce village. Experience the fur and buffalo robe trade at Historic Old Fort Benton. Here the Blackfeet and other tribes traded buffalo robes and other furs for trade goods such as beads, gun, blanket, knives, cookware and cloth. St. Mary’s Mission was the first white settlement in Montana, which eventually grew into the town of Stevensville. Today, these buildings are preserved to give visitors insights into the early days of the settlement of the West. By means of a quick southwestern detour from the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, visitors will find the Idaho State Museum. Managed by the Idaho State Historical Society, the museum emphasizes the important connection that residents have with the land. Owned and operated by the Harrison County Conservation Board and located in Missouri Valley, Iowa, the Harrison County Historical Village dates all the way back to the 1800s. Now a museum complex, it also doubles as the Iowa Welcome Center. The John Gee Black Historical Center is a cultural and educational center to insure the preservation of tradition, culture, crafts, music and art of the African Americans in Southeastern Ohio and to educate our diverse people about African-American traditions and about the past and present contributions of African-Americans to this country. The Lemhi County Historical Society and Museum located in Salmon, Idaho is the go-to place for education on the history of Lemhi County. Although Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed through the area in 1805 on their trek westward, Fort Lemhi was established in 1855 by a group of Mormon missionaries. They abandoned the fort in 1858 due to conflicts with the Nez Perce Nation. Lemhi County itself was established in 1869. The Lewis and Clark Museum is located on the upper level of the Boat House and can be accessed by stairs or an elevator. Among the many museum exhibits are dioramas illustrating highlights of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Native American displays, and various Missouri River habitats encountered during the journey We are a living, working museum. The Lewis and Clark Boat House and Museum brings the remarkable journey of 1803-06 to life at our riverfront base of operations in historic St. Charles, Missouri. And we share the story of the Expedition at destinations throughout the Midwest via our unique traveling fleet of replica boats and our experienced corps of re-enactors, the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles. Travel through the landscape of the expedition, and observe the plants, animals, and native peoples much as the Corps of Discovery did. Interactive displays are complimented by a variety of educational films, live interpretive programs, and historic demonstrations on a daily basis. During the winter between 1804 and 1805, the Corps of Discovery resided at Fort Mandan, a location in central North Dakota. Today, visitors can experience exhibits, period artifacts, art collections, and interpreters who will tell stories about the Lewis and Clark Expedition right in the place where the corps themselves once stood. From statues, representing local wildlife and native plants, to directional signs helping visitors navigate their way to the center, the notable markers serve visitors information through engaging visuals and thoughtful text. The Interpretive Garden at the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail commemorates the journey that Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, along with the rest of the expedition, completed between 1803 and 1806. Visitors walking through the garden will find interpretive panels on the expedition, the local wildlife, and native plants. Located at the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Visitor Center’s interpretive garden, history markers provide travelers the ability to learn more of the historical significance and contextual relevance of the journey of Lewis and Clark. Ohio’s only outdoor Passion Play: A nondenominational outdoor theater depicting the moving and powerful life and ministry of Christ. Presenting “the greatest story ever told” on a spectacular 400-foot panoramic set, you will witness His last days from the Sermon on the Mount to His Ascension. Located in Sioux City, Iowa, this museum celebrates the history of flight and transportation in the heartland. With a strong connection to the community, this museum holds a variety of events throughout the year. Car shows, pancake feeds, dances, STEM camps for kids are just a few of the events the museum hosts annually. The Mills County Historical Museum is located in the city of Glenwood, Iowa, near Glenwood Lake Park. Owned and operated by the Mills County Historical Society, the museum was founded in 1959. The Mills County Historical Museum is made up of a main building as well as several historical buildings available for touring. The Missouri State Museum is where visitors go to immerse themselves in the history of the Show-Me State. The museum houses an impressive collection of exhibits that highlight the state’s natural and cultural history. The Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center is located near Williston, North Dakota, less than half a mile from the Fort Buford State Historic Site. The center offers exhibits related to the prehistoric, natural, tribal, and pioneer history of the area. The mission of the Montana Natural History Center is to promote and cultivate the appreciation, understanding, and stewardship of nature through education. MNHC was the brainchild of a group of educators who were involved in various efforts to educate both kids and adults about the natural history of western Montana, and who decided to unite those efforts into one environmental education organization. Mosser Glass has been committed to manufacturing the highest quality glassware since 1971. A blend of beauty and fine craftsmanship goes into every one of our products. Enjoy a free guided tour and experience the glass making process, afterwards shop in our 2,000 square foot showroom. The story of Mothman brings countless regional tourists to the area every year, usually culminating in September’s festival. Because of all the stories, a museum dedicated to West Virginia’s favorite Cryptid was opened. Today, the Museum at Warm Springs provides visitors the opportunity to learn about this very same land, and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, which now represents the Wasco, Warm Springs and Paiute Peoples. The Museum of Historic New Richmond at the Ross-Gowdy House features exhibits telling the story of the founding of New Richmond in 1814 and growth as a terminus for trade during the steamboat era. There are also highlights of the town’s citizens involvement in the abolitionist movement. Collaborating with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service, the museum was founded in 1941 and focusses on the varied art, historic clothing, horse gear, weapons, and other artifacts of the Northern Tribal Plains people. The National Neon Sign Museum is located in the heart of The Dalles downtown historic district. The museum captures the history, craftsmanship, and culture that shaped America, as seen through the lens of the signage and advertising industry. For decades, Black Americans risked their lives to cross the river to achieve their hopes and dreams in the Northern United States or Canada. It is believed that some 100,000 people made the journey from the deep south into the north for freedom and the hope that they may one day be treated as equals. Today, the hopes, trials, tribulations, horrors, courage, and fortitude of the enslaved black people, escapees, and abolitionists are commemorated in this museum. The Nez Perce call themselves Niimíipuu, or “The People.” The Tribe’s homelands originally included parts of present-day Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The Nez Perce people followed very coordinated and specifically timed movements across and up in elevation of their land, as they conducted their gathering cycle. The Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland stretches across 320 acres of lush, grassy uplands, the traditional summer camping and grazing areas of the Tribe. Rim rock bluffs feature spectacular views of the mountains, and below, the Wallowa River meanders across the pristine land. Located at strategic points of interest within the Homeland, twelve bronze interpretive plaques tell the story of the Wallowa Band of Nez Perce. The Cahokia Courthouse is rich with history and is one of the few historic buildings left in Illinois that showcases its original French architectural influences. Originally constructed as a residence, Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery arrived at this house along their travels in the winter of 1803 and left in the spring of 1804. The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden is located in Settlers Cabin Park in the Collier Township suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The 460-acre botanical garden was founded in 1988 by the Horticultural Society of Western Pennsylvania. The Polson-Flathead Historical Museum opened in 1972 to preserve the history of the Mission Valley and the Flathead Indian Reservation. Step back in time when you visit this museum with its amazing attention to detail as it brings history to life in each of its exhibits. The Prairie County Museum opened in 1975 inside the historic 1916 State Bank of Terry building. The museum has since grown into a large complex that includes the original 1916 State Bank of Terry building, an old-time pioneer homestead, the Burlington Northern Train Depot, a steam-heated outhouse, an old wooden train caboose, and – of course – the famous Evelyn Cameron Gallery of photos. Located in Hamilton, Montana, the museum houses unique historical collections. We display elements of the indigenous people’s heritage through the establishment of Montana’s first white settlement. The Museum is a repository for the Bitter Root Valley’s artifacts, collections, archives and oral histories. The Red House Interpretive Center is located in downtown Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Originally built in 1797 by community founder and French-Canadian, Louis Lorimier, the structure overlooks the banks of the Missouri River. The nature center has many displays featuring animal habitats including a beaver dam, beehive, and 7,000-gallon native fish aquarium. The area surrounding the nature center includes several additional features such as natural habitats for birds and animals, prairie and wildflower areas, and a paved walking trail. When Charles Floyd died on August 20, 1804, the men of the Corps buried him on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, south of today’s Sioux City, Iowa. There’s no mention in the journals of how he was interred – obviously, there wasn’t time to create a wooden coffin for his body. It’s likely he was wrapped in a blanket.But if you visit the Sioux City Public Museum, you’ll see this chunk of wood that is said to be a remnant of Sergeant Floyd’s casket. Richard Allen Cultural Center and Museum features artifacts from the Buffalo Soldiers and ruins of Bethel AME Church Underground Railroad Site along with memorabilia belonging to notable African-American figures such as General Colin Powell. Established in 1884 as a means to counter the effects of homesteading upon the Native American population, the St. Labre Mission has become an integral part of the lives of Native American communities in southern Montana. Spread across three school campuses, the mission educates children from pre-K through high school. Visitors to the Ste. Genevieve Art Center & Art Museum may find an art class in progress, or one or more of members of the Sainte Genevieve Art Guild at work on a painting or sketch (but always ready for a friendly chat). The Sainte Genevieve Art Center and Art Museum is now open. On display is an overview of this county’s rich art history and art by local artists. The Center is home to the Art Guild and will offer art classes, workshops and other events. The Middle Ohio Valley was once the ancestral homeland of the Shawnee people before the tribe was pushed east into present day Oklahoma. Swift travelers and prolific traders, Shawnee were kind friends to many, and equally fierce foes to others. Along with their dynamic permanent exhibits, a variety of temporary exhibits feature local history interpreted through artifacts from their private collections. Visitors can get a preview of all the museum has to offer on the visitor experience and floor map pages. Virtual tours can be taken from virtually anywhere. We greet you with a hearty handshake and welcome you to our beautiful lands. You are invited to travel through Standing Rock- we will ensure an exciting journey and a better understanding of our culture. The South Dakota Hall of Fame recognizes and celebrates individual citizens of South Dakota from all walks of life who have contributed to Agriculture, Arts & Entertainment, General, Historical, Professional & Sports. The attractions was founded in 1974 to honor and explore the people who strived for a culture of progress and excellence for all of South Dakota. Locals and tourists alike flock to the South Dakota State Agricultural Museum in droves every year. Whether you are an agricultural geek, historical buff, or just a person fascinated by the development of the United States Great Plains farmland, this is the museum for you. Other than giant humans and man-eating birds, the Alton Museum of History and Art has exhibits on the Lincoln/Douglas debates, the Civil War, and much more. To learn about local legends, historical figures, and historic events, visit to the Alton Museum of History and Art today! The French Art Colony, a regional multi-arts center, has served our area for more than 50 years! We offer art exhibitions, classes, community events, educational outreach and rentals of our historic facility for public and private events. The Heritage Center is located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota and is open year-round. The Red Cloud Indian Art Show started in 1969 is one of the largest and longest-running Native American art shows in the country, and one of the few held on an Indian reservation. Visitors looking for an interpretive center where they can receive official information about the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail from the National Parks Service must not miss a stop at the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Visitor Center in Omaha, Nebraska. What better way to get a broader feel for a community’s culture and lifestyle than to visit a local art gallery. That is exactly what visitors get when they check out the Muchnic Art Gallery in Atchison Kansas. The National Quilt Museum promotes the sustainability and growth of the quilting community by bringing the work of today’s quilters to audiences around the globe through exhibitions, education programs, and quilt preservation efforts. The Roxy Theater is located in a unique location in Missoula, Montana. From downtown Missoula, over the S Higgins Bridge, an area named the hip-strip. The hip-strip is submerged with activity as it is surrounded by a record store, skate shop, coffee shop, bakery, and is just a walk away from downtown Missoula and the University of Montana. The Three Affiliated Tribes Museum is a heritage center honoring the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes who once dominated the Great Plains. Located in New Town, North Dakota, the museum sits near the Missouri River and the location where Lewis and Clark passed through in the spring of 1805 after wintering at Fort Mandan. The information and geographical knowledge provided by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Tribes were essential to the survival of the Corps of Discovery. Three Chiefs Culture Center is a place to experience the rich cultures of the Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille tribes. The traditions of these people have been passed down orally from generation to generation. As their lifestyles change with time and technology, they continue to preserve and protect their heritage, history and culture. Featuring more than 20,000 square feet of preservation and commemoration exhibits, the museum is dedicated to remembering those who fought in war and honoring those who were lost in battle. The museum maintains a fleet of authentic working historical aircraft. The Verendrye Museum resides in the heart of downtown Fort Pierre, mere blocks from the Verendrye Monument and one block from another national historic site: the spot at the confluence of the Missouri and Bad Rivers where Lewis and Clark had their historic first encounter with the Sioux. Up on Crown Point, the Vista House was designed and built in the early 20th century, the art nouveau styled building stands as one of the first ‘rest stops’ in the country and pays homage to those who traveled on the Oregon Trail and journeyed down the Columbia River In late July of 1804, Lewis & Clark arrived in present-day Council Bluffs. The Western Historic Trails Center, located on the banks fo the Missouri River in Council Bluff, Iowa, details their journey from St. Louis to the Pacific. Still, the Western Historic Trails Center doesn’t only pay tribute to Lewis & Clark’s journey, but other historical trails are featured as well. The Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, located within the Heinz History Center, is the ideal place where visitors can learn first-hand about this Pittsburgh staple! In this dynamic museum-within-a-museum, visitors can experience the thrill of Western Pennsylvania’s unmatched sports legacy. The William Clark Market House Museum offers visitors a glimpse into the historical past of the town of Paducah, KY. The Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, visited the area in 1803 where they contracted the services of Charles Drouillard, a half-Shawnee, half-French interpreter, hunter, and trapper who would be integral to their mission of westward exploration.

People ask me all the time what got me into horror. The answer has always been simple. Growing up a kid in the 70s, I was hooked by the weekly documentary TV show, In Search Of. It didn’t hurt that it was narrated by Mr. Spock, one of my idols at the time. His voiceover work on that show was always, and I mean always, pitch perfect. Somber, serious, Leonard Nimoy took us all on a trip to the weird and paranormal that has been noted as the inspiration for an entire generation of writers, directors and actors. I don’t think I’ve met a writer at Samhain Horror who hasn’t said this show deeply impacted their lives. In Search Of was my classroom for the bizarre and unexplained. Every week, I sat in my living room sipping on a Nehi, huddled close to our TV that was as big as our couch (at least the cabinet was – the actual screen may have been 20 inches tops). It was where I was first exposed to Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, life after death, real buried treasure, aliens, the Bermuda Triangle and ESP, just to name a few off the top of my head. Everything seemed and looked so real, I couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of monster and ghosts populating the same world where I rode my bike with baseball cards in the spokes and played Wiffle Ball marathons until we could no longer see the ball. The film itself was grainy, the terror palpable as each tale unfolded. Any episode of In Search Of back then was scarier than most horror flicks. And now that I can watch them on YouTube today, it still holds true. I’ve said it many times that the baritone of Leonard Nimoy’s voice is the horror soundtrack of my life. Without him and that wonderful show, I may have never discovered my true passion. Summer’s winding down and Halloween will be here before you know it. Now’s a perfect time to watch this show for the first time or catch up with a long lost friend. At the very least, it will explain how we horror writers of a certain age came to be. What’s your favorite episode? I know mine was Bigfoot and my first exposure to the famed Patterson Gimlin film. My latest guilty pleasure is the cryptid-hunting ‘reality’ show, Mountain Monsters, that can be seen on both the History Channel and Destination America. Every time I turn it on, I just picture myself on a log cabin’s front porch with a bunch of good old boys, sipping fire water and spinning yarns. These proclaimed Sons of West Virginia travel the Appalachians searching for mythical beasts and deadly creatures of yore hiding in the dense forests and mountains. Do I believe they’re really hot on the trail of actual cryptids, from the Mothman to the Hogzilla of Hocking Hills and Fire Dragon of Pocahontas County? Hello no! Is there even the slightest chance I think any of the filmed evidence that they or their eyewitnesses present are anything but CGI, smoke and mirrors? Not a chance. Truth be told, I don’t need to know the truth. When I watch Mountain Monsters, I just want to be entertained, and on that level, they deliver. I’ve written about America’s newfound fascination with hillbillys and reality TV. Mountain Monster is just another entry in a growing video library of redneck home cooking. So, what makes this show work? Well, for me, I get to discover a host of new monsters supposedly roaming our land. I may be a New Yorker but I’m a freaking monster addict. Even I never heard of the Kentucky Hellhound (and I have relatives in Kentucky) or Ohio Grass Man (another take on Bigfoot). Gvie me a monter and you have my attention. The cast is downright amusing. These are good old boys of the highest order. I get beard envy every time I watch. Wild Bill is the standout for me. He mumbles better than Boomhauer from King of the Hill and looks capable of wrestling a Bigfoot to the mat. Dude is 50 shades of loco. I worry about portly Buck having a stroke running through the woods in the dead of night. Willy, who could be Rob Zombie’s demented uncle, builds homegrown traps that look straight out of Wile E Coyote’s playbook. Trapper is the elder statesman and leader with hulking Huckleberry as his muscle and FLIR camera wielding Jeff the brains (when he’s not playing Santa Claus). Scareist of all, these boys all carry some big ass guns and aren’t afraid to pull the trigger. With all their running around in the dark, I hope they’re shooting blanks. Plus, I want my Sheepsquatch alive, dammit! There is not an ounce of skepticism in the bunch. If they see bones, hell, a wolfman must be feeding on cattle. When they zero in on a monster, everything they see has to be related to that monster. It reminds me of when my friends and I were kids, searching for creatures we made up and convinced ourselves lived around the reservoir by my house. My advice to you. Suspend belief, kick back with the cocktail of your choice, and just have some fun. Want to take your fun up to a whole ‘nother level? I have a drinking game for you. Take a shot of your favorite beverage every time you hear the word ‘sumbitch’ or when Wild Bill grunts ‘huh’. You’ll be crawling on your hands and knees by the end of the show. And tell me what you think of the show. Guns up or down? The entire gang is back at the Crescent Mine, searching for more than gold and getting creepier by the day. I wanted to wait until I watched a couple of episodes of Ghost Mine before writing about the new season. The first, short run season was so good, I wasn’t sure they could maintain the head of steam they’d built. Thankfully, I was wrong. Season 2 is even better. Viewers already know the back story and love the miners and investigators, so it was easy to just jump right into the thick of things. In the two plus years I’ve been doing this blog, nothing comes close to the attention my post on the first season of Ghosts Mine received. I’m not the only one who thinks this is the best paranormal show on TV. I think we were all disappointed to see that the second shaft they had opened at the close of season one had been caved in so thoroughly, there was no way to reopen it this time around. I’ll bet there were a lot of disreputable people skulking about those hills looking for the mine after the show aired. Did the owner, Larry, bring it down to keep them out, knowing there was a good possibility of gold lurking in the depths? Speaking of Larry, there’s something very shady about him. He’s extra scruffy this season and comes across to me as a little puppet master, jerking the strings of the Crescent Mine crew as well as Patrick and Kristen. What I hope will be a fortuitous addition to the team is Greybeard’s old man, Duck. You remember him. He’s the one that bailed when he heard Tommyknockers in the first episode last season. I feel that good things will come from having the wise, superstitious old miner around. There’s a good mix of old and young here, and it makes for a good dynamic. Patrick, who I think is sporting more ink, has come up with some more interesting toys to search for the paranormal. He’s a bright, no nonsense guy and his passion for what he does really comes through. And Kristen, well, she’s the living embodiment of Dana Scully, from the red hair to her quest for the truth. I know plenty of guys that watch the show just for her. Yes, guys are shallow. No news flash there. There are a ton of questions that need to be answered this season. - What do the Masons have to do with the mine? Was the newly discovered ballroom a meeting place for initiations? - Who is the mystery person lurking around the camp and mines? Or is Larry just trying to draw them off their game? - What happened during Bucket and Papa Smurf’s grandson’s missing time experience? - What did Jay see walk past him in the mine and what is that shadow in the trees? - Will Fast Eddie be convinced that something paranormal is going on before the end of the season? - Can anyone understand what Bucket says without captions? - Will Jamol’s cooking get any better? Unlike other paranormal shows, we the viewers are just as interested in the mining and the lives of the cast as we are hearing EVPs or seeing video evidence of shadow people. And that’s what’s always set this show apart. From all the feedback I’ve received, I know you’re all watching. What are your favorite parts of the show? What do you hope to see? Who are your favorite characters and why? I’ll give away signed books and ebooks to random commenters over the next few weeks. Now let’s get to diggin’! OK, I’m well aware that hillbilly TV is the hot thing right now. Duck Dynasty is the #1 reality show on the boob tube. Everything southern is in, from crazy kids with too much time on their hands to gator wrestlers, loggers, pawn shops and everything in between. So it was only a matter of time until Syfy caught on and melded rednecks with ghosts, giving us Deep South Paranormal. My immediate family are the only ones in the line that are sided with the Yanks. All of my cousins and aunts and uncles can be found in North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas. I may live in New York, but I love listening to Gretchen Wilson and Shooter Jennings and pretty much walk around looking like Larry the Cable Guy once the warm weather sets in. I can appreciate the love of the south (though I am no fan of the heat and humidity that comes with the territory). Fans of shows like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures may not take a shine to this addition to ParaTV because it’s not really about the ghosts. Nope, Deep South Paranormal is about the folks who like to traipse around haunted places in the dead of night. And oh what a group they’ve assembled. When you look at the cast, your eyes immediately go to the 2 ZZ Top dudes with beards that leave me green with envy. The true star of the show is old man Hart, a colorful Cajun who walks around with a gris gris stick to call on spirits. He’s fast talking, funny as hell, and introduces us to colorful terms like getting the frissons, which means the shudders. I could watch this guy all day. Then there’s Keith, our narrator (who makes every episode sound like we’re setting down to catch the latest Dukes of Hazard) and rocker. Keith looks like he’s half asleep most of the time, but he does have a nifty little trick of playing his guitar to pique the interest of any nearby spirits. Randy is young and brash and has more tats that an Attica lifer. He’s perfectly paired with Hart. Young and old really work well together and you can tell they genuinely like one another. Jonathan is the head guy and seems to be the more level headed of the group. He’s aided by Benny, who is another funny good old boy, Kali (Randy’s sister) and Kevin, the gadget guy. So, what makes this show tick? So far, it isn’t the ghosts. Even though they’ve investigated plantations and a saw mill, I’m more amused by watching them feed their friend’s pet gators, suck the breath from a frog for voodoo protection, pluck feathers from a live rooster and go mudding with their trucks. Is Deep South Paranormal adding anything new to the world of paranormal investigations? No. But they are fun to watch. And it’s about time we had a ghost hunting show where everyone doesn’t walk around as dour as the Tall Man in Phantasm. Thanks Syfy. I never thought the Syfy channel would become the mecca for ParaTV, but thanks to the runaway success of Ghost Hunters, the network churns out new ghost-themed shows quicker than Willy Wonka on meth. The latest entry is STRANDED, a new take on the old theme, created by Destination Truth’s own Josh Gates. Now, Josh is by far my favorite para-celebrity because he doesn’t take things too seriously, but serious enough to put his life on the line while searching for the uknown. I swear that man is going to at least lose a limb while schlepping through the jungle looking for dinosaurs or an Africanized Bigfoot. It’s also produced by Jason Blum, of Paranormal Activity and Sinister (by far the scariest movie of 2012) fame. The premise of Stranded is simple. Take a handful of real people and drop them in one of America’s most haunted locations for 5 days. Arm them with cameras and some basic ghost hunting equipment and let the good times roll. No camera crews or Syfy production folks to get in the way. The best part is, no matter how scared they get, they can’t leave. I mentioned in my previous post on Ghost Mine that I liked the idea of making folks investigate a haunted location for more than the obligatory night. That way we all get a better feel for the place, and allow enough time to stumble upon some real scares. In the first episode, three twenty-somethings (exes Sarah and Sean and their non-believing friend, Xand) are dropped off on Star Island off the cost of New Hampshire. Their mission : to stay at the haunted Oceanic Hotel and find out if spirits really do roam the halls. The hotel has been shut up for the oncoming winter, ala The Shining. Anyone care to place wagers on whether Xand changes her tune about the paranormal? When they arrive at the empty hotel on the first night, a book is left behind explaining the haunted history of the hotel. Ghost Hunters fans should remember when Jason, Grant and the team investigated the hotel a few years back. The trio spend the next 5 days living in the dark in the shuttered hotel, jumping at noises and filling up hours of night vision recordings. Kudos to Sean for coming up with the creepiest method for ghost hunting – ever! It seems the spirit of a little girl likes to open and close the doors of the hotel rooms on the 4th floor. Sean decides to raid the nursery (a kind of prop for tourists to get their chills) and tie little nooses around their necks, with the other end on the door knobs. If any door is openened, they’ll know because the doll will be out of place. What we’re left with is a long, dark hallyway filled with strangled dolls on either side. They should have renamed it Hangman’s Hall. They do get a disembodied voice giggling and there are odd sounds every night. It’s just enough to put them on edge, which, as a viewer, is where we want them. It ain’t fun until the skeptic cries, and in that sense, Stranded doesn’t disappoint. The first episode was interesting, but I’m hoping it can crank things up in future episodes. Personally, I’d like to see them bring in some older, more grounded people who are less prone to suggestion. The trio in the first episode were on edge the moment they stepped onto the dock. I wish they hadn’t been given any info on the stories of the hotel. It colors their perception of things. Better to let them discover the paranormal for themselves. Use graphics to clue the viewers into the history. For those of you who saw it, what did you think? Para-good, or para-bad? I’ll be staying tuned. Hey, Syf, feel free to drop me off any place you’d like. Let’s see how a horror author holds up in a haunted house. Let me start off by saying that I fully understand that all paranormal TV shows are entertainment. Some slant more to the entertainment side than others, but I’m not fooled into thinking everything I see on my television screen is a pure scientific approach to exploring the supernatural. The fact that there are no real scientists conducting experiments is enough to dispel that myth. Syfy’s Ghost Mine has become, by far, the single best paranormal show on the air in very little time. Why it works so well is pretty simple and I’m sure other production companies will be working hard to imitate them. We all like to be scared from time to time. If we didn’t, there wouldn’t be any amusement parks, and for real kicks, we’d watch reruns of Matlock. Even without the threat of ghosts lurking in the dark, an abandoned mine is scary as hell. It plays on our fear of the dark, claustrophobia and, well, you can die pretty easily in there. Mines are about as safe as Congress is effecient. Ghost Mine focuses on a hearty band of miners looking for gold in the long abandoned Crescent Mine in the hills of Oregon. The mine itself has a rich history of the unexplained. They are joined by 2 paranormal investigators, the intense and gadget-loving Patrick Doyle and his partner, Kristen Lumen, a red haired beauty among the rough and tumble men. She can certanily hold her own and has to fight against the tide of supersitions about having women in a mine. It seems that other mining teams have bailed out on the Crescent Mine because of the supposed spirits that drift in and out of the tunnels. What makes this work has nothing to do with the paranormal. It has everything to do with the miners themselves who make up one of the most interesting casts of characters on TV today. From the grizzled veterans Papa Smurf and Grey Beard (everyone has nicknames they’ve earned from years working in mines) to the fast talking Bucket and a pair of “Greenhorns” who are down on their luck and hoping to save their family’s finances. you can’t turn away. Just learning how these guys go about securing the mine and how much work goes into extracting gold is enough to hook me. Just think Axe Men with ghosts. This is the first show that doesn’t zip in to a location and haul ass out the moment they think they’ve caught an EVP. We get to really explore the mine with them, and become emotionally invested in the miners. Add in shadows that appear against laser grids, creepy voices and cabins being struck with the force to knock things off the walls, and you have must-see Para TV. I admit to feeling my own walls closing in when Patrick and Kristen walk deep into the grave-black mines, searching for the heart of the haunting. The evidence they catch is compelling, but nothing can stop men with gold fever. The spirits in the mine, disturbed by the blasting, have also dispersed out of the mine, haunting the miner’s wives and children in a nearby B&B. Everyone’s on edge, including the viewers. Ghost Mine is both informative and eerie. I’d be happy watching an episode dedicated only to mining as much as I would one centered on the ghost hunters. As an added bonus, we get hints that the Masons might have something to do with the restless spirits. Conspiracy nuts, don your foil hats and strap yourselves in! I’m a horror writer, and I’d be happy as a pig in you-know-what if I came up with a plot and characters this fascinating. So I’m not going to worry whether everything or not is real. I’m enjoying the ride. The only negative is that the show has a very short run. Note to SyFy, feel free to cancel The Haunted Collector, find a new mine and get cracking on a full season. If you’ve watched Ghost Mine, I’d love to know your thoughts about the show. Where would you rank it in the pantheon of modern Para TV?

We all learned history in school, but how much "herstory" do we know? By that I mean the people we were taught about were almost entirely men and we know women haven't been sitting in the passenger's seat doing nothing for thousands of years. What about their stories? One Reddit user asked: The answers shed light on how much girl power and these Wonder Women really changed our lives. Sandra Ford, the drug technician who first brought attention to what would become the AIDS epidemic. She knew something was up when she began receiving unusually high numbers of requests for pentamidine, an antibiotic reserved for treating pneumocystis pneumonia in seriously ill, immuno-compromised patients. The patients it was being requested for were gay men who had been otherwise healthy. Virginia Apgarbaby documentary GIF by SundanceNOW DocClub Giphy In 1952 Dr. Virginia Apgar developed a quick, easy, five-point test that summarizes health of newborns and determines those needing emergency assistance. The Apgar Score is now given to practically every newborn, and helped save countless young lives, and reduce infant mortality. Yes! This was such an incredible advancement. I worked in a pediatrician's office which led to me reading a little more about her. Amazing how little she's mentioned but most of us are literally here because of her! She was a 1890's journalist who was given an assignment to investigate the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island due to accusations of the mistreatment of patients. She got in there by faking insanity and getting herself committed to the asylum. When she was finally released, she ran an exposé in the New York World called "Ten Days In A Madhouse" that exposed the awful treatment of patients inside the asylum. This was considered a revolution in investigative journalism. Also, she read "Around The World In 80 Days" basically decided she could do better, and went around the world in 72 days! She was also an inventor, and was one of the primary journalists to cover the suffragette movement. She's one of my favorite historical figures who doesn't get enough attention! Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. She is the Dean of Medicine at Hurley Children's Hospital in Flint, MI. She saw that children were having elevated lead levels (ELLs) outside the normal range. She contacted the Genesee Department of Health, who at first, dismissed her claim, then sent her obfuscated data to make it look like the ELLs were completely within normal trends. She grew frustrated at this, so she called a team of epidemiologists from VT to find the source of the lead. Lo and behold, she found that the water in multiple zip codes was contaminated with lead. She informed the Genesee Department of Health Again, who brushed her off. She then said "f*ck it" and held a major press conference where she announced on air that the water in Flint wasn't safe and to come to the hospital to get your child tested and to pick up supplies of water and liquid infant formula. She saved thousands of children from the permanent effects of lead poisoning when her Department Of Health would not. She also helped design systems to help parents whose children were suffering from lead poisoning. Georgeanna Seeger Jones Dr. Georgeanna Seeger Jones Dr. Jones singlehandedly organized the field of Gynecological Endocrinology. While at John's Hopkins with her husband, Dr. Howard Jones and Drs. Roberts and Steptoe, she devised the hypothesis of follicular hyper stimulation, which produced more than one egg per cycle. Her later discoveries led to increases in viability of In Vitro Fertilization.- Fyrepup Per Wikipedia : As a resident at Johns Hopkins, she discovered that the pregnancy hormone hCG was manufactured by the placenta, not the pituitary gland as originally thought. This discovery led to the development of many of the early over-the-counter pregnancy test kits currently available. In 1949, Jones made the first description of Luteal Phase Dysfunction and is credited to be the first in using progesterone to treat women with a history of miscarriages. Her treatment allowed many of them to not only conceive, but to deliver healthy babies. She also served as a Dean of the College of Pontifical Sciences, advising the Vatican of matters of Gynecology and Conception. Her husband always said "She's the smarter one." She was also a great friend. Claudette ColvinClaudette Colvin Justice GIF by GIPHY Studios Originals Giphy She was actually the first person who refused to get up from her bus seat during the Jim Crows in America. But she was a 15-year-old who was pregnant out of wedlock at the time. Black leaders decided she was not a good image of an activist. So they hand-picked Rosa Parks, a woman who was already an activist to do the same. Rosa is considered a Civil Rights hero, but it was Claudette who actually got the ball rolling. Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper in 1903. As soon as the patent expired, it became standard in all cars. She attempted to sell it while she had the rights to it, but most manufacturers refused to believe it was a feature of value. It is very likely that her being female was behind their lack of enthusiasm. They said it had no value; but their actions prove they knew exactly how valuable Mary's invention was. Her patent expired 1920. Car crews and design teams immediately start talking it up the line. 1922 it was in every Cadillac. Coincidence? Or they were sitting on the idea until the patent ran out? Oh no, they definitely waited the patent out. Why waste money and help her enforce the patent when they could just wait a few years and do it for free. I imagine this wouldn't have been unheard of in those days. She saved millions of lives and made a critical contribution to the world of medicine, but unless you're in the medical field — you've probably never even heard her name. Henrietta Lacks was a young, black, mother of five when she died in 1951 after being diagnosed with an aggressive cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins. Doctor George Gey was working at Hopkins at the time, trying to culture cells in the laboratory. Lacks' cells were among dozens sent to his lab, but they were the first to ever survive and grow. Her cells, a unique and aggressive type, were later described as "one in three billion." Scientists called these resilient cells "HeLa" — taking first two letters of "Henrietta" and "Lacks." HeLa cells were used to test the polio vaccine, develop in vitro fertilization, and several chemotherapy drugs among hundreds of medical advances. Grown and sold around the world, Lacks' legacy lived on in her cells: they have traveled to space, they have been embedded in a nuclear bomb. But for decades, the Lacks family had no idea. Sister Rosetta Tharpe She was super influential to early rock musicians like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and so many more. Johnny Cash even said that she was his favorite singer and she was also one of the first to play around with heavy distortion on her electric guitar. She's called by some "The Godmother of Rock and Roll" but I guarantee you that the average person has never heard of her. The Noisettes wrote a song inspired by her. Cheng I Sao Cheng I Sao/ Ching Shih was the single most successful pirate in all of history. She led an armada of tens of thousands of sailors and 17 separate fleets of ships. She held the most important tributary in China under siege for weeks on end. In the end she managed to give the slip to a combined force of Portuguese, Chinese, and English war ships. That's after being cornered in an inlet with 2 wounded ships and no way out - except through. After her daring escape from the siege, she recognized that her power was beginning to wane (one of her fleets turned on her, among other things) so she decided it was better to cash out while she had the leverage. She managed to negotiate for literally all of her men to be given amnesty, be allowed to join the chinese navy, to keep the stuff they had stolen, and for her to be able to keep several ships so she could run a business in the salt trade. She then ran a gambling house and died peacefully in her sleep. Besides being a f*cking kickass story, she has also had some lasting consequences. Her absolute domination over the Chinese navy showed just how much the Empire had neglected that wing of the military; and the British picked up on this. It was a big part of why they were so willing to fight a naval war across the entire planet at a time when even messages would take a year and change just to make it back. The opium wars were fought because of this, and the treaties that resulted are called by the current Chinese government as the start of "the century of shame" and are a major touchstone in the governments image of itself. They are invoked today when negotiations with the west break down as a reason that China ought not bow to outside pressure. She is literally still shaping policy. Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. If you've never seen the comedy classic, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," there is a scene where Arthur, King of the Britons, encounters a black knight guarding a bridge. Arthur quickly figures out the stalwart knight will not let him pass, so the two do battle, with the king severely injuring his enemy in the process. He cuts off all his arms and legs. Yet the black knight persists, insisting his injuries are, "but a scratch." Turns out this happens to people in real life, not so much with swords and knights, but with can openers and ice skates. "What was your “‘Tis but a scratch!” moment?" It comes out of nowhere, and that could be the leading cause to why you might not notice right away. You want to get back to work, or your shopping, unaware you're missing your kneecap. It's Just Really Good Makeup "Worked at a haunted house that took place an in an old soap factory. During rehearsal one night, I tried to go down a narrow staircase in the dark, tripped down the stairs and fell into a conveniently-placed shopping cart." "My shins were bleeding all over but I didn’t notice until like fifteen minutes into rehearsal and that’s only because somebody said something." No, I Only Want You To Look At This Injury, Not That Injury "I once dropped a piece of ducting at lowes (home improvement chain in USA) and tried to catch it, slicing my thumb and palm. Not too bad, but bleeding a bit. Clenched a tight fist to stop the blood and found an employee to ask for a bandaid, he looked at me and ran off to grab some and he came back with a handful. I was confused, only took two because it wasn't THAT bad and went to the bathroom to clean my hand and put on the bandaids." "4 hours later I was scratching my leg at home and felt something weird. Looked down and there was a 4in long very bloody gash down my left shin that I had no idea about. Wasn't that deep but was rather long." "That poor employee probably thought I was crazy, and I felt silly." "Another time I was using an axe to chop up a branch and the head bounced funny off a knot and took a glancing blow at my shin. The only part of that I felt was the bruising from the impact. I couldn't even tell where the cut was without looking" "Point is I am now convinced that shins feel no pain from cuts." So Bad You Need A Shot Out Of It "I'm a very clumsy person, especially when it comes to the kitchen. However, every time I've cut myself with a knife or a can, or burnt myself, it has been something I'm able to fix at home, with a bandage or over the counter medicine." "A couple years ago I was opening a can of beans, and had my middle finger extended when I was opening it. Unfortunately, I pulled the ring too fast, and the lid sliced my middle finger. I thought it was just another cut, so I went to my first aid kit, grabbed bandages, and went to the bathroom to clean the wound and apply pressure. I made a mess of the floor and my bathroom with the blood dripping." "Nonetheless, no matter how long I kept pressure on it, the wound kept bleeding, and I was unable to put the bandage on it. I lived with my parents, so I asked them for help. They tried to cover the wound, but blood kept coming out. We gave up, decided it was time for the ER, and had to get stitches and a tetanus shot. I got a scar out of it, and lost my now bloodied beans, but fortunately the lid managed to miss the tendon, so I didn't lose mobility." Injuries are somehow worse when no one is around to help. That makes the situations when someone is there to tell you you're bleeding out the side of your head a little easier to stomach. A Boss Keeping An Eye Out For You "Sliced my hand during work from finger to elbow and tore the skin nearly clean off." "At first I went, this is fine I just gotta get a bandage." "Boss yelled at me and took me to the hospital." No Help To Be Found "Had a grinding wheel disintegrate, and a piece of it slammed into my thigh. Felt like a strong slap at the time, so I just hissed, rubbed it a little like a bruise, and went on back to what I was doing. About 10 minutes later noticed my sneaker was wet inside and saw the whole leg was covered in blood and the shoe was soaked." "It wasn't a bruise lol, that piece split the skin and muscle pretty deep. And since it was in a remote location, there was no immediate opportunity to get it sutured, so now I have a mouth-sized and shaped scar there." Don't Tell Mom "When I was a kid we had this old go kart thing that I sat on while my older brother pulled a rope tied to it. We went around in circles then after landing from a small bump, my right leg got stuck between the front wheel & frame or so, next thing I know almost my entire right leg was drenched in blood." "My brother took some cotton balls & bandages and started cleaning the blood, as we swear not to tell mom. Somehow turns out the cut wasn’t even that big or deep, only got a small band aid, not even needed at that. So in conclusion my skin is made of rubber and my blood flows like pulp." If there's anything this entire discussion has taught us is that the human body going into shock can lead to some truly terrifying moments. Makes You Wonder How Someone Doesn't Need Their Knee "Took a spill at night while inline skating. Got up, felt some blood on my knee but kept doing some more runs." "Got home and every other step I left a bloody footprint. My mum started screaming and I discovered I'd basically torn my knee cap off." "Oof that escalated quickly" Can You Hear This? "Kind of a same thing happened to me when I was making our yard look cleaner with my 1960 Fordson Major tractor. Left-side axle snapped in half and I fell down a deep ditch." "I just climbed the ditch like "Well that was something" I walked inside to ask my dad to help me with my tractor but my mom came screaming at me in panic as my right ear was torn in half." "I was so confused but she took me to the mirror. We went to hospital and I got stiches. Only started to feel pain in the morning." "The tractor had mine modified cockpit from a valmet or something. It was only made of iron so it wasn't that soft. That cockpit was totaled and so could have me if it didn't land on its wheels. It could of been deadly." Listening To Doctors. What A Unique Concept. "i walked around for over a week with a broken shoulder because i thought it was just a sprain. when i finally saw the doctor, i was like “i’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain.” doc was like “judging by the bruising, it is very much broken.” x-rays later confirmed." Don't try to tough it out. Get out the antibiotic ointment, grab the bandages, and just take it easy for the rest of the day. No need to be a Black Knight about the whole thing. Want to "know" more? Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. We are currently in a market that favors workers over employers – many workers feel empowered to seek out different positions and have reevaluated what they want in their careers amid the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many workers left their jobs in search of greener pastures because they were ready for a change, and others were more than happy to leave behind toxic workplaces that only burned them out. As you can imagine, they've become rather adept at noticing red flags during the interview process and beyond. People shared their thoughts with us after Redditor taylortaylortaylorrr asked the online community, "What is a red flag from an employer that people might not immediately recognize as a red flag?" "It can be hard to tell..." "When an employee quits or gets fired from the job and the company doesn't hire anyone new to replace them." " It can be hard to tell as a red flag at first, but the temporary workload they added to your own over that was left over after the person left, slowly becomes your new permanent workload, without any changes to your pay or benefits to compensate for the additional tasks." "The further out it goes without the position being filled, the larger and more obvious the red flag becomes." Very good to know. Not only will the red flag become more prominent but the likelihood of burnout will increase as well. "The CEO/boss/whatever drives a conspicuously expensive car." This does say a lot about company leadership, particularly if the rest of the workers are feasting on scraps. "If it's a private/family company..." "If it's a private/family company, do a Google search for '[company name] defendant' and '[company name] plaintiff.' "If the company has been sued, or is in the habit of suing others, that can be a red flag- although something there are legit reasons for. But it's something worth paying attention to." You probably wouldn't want to be involved with a company that could land you in legal trouble, would you? "If the company brings alcohol..." "If the company brings alcohol into the office for 'end of week' sessions on a regular basis. I know they can be fun but it's a stupendously bad idea for all kinds of reasons and if leadership hasn't figured that out then I'd think twice before joining." This is a big reason why it is so important to have boundaries to work and your personal life. Alcohol can certainly make things messy. "If it's a job in a manufacturing or distribution facility, is it messy or tidy? Messy, cluttered facilities are indicative of poor management, plus they can be dangerous." Dangerous indeed. That's how lawsuits happen! "Pay attention to the feeling in your gut. If something feels 'off,' then it probably is." Probably the most important piece of advice here, arguably. If it doesn't sit right with you, it's probably for an excellent reason. "When you don't get a review..." "When you don’t get a review until you ask for a raise. Then, all of a sudden, your work is being questioned and you’re being berated." How convenient, right? Many people fall into this trap and it exhausts them. Talk about toxic workplaces! "I know people..." "I know people (rightfully) like to hate on HR, but if a company brags about 'not having an HR department to deal with,' expect them to be very disorganized at a minimum." You definitely want an HR department! Not having one can create an environment in which so many boundaries are crossed. "It tells me that..." "Open interviews. It tells me that people leave faster than you can bring them in, and with good reason." This often happens in fast food establishments, which have very high turnover rates. While horrible customers are one thing, bad management definitely contributes to the revolving door effect in these establishments. "If you’re being interviewed/hired and they tell you have/will have multiple managers to report to. Basically if there is not a clear chain of command." "What’ll happen is eventually one manager’s directions, goals or instructions will conflict with the other’s, and you’ll get caught in the middle of it. And one or both will use it against you in performance reviews." This is crucial to remember – a clear chain of command is important, with each party willing and able to take responsibility for their part. Anything less can backfire. Now that you've listened and absorbed some of these, you're bound to feel more empowered, right? Now get out there and slay your next interview. And remember – trust your gut. Have some advice of your own to give? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below! Want to "know" more? Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Computers are not everyone's strong suit. Generation z is now reaching adulthood, and they've had computers, smart phones, and iPads since birth. For anyone in an older generation, this wasn't the case. Computers weren't even advertised for the home until the Superbowl of 1984, and even then it was priced at $2,500. Come the turn of the 21st century, computers are a staple in the home, but the advancements in the last two decades have left some people scrambling to keep up. Things that might seem basic to some are shockingly uncommon to others. Redditor Dark-Matter-7935 asked: "What is a basic computer skill you were shocked some people don't have?" Prepare to be blown away. "Not knowing what double click means." "Click... 3 seconds later click." "Either they single click everything, or they double-click everything." Just read the screen. "Reading! As a tech supporter I get the stupidest questions:" "Client: There is a prompt here that says "your computer needs to reboot to finish installing updates. click here to restart" what does that mean?" "Me: It means your computer installed updates and needs to reboot." "Client: How do I do that?" "Me: Click on the prompt to restart." "The longer you work in IT, the more you realize that people who say 'I'm not good with computers' actually mean that they can't be bothered to use a search bar...or even just f*cking read what's right in front of them." How to search the internet. "You'd be surprised how many folk don't know what to type in to search engines to find what they're looking for." "Don't tell them; this is my job security." "Yea forreal. Family/friends having tech problems? I google it. Customer asking me a question? 'Let me get that information for you' as I disappear behind the counter." And how to search your computer. "Been working in IT long enough to where people not having basic computer skills doesn't shock me anymore. But still, how do people never figure out that you can search for programs in the start menu?" "'My Outlook is gone!'" "Hits start and types Outlook." "'Oh, there it is! How'd you find it?'" "The amount of people that can't function if there isn't a shortcut on their desktop is astounding." Changing the desktop background. "My college roommate didn't know he could change his desktop background. He was blown away and went to show it to one of our other friends, who was also blown away because she didn't know you could change the background." "I remember this exact same thing happening with a friend... in 1996. We all gathered around to marvel at her background being the block of trees with gold frames." Finding the right cable for the job. "Shape recognition. Does the end of the cable look like the hole in the machine? It's amazing how many people can't figure that out at work." "'I had to cut off some of the pins to make it fit...'" "Actually had this happen once with a 4G dongle. We told them to plug in their SIM card into it. They had a full size SIM and the dongle took full size cards. Instead they found the micro SD card slot on the dongle and literally cut their SIM card down to fit into that slot." Copy and paste. "Copy and paste shortcuts." "I caught a coworker flipping back and forth between tabs while retyping a paragraph. When I showed her how to copy and paste, her response was 'I can't keep up with all this new technology.'" "I am 38. She is 40." "My dad is 73, wasn't at all computer literate, taught himself how to install Linux and definitely knows how to copy and paste." "I think sometimes it's a choice to not learn stuff like that. Everyone has priorities, and it's perfectly fair if computer literacy isn't yours, but of course you won't 'keep up' if you choose not to try." A URL is not for Google. "Not knowing how to enter a URL. I've tried to get people to enter a URL over the phone and they just put it in the Google search bar (usually after first going to google.com)." "I'm always surprised how many business owners go to their own website by typing it in Google then clicking the link. Bookmark that sh*t at least!" "I encounter this issue EVERY time I ask someone on the phone to 'Go to logmein123.com' and they inevitably then reply with 'which one do I click?' TYPE IT IN THE F***ING ADDRESS BAR!" "Unless they’re intentionally trying to make the business website rank higher in the search engine lol." Refusing to believe their tech needs power. "Them: My computer turns on, but my monitor doesn’t show the picture!” "Me: Is your monitor plugged in and connected to the back of your PC?” "Them: No, I needed to use that outlet so I unplugged it." "I worked tech support for an ISP and we had a storefront where customers could bring devices in for config. Had a lady once bring a router in with no power supply. She was dumbfounded and almost irritated when I told her I couldn't work on it. She said 'Why does it need a power cord? It's wireless!'" "Wanted to kill myself daily at that job." "My buddy has a customer come in and complain the phone they sold them died. The battery was just depleted, and the man was irate when told that he had to plug his phone in the charge it every day. He tried to get a discount because he was told it was wireless so he assumed it would just charge itself via magic cell signals or something, and then he complained that his 'old phone' never needed charging." "I assume his old phone was just a corded home phone or something." With technology changing all the time, we may always need a tech support person to help us figure out what's going on. Though, with more reliance on technology, we might need to better increase our computer literacy so everyone is on an even playing feild. The hopefully our IT servicers won't want to pull their hair out with every client. Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Living close to the Everglades, weird wildlife encounters don't really seem all that "weird" anymore. South Florida is some next-level wilderness. Every now and then, though, you hear about an encounter with something that shouldn't be there. Sometimes it's an escaped or released exotic animal; hurricanes have destroyed countless wildlife enclosures and some people don't realize how big that cool pet is really going to get and choose to set it loose. Sometimes it's a "skunk ape." Florida's version of a 'bigfoot' sounds a little easier to believe when you factor in the huge number of primate enclosures that have been destroyed over the decades. We have established populations of things like monkeys, pythons, and boars now. Why not gorillas or orangutans? They're both tall upright hair covered primates that might match the description. Except skunk ape stories go back way before zoos and the exotic pet industry. Reddit user cruzer58b asked: "Those of you that TRULY believe you have seen a cryptid (Bigfoot, jersey devil, etc.) what’s your story?" South Florida isn't the only place the wild gets weird. OBVIOUSLY. Look at what these Reddit users have experienced. The Thing Hunting OrcasMarine Life Beauty GIF by OceanaGiphy "I was on a ferry for a school softball trip, off Kodiak island AK, 2014. I was 18." "A whole bunch of us had snuck up to the deck around 11pm to watch the waves and generally be teenagers on a boat without supervision. It was 11pm in May in Alaska so the sun was thinking about setting but it was still bright outside." "So we’re just doing our thing and we notice a pod of orcas swimming with the ferry’s wake, which is very cool but not, like, unusual." "If you’re familiar with the dimensions of an orca fin you know they’re about 4-6 ft in height and look like big black spikes coming out of the water. Being Alaskan teenagers, we were very familiar. This is important." "Orcas travel and hunt in pods of anywhere between 15-40 whales. Apex predators. The beautiful demon murderers of the sea." "Total a**holes. Top of the food chain." "So we saw this pod of orcas swimming with the boat, counted around 10- 15, with some babies scattered in there. Very fun to watch for the good 30 minutes to all go by. We tried to get pictures, but it was just dark enough that our shitty 2014 phone cameras weren't much good." "Another 30 or 40 minutes go by and we’ve all pretty much sobered up and it’s about to finally get dark and we’re cold and sleepy and about ready to go in." "We haven’t seen an orca for like half an hour, and then one of the girls spots another one and points it out. So we all turn and look at the whale's dorsal fin - but one dorsal fin is immediately followed by another, and another, and another, and then two more, and then two more after that, in two separate rows, and they’re taller, by a LOT, and jagged, like some have whole chunks torn out of them, and they’re all 8-10 feet high." "And all these fins are attached to ONE creature." "We can just barely see its back slicing through the water, covered in these rows of spikes, and it just. Keeps. Coming. This thing is like 20 or 30 feet from the ferry, running parallel to it, and we are all transfixed." "This wasn't a small group - there’s like 9 or 10 of us and no one is saying a word because we’ve all turned to look at a whale and we are all now watching something that is like, horrifically, terrifyingly obviously NOT a whale." "Someone tries to take a picture but it’s too dark at this point and the only reason we can see this thing is the light cast from ferry portholes, which is a take as old as time when it comes to things that you REALLY f*cking wish you had a picture of." "But we all stand there completely scared stiff and in awe and we watch this thing just KEEP surfacing for a good 6 or 7 minutes which means that whatever it was was LONG. Like..... 60 or 70 feet long." "And covered in enormous spikes. Spikes that looked like they’d won thousands of battles with god knows what." "It took what felt like an eternity for any of us to say anything after the last of it disappeared back into the strait." "I mean if you and like ten of your friends had just all seen something that all science had DEFINITELY pointed to not existing, and you had all seen the same exact thing, AND it was very OBVIOUSLY trailing, nay, HUNTING, not one but 15 something APEX F*CKIN PREDATORS, what do you even say to break that silence?" "That’s the thing that eats me about the whole thing, is it was hunting. It was following them. It was literally hunting about 60 tons of toothy, angry, intelligent apex predator." "Every once in a while one of us will hit another one of us up and check in, like 'Do remember this? Was I hallucinating? Did we all see the same, insane, worldview-melting, terrifying thing that night?' And the reason I KNOW we did is because none of us talked about it." "Not during the trip, not after, not to any of our friends because how the f*ck do you even tell someone about something like that?" "Now we have almost 10 years between us and that night I assume some of them have probably told people, I know I tell people, because I’ve seen a LOT like that in Alaska and I’m That B*tch." "And also because there’s a very rich history among native Alaskans of a Something that lives and hunts in the waters around Kodiak and it’s important to tell its story because someday it’s gonna eat a little too much plastic and no one will ever watch it hunt a pod of orcas terrified from a boat ever again." The Cutest CryptidArts And Crafts Love GIF by NickelodeonGiphy "One night I was driving home at around 2 AM and this tiny, tiny white creature (probably as tall as a Pringles can, though maybe a bit smaller) walked across the road in front of my car." "I hadn't thought about this in a while but here's what I can remember: The bottoms of its "legs" ended in what looked like flowy bits or ribbons, and it was almost translucent. I could almost see the road THROUGH the creature." "It walked at a kind of jaunty pace, just like a person might walk. The best way to describe it is like that super steppy walk that the dwarves sometimes do in Snow White, or Mickey Mouse does sometimes." "I slowed my car down but was afraid to stop it completely, and the thing disappeared as my car went 'through' it." "Honestly it was so f*cking cute that I wasn't even scared, but I was shaken up by having seen something like this." "I couldn't believe what I saw, so I called my then-boyfriend and frantically described the creature. He told me that it sounded like the Fresno Nightcrawler, and when I got home and looked it up, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE." "I had never heard about them before. I do not live in California, not even close. I still have no clue what it was." The SwimmerMichael C Hall Night GIF by DexterGiphy "I used to go running and take a break at a train bridge in Iowa city when I went to school there." "I did a lot of night runs. Sometimes, only after dark, I'd hear something swimming around at that train bridge. Maybe human or deer sized." "One time, It was late and I heard it again. But this time, I could see something dark on the water. Looked like a profile of a very large head." "I said 'hello, someone there?' " "It stopped dead still and looked at me. It was dark but I could tell it was looking right at me. This went on for 30 seconds to a minute. It then went under, and I never saw or heard it again." "I told myself it was a person swimming. But why not say hi back? Also, where did it go under to?""It was a slow river, I would have heard it surfacing or getting out of the water unless it went over a hundred feet." "That's the closest thing to a cryptid I've seen and known about." "Some people are saying beavers and otters. I've seen river otters (but not in the US), it was far too big to be a normal sized one. I've never seen the 6 ft ones, and I don't think they live anywhere near Iowa." "It was much too big to be a beaver too, I see those all the time, and they're usually denoted by telltale signs such as dams and chewed trees. Also, I've never seen beavers active at night only during the day." "I think it was probably just a person, maybe a homeless person who wanted to not be bothered by me." "As I said, that's the closest I've come to seeing a cryptid, I know the original post asked for people that are 100% sure, but it was late at night and it felt appropriate to tell that story." Orangutan/Lemur Hybridorangutan GIFGiphy "When I was 14 or so in 2003 I saw what looked like an orangutan/lemur hybrid watching me from the trees." "When it realized I was looking at it, it took off into the trees and disappeared. This was in Western NC, nothing like that should have been around here." "For a few years I looked for articles about someone’s escaped exotic pet but never found anything. Eventually just wrote it off." "Years later I heard a Lore episode about the Pukwudgie and I immediately got chills because the description matched what I saw. I’m still not sure what happened." "Few months ago I was dumb enough to wander into the same patch of woods. I got nailed by a rock and when I looked up I saw a small outline ducking around like it was watching my reaction. Again, when it recognized I was looking at it, it took off." "I don’t know what happened but I also don’t really plan on going back." Hopefully A Bearred dead redemption bear GIFGiphy "About 16 years ago I lived in the rural areas of Kansas, town was about 6 miles from my house." "At night while I was waiting for sleep I stared out of my window and look out into the darkness. Normally I would see owls, possums, racoons, coyote, etc all just minding their business doing animal stuff." "And I could always hear them. Loud and clear." "One night as I am trying to get to bed I watch and listen for the wildlife and on this night there was none to be heard or seen. Being a kid I thought nothing of it." "Until I saw a HUGE black figure moving on four legs." "I could swear I had seen a brown bear this thing was THAT massive. Except we lived in midwest Kansas. We have no bears." "Cows and horses are too tall and not wide enough for what I saw. Plus our neighbors all had cattle so I was familiar with what they look like at night." "People suggested it could have been one of the massive dogs like a malamute or leonberger or something. Maybe it could have been, but they are still too small for what I saw." "Never saw it again" "There are bears in Colorado, Arkansas, Missouri, And a bit in Oklahoma. Kansas is in the historic range of black bears as well." "I don't think it's a stretch that one may have wandered in from a surrounding state." "This would relieve years of stress and the itch of the unknown if I could get confirmation that it was, it is how I always make it out in my head. A really big bear." The Big Bluetrailer GIF by Jurassic WorldGiphy "Been deep sea fishing a few times. You NEVER see schools of fish so far out, but once we saw this massive shadow moving FAST. It couldn't have been a whale, they don't move like that. The skipper stared at this mass of blue with me for about 20 seconds before it was gone and swore it was a megalodon. i'm not convinced but I have never seen a school of fish that far out in the ocean ever." "It could be a large species of squid such as Colossal or Giant Squid. They are found world wide. It's odd they would come to the surface, but it's not to weird." "Other options are Sunfish, Oarfish, or Large Shark." "I’m a firm believer there has to be some kind of megalodon or something out there, we just don’t know enough about the ocean" When It Looked At Chandlerscary jack the giant killer GIFGiphy "My friend was at a camp with me and we were in the same cabin, we all stayed up late we got tired and went to sleep." "My friend, lets call him Chandler, and I stole some instant coffee packets from the kitchen and we had them in water at night. Chandler didn't have a good caffeine tolerance like me so he stayed up a bit after all of us went to sleep." "I asked him what he was going to do and he said he brought a novel and he was going to read it until he fell asleep." "It was about 1am and we are all peacefully sleeping and then we hear the biggest scream. Chandler was crying and shaking in his sleeping bag and everyone in our cabin came over to see what was wrong and to help him out." "He screaming really loud and if that didn't wake up other cabins and the teachers then his loud crying after did. Soon all the teachers were inside out cabin and I had to stay on my bunk bed to not be squashed." "Chandler told us that he saw a ghost wandering around our cabin. He said he also heard the wind breeze while the ghost was moving. Another guy in my cabin backed him up saying he also heard that." "Chandler was sent home and everyone continued the camp, however, it felt really weird. I talked to him a lot when we all got home and he told me more details." "He told me he looked at the ghost for about 3 seconds because he was too shocked to say anything. The ghost was not white look in movies, it was transparent and BARELY visible." "He told me it looked like a little boy. The little boy was not in our school uniform, but in really old fashioned clothes. Chandler told me he wasn’t too scared of the boy in those 3 seconds but shocked because it was a ghost." "Then what really screwed him was after those 3 seconds when his brain clicked and he screamed." "The ghost boy turned and looked at him "with shallow, lifeless eyes" and then rushed out of the cabin. This was the wind sound Chandler and my cabin mate heard." "Then I remember distinctly what Chandler said because if I was him, I would doubt everything I know. He said 'That ghost looked at me, with no expression, and even though it was only for a split second, it felt like an eternity. I knew it wasn’t just my mind playing tricks when I saw his eyes. There was no soul in them, like it had been sucked away.' " "I find it really weird because Chandler is the most honest guy I know and he seemed really traumatized." "I was considering if it was the effect of the coffee, but he had it the night before as well and didn't see and hallucinations. Plus he was a regular drinker and he loved the taste even though it made him stay up." "This story shakes me to this day." "Not A Deer"Busch Beer GIF by BuschGiphy "Alright it’s finally my time to shine!" "The area I live in has a very active deer population. They’re constantly getting hit by cars at night in my area and people constantly have to be on the lookout for these dudes." "So one night I’m driving home from my friends house around 1am. I’m going pretty slow because the place near my house has a pretty big deer family who loves the area (around 6-7 of them)." "So I’m driving up a hill going around 30mph and I had to slam on my breaks cause a 'deer' runs in front of my car." "I don’t know if it was because it was super late at night and I was tired or what. But I sh*t you not, this was not a deer." "It kind of was, but it had one too many legs and too many eyes. I only saw it for a second cause it ran past my car. But it was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen." "It was pretty quick when it went by my car, but the 'tail' for sure was a leg, I can say that for certain." "I even looked it up later and there is a commonly seen cryptid called the “Not a Deer” so that’s just my fun little cryptid story." Jellyfish In The Airjellyfish GIF by Monterey Bay AquariumGiphy "Walking through the woods in the southeast US for fun I walked through a field where there were tiny fluorescent jellyfish-like things floating through the air. Maybe half an inch to 2 inches in size." "I initially thought it was some kind of plant spores or something moving in the wind but when I looked at them closer they were actually moving independently." "That was about 2006. I spent months going through those woods and that field over and over again with a camera trying to find them but I've never seen them since." My long-term readers will know I'm super sketched out by orcas and have essentially written off Argentina because their orcas hunt on land. Alaska clearly needs to get scratched off my list, too. Anything big enough to hunt orcas is certainly big enough to hunt Ericas and I'm not trying to be on anyone's menu. Kthankxbye, giant spiky sea thing. Want to "know" more? Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.

National Cryptid Society Case Files December 2020 episode includes: 1. The Thing in the Pond A report from 2016 where an Iowa City, Iowa witness comes across a large, gaunt humanoid in meandering in a pond behind their home. 2. A Dangerous Intruder Terror ensues as a Pinesville, Missouri man hunts and is hunted by a strange and aggressive humanoid crawler. 3. Black Panther of Colorado Bruce recalls a black panther sighting near Bailey, Colorado and opens a can of worms as we recount three additional reports of black panther-like big cat sightings in Colorado. 4. A Wisconsin Mothman An Anonymous caller and her friend reach out to our NCS Hotline (815) 408-0358 to report a large, winged Mothman-like flying humanoid in the wee morning hours the day after Thanksgiving 2020. The witness is currently cooperating with an investigation by the The Singular Fortean Society: http://www.singularfortean.com/ 5. Possible Wild Chimpanzee Encounter in Florida A 38 year old mechanical engineer and his fiancé were driving home through Ocala National Forest when an ape dashed out in front of their car travelling at a high rate of speed. Was it a chimpanzee or the legendary skunk ape? This collection of over 170+ articles, direct from newspapers of the 1800s and 1900s, brings some of the most bizarre, amazing, and incredible stories of true monster encounters out of the past and into your hands! Presented with zero spin or bias, this book delivers just the facts and allows you, the reader, to decide for yourself if the stories within actually happened or not. From the funny to the frightening, the sincere to the weird, there is something for everyone within these pages! The National Cryptid Society often uses affiliate links in advertising and articles. Amazon affiliate links allow us to be paid a small commission for products purchased through links posted on our site. Help support the National Cryptid Society by purchasing the products presented here and by supporting our advertisers. Fair Use Copyright Law “Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.” Any use of copyrighted material on http://www.nationalcryptidsociety.org is done for criticism, comment, news reporting or educational purposes. The National Cryptid Society including all web pages and social media platforms owned or registered by The National Cryptid Society does not endorse nor is any endorsement of the National Cryptid Society inferred by creators of copyrighted material presented herein for criticism, comment, news reporting or educational purposes under Fair Use allowance quoted above. 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NOE AMSELL | THE PROTAGONIST Step into the shoes of Noe Amsel; resident cryptid lover, spider hater, and enthusiastic consumer of on-sale Halloween candy. Valeria Andrei (she/they) “All I’m thinking about is shredding your throat like barbecue, so talk fast.” She might be the youngest of our trio, but Valeria certainly believes she has the upper hand. But don't let her pretty face fool you, her bite is far worse than her bark. Though... both leave a pretty nasty sting. She's fucked Dracula, likes poetry, cheating at board games, internet shopping, and warm-blooded murder. Ilyas Al-Rai (he/him) “Desperation makes your blood sweeter, so... beg.” Ilyas is the oldest but definitely not the wisest of the trio, coming in at a solid 2400 years old. Lover of athleisure, Eurodance, lifting weights, and thinking he's the smartest guy in the room. (Spoiler: he's not.) He's big, he's buff, and he's loveable as hell, but you don't want to be his prey. UNLESS... Laurel Portman (he/they) "Is there something I can do for you? Yes. Is there something I will do for you? Quite unlikely, but it's worth a shot." Laurel is pushing 300 and is a lover of Hot Topic, insincerity, and watching their victims bleed out on the floor while they watch TV. He's also a seasoned connoisseur of the backhanded compliment and a force to be reckoned with. Tread lightly. Or not...

Author: Eric S. Brown Published Date: 22 Jan 2013 Publisher: COSCOM ENTERTAINMENT Format: Paperback| 86 pages Dimension: 127x 203x 5mm| 103g Download Link: Bigfoot War 4 Legion Bigfoot War 4 Legion pdf. Kuuntele Legion of Myth -podcastia heti tabletilla, puhelimella ja selaimella. Numenera RPG | Captain America, Bigfoot Bill & Powers of X | Viva La Dirt Basket | Avengers #20, Fantastic Four #11 & War of the Realms #6. 1- Torture Garden * 2- Mummy Lives * 3- Valley of the Sasquatch * 4- Teen Alien *. Les monstres d'Août offerts Exorcist 3: Legion Godzilla Wars Jr. Gog Activate the CD Key on your Steam client to download BIGFOOT. Save money Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order The Sims 4 Discover University Expansion Pack. A team of Bigfoot believers, a legion of Haters, more than one Walmart Precisely eight feet four, according to Rick, the beast was covered in hair the post kept referring to my sources, as if they were Cold War moles. Bigfoot! Special Summon 1 ?Danger! Bigfoot ? from your hand, and if you do, draw 1 card. If this card is discarded: You can target 1 face-up card on the field; 2019sat09nov(nov 9)11:30 amsun10(nov 10)4:00 pmFeatured8th Annual Tour for Elk Ride & Toy Drive11:30 am - 4:00 pm (10) EDT Elk Country Visitor Center, Legion of Merit (2) with Combat "V" Navy and Marine Corps Medal Purple Heart Medal. Wilburt Scott Brown (20 December 1900 17 December 1968) was a United States Marine Corps general who was a combat veteran of World War I, the Nicaraguan campaign, World War II, and the Korean War. During this period, four army infantry regiments and two Marine Corps Bigfoot War 4: Legion - Eric S. Brown - ISBN: 9781927339268. | Online Bookshop and Library Vendor. Comic books in 'Yeti / Bigfoot'. All Issues; In Stock 160 CGC Big Bigfoot TPB #1-1ST Buy: $15.75 1996 Creatureplica Action Figure #ITEM#4. Not in stock. Bigfoot War 1. Bigfoot War (2013) 2. Dead in the Woods (2011) 3. Food Chain (2011) 4. Legion (2013) 5. Planet Sasquatch (2013) Frontier (2012) Outbreak STRATEGY | Shoot Again Games | Bigfoot vs Yeti | Release: September 2018 A battle is brewing between the of unknown creatures such as Bigfoot, Yeti, The Loch Ness Monster, the Jersey Devil or Extraterrestrials. STAR WARS: LEGION 2-4. LANGUAGE. English. DURATION. 30-60'. COMPLEXITY. Medium. AGE. Buy Bigfoot War 4: Legion by Eric S. Brown (ISBN: 9781927339268) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. The American Legion Cheula Post 92 Auxiliary stands solidly behind America and aftermath of the War to End All Wars, World War I. The American Legion Auxiliary is invited to the Legion on 232 Broadway Ave. in McCloud at 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. Mt. Shasta Ski Park's Bigfoot Blitz was big draw Legion book. Read reviews from world's largest community for readers. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Vander, a former spy for the Union, That was typical of Bigfoot Brown: doing the outrageous, endearing himself to his troops, telling a It was in - Col Brown, second from left, receives the Legion of Merit from MajGen DeWitt I first saw Gen Brown in October 1945, after the war's end, and the place was the British Club at 4 Fortitudine, Winter 1992-1993. Noté 0.0/5. Retrouvez Bigfoot War 3: Food Chain et des millions de livres en stock sur Achetez neuf ou d'occasion. Looking for a board game that won't overwhelm your new gaming friends, but won't bore your old ones to death? Check out Cryptid! Genesis 6:4 tells us that: There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the It was a War of Survival, or be eradicated from the planet. Buy Yu-Gi-Oh! MP19-EN136 Danger! Bigfoot! online at Magic Madhouse! Free UK delivery over 20. We ship Worldwide! Bigfoot War: After the Fall picks up where the original Bigfoot War and Bigfoot also the complete and rare Bigfoot War IV: Legion as well Bigfoot War: Frontier. Read online Bigfoot War 4 Legion

Submitting and working with a publisher can be easy and you will receive more benefits than from self-publishing. When you are ready to submit your work, it is important to take your time so you can make a great first impression. Read all instructions below to ensure that you meet our requirements. PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK Submitting and working with a publisher can be easy and fulfilling. While we understand that self-publishing is very popular these days, there's a lot involved in doing so, hence why traditional publishers like ourselves are still around. When you are ready to submit your work, it is important to take your time because like anywhere else, first impressions count. Read all the instructions below to ensure that you meet our requirements for submission. New Authors Welcome We are currently accepting new manuscripts within the paranormal, UFO, cryptid and true crime genres. We are looking for only non-fiction works. While we have published fiction in the past, we are currently NOT accepting submissions for fiction (novels, etc). Please check back periodically as we may change that policy. We do NOT publish fiction, short stories, poetry, cookbooks or children's books. No agent/representation required. Any questions you may have reference our FAQ page. Submissions guidelines below. Please read and follow instructions carefully. Failure to do so may result in your manuscript not being accepted. Your submitted manuscript should be a Word file only (.doc or .docx). Please include your cover letter at the beginning of your manuscript and submit as a single file. The cover letter should include an introduction, a summary, and author biography. Submitting a professionally edited manuscript will help your chances of getting published. DO NOT send sample chapters, but the full and complete manuscript. If you are not done with your book, we suggest you complete it, get it edited then submit. Every manuscript that is submitted per instructions will be reviewed. Our acquisitions team takes every submission seriously and gives each one adequate time to determine fitness for publishing with Beyond The Fray Publishing. After your manuscript has been reviewed, you will be contacted. Please double check your contact information to ensure everything is correct. If your manuscript is not selected, you will receive a response via e-mail. Thank you for considering Beyond The Fray Publishing. Submit your manuscript to: email@example.com

OP, very enjoyable and well researched thread. Another historical cryptid that I had not heard about until now. Great job. I'm not sure I buy the hyena theory. It has some similarities to the multitude of descriptions, but not quite close enough. Not saying that it wasn't hyenas for sure, but I'm leaning more towards the side of it being something else. There's a couple of key points here that I think some are conveniently ignoring. First of all, it would not have been a single animal/person, since reports stated it was sometimes seen with a much smaller female that did not attack. Second of all, is the length of time in which this creature was said to have made appearances. Are posters here saying that a single 'beast' or man could live for at least four centuries? There would have had to have been enough specimens to sustain the species for that long. Why these points are important to the hyena theory; for one, it's the female hyenas that are typically the larger of the species. They have a matriarchal hierarchy. Though, in fairness, most people attacking, being attacked or fleeing in blind terror from this thing probably weren't going to take the time to peek between the legs-- and female hyenas do have some rather, *ahem* unique genitalia, which could be easily mistaken for A story of a man finally killing the beast once and for all seems like it could be mostly sensationalism-- to ease the public fear. Especially since the killings kept on happening. For argument's sake, let's say they were hyenas. These creatures work in packs, and any other specimens required for a population during that duration would more than likely have been working together to bring down their prey. Like wolves, they are pack animals. Also for argument's sake, let's say that some depraved and deranged nobleman actually did have a pair of hyenas imported for his own twisted amusement. At least one of them would have had to have been some mutant monster specimen to be the consistent 'horse size' that's described. Granted, if a nobleman wanted some monsters capable of wrecking brown-trousers-inducing horror, he'd hunt around for the biggest, nastiest ones he That said, the Mesonychids just fit the descriptions better. Toes and hooves, the long thick tail, the size , among others. It wouldn't be the first time that ancient species survived into more modern times, unknown to us, and with seemingly no evidence in the fossil chain. Animals can be extremely elusive. Another thought; if they were suffering as a species in that area at that time, wouldn't that possibly make them more prone to aggressive hunting due to lack of other prey? Lots of humans around, let's eat them, they're easy to kill. (Sadly, women's clothing usually isn't designed for defending oneself or fleeing quickly in a panic. Especially back in those times.) The varying reports on just what colour this beast was, interested me and got me thinking. It would either be solely due to lighting conditions, or possibly different coat patterns of separate specimens.

Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 16th, 2010 Linda Scarberry and Loren Coleman, 2001. On November 15, 1966, the World was introduced to the phenomenon that would become known as Mothman. After the first sighting reported by the press 44 years ago in the papers of the day, soon a copyeditor in Ohio, a fan of the “Batman” series then on television, would coin the word “Mothman” because it fit in the headlines better. The sightings of a “Big Bird” had become a “big insect” with one copyeditor’s action. The ultimate modern embracing of the wrong visual for Mothman occurred in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where the “moth” science fiction imagery won out over the more correct “avian” cryptid descriptions. Mothman was born. But the world is slowly changing the story. A movie came out in 2002, and since then, the great Mothman chronicler John A. Keel has died. Still, Mothman is remembered and what it really looked like is debated. November 27 is another milestone in the 44th year anniversary of events related to Mothman and its impact on a historical understanding of its appearance. On November 27,1966, at around 10:30 a.m., Connie Jo Carpenter sighted what she took to be Mothman near New Haven, West Virginia. The creature looked to be a tall gray winged figure, standing on the local golf course. She said the “very red eyes” were “horrible, like something out of a science fiction movie,” but could not give a detailed description of the face of the creature. Carpenter’s Mothman unfolded its wings, which appeared to be ten feet across, and flew directly at her automobile’s windshield. It then flew off and vanished. Following Carpenter’s sighting, she found her own eyes were red, swollen, and itchy for a half month. The night of this same day, in St. Albans, West Virginia, thirteen-year-old Sheila Cain and her sister were walking home when they saw Mothman standing by a local road. They said it appeared to be gray & white and seven feet tall, with big red eyes. They grew panicky, let out some screams, and hightailed it home, telling worried adults later that Mothman had flown low over their heads as they ran. (Source: John A. Keel, FSR, July-August 1968, pp. 8 and 13.) When I first shared information here on the 40th anniversary of the first “media-acknowledged” sightings, Mothman Museum founder John Frick disagreed with me. Here’s equal time for his view: John Frick writes that it is “not true,” regarding my comment, in my previous posting that during re-interviews in the “21st century (especially since 2002), for books, documentaries, and news clips, the Mothman has become a fully humanized creature with a head, arms, and legs that were not there in the first reports.” He continues: This from the November 16, 1966 Point Pleasant Register: “It was like a man with wings” Mallette said.”It wasn’t like anything you’d see on tv or in a monster movie” They said it did not resemble a bat in any way but “maybe what you would visualize as an angel” From the November 18, 1966 Athens Messenger: The description includes two red eyes about six inches apart, wings with 10 foot span and always manlike with stocky legs. From a newspaper around November 21: Miss Connie Jo Carpenter, 18, New Haven, saw the awful looking creature flying toward her car on route 33 near New Haven, about 10:30 AM. She said the thing was “man-like, with a big wing span.” (Keep in mind that Connie saw it during the day.) From the same paper: Later Sunday night, two young girls reported seeing a similar man-like creature on route 60, near St Albans. The girls said the flying creature had “big red pop eyes and didn’t have a beak.” So there it is, the man-like appearance of Mothman has been there right from the very beginning. The only point I concede on here is that a full human head has been added in many of the pop culture depicitions (the statue, the flying Mothman seen on tv now hanging in the museum, the T-shirts, etc), but Connie Carpenter did say early on that it had a science fiction like face, so reports of a head were there early on. Yes there was also sightings of a giant bird (less frequently than Mothman and obviously a form of Thunderbird), by Tom Ury and others in WV that year, but nearly every other major phenomena you can think of was also occurring there (bigfoot, UFOs, aliens, MIB, poltergeists, prophecy, etc). One guy I talked to this year saw an 8 foot hairy man like creature (without wings) around 1968 out at TNT, and he assumed it was Mothman, but what he didn’t realize was that this was just the phenomena manifesting as a BHM (big hairy monster), which incidentally consistently fools bigfoot hunters into thinking bigfoot is a real creature on the east coast. Reporter Mary Hyre also had reports of bigfoot around TNT and Point Pleasant in the late ’60s. Anyway, clearly when you look at all the early descriptions of what they call Mothman, it was more man than bird. Unfortunately propaganda by Mark Hall, Robert Goerman, Coleman, and maybe others trying to counter these facts seems to be ongoing. No – Mothman was not a large bird, and it certainly isn’t what Mark Hall refers to as the very laughable Big Hoot. Of course, for those that have read Mark A. Hall’s book, Thunderbirds: America’s Living Legends of Giant Birds, he clearly talks about Bighoot (not “Big Hoot”) as a cryptid that uses camouflage to mimic the look of Bigfoot in wooded areas, thus the name, plus its relationship to his giant owl theory. Of course, ridicule is used regarding how funny the name “Bigfoot” sounds too. It usually starts out that way with new monikers. As far as Linda Scarberry’s first accounts, yes, she talked about it being an angel, a big bird, and “wobbling.” In one description days afterwards, she said it “had muscular legs like a man.” But she also said she could not see “its head or arms. I don’t even know if the eyes are even in a head.” Decades later, in new interviews in person and on television, Scarberry has described a head above shoulders, arms in addition to wings, and thin legs. I cannot help but think that her changes in descriptions reflect a popular cultural influence of what people began to “think” and “feel” about what Mothman should look like, versus what was originally seen and described. “Big Bird” was the first way that Mothman reports were characterized. It was only later that headlines like this came about. In the beginning, there were only “big birds.” Couple See Man-Sized Bird…Creature…Something blared the Point Pleasant Register on November 16, 1966. City Get ‘The Bird,’ Want It Or Not stated the headlines of the Point Pleasant Register on November 17, 1966. Couples Say They Saw 6-Ft. 100-mph ‘Bird’ noted the UPI, in the following days, across the nation, beginning on November 18, 1966. Our ‘Bird’ Has Law On Its Side claimed the Point Pleasant Register on November 18, 1966. By mid-December 1966, with John A. Keel in town investigating and Mary Hyre placing paranormal elements in her columns while diminishing the earlier “Big Bird” details, the media began to change their focus. Yes, indeed, it was during this period when that unnamed copyeditor in Ohio started using the name “Moth Man” and then “Mothman.” The more bird-like elements of the reports disappeared, and the natural history links morphed into a stranger and weirder entity. Although I think John Frick has made his point, I still contend a sociological evolution occurred. The earlier more avian elements began to be discharged in favor of a more sinister “man-like” creature. This happened with allusions to science fiction movies and strange lights in the skies, especially cropping up after John A. Keel, for the first time, arrived in Point Pleasant, interestingly, on “Pearl Harbor Day,” Wednesday, December 7th, 1966. Later, the headlines for the town in December 1967 would take on part two of the saga of Mothman. Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 29th, 2011 Admit it. You are caught up in the media-driven mania of the Royal Wedding. Now you know how you can celebrate, royally. Just look what the Royal Canadian Mint has for you. Are you interested in adding some unique items to your cryptid coin collection? How about some Sasquatch quarters from the Royal Canadian Mint? Why didn’t they have these done in time for the Sasquatch Summit? Well, at least they are available for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and for those post-Royal Wedding parties, right?!! LOL. But seriously, serious collectors will be after these items. Here’s what the Royal Mint notes about these gems: Shipping begins May 2 First issue in the 3-coin series. A terrific collectible for kids of all ages! Children of all ages will be captivated by this large coloured coin and its mysterious theme. It’s presented in a full-colour folder that tells the fascinating story of Sasquatch and includes a pull-out map showing where it was last seen—let the intrigue begin! A surprising aerial perspective of Sasquatch walking among snow covered trees, leaving behind a trail of large footprints in the snow. Tracking a mysterious creature from Canada’s North. Is Sasquatch myth or missing link? First Nations legends abound with haunting tales of a giant, human-like creature lurking in the mountain forests of Canada’s Yukon, British Columbia and northern Ontario. They are not alone. In Asia, people claim to have seen Yeti, and in the western United States, witnesses describe a very similar Bigfoot—a very fast, very hairy and strong “ape-man” walking on two feet, “As big as a bear standing on its hind legs,” they say. Sasquatch is reputed to stand about 3 m (10 ft) tall and weigh 227 kg (500 lb)—and looking at the huge footprints it leaves behind, believers say the truth can’t be far o£ . What do you think?Royal Canadian Mint Well, heck, no one said the writers at the royal mint were going to give a comprehensive examination of the entire history of Sasquatchery in their info, correct? Still, these coins look rather sharp and the International Cryptozoology Museum will need some for its collection, of course. If that’s not enough, there’s, wait for it, MORE: How about the new Multi-colored mythical creature coins from the Cook Islands? Below them on that linked page here, there are Mermaid coins too. Can anyone donate these Mythical Creatures and Merbeing coins to the International Cryptozoology Museum? Sure hope so. If so, please make contact via this form, here. Thank you!! Part of a 7 coin set available at this link. I bet you’ll be tempted to add these to your collection. And remember, as the Royal Canadian Mint states, these are only available while supplies last! Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

There's been a rash of sightings of a creature known as the Bhootbilli, or "ghost cat" in a neighborhood near Pune, India. This large feline cryptid has consumed 45 pigeons (and one goat) belonging to one unlucky resident. "The bhootbilli has been coming everyday the past 10 days around 7 pm. We had set up a lot of traps, but all turned into a flop show because whenever we would try to catch it, it would jump on the tree and sneak out somewhere," said Feroz Dilawar Khan, a driver and resident of the area. "It's fat and broad with a long tail, black in colour, has a face like a dog and back like a mongoose." The bhootbilli, as it is called by the residents, has eaten around 45 pigeons and one goat within a span of 10 days which all belonged to Feroz. Fed-up of the creature, Feroz called the police, fire brigade and forest officials on November 3 around 10 pm, but the effort went in vain. "We arrived at the spot around 10 pm, but the animal had already escaped and hid somewhere in the trees," said one of the fire officials from Yerawada, who was at the spot. The residents have again set a trap and are expecting to catch the mischief-maker this time. Hrishikesh Sutar, chairman of the Sanjay Park Society, said: "The residents came complaining to me around four days ago and we haven't yet identified the creature. It's smaller than a lion but bigger than a hyena and I doubt if it's a wild cat." Urban cryptids are more unusual than their rural brethren, so commentators are drawing parallels to the 2001 reports of the Delhi Monkey Man (left), whose sightings caused mass hysteria, 3 deaths (panicked people fell off buildings), and the beating of a four-foot-tall mystic named Jamir, who was throttled by an angry mob.

In June 1947, a chilling SOS message was picked up: “All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead." This was followed by some indecipherable Morse code, and one final grisly message... "I die." Then, silence. It was picked up by nearby ships and listening posts, who identified the vessel as the Dutch freighter SS Ourang Medan and located it within the Strait of Malacca that separates Indonesia from Malaysia. The nearest merchant ship, The Silver Star, raced to her aid. The Silver Star was soon alongside the Dutch ship and their boarding party found a macabre sight: every member of the crew lay dead, their corpses scattered on the decks. More than this, their eyes were still open and expressions of sheer terror were etched on their features. The Silver Star’s party found the radio operator dead too, his hand still on the Morse sending key, eyes wide open and teeth bared. There were no sign of wounds or injuries on any of the bodies. The decision was made to tow the mysterious ship back to port, but before they could get underway, smoke began emanating from the decks below. The boarding party hurriedly returned to their ship and barely had time to cut the tow lines before the SS Ourang Medan exploded and swiftly sank. It has been claimed that clouds of noxious natural gases could have bubbled up from fissures in the seabed and engulfed the ship; even aliens and ghosts have been cited as possible explanations for the Ourang Medan’s macabre and mysterious demise. To this day, the exact fate of her crew remains an impenetrable mystery. 9) The Aluminum Wedge of Aiud In 1974 (or 1973 depending upon which source you believe) a curious aluminum wedge was discovered on the banks of the Mures River in Transylvania, near the city of Aiud. It was found buried deep beneath the sand alongside two mastodon bones. Upon examination, the object – which resembled a hammer head – was found to be encased in a one millimeter thick layer of oxide which suggests that it is some 300-400 years old. A second, Swiss investigation confirmed the results of the first examination. Furthermore, as it was found with mastodon remains it could even be as much as 20,000 years old. Aluminum is abundant in the earth’s crust but it is always combined with other minerals and the wedge predates the technology used to extract it. An aeronautical engineer suggested that the wedge is similar to the foot of landing gear used on spacecraft. The scientific community believes ‘the wedge was made on earth and its purpose is not yet identified’. Unfortunately, the Aluminum Wedge of Aiud is currently locked away in a secret location; however, some photographs of the curious, unexplained object do exist online. 8) Dulce Base Supposedly, a top secret subterranean complex is carved into the rock below the Archuleta Mesa in Dulce, New Mexico. Claims that the base is a ‘genetics lab’ in which humans and extraterrestrials cooperatively conduct disturbing experiments have been made by various ‘leaked documents’, witness reports and even an ex-employee. Strange humming sounds that seem to emanate from the earth near the town of Dulce have added to speculations of an underground facility, as have the presence of military helicopters that have been spotted around the area. An author with the nom de plume of Branton claims to have interviewed former workers at the base who said: "[There] are experiments done on fish, seals, birds and mice that are vastly altered from their original forms. There are multi-armed and multi-legged humans and several cages of humanoid bat-like creatures up to seven feet tall. The aliens have taught the humans a lot about genetics, things both useful and dangerous." The U.S. government denies the base’s existence, but that doesn’t stop the speculation. Chances are you have not heard of BEKs (Black Eyed Kids) yet. Sightings of them are few and far between but via the internet they are growing in number, and the reports describe close encounters that are not only weird, but also frightening. The stories almost always start with a ring of the doorbell. One, two or more children appear on a ‘victim’s’ doorstep and ask for help: they need to use the toilet, make an urgent phone call or relate another tale of distress. They ask to come in, plead in some cases, but the homeowners never let them in due to an unexplained feeling of terror that overcomes them. Perhaps it is the BEKs’ entirely black eyes that induce the overwhelming horror; perhaps it is because, as one ‘witness’ described, their faces appear as slightly blurry. The mysterious encounters don’t stop there, either: “For a period of three days straight, [the BEKs] kept showing up on my driveway. When the police came they were nowhere in sight. After that, they never showed up on my driveway, but every once in a while, I will see them in the downtown area, like they are following me. They will be behind a tree, I will drive to another section of Sacramento and I would see them again or I will see them on the side of the road as I am driving by and they will stare at me.” One man did let the children in. They claimed to need to use the toilet and phone, but it was only when they entered into the house that he saw their peculiar eyes and felt the full force of dread. The BEKs moved towards him, saying that ‘they had come to collect him’. He fled the house in terror. 6) The Piri Reis Map Currently located in the Library of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, the Piri Reis map is a puzzling enigma. It outlines the coast of western Africa, the eastern coast of South America, and even a section of the northern coast of Antarctica (thought to have been discovered 300 years after Piri Reis’s lifetime). Furthermore, the map shows the coastline without its glacial covering. Geological evidence suggests that Antarctica was last in this ice-less state in 4000 BC. Reis was a famous Turkish admiral whose passion (understandably for a seafarer) was cartography. Taking advantage of his rank and his privileged access to the Imperial Library of Constantinople, his 1513 gazelle skin map was built upon the work of others, with some of his cartographical sources dating back as far as the time of Alexander the Great. The map also seems to detail more about the topographical features of South America than Europeans were thought to have in 1513, such as the Andes. 5) Commandment Rock An 80 ton boulder on the side of Hidden Mountain in New Mexico bears a puzzling inscription. Carved into the stone’s flat side is what has been interpreted by some to be a version of the Ten Commandments in a form of ‘Paleo-Hebrew’. Discovered by academia in 1933 by archaeology Professor Frank Hibben, it had been known to locals for decades, and the guide who led Hibben to it said he had known of it since the 1880s – a date which, if genuine, means the rock’s authenticity is likely, as the Paleo-Hebrew script was then unknown. This means it outdates Columbus’s discovery of America and suggests that people from Israel or Phoenicia (who used a similar language) discovered the continent centuries before it was thought possible. Skeptics draw upon punctuation and grammatical ‘errors’ as evidence of it being a fake, while others still doubt this debunking. 4) The Somerton Man In the early hours of December 1, 1948 a dead body was found lying on Adelaide’s Somerton Beach. The man was judged to be in his early forties and in good physical condition. Curiously, all the labels were missing from his clothing, he had no identification and his dental records did not match any known person. Even the coroner and Scotland Yard had no luck finding out the man’s identity or cause of death. The mystery deepened when a piece of paper with the printed words “Tamam Shud” on it was discovered in a secret pocket concealed within the dead man’s trousers. The scrap of paper was traced to a rare edition of a book entitled The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the back of which contained some kind of a code. Numerous unsuccessful attempts by amateurs and professional codebreakers to crack it have failed. The identity of the deceased man and even the cause of death remain unsolved to this day. The case was never closed by the South Australian Major Crime Task Force and many individuals continue to work on it. 3) Gef the Talking Mongoose Also referred to as the Dalby Spook, Gef was said to be a creature resembling a mongoose. It was reported to live with the Irving family in their farmhouse near the hamlet of Dalby on the Isle of Man. Gef’s true identification remains shrouded in mystery. It has been interpreted as (among other things) a poltergeist, a cryptid and of course, a hoax. In September 1931, the Irvings started hearing strange scratching noises coming from their farmhouse’s attic. Soon the scratching became more like a baby ‘gurgling’. The gurgling then evolved to ‘resemble a baby learning to talk and shortly after to mimic certain words that the ‘animal’ seemingly picked up from the Irving family’. If that wasn’t weird enough it described itself as a “an extra, extra clever mongoose,” an “earthbound spirit” and “a ghost in the form of a weasel.” It could even sing. The case was investigated by Harry Price, but aside from a few grainy photographs of a strange animal roaming the fields outside the house, nothing substantial was ever recorded. 2) The Black Mausoleum – Tomb of ‘Bluidy’ MacKenzie Edinburgh is a ghost hunter’s paradise. It seems that there is barely a nook or cranny of the Scottish capital that doesn’t lay claim to spooky goings-on of one kind or another, and there is one hot spot in particular that boasts inexplicable activity which is unusually well-documented. George MacKenzie (1638–1691), Lord Advocate of Scotland, was a merciless persecutor of the Presbyterian Covenanters in life, and now it seems that he (or something else) has returned from parts unknown to take up residence in his tomb and continue his nefarious deeds. In 1998, a vagrant broke into his tomb and fell through a rotten lower floor into a plague pit filled with skeletons. Since then, there have been over 450 reports of strange incidents, from people having lost consciousness to inexplicable fires breaking out and an unusually high number of dead animals having been found around the tomb. Visitors have had their fingers broken, hair pulled and been punched or kicked by an invisible assailant. Unexplained bruises, scratches and burns, skin gouges, nausea and numbness are all commonly reported. The physical signs of attack often go unnoticed until people arrive home and relax or return to their hotels for the night. Witnesses have even reported activity following them home. Whatever lurks within the Black Mausoleum, it is certainly active. 1) DB Cooper The solution to one of the greatest mysteries of all time still eludes America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. On the November 24, 1971, a man in his mid forties and giving the name Dan Cooper (he is also known as DB Cooper due to a ‘press miscommunication’) hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft and demanded $200,000 in ransom and two parachutes. His claim of having a bomb in his briefcase was verified by an air stewardess. Cooper was given the ransom money at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. He allowed passengers and some members of the flight crew to leave before ordering the plane to be flown to Mexico. Soon after the plane took off, Cooper then opened the rear airstairs and parachuted into the pitch black, rain-lashed night. A five month manhunt – said to the most extensive and expensive of its kind – was immediately launched. Despite $5,880 of the ransom being discovered by a boy in 1980, no other trace of the hijacker was ever found. In 2007, the F.B.I. reopened the case, saying that it does not believe Cooper survived the jump, but expressed an interest in ascertaining his identity, saying: “Would we still like to get our man? Absolutely.” Despite there being hundreds of leads since 1971 (including many deathbed confessions), Cooper’s identity remains a mystery and the world's only unsolved skyjacking case.

The Mapinguari (also Mapi, Mapinguary) is a prehistoric cryptid that reportedly lived in the Amazon rain forests of South America. It was consistently described as resembling either an ape or giant ground-dwelling sloth and having red hair, long arms, powerful claws that could tear apart palm trees and rip out the tongues of cattle, a sloping back, backwards feet (said to make a bottle-shaped footprint) and up to 6 feet tall when it assumed a bear-like stance on its back legs, which it did when it smelled a nearby human. It gave off a putrid stench and emitted a frightening shriek, and it could move slowly and stealthily through the forest and surprise the unsuspecting locals. Although the Mapinguari was believed to be carnivorous, by all accounts it did not eat humans. Many cryptozoologists believe that the Mapinguari is a close relative of Bigfoot. Legend has it that arrows and bullets could not penetrate the Mapinguari’s alligator-like hide. A paleontologist’s examination of preserved ancient ground sloth skin samples in the late 19th century revealed hard dermal ossicles, small pieces of bone in the skin of dinosaurs and alligators that protected them from predators. It is possible that such skin would have been impervious to arrows and bullets. Despite several efforts, searches for verifiable physical evidence have been futile.The only evidence for the existence of the Mapinguari is anecdotal. Theories of the identity of the Mapinguari have suggested that it was a giant primate, a giant ground sloth, or possibly even an unusual giant anteater, perhaps Myrmecophaga tridactyla.

| H. neanderthalensis La Chapelle aux Saints| H. neanderthalensis La Chapelle aux Saints | †Homo neanderthalensis| The Neanderthal (IPA: /niːˈændərθɑːl/, also with /neɪ-/, and /-tɑːl/) or Neandertal was a species of the Homo (Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) genus that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia. The first proto-Neanderthal traits appeared in Europe as early as 350,000 years ago. By 130,000 years ago, full blown Neanderthal characteristics had appeared and by 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals disappeared from Asia, although they did not reach extinction in Europe until 33,000 to 24,000 years ago, perhaps 15,000 years after Homo sapiens had migrated into Europe. Neanderthals had many adaptations to a cold climate, such as large braincase, short but robust builds, and large noses — traits selected by nature in cold climates. Their brain sizes have been estimated to be larger than modern humans', although such estimates have not been adjusted for their more robust builds. On average, Neanderthal males stood about 1.65 m tall (just under 5' 5") and were heavily built with robust bone structure. Females were about 1.53 to 1.57 m tall (about 5'–5'2"). The characteristic style of stone tools in the Middle Paleolithic is called the Mousterian Culture, after a prominent archaeological site where the tools were first found. The Mousterian culture is typified by the wide use of the Levallois technique. Mousterian tools were often produced using soft hammer percussion, with hammers made of materials like bones, antlers, and wood, rather than hard hammer percussion, using stone hammers. Near the end of the time of the Neanderthals, they created the Châtelperronian tool style, considered more advanced than that of the Mousterian. They either invented the Châtelperronian themselves or borrowed elements from the incoming modern humans who are thought to have created the Aurignacian. Etymology and classification The term Neanderthal Man was coined in 1863 by Anglo-Irish anatomist William King. Neanderthal is now spelled two ways: the spelling of the German word Thal, meaning "valley or dale", was changed to Tal in 1901, but the former spelling is often retained in English and always in scientific names, while the modern spelling is used in German. The original German pronunciation (regardless of spelling) is with the sound /t/. (See German phonology.) When used in English, the term is usually anglicised to /θ/ (as in thin), though speakers more familiar with German use /t/. For many years, professionals vigorously debated about whether Neanderthals should be classified as Homo neanderthalensis or as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, the latter placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of Homo sapiens. However, evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies have been interpreted as evidence that Neanderthals were not a subspecies of H. sapiens. Recent genetic simulations suggested that 5% of human DNA can only be accounted for by assuming a substantial contribution of Neanderthaler to the European gene pool of up to 25%. Some scientists, for example Milford Wolpoff, argue that fossil evidence suggests that the two species interbred, and hence were the same biological species . Others, for example Cambridge Professor Paul Mellars, say "no evidence has been found of cultural interaction". Neanderthal skulls were first discovered in Engis, Belgium (1829) and in Forbes' Quarry, Gibraltar (1848), both prior to the "original" discovery in a limestone quarry of the Neander Valley (near Düsseldorf) in August, 1856, three years before Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published. The type specimen, dubbed Neanderthal 1, consisted of a skull cap, two femora, three bones from the right arm, two from the left arm, part of the left ilium, fragments of a scapula, and ribs. The workers who recovered this material originally thought it to be the remains of a bear. They gave the material to amateur naturalist Johann Karl Fuhlrott, who turned the fossils over to anatomist Hermann Schaaffhausen. The discovery was jointly announced in 1857. The original Neandertal discovery is now considered the beginning of paleoanthropology. These and other discoveries led to the idea that these remains were from ancient Europeans who had played an important role in modern human origins. The bones of over 400 Neanderthals have been found since. The following is a list of physical traits that distinguish Neanderthals from modern humans; however, not all of them can be used to distinguish specific Neanderthal populations, from various geographic areas or periods of evolution, from other extinct humans. Also, many of these traits occasionally manifest in modern humans, particularly among certain ethnic groups. Nothing is known about the skin color, the hair, or the shape of soft parts such as eyes, ears, and lips of Neanderthals. Compared to modern humans, Neanderthals were similar in height but with more robust bodies, and had distinct morphological features, especially of the cranium, which gradually accumulated more derived aspects, particularly in certain relatively isolated geographic regions. Evidence suggests that they were much stronger than modern humans; their relatively robust stature is thought to be an adaptation to the cold climate of Europe during the Pleistocene epoch. |Suprainiac fossa, a groove above the inion||Considerably more robust| |Occipital bun, a protuberance of the occipital bone that looks like a hair knot||Large round finger tips| |Projecting mid-face||Barrel-shaped rib cage| |Low, flat, elongated skull||Large kneecaps| |A flat basic cranium||Long collar bones| |Supraorbital torus, a prominent, trabecular (spongy) browridge||Short, bowed shoulder blades| |1200-1750 cm³ skull capacity (10% greater than modern human average)||Thick, bowed shaft of the thigh bones| |Lack of a protruding chin (mental protuberance; although later specimens possess a slight protuberance)||Short shinbones and calf bones| |Crest on the mastoid process behind the ear opening||Long, gracile pelvic pubis (superior pubic ramus)| |No groove on canine teeth| |A retromolar space posterior to the third molar| |Bony projections on the sides of the nasal opening| |Distinctive shape of the bony labyrinth in the ear| |Larger mental foramen in mandible for facial blood supply| |A broad, projecting nose| Based on a 2001 study, some commentators speculated that Neanderthals had red hair, and that some red-headed and freckled humans today share some heritage with Neanderthals; however, many other researchers disagree. - See also: Origin of language |The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. The idea that Neanderthals lacked complex language was widespread, despite concerns about the accuracy of reconstructions of the Neanderthal vocal tract, until 1983, when a Neanderthal hyoid bone was found at the Kebara Cave in Israel. The hyoid is a small bone that connects the musculature of the tongue and the larynx, and by bracing these structures against each other, allows a wider range of tongue and laryngeal movements than would otherwise be possible. The presence of this bone implies that speech was anatomically possible. The bone that was found is virtually identical to that of modern humans. The morphology of the outer and middle ear of Neanderthal ancestors, Homo heidelbergensis, found in Spain, suggests they had an auditory sensitivity similar to modern humans and very different from chimpanzees. They were probably able to differentiate between many different sounds. Neurological evidence for potential speech in neanderthalensis exists in the form of the hypoglossal canal. The canal of neanderthalensis is the same size or larger than in modern humans, which are significantly larger than the canal of australopithecines and modern chimpanzees. The canal carries the hypoglossal nerve, which controls the muscles of the tongue. This indicates that neanderthalensis had vocal capabilities similar to modern humans. A research team from the University of California, Berkeley, led by David DeGusta, suggests that the size of the hypoglossal canal is not an indicator of speech. His team's research, which shows no correlation between canal size and speech potential, shows there are a number of extant non-human primates and fossilized australopithecines which have equal or larger hypoglossal canal. Another anatomical difference between Neanderthals and humans that is relevant regarding speech is their lack of a mental protuberance (the point at the tip of the chin). While some Neandertal individuals do possess a mental protuberance, their chins never show the inverted T-shape of modern humans. In contrast, some Neanderthal individuals show inferior lateral mental tubercles (little bumps at the side of the chin). The mentalis muscle, one of the muscles that move the lower lip, is attached to the tip of the chin. Neanderthal (Middle Paleolithic) archaeological sites show a smaller and different toolkit than those which have been found in Upper Paleolithic sites, which were perhaps occupied by modern humans that superseded them. Fossil evidence indicating who may have made the tools found in Early Upper Paleolithic sites is still missing. Neanderthals are thought to have used tools of the Mousterian class, which were often produced using soft hammer percussion, with hammers made of materials like bones, antlers, and wood, rather than hard hammer percussion, using stone hammers. A result of this is that their bone industry was relatively simple. However, there is good evidence that they routinely constructed a variety of stone implements. The Neanderthal (Mousterian) tool kits consisted of sophisticated stone-flakes, task-specific hand axes, and spears. Many of these tools were very sharp. There is also good evidence that they used a lot of wood, objects which are unlikely to have been preserved until today. Also, while they had weapons, whether they had implements that were used as projectile weapons is controversial. They had spears, in the sense of a long wooden shaft with a spearhead firmly attached to it, but they are thought by some to have been thrusting spears . Still, a Levallois point embedded in a vertebra shows an angle of impact suggesting that it entered by a "parabolic trajectory" suggesting that it was the tip of a projectile . Moreover, a number of 400,000 year old wooden projectile spears were found at Schöningen in northern Germany. These are thought to have been made by the Neanderthal's ancestors, Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis. Generally, projectile weapons are more commonly associated with H. sapiens. The lack of projectile weaponry is an indication of different sustenance methods, rather than inferior technology or abilities. The situation is identical to that of native New Zealand Maori - modern Homo sapiens, who also rarely threw objects, but used spears and clubs instead. Nonetheless, the fact that it is much safer to strike prey or foes from a distance where they cannot strike back would put anyone depending on close quarter weapons at a tactical disadvantage. Although much has been made of the Neanderthal's burial of their dead, their burials were less elaborate than those of anatomically modern humans. The interpretation of the Shanidar IV burials as including flowers, and therefore being a form of ritual burial, has been questioned. On the other hand, five of the six flower pollens found with Shanidar IV are known to have had 'traditional' medical uses, even among relatively recent 'modern' populations. In some cases Neanderthal burials include grave goods, such as bison and aurochs bones, tools, and the pigment ochre. Neanderthals performed a sophisticated set of tasks normally associated with humans alone. For example, they constructed complex shelters, controlled fire, and skinned animals. Particularly intriguing is a hollowed-out bear femur that contains holes that may have been deliberately bored into it. This bone was found in western Slovenia in 1995, near a Mousterian fireplace, but its significance is still a matter of dispute. Some paleoanthropologists have postulated that it might have been a flute while some others have expressed that it is natural bone modified by bears. See: Divje Babe. Habitat and range Classic Neanderthal fossils have been found over a large area, from northern Germany to Israel and Mediterranean countries like Spain and Italy in the south and from England in the west to Uzbekistan in the east. This area probably was not occupied all at the same time; the northern border of their range in particular would have contracted frequently with the onset of cold periods. On the other hand, the northern border of their range as represented by fossils may not be the real northern border of the area that they occupied, since Middle-Palaeolithic looking artifacts have been found even further north, up to 60° on the Russian plain.Recent evidence has extended the Neanderthal habitat range by about 1250 miles east into Southern Siberia. Ritual defleshing or cannibalism Intentional burial and the inclusion of grave goods is the most typical representation of ritual behavior in the Neanderthals and denote a developing ideology. However, another much debated and controversial manifestation of this ritual treatment of the dead comes from the evidence of cut-marks on the bone which has historically been viewed as evidence of cannibalism. Neanderthal bones from various sites (Combe-Grenal and Abri Moula in France, Krapina in Croatia and Grotta Guattari in Italy) have all been cited as bearing cut marks made by stone tools. However, results of technological tests reveal varied causes. Re-evaluation of these marks using high-powered microscopes, comparisons to contemporary butchered animal remains and recent ethnographic cases of excarnation mortuary practises have shown that perhaps this was a case of ritual defleshing. - At Grotta Guattari, the apparently purposefully widened base of the skull (for access to the brains) has been shown to be caused by carnivore action, with hyena tooth marks found on the skull and mandible. - According to some studies, fragments of bones from Krapina show marks that are similar to those seen on bones from secondary burials at a Michigan ossuary (14th century AD) and are indicative of removing the flesh of a partially decomposed body. - According to others, the marks on the bones found at Krapina are indicative of cannibalism, although whether this was for nutritional or ritual purposes cannot be determined with certainty. - Analysis of bones from Abri Moula in France does seem to suggest cannibalism was practiced here. Cut-marks are concentrated in places expected in the case of butchery, instead of defleshing. Additionally the treatment of the bones was similar to that of roe deer bones, assumed to be food remains, found in the same shelter. The evidence indicating cannibalism would not distinguish Neanderthals from modern Homo sapiens. Ancient and existing Homo sapiens, including the Korowai, are known to have practiced cannibalism and/or mortuary defleshing. Within the west Asian and European record there are five broad groups of pathology or injury noted in Neanderthal skeletons. Neanderthals seemed to suffer a high frequency of fractures, especially common on the ribs (Shanidar IV, La Chapelle-aux-Saints ‘Old Man’), the femur (La Ferrassie 1), fibulae (La Ferrassie 2 and Tabun 1), spine (Kebara 2) and skull (Shanidar I, Krapina, Sala 1). These fractures are often healed and show little or no sign of infection, suggesting that injured individuals were cared for during times of incapacitation. The pattern of fractures, along with the absence of throwing weapons, suggests that they may have hunted by leaping onto their prey and stabbing or even wrestling it to the ground. Particularly related to fractures are cases of trauma seen on many skeletons of Neanderthals. These usually take the form of stab wounds, as seen on Shanidar III, whose lung was probably punctured by a stab wound to the chest between the 8th and 9th ribs. This may have been an intentional attack or merely a hunting accident; either way the man survived for some weeks after his injury before being killed by a rock fall in the Shanidar cave. Other signs of trauma include blows to the head (Shanidar I and IV, Krapina), all of which seemed to have healed, although traces of the scalp wounds are visible on the surface of the skulls. Arthritis is particularly common in the older Neanderthal population, specifically targeting areas of articulation such as the ankle (Shanidar III), spine and hips (La Chapelle-aux-Saints ‘Old Man’), arms (La Quina 5, Krapina, Feldhofer) knees, fingers and toes. This is closely related to degenerative joint disease, which can range from normal, use-related degeneration to painful, debilitating restriction of movement and deformity and is seen in varying degree in the Shanidar skeletons (I-IV). Dental enamel hypoplasia is an indicator of stress during the development of teeth and records in the striations and grooves in the enamel periods of food scarcity, trauma or disease. A study of 669 Neanderthal dental crowns showed that 75% of individuals suffered some degree of hypoplasia and the nutritional deficiencies were the main cause of hypoplasia and eventual tooth loss. All particularly aged skeletons show evidence of hypoplasia and it is especially evident in the Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints and La Ferrassie 1 teeth. Evidence of infections on Neanderthal skeletons is usually visible in the form of lesions on the bone, which are created by systematic infection on areas closest to the bone. Shanidar I has evidence of the degenerative lesions as does La Ferrassie 1, whose lesions on both femora, tibiae and fibulae are indicative of a systemic infection or carcinoma (malignant tumour/cancer). The fate of the Neanderthals The Neanderthals began to be displaced around 45,000 years ago by modern humans (Homo sapiens), as the Cro-Magnon people appeared in Europe. Despite this, populations of Neanderthals held on for thousands of years in regional pockets such as modern-day Croatia and the Iberian and Crimean peninsulas. The last known population lived around a cave system on the remote south facing coast of Gibraltar, from 30,000 to 24,000 years ago. Neanderthal findings in Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal of 24,500 BP, featuring admixtures with early modern humans, have been published. However, the paleontological analysis of modern human emergence in Europe has been shifting from considerations of the Neanderthals to assessments of the biology and chronology of the earliest modern humans in western Eurasia. This focus, involving morphologically modern humans before 28,000 BP shows accumulating evidence that they present a variable mosaic of derived modern human, archaic human, and Neanderthal features. While previous investigations concentrated on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), that due to strictly matrilineal inheritance and subsequent vulnerability to genetic drift is of limited value to disprove interbreeding, more recent investigations have access to growing strings of deciphered nuclear DNA (nDNA). In July 2006, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and 454 Life Sciences announced that they would be sequencing the Neanderthal genome over the next two years. At three-billion base pairs, the Neanderthal genome is roughly the size of the human genome and likely shares many identical genes. It is thought that a comparison of the Neanderthal genome and human genome will expand understanding of Neanderthals as well as the evolution of humans and human brains. DNA researcher Svante Pääbo has tested more than 70 Neanderthal specimens and found only one that had enough DNA to sample. Preliminary DNA sequencing from a 38,000-year-old bone fragment of a femur bone found at Vindija cave in Croatia in 1980 shows that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens share about 99.5% of their DNA. From mtDNA analysis estimates, the two species shared a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago. An article appearing in the journal Nature has calculated the species diverged about 516,000 years ago, whereas fossil records show a time of about 400,000 years ago. From DNA records, scientists hope to falsify or confirm the theory that there was interbreeding between the species. Edward Rubin of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California states that recent genome testing of Neanderthals suggests human and Neanderthal DNA are some 99.5 percent to nearly 99.9 percent identical. On November 16, 2006, Science Daily published scientific test results demonstrating that Neanderthals and ancient humans probably did not interbreed. Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) sequenced genomic nuclear DNA (nDNA) from a fossilized Neanderthal femur. Their results more precisely indicate a common ancestor about 706,000 years ago, and a complete separation of the ancestors of the species about 376,000 years ago. Their results show that the genomes of modern humans and Neanderthals are at least 99.5% identical, but despite this genetic similarity, and despite the two species having cohabitated the same geographic region for thousands of years, there is no evidence of any significant crossbreeding between the two. Edward Rubin, director of both JGI and Berkeley Lab’s Genomics Division: “While unable to definitively conclude that interbreeding between the two species of humans did not occur, analysis of the nuclear DNA from the Neanderthal suggests the low likelihood of it having occurred at any appreciable level.” A new investigation suggests that at least 5% of the genetic material of modern Europeans and West Africans has an archaic origin, due to interbreeding with Neanderthal and a hitherto unknown archaic African population. Plagnol and Wall arrived at this result by first calculating a "null model" of genetic characteristics that would fulfill the requirement of descendence from Homo sapiens sapiens in a straight line. Next they compared this model to the current distribution and characteristics of existing genetic polymorphisms, and concluded that this "null model" deviated considerably from what would be expected. Genetic simulations indicated this 5% of DNA not accounted for by the null model corresponds to a substantial contribution to the European gene pool of up to 25%. Future investigation - including a full scale Neanderthal genome project - is expected to cast more light on the subject of genetic polymorphisms to supply more details. Contrary to the investigation of mtDNA, the study of polymorph mutations has the potential to answer the question whether - and to what extent - Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens interbred. In November 2006, another paper was published in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which a team of European researchers report that Neanderthals and humans interbred. Co-author Erik Trinkaus from Washington University explains, "Closely related species of mammals freely interbreed, produce fertile viable offspring and blend populations." The study claims to settle the extinction controversy; according to researchers, the human and neanderthal populations blended together through sexual reproduction. Trinkaus states, "Extinction through absorption is a common phenomenon." and "From my perspective, the replacement vs. continuity debate that raged through the 1990s is now dead". The most accurate molecular estimates currently available suggest that H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis direct lineages (excluding genetic elements from interbreeding/absorption) diverged around 800,000 years ago. - 1829: Neanderthal skulls were discovered in Engis, Belgium. - 1848: Skull of an ancient human was found in Forbes' Quarry, Gibraltar. Its significance was not realised at the time. - 1856: Johann Karl Fuhlrott first recognised the fossil called “Neanderthal man”, discovered in Neanderthal a valley near Mettmann in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. - 1880: The mandible of a Neanderthal child was found in a secure context and associated with cultural debris, including hearths, Mousterian tools, and bones of extinct animals. - 1899: Hundreds of Neanderthal bones were described in stratigraphic position in association with cultural remains and extinct animal bones. - 1908: A nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton was discovered in association with Mousterian tools and bones of extinct animals. - 1953-1957: Ralph Solecki uncovered nine Neanderthal skeletons in Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq. - 1975: Erik Trinkaus’s study of Neanderthal feet confirmed that they walked like modern humans. - 1987: Thermoluminescence results from Palestine fossils date Neanderthals at Kebara to 60,000 BP and modern humans at Qafzeh to 90,000 BP. These dates were confirmed by Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) dates for Qafzeh (90,000 BP) and Es Skhul (80,000 BP). - 1991: ESR dates showed that the Tabun Neanderthal was contemporaneous with modern humans from Skhul and Qafzeh. - 1997 Matthias Krings et al. are the first to amplify Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) using a specimen from Feldhofer grotto in the Neander valley. Their work is published in the journal Cell. - 2000: Igor Ovchinnikov, Kirsten Liden, William Goodman et al. retrieved DNA from a Late Neanderthal (29,000 BP) infant from Mezmaikaya Cave in the Caucausus. - 2005: The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology launched a project to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome. - 2006: The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology announced that it planned to work with Connecticut-based 454 Life Sciences to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome. Popular literature has tended to greatly exaggerate the ape-like gait and related characteristics of the Neanderthals. It has been determined that some of the earliest specimens found in fact suffered from severe arthritis. The Neanderthals were fully bipedal and had a slightly larger average brain capacity than a typical modern human, though it is thought the brain structure may have been organized differently. In popular idiom the word neanderthal is sometimes used as an insult, to suggest that a person combines a deficiency of intelligence and an attachment to brute force, as well as perhaps implying the person is old fashioned or attached to outdated ideas, much in the same way as "dinosaur" or "Yahoo" is also used. Counterbalancing this are sympathetic literary portrayals of Neanderthals, as in the novel The Inheritors by William Golding, Isaac Asimov's The Ugly Little Boy and Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series, or the more serious treatment by Swedish palaeontologist Björn Kurtén, in several works including Dance of the Tiger, and British psychologist Stan Gooch in his hybrid-origin theory of humans. A trilogy of science fiction novels dealing with neaderthals (called The Neanderthal Parallax) written by Robert J. Sawyer, explores a scenario where neanderthals are seen as a separate species from humans, survive in a parallel universe version of earth, and what happens when they, having developed a sophisticated technological culture of their own, open a portal to this version of the earth. 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"Shanidar IV, a Neanderthal flower burial in northern Iraq". [[Science (journal)|]] 190 (28): 880. - J. D. Sommer (1999). "The Shanidar IV 'Flower Burial': A Reevaluation of Neanderthal Burial Ritual". Cambridge Archæological Journal 9: 127–129. - Pavlov, P., W. Roebroeks, and J. I. Svendsen (2004). "The Pleistocene colonization of northeastern Europe: A report on recent research". Journal of Human Evolution 47 (1-2): 3-17. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2004.05.002. - Fossil DNA Expands Neanderthal Range - Andrea Thompson (2006-12-04). Neanderthals Were Cannibals, Study Confirms. Health SciTech. LiveScience. - Pathou-Mathis M (2000). "Neanderthal subsistence behaviours in Europe". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 10: 379-395. - Defleur A, White T, Valensi P, Slimak L, Cregut-Bonnoure E (1999). "Neanderthal cannibalism at Moula-Guercy, Ardèche, France". Science 286: 128-131. - T.D. Berger and E. Trinkaus (1995). "Patterns of trauma among Neadertals". 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Retrieved on 2006-08-22. - Neanderthal bone gives DNA clues - Scientists decode Neanderthal genes - Review: Archaic admixture in the human genome - Jeffrey D Wall1 and Michael F Hammer, Elsevier Ltd., 2006 PDF (90.0 KiB) - Humans and Neanderthals interbred - Modern Humans, Neanderthals May Have Interbred - Pennisi, Elizabeth (2007-05-18). "ANCIENT DNA: No Sex Please, We're Neandertals". Science 316 (5827): 967. doi:10.1126/science.316.5827.967a. Retrieved on 2007-05-18. - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology - Archaelogy Info - "Humans and Neanderthals interbred": Modern humans contain a little bit of Neanderthal, according to a new theory, because the two interbred and became one species. (Cosmos magazine, November 2006) - BBC.co.uk - 'Neanderthals "mated with modern humans": A hybrid skeleton showing features of both Neanderthal and early modern humans has been discovered, challenging the theory that our ancestors drove Neanderthals to extinction', BBC (April 21, 1999) - BBC.co.uk - 'Neanderthals "had hands like ours": The popular image of Neanderthals as clumsy, backward creatures has been dealt another blow', Helen Briggs, BBC (March 27, 2003) - GeoCities.com - 'The Neanderthal Sites at Veldwezelt-Hezerwater, Belgium' - Greenwych.ca - 'Neanderthal Flute: Oldest Musical Instrument's 4 Notes Matches 4 of Do, Re, Mi Scale - Evidence of Natural Foundation to Diatonic Scale (oldest known musical instrument), Greenwich Publishing - Greenwych.ca - 'Chewed or Chipped? Who Made the Neanderthal Flute? Humans or Carnivores?' Bob Fink, Greenwich Publishing (March, 2003) - IndState.edu - 'Neanderthals: A Cyber Perspective', Kharlena María Ramanan, Indiana State University (1997) - Krapina.com - 'Krapina: The World's Largest Neanderthal Finding Site' - Neanderthal.de - 'Neanderthal Museum' - Neanderthal DNA - 'Neanderthal DNA' Includes Neanderthal mtDNA sequences - The Cryptid Zoo - 'Neanderthals and Neanderthaloids in Cryptozoology' (modern sightings promoted by the pseudoscience of cryptozoology) - UniZH.ch - 'Comparing Neanderthals and modern humans: Neanderthals differ from anatomically modern Homo sapiens in a suite of cranial features' (cranio-facial reconstructions), Institut für Informatik der Universität Zürich - WebShots.com - 'IMG_6922 The Neandertal foot prints' (photo of ~25K years old fossilized footprints discovered in 1970 on volcanic layers near Demirkopru Dam Reservoir, Manisa, Turkey) - interactive database on the archaeology and anthropology of Neanderthals - Did free trade cause the extinction of Neanderthals? - Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA can show conflicting phylogenetic histories - Neanderthal manifactured pitch - Homo neanderthalensis reconstruction - Electronic articles published by the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. - CBS article on latest scientific speculation about Neanderthals in Gibraltar. - Neanderthal bone gives DNA clues - Scientists decode Neanderthal genes - Scientists Build 'Frankenstein' Neanderthal Skeleton - A NEANDERTHAL'S DNA TALE - 'Bone and Stone' A digitally enhanced single frame philatelic exhibit dedicated to the Neanderthal. - How Neanderthal molar teeth grew - Mousterian Tools of Neanderthals From Europe - World Museum of Man - The Way We Are - Neanderthal Vs. Cro-Magnon Part of the series on Human evolution Humans and Proto-humans Homo: H. habilis • H. rudolfensis • H. georgicus • H. ergaster • H. erectus (H. e. lantianensis • H. e. palaeojavanicus • H. e. pekinensis • H. e. soloensis) • H. cepranensis • H. antecessor • H. heidelbergensis • H. neanderthalensis • H. rhodesiensis • H. floresiensis • H. sapiens (H. s. idaltu • H. s. sapiens) <span id="interwiki-hu-fa" /> <span id="interwiki-fr-fa" /> als:Neandertaler ar:نياندرتال ast:Homo sapiens neanderthalensis bg:Неандерталец ca:Home de Neandertal cs:Homo neanderthalensis cy:Dyn Neanderthal da:Neandertaler de:Neandertaler et:Neandertallaneeo:Homo de Neandertalo eu:Neandertaleko gizakigl:Home de Neanderthal ko:네안데르탈인 hr:Neandertalac it:Homo neanderthalensis he:אדם ניאנדרתלי la:Homo neanderthalensis lb:Neandertaler lt:Neandartalietis hu:Neandervölgyi ember mk:Неандерталец nl:Neanderthalerno:Neandertaleresk:Človek neandertálsky sl:Neandertalec sr:Неандерталац sh:Neandertalac fi:Neandertalinihminen sv:Neandertalmänniska ta:நியண்டர்தால் மனிதன் roa-tara:Homo neanderthalensisuk:Неандертальці zh-yue:尼安德特人

AbeBooks has a fantastic virtual Weird Book Room. I was thrilled to discover that I only have three of the books on the page: Mannix's The History of Torture (highly recommended!) , The How And Why Wonder Book of Guns (useful!) , and the Gangsta Rap Coloring Book (a gift!) . Oh, how I love thee, Abe. Abe Weird Book Room (Thanks, Vann Hall!) Gotta make those babies pray. This recently-posted video of a freaky cryptid was reportedly shot in a Portuguese “desert.” Is it a sad transatlantic chupacabras? An exhausted yeti who wandered (very) far from home? A vacationing bigfoot on a bender? Or something else entirely… (Mysterious Universe) This is Trimp. Make again make. (Thanks UPSO!) The Lytro Illum is our all-time best-selling camera and here’s our best deal yet. Apply the code “Lytro10” to save an extra 10% off on this camera’s mind-blowing functionality in this exclusive one day only sale. If you’re looking to earn a top salary in the tech industry, there’s no better career than coding. However, sometimes the hardest part of entering this career path is knowing where to begin.We took the Complete Web Developer Course because it took that decision out of our hands. This course teaches beginner-friendly coding languages that will also help land an immediate […] To be a Pokémon master, you’ll need a phone that won’t constantly die on you. Because nothing is worse than seeing the screen go black right as you’ve finally found the Charizard of your dreams.That’s why we’re so excited about the LinearFlux PokeCharger Portable Battery ($39.99). With its 3.0 Amp HyperCharging technology, this slim battery will […]

Author: Seanan McGuire Publisher: DAW Books Page count/Size: 352pp Release date: 6 Mar 2012 Reviewer: Theresa Derwin The first of the ‘Incryptid’ novels by Seanan McGuire a.k.a Mira Grant, Discount Armageddon is a fun ride into a brand new urban fantasy environment. From an early age Verity was trained to protect herself and fear the things in the dark. Verity is a member of the Price family, a family of cryptozoologists (the study of unknown or mythical creatures such as Bigfoot or lamias) who have abandoned their previous role working for the Covenant, the equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. But cryptid relations and threatening beasties to leave town isn’t all that Verity wants to do. From a little girl she dreamt of being a ballroom dancer, so in between fights with lizard men and other ghouls, she salsas, ballroom dances and waits tables. The first in the series starts with a ghoul apparently stalking New York and kidnapping/eating single young girls who have been going missing from the cryptid community. Fifteen girls have been taken from the Manhattan Club scene and Verity is on the trail of the monster, determined to stop the disappearances and punish the fiend. Apart from a few editorial issues, this book is top notch. There is Buffyesque action, a dash of romance from the Covenant representative Dominic, guest monsters from most genres, a chorus of singing mice who share Verity’s apartment and a good dollop of humour. This is a tightly written, neatly paced adventure by a top female author who should be recognised for her brimming talent.

Eric Chats With Alex Grecian About Proof #26 Welcome to the latest edition of Proof Positive where Alex Grecian and I go over all things Proof. This month we discuss issue #26, production of the Julia trade and I try my best to get Alex to admit that I am not reading into something too much. So without further ado, the interview! Eric: So what exactly did Leander do and who is this military man paying him a visit? Alex: Leander's apparently been playing fast and loose with The Lodge's funding. I don't say specifically in the story, but the trip to Africa in the second trade was the inciting incident for the US government to look at the bookkeeping a little more closely than they were. It doesn't really matter for the story to work, so I let readers come to their own conclusions about what's going on, but that's the rationale I had in mind. The military man is Major Haven. He was Proof's second partner. He was briefly mentioned (though not by name) clear back in the first issue. He's the partner who was promoted before Ginger was brought to The Lodge. Eric: I'm curious about the bedtime reading scene with Wayne, can you elaborate on that a little. Wayne seems kind of depressed about it, though we as readers know that Joy is alive and well in the future. Alex: Wayne's a sensitive guy and he's got his issues with his own child. Joy's journey to manhood is a little more dramatic than a human being, so it hits close to home for him. It is somewhat tragic (I hope) that the little boy becomes a virtual statue. Fairies have a pretty harsh biology. It can't be fun. Eric: Something I thought was done really well was the duel kissing scene as they really were quite polar opposites. Though Elvis is slightly neurotic as Bella manages to be incredibly awkward. I like seeing these quiet moments you add to the characters here. Alex: Thanks! The Julia arc set both couples up to move to the next steps in their relationships. The trick is in not grossing everybody out with Proof and Bella's kiss. Hopefully it seems natural and okay, instead of coming off as bestiality. Yikes! Eric: So is Leander's wife really who she claims to be or is there something more going on here? Alex: Why, oh why, do you ask me these things when you know I'm gonna tell you to read the next issue?!? Okay, whether she's really who she claims to be or not, she's bringing some huge huge revelations with her to The Lodge and upsetting the status quo just by being there. Most readers probably aren't going to remember the rare references to her in previous issues or the picture of her in Leander's office, so her arrival probably didn't seem to warrant a big splash page, but just in terms of how important she is to Season Two, it was completely justified. Besides, it was a shock to Wayne. Eric: So how good of a cook is John? Alex: He's picked up a few recipes in the last couple of centuries. He's a solitary man and we solitary men often like to cook. I imagine it's a little tough to Julienne carrots, though, with those giant hands. Eric: I got a strong sense of irony from Bella's comment about Proof's age. I know Twilight wasn't that old yet but please tell me that's a tiny little dig at Twilight? I got a kick out of it, even if it wasn't. The poor woman is used to dealing with other people's thoughts and issues. It must have been odd to be working on her own with John? Alex: Twilight's a romance novel for teenage girls, right? I haven't read it or seen the movie. Doesn't seem like my kinda thing. I know there's a werewolf in the mix somehow, and there's a vampire guy who yearns for a teenage girl, but never touches her. Proof's aimed at adults, so there'll definitely be some touching. I'm all for taking a dig at schlocky pop-culture, but it wasn't intended in this case. There's a scene at the end of the "Julia" arc (I just sent that trade off to the printer) with Proof and Bella in her apartment and she's careful to make the distinction that they're talking as friends. It's not a professional visit. Once they figured out that they liked each other in more than a friendly way, she's had to distance herself from analyzing him. But she's not used to trying to express her own feelings. Remember, too, that she's a widow and that her husband was killed by cryptids. The fact that she's now dating a cryptid has to be a huge conflict for her. She's going to be stumbling for a while as she feels her way through this new relationship. Eric: I really have to commend you though as we finally get some spotlight on the bigger supporting cast, even guys like Proof's old partner who hadn't appeared until now. It must be fun to bring out and flesh out the world as much as possible? Alex: It's been a long time since we've seen most of the main supporting cast and we've missed them. Plus, we've got three issues to wrap up some dangling plot threads from this season and set things up for the next season. We wanted everybody to have a turn in the spotlight. (Well, not everybody. Colonel Dachshund, Autumn and the rabbi won't be showing up in this last arc of the season, but they got their face time in #25.) Major Haven and Gloria have both been mentioned before, but never seen and we wanted to introduce them too before the hiatus. It's terrific to be able to finally pull some of these threads together and reveal a little more of the master plan to our readers. We're setting up a brand new pair of missions for Proof (one of which is a fool's errand and the other will change his life forever), which begin in season two, a brand new status quo, and we've been laying the clues for it all for a long time, so it's good to be able to turn over some of our cards. Eric: Also I'd fail at this column if I didn't ask what held up the production of the Julia trade if you don't mind me asking. Alex: Nothing held up production. It's solicited for June and we're right on time with it, so far (barring an explosion at the printer or something). It took Image a long time to put the fourth trade on the schedule, but that probably has a lot to do with trying to juggle all the books they're putting out right now. But, yeah, once they contacted us about a June release, we've been on track to get it out. As usual, I've gone in and tinkered quite a bit with the arc to make it flow more smoothly as a single read. There are five additional story pages, which were originally intended for the arc, but were cut at the script stage 'cause there wasn't room to include them in the single issues. We'll be sharing those pages on-line for readers who get the singles and don't want to shell out for the trade too. We don't want anybody to feel unloved. I've also changed dialogue and captions on nearly every page. Riley and I are very proud of this one. Eric: So is this just the American government coming for Leander? Are they attempting to shut down The Lodge as well? Alex: Yup, it's the American government. And Haven's working things so that Leander takes the full blame for misappropriation of funds. That way The Lodge can continue, but with much less of a free hand. Eric: When Elvis and Ginger return to The Lodge and are questioned, why are they barely acknowledging him and basically giving him the cold shoulder but listening to Ginger? I thought he was a full agent now? Alex: They're soldiers. The Lodge is super secret and the soldiers aren't even really aware of what they're doing there. So Elvis's status as a Lodge agent might not help him much even if he'd shown some ID (which he didn't because Ginger took charge before Elvis had much time to react). Ginger retained her FBI laminate, which we saw in some previous story which I can't bring immediately to mind. The military men are acknowledging that she at least MIGHT have the juice to be there and are passing the buck to their CO, Haven. For me, that scene was all about the fact that Ginger wears the pants in her new relationship with Elvis. He stood back and let her deal with things because she's more aggressive than he is and he's fine with that. Eric: I definitely enjoyed seeing that part of the scene as we really haven't seen this really strong version of Ginger yet and it's always great to see one of our leads growing more. Alex: Really? You don't feel we've established Ginger as take-charge and aggressive? That's always been my goal. Her partner Proof is passive and would rather talk through a problem, while Ginger balances him by jumping in with her gun and badge. Her new dynamic with Elvis is also a contrast, but in a slightly different way. Eric: So The Lodge is going to continue on... just being monitored more closely? Alex: Well, that's Haven's plan at least. We'll have to wait to see what happens between now and the end of the arc. As I've said, the status quo is being shaken up and when Proof comes back from hiatus, the characters will have a much different mandate than they do now. Whether The Lodge will be part of that, I'm not saying. Eric: So in the next issue can we expect John to enter into all the chaos that is happening or will he and Bella still be happily on their date? Alex: Y'know, you and Bella are the only two people who call him John. So, yeah, I think he's brought into things on the very first page of #27, if memory serves. At least very early. And, yes, he and Bella are still on their date. Eric: What's with Dover's ominous words on the chupacabra? Alex: I don't understand a thing the Dover Demon says. It'd be so much easier if he'd just come right out and say what he means. Of course, that would probably kill the suspense of the series, so I let him hang around. Eric: You let him hang around, huh? I wonder if you should really be saying that, Alex, with how this issue ends. People might get the idea he's still alive ;) Alex: "Let" was past-tense. He's gone. He really is. No more Dover Demon again, ever. Of course, that's not to say there aren't other creatures of that species running around out there. We saw another one of 'em in the "Julia" arc. Eric: And, hey, I was calling him Gulliver through the Julia arc wasn't I? I think calling a character by their name works. I mean when we first started I was calling him Proof but that's because I was a new reader, I like calling him John I guess. lol Alex: Well, this is a character with so many names, you can probably call him whatever you like and get away with it. Eric: So is issue #27 shipping this month as well? Alex: I don't know. I doubt it. I'm gonna guess the first part of next month. This is me shrugging. Eric: So what can we expect for issue #27? Leander's back up plans for The Lodge go into effect maybe? Alex: Leander definitely had plans, but he didn't expect to get arrested. He's not going to be able to put his plans into motion (at least not the way he expected to), but Leander's quick on his feet and when an opportunity presents itself he'll seize it. Meanwhile, if you take a look at the page where Gloria shows up, she's holding a small box. What's inside that box will completely change Proof's world forever. You'll find out what it is next issue. You'll also see what happens to Wayne and find out why Gloria came back. Nadine's going to visit Proof at home and, oh... the fairies wake up! Eric Ratcliffe is a young writer/pop culture journalist/interviewer currently working on pitching a project named the Hunter chronicles. When not reading his weekly stack Eric can be found watching dvd's, playing on his 360 (gamertag: Zack Hunter) or just surfing online trying to find a scoop or two. Brand new to the Comic Related family, Eric is a fun new voice. blog comments powered by Disqus

This is a continuation of yesterday’s cover post, since there were a few too many to do all at once. This first one is the lone adult release, and it comes from Seanan McGuire. Once Broken Faith is the 10th book in the October Daye series, and it will be released on September 6th. As I have bored everyone with before, I am not too into the whole young adult thing lately, but I have to admit that the covers still grab me. This first one is kinda funky, and it comes from author Lindsay Smith. Dreamstrider is a stand-alone title which will be released on October 6th. A high-concept, fantastical espionage novel set in a world where dreams are the ultimate form of political intelligence. Livia is a dreamstrider. She can inhabit a subject’s body while they are sleeping and, for a short time, move around in their skin. She uses her talent to work as a spy for the Barstadt Empire. But her partner, Brandt, has lately become distant, and when Marez comes to join their team from a neighborhing kingdom, he offers Livia the option of a life she had never dared to imagine. Livia knows of no other dreamstriders who have survived the pull of Nightmare. So only she understands the stakes when a plot against the Empire emerges that threatens to consume both the dreaming world and the waking one with misery and rage. Samantha Shannon continues her The Bone Season series with the release of The Song Rising on March 7th. I don’t find this cover nearly as pretty as the first two books. On the eve of a new decade, after two hundred years of Scion rule, a revolution is beginning. Its unlikely cradle is the clairvoyant underworld in London, and even an old ally’s betrayal cannot stop it. But an enemy from Paige Mahoney’s past is about to return – an enemy that could quench the flame of hope for good . . . Now this one caught my eye right away. Frostblood, which is the first book of the Frostblood Saga by Elly Blake, will be released on January 17th. Seventeen-year-old Ruby is a fireblood who must hide her powers of heat and flame from the cruel frostblood ruling class that wants to destroy all that are left of her kind. So when her mother is killed for protecting her and rebel frostbloods demand her help to kill their rampaging king, she agrees. But Ruby’s powers are unpredictable, and she’s not sure she’s willing to let the rebels and an infuriating (yet irresistible) young man called Arcus use her as their weapon. All she wants is revenge, but before they can take action, Ruby is captured and forced to take part in the king’s tournaments that pit fireblood prisoners against frostblood champions. Now she has only one chance to destroy the maniacal ruler who has taken everything from her and from the icy young man she has come to love. Now on to Spectacle, which is the second book of the Menagerie series from Rachel Vincent. It has a release date of March 28th. When their coup of Metzger’s Menagerie is discovered, Delilah and her fellow cryptids find their newly won freedom brutally stripped away as they are sold into The Savage Spectacle, a private collection of “exotic wildlife.” Specializing in ruthless cryptid cage matches, safari-style creature hunts and living party favors, the Spectacle’s owner, Willem Vandekamp, caters to the forbidden fetishes of the wealthy and powerful. At the Spectacle, any wish can be granted—for the right price. But Vandekamp’s closely guarded client list isn’t the only secret being kept at the Spectacle. Beneath the beauty and brutality of life in the collection lie much darker truths, and no one is more determined than Delilah to strip the masks from the human monsters and drag all dark things into the light. This next one is called Caraval. It is the first book of an as-yet untitled series from Stephanie Garber, and it will be released on January 31st. Scarlett has never left the tiny island where she and her beloved sister, Tella, live with their ruthless father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval, the legendary, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show, are over. Then, Scarlett’s long-dreamt of invitation to Caraval finally arrives. So, Tella enlists a mysterious sailor’s help to whisk Scarlett away to this year’s show. But as soon as the trio arrives, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. But she nonetheless soon becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic with her sister, with Legend, and with the other players in the game. And whether Caraval is real or not, she must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over, a dangerous domino effect of consequences is set off, and her sister disappears forever. And the final one of this batch comes from Kristin Smith. Catalyst is the first book of The Deception Game series, and it will be out this November. In a crumbling, futuristic Las Vegas where the wealthy choose the characteristics of their children like ordering off a drive-thru menu, seventeen-year-old Sienna Preston doesn’t fit in. As a normal girl surrounded by genetically modified teenagers, all of her imperfections are on display. But after the death of her father, everything she’s ever known and loved changes in an instant. With little skills to help provide for her family, Sienna clings to the two things that come easily—lying and stealing. But not all thief-for-hire assignments go as planned. When a covert exchange of a stolen computer chip is intercepted, she becomes entangled with a corrupt government official who uses her thieving past as leverage, her mother as collateral, and the genetically modified poster boy she’s falling for as bait. In order to rescue her mother, there may only be one option—joining forces with the Fringe, an extremist group, and their young leader who’s too hot to be bad. Problem is, these revolutionaries aren’t what they seem, and the secrets they’re hiding could be more dangerous than Sienna is prepared for. In the end, she must be willing to risk everything to save the one thing that matters most. So that wraps up a couple of days of cover lover posts. Now time to get back to updating and adding new releases, which have been coming fast and furious.

Recently, in the course of a heated debate about science and evolutionary biology a “friend” let slip some of his true feelings about me (Mojo) and my atheism/skepticism. In his defence, he was upset and may not have known what exactly he was saying, but as you may have already guessed, I no longer consider this person a friend as I once did. Chances are, if you read this blog, you are a skeptic or critical thinker and you may even be an atheist. If this is the case, you may do well to remember this article as a bit of a warning. If you are not a skeptic but have friends that are, maybe this article will help enlighten you to what it is like for them and perhaps increase your tolerance to their way of life. Either way, this is purely a cathartic experience for me to get a few things off my chest. 1. We skeptics cannot pretend to be fence-sitters for your sake. Keep this in mind when you broach “controversial” topics like evolution, UFOs or alternative medicines. It would be a lie to everyone involved if skeptics simply shrugged away catagorically wrong statements of fact as if they didn’t care. If you’re not prepared to go all-in with these types of discussions, don’t bring it up. 2. Try to ignore your personal feelings when discussing science. If you are going to discuss these things and don’t like being told that you’re wrong, again, back away slowly. A skeptic usually doesn’t treat any topic as a sacred cow. If you are personally invested in this topic for any reason, you should remember that as a scientist, your skeptic friend will debate the topic… not you. If he/she discounts your claim as false, try to keep it there and don’t take it as a personal attack. 3. Not everything is a matter of opinion. Very often, people who realize they have inadvertently opened a proverbial can of worms that is a skeptical debate will attempt to end the conversation with statements like, “That’s just my opinion” or “Well that’s just what I beleive”. We have all learned from a very young age that most people will not challenge beliefs and opinions because everyone is entitled to their own. Matters of science and the nature of reality however, are not matters of opinion. Skeptics MUST have evidence to say something is real or not. We have a hard time understanding how people can turn statements like “Big foot is real” into a matter of opinion. As such, don’t expect to get off the hook that easily with a skeptic. In all likliehood, a skeptic will brush that comment aside and get back to the topic at hand. Hey, guys. Tonight’s installment concerns that well-known and suspiciously elusive cryptid of worldwide fame and folklore, and a classic skeptical topic that by rights should have been long debunked since the 1970s, the inspiration for the title character of Harry and the Hendersons, as well as that for the Marvel Comics character Sasquatch, the critter also known as the Yeti, the Yowie, the Almasty, the Mapinguari, and a certain snow man of the Himalayas, like the title of that hideous little abortion of a movie…Abominable. Aside from the fact that this furry critter has been the subject of recent hoaxes, and failed expeditions to capture or study it, it still has an enthusiastic following, with Bigfoot ‘research’ groups around the country disavowing each other and promoting themselves as ‘the real deal.’ Well, as amusing as rambling on like this can be for my troythuluness, I’ll get to the point now and just present the links and URLs…enjoy. - …from August of last year, here’s something on the Whitton/Dyer Georgia bigfoot hoax… - …a blog post on the above on, http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/gg-unravel/ of course, with Loren Coleman trying to save face from the whole embarrassing episode… - …a link to the Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization site, at http://www.bfro.net/ claiming exclusive scientific legitimacy for itself… - …here is a page on this ‘hairy giant’ on http://www.unmuseum.org/bigfoot.htm - …and finally the credulous Searching For Bigfoot HomePage, at http://www.searchingforbigfoot.com/ This is brilliant! NOT for the uptight and humorless! There is something that all of us do if we aren’t careful, mostly stemming from a deep discomfort of not having an immediate explanation or answer to something we want to know, but don’t–the argument from ignorance–a fallacy of thought by which we draw a conclusion not from data, but from a lack of data, from what we don’t know, a conclusion which more often than not turns out to be false when properly investigated. One of the first things I had to learn as a skeptic was a tolerance for ambiguity, habits of thought by which I could say to myself “It’s okay to not have an answer for such-and-such a question right now.” It’s perfectly fine to say, “I don’t know…yet.” There’s a great many people who are just terrified by the thought of not knowing everything with conclusive surety, even when that conclusiveness is wrong. So many people go to great lengths to convince themselves that they do, in fact, know what that strange light in the sky is, or what that creaking noise in the house late at night is, when they really don’t. This is particularly true of those with a tendency to claim a event as being impossible to explain by natural or normal causes, and thus dismissing such causes prematurely, especially that dual bugaboo of paranormal and fringe-science advocates, coincidence and statistical noise. A common argument is stated something like “X is so unlikely as to not possibly be due to the laws of chance(or nature)!”(read; the claimant’s understanding of those laws). In fact, it would be even more improbable that unusual coincidences don’t occur as often as they do, in accordance with the Law of Truly Large Numbers. For example, in a city of say, ten million people, one should by chance alone expect ten 1-in-1,000,000 coincidences to happen each day. This and other seemingly counterintuitive results of statistics are well within the bounds of the laws of chance, with no need to invoke anything paranormal. Not yet. Statistical correlation does not by necessity imply causation, nor scientific importance. For example, if I wanted to and was willing to juggle the numbers, I could draw a correlation between someone’s eye color and their IQ, but there would be no causative or scientific significance to it. Yes, it’s tempting to think you have all the answers at your fingertips, but the I think that the best knowledge anybody can have is an awareness of their own ignorance and the admission that they, like anyone else, can be mistaken in their conclusions when shown evidence to that effect. In my experience, I haven’t noticed any tendency to jump to conclusions in lieu of evidence in the more seasoned and better-known skeptics, though I have found it among some novice skeptics and many of the paranormalists I’ve met. It’s the same whether we try to definitively explain a strange light in the moors as either a ghost or as swamp-gas without enough information–we are committing the same error either way. Probabilistic, uncertain thinking and a tolerance for it can be difficult at first, but it gets easier with time and practice, becoming second nature. One can only learn when no longer convinced that one already knows without sound reason to think so. It’s how good science is done. A wise man knows his own ignorance, while a fool knows everything. Why should I believe in, and therefore fear, anyone’s personal concept of an unpleasant existence in the hereafter? To paraphrase the title of this post, why should I be afraid of hell? Whether it involves nothing ‘worse’ than eternal separation from the Infinite, or nastier, forever burning in a proverbial lake of fire, being digested for all eternity in the gullet of Zotharr the lizard-god, or being stuck in an infinite loop of birth and rebirth on the Karmic wheel, for evidential reasons alone I have little sound reason to believe that anybody’s version of hell, whatever it’s called and however it’s described, is real, and therefore something that I should be afraid of. Like anyone, what I don’t believe in, I don’t fear. If I didn’t believe because I feared, by that logic I should be terrified of elves, boojums, jabberwocks, and the boogieman, because I don’t believe in those either. Sadly, this is not the case. It would be ludicrous to say that I’m afraid of something that just isn’t part of my reality equation. No one has ever produced convincing evidence that these places or conditions, or their Creators, actually exist. To date, no one has gone there and brought back a demon’s pitchfork made of unambiguously netherworldly metal. No one has ever returned from hell with a piece of brimstone from a pit with an isotopic sulfur content unlike any found in the mundane world. I find questionable the idea that this unpleasant afterlife, no matter how it’s imagined really exists, on evidential grounds alone. But let’s for once set that aside and consider the logical implications of a benevolent god, or gods, and the torture chambers of eternity they are said to have created for the ‘wicked,’ or ‘infidels’ and why this writer lacks any real concern for the safety of his soul thusly. Let’s examine some of the reasons that to me, the concept of hell is inconsistent with the notion of a truly loving, forgiving, and morally superior Embodiment of the Infinite. There have been countless gods worshiped for as long as we have been human, all of them believed absolutely real in their own times and by their own followers. The fact that a religion is hundreds or even thousands of years old is no indication that it is the One True faith, either, even if it is still practiced today. The Babylonian and Sumerian religions religion and that of Sumer were the mainstream religions of their day, but both faded into relative obscurity over time, and are now practiced by, at most, small groups of modern neo-pagans if by anyone at all. The classical Greek and Roman religions were similar in their status during their own age, and now claim only a handful of followers, again, mostly modern neo-pagans. Christianity is older than Islam, and Judaism older still, but the current-day extent and age of these so-called Abrahamic religions is no guarantee that any one of them is metaphysically more True than the others or to other major religions. If the history of religions past is any indication, all will fade into obscurity, and none will show itself to have greater Truth than any other of its time, or thereafter. Hinduism and Buddhism in all their forms are older than any of the three Abrahamic faiths, yet none of these has held sway over even most of the world’s population either. This tells me that antiquity and popularity are no real measure of a religion’s actual truth value. We need better criteria for this. If we cannot correctly show which religion is true, and they can’t all be true, for their tenets contradict each other, how can we know whose god or gods are real? And if we can’t determine that, how can we know whose hell to fear, and thus avoid? With countless religions in the entire history of our species, it’s clearly futile to try them all on for size and pick the right one. One would spend forever, doing nothing else, not even sleeping, just trying to select the ‘correct’ religion, much less following them all. Clearly an impossible task. We could just settle with the religion our parents brought us up in, but that has problems too; What if we were raised in the ‘wrong’ religion? Should I worry about having my soul devoured in the Outer Void by Azathoth because I was not fortunate enough to be raised a devout worshiper of Cthulhu? Should I fret about going to the Catholic hell for being brought up a Hindu? Or for that matter, should I concern myself about going to the Seventh-Day Adventist hell for being raised a good Catholic? These and similar questions present themselves. With no objective way to know which is the ‘right’ religion, how is it possible to choose and avoid damnation? It’s telling that only those who already believe in a religion consider it the True one. A truly good god(and almost invariably, worshipers consider their gods not just good, but often supremely good, and therefore the Ultimate Moral Authority of the Universe,) would not intentionally create a place or condition of suffering that lasts for all eternity, just for not being up to snuff. Or worshiping the wrong gods by accident of being born into the wrong culture. Or questioning the faith. A morally superior being would not torment anyone forever for minor violations of code, or accidents of birth, or, if that being granted us the gift of Reason,(without making a mistake, and a perfect being cannot by definition make mistakes…)using it. Such everlasting punishment would rightly be considered unjust by mere mortal standards alone, and to everyone I’ve asked, it is: one would expect a god to be more moral than we, not less. Such everlasting punishment with no parole or appeal would likely only be dealt out by at the very least an uncaring deity, certainly not the way most people view their religion’s divinity as the loving, ultimate power for Good. Clearly, it is logically inconsistent to claim that a god, any god, is unconditionally loving, more moral, more forgiving, in short far better than we are across the board, and yet claim that this same divine Power would create a torture chamber to punish those who didn’t measure up to His (or Hers, or Its…)standards of conduct, accidents of birth into the wrong family, or using one’s own god-granted gifts, for an infinite length of time if at all. It makes no sense to me, and it’s a cop-out to say that this being ‘works in mysterious ways,’ or that I do not understand a ‘subtle doctrine of free will,’ because those arguments are logically indefensible. If I logically and evidentially have little cause to accept the notion of a Supreme Being, or Power, or Tao, or Force, what reason do I have to believe in, and thus fear that Power’s hell? Not very much at present. Even if hell does exist, what if it’s not like how it’s described? What if hell, and not heaven, is were you really want to go? What if hell is were all the fun, interesting people go when they pass on? What if hell totally rocks? There is just as much evidence in favor of this as any other concept of hell, so why not? Well, I imagine perhaps one of three things will happen to me upon my death: I might enter an eternal, dreamless sleep; I could wind up in someone’s version of an afterlife, good or bad(or maybe good and bad); or, I could be reincarnated as something better or worse than I am now… The only way to know for certain is to find out on that day I embark on a journey to the ultimate mystery and see for myself. That will likely be a trip with no return ticket. We shall see.

Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 25th, 2007 It is a strange world when I see things like “My Comic Life” end up on Wikipedia and Boing Boing, frozen in cyberspace. Therefore, here is my update with hints of the upcoming adventures of Crypto-Man and a character based on me. Since it is Sunday in Singapore, the time is right for another irregular edition of my Crypto Sunday Comics, the early overnight edition. Back in November, writer/director Scott Marlowe announced that “Coleman Joins Cast” of the Peter Loh-drawn series “Crypto-Man” is loosely based on Marlowe. I am coming on board as “Mystery Man.” We thought that this casting was appropriate to Loren’s real-life association with his information resource on the Cryptomundo website. Loren’s only [humorous] request was that we didn’t cast him in the role of a villain in the strip. That idea never crossed our minds when we approached him with the invitation to portray a character in Crypto-Man.Scott Marlowe As Episode 4 of the comic series goes into its final creative stages, it seemed only right that Cryptomundo readers get an exclusive different kind of sneak peek. Apparently, “I” will play the role of a human operative, a mysterious detective of the Cryptid Society who, in addition to being “in the know,” keeps Crypto-Man up to snuff on cryptozoological happenings that the lead super-hero must tackle. The plot of Episode 4 will continue the theme of the four tests of the caped conservationist, the trials of Crypto-Man’s legendary abilities. Mystery Man makes an appearance to get some data and equipment conveyed to Crypto-Man. Ideas develop in a variety of ways. Here’s a view on one such example. See directly below an early idea of Peter’s that had to be redone, where I was shown with a pipe. I don’t smoke and don’t condone smoking, especially in such a medium like comic books for a character that is supposed to be me. The copycat effect is too great, and I know I could be a model for cryptozoologists-in-training. Peter was very understanding, we had long email exchanges about, and he was merely working on an old “detective” model notion from the 1940s. Peter was surprised by how obvious this was incorrect, when he looked at it. Besides, my father died from lung cancer due to smoking, so Peter quickly revised the draft panels that had me smoking a pipe. Cartoonists, I understand, love smoke drifting up to the ceiling. Peter got to employ that motif later, as you can see at the very top, when I’m, I mean Mystery Man is drinking a nice cup of Earl Grey in the diner. The final panels are usually done in color, btw. Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

UPDATE: "The Flash" Hasn't Cast Savitar, Says Berlanti TV, Comic Books In 2011, writer Joey Esposito and artist Jonathan Moore kickstarted Footprints, a four-issue, hard-boiled detective comic that followed Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil and other cryptids as they investigated the death of a Yeti. Now the duo has returned to that world — and to Kickstarter — for a one-shot subtitled “Bad Luck Charm.” “The one-shot features two new tales — one set before the events of Vol. 1 and one set after,” Esposito told ROBOT 6. “The first story, given away for free on the Kickstarter campaign, features the oafish Jersey Devil and Vol. 1’s big bad, Motheresa, heading to 1962 to Las Vegas to try their luck. The second story will catch up with Foot, Nessy, Devil and Choop as they investigate a new cryptid emerging in the swamps of South Carolina, the Lizard Man.” Esposito provided ROBOT 6 with that first story, which is posted in its entirety below. If you’d like to see the second one (and get your hands on a digital copy of the first Footprints collection, which is included at every reward level above $15), check out the Kickstarter campaign. Thirty-six questions. Six answers. One random number generator. Welcome to Robot Roulette, where creators roll the virtual dice and answer our questions about their lives, careers, interests and more. Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a splurge item. If I had $15, I’d go all-in on AvX: Vs #1 (Marvel, $3.99). As a story format-junkie, this seems like an ideal supplemental series to the event comic series as we know it – I may have read it wrong, but this seems low on continuity and high on action – kind of a throwback to the condensed comics of the ’60s, I hope. And seeing Kathryn and Stuart Immonen on this together is a big deal – wish they’d get more chances like this! Next up would be the finale of The Twelve, #12 (Marvel, $2.99). I argued with myself about waiting for the trade at this point, but at the end of the day I’m more interested in this than a lot of everything else going on out there. Plus, I bought the eleven previous issues so I should finish it out, right? Next up would be Spaceman #6 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99). I’m finding this series benefits from a deeper re-reading prior to each new issues, but it’s paying off in spades in terms of my enjoyment. This is definitely a palate cleanser after Azzarello and Risso’s run on 100 Bullets, but in a good way. Finally, I’d get Daredevil #11 (Marvel, $2.99). The Eisner Awards judges got this one right when they piled nominations on this book, because Waid, Martin, and Rivera have really made the quintessential superhero book here. The fill-ins from Khoi Pham and Marco Checchetto seem off-putting, but they’ve earned some lee-way after the murderer’s row of creators who started the book. Can’t wait to see Samnee on this, however. If I had $30, I’d start off with an interesting looking project that’s gotten no press – Airboy: Deadeye #1 (Antarctic Press, $3.50). Chuck Dixon and Ben Dunn — what a pairing. After that I’d go back to get Supercrooks #2 (Marvel/Icon, $2.99); Mark Millar knows how to sell a high-concept, but it’s Leinil Yu that’s making me come back past the first issue. After that would be an Avengers two-fer: New Avengers #25 (Marvel, $3.99) and Secret Avengers #26 (Marvel, $3.99). I dropped off New a few issues back, but with this new issue covering some never-before-seen connections between Iron Fist and the Phoenix Force, I’m back in for this one. And Secret Avengers, well, Remender’s on a roll with his Marvel work and this is continuing on that without being an Uncanny X-Force retread. And guest artist Renato Guedes seems a better fit for this than his work on Wolverine. If I could splurge, I’d lunge for a copy of The Art of Amanda Conner (IDW/Desperado, $29.99). I was fortunate enough to get a digital review copy of this earlier, and seeing it like that only made me want this more. Rather than just being a template art book plugging in her work, the design and packaging really go along with what you’d expect from Amanda’s tongue-in-cheek comic style. Reading this makes me want to go back and track down her earlier work that I missed.

|Habitat||The swamps of New Jersey| |First appearance||Cryptid vs. Cryptid| The Jersey Devil made its first appearance in Cryptid vs. Cryptid. Van Rook was keeping it for cryptid battles. It is first seen in the episode being taken away from Fiskerton after defeat (the battle itself never was seen). Apparently they fly most of the time. The Jersey Devil has also been named the Leeds Devil for the encounter it had on the Leed's family. The legend goes that a large family known as the Leeds were stationed outside the swamps of New Jersey. The wife was almost ready to deliver her 13th child. She was so enraged with the father that she wished it was a devil. The night came when she was delivering the child and it was stormy and gloomy outside. The baby was delivered and it looked normal. All of a sudden, the baby began to morph into a misshapen creature. It started to attack the younger children and mother. Then it flew out the chimney and resided in the swamps of New Jersey. It is seen in "War of the Cryptids' fighting on Zak's side. This link shows a design that the creator Jay Stephens drew in his sketch book. This design did not appear in the series a different one did. - Despite being one of the most recognizable cryptids in the world, the Jersey Devil only appeared twice in the entire series as a background character. - In the Cartoon network game Fusionfall, an exclusive item in the Birthday Bash event was the Jersey Devil Wings.

The Second Meeting of the Cryptid Book Club Date: Monday, September 27, 2010 Members substantially present: Bigfoot, Morzant, Briar, Beverly, Norman, Oliver, Lenny, Violet Member virtually present via video conferencing: Penny C. Monster Meetings minutes taken by: Penny C. Monster Book (selected by Morzant): MOONSHOT: THE FLIGHT OF APOLLO 11 by Brian Floca (Atheneum-Simon & Schuster, 2009) • Meeting called to order by Bigfoot at 9:00 a.m. • Refreshments taken. This week’s Snack Master, Norman, brought gummy worms. Bigfoot refrained from commenting on how much he likes donuts. Morzant tried to share the results of his latest experiments on the tensile properties of Rice Krispies Treats. Briar distracted him by calling his attention to the tensile properties of the gummy worms. Morzant expressed fascination in the tensile properties of gummy worms and suggested the meeting time be used to study those properties. Briar reminded Morzant that he was the one who picked the book to discuss. Morzant still insisted on a vote being taken to use the meeting to study the tensile properties of gummy worms rather than to discuss MOONSHOT: THE FLIGHT OF APOLLO 11. The result of the vote was 7 to 2 against studying the tensile properties of gummy worms. (Violet voted with Morzant so he wouldn’t feel lonely.) • Book club members took their seats at the meeting table, checking first that Bigfoot did not bring his whoopee cushions again. He did not. • Previous meeting minutes reviewed: Beverly brought Rice Krispies Treats. Morzant demanded a vote to use the meeting to study the tensile properties of the Rice Krispies Treats rather than to discuss the book. The attendees voted 5 to 1 against the motion. An attempt was made to discuss KEEPER by Kathi Appelt (selected by Beverly). Morzant hijacked the meeting with endless questions about which of many creatures are real and which are fictitious. Bigfoot provided dubious answers. Bigfoot issued a moratorium on Rice Krispies Treats at future meetings. • There appeared to be something wrong with the video conferencing equipment. The substantially present members continued talking, but the virtually present member (me) could not hear them. I waved, splashed, and screamed to get their attention so they would know I couldn’t hear them. This went on for a long time before the substantially present book club members burst out with audible laughter and congratulations for Bigfoot on his clever practical joke at my expense. • Morzant then began the book discussion by explaining that he selected the picture book MOONSHOT: THE FLIGHT OF APOLLO 11 to help “avoid the possibility for tangental discussions” such as occurred in the last meeting. He explained that by choosing a book with a “delightfully absurb premise—that of humans landing on the Earth’s moon” there would be no need for him to monopolize the meeting with endless questions about what was real and what was not real since “the whole book is unmistakably fiction." Beverly said, “I’m out of here,” and excused herself from the meeting. Here’s a partial transcript of the ensuing exchange: BIGFOOT: MOONSHOT is non-fiction. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins all went to the moon. Armstrong and Aldrin actually walked on the moon. BRIAR: It’s true, Morzant. MORZANT: I see what’s happening here. During the last book club meeting you all got me to believe in leprechauns and grizzly bears. Now you’re trying to convince the gullible alien from another planet that humans have been to the moon. Admirable effort, but ultimately unsuccessful. While a Chupacabra has a ring of truth to it, not so a human lunar landing. Now to continue the book discussion, I'd like to commend the author for his deft crafting of plot and skillfully rendered illustrations, all of which made it easy for me to suspend my disbelief and go along with notion of humans in space. I found this book highly entertaining in its fantasticalogicalness. BRIAR: That's not a real word, Morzant. MORZANT: I know. The whismy of the book is making me feel quite silly. PENNY: Honestly. This book is based on real events. Three American astronauts went to the moon in July of 1969. Two of those astronauts landed on it. NORMAN: And there’s proof. What’s left of the cheese platter they brought back is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. They let visitors sample from it if they bring their own crackers. BRIAR: You're not helping, Norman. BIGFOOT: And this was only the first lunar landing. Twelve humans have walked on the moon. MORZANT: Making the story more fantastical is not making it more believable, I assure you. BIGFOOT: I promise, we’re not pulling your leg. Except for the part about the cheese. • While Morzant worked his way through the seven stages of skepticism, the rest of the group talked about the book: Bigfoot appreciated how informative the book was without being overly technical.Briar agreed. She was impressed with the author’s use of poetic language throughout to make readers feel the power of the rocket that launched Apollo 11, the vastness of space, the moon’s desolation, the isolation of the astronauts during the mission, and the world's shared pride in the Apollo 11 mission. She especially loved how the words and the illustrations worked together to build tension and suspense for an event that most readers, psychics and non-psychics alike, already knew the outcome of. Even though she knew in advance that the astronauts had landed on the moon and safely returned home, there were moments while reading the book when she felt afraid for the men who were so far away from Earth that they could not be rescued if anything were to go wrong.Violet commented on the drawings. She really liked the one where a sandwich and a tube of toothpaste are floating in the ship. She thought this showed that the astronauts were telekinetic, like her, and that she would probably make a good astronaut because “it’s easy to make a tube of toothpaste float.” Morzant, who seemed to have finally completed the seventh stage of skepticism (acceptance), interrupted Violet to explain gravity to her. Briar diffused what threatened to become a lengthy lecture on gravity by offering Morzant more gummy worms.Lenny said he thought he'd make a good astronaut, too, since he can already do somersaults in the air. He likes the idea of going so high above Earth and reaching the moon. Bigfoot reminded Lenny that he’s only allowed to levitate as high as the pine tree with the branch that looks like a tuning fork. Morzant explained that if Lenny levitated as high as the moon he’d need a special suit like the astronauts in the book used. Briar diffused what threatened to become a lengthy lecture on atmosphere, vacuums, and radiation by mentioning to Morzant that gummy foods also come bear-shaped. Lenny speculated on where he might get a space suit. He considered contacting Binky (of BINKY THE SPACE CAT and BINKY TO THE RESCUE by Ashley Spires). Norman reminded Lenny that Binky is just a character in a book, at which point Morzant regressed to the third stage of skepticism (bargaining) and yelled, “Ah, ha! If Binky is fictional, then somebody named Buzz must also be fictional!”Oliver’s favorite part of the book was when the astronauts saw Earth from the moon and when the author said the astronauts were looking at everybody on the planet all at once. Oliver liked imagining that. He also liked the drawings showing what a family on Earth was doing during the moon landing. They were listening and waiting and worrying along with the rest of the world. Then when the astronauts announced they were on the moon, everybody was happy. Even without telepathy, the world shared this big happening all together.I shared my family’s story about the lunar landing. At family reunions, my great uncle Bill used to tell us about how he was swimming nearby when the astronauts' ship returned to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean. He played truth or dare with the astronauts while they waited for a helicopter to come pick them up. Great Uncle Bill dared Neil Armstrong to moon the helicopter pilot. No matter how much we would beg, he would never tell us if Neil Armstrong did it.Norman liked the book, too, but said that he wished the author had written about the cheese collection process and the lunar lemurs who helped the astronauts plant the American flag by digging a hole for the pole. This prompted the following exchange:MORZANT: I was on the Earth's moon before and I never saw any lunar lemurs.NORMAN: Sadly, they became extinct shortly after the first lunar landing. Buzz Aldrin's cold sore virus wiped them out.BRIAR: Norman, you're really, really, really not helping. • Briar was assigned to be Snack Master for next meeting. • Penny is to pick the next book. • As Club President, Bigfoot issued a moratorium on gummy worms, gummy bears, and any other gummy derivation. • Meeting adjourned at 10:20 a.m.

When do you need to tell a prospective buyer your house is haunted? Where do you need a license to practice necromancy or to be reincarnated? And where can you file a lawsuit against a supernatural being? These real-life laws will tell you all that and more. Top image from the hilarious comic Supernatural Law by Batton Lash. 1. In some cases, US home sellers must tell a buyer if a property is haunted. There are all sorts of disclosures that home sellers must make to potential buyers, but do you really need a ghost disclosure? Some states require a seller to disclose if a property is "psychologically impacted" in some way, such as from a recent murder on the premises. If your house is famously said to be haunted, however, you may want to make sure the buyer is aware of the situation. In the 1991 case Stambovsky v. Ackley, Helen Ackley had sold her Nyack, New York, property after she and other members of her family had widely reported that the house was haunted by poltergeists. Jeffrey Stambovsky, unaware of the stories surround the house, purchased the home and later sued, requesting rescission of the contract of sale. The New York Supreme Court justices had a field day writing that opinion, stating that the "plaintiff hasn't a ghost of a chance" and "I am moved by the spirit of equity." While the court didn't state that poltergeists actually exist, it did say that, based on wide reports of the house's haunted status, that its value was affected and therefore the house was haunted as a matter of law. 2. But if you base your horror movie on a "true story" or famously haunted house, you can avoid all sorts of intellectual property issues. Famous mockbuster movie house The Asylum is best known for movies exploit the popularity of other films: Paranormal Entity for Paranormal Activity, Almighty Thor for Thor, Transmorphers for Transformers, and so on. Inspired by the film The Haunting in Connecticut, Asylum made their own Haunting of Winchester House, based on the stories surrounding the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. The corporation that owns the Winchester Mystery House (which had already contracted a studio to make a film based on the property) sued for trademark violation. The California Court of Appeal ruled that, since the name and images of the Winchester House refer not just to the tourist attraction but to the historical and legendary stories surrounding the property, that Asylum had every right to make its own Winchester House film. 3. In San Francisco, you need a license to practice necromancy. There are laws regulating the practice of magical arts around the world, from the tragic laws that see people killed for supposedly practicing witchcraft, to Canada's laws regulating the "crafty sciences." But Kevin Underhill of the legal blog Lowering the Bar and author of the wonderfully weird law book The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance points to a particularly oddball rule in San Francisco. The city of San Francisco offers fortune telling permits (which includes permission to pretend to practice fortune telling), but then goes on to offer a bizarrely inclusive definition of fortune telling that includes necromancy, or the manipulation of the dead. I imagine that certain types of necromantic practice would run afoul of other city, state, and federal laws, however—not to mention laws of nature. 4. In New Orleans, a person may not set forth his or her power to convert bitterest enemies into staunchest friends. It's no surprise that New Orleans, a city long associated with the practice of Voodoo and the supernatural, has very particular laws governing the use of magic as a business, such as this one: Sec. 54-312. Fortunetelling. It shall be unlawful for any person to advertise for or engage in, for a monied consideration, the business of (chronology, phrenology, astrology, palmistry), telling or pretending to tell fortunes, either with cards, hands, water, letters or other devices or methods, or to hold out inducements, either through the press or otherwise, or to set forth his power to settle lovers' quarrels, to bring together the separated, to locate buried or hidden treasures, jewels, wills, bonds or other valuables, to remove evil influences, to give luck, to effect marriages, to heal sickness, to reveal secrets, to foretell the results of lawsuits, business transactions, investments of whatsoever nature, wills, deeds and/or mortgages, to locate lost or absent friends or relatives, to reveal, remove and avoid domestic troubles or to bring together the bitterest enemies converting them into staunchest friends. But nothing herein contained shall apply to any branch of medical science, or to any religious worship. However, hiring a priestess to help you win a football game is apparently a-okay. 5. Different jurisdictions have very different laws governing the hunting of Bigfoot. Want to bag yourself a cryptid? The best place to go is Texas, where the Chief of Staff of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Law Enforcement Division has said that it's legal to kill Bigfoot since it isn't listed by the state as a game animal. But Sasquatch hunting is actually on the books in Skamania County, Washington, where in 1969, the board of commissioners adopted an ordinance declaring the killing of "a nocturnal primate mammal variously described as an ape-like creature or a sub-species of Homo Sapian" a felony, one that could result in a $10,000 fine and five years in the county jail. And when the US embassy opened in Nepal in the 1950s, the US State Department issued a set of rules for Yeti hunting in the Himalayas. In that case, you were allowed to photograph the creature, but could kill it only in self-defense. 6. If you want to start a construction project in Iceland, you may want to check with the local elves. In Iceland, it's the supernatural beings that regulate the humans rather than the other way around. This isn't actually codified, but on an ad hoc basis the committees that oversee construction projects will sometimes delay or divert them so as not to disturb a population of elves. According to a 2005 New York Times article, sometimes a mystic will approach a planning committee to share the elves' concerns about an imminent project, after which the committee may take those concerns into consideration. Recently, there was a bit of a stir about an "elf lobby" delaying a road construction project, although some later reports indicated that it was a bit of an exaggeration; apparently most of the folks protesting the project were concerned more for the environmental impact than for the elves. 7. Tibetan Buddhists must apply for a reincarnation license from the Chinese government. Want to become a tulku, one of the enlightened teachers of Tibetan Buddhism? In China, you'll need to follow State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5 and fill out a reincarnation application. The application will be submitted to the religious affairs department of the provincial-level government, the provincial-level government, State Administration for Religious Affairs, and the State Council. So what happens if you're reincarnated as a living Buddha without a permit? Your reincarnation is deemed "illegal or invalid." Bizarrely, China Daily calls the ban on unlicensed reincarnation " an important move by the government to safeguard religious freedom of citizens according to law." 8. If you want to perform an exorcism, you should probably do it in Texas. In a rather tragic case, Laura Schubert claimed that when she was 17, members of her church, the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God, performed an exorcism on her against her will and that she received physical injuries and began hallucinating as a result. While a lower court awarded Schubert $300,000 for abuse and false imprisonment, the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God eventually appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, which, in a 6-3 decision, rejected the jury award on First Amendment grounds, saying the case would "unconstitutionally entangle the court in matters of church doctrine." The US Supreme Court declined to hear Schubert's appeal. 9. You can't sue the Devil in the US. Gerald Mayo filed a suit against Satan and his staff, arguing that the Devil had violated his constitutional rights and "caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in his path and has caused plaintiff's downfall." In a 1971 United States District Court decision, Judge Gerald J. Weber actually puzzled out the jurisdictional issues involved in suing Satan. He noted that, even if Satan were to appear, he would probably be considered a foreign sovereign and would argue that the US court lacked personal jurisdiction over him. He also noted that Mayo's case would work nicely as a class action lawsuit, provided one could actually sue Satan. Ultimately, though, the case was dismissed because Mayo provided no instructions for serving process on Satan. More recently, Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers tried to sue God, and fared no better in court. 10. But you can sue a genie in Saudi Arabia. In 2009, a Saudi Arabian family filed suit against a genie in Shariah court, claiming that the genie was leaving harassing voicemail messages, stealing their cell phones, and throwing rocks at them. The head of the court, Sheikh Amr Al Salmi, announced that there would be an investigation into the family's genie claim, but it's not clear exactly what a lawsuit against a genie entails or what sort of restitution one can expect.

The legend of the White River Monster begins in the town of Newport in northeastern Arkansas. In 1915, local farmers began filing reports of a large, unknown creature off the banks of the White River. In July 1937, a key eyewitness account described the creature as having gray skin and being "as wide as a car and three cars long." A county deputy said the creature itself "looked like a large sturgeon or catfish."he White River Monster was sighted again in the summer of 1971. That year, eyewitnesses who encountered the creature described it as "the size of a boxcar" with a bone protruding from its forehead. "It looked as if the thing was peeling all over, but it was a smooth type of skin or flesh," said one, and it made strange noises that sounded like a combination of a "cow's moo and a horse's neigh." Other accounts of the White River Monster described three-toed tracks, 14 inches in length, on Towhead Island leading down to the river through a path of bent trees and crushed bushes. Following the reports, in 1973 the Arkansas State Legislator created the White River Monster Refuge, making it illegal to "molest, kill, trample, or harm the White River Monster while he is in the retreat." According to scientists, the White River Monster is likely a case of mistaken identity. Cryptozoologist and biologist Roy P. Mackal has suggested that the creature is "a clear-cut instance of a known aquatic animal outside its normal habitat or range and therefore unidentified by the observers unfamiliar with the type." Mackal believes that the creature is in fact a large male elephant seal that wandered up the Mississippi River into White River. Measuring an average of 5,000 pounds and 14 feet in length, a male elephant seal shares many of the characteristics described by those who've encountered the "monster": gray skin, three-toed tracks, summer molting and a farm animal's call. Even the "bone" on the creature's forehead can be explained by the male elephant seal's inflatable trunk. So are male elephant seals visiting White River? No one's been able to confirm that they are, and the mystery continues. |Main Wiki Pages and Navigation||Home • Cryptid • Cryptid Photographs • Cryptid Timeline • CWR • Sasquatch • Sea Creature • Weird| |North America||Bear Lake Monster • Beast of Bray Road • Bermuda Beast •Bigfoot • Dover Demon • Enfield Horror • Flatwoods Monster • Fouke Monster • Hodag • Honey Island Swamp Monster • Igopogo • Jackalope • Jersey Devil • Lizard Man • Loveland Frog • Mannegishi • Michigan Dogman • Momo the Monster • Monster of Monterey • Mothman • Ogopogo • Oklahoma Octopus • Robert • Skunk Ape • Snallygaster • Wendigo • White River Monster| |South America||Bloop • Megaconda • Minhocão| Ahool • Alien • Bishop-fish • Chupacabra • Demon Dog • Dragon • Foo Fighters • Ghost • Globster • Goblin • HMS Deadalus Sea Serpent • Kraken • Reptilian • Sasquatch • Sea Monk • Shadow People • Thunderbird • Zaratan • Zombies |Cryptids with green text are authentic. Cryptids with yellow text are presumed authentic. Cryptids with blue text have an unknown authenticity status. Cryptids with orange text are assumed hoaxes. Cryptids with red text are hoaxes. Cryptids with purple text are found in religion. Cryptids with italic text have been featured articles.|

Derek Faraci at Blumhouse.com has written an article titled “We Need More Kid Horror“He claims that today’s generation of kids will be the first to grow up “without nightmares caused by authors, artists, and filmmakers”. The world, he says, has decided it’s not okay to scare kids anymore. Kids would rather watch Minecraft videos on YouTube than horror movies these days. While it’s very possible that some kids would rather watch Minecraft videos on YouTube, that doesn’t mean they aren’t exposed to horror in its various guises. I have a 10 year old son who is obsessed with Minecraft, and that’s where he learned about slasher movies and horror video games. It’s where he learned about Slenderman. (thanks a bunch, Mojang, for enshrining a fictional character that inspired two girls to stab a friend multiple times into a children’s video game). If you want to learn about any kind of monster or cryptid, he’s your go-to guy. There’s no lack of resources to feed his nightmares. Visit the library and you’ll see. According to Faraci, “horror is more than fun. It’s more than entertainment.” Parents should be using it to teach their kids lessons. Gee, way to drain all the enjoyment out of the genre. You may have noticed that horror, as a genre, doesn’t get a lot of respect. A lot of kids who do read it are doing it under the radar, and they like it that way. In some of the research, they’re called “underground readers”. They don’t want horror to teach them a lesson. They get lessons at school. They want to read (or watch) something they actually enjoy. If, as a parent, you have a genuine love of the genre that you want to share, great. That’s what will engage kids. If, as a parent, you have grave reservations about sharing your love of the genre, you should probably know that eventually your kids will get into your stuff and decide whether they want to read or watch horror anyway. I do agree with Faraci that horror gives us a way to experience fear in a controlled way– you can always close the book or turn off the television if things get too intense– but how many of us are thinking about that when we read? If it’s not fun, if it’s not entertaining, if there’s no suspense, why waste your time? Do we need more kid horror? There’s definitely a place for it! A children’s horror novel, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, even won the Newbery Award a few years back. Is there a gap where kid horror used to be? I don’t think so. But there’s certainly room for more! Looking for titles? Here are our reviews of scary (and not so scary) books for kids

It is our theory that the Minhocao (which was considered to be a giant earthworm) is the same creature as the Sachamama. We believe that this animal exists at the Napo/Amazon confluence and is capable of burrowing under the ground. Tomorrow we will release satellite and video evidence that shows two (almost identical) shapes in two different locations at the Napo/Amazon confluence, which we believe are caused by this creature. Mike & Greg Warner, 16th June 2009." Mike and Greg also asked us to back-link to this comment from Dale Drinnon which was made on June 9th.. DALE DRINNON WRITES:This Sachamama stuff is more than a decade old in Peru and Karl Shuker had an article in FATE about it while that magazine was still in its old, large-size format. Shuker wrote about the Sachamama in 1999-2000 (The FATE article being "Close Encounters of the Cryptozoological Kind" in 2000, following a few in the Fortean Times) and he was connecting it to the Minhocao then but what was being described was a giant snake similar to the current reports. The stories began hitting the news suddenly in the 1990s and were an odd mixture of Sucuriju Gigante and Minhocao features but identified as another different and local cryptid, the "Snail Demon" or "Snake-with- a-shell," Sachamama. It is evidently depicted on Chimu artwork. Karl Shuker did identify it with the Minhocao and he did think it was a gigantic caecilian. It has an entry in Eberhart's Mysterious Creatures. INDEX TO PREVIOUS STORIES Monday's data release Tuesday's data release And here are links to some of the earlier bloggo stories on the subject 1. The original story printed by us 2. The plot thickens 3. South American newspapers which claim a titanic snake trashed a woman's house 4. Greg Warner asks Dr Chris Clark a question 5. Dale Drinnon comments 6. We finally release the pictures 7. We try to smooth over the rift with Andre Issi 8. Glen Vaudrey writes 9. Andre Issi and the anaconda Editor's Note: I still don't get this and am unable to see any trace of a giant snake in these pictures. However, in the interests of free speech and openness, I shall continue to release the remainder of the Warners' data each day. I shall also continue to publish all comments; good and bad; that are non-abusive. However, I would like to stress that whilst the CFZ and I, personally, have every respect for Mike and Greg, and are pleased that we have managed to provide a forum for them to release their material, we do not endorse it and at present, have not seen enough evidence for us to support their theories.

Scribal (pronounced skry-ball, not scribble) Work Shop is a family owned business specializing in several products and services related to historic writing, art, calligraphy, and illumination; to which we add the modern fountain pen inks designed by Lucas Tucker, head of Scribal Work Shop. We started as a company in 2011 and debuted at the Scarborough Renaissance Festival in the spring of 2012. The most modern of our products are our fountain pen inks, designed by a chemist, a calligrapher, parents, and grandparents. This diverse design team has created a unique set of priorities on our part in regards to the ink we make. We no longer sell fountain pen ink in our shop, though we do still make it. The former ink line know as the "Cryptid" line has been reformulated for better behavior (the previous formulation was too dry) and is now being sold by the Anderson Pen Company as their private label ink, under different names. The same is true of the blue ink from our former Bunny line; it has been re-formulated and is now being sold by Anderson Pens as part of their private label line. If you are interested in these inks they are now with the Anderson Pen Company, re-named, but still made by Scribal Work Shop. In our list of historic products we include inks, traditional quills, steel nib quills, turned wood pens, wood ink wells, historic pigments, wax tablets, original artwork, and prints of same original artwork. Everything we sell is hand made by us, from the inks to the artwork (though the artwork is definitely a one-man job). We follow medieval and renaissance period recipes and techniques when making our historic inks and pigments – in fact, we only use historic materials in our historic inks and pigments. We use techniques from the same time periods when preparing our quills, and when making our wax tablets (with the exception of the modern tools we use when doing the woodwork) – we even use historic pigments when coloring the beeswax in the wax tablets. Our steel nib quills and turned wood pens are the most modern of our historic offerings. The steel nib quills do not adhere to the same standards for historic accuracy as our other products since they are an entirely modern invention, however, the wood pens are historic, just not to the medieval and renaissance eras. Wood pens with steel nibs hail from the 1800s. Please note that our historic inks and paints are not always safe and non-toxic. As much as we love non-toxic products, historical accuracy is more important sometimes. We want our customers to be safe, however, so a full list of ingredients is available for every product upon request. To all of this, we add the services of calligrapher and illuminator Lucas Tucker, the creator of the original artwork we currently offer. He specializes in historic calligraphy hands and illumination styles, and creates custom pieces on a regular basis. At this time Scribal Work Shop is not Lucas’ full time job, currently he teaches high school chemistry. As such, completion time for a custom piece during the school year is limited to the time he has on the weekends and in the evening to complete it, so if you want to commission a piece, please keep this time restriction in mind when ordering (e.g. allow a few more weeks during the school year for project completion than in the summer). When it comes to safety and historical accuracy we follow one motto: "If we don't use it, we won't sell it." Some call them pillars, some call them principles, some call it a mission....we call them obsessions: Honesty, Education, Historical Accuracy, and Informed Safety. Scribe and Chemist,

Free, print and play, board games for your amusement. Enjoy! Click the links to download .pdfs or .xlsx files to have some fun. Skill Check! skill check It’s a party game for your party. Need to just roll a dice and add a modifier to it? You’ve found your game. Print this out, make your characters and face crazy challenges like safe cracking in your buddy’s basement, talking your way out of a traffic ticket and breaking free of a beaver dam. The Society of Cryptid Hunters Society of Cryptid Hunters You must stop the most fearsome cryptozoological beasts on the planet. Build a weapon, battle the baddies and claim victory as the best hunter of them all. Airship! The Steampunk Adventure Table Game Airship The Steampunk Table Top Game Captain your own airship and fight off bandits! Players assume the role of gods working together to sculpt a land of mountains, forest, grass and rivers. Each God want’s their element to be the biggest in the land and will work to ensure their interests are secured. Build Temples to increase the value of the land and set fires to ruin others. Battle Squads…of Doom!: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/60030711/Squads%20Final.xlsx Lead your squad of five into battle. Each pawn has their own set of skills and tools available to them and as you move through the map, you will need each of them to achieve your goal. 200 cards and a customizable game board map give the game a high replay value; which will come in handy whenever you need to seek revenge against your opponent. A Tomb for Pharaoh https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/60030711/A%20Tomb%20for%20Pharaoh.xlsx The Pharaoh is ill and you have to build the best tomb possible before time runs out. A game about resource management and timing (with a bit of trading as well -or as my house calls it “begging”). Build the walls, set the curses and create a tomb that will help the Pharaoh best in the afterlife. Players create mechanized battle suits and battle it out for supremacy! Roll for points and spend them on upgrades. Fight, heal or use a special power during your turn to swing the fight in your favor. A fun, quick game for two to work out their marital issues without yelling about who’s turn it is to take out the garbage. I presume…. You are running for political office and the campaign is in high gear. Use Advisers and the media to position yourself well ahead of Election Day. Be sure to keep your coffers humming though as your money spent in each district directly impacts the number of votes earned. Of course, some districts just aren’t going to listen to you and your advisers will certainly influence your image throughout the map. This one actually turned out much more cynical than intended.

Full Length of Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in HD FormatNow you can download full Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in top video format with duration 100 Min and was released on 2013-05-16 and MPAA rating is 4. - Original Title : Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon - Movie title in your country : Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon - Year of movie : 2013 - Genres of movie : Action, Adventure, - Status of movie : Released - Release date of movie : 2013-05-16 - Companies of movie : - Countries of movie : - Language of movie : English, - Durationof movie : 100 Min - Average vote of movie : 6.3 - Youtube ID of movie : Ln0a0jnHWgY - Translation of movie : EN,RU,FR,NL,PL,HU,SV,ES,DE,PT, - Cast of movie : - Scott Adkins ( Travis Preston ) - Dolph Lundgren ( Harker ) - Crystal Huang Yi ( Dr. Lan Zeng ) - Nathan Lee ( Brandon Hua ) - James Lance ( Doug McConnell ) - Lydia Leonard ( Katie ) - Geng Le ( Jianyu ) - Murray Clive Walker ( Chuck ) - Viktor Sobtchak ( Vadim ) - Tom Austen ( Scott ) - David Thomas Jenkins ( Fry ) - Li Shengye ( Han Wu ) - Yang Caiyu ( Bai Xi ) - Paul Philip Clark ( Karl ) Now you can enjoy Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in HD video. Download full Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon film with single fill out the variety by clicking on the image on the sign way up button. Enjoy each of the albums fresh movie using all favourite movie loading! only play this movie Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon today for full access this online movie. This really is truly spectacular and could one of those rare awesome. The high quality was great throughout. Management, pictures and aesthetic effects had been all extremely innovative along with brilliant. The pleasure from the script, often humorous and has plenty of heart for all his characters are extremely very well developed. ... Free Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in HD Video 720p ... Movie summary of Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon : Watch full Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in Best Quality with movie synopsis "Travis and his team travel to China in search of what isn't supposed to exist ... their mission to capture a Cryptid which is wreaking havoc in a remote village and they need to do this before it is killed by Harker, the legendary bounty hunter." in high quality. Free Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in Best Video Format by visiting the download link. Director : Eric Styles, Writer : Andy Briggs, Cinematography : Yang Shu, Of course, now you can view movie connected with Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon 100 % length and have the link to this motion picture Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in HD format.

Compared to the variety of monstrum reported around the world, reptilian cryptids are by far among the creepiest. The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp is no exception. Living in the swamplands of Lee County, South Carolina, reported sightings of this reptilian humanoid started in 1988. Recent reports this year clearly indicate the creature is still alive and well. This creepy, tailed crawler is approximately seven feet tall and walks upright on two legs. Its face, hands and three-toed feet are covered with scales while dark hair covers the rest of its body. Thought to be incredibly strong, this cryptid supposedly can rip a car in two. The original sighting was reported by Christopher Davis, a 17-year-old who saw the creature while driving home from work at 2 am. Davis had stopped to change a blown-out tire but knew he had bigger problems when he spotted the Lizard Man running towards him. Davis tried to get into the car, but the creature grabbed ahold of him. Scrambling for his life, he managed to shake the creature’s grasp before driving off. A few months after Davis’s encounter, a number of other sightings, as well as damage credited to the Lizard Man, occurred in a three-mile radius around the spot where Davis first saw the creature. Since then there’ve been consistent sightings as well as photos and videos of the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp. Most recently, in 2015, a woman took a single picture of the creature from her church in August. When the picture went viral, a hunter released a twenty-five-second video showing a glimpse of the creature moving through the trees.

A true believer presents the evidence. Expanding on a partial chapter in her outstanding Tales of the Cryptids (2006), Halls makes her case by tallying Native American legends, the many footprints and reported sightings (a map of the latter claims hundreds from every state except Hawaii), the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, the recorded “Sierra Sounds” and other circumstantial evidence. She also interviews scientists and Sasquatch hunters, includes an account of early searches for Tibet’s Yeti, adds the transcript of a panicky 911 call and even covers some proven hoaxes. She maintains a believer's voice, gently challenging refuseniks: "Serious Sasquatch hunters are as skeptical as unbelievers. They are not out to collect great stories. They are out to put together facts. Proof. The difference is, they are willing to keep an open mind." Illustrated with photos, drawings and archival images aplenty and closing with generous lists of print, Web and video resources this is about as convincing as it gets—considering the continuing absence of any incontrovertible physical proof—and should give young cryptid hunters a good hairy leg up on investigations of their own. All those hundreds of witnesses and researchers can’t be wrong, can they? (Nonfiction. 9-11)

Already largely synonymous with the legendary Bigfoot, one politician in Washington state is looking to take that association one giant step further. State senator Ann Rivers has introduced a bill in the Washington legislature that would name Sasquatch as the state's "official cryptid." According to the proposal, the reasoning for the rather odd honor is because "Sasquatch has made immeasurable contributions to Washington state's cultural heritage and ecosystem." While one might suspect that the idea for the bill came lobbyists looking to strengthen the creature's grasp on the Washington tourism industry, it is actually not the handiwork of a proverbial 'Big Bigfoot.' In fact, Rivers revealed, the proposal was inspired by a letter she received from one of her constituents who happens to be in the second grade. The state senator commended the young boy for penning a thoughtful missive which explained why Bigfoot deserved the honor as well as his rather remarkable reason for making it happen soon. As Rivers explained, "we need to act on this before Oregon does." Unless their neighbor to the south quickly passes some emergency legislation, it would appear that Washington will win the Pacific Northwest war for Bigfoot claiming rights sometime this year. Source: The Columbian

Originally posted at Fangoria.com on January 1, 2011 Image Comics’ PROOF: ENDANGERED is the tale of a secret agent who hunts and protects mythological creatures. Monsters, gangsters and shadowy government agents are all after the cryptid known as Bigfoot. The first issue of PROOF sees the Sasquatch relentlessly search for the truth about his mysterious past. In this version of the oft-retold legend, Bigfoot was captured by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805. Kept top secret in the hands of the U.S. government for over 200 years at a hidden facility known as The Lodge, the humanoid evolved and developed personality traits, adopting the name John “Proof” Prufrock and eventually donning a flashy suit as he fights other monstrosities. Proof has lived a lonely life, assuming he was the last of his kind, but when he discovers the severed finger of another Sasquatch, his entire world is turned upside down. Somewhere out in the globe, Proof might have another relative—one that may also be in danger. His quest for answers leads him on a dangerous path to Japantown, San Francisco. Another kind of cryptid prevents Proof from gathering clues about his past. In an original take on the legend, ENDANGERED’s chupacabra is a deadly predator that wears the flesh of its victims. The chupacabra’s vicious nature is on full display in the blood-soaked opening pages, slashing throats and gouging out eyeballs. In issue #1, Proof’s girlfriend Isabella and partner Ginger are shopping. As they try on outfits, they discuss the aftermath of leaving their hometown, Seattle. Little do they know, a sadistic three-eyed monster is stalking them. Elsewhere, Proof has his hands full with a local gangster and his henchmen, who all have their guns directly trained on him. Writer Alex Grecian is a superb storyteller who keeps the plot moving. Though the first issue is packed with characters, he lets each persona breathe through dialogue, allowing new readers to catch up with the latest story arc. The gritty artwork by COWBOY NINJA VIKING’s Riley Rossmo is gorgeous to look at. In Proof’s first appearance, the gangster’s hideout is layered with antiques, paintings and quirky novelty items: The criminal has a Dracula bobblehead on top of his desk and a statue of a dragon somewhere in the corner. PROOF: ENDANGERED #1 plays out with unexpected twists and turns, ending on a riveting cliffhanger. If you followed the PROOF series, Grecian and Rossmo give you solid reasons to stay, but old and new fans alike should be prepared for something different. For more about Proof’s previous adventures, visit the official Image Comics site.

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In Search of SasquatchSasquatch, also known as Bigfoot, is considered a cryptid--a creature of cryptozoology. What is cryptozoology? According to author and cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, it is the study of creatures not formally recognized by traditional science. It is the quest to understand eyewitness observations that simply cannot be proven via ordinary channels. Coined by French-born zoologist Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans in the 1960s, the term "cryptozoology" is based on the Greek word "kryptos," which means "hidden." It's a perfect definition for a sometimes imperfect set of scientific goals. Why imperfect? Because "hidden" animals are hard to find, hard to believe ... Another great book from Rusty Wilson, Bigfoot expert and storyteller. This is the sequel to Rusty's first collection of Bigfoot campfire stories, tales for both the Bigfoot believer and those who just enjoy a good story! Flyfishing guide Rusty Wilson spent years collecting these stories from his clients around the campfire, stories guaranteed to scare the pants off you—or make you want to meet the Big Guy! Come read about a Bigfoot ghost town — being stalked in the high mountains of Colorado — a Bigfoot and his stolen dogpack — a BIgfoot caught in a pothole deep in a canyon of Utah — the Bigfoot who tried to hijack a train in Oregon — what happened when a Bigfoot finally revealed itself to its caretaker — and many more great campfire tales...but only if you don't want to go to sleep at night... “It always amazes me how the quietest person can often have the scariest tale. I think Bigfoot is attracted to thinkers.” —Rusty Wilson Also available in Kindle format on Amazon. America’s favorite crypto-zoological hominid is hilariously recast as the modern-day everyman, struggling with eating disorders, casual cannibalism, pop culture, and philosophical quandaries (“Me once believe in good. Now, no. World go shit, just like Bigfoot screenwriting career”). The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates is a comprehensive study of the astonishing variety of puzzling primates that are being reported by eyewitnesses around the world - but that science has failed to recognize. This fully illustrated volume not only contains the references, range maps, and typical footprints that appeared in the first edition, but it also contains a new, complete index and new preface that updates the discoveries made since this book was first published. "The thousands of worldwide sightings of unclassified bipedal primates, including the Yeti, may be confusing because these sightings entail more than one species. This field guide attempts to sort out the different creatures, coming up with a classification of eight possible mystery primates. But this book makes no real attempt to persuade skeptics of the existence of any of them. It's sort of speculative taxonomy, but I think it is one of the most useful texts in the ongoing controversy over Bigfoot." - Kevin Kelly, Whole Earth Review "If only one of these creatures is verified by naturalists, it would be a biological sensation...The book is well-researched with a good bibliography." - William Corliss, Science Frontiers "This book looks like any other field guide you might pick up. It has drawings, maps, tracks, descriptions of the organisms, and the details of the most prominent sightings or evidence....Anyone interested in folk zoology - especially anyone interested in how legends and animal lore intersect with modern scientific research - would find this to be an intriguing volume....It is an extensive...catalog of all the variations on the 'mystery primate' theme organized geographically andannotated extensively." - Andrew J. Petto, Reports of the National Center for Science Education

Rather than their usual group of preforming trolls, the Norwegian National Quidditch team elected to bring a Selma as their mascot for the 2014 Quidditch World Cup, a decision defended by team manager Arnulf Moe as reflecting the "steely determination and ferocity" of his team. The Selma was placed in a magical lake in the Patagonian Desert where it engaged in a fight with the Fijian Dukuwaqa, which eventually escalated into a conflict between many of the team mascots. Behind the scenes - The Selma is a cryptid said to live in the Norwegian lake Seljordsvatnet, and could be considered Norway's Loch Ness Monster. - Newt Scamander did not mention Selmas in his sea serpent entry in the fifty-second edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. It is possible that the species had not yet been discovered by 1991. - Pottermore (Mentioned only)

Kassar being attacked by David Archer |Appears in||Call of Duty: Ghosts| Samantha Cross (interrogator) |Killed By||Cryptids (ordered by Samantha Cross)| |Death||November 25th, 2017, Stormbreaker, Tasman Sea, South Pacific Ocean| |Equipment||Creator of the Kassar Cinematics and the Beacon Amplifier| |Level||Nightfall (cutscene only)| Mayday (intel only) - "She's becoming more dangerous every day! If you won't put her down, I will." - — Kassar warning Archer of Samantha Cross' powers. Doctor Kassar was a character in Call of Duty: Ghosts Extinction mode. He was a surviving Nightfall scientist who worked for David Archer aboard Stormbreaker, acting as the interrogator of Dr. Samantha Cross. A world-renowned scientist in the field of neuroprosthetics, Dr. Kassar caught the attention of David Archer, who employed him within the Nightfall Program at their headquarters in Point Barrow, Alaska. When Dr. Cross unconsciously breached the facility's Cryptid hatchery, an outbreak ensued, slaughtering 127 of the project's employees. Through unknown means, Kassar found himself among the surviving scientists, and was extracted from the site with Archer and Cross. Now aboard Archer's new base of operations, Stormbreaker, Kassar oversaw the creation of the Beacon Amplifier, a device capable of strengthening Samantha's brainwaves to allow the second Ark to be located. With Cross surgically bonded to the device, Kassar was tasked with interrogating her into revealing her knowledge of the remaining Arks and why she betrayed Nightfall. Throughout his interrogations, Kassar learned translating the Ark caused Cross to suffer a mimetic virus that gave her brain the ability to relay the commands sent to the Cryptids by their unseen masters, granting her immunity among the beasts. However, Kassar grew fearful this power would influence Cross to defect to the Cryptids themselves, noting her power was growing every day. Consulting Archer, he insisted that Samantha was killed for the safety of the voyage, which Archer quickly vetoed, threatening to feed Kassar to the Cryptids should he lay a hand on their patient. On November 25th, Cross revealed to Kassar the race that constructed the Arks were far from extinct, as well as summoning the guardian created to protect the Arks as the ship neared their destination. As the Cryptid specimens overran Stormbreaker, Samantha watched as Kassar was mauled to death by the creatures, begging for salvation.

Thanks the Cryptid Wikia for all of the information Well, yes, my first blog post is about a phenomenal! You all know about the pesky little Zombie Chicken right? But worse thing is, the Zombie Chicken is truly exist! :o Don't worry, after a bit of searching, i found out this chicken won't run at crazy speed and peck at your brains. Turns out, it's an inspiration story. If you would like to know about this miracle, stay on :) This is a story about Miracle Mike. Just a regular rooster, until his owners decided to make a delicios dinner from him. Holding an axe, Mr. Lloyd Olsen swung it, and chop Mike's head off. But the strike missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact. Therefore, Mike was still able to stand up and walk clumsily, even tried to peck although he can't cause he lost his head. The Olsen shocked, and decided to continue to care permanently for Mike, feeding him a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper; he was also fed small grains of corn. Mike quickly gained control of his new body :)The bird's owner took him to University of Utah in Salt Lake City and proved that it do exist. Everyone was shocked, and his story spread all over the place and soon, he became famous. He grew from a mere 2 1/2 lbs. to nearly 8 lbs. In an interview, Olsen said Mike was a "robust chicken - a fine specimen of a chicken except for not having a head." Miracle Mike took on a manager, and with the Olsens in tow, set out on a national tour. Curious sideshow patrons in New York, Atlantic City, Los Angeles, and San Diego lined up to pay 25 cents to see Mike. The "Wonder Chicken" was valued at $10,000 and insured for the same. His fame and fortune would earn him recognition in Life and Time Magazines. It goes without saying there was a Guinness World Record in all this. While returning from one of these road trips the Olsens stopped at a motel in the Arizona desert. In the middle of the night Mike began to choke. Unable to find the eyedropper used to clear Mike's open esophagus Miracle Mike passed on. Mike lived 18 months since beheaded. And people told Mike's story is an inspiration: "It is great to comfort to know you live a normal life, even after you have lost your mind." Now, there is a annual Mike the Headless Chicken festival that happens every third weekend of May and a statue of Mike was built in Fruita, Colorado. Some pictures of Mike! Amazing story isn't it. Zombie Chickens are not really annoying in real life! Thanks for reading this blog, and i'll write even more in the future :)

For fans of Call of Duty Ghosts, today is your lucky day as Activision have confirmed details regarding the new Invasion DLC which will be released on June 3rd, exclusive to Xbox One owners. You’ll get access to four additional maps and an additional chapter in the popular Extinction mode for the game. - Four new maps: Invasion will feature “Departed”, “Pharaoh”, “Mutiny”, and “Favela” - Departed: A medium-sized map set in rural Mexico during the Day of the Dead festival. There will be a unique Death Mariachi killstreak after unlocking the map’s unique Field Order. “Armed with dual-wielding pistols, the Death Mariachi settles scores, with each kill turning enemy players into another member of the band, and a temporary squad mate.” - Pharoah: A map set in an abandoned archaeological site in Egypt. Beware the collapsing pillars and face-eating scarab beetles. - Mutiny: Arr, matey! Gun down your friends in the Caribbean, ye will. Unlocking the Field Order for this map means gaining two ghostey pirate-types to help you along your way. - Favela: Favela will be making a return in Ghosts, in a refreshed state. - New episode to Extinction mode: Invasion brings another chapter to Extinction mode. “In Awakening, the team descends into the perilous alien underworld to strike at the subterranean fortress of the Ancestors – the mysterious puppet-masters behind the Cryptid invasion. Armed with a range of new hi-tech weapons and equipment, the team must penetrate a series of defensive barriers to reach the Ark and unlock the secrets of the Ancestors’ psychic powers. As the final battle draws closer, the fate of the Earth and the future of the human race hang in the balance.” There’s also an official trailer to show off the COD Invasion DLC – so check it out:

I really find it hard to believe that we are now on Episode 29 of our monthly webTV show. Well done us I say. Monday, February 01, 2010 few days later, Nich few days later Nichola Sullings sent us these photographs that have been doing the rounds for some time. I am embarrased to say that I forgot all about them, but it was only a few days before Christmas and other stuff was on my mind. I am tending to think that they have been photoshopped, but would like to hear your opinions on their status. The blurb which goes with them is not encouraging: Subject: Cute little Texas pig Cute little Texas pig ..........That was killed in the town of Cut-N-Shoot TX . We call them Piney Wood Rooter's. Over 1,800 lb. wild boar shot and killed in Conroe , Texas near the County Airport, East of I-45 and near the community of Cut and Shoot. What would you do if this beast was coming at you? Run for dear life? Climb a tree? or simply get run over ? Yep......only in Texas !We were taught to stand still because their eye sight is poor..By standing still they probably would not see you and walk right on by..And No you can’t out run them!! Look at how tall the grass and weeds are. How fast do you think you would be running thru that? What do you guys think? FROM THE YOU TUBE COMMENTARY: What is this animal? It had a sibling that was even whiter. Could it be a new species of deer. It appeared to be a unique wild white/piebald deer with white band and wooly fur This wild white/piebald deer with a white band and long, shaggy, curly fur is probably the only one in existence. This deer not only had band of white fur around its central area, but its fur was shaggy and wooly. It also appeared to have an unusually long, oddly-shaped tail. First shot is of two normal deer. It may have had a sibling with even more white, shown running for cover in second part of video. The mother was normal colored and had a normal texture of fur. A view of a white buck in the same area (possibly its father) can be seen at: At least 6 white deer were seen at different times in the same area. One was pure white, about a foot taller than the other deer, and had a huge rack. The white deer shown had a large band or belt of white fur around its middle like a Poland China hog and long curly fur. Its twin was chiefly white. A white fawn was seen once. Around 30 years ago, many area people saw a white deer with a black spot. A sixth white deer was seen and photographed along our river valley (Alum Creek, in Ohio). The piebald deer also had a sort of Roman nose -- one with an enlargement in the front of the face - that some of the deer in the area had. The wooly deer seemed to also have an unusually long tail. I doubt that inbreeding caused this whiteness, because these were wild deer. There were many deer in the area at that time. Nessie at the double By Laurence Ford Published: 26 October, 2006 A YOUNG English couple holidaying in the Highlands encountered Nessie not once, but TWICE, during their stay. But although they feel fortunate to have spotted the legendary Loch Ness Monster, they say lady luck was not smiling on them as they did not manage to capture her on film.Nick Thurston (32), of Frome, Somerset, a former Wiltshire Constabulary employee now working for Vodafone, and his fiancée Emma Louise Jones (22), won a two-day holiday in Inverness and decided to stay for two weeks. The couple admit to being intrigued by the legendary monster but were sceptical prior to visiting that anything prehistoric could exist in the year 2006. They booked a trip with Jacobite Cruises on the loch and set sail on Friday, October 6, on a trip which would sway the opinion of at least Emma Louise who was the most sceptical out of the two. She said: ‘As we sailed along I saw a hump, much like that of a bridge, which was dark brown in colour and was relative to Urquhart Castle. ‘I shouted to Nick to get the camera, but he was unfortunately not quick enough to capture what I had seen, and then the drizzle started to come down and the mist closed in.’ Nick was not over enthused at the sighting, but Emma Louise remained convinced she had seen Nessie. The following week, the couple decided to visit Ben Nevis, and as they drove down the loch side road to Fort William, just after Urquhart Castle, the incredible happened. Said Nick: ‘I noticed what looked like a rounded dark tree stump that appeared to be around 1-2 metres protruding out of the water, which was very close to the banks opposite the castle. I only realised this was more sinister when I saw something like Emma had described previously that was also raised and appeared black or extremely dark brown in colour. ‘This rear raised section was around 3-4 metres behind the raised stump, but there were no other sections. ‘I yelled to Emma to quickly grab my camcorder from the rear passenger seats, which resulted in something of a disagreement. Emma thought I had lost my marbles as we were in a very precarious position on the road with a very deep loch just below us. ‘The glimpse that I caught only lasted for around five or six seconds, but it was enough to convince me wholeheartedly that this was no collapsed tree, wave, human, boat, seal, dolphin or catfish. ‘The tree trunk-like stump very slowly and gracefully submerged beneath the water within a matter of seconds at which point I was completely shocked and dumbfounded, as anyone would be!’ He said they were unable to stop as there were no parking places. Nick stressed: ‘I can now firmly say hand on heart that I have witnessed something remarkable that I would argue about until the day I die! ‘I know what I saw and that’s all that matters to me - people can believe me or not as it really does not bother me! ‘I can say to myself that I saw something very, very unusual that was alive and could well have been something that we do not yet know about! If only I could pop into Boots and get my memory processed - that will be the day should it come in my lifetime!’ He said work colleagues and customers remain reserved about his sighting, but a few believe there is something lurking in Loch Ness. ‘I am so convinced that I have seen something that could well be the supposed Loch Ness Monster that I would happily take a lie detector test to prove that I am not fabricating what I saw,’ he says. Nick and Emma Louise plan to return to the Highlands next year, hopefully for another close encounter of the Nessie kind. As people spend years at the loch and some may never see anything, it just seems odd that this couple should see something twice in a short space of time. Or I am I just being an old cynic? Or maybe I had one too many conversations with Frank Searle in the old days which has made me sceptical of multiple sightings? Dave Curtis, here are your 5 questions on… Cryptozoology: 1) How did you first become interested in cryptozoology? I read In Search of Myths and Monsters as a child and that got me hooked on the subject. 2) Have you ever personally seen a cryptid or secondary evidence of a cryptid, if so can you please describe your encounter? I have never seen a cryptid but Jon and the team were staying at my house "Up North" in Dawdon Seaham when Jon saw the Beast at Bolam Lake. 3) Which cryptids do you think are the most likely to be scientifically discovered and described some day, and why? I think the sea serpent will eventually classified. After the tragic tsunami a few years ago, a whole host of new species was quite literally thrown at us from the deep! It will not be long before one is filmed I am sure. 4) Which cryptids do you think are the least likely to exist? This will put the cat among the pigeons but for me the idea that flesh and blood Big Foot type creatures are roaming about Britain is pushing it a bit far! No `Stig of the Dump` for me I am afraid. 5) If you had to pick your favourite cryptozoological book (not including books you may have written yourself) what would you choose? Joint first. The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel and The Owlman and Others by Jonathan Downes. Both classics I keep going back to again and again. I once interviewed the actor Brian Blessed, a renowned explorer and mountaineer himself, for a long defunct and not very good magazine called Quest. Blessed, who is a friend of Messner, said that he had told him of his encounter with a yeti. Blessed said that Messner had walked around some rocks and come ‘face to face’ with the creature. He said it was not a bear, was 7 feet tall, man-like and stood erect. There are other occasions when Messner’s descriptions sound precious little like a bear. Julian Champkin of the Daily Mail 16th August 1997 wrote that Messner has… “encountered the yeti; and not once, but four times, once close enough to touch it. More importantly, he claims to have photographs of the creature, including a mother yeti tending her child, and a yeti skeleton”. Needless to say none of his pictures have been forthcoming. Messner goes on… "I searched for a week, 12 hours a day, in an area with no trees," he says. "I didn't expect to find one so soon. First, we saw a mother with her child. I could only take a photograph from the back. The child had bright red fur, the older animal's fur was black. She was over two metres tall, with dark hair, just like the legend. When they saw us they disappeared." Two days later, he claimed to have come across and filmed a sleeping yeti. The film is just as noticeable as the photos by its absence. In an article relating to the BBC’s Natural World documentary on the yeti, Messner describes seeing one from a range of 30 metres in Southern Tibet. The article says Messner is sure it is some kind of primate. He describes it in the article thus… “It was bigger than me, quite hairy and strong, dark brown-black hair falling over his eyes. He stood on two legs and immediately I thought he corresponds to the descriptions I heard from Sherpas and Tibetans.” So why did Messner write a book trying to explain away the yeti as a bear when this transparently was not the creature he claimed to have seen? Was it because of fear of ridicule? And what became of the photos and film? Was Messner trying to take the focus away from these or make them seem less important by saying the yeti was just a bear? Could this be because the film and photos did not exist? Sherpas become angry when westerners say that the yeti is just a bear, and quite rightly. The animal they pick repeatedly as looking most like the yeti is the gorilla, but walking on two legs rather than four. The yeti has a flat, ape-like face. The yeti walks almost constantly on two legs. The yeti can manipulate things with its hands and hence must have opposable thumbs. It is said to sometimes hurl large rocks. Bears have none of the above features. The yeti is clearly some kind of primate, most likely a great ape. Until he delivers the goods, I’m inclined to dismiss Messner’s claims. Today is Groundhog Day. Legend has it that if a groundhog comes out of its burrow on this day it means that winter will soon be over, if not winter will last another six weeks at least. The practice is said to come from Continental Europe where a badger or bear’s emergence would be the prophetic event, although I read that as a ‘fact’ on wikipedia so the chances are it was just invented by some guy with a pet groundhog and way to much time on his hands, I’d be interested to know if anyone knows of any evidence of the mustelid met office in Europe published before the first Groundhog Day in the States. And now the news: Crocodile man of Witney Oxfordshire dinosaur tracks to be protected The incredible journey: How Baltic the mongrel drifted 20 miles out to sea on river ice and survived Rotting fish yield fossil clues Q: What is a fish’s favourite Rodgers and Hammerstein song? A: ‘Salmon’-chanted evening. Questions over Otway Ranges big cat video Posted 5 hours 12 minutes ago Updated 4 hours 33 minutes ago Map: Apollo Bay 3233 Related Link: YouTube: watch the 'big cat' vid and decide for yourself Video footage taken in the Otway Ranges National Park at the weekend is being examined to determine whether or not it is that of a giant cat. There have been unconfirmed sightings of a panther-like creature in the forest for many years. Vision captured yesterday by a resident of the Otway Ranges appears to show a black cat-like animal walking through a paddock. Mike Williams runs a website dedicated to Australian big cats and says the footage is too shaky to draw any conclusions. "It could be bigger than a domestic cat," he said. "It's just really hard to tell. If the witness is quite correct with the observation it could be quite interesting and hopefully more video will come out of the same area." He says 80 per cent of Australia's big cat sightings are generated by central Victoria residents. Mr Williams says he thinks there is more than one breed roaming the State's forests. "If I was trying to give you a hypothesis, the most simple one would be one species of cat," he said. "But the problem is they're showing several different colour variations of coats. So I have been forced to say there is more than one species of cat, which makes it even harder for me to try and prove." On this day in 1942 Terry Jones was born. Jones is best known for being part of Monty Python and has written several fantasy novels and screenplays including Eric the Viking and co-wrote the screenplay of the Jim Henson film Labyrinth. And now for something completely different: Big Foot filmmaker sets sights on Humboldt New species of Papua New Guinea frog changes colour Bleak future for randy owl whose midnight hoots are ruffling a few feathers My encounter with a tokoloshe How to whip up the perfect frothy frog 'meringue' nest Those nests are rather impressive and certainly not ‘pavlova’ rated.

So begins "Beyond the Seventh Gate" by Timothy Renner. The subtitle: "Exploring Toad Road, the Seven Gates of Hell, and Other Strangeness in York, Lancaster, and Adams Counties," is a bit lengthy but makes Renner's intent clear. The book is an exploration into the legend of the area that purportedly contains the seven gates and the associated weirdness that seems to permeate the place. While this is a regional book and will of course appeal to those living in the area, it's also of interest to those intrigued by concentrated areas of high strangeness. There are a number of lesser known reports included in the book and this alone makes it of interest to those of us who collect such data. Renner has done extensive research in the area, and not just from an armchair, but out exploring the location for himself while looking into the legends. Stories that include, burning asylums, mad Doctors and more, he strives to separate the myths from the real reports. The back of the book says it well: "Journey beyond the Seventh Gate and into other weird places in York, Lancaster, and Adams Counties. Explore Hex Hollow, Chickies Rock, lonely graveyards, and old iron forges. Read true tales of bigfoot creatures, witches, ghosts, werewolves, and flying phantoms. Sometimes they haunt the woods behind you. Sometimes they are in your own back yard." Renner also explores the story of Nelson Rehmeyer, a Pennsylvania Dutch "pow-wow medicine man" who was murdered in 1928. The author's take on the tales that surround Rehmeyer and Pennsylvania's most famous "hex murder" is worth the price of the book alone but he offers much more including UFO accounts, cryptid sightings and ghost stories. Renner has written for Weird Pennsylvania and Weird U.S.A. as well as Morbid Curiosity. He's also an illustrator and has peppered the book with cool depictions of creatures such as Dogman and Goatman. He's also included photos taken during his explorations of the area. I recommend the book for those interested in studies of regional creepiness as well as those fascinated by concentrated areas of strange events. "Are there monsters prowling our fields and forests? Are ghosts singing in our cemeteries? Are orbs and mists following us through the park? Many witnesses say yes." Snag a copy of Beyond the Seventh Gate on Amazon to learn more.

I know, Hellions, that’s one strange ass title for a blog post, but that’s exactly what it’s all about. Thanks goes out to an old friend, Brenda B., for sharing this photo and story with me. Somehow, during my research into the Jersey Devil, I missed this! Back in the 60’s in New Jersey, a cow and a deer carcass somehow made it to the top of a telephone pole. Locals attributed it to their friendly neighborhood monster. Cryptozoologists say the Jersey Devil has kept a very low profile since the early 1900s, but if you go out and talk to the people who live there, you’ll get a completely different opinion. And here’s another shocker – I can’t believe how many folks have first hand Bigfoot encounters in the Pine Barrens. I’ve spoken to quite a few, some of them still visibly upset, even if it happened years ago. I wonder if this was the Jersey Devil’s idea of a pinata? Maybe she just wanted to throw a party for her horrid offspring. And speaking of horrid offspring, Pinnacle has discounted all of my books for the month of February. You can snag an ebook of The Montauk Monster for $1.99, The Jersey Devil for 99 cents or Tortures of the Damned for 99 cents. Time to load up those e-readers on the cheap! What’s the strangest thing ever found on a telephone pole? For me, we threw a Batman figure that had a parachute attached to our phone line. It stayed there for about 10 years, poor Batsy’s color fading with each year. We recently interviewed Lyle Blackburn on the Monster Men to discuss his new movie, Boggy Creek Monster, and book, Monstro Bizzaro. If you’re obsessed with cryptids like I am, Lyle is one of the best investigators in the field today. His previous books, The Beast of Boggy Creek and Lizard Man have prominent positions on my bookshelf. When all was said and done, I realized I still had a few more questions I’d wanted to ask. So, here is the original video interview along with the bonus questions Lyle was kind enough to answer. Now let’s go squatchin! We’re very much alike in that we grew up fascinated by tales of Bigfoot and other creatures (as well as a fondness for The Creature from the Black Lagoon!). How did you take the leap from being a rocker in Ghoultown to cryptid reporter? LB : In addition to being a musician, I’ve always worked as a writer. Among other things, I wrote for a rock magazine and then for Rue Morgue (www.rue-morgue.com) as their cryptozoology-meets-horror columnist. I’ve always wanted to write a book, so I decided to take some time off from the band to pursue that. I ended up choosing one of my favorite subjects, The Legend of Boggy Creek. Once I started investigating these sort of cryptid cases and writing the books, I really enjoyed it so I continued. I always thought the job of a professional writer sounded boring, but this brought me to interesting places and I met interesting people as part of the writing process – not to mention it involved my fascination with cryptids. My band Ghoultown still plays and records, but we don’t tour like we used to. One of the best things you bring to the field of cryptozoology is your straightforward, journalistic approach to researching and educating people about creatures like the Boggy Creek Monster and the Lizard Man of Bishopville. You report the stories and the facts as they are without dramatization for the sake of titillating your readers. What made you decide to go in this direction and do you think the field needs more level headed reporting so it can be taken more seriously by the mainstream media and public? LB: I think these stories are fascinating unto themselves without trying to sway people toward a certain point of view. I just tell the story, report the facts, and let whatever evidence speak for itself. I like to take the reader along as I investigate and give them credit to make up their own mind. Who are some of your biggest influences and why? LB: As far as writing and cryptozoology, I would say John Green and Loren Coleman. Green always had a level-headed approach to Sasquatch research and presented the stories in an engaging way. He also paid attention to details and getting the facts correct as best he could. Coleman, of course, paved the way for the modern cryptozoology researcher and has investigated so many of the seminal cases. Many times as I’m doing research, when I trace an investigation back to its original source, Coleman was there first. I’m honored that he wrote the Foreword for my first book, The Beast of Boggy Creek. It’s like having one of your heroes endorse your efforts. So cool. Out of all the photographic and video evidence for Bigfoot, which to you is the most compelling evidence that it is real? And with just about everyone having a camera/videocam in their pockets, why aren’t we getting more solid evidence? Could it be we are but because it’s so easy to fake now, the real deal might be hiding in plain sight? LB: To me, the footprints represent the most compelling evidence. Examples such as the Elkins Creek cast from Georgia stand out, especially when I’ve been able to interview the police officer who originally discovered the track. As far as all the photos and videos, it’s really hard to discern between what might be real and what is a possible case of pareidolia or just outright fake. All the blurry shots don’t do us any good. We need something much clearer in this day and age, and even that is suspect since modern technology allows for such amazing CGI. Most people do carry a smart phone camera these days, but the lack of a clear photo shouldn’t be used as a basis to completely rule out the possibility of these creatures. Chance encounters typically last only a few moments, making it hard to pull out a phone, open the camera app, aim, and take a photo. I’m sure you’ve heard the Sierra Bigfoot recordings taken back in the 70s. What are your thoughts on it and other similar recordings? Most of them are downright chilling. LB: They’re definitely creepy and very compelling. In my opinion the Sierra Sounds are legit. And if it’s not a hoax, then that leaves very few possibilities beyond an undiscovered creature such as Bigfoot. I’ve heard recordings from other places which sound very similar; sent to me by credible individuals. They just don’t sound like any known animal. Do you have any plans to investigate the Skunk Ape in Florida? I have the Fate Magazine with the famous Skunk Ape picture on the cover and keep waiting for someone to hunker down and do some serious research in that corner of the country. LB: Earlier this year I visited the Ocala National Forest in Florida where there’s been a good amount of Skunk Ape sightings over the years. This was part of the research for my upcoming book, “Beyond Boggy Creek: In Search of the Southern Sasquatch” in which I document the history of Bigfoot sightings all over the Southern U.S. I dedicate an entire chapter of the book to the Skunk Ape, although there’s so much to this cryptid’s history and so many sightings, that I could write an entire book on it. Perhaps in the future. Follow Lyle Blackburn at http://www.lyleblackburn.com In the mood for a good cryptid book? Check these out… As a lover of all things cryptid, I’m naturally fascinated by the strange and mysterious Chupacabra. Is it an unknown animal, alien, government experiment gone wrong? Well, to help us all out, I’ve turned to one of my buds, Raegan Butcher, who has just written an excellent monster novel, FURY OF THE CHUPACABRAS. To write the book, he dove into the deep end of the chupacabra pool.I can’t think of anyone better to teach us a thing or two about the dreaded goat sucker! So lock your doors and windows, settle in to a comfy chair and read on if you dare… What is it? The name, coined by Puerto Rican comedian Silverio Perez, means “goatsucker” in Spanish, and comes from the animal’s reported habit of drinking the blood of livestock—especially goats. The first reports of this mysterious creature came from Puerto Rico in 1995 when eight sheep were discovered dead, with three puncture wounds in the chest, and completely drained of blood. At first, a Satanic cult was suspected, but soon the first eyewitness reports appeared, which described a creature – some sort of lizard-like beast, about the size of a small bear, with sharp, glowing quills on its back and large, round eyes. The beast was said to be able to hop like a kangaroo, suck blood like a bat, and was reported to emit a strange, piercing cry. As a youngster growing up in the 1970s, I was enthralled by the numerous Bigfoot sightings that occurred in my home state of Washington and other parts of the Pacific Northwest. The idea that some unknown animal could be lurking on the edge of civilization tickled my imagination in all the right ways. Because of my love of horror and sci fi, I have always been fascinated by monsters, and the chupacabra sounded right up my alley. Doing a bit of research, I discovered some cases from the past that were eerily similar to the infamous goatsucker. In New Orleans there is a popular lover’s lane known as “Grunch Road”, named as such after several reports of a lizard-like beast haunting the vicinity and frightening horny teenagers appeared in the local press in the 1940s and ‘50s. And then there is a case which sounds almost exactly like a chupacabra: the dreaded “Vampire of Moca”. This unknown fiend kicked off its killing spree in February 1975, in Barrio Rocha, a sector of the town of Moca, in Puerto Rico, where it took the lives of a number of animals in a grisly manner never seen before. Fifteen cows, three goats, two geese and a pig were found dead with bizarre perforations on their hides. Autopsies showed that the animals had been bled dry, as if consumed by some predator. After six months, and the deaths of over 150 farm animals, the mysterious “Vampire of Moca” vanished into history and obscurity. Or did it? Almost exactly twenty years later, the chupacabra appeared, and the Puerto Rican press once again began to report sightings of a strange beast that preyed upon livestock. Some people on the island believe that chupacabras are a genetic bio-experiment which escaped from a secret laboratory (The US military has had a large presence across Puerto Rico since the 1930’s, with bases on the island used as Research and Development facilities for a number of classified projects). Others speculate that the creature is an escaped pet of alien visitors that wandered off while its master was visiting Earth. How’s that for a far-out theory? The chupacabra does have a slight resemblance to the Grey aliens, which could mean that they are somehow genetically related, a wonderfully tantalizing theory. For reasons too complicated to explain here (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21972578-stone-hotel ) I ended up in prison from June 1996 to March 2003 for armed robbery (yeah, I was a crazy sumbitch, back then). As you might imagine, I had a lot of time on my hands. I was already a writer when I went down, so I tried to use my excess of time wisely and write as much as I could during those seven years. I’d always wanted to write something about the chupacabra, as they seemed heaven sent, as far as “rule of cool” goes: some kind of lizard monster that drinks blood? As a creature-feature fan from earliest childhood, I was all over it. But I couldn’t get a handle on how to shape the story. At first I thought of that great old British sci-fi movie Island Of Terror, and I remembered the first scene with the constable finding a body with its bones sucked out. Maybe I could set my chupacabra story on a small island off the coast of Mexico…first scene would be some guy finding his livestock drained of blood…and we go from there? Hmmm. I put the idea in the back of my mind and went on with my life, such as it was. Years passed. Then, one day in 2002, while I was walking the yard with another inmate (who, for legal reasons, shall remain nameless) it all clicked into place. This nameless inmate was telling me a story of almost getting busted at the Mexican border with a car full of illegal weapons and the anecdote was told with such flair that I immediately saw it as a scene in my chupacabra book. Two brothers, Americans, one of them an ex-soldier (as was the nameless inmate) smuggling guns into Mexico, and they get attacked by chupacabras. Story starts out with the tense scene at the border and we go from there. I wrote it as a screenplay first and, like I always do, I finished it, put it away, forgot about it, and moved on to the next thing. Flash forward ten years. I was now a free man, with a few poetry books under my belt, (http://www.amazon.com/Raegan-Butcher/e/B00BO6QI3M/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1) and I wanted to work on my prose skills. I rummaged around in my papers and found the chupacabra script. I had such fun turning it into the novella Attack of the Chupacabras (included in the book Fury of the Chupacabras) http://necropublications.com/collections/raegan-butcher/products/fury-of-the-chupacabras-by-raegan-butcher-trade-paperback that I ended up writing four novels and creating a whole series, which I’ve dubbed the Chupacabra Chronicles. The books started out as simple survival-horror situations but they quickly became a series of action-conspiracy-monster-mystery-adventure-sci-fi-horror books. The Chupacabra Chronicles were written purely for fun. My goal was to keep the reader turning the pages, surprise them, make them gasp; keep them entertained by the developing story. I tried to fill the series with everything I like: action, tension, suspense, dark humor, and all of the most outlandish sci fi and conspiracy tropes I could come up with during my many hours of research on the internet. I am grateful that Necro is crazy enough to publish these chupacabra books, one volume in the continuing saga of the chupacabra chronicles every six months for the next two years, with perhaps more after that. I had an absolute blast writing them. Now the pleasure is all yours. Have fun. You all know how much I like to get my squatch on. I’m always on the lookout for new flicks about Bigfoot…and aliens. Well, here’s one that hits DVD and VOD on March 8th. It’s called STOMPING GROUND and it looks like a hell of a ride. Hellions, start your squatches! First, the elevator pitch – “A young couple on a weekend trip in the American south embark on an impromptu “Bigfoot hunt” that threatens both their relationship & their lives.” Ben & Annie are a young couple living in Chicago, on a weekend trip to Annie’s small North Carolina hometown. At the local bar they run into Paul, a charming old friend of Annie’s, and Ben learns something he never knew about his girlfriend: She believes in Bigfoot. In fact, she and her friends used to “hunt” for the creature when they were kids. Before Ben knows it, he’s off on an impromptu Squatchin’ trip deep in the Carolina backwoods. Amidst the Squatch calls, campfire stories and beers, Ben quickly realizes that Paul may have an ulterior motive in bringing Annie to the woods. And something else out here seems to be after her as well. Everyone but Ben thinks its Bigfoot. But it can’t be, can it? After all, Bigfoot isn’t real… And as an added bonus, the film features a cameo performance from Theresa Tilly, best known as one of the original “Ladies of the Evil Dead” from Sam Raimi’s horror classic, The Evil Dead. Check out some of the early reviews – “Successful in warming the hearts and chilling the bones, Stomping Ground is a whole lot of fun to watch.” – Ain’t It Cool News “A cast that delivers… Terrific use of the natural settings… A step above most Bigfoot films…” – All Things Horror “It’s not easy to find a creature feature where the characters are as relatable and believable as they are in Stomping Ground.” – Film Bizarro Get your best tree knocking bat and deer pheromones and join me in the forest, won’t ya? Are you all ho-ho-hoed out yet? I know I am. The fat man is back in his icy lair, and things can get back to normal. Of course, normal for me means being surrounded by all sorts of monsters and beasties and ghosts. With the new year just around the corner, I’m gearing up for my 3 new releases in 2016. I just got the cover to what will be my third Pinnacle novel, THE JERSEY DEVIL, and it’s a doozy. From the Pine Barrens to your eyeballs, with love! The book comes out everywhere on August 30th. I hope the state of New Jersey lets me in to promote The Jersey Devil next fall. I’d love to find a way to host a special event deep in the Pine Barrens. Luckily, I have 8 months to figure it out. Hope you all like the cover. More on what’s inside to come. If you loved The Montauk Monster, you’ll really dig The Jersey Devil. No cryptid is safe from me. Any suggestions on which one I should tackle next?

10 Bizarre Little-Known Mysteries of the Unexplained From time to time, we hear of unexplainable events, mysterious creatures and circumstances that are just totally bizarre. Some are unbelievable, while others represent familiar concepts that we think of as fantasy, rather than reality but are far too real. This list explores ten of the least known but most disturbing, mysterious or just plain bizarre events, chilling mysteries, and terrifying cryptids. On September 15, 2007, residents of Caracas in Southern Peru, near the Bolivian border reported a massive explosion that rocked the village moments after a fireball appeared in the sky. Soon after, boiling water and steam emerged from the crater formed by the meteorite impact, and a strange smell appeared in the area. Over 200 villagers reported illness, and numerous animals in the village died. Government inspectors and police officers arrived in the area of the impact crater, but were taken ill as well, suffering vomiting. A state of emergency was then declared. Speculation points towards a bizarre reaction of Arsenic, Sulfur bearing rocks and groundwater with the meteorite, causing the village to be bathed in a chemical soup of rapidly forming volatile chemicals at the impact site. It has also been suggested that the Earth’s atmosphere failed to provide protection due to the elevation of the impact. There are some things so weird that we become almost enraged just hearing about it. We wonder how in heaven’s name something so ridiculous and also tragic could have happened. In February 2013, a Nebraska man slipped in his home on a wet floor, and was “kept alive, lying on the floor for four days, being fed liquids by his ten year old son”. The man was unresponsive and unable to speak, according to the boy, who for some bizarre reason did not get help. The man’s death after four days was discovered after the school principle contacted police following the boy’s corresponding absence from classes. We wonder, how on this green Earth could a boy who attends school not get help for a man lying on the floor for four days, but provide “fluids to drink”. Vancouver Island is the largest Island on the West Coast of North America. Covering an area larger than many nations, Vancouver Island is actually a relict landmass from the South Pacific that moved up to meet southern Canada. Mysteries abound in the vast wilderness that ranges from remote mountains to fringe extents of subtropical woodlands. Interspersed are the lakes. Cameron Lake is extremely deep at over 600 meters. In the shallower sections, an airplane was discovered with bodies preserved inside. Cameron Lake has become the subject of serious investigation by the BC Cryptozoological Society following reports and a short video recording of a mysterious lake creature. Skeptics suggested a large beaver or otter, but something much more unearthly may be at play. Sonar scanners brought out by researchers discovered a large, massive object that moved in the depths, apparently of organic origin. An unknown lake creature has been suggested, along with the possibility of a subterranean river from extending from the nearby sea inlet back to the “landlocked” lake? Over several recent years, a series of disembodied human feet were discovered on islands, shorelines and the Fraser River in Southwestern British Columbia, Canada. The feet washed up on shorelines, and were seen floating in the water, always in a defined area known as the Georgia Basin. Even more eerily, the feet were inside shoes, and were almost always left feet. A variety of terrifying theories came forward, while some have attempted to explain the mysteries as a function of drowning and decomposition processes. Some suggested that feet might naturally detach from drowning bodies, while others put forward the ridiculous theory that left feet were more likely to show up due to shape. Statistically, it was considered very puzzling for not just 2, but 3, feet to show up. For a total of over 8 feet to appear is completely bizarre and terrifying. None of the theories can adequately explain how Southern BC and Washington were inundated by oceangoing, severed feet. For a number of years, sightings of an enormous fish have been reported from airplanes flying over Alaska’s 80 mile long Lake Iliamana. The fish has been described as silvery, and up to 30 feet long, occasionally breaking the surface with its shark like form. The famous extreme angler Jeremy Wade attempted to solve the mystery in recent years. A variety of scary hypothesis were put forward, but one of the most plausible is that an aberrant population of giant Sleeper Sharks dwells in the lake. The fish could have been deposited during the ice age, and there is certainly no shortage of food supply for an enormous predator of this nature. The question is whether the sharks could adapt to freshwater. Sleeper Sharks are known to have travelled up rivers… In Australia, a huge, monstrous lizard over 20 feet in length, known as the Megalania roamed the outback wilderness of the island continent. The dragon was believed to have been extinct for several thousand years, but bones recently discovered dated to only 300 years old. Eerily, Aboriginal Australians have noted that their ancestors hunted Megalania in their historic “dreamtime”, and some claim the lizard still exists. Continued sightings by reliable witnesses have reported beasts that perfectly match the description of Megalania. Farmers have reported giant lizards measuring over 15 feet in length, and in 1979, expert reptile biologist Frank Gordon was returning to his vehicle from a fieldwork expedition in Wattagan Mountains when he saw what he thought was a 20 foot log. When he started his vehicle, the form began to move . . . The strange deaths of 9 hikers in the Ural Mountains on February 2, 1959 is a disturbing mystery that confounds investigators to this day. The members of the group were connected with the Ural Polytechnic Institute, and were on route to climb a mountain 10 kilometers north of where their bodies were discovered in a bizarre state of condition. The tent was ripped open from the inside. Several bodies bore massive wounds including skull fractures and broken ribs. Some theories suggested an attack by hostile mountain tribes, but investigators found the degree of force inflicted was “beyond that which could be inflicted by a human”. Most disturbingly, one of the members had bit off her own tongue. Massive levels of radioactivity were detected on the clothes of the victims, and some had “browned skin”. Soviet investigators concluded a “compelling natural force” had resulted in the deaths. Just what that force was we can never know. A strange and terrifying cryptid known as a Dingonek or “Jungle Walrus” has become the subject of several terrifying reports across the African continent. Reported at over 15 feet in length, and capable of killing humans, reptiles and large mammals that invade its wetland habitat, the creature is described as having a squarish head with horns attached to a long, scale covered body, and a poison bearing tail. The sheer strangeness of the creature points to its potential existence as a relative of the Pangolin, which is a much smaller yet scale covered mammal related to anteaters. In addition to eyewitness accounts, cave paintings in South Africa show a bizarre creature resembling a Dingonek. Just as a Pygmy Hippopotamus is related to the standard edition, could the Dingonek could be the Pangolin’s deadly giant cousin? Pterosaurs have long thought to be extinct. However, like the Coelacanth, could populations have survived the catastrophe that took the dinosaurs, just as crocodiles did? Legends of the Kongomato in Africa describe a large, lizard like flying creature of the rain forests with pointed jaws and long wings. The creatures apparently have a 7 to 9 foot wingspan, and has been the subject of some debate among cryptid researchers, some of whom suggested it might be a bat. However, when the explorer Frank Melland showed photographs of a range of flying creatures to natives on his 1923 visit to the Congo, the feedback was incredible. The natives pointed not to birds or bats, but to the picture of the pterosaur. South American accounts describe a terrifying subterranean monster with a worm-like form that emerges, snakelike from the Earth. Described as an enormous, slug-like creature reaching over 14, the animal has been reported by horrified eyewitnesses in Uragay and other Amazon region countries of South America. The animal is believed to have a habit of burrowing, and has been reported as having large tentacles emerging from its head. The body form is smooth and dark according to reports, and large trenches have been left by the burrows. Some scientists speculate that the creatures could be giant Caecilians, which are earth dwelling, limbless members of the amphibian group. Mike Williams is a naturalist, government affairs student and writer with a slightly life disrupting passion for mysteries of the unexplained.

Menagerie by Rachel Vincent From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Vincent comes a richly imagined, provocative new series set in the dark mythology of the Menagerie… When Delilah Marlow visits a famous traveling carnival, Metzger's Menagerie, she is an ordinary woman in a not-quite-ordinary world. But under the macabre circus big-top, she discovers a fierce, sharp-clawed creature lurking just beneath her human veneer. Captured and put on exhibition, Delilah is stripped of her worldly possessions, including her own name, as she's forced to "perform" in town after town. But there is breathtaking beauty behind the seamy and grotesque reality of the carnival. Gallagher, her handler, is as kind as he is cryptic and strong. The other "attractions"—mermaids, minotaurs, gryphons and kelpies—are strange, yes, but they share a bond forged by the brutal realities of captivity. And as Delilah struggles for her freedom, and for her fellow menagerie, she'll discover a strength and a purpose she never knew existed. Renowned author Rachel Vincent weaves an intoxicating blend of carnival magic and startling humanity in this intricately woven and powerful tale *I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review* Menagerie was amazing. It was brutal to read in parts, but I couldn't look away. Vincent delves into the atrocities humans commit when they are scared of something or some one. She shows how humans lock up cryptids, strip them of their rights, and don't bat an eyelash when they suffer. Delilah, our main character, is a strong heroine who is locked up as a cryptid after years believing she was human. She sees the abuse of cryptids and the monster within her comes out. Then, her life becomes a nightmare. In a menagerie, forced into a cage like property, she is supposed to perform like a circus animal. However, Delilah's inner sense of justice and strength make her almost unbreakable. She doesn't go down without a fight. She makes allies on her journey and the reader is rooting for her throughout the entire novel. My only two complaints were... 1) I wasn't very fond of all the multiple view points. I liked each in varying degrees. I think I would have preferred to see just from Delilah's POV. 2) The ending felt a bit rushed, but it was still very crazy, intense, and exciting! ... I am very ready for the next book though! In conclusion: Menagerie had me on the edge of my seat. Vincent wove a horrifying, captivating tale that explored injustice, monstrosities, and humanity.

Category Archives: Art Mara & I recently had the opportunity to design the branding for GLM Properties, a management company in Spokane, WA. In addition to this logo, we designed and provided business cards, as well a style guide for further usage in … Continue reading Hey, just a quick note to let folks know… After a too long hiatus, “Super Heroes in Training” is back online. Smack in the middle of Browne’s Addition, coffee is brewing on a glistening kitchen countertop in a seemingly ordinary apartment. This is not only home to Mara Fields and David van Wert, but the headquarters for their graphic design company, … Continue reading Our Kickstarter project, Tube Tats, is officially Kickstarted! Thanks everyone who pledged, shared our project with friends, offered moral support, or just watched our video. Now the fun part starts– actually making these things. More and more designs will follow, … Continue reading Thanks very much for the Tube Tats write up, The Inlander! Here’s what they had to say about the project: Kickstarter Roundup: No more boring bikes Check it out yourself on our Tube Tats Kickstarter page. Let me introduce you to Tube Tats, a project that Mara and I have been working on for a while now. Tube Tats are quirky, removable bike decals– an inexpensive new way to fancy up your old bike. The first … Continue reading Hey, look! It’s some woolly mammoths! This is another picture done up for a British Columbia tourism video. Apparently, there used to be some of those up in Canada during the Ice Age. Good times! Here are two versions of the “Cadborosaurus” cryptid that supposedly swims through Cadboro Bay in Victoria, British Columbia. To my mind, one of these is bad-ass and one is lame (Ernesto Lopez correctly described it as “orca bait”). The lame … Continue reading

It rained like we were a splatter of bird shit God was trying to hose off his deck. The three of us ripped through the downpour in a beige 1996 Saturn Coupe, me at the wheel. I squinted drunkenly into the rearview mirror and tried in vain to find the headlights of the black truck that was chasing us, but I actually wasn’t sure if its drivers needed headlights to see or if they even had eyes. I also wasn’t sure it was a truck, or if it was black, or if we were being pursued at all. It was definitely raining, though. My friend John was in the passenger seat and the only reason he wasn’t driving was because, in addition to also being drunk, he was wounded—both of his hands were wrapped in the T-shirt he’d torn off to use as gauze. His wounds had not been inflicted by our pursuers, at least not directly—he had burned himself grabbing a fondue pot full of melted chocolate that we had been dipping fried chicken strips into (try it sometime, seriously). My girlfriend, Amy, was in the back seat. She wasn’t driving because she didn’t know how, but she apparently did have enough expertise to judge my performance, screaming warnings at me to keep my eyes on the road and to watch out for that curve and oh god we’re all gonna die. In Amy’s right hand—her only hand—was a little gray metal container about the size of a shot glass. That container was what the occupants of the truck were after, and I had known this the moment they had burst into John’s living room ten minutes ago. We had just been minding our own business, eating our chocolate chicken and making our way through a theme movie night (we’d picked out four films in which the ending is probably the main character’s dying hallucination: Taxi Driver, Minority Report, The Shawshank Redemption, and Mrs. Doubtfire). In through the front door came this whirlwind of a half-dozen men(?) in black cloaks, all wearing what looked like rubber Halloween masks—drooping, expressionless faces with lifeless, skewed eyeballs. The lead cloak was wearing the mask of a puffy-cheeked infant and brandished a weapon that looked like a huge, electrified Toblerone bar—a series of black pyramids in a row, fed by cables that ran inside his robe. John’s little Yorkshire terrier was yapping its head off, probably asking the intruders to take him away to a better home. The “man” with the Toblerone gun had screamed, “WHERE IS IT?” in a voice like a spider that had learned to imitate human speech via some online courses it had taken. We hadn’t had to ask what “it” was. John’s house is my favorite place in the world, but there’s nothing else in there you couldn’t replace with a trip to Target or a garage sale held at a meth dealer’s house. No, they had come for that little brushed steel vial Amy now held in her hand. They weren’t getting it. So, John had grabbed the fondue pot and slung the molten contents at the thing with the spidery voice, inflicting hot brown splash damage on everyone in the room. Amy grabbed the vial from its hiding place (sitting in plain view on John’s kitchen counter, next to a novelty bong shaped like a triathlon trophy) and we sprinted out the back door into a raging thunderstorm. We piled into my car, I floored it, and that’s where we are now. The rain was blasting directly into the windshield, the drops whipping toward me like hyperdrive stars. Visibility was slightly worse than what you get inside a car wash after they spray on that multicolored foam. Amy was yelling turn-by-turn directions at me and I was obeying, even though none of us had discussed where we were going. She ordered me to stop just as we arrived at a rusty bridge suspended over a roiling, swollen river. She threw open the rear door, sprinted out into the storm, and chucked the vial downstream as hard as she could. The angry, rumbling current swallowed it without so much as a plop. John and I ran up to the rail and exchanged frantic “Did that really just happen?” glances. None of us spoke. A decision had been made and could not be taken back. Amy had been right, of course, to do what she did. Goal Number 1 was to keep the vial out of the hands of the cloaked things that were chasing us and Goal Number 2 was to make sure they knew we no longer had it, otherwise they’d just strap us to chairs and try to torture its location out of us using some unspeakable method involving black magic and power tools. John said, “When they get here, let me do all the talking.” I said, “Amy, when they get here, I want you to do all of the talking. I’ll be busy restraining John.” Our pursuers, however, never arrived. I don’t know how long we waited, leaning on the railing, watching the frothing current twisting and breaking below. Cold rain howled into our ears. John absently licked chocolate off his fingers. Amy shivered, her red hair matted against her skull so that it looked like she was bleeding profusely from the scalp. Maybe they knew we had chucked the vial, maybe they had never followed us at all. You’re probably wondering who “they” are and who they work for and those are both great questions. We climbed back into the car. John tied his wet hair into a ponytail, lit a cigarette, and said, “I fucking knew something like this was about to happen.” Amy tried in vain to dry her glasses with her wet shirt and said, “Well, thanks for letting us know.” I said, “If they dredge the river, they can find it.” “It floats,” replied Amy. “Did you see that current? River flows into the Ohio, that flows into the Mississippi, that drains into the Gulf of Mexico. They’ll never find it, unless . . .” She trailed off but we all knew what she had left unsaid: they would never find the vial, unless the contents wanted to be found. No ambush was waiting for us back at John’s place. The strange men-like shapes in their dark robes and Halloween masks were nowhere to be found, on that or any of the following nights. We had spent the rest of the evening dealing with the dog, as we had come back and found it lapping up the chocolate on the carpet. It turns out chocolate is toxic to dogs; it started puking everywhere and we had to rush it to the vet. Or, that’s how I remember it, anyway. I woke up on the floor of my junk room, a tiny second bedroom in my apartment that’s piled high with the weird bullshit I collect. Though I guess that wording would imply that I seek this stuff out; I actually meant “collect” in the way that dead bugs “collect” on your windshield. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was four ventriloquist dummies, where they had been propped up around my face so that I’d find them staring down at me when I woke. I thought the things were creepy as hell, and Amy knew that, which is why she had put them there. She is a monster. I sat up on my elbows, feeling like a rat had chewed its way into one of my eye sockets and then clawed its way out the other. I squinted and saw that stuck to one of the dummies was a Post-it Note that read: You were sleepwalking again! I went back to work Muffin on the table At the bottom she had drawn a picture of a muffin, little scribbled dots to indicate blueberries. The dots were actually blue—she had gone and found a different pen to do that part. It was still dark out, I could sense it even though the one window in the room was mostly obscured by a large painting that was leaning against it. It was a painting of a clown that the previous owner had insisted was cursed (that is, the painting was cursed, not the clown, unless he was, which is entirely possible). “Cursed” turned out to be a ridiculous exaggeration, though. What was happening was the painted clown’s mouth was slowly changing shape with time, as if it was silently mouthing words. I don’t doubt that if you set the painting in front of a time-lapse camera for a few months and hired a lip reader to examine the results, it would turn out the clown was saying something very creepy or even profound. Maybe it’s a prophecy. And, if you want to pay to do all that shit, be my guest. But as far as I’m concerned, if the object isn’t killing anybody, it isn’t “cursed.” I’ve had it in the junk room for four months and it hasn’t inconvenienced me once. My cell phone was ringing from somewhere nearby, which I assumed was what had woken me. I knew that at this hour, it wasn’t somebody calling to tell me they’d accepted my job application, so it was either: A) a drunken misdial from somebody, in which case I would dedicate my life to finding that person and murdering them; B) an emergency; C) an “emergency,” and those right there are sarcasm quotes. If it was Amy, then it was a good chance it was “B”—an actual emergency. If it was John, well, it could be any of the three. A psychic once told John that his last words would be, “Hold my beer.” When he was eleven years old, he had disappeared for two weeks, creating a minor media frenzy in the area. When he turned up again at home, unharmed, he told reporters and police that he had gotten lost in the woods and survived by killing and eating a Sasquatch. His sophomore year of high school, John was suspended multiple times because for every single creative writing assignment, he had turned in a different version of a story about a teenager (named “Jon”) who was sneaking into the cafeteria and jerking off in the food. His senior year, he started a garage band that was quickly banned from every club, bar, park, and concert hall in the region due to his insistence on playing a song called, “This Venue Is a Front for Human Trafficking, Someone Call the FBI, this Is Not Just a Joke Song Title.” When John’s first girlfriend asked him what his ideal threesome would be, he had answered, “Me, Hitler, and Prince. I just watch.” In the fifteen years I’ve known him, I’d say 70 percent of the overnight calls I’ve received from John were drunken misdials, 5 percent were genuine emergencies (like the time he called to let me know he was about to be compacted inside a garbage truck), and 25 percent were “emergencies” and really I can’t make those sarcasm quotes there large enough. Just in the past twelve months, the situations that John felt warranted a call in the wee hours of the morning included: A) a dream/vision he had of me dying violently in Bangkok, with a warning to stay far way (note: we live in the American Midwest and I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to Bangkok even if I sold myself into the Thai sex trade upon arrival); B) urgently notifying me of a “cryptid” he had snapped a photo of in his back yard, which turned out to be a passed-out drunk in the back half of a horse costume; C) the results of a blindfolded experiment he and his friends had performed that confirmed that all Froot Loops are the same flavor, just different colors (“we’re doing Skittles next, get your ass over here”); D) his million-dollar idea for a “Punch Zoo,” which is like a petting zoo where you get to punch the animals. The last such call I had gotten from him was two weeks ago. It was just a few seconds of ambient party noise, before I heard John’s voice say, “What’s that sound? Everybody quiet, I—Ha! Hey Munch, check it out! I farted so hard it dialed my phone!” But, of course, I couldn’t just ignore his calls because there was always the chance it was something apocalyptic. That was the hell of knowing John. The phone sounded close, probably in the room with me. I knocked the dummies aside and pawed around the junk in my immediate vicinity. Behind the dummies was a piñata that the previous owner claimed was indestructible. So far, we’d tried shooting it with a shotgun and running it over with John’s Jeep and, sure enough, the candy was still safely rattling around inside. Again, that’s pretty weird, but what possible use is that to anybody? It’s just a waste of perfectly good candy. If you’re saying we should give it to the government so they can mimic its witchcraft or whatever to make better body armor for the military, I'm thinking you trust the government way more than I do. If it’s a bona fide Object Cursed with Black Magic, handing it over to the feds would be like giving a toddler a chainsaw to cut his birthday cake with. “Oh,” you’re probably saying, “so it’s better off in your apartment?” I don’t know, dude. Do you want it? Send me your address. You pay for shipping. I finally found the phone sitting atop a bookcase, next to a VHS box set of a series of 90s action movies starring Bruce Willis (The Ticking Man, The Ticking Man 2, The Ticking Man: The Final Chapter, Ticking Man Resurrection) that as far as I could tell, did not exist in this universe. We never watched them, nobody has a VCR and they looked kind of shitty. The phone’s display said it was John calling. I groaned and stumbled out into the living room to find that no one had broken in and renovated the place while I was out. There are reality shows where they do that, right? I heard the plink-plink-plink of the roof leaking in the bathroom, which the landlords wouldn’t fix because my apartment is on the floor above theirs and the leak wasn’t making it down to their level because, by pure coincidence, the drip was positioned to fall directly into my toilet. That was good for them, because it limited the damage the leak could do to my floor and their ceiling, but bad for us because it meant Amy had to hold a bowl in her lap when she peed (whereas I just let it drip on me). The phone rang again. I went to the kitchenette and poured a mug of cold coffee from a pot that had been brewed yesterday, or maybe last month. It was five in the morning, according to the grease-clouded clock on the microwave. I found the muffin—blueberry, just as it had been depicted in Amy’s illustration—sitting on the folding card table we eat dinner off of. It was next to a pile of random junk that had been mailed to me in the last few weeks but had not yet been filed away (and here “filed” means angrily flung into the junk room while muttering fuck words). Most of the stuff in there arrives like this, just strangers sending it through the mail. Sometimes you can get a sad glimpse into their lives via the packing material—one artifact came packed in wadded-up pages from that Jehovah’s Witness magazine The Watchtower, another was ensconced in shredded hospital bills, another in scraps of cardboard torn from three dozen boxes of the exact same Lean Cuisine frozen dinner. Why do they send me this stuff? Well, you know how occasionally you get stuck with something purely because you don’t know how to throw it away? Either because it seems too sacred to get smooshed in with moldy coffee grounds (an old Bible, an American flag, a birthday card from your grandma) or because it seems vaguely dangerous (old shotgun shells, a broken dagger)? All of the shit I’ve collected is kind of a combination of the two—sacred, lethal, or both. So, they dig up my address and stick it in the mail. “David Wong will know what to do with it!” No, I absolutely will not. It just piles up and the stuff that doesn’t seem too dangerous gets sold on eBay (there’s a whole “Metaphysical” category on the site now, it’s great). Among this week’s junk had been a water-damaged “haunted” paperback copy of Bad as I Wanna Be, the autobiography of Chicago Bulls power forward Dennis Rodman. “Haunted” because this copy, and only this copy, had multiple chapters describing how Rodman conspired with several teammates to ritualistically murder over fifty prostitutes in the years they traveled with the team. It doesn’t appear the book was doctored in any way, the pages have the same typeset as the rest, and they’re exactly as aged. I did some Googling, could find no other reference to the existence of this edition of the book, or to the killings. As usual, I have no idea what it means. Next to the book was a small piano-black twelve-sided box, each side etched with a different rune in emerald green. I waved my hand over the box and exclaimed, “ODO DAXIL!” The box unfolded and I felt radiant heat waft across my face. Inside was a glowing orange sphere the size of a marble. We got this one a couple of weeks ago. At first it didn’t seem to do much other than emit quite a bit of heat but then, while John was over for Pancake and Video Game Night, he thought he heard a tortured wailing from within the sphere. I initially dismissed the idea, as he was pretty drunk and I think he always hears tortured wailing when he drinks. Still, the next day we took it to the middle school where a friend and former bandmate of John’s named Mitch Lombard (nickname, “Munch”) had gotten a job as a substitute science teacher despite his neck tattoos. He studied the glowing sphere under one of their microscopes for a silent moment, then looked up from the viewfinder to whisper, “His suffering is unimaginable, but the heat of his rage could incinerate the universe a million times over. All is lost. All is lost.” Munch had then passed out, blood running freely from his nose. That was that last time we’d discussed it. I grabbed a pair of tongs from a kitchen drawer, picked up the glowing sphere, and dropped it into my mug of cold coffee as the phone rang for what I knew would be the last time before it would get dumped to voice mail. I cleaved off a ragged chunk of muffin with my fingers and answered, “Fuck you and all of the ancestors who led up to you.” “Dave? We got a missing little girl. You got a pen?” “If it’s a missing child, call the cops.” “The cops called me.” I closed my eyes and let out a breath that smelled like I’d eaten an entire wet dog and washed it down with sweat wrung from a hobo's undershirt. Let me give you a tip: if you’re ever the victim of a terrible crime—like, say, your kid goes missing—and you see the cops consulting with a couple of white-trash looking dipshits in their late twenties, it’s time to worry. It’s not because John and I are incompetent at what we do—and I assure you, we are—but because you need to start asking yourself a very hard question. Not “Will I get my child back?” but “Do I want to get my child back?” I dipped my finger into the coffee, which already felt near boiling. I fished out the burning orb and placed it back into its container, which automatically closed around it. I took a sip, winced, and decided that the first person to ever drink coffee was probably trying to commit suicide. I asked, “What makes it a, you know, a Dave and John case?” “It’s another locked room situation, it looks like. There’s more, I’ll explain when you get here. But it looks pretty John and Dave to me. Do you have a pen? I have the address here.” “Just give it to me.” “One-oh-six Arlington Street. Next to the vape store?” “You thought I needed pen and paper to remember that?” “And hurry. I’ve heard you’ve only got forty-eight hours before the trail goes cold.” “You heard that in a movie. Last week. We watched it together.” He had hung up. I sighed and ate another hunk of muffin. I glanced out the window, the bottom half glowing pink from the neon sign of the business downstairs. They left that sign on day and night; the constant hum made me want to blow my brains out. Oh, well. It’s not like I have anything else to do. Still, I was going to finish my muffin first. Let me tell you what’s bullshit about every supernatural horror movie. Whenever the monster or angry ghost lady turns up, everyone is skeptical for at least the first third of the running time. It’s usually between forty and fifty minutes in that the protagonists begrudgingly admit that the ominous Latin chants emanating from the walls aren’t a plumbing issue. In real life, the very second Mom sees something red oozing from the ceiling, she thinks “blood” not “water from a rusty old pipe.” I wish people were as skeptical as they are in the movies. This town, the name of which will remain undisclosed for privacy reasons, has been called the Bermuda Triangle of the Midwest. Or at least, I think I heard somebody call it that. I actually wish that was true, too, because there’s nothing to the Bermuda Triangle—just a bunch of routine maritime disasters that grew in the telling. A cargo ship never arrives at port and the headlines coyly say it “disappeared.” It didn’t “disappear,” guys—it sank. It’s a boat, in the ocean. Shit happens. What goes on in [undisclosed] is . . . different. My point is, it’s hard to sort out the real stuff from the superstition. So, because I’m sick of getting your e-mails asking for advice, let me just quickly run through it: We got a ton of these calls after that movie Paranormal Activity came out, panicked people saying they had rocking chairs rocking by themselves, untouched drinking glasses scooting off a table, clocks running backward, etc. If you’re in this situation, you can combat it using a technique known as “Getting the Fuck Over It.” You’re telling me you’ve got angry spirits of old murder victims or something floating around and they’re causing less of a disruption to your life than an unruly house cat? Why not worry about your high blood pressure, or take a moment to see if your smoke detector batteries are up to date? Those things are way more likely to kill you than whatever is knocking over salt shakers in your kitchen at night. If you’ve seen, say, a translucent old woman in a long flowing gown drifting down your hall at night, that’s almost definitely a hallucination or just a regular ol’ dream. Think about it: why would a ghost be translucent? Smoke and fog look like they do because they’re made of tiny particles suspended in the air. Are you suggesting the soul is made of tiny particles? In reality, your whole idea of what a ghost looks like comes from Victorian era photos, when long-exposure cameras required the subject to sit still for several minutes due to the primitive technology. If the subject left halfway through, you’d get that ghostly image instead. Fun fact: this is also the reason nobody is smiling in those old pictures—try holding a smile for seven straight minutes. If you’ve actually seen a ghost—and I assure you that you probably have, within the last month—it would have just looked like any real, solid person. It’s likely nobody saw that person but you and no, you can’t photograph them. You’re not seeing them with your eyes. If said entity appeared before you and started speaking, the good news is you’re not losing your mind. Contrary to what TV and movies have told you, it’s nearly impossible to have a hallucination that you can both see and hear—the mentally ill either just hear voices, or just see things, due to how the brain is wired. If you can both hear and see it, you’re either just having a dream, or you have an actual demon in your home. If it’s the latter, you shouldn’t bother listening too closely to what it has to say. It may sound really important—prophecies of future doom, that sort of thing—but I assure you, it’s just toying with you. If you ignore it, it’ll eventually get bored. The odds are it’s not strong enough to possess you, kill you, or do serious damage to your property. If it tries, feel free to pray or put up lots of crosses in its field of vision; I’ve seen that work before. You don’t have to go with Christian symbolism, but not all religions work (for reference, at the end of this book I have included an index of which religions are true and which are false—there are some real surprises). Also, try playing lots of 1980s era power ballads, they hate that. I think because it’s the closest earthly approximation of the music they play in Heaven. I don’t know, we’re just guessing here. Conversely . . . Here, the risks are different—if a messenger from the Almighty actually bothers to contact you, it’s probably not the best idea to just ignore it. So, obviously, the first step is to make sure it’s an actual entity and not a dream you’re having, which is surprisingly simple: just ask the angel a question that you yourself don’t know the answer to but that you can verify later (like, “What’s the square root of 123,456,789?” or “What will be the final score of every football game this Sunday?”). If their information is good, well, then you know you weren’t dreaming and whatever prophecies or advice they gave you could indeed be valid. Of course they, too, could be imposters, so if they ask you to do something morally questionable—like stab your own child or something—you’ll need to use your own judgment. Let’s face it: if there is a god and he’s the type to think it’s unreasonable to refuse such a request, we’re all screwed anyway. Cases like this are almost always simple sleep paralysis—a sort of wakeful dreaming during which it is common to see or sense strange visitors. Another fun fact: the typical “gray” aliens, with their bulbous heads and big almond-shaped eyes, didn’t show up in abduction stories until 1964—about two weeks after similar aliens appeared in an episode of the sci-fi horror series The Outer Limits. The phenomenon of abductees claiming to have been probed anally didn’t start until 1969, the year colonoscopies became common. What I’m saying is, the creatures that visit you in the night are either manifestations of your own anxiety or are making your anxieties manifest just to screw with you. Either way, the call is always coming from inside the house. I’ve never understood the panic over monsters. I mean, which would bother you more, finding out your grandfather had died in a painful industrial accident, or that his head had been neatly snatched off his body by some giant, leathery winged horror? Dead is dead and in the latter case, he didn’t feel a thing. So why should the monster be the one that gives you nightmares, aside from the miniscule chance that one day your grandad’s chewed-up eyeballs might get shit onto your windshield on your way to work? Also, what if you kill your “monster” and it turns out it’s like a werewolf situation, where the thing transforms back into a human as it dies? Your ass is going to jail. If it’s not threatening you, just let it be. Congratulations! You’re one of the few humans to have ever seen the universe as it truly is. If it happens again, run.

Loren Coleman (born 1947) is one of the world's most respected cryptozoologists. His search for Bigfoot – as well as numerous other ‘cryptids’ (unidentified animals) such as the Loch Ness Monster, the African ‘dinosaur’ Mokele-mbembe, and ‘Mothman’ – has been ongoing for more than four decades. He is arguably the most well-known cryptozoologist in the world today. Even skeptics recognize his position: "Among monster hunters, Loren’s one of the more reputable," says Benjamin Radford, who is the managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, the mouthpiece of the ultra-skeptical organization CSICOP. Coleman found his lifelong vocation at an early age: At 12, in 1960, I was reading the books of Charles Fort, which gave me an "open-mind" and "question authority" attitude when I saw a Japanese movie about the Yeti, entitled "Half Human." I went to school and asked my teachers what they knew about the Abominable Snowmen. The answers I got were very unsatisfactory, so I began reading and researching all I could on Yeti, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, lake monsters, and more. It has become a lifelong pursuit, passion, and part of my life. Coleman’s interest in cryptozoology led him to study anthropology and zoology at Southern Illinois University - specifically aimed at furthering his ability in his chosen field – before moving on to post-masters work in anthropology at Brandeis University. His first cryptozoological article, "Mystery Animals in Illinois", was published in 1969. In 1975 he co-authored his first book, The Unidentified, with Jerome Clark. Creatures of the Outer Edge, again with Clark, followed this in 1978 (both have just been republished in 2006 as a double-edition book, with a new introduction, by Anomalist Books.) Loren Coleman has since authored more than 25 books and over 500 articles, with his 1983 classic Mysterious America being one of the most popular books ever on the subject of cryptozoology and Fortean topics. What makes Loren Coleman stand out from the field – longevity withstanding – is his rigorous application of scientific principles to the hunt for cryptids. When asked in an interview whether he had a firm belief in the existence of any particular cryptid, Coleman replied: "Belief," per se, is the realm of religion and other faith-based systems. As a cryptozoologist, I accept or deny evidence based on an examination and investigation of the data. If a pattern of credible, good evidence exists, I begin to accept the possible reality of a cryptid. If it does not, I reject it, and move on...I have always worked with the formula that 80% of what I study is misidentifications, mistakes, hoaxes, pranks, jokes, and the mundane. The hardcore 20% is the "unknowns" which get my most attention. Great interest has accompanied Coleman's research right from the beginning. In his teens, he was shocked to find that television stations were extremely interested in his fieldwork and often requested interviews. His close ties to the media have persisted throughout his career: he has served as a consultant for various television features including "Unsolved Mysteries", "Ancient Mysteries", Animal Planet's "Twisted Tales," and Discovery Channel's "In the Unknown." Coleman was asked by Sony to assist in the publicity for their 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies (directed by Mark Pellington, and based on the book by John Keel), which ended up involving numerous press conferences, and over three hundred radio interviews discussing the factual background to the 1966-1967 events in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The studio also had Coleman and author John Keel appear in their documentary, Search for the Mothman. He has also written columns for various publications such as The Anomalist and Fortean Times, and is the "go-to" man for the press whenever there is news about anomalous animal sightings or discoveries. However, Coleman is quick to dispel any talk of him being the focal point for cryptozoology. Instead he sees himself purely as the investigator; the collator of evidence: "The world of Bigfoot studies does not revolve around me; it is about the people out there and what they are finding," he told Henry May in a recent interview. "As an investigative journalist, as a field cryptozoologist, and as a scientist interested in cryptozoology, it is more significant to me to have interviewed hundreds, if not thousands of eyewitnesses who have shown me tracks they found, casts they have poured, and prints photos they have taken." Beyond his interest in cryptozoology, Coleman also has an interest in sociology and the impact of the media upon public psychology. As well as his anthropological studies he also studied sociology at the University of New Hampshire and received a graduate degree in psychiatric social work from Simmons College in Boston in 1978. In his 2004 book The Copycat Effect, Coleman explored how the media's hyped coverage of murders, suicides, and tragedies ("If it bleeds, it leads", is how Coleman describes news coverage of such events) has a negative impact on our society. Investigating a phenomenon which he calls ‘the copycat effect’, Coleman found startling similarities between numerous violent events, and in his book showed how widespread coverage of this violence spawns more violence of the same type. Coleman considers this a tragic flaw of the information age – and that the media must address this problem in order to stop the perpetuation of more violent acts. His experience in sociology also crosses over into his cryptozoology fieldwork – when conducting an investigation Coleman doesn't just interview a witness. He talks to their spouse, their co-workers and friends, to get a read on the person's state of mind. "When I interview witnesses, I have to evaluate their credibility," Coleman has said. "You have to put yourself in these people's shoes...how they're feeling." Coleman’s interest ‘outside the box’ of zoology plainly tags him as a person who thinks scientists should broaden their horizons a little. When asked why we haven’t found evidence for a Bigfoot-like creature yet, he pointed out that there is a certain psychological barrier to be broken through by the general public and scientists alike: Humans are very narcissistic, so the single species theory has really gotten in the way of Homo sapiens believing that there could be another intelligent hominid here. For instance, if you go with anthropologists and archeologists looking for bones or fossil remains, they only dig down to a certain level because they already have a preconceived notion, for instance in North America they only go down to the layers where they know there were Native Americans. In order to promote more knowledge in the community about cryptozoological research, in August 2003 Coleman opened his International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. A lifelong dream, the museum is built to share many of the items Coleman has collected during the last half a century. These include an 8-feet tall Bigfoot representation, a full-scale model of the coelacanth, alleged footcasts of Yetis, Yowies and Bigfoot, and also cryptid-related props from Hollywood productions such as The Mothman Prophecies and Magnolia. Special art and sculpture creations by some of the leading cryptozoological artists in the world are also featured in the museum. Loren Coleman’s high profile has meant that most people assume he has made a lot of money from his chosen ‘hobby’. Quick to dissuade such talk, he instead insists that he is actually "poverty-stricken". In his interview with Henry May, he pointed out that financial gain was not a motivating factor for him. "Material things are unimportant if you can have fun and be on an adventure everyday, and that’s what my sons and my cryptozoology have given me," he said. "In that way, at least, cryptozoology has made me one of the "richest" humans on earth." When asked for the highlights of his long career in cryptozoology, Coleman points to his examination of the ‘Dover Demon’ case of 1977, and a 1999 search of Loch Ness with his sons Malcolm and Caleb. Beyond those, he also says finding apelike tracks, and hearing the screeching sounds of an unknown animal during the 1960s were "formative searches." A short list of Loren Coleman's books includes: - The Unidentified - Creatures of the Outer Edge - Mysterious America - Mothman and Other Curious Encounters - The Copycat Effect - Bigfoot: The True Story of Apes in America

During Open Lines, George offered a special "Who Saved You" hotline for people to share their tales of survival. Bob from Indiana told the story of cheating death while on a trip with his brothers to the Grand Canyon. Hiking along the side of canyon, he twisted his ankle and nearly plummeted over the edge of the two mile high trail. At the last moment, his brother grabbed his ankle and pulled him back up to stable ground. "That was the most amazing thing that he was there at that moment or I would have died," Bob said. Mary in Sault St. Marie, Ontario, Canada recounted a terrifying tale of near-death which may have culminated in divine intervention. Married to an abusive husband at the time, she found herself attacked by him and he attempted to hang her. In what could have been her last moments, she thought, "God, please help me." Immediately following that, a "huge knock came to the door ... this knock vibrated through the whole apartment and through my body. To this day, I still feel it." Her husband stopped trying to hang her and went to investigate, whereupon he saw that there was no one at the door and no footsteps in the light snow that had accumulated outside. This momentary distraction quelled the murder attempt that night and Mary would escape the marriage soon afterwards. The final half hour of the show was a replay of George's 11/8/2007 interview with Ghost Whisperer star Jennifer Love Hewitt and Mary Ann Winkowski, who serves as a consultant to the show. During the first hour, Michael & Nicole Sebastian, The Dream Dudes, discussed the 'Just Say Hu Technique.' Nicole described Hu (pronounced "Hue") breathing as "simply a vibrational resonance technique that any individual can use ... you just inhale and on the exhale you say Hu." The duo suggested people incorporate the technique into their everyday lives in order to "build inner strength, empowerment, and to rearrange their subatomic structure to change their state of consciousness." Attempts to gain UN World Heritage status for Loch Ness have given way to a new dispute over the infamous creature said to reside there. Much to the chagrin of outraged Nessie enthusiasts, a UN consultant has suggested that the cryptid stories may actually hurt the landmark's chances of winning the prestigious prize. More on the story here. Bumper music from Friday November 28, 2008

Connellsville group gets earful on BigfootRead More » A man in England was surprised by a monkey-like animal he says came out of the woods in the county of Suffolk. Bury St Edmunds resident Geoff Knights says he was looking for “big cat signs” in the Offton woods, near Stowmarket, when the creature showed up on Aug. 14. “I have seen one big […]Read More » Supercut: Bigfoot Filmed at Bluff Creek California in 2008 by M.K. DavisRead More » A feature-length documentary written, directed, and produced by Joseph Glarner, Mark Robinault, and Peter Wiemer featuring eyewitnesses and researchers telling real stories of their own encounters of the illusive Bigfoot. Showing: This Friday (AUG 2...Read More » Can bigfoot make sounds like a donkey? Research Randy Savig says yes. The Missouri bigfooter recently witnessed what he believes was a juvenile bigfoot making an alarm type call that morphed into the sound of a donkey. Sounds kind of hard to believe? Well he captured the audio so you can hear it for yourself. Bigfoot researcher Randy Savig, 50, told Cryptozoology News he has been investigating the phenomenon for about 3 years. Savig has focused his efforts to finding audible evidence of the existence of the cryptid. On Aug. 12, he says, a visual encounter took place in the area he and his friend were investigating. “My friend Bernie had been watching something for about 20 minutes in the shadow. It was about 400 feet from camp,” the Missourian explains. “I could see it too. It looked like it was swaying side to side trying to stay behind some leaves.” Savig believes the animal noticed their presence and became immediately curious. “I did some stuff to try to draw it out so we can see it better. It seemed to know we busted it and could see it.” The men said the animal matched the typical “Sasquatch” physical features described on most reports. According to Savig, who only presented audio of the purported encounter, the creature then began emitting a series of sounds that resembled primate vocalizations. “The whoop vocals came from about 30 degrees to the right of the subject we were watching,” he says. “They almost seemed to be an alarm.” But these vocals reportedly became something else. As the two men were closely monitoring the being behind the bushes, the “donkey” sounds began. To read more, click here. “They may be inter-dimensional beings,” Saluga said. He pointed to beings that disappear into thin air and Bigfoot trails that last for only a few feet. Saluga said that there have been many sightings over the years from the Republic area where he grew up. Another hot spot is in the Dunbar area. According to Saluga, the creatures have been reported for hundreds of years, as early as about 1500 A.D. and from every continent on the planet. Native Americans called Bigfoot “Sasque” (translated as “Don't know what it is”) or “Sasquatch” to the early settlers in North America. Some have suggested that the beings are alien transplants, shape shifters or creatures from another dimension. Contact the Fayette County Pennsylvania Bigfoot Research Project at 304-723-8212, go to the group's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/fsaluga or email them at Bigfoot15425@gmail.com Florida bigfoot researcher Mark Zaskey speaks candidly about what it's actually like to research bigfoot. What kind of things happen in the field, and the emotions a person goes through. Not often do researchers open up like this and speak freely ab...Read More » This Place Recently Had 3 Bigfoot Sightings In 24 Hours!Read More » Youtuber BL Holland posted this video of what they believe is a bigfoot hiding in the brush. A lot of people think bigfoot likes to watch us, and if this is a bigfoot, I guess that could be what it's doing. Of course it could also be playing hide n ...Read More »

I Don’t Know What was Scarier After a long day of work, there was nothing that I wanted more than a nice relaxing shower. Under the rivulets of water, I felt the stress and tension wash off me. I stepped out of the shower, silently cursing that it was laundry day and I had no clean towels to dry off with. It really wasn’t a big deal, I would drip dry and make sure that I took everything to the laundry the next day. I walked around the bedroom, letting the cool night air circulate over my body, which caused my skin to prickle. It was cold outside, but I expected the house should have been a little warmer. I would have to call utilities and see if there might be a problem with my heating. I didn’t want to sit on anything for fear of soaking it, so I decided I would lay out my clothes for the next day. I stepped into my closet and pulled the cord to turn on the light bulb that hung from the ceiling. There was a brief flash before something was illuminated that I had not prepared for. A man, in one fist, he clenched an old-fashioned straight razor. In his other hand was a roll of electrical tape and a bag of salt. There was a twisted smile plastered across his face that made his intentions very clear. I wanted to scream, but fear paralyzed my throat. I don’t know what was scarier, the realization that I was in this situation stark naked or the fact that he was too. I loved how my wife used to wake me up by whispering sweet nothings into my ear every morning. I didn’t enjoy her pillow talk as much the day after her funeral. To tell you the truth, I needed to drink. I would have a hard day at work and I would go to the bar and let the alcohol wash away my thoughts. It was cathartic. My daughter, wife, and friends would always lay into me when I got home for stinking of alcohol. They would bitch at me saying that I just wasn’t the person they thought I was when I went out drinking and I could be such a better person. They would always be lying in wait for me when I got home. I would walk through the door and find a group of my family and friends waiting for me. They would always ambush me with prepared letters about how my drinking made them feel, which of course was always bullshit, as they didn’t give me an appropriate time to form my own argument to theirs’. There wasn't much I could do under their relentless assault. I’d always let them cry and rage against me. Afterwards I would tell them I would change and find the strength to quit. A few weeks later, I would down a fifth of Jack Daniels and wash away my thoughts and the process would again. They would organize another meeting and I would keep making empty promises because I knew it was better than the alternative. When I was sober, I’d keep imagining them on hooks, pleading and begging for sweet release. I’d imagine their flesh and how it would be so appealing to slice open, tear apart. They want me to quit drinking, but without it, I keep imaging the end. I’d imagine how they would plead and how they would taste. I think this last intervention really stuck, I feel like myself again. John always loved having his family over, but now as he watched them pawing at his backdoor leaving bloody and putrescent stains; he realized that he didn’t like it so much anymore. We’ll Meet Again The entire crew gathered around the window. This time it wasn’t to stare into the infinite blackness of space or ponder the nature of their exploration. They weren’t looking out, but instead they were looking down, down at mankind finally reaping what they had sown. Detonations that were visible from space dotted the earth. The explosions stretched up as if to ensnare heaven itself. The massive mushroom clouds started off in small numbers, but quickly grew as more countries attempted to make their contribution towards their ultimate demise. Soon the entire world was pockmarked with massive radioactive mushroom clouds. A few hours later, there was nothing and no one left. The astronauts could only watch in a dumb-founded mix of terror and shock as their homes were lost to fallout and scorched earth policies brought into action decades ago. There was no one else, it was only them now. Music sliced through the tension and terror. Vera Lynn crooned, “Keep smiling through, just like you, always do…” All it took was one man to start laughing before the entire crew dissolved. Some laughed until their stomachs wrapped themselves into knots. Some laughed until tears welled up in their eyes. Some laughed even though they found nothing particularly funny. They continued to laugh even though there was no point anymore and that just made them laugh all the harder. Reminisces of Childhood While most children recall drifting off to the sound of their mobiles and mother’s lullabies every night, I remember falling asleep to the sound of the man creeping downstairs from his hiding spot in the attic. Bed of Roses Tonight I came home to the fragrant smell of roses. It only took a few minutes of investigating to find the source of the smell. My bed was covered in a vibrant crimson color that made my heart skip a beat. It was completely hidden under a layer of rose petals. There was a candle on the dresser and its light illuminated the message, “I am yours and you are mine. I love you and I want to do something that will take your breath away.” It was a very romantic gesture. It would have been more romantic had I not been single for the past three years. It would have been romantic had the message not been written in crimson as well. Now I smell that iron odor in every corner of my house and my heart is beating like it is about to rip out of my chest. I can only wonder what they meant by ‘wanting to do something that would take my breath away.’ A woman berated me on the street today because I was in a soldier’s uniform, screaming, ‘if I remembered all the faces of the people I killed?’ I don’t need to remember their faces; I wake up every morning to their pale forms standing over me riddled with the bullets I shot through them. I had been wandering around this cave for hours. I had gotten separated from the tour guide and spent the last four hours wandering around in the darkness. I had started the tour around three which meant, according to my internal clock, that it was around seven or eight. The sun would be setting and the forest would become just as dark as it was in the cave. I wandered around in the darkness with my hand on a wall of the cave. I was certain that if I stuck to this path that I would eventually come to the mouth of the cave. After another hour of bumbling around in the darkness, I found my way out of the cave. It was a moonless night, but I could see the stars in the sky. I wept with relief as I looked up at those beacons of light. There were thousands of them up there. I watched in wonder as they winked out of existence only to reappear seconds later. I watched this phenomenon in confusion. It took a few seconds for me to come up with my answer. These weren’t stars winking and blinking into and out of existence. They were eyes, and they were drawing closer to me. The worst part of living with roommates was hearing them moving around the house at all hours of the night. The worst part of living alone is still hearing those exact same sounds. Rendezvous with God Atheists, agnostics, and theologists gathered around to debate and quibble over the latest discovery. In the farthest reaches of space, an astronomer had come across a source of pure energy. It resonated on a wavelength that seemed otherworldly. It was far beyond the reaches of human engineering and technology. The astronomer, a devoted believer, wasted no time in gathering up the media and other like-minded scientists and declaring that he had discovered the existence of God, the creator. Atheists called it “the inanimate remnants of the big bang”. Theologists claimed it was “the embodiment of God”. Agnostics just shrugged their shoulders when asked and claimed, “Who knows?” After days of debate, someone came up with the idea to try and make contact with the entity that was perched on the edge of the universe to get their answer. They would try blasting a wide array of frequencies, languages, and music at it, in an effort to make contact. They tried everything. Atheists cursed it and tried to invoke its wrath. Theologists tried praying in an effort to make it respond to their supplications. After exhausting all strategies, a young agnostic man stepped up to the podium. He was well-respected on all sides and was probably the best educated and well-versed scientist in the group. He addressed the crowd, “This is indeed God. We have found the creator.” Atheists were outraged, theologists were incensed. If this was God, why was it not responding? The agnostic man took a second before saying, “It’s simple. God is not responding because God no longer cares about us.” I was never a fan of the lightning. It came at random intervals and I was always worried it would illuminate the room just enough for you to see my face gazing at you through your window. We made a lot of promises, typically after making love. When we were covered with sweat and spent from our lust, we would whisper sweet nothings. He had wrapped his arms around me and I could still feel him inside me. He pulled me close and he said it: The car slammed into a tree and pitched me forward. He was stopped from joining me by the steering wheel. I rolled through the woods, a whirling dervish of bruises, broken bones, and blood. I passed out and when I awoke, I was alone. The ambulance must have not seen me and left me behind. I hobbled home, my bones sucking and popping lewdly out of my wound. It took a few days, but I finally reached him. He was heavily medicated. He looked shocked to see me. It was my appearance that so profoundly impacted him. My blood had congealed on my mottled grey skin. The wounds where my bones broke through had begun to rot. A day of traveling in the hot sun had already made me bloat up with gasses from decomposition and I looked almost pregnant. I was rotting from the inside out. He was still under the influence of his medication, but that would wear off. I sat down next to him and ran my putrescent and cold hand over his head. He stiffened as I leaned in close. My words rattled through my broken teeth into his ear, “Together forever.” "I'm leaving you and I'm taking our child with me." That was my wife's suicide note. Carrie always loved Sundays. Her parents would go out to run errands, leaving her to call her boyfriend. Her parents didn't know about him. As an only child, her parents were overprotective and prohibited her from dating until she was fifteen. She, of course decided to keep Josh's existence hidden from them. This didn't matter, she loved him. She loved talking to him. His voice set her heart aflutter. Sunday was the only time she could call him and not have to be worried about being caught. It became a ritual for them. Every Sunday she would call and they would talk until her parents got home. There was one blemish in this otherwise perfect scene. Josh's brother was nosy and would always pick up the phone and listen in on their conversation. Carrie could hear his breathing while they talked. He tried to breathe softly, but she could still hear him. This went on for weeks and slowly Carrie's frustration at the situation grew. Josh ignored it, but after one particularly heated conversation, Carrie asked: "Could you tell your brother to buzz off? I can hear him listening in on the other phone line." Josh's answer was sobering, "We don't have another phone in the house. I thought you said you were certain your parents had gone out to run errands?" Carrie listened to the phone click onto the receiver in her kitchen. She had watched her parents leave, whoever was in her kitchen was not her parents. Billy had made a wish that his grandfather who’d passed away could be brought back to life. He should have clarified his wish a little more; the man’s mouthless screaming coming from the urn in which his ashes resided was unsettling to say in the least. Alexi stood on the bridge that overlooked the surrounding area with his mouth agape. He had never seen something so wondrous. Off in the distance, glowed an ethereal blue light. It mixed with the dusky twilight and seemed to cast an otherworldly on the area surrounding it. People from all over the town had flocked to this overlook after hearing the news of this oddity. They all stood dumbstruck, bathing in the light that emanated from the landscape that was stretched out before them. Alexi felt a tugging on his pant legs and he looked down to see his youngest, Sergei. He was six years old and couldn’t get a good look at the radiance; he was begging his father to boost him up so he could get a better view. He obliged with a smile on his face and picked up his son, setting him on his shoulders. The two watched the light awestruck at the inherent beauty of the world. Alexi knew that if he lived to be one thousand years old, he would not see another sight that rivaled the beauty of the blue-ish light intermingling in the Pripyat sky. It was April 26th, 1986 and Chernobyl just suffered a catastrophic failure at its nuclear power plant. Within a month, anyone who went to watch that glow withered away and died from acute radiation poisoning. Thank God for Familiar Faces People are always telling me I have one of those familiar faces. I guess that’s why the woman in the line-up misidentified her attacker. Johnny was having a tough time re-adjusting to life after the move. They had moved after Steve had lost his job. The father knew it was difficult being moved from your home and forced to make new friends in a new school. He had gone through it himself when he was young and he empathized, which was why he decided to do something nice for him. He had just lost another one of his baby teeth and Steve sat down with him and explained how he had ‘talked’ to the tooth fairy and convinced him to increase the price for teeth to five dollars as Johnny had been such a good boy lately. Johnny’s eyes lit up the next morning when he found five dollars under his bed. He excitedly talked about buying a new Gameboy so he could play Pokemon with his friends. Steve told him that five dollars would not be enough. He had meant to discourage him. He planned on giving his son a Gameboy in a few months when his birthday rolled around. Johnny stuck out his lips and pouted. It was tough seeing him like that, but he didn’t have the money for the system yet. Johnny however wanted it now and he had a plan. Steve woke up to a horrible scene the next morning. Johnny was at the kitchen table with pliers in his hand. Blood stained his mouth and the front of his shirt. In front of him were six tiny teeth. Steve could only watch in shock as his son angled the pliers back towards his mouth and burbled through the blood, “Just two more and I’ll have enough.” Billy wished on the shooting star that he wouldn't have to go to school ever again. The meteorite granted his wish by smashing into him from orbit. You tried to ignore him, but he kept talking. He had been leaning up against a wall to prevent falling over when you walked by him. You tried to convince yourself that he didn’t know what he was saying, or who he was saying it to but he kept insulting you. You tried to control your temper, but you patience began to wear thin. You tried to imagine what you could do to him. He was drunk and he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. You could easily overpower him and pin him to the ground while punching, gouging, and biting at his exposed flesh. He would scream as you hooked your finger into the orbit, obliterating his eye while you sank your teeth into his cheek and tore flesh free. You tried to quell those thoughts, they wouldn’t get you anywhere and when it was all said and done, he’d still be bothering you. You tried to cross the street but he followed you. He didn’t like being ignored and now he wanted an apology from you for treating him like he wasn’t there, like he wasn’t a human being. You tried to lose him by ducking into an alley, but he drunkenly shambled after you. You tried to tell yourself that you were attempting to get away and weren’t actually luring him away from prying eyes. You lost it when he caught up to you and shoved you. You tried to stop yourself, you really did. As Maria cradled her child in her arms and looked at his three lobed, multi-colored iris, complete with a nictitating membrane, she knew that he took more after his father more than her. He Is a Monster I know he is watching; he always admires his handiwork after situations like this. I stand over the recently killed corpse of the dog with tears carving a path down my face. He has done this. He loves engineering these situations. He feeds off the emotion and trauma. It is entertainment to him. He is a monster. I know he is watching as I struggle to dig a hole in the sand for the feral dog. It’s difficult work with only one hand, but that’s all I have. He has taken everything else from me. He robbed me from my home, tore me from the arms of my lover, and dismembered me. He made me cut off my own hand or leave it to rot and render me septic. Despite all of this, I know I will survive. I will persevere the injustices he visits upon me. I wish I could say that it’s my desire to survive that drives me forward, but it’s not. He goads me on. He wants me to reach the perfect end, his ideal ending. We have souls; we feel everything. He’s a monster. Travis sat back and rubbed at his stubble. The story had a good premise, but it faltered at the conclusion. It really could use more of an emotional impact. Maybe the next draft would turn out better. He stretched and began to think of other ways to make the story more emotional and visceral. He sat back down and continued typing. Tucking my son in for the night, he asked me if monsters were real; I lied and told him that they weren’t. I spent the rest of the night crying and rubbing the six digit tattoo along my forearm fearing the day that I’d have to tell him the story behind it. A Goodbye Letter I’m sorry that I have to write this out instead of telling you myself, but after reading this letter, I hope you’ll understand why I’m doing this. We’ve been together for a long time, but given what’s been happening lately, I’m not too sure I can stick around for much longer. You’ve changed. I mean that sincerely. When we started out, you were innocent. You were naive, not in a bad sense. Your naivety showed potential. You could be anything. You had promise. You wanted to become something amazing. Instead of that, I could only watch in horror as you slowly devolved. It started off innocently enough. You showed disregard for animals around you. At first I thought that that was a tic of your personality, but it grew into something much worse. Your cruelty expanded to those around you. You quickly displayed an utter disscontempt for the people around you, it was almost as if they meant nothing to you. I think that disturbed me the most. To be honest, that’s not why I’m leaving. The fact that you followed a path I didn’t like wasn’t the trigger. The reason why I’m leaving is because the way you are going down is dark and cruel, and you haven’t reached the end. With your potential to change and grow I’m scared for you. I don’t know how deep your capacity for cruelty is and I don’t want to know if it extends to me. I’m scared of you. When I heard him whimper her name in his sleep, I couldn’t take it anymore; I made sure he’d never be able to make love to her again with my pocketknife. How was I supposed to know that Jolene was the name of his sister who died in an accident back when he was still a child? Words, Words, Words. I have to take this nice and slow. I have to choose my words carefully. I don’t want to make this worse for me. Something’s happened this past week to the way we talk, I don’t know what’s causing it or how it’s happening, I only know that it’s killing people. Innocuous phrases, figures of speech, colloquialisms, and hyperboles are becoming literal, with disastrous results. Most people have stopped talking, but that approach is not helping anymore. The first victim was Old Man Noam. He always was a talker, he loved to ramble on with old stories and local urban legends to anyone who would listen. It was when he started a conversation with a college student, who was too nice to walk away that it happened. Noam was rambling on about the time he found the Jersey Devil in his backyard. At the crescendo of his long-winded story, he said those fateful words. He said that he was besides himself with shock at finding the legendary cryptid in Spokane when it happened. Noam screamed in agony as he was attacked by some invisible force and ripped in two. The student could only watch in horror as the bisected man clutched desperately at his severed lower half while he bled out as if he could re-attach himself. The people who witnessed Noam's death called the police who promptly took the student into custody so he could be interrogated for the possible murder. They changed the boy out of his bloodstained clothes and gave him a grey prison jumper. They interrogated him for five hours before the stress, lights, and questions broke him. In his frustration he said something about how the uncomfortable jumper was killing him. The jumper then constricted tight around him. He flailed around the room trying to tear the attacking clothes off, but they were too tight and coiled around him. The police officers could only watch as the jumper shrunk to the point of crushing his bones and organs until the student died. When they cut the clothes off of him to try and make sense of what had happened, they found that the seams of the prison jumper had actually cut into him, bruised him in places, and completely compressed his lungs into a pulpy mess. It didn’t take long for people to make the connection between their words and the results. Many stopped talking, but a few spoke out on how to protect yourself from this phenomenon. They explained that it only affects the speaker. You can’t kill other people with your words except in certain situations. (One woman joked with a friend that she always assumed she would go out with a bang. The resulting explosion killed four, crippled one, and severely burned five people.) Your words will always be turned against you. One man boasted that he want to die ‘drowning in pussy’ and found himself swarmed and smothered by a horde of oddly clingy cats. It’s gotten worse. It’s no longer restricted to spoken word, it’s spread onto written messages. I was texting with a friend, trying to understand what was happening when he, always a defeatist, said he was screwed six ways till Sunday due to his tendency to talk. From what I hear, he died of severe exhaustion, dehydration, and physical shock after removing his genitals with a pair of scissors and using them on himself. Soon it’ll spread to our thoughts and then we’re all dead. I’m writing this because I am dying. Slower than the others, but dying none-the-less. I just wanted it to end in the nicest way possible. I said I wanted to die with a smile on my face. I thought that would be harmless, dying happy. It didn’t work. Please let me die. My face is paralyzed in a grin. I can’t eat, I can’t talk, I can’t even scream in agony at this perpetual smile burning my muscles. I just want this to end. Written by EmpyrealInvective

What is your username? Pjray02 Please link to the wiki here: Video game boss wiki How many edits have you made on that wiki? not many but its in dire need of an owner How many days/months have you been editing there? a few days but im telling you its needs an owner! On the Special Pages → Special:ListUsers when was the last time an admin edited, and who was it? cryptid 39 Any other information: Its in dire need of an ownetr please i can help revive it Hi there, in order to adopt a wiki you must be editing there for at least a week.20:05, September 30, 2013 (UTC)

Tuesday, November 08, 2011 Greetings from the International Cryptozoology Museum! International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. Cryptozoology, for those who may not be hip to the field, is the study of (as yet) unknown animals. In other words, the Zoology of animals that are not yet documented by science, but some day may be. Here to the left, for instance, is the cabinet for Yeti artifacts. The museum is the brainchild of Loren Coleman, who founded it in 2003 to house some of the many objects he's collected in decades of work in the field. In-between teaching public policy and being one of the world's foremost experts on the copycat suicide phenomenon, he's spent a lot of time on the trail of unknown animals, and authored over 20 books on the subject. Bigfoot, of course, as the marquee North American cryptid, gets proper treatment here. Besides posing for a picture with Abbey and I... ...there were some quite interesting displays on the footprints, hair samples and other leavings of our possible native ape. I also really enjoyed the cabinet of artifacts related to the 1967 Patterson film, which is either a thorough fake, or some of the best evidence. I've gone back and forth on that question myself, but I have to say that lately computer enhancements and scientific studies of the gait and body proportions of whatever's walking in the film have me leaning towards "best evidence". Eastern Cougar may not be quite as extinct as advertised. Then there are your star cryptids, like lake/sea monsters and Bigfoot, of which there are actually a significant number of New England sightings. Abbey and I observed a cluster of pins in Baxter State Park and have accordingly decided to vacation there. My favorite, though, is the Specter Moose. It was apparently a huge whitish-gray moose with antlers that spanned ten feet wide, and was seen a lot around the turn of the last century. I hope he (or she (or descendants)) is still out there! So, to sum up, cryptozoology is fun, and so is the museum. On top of which, Loren Coleman is there in person most days, and how often do you get to meet a real cryptozoologist? Plus, Portland is a beautiful town, with ridiculously pretty harbor views. Go visit when you have a chance!

Just a quick update to say that: a) the website is back up. My hosting provider is not being particularly good at the moment, but I’ll assume it’s a blip in their otherwise exemplary service record… for the time being, and b) I’m back on bFM as of tomorrow. ‘Sunday Breakfast’ may well have gone the way of the dodo, with its host now a TV man, but the successor show, ‘The Cryptid Factor,’ with Rhys Darby and David Farrier, is a perfect replacement and I’m very pleased to be doing my schtick with those two ‘crazy’ guys. I’ll be discussing Kerry Thornley and his various conspiracy theories sometime about ten.

From today's Anomalist: The Strangest Felines Scotsman. From Scotland comes Peter Ross' story of Mark Fraser, "who has spent his adult life searching for some particular beasts - black panther-like creatures which he believes are roaming Scotland." Five big cat investigators research the prevalence, hunting grounds and characteristics of the forty large black cats believed to be slinking through the heather and gorse of the highlands, or making their way into some towns. Fraser, a member of Big Cats in Britain, describes himself as a cryptozoologist, meaning, of course, big cats aren't the only creatures that pique his curiosity. Here Ross accompanies Fraser as the cryptid seeker makes his rounds. Are the big cats of Scotland former pets released into the wild, or are they, as some suggest, a relic population left behind after the last Ice Age? Elsewhere, Loren Coleman's International Cryptozoology Museum wants you to decorate your Christmas tree with cryptids this year, as shown in Bigfoot & Yeti Ornaments, while BoingBoing picks up on the idea, with some raucous commentary, in Bigfoot and Yeti Christmas Tree Ornaments.

|Friday||Latest Master Tape Theatre| |Please help support MarksFriggin.com by using these sites:| (Sirius, XM merch and more) (Just about everything) Playboy Cyber Club Howard started the show talking about how busy his weekend was. He said he was at the taping for America's Got Talent for four days. That went from Thursday morning until Sunday at 6pm. He said Robin stopped by. He said he's really immersed in the AGT world right now. He said it's pretty wild. Howard said once he's there it's fine doing the work. He said he doesn't like the peripheral work. He said he has to do a lot of press and that's annoying. He said he did a red carpet and he's on every show he doesn't want to be on. He said the red carpet is very loud and you can't hear. He said they ask the same question over the over. He said that they were asking him about David Letterman's retirement. He said they all ask the same question. He said he wouldn't mind normally but he has to do 50 hours of talking on the show. Howard said they have a Snapple room on the show and it's like announcing you have to go to death row. He said it's like prison. Howard said it's not a put down of Howie but that's the room where Howie does his comedy. He said he does his jokes and stuff and it's funny but it's not his thing. Howard said he used to try to insert himself in it but it's like a nightmare Groundlings improv. He said Howie is in a Benjy Shtick coma kind of thing. He said he's playing a character and it's really annoying. Howard said you're in there and Howie is going to do something they ask him to do like choke on a piece of cheese or something. He said Howie is going to use him as a prop in the bit. Howard said they tell him to make something happen but he can't because Howie is so busy doing his thing. Howard said they literally push him into the bit. Howard said there are already two people doing something and they push him into it. Howard said that is Howie's room, not the Snapple room. Howard said Howie was trying to lift a couch with his chin and they told him to get in there with him. Howard said he doesn't know what to do when Howie is doing that. He said he signed up to be a judge. That's it. Howard said they don't ask him to come up with bits. He said he's ready to talk about the acts or about the show but not do that kind of thing. Howard said Howie has crazy, frantic energy and you can't get in on that. Howard said he's asked to be left out of that stuff but they say he has to be in there. Howard said he would rather be somewhere else or just doing something else. Howard said he's like the dad on Leave it to Beaver and he'd rather be reading the paper. Howard said Howie loves doing that shtick and he's great at it. Robin asked what the girls are doing when Howie is doing that thing. Howard said Heidi is right there playing along and saying ''Oh my god'' and things like that. Howard said she'll ask what else he can lift with his chin. Howard said they'll do something physical and Howie will lift her up or something. Howard said there's no room for him in that room. He said he'd rather be the killjoy because that's what he is. Robin asked how much of that they have to shoot. Howard said that's half his day. Howard said he didn't sign up to be in the Groundlings. He said it's like they're asking him to improv. He said you can see him backing out of the frame to get out of it. Howard said there's a lot go hijinks going on in there. He said they asked him to come in an hour early to do more in the Snapple room and he says no way. Howard said he said there was too much of that going on and not enough judging. Howard said they say they like the chemistry between the judges but Howard thinks that's Howie's Snapple Playroom. He said that's where Howie does his thing. Howard said it's like Howie's Playhouse. He said he'll pick something up and ad-lib with it. Howard said that's fun for Howie but not for him. Howard said he'd rather just watch it. Howard said he called his agent and asked what to do. He said Don told him to just be a good sport. Then Don came in and saw what happens in there and he said it looked like he was on the Howie show. Howard said they were in the Snapple room and Howie decided to take selfies. Howard said every time he took it he asked if they wanted to be in it with him. Then he'd block the other person out of the shot. Howard said he saw Howie doing that and then a half hour later he was still doing it. Howard said Howie came up to him asking if he wanted to take one with him. He said he keeps asking until you do it. Howard said it's like a Bar Mitzvah and you have to be a good sport about it. Howard said Howie was taking the selfie and he saw it was just him so he put a smile on his face. He said it was a fake laugh he was putting on. He said he played along with it but then it never ends. He said Howie is running around with the camera and the selfie and he just wanted to walk away from it gracefully so he wasn't insulting anyone. Howard said that was Howie's thing and it was going on for 45 minutes. Howard said he wanted to take a breather from it. He said he wanted to pull himself together and take a leak. Howard said everyone was charged up but not him. He said maybe that room just isn't for him. He said he wishes Robin had been there to see that. Robin said she noticed that every time they finished a talent they have to set up for the next act. Robin said she saw that Howie, Heidi and Mel B were all chatting but Howard is doing something else. Howard said they came over and asked him to stop scribbling. Howard said they're on their cell phones and taking selfies. He said they're into it and there's a party going on. He said he's not in it and he's fine with that. Howard said what he was actually doing was writing a suicide note. He said he was saying that he's leaving things to Robin. Robin said that her friend said that they saw Howard writing notes and they were wondering what they were about. Howard said he really enjoys doing the show. He said he likes judging. Robin said she can see that he loves it. She said it seems like the judges have gelled too. Howard said he loves doing the show but not the Snapple Room and the red carpet thing. Howard said they ask him about everything on that red carpet. He said he wishes that Howie would balance him on his chin during those red carpet things. Howard said he's trying to be a good sport but he's not comfortable doing some things. Robin said it seems to her that the Snapple room is a big deal. Howard said they're supposed to talk about the acts in the room. Howard said they also have this idea to force fun. He said they want fun and that means slapstick. He said that they want pranks and hijinks. Howard said they sent over a guitar for his dressing room. He said he didn't want that because he only gets an hour in there. Howard said they told Howie he had one in there and that's when the hijinks starts. Howard had Ralph on the phone and Ralph said he would shoot someone over there. He said he's not sure how Howard does it. Howard said they told Howie about the guitar and then Howie starts badgering him to play. He said he asked them to cut the camera off. He said he doesn't play the guitar. He said he just took a couple of lessons. Howard said it's not fun and it's not funny. He said they asked what songs he plays and he only plays 4. Ralph said that he hates that word ''Selfie'' because it's very douchy sounding. Howard said he hates that word. He said he doesn't want to be in one. Howard said he gets in the Snapple room and they're carrying on with the selfie. Ralph said Heidi loves doing it because she's beautiful. Howard said he looks like a monster in these pictures. He said he tells Heidi he doesn't like the way he looks. He said she doesn't want to hear that. Howard said he's constantly running away every minute. Howard said they're sucking the spirit out of him over there. Howard said he tells them that it's too early to go to the Snapple lounge but they say they want to shoot more in there. Howard said he leaned over to his agent at one point and asked him to just talk to him to keep him out of the bit. Ralph said he was fixing Howard's shirt for an hour to get him out of it. Howard said it's just not his thing. Ralph said they give Howie things to do over there. Howard said Howie is doing what they tell him to do. He said he likes Howie and what he does. He said he's doing a full hour of shtick over there. Howard said Howie walked in with a wig at one point. He said he knew that was going to be trouble. Howard said Howie does his thing and leaves him alone. Howard said he looked really attractive in the wig and he said he wanted to kiss him in that thing. He was throwing up as he was saying that but he didn't know what else to do. Robin asked if there are any writers there. Howard said he doesn't think so but Ralph said he saw them in the hall. He said they do have stuff they work on. Howard said he heard that Howie never uses writers. Ralph said it was just for the general idea of what to do in there. Howard said Howie has props in there so he was wondering about that. Howard said he'll come in jet packs and stuff like that. He said he wonders how it all goes down. Ralph said the girls never have to do anything in there. He said they can just stand around. Ralph said Heidi wanted to take a selfie and she couldn't understand why Howard didn't want to take one Howard said he told her no but she didn't want to take that as an answer. Howard said he didn't come there for that. Howard said he was told that he would be a judge on a show. He said he doesn't know from this selfie stuff. Howard said he spent his life staying off of Entertainment Tonight but then he has to do press. He said no offense to them there but he doesn't want to be on that show. Ralph said they had some great talent there on the show. He said Howard is really good as a judge. He said that some people are good and Howard gives them advice on how to be better. He said one girl was off key and she just needed some practice. Howard said if they just kept him in his room and brought him out to judge he'd be fine. Howard said he could be like King Kong. Howard said he just wants to be the guy who is impossible to deal with. He said he doesn't care about the other stuff they do. Howard said they have to walk down the aisle when they're introduced. Howard said he doesn't care about that. He said he just wants to be wheeled in to judge and then wheeled back out. Robin said she did notice the thing where Howard was scribbling and the other 3 judges were having fun. Howard said he doesn't know how they do it. Mariann said she took one with Heidi and she felt she should have put a paper bag on her head. Mariann said she was just caught up in the moment. Mariann said Mel was dropping the F-bomb every minute on the show. Howard let her go after that. Howard took a call from Jim in Raleigh who asked if he thinks Letterman is the best TV talk show host ever. Howard said he's got to go through that. Howard said he does love Dave. Howard said people were asking him if he would take over for Dave. Howard said he should take a break and talk about that. Howard said he thinks this has to do with Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. He said that he doesn't think that it has to do with Jay Leno retiring. Howard said he thinks that it's kind of a bummer for Dave that Jimmy Fallon is the guy with the biggest ratings. Howard said he thinks it gets to Dave. He said it has to be debilitating to him. Howard said he thinks that what's so shocking for him is that Dave has been so important to him and so instrumental in his life. Howard said not to have him there makes him feel really old. Vinnie agreed. He said that's the way he feels too. Howard said when he was at WNBC everyone hated him. He said they all wanted him out of there and they thought he was bad for the company. Vinnie said they still loved Imus at the time. Howard said it was a crazy time for them. Robin said it was like their Viet Nam. Howard said like Viet Nam he's friends with NBC. Howard said it's crazy. Howard said he was under siege over there and he got the call from Dave's people saying they wanted him to come on. Howard said Dave was so important to NBC and it gave them an oasis for about 5 minutes. Howard said the bosses were impressed and it helped him be exposed to a national audience. Howard said Dave was always very gracious and had him on a lot. Howard said he thinks that he was on quite a bit and maybe was one of the most frequent guests on the show. Vinnie said no one was doing that at the time. Howard said he really adores Dave and loves him. He said he's really sad to see him go. Howard said he wouldn't have met his wife without David Letterman. Howard asked Vinnie if he knew that. Vinnie said someone mentioned that and he said they were wrong. Howard said Beth worked for Dave's show and one of her jobs was to be in these sketches on Letterman. Howard said Beth played Allen Caulter's girlfriend in the sketches. Howard said Beth met this girl there and the girl asked if she was single. Beth told her she was and she wanted to meet a guy. Howard said the girl invited Beth to a party and that was the party where he met Beth. Howard said she was on a date that night with a South African guy. Howard said they both knew this guy that the party was for. Howard said that's how he met Beth. He said shortly after he started dating Beth they quickly got rid of her from Letterman. Vinnie said he disagrees with him on that. Howard said he knows they thought he was going to find out top secret stuff from the show or something. Vinnie said that's a story for another day. Howard asked Vinnie when he found out about this. Vinnie said he found out around 2 o'clock that day. He said he wasn't in the same building as they are in. He said he's over at CBS. Howard asked if Les called him to let him know. Vinnie said he sent Les a note and Les already knew. Vinnie said he found out from the producers of the show who called him. He said they were all surprised. Vinnie said he was stunned. Howard said Vinnie found out when the public found out. Howard said he must be the low man on the totem pole. Howard said Vinnie's job is safe because he'll be in charge of whoever takes that slot. Vinnie said he will. He said that it's still going to be a year until Dave retires. Howard said he thinks that Dave has had it with the ratings. He said that he thinks he expected to be number one. Vinnie said they're still doing well. Howard said he understands that. Vinnie said the show is the best talk show on TV. He said Kimmel is great but on Letterman people can talk and have a conversation. He said you won't see that again on TV. Howard said he's feeling sad about this. He said he's sad to see Letterman go. Howard said there aren't many people he cares about their opinion of him is but Dave is one. Howard said he knows how hard Dave works on his show and he always wanted to contribute. Howard said he has had a lot of fun on that show. Howard said he dressed as a woman on the show and Dave didn't want him to do it. Howard said he wanted to please the guy. He said he got up on the table and danced for Dave. He said Dave slammed him for doing OJ jokes. He said two days later everyone was doing them. He said Dave never held a grudge and always had him on. He said he'll be eternally grateful for that. Howard said Jay was number one in the late night ratings but he always felt that Jay was copying or trying to be Dave like. Howard said that's something that he always felt in the back of his mind. Vinnie told Howard that Dave was into Howard's show before he even had his late night show. He said Dave had an office at NBC after his morning show ended. He said he and Dave and many others listened to Howard's show and they were into it. He said that Dave discovered his talents before the late night show. Howard said he got sucked in when he heard the retirement announcement. Howard said he thought about how he should leave too. Vinnie asked what he would do if he was in the situation. Howard said he wouldn't let it happen. Howard said he thinks that the whole business has gotten to Dave and he's just done with it. Vinnie said it's been brutal to see the other shows come in. He said he loves those guys but it's their job to come in and beat them. Howard said he thinks that he could handle it from Leno but not from the younger guys. Howard said Dave doesn't want to see it happen. Howard said he'll be sad to see Dave go. Howard said he would think that Dave will go out number one. Howard said with all of the goodbye he's going to be number one. Vinnie said they won the night he made his announcement. Howard asked Vinnie who he would like to see replace Letterman. Vinnie said that's a loaded question. Robin said it must have been on their minds. Vinnie said Howard's name came up. Howard said he can't take over. He said he has a great deal on radio. He said his plate is pretty full. He said he's doing AGT and the radio show. He said he has no time for a late night show. Howard said he'd have to reinvent the wheel doing a show like that. Howard said there are a lot of guys to take over that slot. Howard said he likes this guy Greg Gutfeld. He said he thinks he'd be a good replacement. Vinnie said no one can do what Dave has done though. Howard said he was thinking about Joel McHale and even Jimmy Kimmel. Howard said he thinks Jimmy should be on ABC and CBS at the same time. Howard said he never talks to Jimmy about being happy at ABC. Howard said maybe they can steal him away. Howard said Craig Ferguson has a great deal either way. He gets money even if they don't offer him the job. Howard said he's sitting in the cat bird seat. Howard said he would like to see someone different in that slot. He said that they have to have something different. Howard said maybe Oscar Pistorius. Howard said he can walk on those metal legs and he just murdered someone. Vinnie said he'll write that down. Howard said that's contingent on him getting off. Howard asked Vinnie if he has any names. Vinnie said he really doesn't. Howard threw Fred Norris' name into it. Vinnie said that no one has been like Dave doing what he has done. He said his interviews are beyond what anyone else does. Robin said he hasn't always been like that. Howard said he thinks that the ratings thing has broken his heart. Vinnie said Dave got so many awards and now he's going to see more press than he's ever seen. Vinnie said that the well wishes are coming from so many people on Twitter. He said that the question is if they're going to do Fallon or Dave for the next year. Howard said CBS should hire anyone named Jimmy. He said that's what they should do. Howard asked if they would steal Jackie's Joke Hunt and put it on there. Howard did an impression of Jackie and Robin said that Jackie didn't think of that until now. Howard said poor Evil Dave won't have anything to do. Howard said they'll have to get an Evil Craig Ferguson or something. Robin said she thinks Howard should go on the show now and at the end. Howard said he thinks he should just go on toward the end. Vinnie said he thinks that's the way they should do it too. Howard said he would put Tan Mom on. He said that he thinks Dave will have Bill Murray on the last show. Howard said they have a wonderful show coming up very soon. He said on Monday, April 28th they will do a show later in the day. He said they're going to do a Billy Joel Town Hall hosted by him. He said they're going to have special guests on the show and they're going to have guests singing with Billy and Billy will be on the piano. Howard said they're going to do this in another studio. He said that some guests will be musicians and some wont. Robin said that means Howard will be performing. Howard said that they'll have some fans in the studio too. Howard said that they have contacted some very famous people to sing Billy Joel songs. Vinnie said that sounds great. Howard said you can go to SiriusXM.com/Howard to find out how to enter to get into the event. Howard said that should be a lot of fun. Howard thanked Vinnie for calling in. Vinnie thanked him for all of the support. Howard asked how Vinnie is going to handle it. Vinnie said he's too emotional to even discuss it. Howard let him go after that. Howard said Carol Leifer is coming in. He said that she wrote a book. Howard said that she's very quietly running show business. Howard said Dan Rather is also coming in today to talk to him. He said he couldn't be more thrilled about that. Howard said Dan replaced Walter Cronkite. Howard said that guy has been through it all. Robin said he and David Letterman had a famous moment together after 9/11. Howard said they did. He went to break a short time later. Howard came back and said he had to run to the bathroom. He said that Carol Leifer is there. He said she has a new book called ''How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying''. Howard said she lost a lot of weight. He said she's all svelte. Carol said she lost 15 pounds on Weight Watchers. Howard said that's old school. Carol said it really works. Howard said he had a friend who was on it but they didn't give him enough food so he ordered double portions. Carol said you eat whatever you want but you have a point system. Howard said he ate a bunch of steamed food last night but it was a ton of it. Howard said he's so happy because it's a lot of food. Howard said he has like 2 grapefruits every day. He said he also has a GNC shake. Carol said she has to try that. She said that you can eat any fruit or vegetable you want and it doesn't count toward the points. Howard said you just have to keep your intake under control. He said that's the key. Howard said Carol is very busy behind the scenes in show businesses. Howard said Carol was one of the writers who worked for Seinfeld. Howard said she wrote a lot of those episodes. Howard asked if she writes a script on spec or how did that work. Carol said they didn't want anyone who worked on Sitcoms before. She said they wanted new people. Howard said she had been a stand up for years. Howard said she also wrote on Saturday Night Live. Howard asked if she was ever on camera there. She said she was just a writer. Carol said she auditioned to be on camera. She said that Al Franken was there and so was Jim Downey. She said they liked her but they offered her the writer gig instead. Howard asked if that was a disappointment to her when she writes a great Seinfeld or something and then doesn't get to be in it. Carol said it doesn't. Howard said it would kill him. Howard said Carol has written some of the biggest Seinfeld episodes of all time. Howard said she came up with the shrinkage episode. Carol said that she would come up with a general idea and then Larry David would say that was a show and they'd go with that. Howard said he thinks that it's the hardest job on the planet. Howard asked how many other writers there were. She said there were about 10. Carol said that she had an office to work in. She said that was the most fun part of it. She said that you're hanging out with funny writers all day. Howard asked if they help her write the episode. Carol said she came up with the lip reader episode. Howard asked how that whole process works. Carol said she came up with the idea for the episode where the shrinkage thing happens but Larry came up with that part of it. She said the brilliance that ends up on TV is filtered out by Larry and Jerry. She said she talks about this stuff in her book. She said they always made her stuff better. Howard asked if she ever asked why they took something out. Carol said she did not. She said that they knew what they were doing and you don't want to ask that. Howard asked if she still watches those shows and thinks about how she came up with the ideas. She said she absolutely does. Howard asked if she ever wants to tell people she came up with the ideas. She said that the credit is there in the credits of the show. Howard asked if it's a big payday for her. Carol said that she gets residuals. She said that Jerry and Larry have the fuck you money but she has some residuals. Howard said she has the money where she still has to go out and write a book to make money. Howard said he has some of the episodes she wrote for Seinfeld. Howard said she wrote the lip reader episode. Carol also came up with the part where Elaine played deaf in the taxi. She said that came out of her own real life. Howard read about some of the other episodes she wrote and she wrote one about Elaine going to a nail salon and thinking that the people there speaking Korean were talking about her. That happened to Carol and she used it in the script. Howard asked how you give that over to the Seinfeld show and not keep it for yourself. Carol said that situation was a very good sitcom idea and not really a stand up idea. She said that this all works together with Jerry and Larry's ideas too. Howard asked how long it takes to do something like that. Carol said it can take a couple of weeks. Howard said he thinks that idea was brilliant for a show. Carol said she still gets free manicures from the shop they used a shot of the exterior of. She said that's how thrilled the woman was. Carol said that they had a part for someone on the show and they wanted to get Liza Minelli to do it. She said they were on the cusp of being a big hit but they had a hard time getting people on the show. Carol said that they had Marjorie Gross writing for the show and she wrote some great episodes. Howard talked to Carol about another episode where they had a skinny mirror in the episode. Howard said he has a mirror at home where he looks like a monster. He said when he's at the gym he looks great. He said he sent a lighting guy to the gym to figure out how good he looks. Howard said he looks good in that gym mirror and the guy told him it's very dark there. Carol said that's a Seinfeld episode. Howard said she already wrote it though. Howard took a call from Ralph who asked if she had to write all of the story lines that go on in an episode. She said that Jerry and Larry would add so much stuff into the episodes. She said that's how it became the pyramid of comedy that it was. Howard said he talked to Jerry about doing another sitcom and Jerry asked why he would do that and try to top that thing. Carol said they shot the Marble Rye episode and that's the one where Kramer gave the horse some ''Beefarino'' and this prop guy gave her the can of that stuff. She said the movers took the can and threw it out thinking it was an empty can. She said she really fucked up. Carol said another story line in that episode was Elaine having so much oral with a saxophone player that he loses his lip. Howard asked if she's ever had that happen to her. Carol said she has not. She said that she thought about her friend who plays Sax and how that could happen to him. Howard asked if she's ever been embarrassed to pitch something. Carol said the greats that you work for encourage an environment to just offer it up. Howard asked if she's ever been ridiculed for something. Howard said he wants the guys to go wild in the writing meetings. Howard said that they can always fix something. Howard said that they will throw something out and they'll goof on them. He said that you can't do that though. He said you have to be safe. Carol said everyone has shit ideas. She said that it's okay. Carol said that Larry had a tick where he's move his shoulder around and say ''no'' to you. She said that when he liked something he'd leap out of his seat and say ''That's a show!'' Carol said it's great to write something and give it to the actors who elevate it 1000 percent. She said that the lip reader thing was great because Michael Richards made that ball boy thing great. Howard said he loved him on that show Fridays. Carol said he was always working on his stuff and choreographing what he did. She said he wasn't just winging it. She said he put a lot of thought and effort into it. Howard said it's pretty cool that she was part of that whole thing. Howard asked if her phone was ringing off the hook after that. Carol said it was. She said she went to Larry Sanders after that. Howard asked how many episodes she wrote there. She said that she probably had one or two in that one season she was there. Howard said he loved that show. Howard asked if that was a totally different experience. Carol said it was. She said it was amazing working with Gary Shandling and the writers there. She said that working with a group is way better than just doing it on your own. Carol said she's been doing this stuff for 37 years. She said she started stand up in 1977. Howard said she auditioned for Johnny Carson 22 times and he never put her on. Carol said that's right. Howard asked how she auditioned. Carol said they had a guy come out to see her do her act at a club. She said it was Jim McCauley who came out. Carol said that Letterman actually suggested her for the Tonight Show. She said that they passed on her first tape. She said they just weren't interested. Howard asked if that's devastating to her. Carol said Letterman got his show and she went on his show. She said that he gave her an open door policy. She said that she did stand up 26 times on that NBC show. Howard asked when he stopped using her. Carol said she got into her writing career. She said she was writing for Seinfeld and then he went to CBS. Carol said she was on with Dave for her last book. Howard said it's weird when you get cut out. Carol said she wasn't doing stand up so it was fine. She said she got a blurb for her book from that. Howard asked if the blurbs on the book help. Carol said it really does. Howard said he hates writing those things and he doesn't want to be on them. Carol said she knows that and what he went through with Greg Fitzsimmons. Carol said that she asked Steve Martin, Jimmy Kimmel and JJ Abrams to write blurbs for her book. She said they all did it. Howard asked how she asks them to do it. Carol said she says she'd love it but she would understand if they didn't want to. Carol said no one said no to her. Howard said he would have. He said that could have been a good story for her book. Howard asked how she got Letterman to write the blurb. Carol said she had to send an email to one of her friends there. She said that he passed it along to Dave and Dave passed it along and so on. She also said that she got blurbs from Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock. She said she had to cut Jerry's down. She said that she got one from Mark Cuban too. Howard asked if Carol thinks she should be rich from writing so many shows. She said she likes working so that's okay. She said she should be rich though. Howard said Carol is buddies with Jay Leno. Carol said that Jay is a very nice guy. She said he believes in the rule of 10. Howard asked what that rule is. Carol said Jay is very nice to other people. She said Jay thinks that if you take a picture with him then that person will go and tell 10 people that he was nice to them. Howard said Jay just isn't nice to other celebrities. Carol said that's Howard's point of view. Howard asked Carol about writing for the Academy Awards. She said she has written for Billy Crystal, David Letterman and Alec Baldwin. She said she wrote for Chris Rock and Ellen one time. Howard said last time she was on she was talking about being the creator of Ellen's sitcom. Howard said he thought that she was close to Ellen but he heard that she won't return her calls. Carol said she saw Ellen at the Kimmel party for Howard. Carol said she doesn't think people know how crazy booking a show is. She said The View asked her to come on and she would love to do that. She said the Andy Cohen show got in touch with her too. She said the other shows she would like to do say that you can't do The View and do other shows. She said they block you if you do certain shows. She said she did Watch What Happens Live and now she can't do Kimmel. She said that's so not a conflict. Howard asked what's going on with that. Carol said that's what they told her publicist. She said she has no idea why that is. Howard asked Carol why she thinks Saturday Night Live wasn't a better experience for her. Carol said that it was the year that Lorne Michaels came back. She said they had a very eclectic cast that year and it was weird. She said that she was hired by Al Franken and Jim Downey. She said while she was working there she was always pleasing them. She said she never felt that Lorne took to her. She said she would do things differently now. She said she pulled back and flew under his radar instead. She said that she wouldn't do that now. She said you can't please the number 2s, you please your boss. Howard said that sometimes the loudest noise gets the most notice. Howard said Carol talks about Sal in her book and how he ended up getting hired there. Carol said that if someone told her years ago that Sal the Stockbroker was going to wind up one of the writers there you'd be floored. She said you have to be relentless though. Howard asked if there is a photo of Sal's foreskin in there. Carol said there is not. She said she wasn't able to make that happen. Howard said carol's book ''How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying'' is coming out tomorrow and she'll be signing copies at the Barnes and Noble on 78th and Lexington. Carol said she's also writing for the show ''Devious Maids'' which is premiering on April 20th on Lifetime. Carol said that's a fun show. Carol said that she's also got a big announcement to make. Carol said that she and Lori have been together for 17 years. She said she loves her dearly. She said that she hates calling her ''partner'' so now she can say that she is her fiancee. Howard asked if they're going to have a fabulous wedding. Carol said she would like a big wedding at the Bel Air hotel but Lori may not. Howard asked if she will invite Ellen. Carol said she's not sure about that. She said that's possible. Carol said they wanted to the wedding when their son is old enough to remember. He's 8 now. Carol asked if they should get married on the Stern show. Howard told her to have a real one and not ruin it. Howard congratulated her on that. Howard said Carol and Lori are a great couple. Howard wished her a lot of luck. Howard gave her some more plugs. Howard said she's always great on the Celebrity Superfan roundtable. Carol said that there should be one next month according to Gary. Gary said they want to do one around the Memorial Day weekend. Carol said she's completely dedicated to the pussy now. Howard said she did date Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Reiser though. She said she knows King of All Blacks won't be happy about that. Howard said that he wishes her luck with her book. He gave her another plug and said they have Dan Rather coming in. Robin said that Dan has been on the show before. Gary said he doesn't remember that. He said he may have been on the phone. Carol said she's also there representing the Stern Facebook Superfans. Howard said she should be ashamed of herself for that. Howard wrapped up and went to break a short time later. Howard came back and said that Dan Rather was the anchorman for CBS for like 100 years. Howard said he has seen it all. Howard said this is the guy he watched on the news for so many years. Dan said it's weird to be there in person. He said Howard has some set up there. Howard said he can't believe it. Howard said that it's very weird seeing a guy you grew up watching on TV. Howard asked what it's like when he meets young people who have no idea. Dan said it doesn't bother him. He said they don't know, don't care nor should they. Howard said he started doing AGT and he likes that the younger generation knows who he is. He said he's being exposed to a new audience. Howard said that Dan is still a performer. He asked if he checked the ratings all the time. Dan said the boss always did. He said they checked the ratings and the demographics. He said he didn't have to ask about it either. He said they told him about it. Dan said in the day they got the ratings on Tuesday and whoever was the head of the news division was talking about where they were. Dan said it was part of the reality for any anchor person. Howard said when he worked at the radio stations they were constantly checking. Howard said that he had the feeling that they were looking at him like he was disappointing them. Dan said he knows that look. He said he was at CBS News and it was like being in the locker room of the NY Yankees. He said that one period they won for 220 weeks in a row. He said they fell off by 1/10th of a point and he knows that look Howard was talking about. Howard said it's just one little glitch and you feel you have to explain it to everyone. Howard asked Dan if the ratings thing affects the way he's doing the news. Howard said you have to go with the ratings and it must affect the news. Dan said he hates to say it but it does. He said at the time of the OJ Simpson trial they were leading off with that story every night. He said they had to do it or they'd get killed in the ratings. He said that they had to cover the Jerry Condit case and things like that. Dan said if you don't lead with that every night you're going to get killed. He said they'd come in with the ratings every Tuesday and point that out. Howard said he thinks it goes all the way back to Watergate. Howard said he feels like the network news guys can't get into a thing like that. Howard said they can't get access if they piss off the office. Howard said that you can't be a leader on a story now. Dan said he thinks he's right. He said that CBS news dug into that story at the time but today he doesn't think that would happen. Dan said it's not that the people there don't care but the news companies are owned by 4 big corporations and they're afraid of the office. Dan said that they're using big government for their benefit. He said that things have changed dramatically in the past 5-10 years. Howard asked Dan how much he hated being all about the makeup and hair instead of the news. Howard said 90 percent of being a news man is being on camera and worrying about that. Dan said he didn't care so much about that. He said that he came in after Walter Cronkite and just succeeded him. He said he did not replace Walter. Dan said he thinks if he had more voice coaching he could have done better. Dan said that in the end the audience has to think you're authentic. Howard said he thinks that the audience did think he was authentic. Hard said Dan walked off the news one day when tennis was running long. Howard asked if he felt he should have calmed down. Dan said he does think that now. He said he did care about the news and he still cares. Dan said if he had to he'd go door to door telling people the news. Dan said looking back on it he should have swallowed hard and just gulped and smiled and took it. Howard said he knows that feeling. He said he has gotten angry but he cared. He said he cared about everything. Howard said Dan took over for Walter Cronkite and he thinks that had to be hard. Howard said that he had a lot of credibility and there must not be a lot of people who wanted to do that. Howard said he must have worried that he'd want to kill himself if the ratings went down. Dan said a lot of people warned him not to take it. He said that he was told it wasn't the first guy to take over that would succeed. It was always the second guy. Dan said that it was really tough. Howard said it's insane pressure to take over a number 1 guy's spot. Howard asked if Walter Cronkite was a mean guy. Dan said you'll never hear him say anything bad about Walter. He said Walter did regret retiring when he did. He said that he didn't like how the money went up when he came in. Howard said it would have made Dan's life easier if Walter hadn't gotten upset with him. He said that it would have been a loving thing to tell him to call whenever he needed something. Dan said that when you're the face of the network you have your ego fueled every day. He said Walter did bless his taking over for him. He said that he didn't think they'd be as successful as they were. He said that his ratings stayed up and he doesn't think Walter expected that. Dan said that he thinks Walter got upset as he saw how things were going and then regretted leaving when he did. Howard said the other thing was when Cronkite retired his voice was shot. He said he had to clear his throat all the time toward the end. He said it was over for him. He said he doesn't like the way he treated Dan. Howard said Dan had earned his place there. Howard said Walter could have been a better mentor. Dan said he can't argue with that. He said he has no complaints though. He said Walter told him he wanted to leave and he wanted to leave on top. Dan said Walter said he couldn't wait to go. He said after 6 weeks or so of sailing he wondered what he had done to himself. Howard said you don't know what retirement is like until it happens. Howard said it's pretty crazy stuff. Howard said Dan has put himself in a lot of dangerous places. Howard said he went to Viet Nam and he wonders what his wife thought of that. Howard said he had two young children at the time. Dan said that his wife did ask him to think about it. Dan said when Jean married him she was in totally. Howard asked how old he was when he married. Dan said he was 25 and Jean was 22. Dan said he fell in love instantly. He said you look at her and you see that pick up trucks don't just look at her, they back up to look at her. Howard asked Dan if women were throwing themselves at him. He said the temptations must have been many. Dan said that is true. He said that he isn't going to talk about that in depth this morning. Howard said he is a family man. He said he's asking how you stay focused on a marriage when you're in that position. Dan said at that level the temptations are everywhere. He said you keep yourself centered. He said you think about your wife staying with you when you were in Viet Nam. Dan said he had two kids too. He said the temptations are great and they shouldn't be. He said you begin to think that you're great and you're invincible and invisible. He said the higher you go the greater you are. Dan said that he went to Afghanistan and his wife and daughter asked him not to go. He said that he told them there is no guarantee in life about coming back or not. Dan said that he felt he had to go and he thought he could get in and get out. Dan said he needed and wanted to do that. Howard asked Dan if something had to give in his life and if he was the best father he could be. Dan said no. He said that he has no regrets in life but he could have been a better father. He said that his wife might disagree though. He said he was home only 31 days a year when he was covering the civil rights movement. Howard said that's what a guy has to do sometimes. Dan said that was his experience. Howard asked Dan what the most dangerous moments were in his career. Howard said he remembers Dan being at a Democratic National Convention during the Viet Nam time and he was on the floor and he ended up in a fist fight with a security guard. Howard said that he kept going with the reporting too. Dan said that was in 1968 and it was a crazy time and place. He said that they wanted control of the convention inside and outside. He said they had a tough time with that. Dan said they told delegates to move only when they were told to move. Dan said a delegate was being moved out the hall by people in civilian clothes. Dan said he saw that guy moving and he attempted to ask a question. He said security tried to push him aside. He said he got hit in the solar plexus and he was almost knocked out. He said that's what was going on at that time. Howard asked if he knew great TV was going on. Dan said that never entered his head. Dan said if you're any good as a reporter nothing matters other than the story. He said you're not thinking about TV. He said you only think about the story. Howard asked if he was getting calls and being told he just made great TV. Dan said they were stunned at what had just happened. Dan said it took a while for his head to clear over that and realize what went on. Howard said he wanted to ask Dan about this Klan guy sticking a gun to his head and threatening him not to cover a story. Howard asked what the guy said to him when he put the gun to his head. Dan said the quote was ''I'm gonna fucking kill you.'' Howard said he must have been scared. Dan said he was. Howard asked if it was more dangerous working in this country or over seas. Dan said it was as dangerous here. Dan said there is no denying it that it was dangerous. He said he thought that guy might shoot him. Howard asked if it went through his head that he could die. Dan said that your life does flash before your eyes. Howard asked Dan if he thinks that news guys these days are just trained actors. Dan said that it can be like that. Dan said he loves doing what he does. He said he thinks that the audience recognizes it if you are really into the news. He said the people who hire anchor people don't believe that. Howard said he thinks that Dan is the last of a dying breed. Robin said they get their news from services instead of getting the news on their own these days. Howard said Dan covered Martin Luther King Jr. and got to sit with him. Howard said now they have a black president. Howard asked if he thinks Martin would have believed that. Dan said he doesn't think that King thought it would happen in his lifetime or in his kid's lifetime. Dan said he remembers a conversation with King where he said he didn't think a black governor would ever be elected in Georgia. Dan said he doesn't think he ever would have imagined this. Howard asked if King thought that he was in danger. Dan said he does thinks he knew and he walked on the edge all the time. Howard asked Dan if he ever saw King speak. Dan said he did. Howard said he wasn't all that radical. Robin said he was at one time but he mellowed out as he got to know things. Howard said Dan was covering President Kennedy when he was shot and Dan went on the air and said he was dead before anyone else did. Dan said they had a lot of people saying he was dead and he had no doubt in his mind that he was dead. Dan said when he was on CBS he said he was dead and he didn't mean for them to play the Star Spangled Banner and say he was dead. Dan said that was a career changer for him. He said that's when the country got to know him. Howard said that's some break. He said he was there on the scene and he had paid his dues. Howard said he was in the right place at the right time. Robin said he was just doing his job and following a trajectory. Howard said Dan believes in the one bullet theory. Dan said he does. He said he thinks it was one gun, one shooter. He said that he thinks that Lee Harvey Oswald could have been put up to it. Dan said there is no conclusive evidence showing that it was anyone else. He said he would be surprised if someone came forward with evidence. Howard said there was a Kennedy assassination anniversary and they had no mention of Dan Rather on CBS. Howard said he had a falling out with them and that must feel weird. Dan said that CBS news is an institution there. He said changing history is a different thing. He said that's what they're doing there. He said that they're a news organization and that's not a good thing. He said he had 34 good years there. Howard asked if there is an edict there saying keep Dan's name off the air. Dan said he thinks there is something like that going on there. He said that he can't say he's not disappointed. Dan said that he still has the CBS Eye tattooed on his ass. He said he loves the tradition of all of that. He said he's not happy that they airbrush him out of things. He said they'll eventually come around. Howard said it doesn't look good because you might think that if they're willing to do this to Dan they might do it for the government or something. Howard said they have to mention Dan or they'll be discredited. Howard said that Dan's father died when he was just 52 years old. Howard asked if he's upset that he didn't get to see his great success. Dan said yes. He said that he lost his father when he was about 30. He said he thinks that he would have made less mistakes if his father was around. He said when he was hired at CBS News his dad was very happy. He said he was making more than his father ever made in his life so he was very happy for him. Dan said he has made a lot of mistakes and he would have made fewer if his father was around. Howard asked what kind of mistakes he's made. Dan said the biggest mistake was not leaving the anchor chair earlier than he did at CBS. He said he loved doing it but he should have left earlier. Dan said he thinks his father may have told him to stay in Viet Nam less time than he was there. Howard asked if that was the worst time of his life. Dan said it was horrible there. He said it was real mud and real blood. Dan said it was a scary place. Howard asked if seeing a kid get his head blown off ever leaves you. Dan said no. He said it's must worst to fight the war than just see it. Dan said it's like having a video tape in your head and it plays over and over again. He said when he came out of Viet Nam he had those in his head for years. He said that the guys over there fighting are coming home and having those same type of things going on. He said it's very had to get them out of your head. Howard said he must have been wondering what the hell they were doing over there. Howard said he had to be driven insane. Dan said the thing that really hurt was that they were walking the ground and seeing what was happening. He said that what Washington was saying was so wrong. He said that in public they were saying they had to fight this war. He said to see what the reality was and what was being said to convince people to stay behind it would make anyone mad. Howard asked Dan where he grew up. Dan said it was in Texas. Howard asked if he was in a mud hole. Dan said he was in a transition neighborhood. Howard said he almost died when he was young. Dan said he had Rheumatic Fever. He said that it could have killed him. He said he had a very bad heart ailment because of that. Dan said he joined the marines and he got kicked out because of that. Howard asked how they found out he had it. Dan said it came back on him while he was in boot camp. Dan said he lied to get in and didn't lie to the doctor. Howard said maybe that saved his life. Dan said it may have. He said he was bedridden for months on end and he heard some great radio broadcasts while he was in bed. He said Edward R. Murrow was a great announcer and he thinks that he was part of the reason for him getting into the business. Dan said he thinks one of the reasons he got the job to replace Walter was because he was a good ad-libber. Howard asked if he ever got his ass beat. Dan said when he was growing up that was a regular thing in his neighborhood. Howard said he is so filled with fear he can't do anything. He said that he figured that Dan would be the same way. Dan said no man is fearless. Howard said he's scared to just go to New Jersey. Dan said that you have the fear but you take a deep breath and just do it. He said you have to do your job and you go to Viet Nam if you think you have to go. Dan said that's why he went. He said he was scared but he had to report on this story. Howard asked Dan if he did anything like write a will for his family or record something for them. Dan said he didn't think of that back then. He said making personal videos wasn't a regular thing back then. Howard said Dan is doing some interviews on AXS TV. Howard said he is also doing Dan Rather Presents on AXS TV in May. Howard asked if he misses the big networks when he's doing a show on AXS. Dan said he does miss that big action. He said no story is worth a damn unless you can get it out. Dan said he wishes he was still doing the network stuff but Mark Cuban has been great to him. He said Mark said he'd give him complete control over the show and no one gets that. Howard said he was talking to Anderson Cooper about that. He said he wants to shed light on things since no one is doing that anymore. Dan said he thinks Anderson is a throwback. He said he likes to go where the action is. He said he's the real deal. Howard said he bets there aren't many like that. Dan said Scott Pelly is one he admires tremendously. Howard asked if he understands the way things work these days. Dan said he does. He said he's 82 years old but he tries to stay relevant. He said he knows things are going to change. He said what bothers him is when they stick 4 people in a room to yell at each other about Afghanistan instead of sending someone over there. Dan said it's less expensive and it doesn't get controversial. Howard asked if he's glad he came up when he did. Dan said he does. Robin asked what he thinks of the impact of the 24 hour news cycle. Dan said that has contributed to the corporateization of the news. Howard said it's a whole different era. Dan said that it really is. Dan said that the decision makers don't have time to do anything. Howard said there is way too much coverage of the Malaysian airlines thing. He said they have no news on it but they're making stuff up and spending 24 hours a day on it. Howard asked Dan if he started reading when he was in bed with that Rheumatic Fever. Dan said when he was bed ridden for the better part of 3 years he did a few things. He said he was acutely aware of the fragility of life. He said that you have to just go for it and think about where that north star of your life is. He said you go for that goal. Dan said that the radio was his companion and they broadened him about the world. He said that those reporters were really smart and they were well read. He said they used the right grammar and all of that. Dan said that proper grammar was not that common in his neighborhood. Howard said a lot of kids at that age don't know that. Dan said he was so joyous when he was finally able to get out of bed. He said his father made a decision and sent him to work in the oil business. He said he cut brush for an oil crew. Dan said that made him. He said that they were cutting brush from 5am until after sunset. Dan said his father told him to take that risk. Howard said that's a great thing. Dan said he was 14 at the time. He said that's not everyone's idea of a job for a 14 year old but it worked for him. Dan said it was a critical thing for him. Robin asked where he lived. Dan said they lived in hotels in different areas. Howard said Dan is 82 now and asked if he still feels young inside. Dan said he has to pinch himself. He said he loves what he does and this is his life. He said he doesn't feel old. Howard asked if he has any hobbies. Dan said he likes to fish and walk the woods. He said he does fly fishing. Howard asked if he goes by himself. Dan said that he loves to go by himself but at his age it's not the best thing to go alone. He said he has to go with his son or grandsons. He said that's a great way to bond too. Howard asked if he eats the fish. Dan said most of it is catch and release. He said he does eat them at times. Howard said he used to fish but then he felt bad for the fish. Howard said he went fishing with Jimmy Kimmel. Howard said he's too soft to fish even. Dan told him to try salt water fishing. Howard said he'll end up getting pulled in and eaten by something. Howard said he's 60 and he has a hard time peeing. Dan said it just gets wrote. Howard asked where he is with peeing now. Howard said he has to put tissues in his pants now. Dan said that getting up 3 or 4 times a night is in his future. Howard said he is almost there. He said he wants to know what's going to happen. Dan said the alternative is worse. Howard asked if he feels that he's going to meet a personal god. Dan said he does. Dan said he wants to keep smiling, keep fighting and keep going. Dan said he knows he's going to be dead for a long time. Howard said you can bet Walter Cronkite is up there bad mouthing him. Howard asked Dan who his favorite Kardashian is. Dan said he doesn't know any of them. Howard said he's very happy to hear that. Howard asked if he was a music fan. Dan said he grew up on country music. He said he has never played an instrument and he can't sing. He said that he has learned to like classical music. He said most of what he likes is Hank Williams. He said his mom tried to get him to play the bassoon but he couldn't play that. He said his mother gave up on that. Howard asked if Dan tweets. Dan said he does that and does Facebook too. Howard asked who this David Simon is. Dan said he's the one who wrote The Wire. Howard said Dan is doing the interview with David this week on AXS. Howard said he's interviewing Dolly Parton soon too. Dan said he should have her in there. Howard said he would love that but they upset her with some tape they edited using her audio book. Dan said they did a shoot with Dolly Parton once. He said their audio engineer couldn't take his eyes off her. He said Dolly told the kid to come to her trailer and she'd show them to him to get him to concentrate. Howard said she has held up pretty well. Dan said she's not as pretty as Robin but she's held up. Howard said no one is as pretty as Robin. Howard gave Dan some more plugs and wrapped up with Dan. Dan is also going to be scuba diving looking for the Malaysian plane. Howard went to break a short time later. Howard said he used to sit and eat dinner with his mom and they'd watch the news seeing these guys getting their heads blown off. The caller asked if Howard thinks Sour Shoes could do a late night show. Howard said he would watch. He said his parents would be thrilled too. Robin said maybe it could be the Hanzi and Sour Shoes hour. Howard said he thinks the guy who will replace Letterman will be Michael Strahan. Howard said he's already on Kelly and Michael and Good Morning America so why not another show? Howard said he's the man for the job. Robin said they're acting as if it can only be a man. Howard said they should dig up Johnny Carson and have a corpse on the show. Howard said that's what Craig Ferguson seems to have on his show but they call that skeleton ''Geoff'' instead. Robin said the list she has to replace Letterman includes Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart... Howard said they say that Colbert is playing a character so he couldn't do it. Howard said Jon Stewart is making like 25 million doing that half hour show and he has absolute freedom to do it. Robin said she heard a story about someone who drove Jon Stewart and he asked to get out of the car before he got to work. Robin said it was right where this huge billboard of him was at. Howard said Jon doesn't do their show anymore so he can't ask him about that. Howard played a clip where some news reporter was talking about who people were voting about who should replace Letterman. Howard had some write in votes. Howard said his name always comes up but there's no reaction from these people. He said as soon as an anchorman hears his name they don't know what to do. Howard said they seem to be bubble heads. Howard said they think that because they're on TV they should be able to do the same thing he does by talking on radio Howard played another clip of a news guy saying that someone wrote on their Facebook page that Howard Stern should get the job. The news guy said that's crazy but you never know what could happen. Howard said he has a clip from Mediaite.com. In that clip the guy was talking about possible replacements for Dave and he suggested they hire Howard Stern. The woman with the guy sounded shocked. Howard said her head literally blew up and they had to have a guy come in and clean up the mess. Robin said you have to love it after all this time. Robin said it used to be old people being shocked. Now it's younger people. Howard played more of the clip and this guy was really pushing for Howard. He was talking about how great he is an interviewer. He said he's the best in the business now. Howard said there has been a lot of discussion. He played a clip from Fox News' ''Red Eye'' show where a woman on that show threw Howard's name out for replacing Dave. Howard said he's a fan of that show. He said they had an intelligent discussion about that. Robin said someone threw John Oliver's name out there. Robin said that he did a great job guest hosting the Daily Show. Robin said he has a talk show coming out on HBO soon though. Robin said Ellen Degeneres' name has come up too. Howard said she won't want to bother. Robin said Neil Patrick Harris is another one. Robin said that's not a name off the beaten path. Howard said maybe Jodi Arias. Robin said she thinks she's a little busy. Robin said Chelsea Handler and Jay Leno have been mentioned too. Robin said Conan and Louis C.K. are a couple of other names thrown in there. Howard asked if Robin watched Game of Thrones last night. Robin said she did but there is so much going on that she has to watch it again. Robin said they say HBO Go went down last night because so many people were watching through there. Howard said he hates when the show is on because all of the nerds on the show look more fatigued than usual. Howard did a live commercial read and took another break after that. Howard said Spike Lee was there too. He said he loved his movie Malcolm X but not some of his other movies. He said Spike got up and coached the team from the sidelines. Howard said that's really ballsy to do too. Howard said he didn't know he was so ballsy. Robin said he takes that number 1 fan thing a little far. Howard said he may want to be his assistant coach. He said that he wants to do that with him. Howard said Alec Baldwin was there too. He said Nick Cannon was there shooting something for AGT. They said that he was getting booed off the court. Howard said he didn't even know Nick was there. He said the papers reported he was there getting booed. Howard said maybe the fans didn't like what he was doing. Howard played the clip where Howie Mandel comes in and interrupts the Glenn Frey interview with a Baba Booey. Howard said he was very polite about it. He apologized after interrupting. Howard said that was really funny. He said that's up on their web site now. Howard said he would never do anything like that. He said he was hiding when Howie did it. He said once he realized it went over okay he came out of hiding. Howard had Fred pay Robin in with a song parody. Robin started her news with a story about James Franco who took a picture with a girl after doing his play. He ended up flirting with the girl and she posted his flirts online. Robin said the girl was only 17 years old. Robin said Franco was asking if he should get a room in her hotel. Robin said he has had to issue an apology now. Robin said she has audio of his apology. Howard played the clip and Franco was talking about how embarrassed he was by the whole thing. He said social media is a way to meet people and you never know who's on the other end. James said he used bad judgment and he learned a lesson. He was talking about how this stuff gets published for the world and it's doubly embarrassing. Kelly Ripa said that she thinks what he did by coming out was great. She said she won't publish their messages. Howard said he was watching that show and he didn't know what he had actually done. They never explained it. Howard took a call from King of All Blacks who asked if he did take the late night show would he try to beat Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. Howard said that's what the job is. Howard said he wouldn't like to be in that position though. King asked if he would still go on vacation with Kimmel. Howard said he would hope so. He said his friendship means a lot to him. He said that he has a job though so he's n to looking to take over that one. Howard said he would rather be there on satellite doing what he's doing than being on a network where he can't be himself. Howard said he wishes Jimmy would come over there and do a show so he can be himself on the air. Howard said Jimmy has to be network friendly. Howard said he'd get rid of Jackie's Joke Hunt to put Jimmy on. Howard said he'd actually keep Jackie around. Howard took a call from a guy who said that Letterman repeats his jokes from one night to the next so it's time for him to go. He said he does bits with the audience and the don't let the TV audience in on the joke. He said he's not sure if Dave is to blame or the writers are. Howard said it sounds like Rich has had it with Dave. Howard said he thinks Dave is an innovator and he's just had enough. Howard said Dave has done it forever and it's time to go. Howard said he thinks he's just worn out. Robin read a story about a family who had a 1 year old who was gravely ill on their sailing boat. They had to be rescued because all of the electronics on the boat went down. Robin said they weren't able to save themselves or the child. Robin said this rescue has been going on for days. Robin said they were planning on sailing around the world with their 1 year old and 3 year old. Howard said everyone is up in arms over that. Robin said they say that they've been living like this for 7 years. Howard said you don't do that to kids though. Robin said they should be on land. Howard did a live commercial read after that. Robin read a story about Oscar Pistorius taking the witness stand. Howard said he must be really desperate. Robin had some audio of Oscar on the stand crying and talking about that night. Robin said this is disingenuous to her because he has a new girlfriend already. Howard said he should just be a man and go to jail. Robin said he claims he has trouble sleeping. Howard mentioned that they have an auction going on at CharityBuzz.com where you can get the chance to sit in the studio. Howard said unfortunately you'll have to be in the studio with Benjy. He said that he is the star of Sharknado 2 though. Benjy said that should be out on July 3rd on SyFy. Robin said you have to love Benjy. Howard said you really do. Robin read about how Jeb Bush hasn't decided if he'll run for President in 2016. Robin had some audio of Jeb talking about that. Howard read some email they got about Howie Mandel on the show last week. Howard had some positive words about that. Howard said someone wrote in about how Al Roker and Matt Lauer are shooting scenes for Sharknado 2. Howard asked if Benjy knew that. Benjy said they are now Sharknado brothers. Howard said someone asked what happened to John Mayer coming in. Gary said they're still working on that. He said John is working on finishing an album. Robin read about the shootings at Fort Hood and about a memorial service that will be held for the three men that were killed. Robin had some audio of an official talking about how there are a lot of soldiers who need mental health treatments. Howard did another live commercial read after that. Howard read an email about what they were talking about with Billy Graham's son last week. Howard said the writer had some good points about what Graham's son was saying about homosexuals. Howard said some people like the inappropriate Jackie laughs that they've been playing. Howard said that's always fun to hear. Howard said he's still trying to recover from his long weekend. Robin said Howard is a great judge. Robin said he tells the people what they need to hear. Robin said he told one person that they had a great major in college but no talent. Howard said Robin is the judge of all of the judges. Howard said he got to Madison Square Garden the first day and he goes to his dressing room to relax. The first thing he hears is really loud music. He said they stuck him in a room next to Mel B. He said he likes her but she has a full disco going on in there. Howard said she has her kids and the nanny in there with her hair and makeup people. Howard said it's kind of a fuck you to everyone else there. Howard said he called someone in and said they had a choice. He said he said they get her the fuck away from him or he's leaving now. Fred played some loud dance music and Howard said this is what it sounded like. Howard said Mel didn't bother asking if anyone minded. Howard said it's like these guys who drive around with their music playing loud in their car. Howard said all hell broke loose and they said they found a room for him. Howard said he told them he's not moving. Howard said they found a room on the other side of the building. He said he went to his new room after the first taping and he heard a strange noise in there. He said it sounded like tables and chairs being moved above him. Howard said he figured he was under the stage. He said he couldn't complain again. He said he wanted to be the easy guy. Howard said he figured out that he was below the subway. Howard said they had him under the subway. Howard said he chose the subway over Mel B. Howard said she was exhausted and he said to her that she should relax during her break. Howard said she thinks she has to get pumped up by the music and not sleep. Robin said she had to stand up and start prancing while they were shooting. Howard said the next shoot is going to be in Los Angeles and they'll probably stick him under the runway of the airport. Howard took a call from Ralph who said that he thought Howard was exaggerating about the music but then he heard it. He said it sounded awful. He said it was all tinny and awful sounding. Howard said she must not think about anyone around her. Howard said he doesn't get that mentality. Howard said he asked her to turn the music off and relax but she can't. Howard said if he was her husband he'd tie her up. Ralph said it's bad music too. Howard at one point it was the Back Street Boys. Howard said he asked her if she ever listens to Led Zeppelin or anything like that. Howard said he's really shocked that a Spice Girl likes shitty music. Howard said he really likes working with Mel. He said she's a good sport though. He said she's cool about the jokes about the Spice Girls. Ralph said Mel gets glitter all over you. Howard said he was covered in glitter after hugging her once. Ralph said he can't even get that stuff off of you. He said Howard is very sparkly during the shows in New York. Ralph mentioned the time they went to an AGT taping and Howard had a band right under his window. He said he thought it was a joke. Howard said he had to ask for another room there. He said he was on the side of the street during South By Southwest. Howard said it was insane. Ralph said the music was going all night there. He said that they could hear the music from across the river. Howard said Heidi Klum had a cough the whole weekend. Howard said she was coughing all over him and singing the whole time. Howard said she tries to read and write down questions. He said she's constantly singing and asking him questions. Howard said the word Radioactive was on some equipment there and that got Heidi singing the song ''Radioactive.'' Howard said she had her cough so she was coughing and singing. Howard said he thinks she had whooping cough or something. He said she must have thought he liked it because if he brought it up she'd cough more. Howard said at one point a contestant came out and told Heidi how much she likes her husband Seal. Howard said that was 3 or 4 boyfriends ago. Howard let Ralph go a short time later and did another live commercial read. Robin read a story about how it's time to say goodbye to Mickey Rooney. Howard said they interviewed him once. Robin said he was 93. Howard said he was a huge star when he was a kid. Robin said he was a huge star. Howard said he was a great actor actually. He said he married 8 times and his last wife he was separated from at the end. Robin said he was married to Ava Gardner and she was the Angelina Jolie of her time. Robin said he made 8 movies with Judy Garland. Robin said his career lasted almost a century. Robin said he was working from the time he was a kid and he was in the movies in the silent era. Robin said he was in a movie in 2012 so his career spanned very decade he lived in. Howard said he heard he wasn't rich from all of that and he had to file for bankruptcy at one point. Robin said that he had a great run until he got older. Robin said he was short and one of those guys that everyone loved as a teenager. Robin said when the lean years came he had some problems. Robin said he won a juvenile Oscar. Howard said they need to bring that back. Robin said he played ''Bill'' in the movie of the same name. Howard said he can play that part. He said he might have to remake that movie. Robin read a few more details about Mickey's career. Robin read a story about how they may have detected flight 370 signals. Robin said they think that they could be the black box signals. Robin said they have had a couple of pings that they think could be from the box. Robin had some audio of an official commenting on that story. Howard said they're not going to find that plane. He said it's gone. Robin said they say that they have analyzed the flight path and they think it was trying to avoid radar. Robin read a story about a selfie that was done with the President and a soccer player. Howard said he hates selfies. The shot was used in marketing for Samsung because they sponsor this player. Howard said he thinks it's undignified for him to even be in selfies. He said the President shouldn't be. Robin read a story about Kate Middleton and how her dress was blown up and a picture was posted in the paper. Robin said that the same paper would say what Howard is saying is horrible but they'll post that photo in the paper. Robin said she had lovely legs. Robin said they're on a trip. Gary said the 9 month old gets a personal chef. They have like 13 people just for the kid alone. Howard said he the people in England must hate that. He said they're going broke but they have 13 people taking care of one kid. He said it has to be hard to take. Robin read a story about the Mormons. Robin mentioned they're known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Howard said he knows them as the people who did the Davey and Goliath cartoons when he was growing up. Howard did an impression of what those characters sounded like and talked about that for a minute. Robin read the details of the story about how they're against gay marriage. Robin read a story about Aretha Franklin and Patty LaBelle being part of a concert that's going to be on PBS tonight. Robin said that the Goonies is coming back to the big screen. Robin said director Richard Donner has said they are going to do a sequel to the movie. Howard said he doesn't remember that movie. Robin said Donner is going to try to include as much of the cast as possible. Robin said they're not sure if they'll make cameos or pick up in the kids later lives. Robin read a story about something called a Geep. Robin read that's what they call it when you breed a sheep and a goat. Robin said they say that the farmer who has it remembers seeing them mating and now he has this Geep. Howard asked Benjy what a Geep would sound like. Benjy came up with a mix of a sheep and a goat. Howard laughed. Howard said Benjy fucks a shark in Sharknado and has a Bark which is a mix of Benjy and a Shark. Robin read about how Captain America did 96 million at the box office this weekend. Robin said she saw it and she loved it. Robin said she's getting into Agents of SHIELD too. She said they're tying the movies and TV show together. Robin read about how the new pope has made a big deal out of not spending a lot of money. Robin said that an archbishop moved into a new home that was worth $2.2 million which went against that. Robin said some people were upset about that. Howard said they should get over it. He ended the show a short time later. They were done around 10:45am. Jon said he always wondered why people had it in for Dan. He said what Dan said was that he doesn't care about being the TV guy. He said he's a real reporter. Jon said it was great hearing Howard sit down with Dan Rather. Jon said that there has been a real change on the perception of Howard and what he does. He said that Carol is on then Dan Rather follows her. Carol said she would never think that would happen. She said she never expected Dan to come on the show. Jon said that it's great when people live up to their expectations. Carol asked if he asked Dan the personal questions. Jon said Dan told Howard that he might be crazier than he thinks he is if he asks him those personal questions. Jon congratulated Carol on her big announcement about getting engaged. Carol said she saved that for Howard. She said that she listens to the show every day and she feels that it's part of her family. Carol said she didn't get to tell Howard but she appreciates that he's so vocal about supporting gay marriage and gays. She said that she felt it was the right place to do it. Jon asked Carol about what it's like to be in studio and have Howard directing the interview. Carol said Howard really does direct it. She said that she has to try to plug her book ad the show she's working on. She got in a couple of plugs for those things with Jon too. Jon asked if she realizes how big the whole Seinfeld thing is. Carol said it's iconic and it was amazing to be able to work on it. She said she's not surprised when people want to talk about it. She said that only comes around once in a lifetime. Carol said she hopes she did it enough on air about how the show was Larry and Jerry and the writers were just cogs in those wheels. Jon said he thinks she made that very clear. Jon said she's selling herself short there too. He said he read in the notes how this show was an inspiration for something they did on the show. Carol said she heard Kathy Buckley on the Stern Show and that was an inspiration for the episode where they took the deaf person to the restaurant to read lips. Gary said when he was working there he would be barraged with people who swore they could write for Seinfeld. Gary said that they thought it was really about nothing. Carol said she got that all the time. Then she said a girl from high school told her a story that she thought would be a good idea. She said that story became the foundation for the Marble Rye episode. Jon asked Carol what affect Howard has on Hollywood. He said that it seems like people are proud to talk about how inspirational he was. Carol said she thinks that it's huge. She said that Dan Rather was just on the show. She said she never thought that would happen but the quality of guests is amazing. Gary said Anderson Cooper was just on and he talked about how he started listening to Howard in his car when he was commuting a lot. He said if he could just get everyone to listen to Howard they'd want to come on the show. Carol said when you listen regularly it's a part of your daily loop. She said that you feel sorry about it when you can't listen. Gary said he would like to get Carol, Natalie Maines and Andy Richter to do a trivia game about the show. He said he'd like to see who listens more. They went to break a short time later. Jon said that Carol also brought up the book blurb and how she knew better than to ask Howard for one. Jon asked if she did the right thing not asking. Carol said since she listens to the show she knows not to do that. She said she would totally not go there. Carol said there are things you have to go after and things you really should not pursue. Gary said she made the right decision. Gary said Howard loves her and she made the right decision not asking. He said Howard would have stressed over it so much if she had. Jon said Sal Governale is included in the book. He asked Carol about why she did that. Carol said she called Sal because she wanted to use that story about him getting on the show. She said that she wasn't sure how that happened so she called Sal and asked him for the details. Sal said if a jackass like him can do it then anyone can do it. Jon said that it must have been flattering for Carol to call Sal. Sal said it really was. He said he got his foot in the door by calling Gary. He said that it ended up working out for him in the long run. Gary said Sal said he would do anything he needed to get done to get in there. Carol said that you have to be the same way when you want to write scripts. Carol said her advice is to write a script for a show you like and get in there as a PA or something. She said that if you're entertaining and funny you'll move up the ladder. Jon took a call from a guy who asked if Carol would hire Benjy as a writer based on the controversy with Benjy's work ethic. Carol said that was at least a year ago. Benjy said he hasn't been late in a couple of years. Benjy said it's cool with either way she goes. Carol said that Benjy is doing a great job there and she's not sure why people piled up on him at the last Super Fan Roundtable. She said that he wouldn't be there if he wasn't doing a great job. She said if you're not producing then you'll be gone. Jon said Carol was taking about a safe writing environment and that's pretty much how they operate there. Gary said no one has ever been pulled aside and told not to do something again... other than Sal at times. But that's just for comments he has after they bring up an idea. Benjy said he has a lot of rope to say what he wants. He said that there are some people that throw ideas out there and they're like ''Ehhhhh...'' Gary asked if the writers meetings on 30 Rock seemed real to her. Carol said they did. Gary said he has seen some things that they do in the writer's room and they're pretty wild. Carol said the most fun she has in a writer's room for a show she enjoys working on. She said she has a great time at work if she's in that situation. Carol said that there was a lawsuit a few years back about a writer's room situation but that room has to be a safe room for ideas. Jon said they had to take another break after that. Jon said he was thrilled to have Dan Rather in there today. Leiberman said he was too. He said he looked up to Dan in the news business. Jon said that a lot of people didn't like Dan Rather yet he ended up being very successful. Leiberman said that's the way the business is. He said he went through a lot of things that other people went through rising up through the ranks. Gary said if Dan could have done an interview like he did today then maybe people would have gotten to know him. He said he came across much nicer today than he ever did at the news desk. Leiberman said that's true. He said in the past they had restrictions on them and you never got to like them. Jon asked if Leiberman thinks he'd fit in there at Howard 100 News. Leiberman said that he thinks he'd fit in just fine. He said he'd like to see the dynamic in the news room with him and Lisa G. Gary said hearing Dan talking about going to Viet Nam and seeing those things in his head like a video tape. He said that was really tough to hear. He said that he got to see a lot of things over there. Jon brought up how Dan was talking about taking over for Walter Cronkite and how Walter was upset he gave up the job just weeks after he retired. Gary said Dan was saying that Walter was upset that he gave up the job and the money that they were paying guys after he left. Gary said that he went to Afghanistan and some kid at school told him that his dad was going to die over there. Gary said that's ridiculous. Leiberman said he was covering the war in Iraq when he got married so that was a serious discussion for him. Jon took a call from a guy who said it was nice to have Dan Rather in there and not have Nick Cannon in there every month. Gary said it's nice to mix it up. Jon said Howard has a lot of time to work with his guests. Carol said Howard is amazing at it. She said that you never know where Howard is going to go. She said it's hard to steer it where you want it to go because Howard is so on it. Gary said Dan talked about Rheumatic Fever and about his dad dying and also about having to get up to pee 4-5 times a night. He said they got it all. Jon said they also talked about David Letterman retiring and all of the names that are being thrown around to replace him. Jon said that Howard's name is thrown in there too. Jon wondered if he would take that job. Gary said he doesn't know. He said Howard works really hard but that's a full time job over there. He said it's almost a no won situation. He said you'd rather be the guy who replaces the guy who replaces Letterman. He said taking over for Dave is going to be tough. Jon said Howard said he would have to blow up the format and change it up. Jon asked Jon Leiberman what he has in the news. Leiberman ran down a few story headlines that they have coming up in the Howard 100 News today. He also got in a plug for Leiberman Live which is on at 4:45 this afternoon. Carol also got in a plug for her book ''How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying'' and the rest of the guys threw in their plugs as they were wrapping up. They ended the show around 11:30am. Howard started the show talking about how sad he is for Bob Geldof. Howard said his 25 year old daughter died. Howard said a lot of people don't remember who Bob is. He said there was a famine relief that he started and he had a hit song with that fund raiser. He said he was also in the band Boomtown Rats and they had a hit song called ''I don't Like Mondays.'' Howard said Bob used to come on the show all the time. He said when he was a young man he'd come on and one day he said he had a baby and her name was Fifi Trixabelle or something like that. Howard said he then had a baby named Peaches. Howard said Bob stopped coming in and went off and did his thing. Howard said Bob's daughter Peaches is dead at 25. Howard said some people are saying drugs and some are saying suicide. Howard said bob released a statement and he felt so bad for the guy. Howard said he remembers reading that the woman he had the kids with had sex with the guy from INXS and she had a kid with him. Howard said Bob ended up adopting that kid. Robin said the wife died too from something. Howard said Peaches Geldof is the greatest name ever after Fifi Trixabelle. He said he felt so bad for Bob when he heard that story. He said he has another kid that's just 18 months old too. Howard said he heard that Peaches was getting over some tough stuff and she was going to concentrate on her kid. Robin said even just days before someone dies they post stuff on Twitter and Facebook. Robin said Peaches had posted some pictures recently of herself with her child and a picture of herself when she was a child with her mother. Howard said you never know what can happen. Howard said he was thinking about Bob Geldof and mentioned him to a few people and they had no idea who he was. Gary said Jason just asked who he was. Howard said he played some people one of Bob's hit song ''I Don't Like Mondays'' and they still have no idea who he was. Howard said the worst thing to happen is for one of your kids to die before you do. Robin said that Bob made a statement about how she was more bonkers than any of them. Howard said he thinks she meant that in a good way though. Howard played the song ''I Don't Like Mondays'' and said he doesn't like them either. Gary said Sal just said he knew who Horatio Alger was. He said he had him swear on the life of his kids he knew that yesterday. He said Sal told him that he didn't know it yesterday but he does know it now. Howard said Carol was there yesterday and she made some prank calls with Sal and Richard. Howard played a call she made to a flower shop asking them to deliver some flowers to her husband in the hospital. Carol asked the guy at the flower shop to put something on the card about going into the light and how she'll always love him. Then she had him send another one to another man about her husband finally kicking the bucket and how they were in the money and they were going to do it on his coffin. She also added that she wanted to shove the flowers up the husband's dead old ass. Then she added that she thinks the guy at the flower shop swings both ways. The guy ended up hanging up on her. Howard said someone who listened to Riley Martin's show is very astute. Howard said someone in 2006 asked Riley if the Biavians have a way of singing Happy Birthday. He said Riley sang it one way in 2006 and then he sang it another way in 2014. Howard played the 2006 version and then the newer version. Howard said they were two different songs. Robin said she's so sad that he can't recreate that song. Howard said you'd be fucked up too if you were on a spaceship and came to Earth and met Riley. Howard said he has some other clips to play. Robin asked if anyone is going to confront Riley on that song. Howard said he's sure he'd have an excuse for that. Howard said he has a clip of Jeff the Vomit Guy who went into a frenzy when he heard that Lady Gaga got puked on at a show. Howard played a voicemail he left asking to get in on that because he'd like to bear witness to the vomiting. He said he could be the guy who takes the vomit instead of Gaga. Howard said he can't even listen to that guy talk. He said he gets sick just hearing him talk about that stuff. Howard said he thinks that someone is speaking for his fetish of one. In the voicemail Jeff asked Howard to give him a call and he'll be there. Howard played a prank call the guys made to a Bulimia hotline number using some Jeff the Vomit Guy audio clips talking about how he likes to see women vomit. The woman said that he is an asshole after they called with the clips a few times. Howard said you'd think that someone would want him for that. Howard said that's the greatest call ever. He said it doesn't get better than that. He said you can't top it. He said they should play that over and over again. Howard said the whole thing is just horrible. He said that poor woman is working on the Bulimia hotline. Howard said the show is going to air on Howard 100, 101 and the Billy Joel channel. Howard said everyone is having a good time with that channel. Howard said he was talking to Ronnie the Limo Driver who was listening all weekend to that channel. Howard said he was ''on'' the channel but he just meant he was listening all weekend. Howard said they should have Ronnie on the channel though. Howard said Billy is such a good guy. He said he had them over to his house and told them that he was going to donate to Bianca's Furry Friends. He said that they're building a floor where animals can roam free. He said it's going to cost about $7 million to do it. Howard said Billy is doing a show on May 9th and he's presenting the proceeds from the night to Bianca's Furry Friends so they can build that floor. Howard said Beth broke down in tears and he was very moved. Howard said it's such a nice thing. Howard said he blew Billy. He said they loved it. Howard said that Billy is a rock guy and he's been blown by the best. Howard took a call from a guy who said he's out on his newspaper route. Howard asked how much money he can make. The caller said he makes about 400 plus tips. He said there are some who can make 1000. He said he just drives around for 2 hours a night doing it. He said it's a cool gig. He said he still delivers 40 TV guides a week. Howard said he loves holding a newspaper. He said he still gets it delivered. The caller said he gets them all in the apps. Howard said his kids go online too. He said it's kind of sad that it's going to go away. Howard said everyone finds their own web sites but with newspaper everyone reads it. THE caller said there are old people waiting on their porch for that stuff. He told Howard to please stay on the air until he's 90. Howard said when he's 90 he's going to be in big trouble. Howard said this Oscar Pistorius is some actor. He said he can make himself cry at any time. Howard said he's a big baby. Howard said that fucker should man up and just go to jail. He said he should turn to the judge and just admit what he did. Howard said he's a psycho who killed someone. Howard said the judge is a female judge and she's a black woman. Howard said she's not going to take that nonsense. Howard said he should just man up and take his punishment. Howard said no one ever does that. Gary said Eric thinks everyone is against him but he has no idea how he's behind it all. Eric said he was told he has interns and JD making up fake Twitter accounts to harass him. He said he heard that he offered up free lunch to them for that. Gary said that's what he did while he was working on the birthday show and everything else there. Howard said Gary has time to fuck with Eric. Howard said he's mad at Gary now for doing all of that. He said he's taking away time from the job he does for him. JD came in and said he's going to cop to it all too. He said he's using his own money to do that. Gary said Eric is some megalomaniac. Howard said Eric will be on Leiberman Live tonight at 4:45. Eric said because of that... Howard cut him off and said they had a guy on the street roast Eric. Howard said this guy starts goofing on people if you just show him a picture of the person. In the clip the guy was talking about how Eric looks and goofing on his feet and things like that. He said his feet look like they're doing sign language and shit. He said his hands look like dirty balled up newspaper and he must have to clap with his knuckles. Howard said that guy is named Trag the Photo Roaster. Howard said he roasted Jay Leno too. Howard played a clip of him roasting Jay. He made fun of his chin and said it looks like an under cooked Kidney Bean. Eric said on Facebook he posted that he completely supports Jimmy Kimmel. Howard said he loves Eric and wants to see him do well. He said he just loves his spirit. Howard said he loves that he's feisty and all of that. Howard said he's into TV and media and all of that. Howard said Eric is one paranoid mother fucker though. He said that if he really thinks Gary and JD are busy bothering him on social media he's out of his mind. Howard said he has no evidence that they're trying to sabotage his social media at all. Howard said he's just as wrong about them as he was about him. Howard said they like Eric. Howard said they have such busy lives that they have no time to do the things they love to do, never mind going after him on social media. Eric said he's sure he can get the evidence. Gary asked Eric who told him that he was the one behind this. Eric said this person told him he was an intern at Sirius and that's what he heard. Howard said that's people fucking with him. Howard said if anyone has the time to fuck with him it's Robin. Eric said Johnny had the suspicion too. Howard said Johnny is just fucking with Eric. Howard said he doesn't know what to do with Eric. Eric said this is going to be his last call for a while. He said he's going to the doctor on Friday and they are going to tell him he needs to have a valve replaced immediately or in a few months. Howard said he hopes he doesn't die on him. He said he would be really upset if he died. Eric said he's going to put himself on a hiatus. He said he has every intention of calling back though. Howard said he has a bad feeling about this. Howard said he really doesn't like this. He asked if he has the best people working on this. Eric said he wouldn't mind getting Dr. Oz to assist. Howard said he always wants a celebrity doctor. Howard said he's upset with Trag for goofing on Eric now. Howard asked if he has to go to a specialist since he's a special case. Eric said he goes to a regular guy. Howard asked what they have to do. Eric said they have to make an incision in his right side and go in and pull the old valve out and put a new valve in. Howard said this sounds like open heart surgery. Eric said that they may have to crack a few ribs to get in there. Howard told Eric to hang in there. He said he doesn't want to lose him. Eric said it's going to be a couple of months of recovery after that. He said he will continue to do Leiberman Live when he can. Howard wished him luck and told him to take a selfie from the hospital so he can see him. Howard said now he's upset. Eric said he will give them updates. Howard said Hanzi wants to talk to him before he goes. Howard took a call from Hanzi who said he's going to defend Eric. He said he thinks it's Howard behind the fake accounts. He said that he's doing it to Eric and doing it to him as well. Howard said Eric doesn't need anyone stirring him up and now Hanzi is coming on and getting him upset. Eric said he already apologized to Howard for that. Howard said Eric is going into the hospital and this is going to upset him. Hanzi said Howard is the one who makes Eric look like an asshole. He said Howard hides behind his workers all the time. Howard said all he does is hide behind them, sure. Howard said Eric doesn't even live with his parents but Hanzi still does. Hanzi said he doesn't want to sign up for disability. Howard said he should so he can get his own apartment. Hanzi said that he just wants something else to goof on him about. Howard said Hanzi is a tough character. He said he's just trying to get Eric all stirred up. Eric said he doesn't live with his parents but the house he lives in is paid for by them. Howard said he doesn't want to get into all of that personal stuff with him. Hanzi said Howard owes him movie parts. Howard said he can't force anyone to put him in a movie. Hanzi said there are people who want to put him in movies and Howard is stopping it. Howard said it was Eric who came up with that idea to get into movies. Howard said he's going to call his parents and ground him. He said he's going to take away his phone privileges. Howard said he'll have them take away his TV too. Howard said maybe his pot can be taken away. Hanzi said Howard already fucked his life up with that. Howard asked how he did that. Hanzi said Howard knows. Howard said he has no idea what he's talking about. Howard played a song parody about Hanzi and said he knows he doesn't care about Eric. Hanzi said he does care. Howard said he has to wish Eric luck with the heart valve thing. Howard asked if he has any last words for the show if something does happen. Eric said he hopes they continue to have a successful run. He said you can tune in and see him on Legit on April 30th on FXX. He'd also like people to give Jimmy Kimmel more ratings. Howard asked Eric to give them updates from the hospital. Howard said he really has to go. He said he has a whole show to do. Hanzi asked if he's going to interview Dan Rather again. He said fuck that guy. Howard said Dan did a lot more than Hanzi ever did with his life. Howard said that Hanzi has some nerve talking about him like that. Hanzi went off on the United States for doing what they did in Viet Nam. He went off on Howard about going off on people after 9/11 too. Hanzi asked if he can fuck Robin once and for all. Howard said yes. Hanzi said Robin wants his cock. Robin laughed. Hanzi said that Robin backs him up on all of this and she's the only one who calls Howard out on anything. Howard said maybe Robin can give Eric a going away present. Robin said that might stress him out. Eric asked Howard if he can line up the nurse who came in for the breast evaluation a few years ago. Howard told him to calm down and not worry about that stuff. Howard said he has to get himself better and then they'll worry about the girls. Eric said alright to that. Howard let Eric and Hanzi go after playing another ''Imran Khan'' song parody. Howard said Dave has been a big part of his history. He asked why he's really retiring. Dave said that they say he's at the top of his game but what he really wants to do is punch up comedy scripts in Hollywood. Howard said they had a guy there who said the same thing. Howard said his name is Jackie the Joke Man. Howard asked Dave if he thinks that it's really time to quit. Dave said he has to raise black people on his black people farm. Howard said that he thought he was leaving because of Jimmy Fallon. Evil Dave said that if you can't beat 'em then you hide in their dressing room and beat off to them. Howard said it must be depressing that Jimmy Fallon's ratings are higher than his. Dave said he would like to choke him with his guitar strings. Howard asked Dave what his thoughts are. Dave said the real issue is about why Jerry Sandusky is in jail. He said if it's a crime to shower with young boys then who among them isn't guilty? Howard asked if Dave cares who replaces him. Dave said he doesn't care as long as it's not a Jew. Dave also asked Robin what happened to the tumor they removed from her. He said he'd like to eat it on his last show. Robin said she doesn't think she can get a hold of it. Howard asked Dave what he's going to be doing in retirement. Dave said he needs more time to follow Kim Kardashian on Instagram. He said he likes that big ''juggly'' ass. He said he'd like to bend her over and hit that with a curtain rod. Dave said he wants to get a sex change operation like Bruce Jenner. He said he's getting his Adam's apple shaved down. Howard said he doesn't think that Bruce has said he's getting a sex change so he can't say that. Howard asked what he's going to miss most when he retires. Dave said he'll miss the taste of Paul Shaffer's loads. Dave said he's going to be jerking off like a mad man when he retires. Howard asked why he didn't announce the retirement at the birthday bash. Dave said he took one look at Robin's gorgeous breasts and lost his train of thought. Dave said he thinks there are too many Caucasians on TV. He said he hopes they give his time slot to Flavor Flav. Howard asked what he thinks about a woman taking his spot. Dave said that's a slippery slope. He said next thing they'll want is to vote and drive. Howard asked Dave if he wants to travel at all. Dave said he would like to go to the Philippines because you have no idea what young boys will do for a pack of smokes over there. Dave said he is there to announce that he's starting a David Letterman channel there on SiriusXM. He said that it's 24 hours of Justin Bieber pissing into a bucket. Dave said he really quit because he got sick of hearing about Vinnie's musical every minute. Howard said that this is going to be a huge change for him. Dave said he hopes they get that Obamacare web site fixed by 2015. He said if you think he's going to pay for boner pills out of his pocket you're fucking crazy. Dave said he just wanted to say one more thing. Howard said he's not saying anything he wrote. Dave said that he's going to be 67 this weekend. He said they say if you have a boner longer than 4 hours you should go to the mall and bump into people. Howard said that was some last statement. Howard let Dave go a short time later. Robin asked if Dave knows he's retiring with the real Dave. Howard got Dave back on and asked if he realizes that. Dave said he spent half his life in makeup so he thinks he'll be fine. Howard said that Dave can be Dave instead of ''Evil Dave.'' Howard asked if he has a piece of candy in his mouth. Dave said he doesn't. Howard asked if he realizes he's going to retire along with the real David Letterman. Dave said he did realize that. Howard said the only way he gets out of the house is when he does this stuff. Howard said he's not sure they even give Dave's full name on the air. Dave said he only has one name of ''Evil Dave'' like Cher. Howard let Dave go again. Howard said he doesn't think he understands or cares that he's going away. Howard said he couldn't name one anchor man on TV right now. Robin said that there's Scott Pelly on CBS and Diane Sawyer on ABC. Howard said he thought she was on Good Morning America. Robin said she's been doing that for several years now. Howard said he had no fucking clue. He said he really thought she was on Good Morning America. Howard said the only local guy he knows is Chuck Scarborough. Gary said he's celebrating 40 years on the air. Howard said that he makes more money locally than he does national so that's why they keep him around there at NBC. Howard said the only reason he doesn't go national is because of that money. Howard said he's been at pretty much the same place for 40 years. Shandor mentioned how hot the chicks are on FOX News. Howard said they have so many over there. He said they're all blonde and hot. Howard said they have one chick who is really hot and she must fuck like a rabbit. Howard said he wonders if O'Reilly is fucking anyone over there. He said that's disgusting but he does wonder about it. Shandor said he's going in for a heart transplant on the 14th. Howard wished him luck with that. Shandor said he's looking for a heart. Howard said he'll give him Benjy's. Shandor said the show keeps him going and they keep his spirits up. He said Howard has been a guiding light to him for years. He said he's hoping that he's around after the 14th. Howard asked how this thing works. Shandor said he has an enlarged heart and he has to go in on the 14th for tests. He said he'll probably stay in the hospital until they find a heart. He said he never imagined he'd be in this situation. Robin asked how old he is. He said he's 48. Howard asked if he has kids and a wife. Shandor said he does not. Howard said someone in their audience might be dying soon. Robin said it has to be a match though. Shandor said he almost gave a kidney to a family member just before his heart surgery. Howard wished him luck with the heart thing. Howard told him to take care. Howard said this is like Beth taking in all of these cats that have sad stories. Howard said he has to hear all of this stuff every day. He went to break a short time later. Howard came back and asked if Robin thinks Billy will do that song on the 28th. Robin said maybe he'll do it or someone else will. Howard said he wouldn't mind Billy doing that. Howard said maybe he'll do it with him. Howard said Jeff Van Gundy is a real asswipe. Howard said he's the announcer for the Knick games now. He said he went to a game last Wednesday night. Howard said that Beth wanted to go too. He said she likes going to the games. Howard said he said to his wife that it's tough getting up at 4 in the morning and staying through the whole game. Howard said he had to do America's Got Talent the next day too. He said he wanted to go to the game so he figured he'd stick around for the first 3 quarters. He said that he wanted to see the whole game but what can he do. Howard said it was fun being at the game and he was having fun. Howard said he left when the Knicks were up by 20 points. He said he really had to leave because he has to work. He said he's really disciplined about that. Howard said there was a lot of hullabaloo over him leaving. Howard said he's really careful about what he's doing over there. He said that someone wrote that he was laughing at Nick Cannon getting booed there. Howard said he didn't even know Nick was there. Howard said he saw Nick Lachey there at the game and he was staring at them there. He said that weird things go down there. Howard said when he left he heard that Van Gundy was saying that he should never be given tickets to the front row because he left early. Howard said people don't know Jeff's rules about when you can leave or not leave. Howard said the guy has no idea why he left the game. He said he could have had a sick child or something. Howard said you have to hear this holier than thou guy talking about him. Howard played the clip where Jeff Van Gundy was talking about how Howard Stern left the game early and should never be given tickets again. Howard said that he's been up since 4 in the morning and he had no idea that Jeff set up a rule that says you have to stay for all four quarters. They were pointing out the celebrities that were there and then Van Gundy points out that Howard left early and he shouldn't be given tickets again. Howard said that guy hasn't been able to find a coaching job since he left the Knicks. Howard said that they were pointing out that Nick Lachey was there and Howard was gone. Howard said maybe nick isn't as busy as he is. Howard said that they asked him to come to that game. He said that Van Gundy acts like he's still with the Knicks. Howard said that he has nothing to do with the team anymore. Howard said most times he will leave a game early. He said when you get up at 4 in the morning it can be a chore to stay up until 8. He said that Jeff Van Gundy has his own rules about how long you should stay at a game. Howard told van Gundy to say that to his face next time... you midget. Howard said he's another fucking guy who watches him. He said there are a million people there who leave early. Howard said he didn't know there was a rule about leaving early. He said he will continue to get up early and leave. He said if Jeff Van Gundy doesn't like it then he can eat him. Howard said if Nick Lachey leaves early he's not going to call him out on it. Robin said it's really no one's business if Howard leaves early. Howard said that's it. He said he thinks that the Knicks would let him coach them before they'd let Van Gundy coach them again. Howard said maybe he should leave early and get some sleep. Howard asked if he ever won a championship. Robin said no. Gary said he has never won a championship. Howard said he doesn't have time to sit there because he's a winner. He said he's been number 1 and the dedication means you have to leave fun things early. He said he's super dedicated to being number 1. Howard said Van Gundy can float by being number 20. Howard said that guy is so desperate. Howard said he grabbed some guy's leg. Howard said he has to play by the rules. Howard said that guy coached all those years and never got to number 1. Howard said he has been number 1 in New York, L.A., Philadelphia and more. Howard said Van Gundy should look that up and learn something about it. Howard said Van Gundy is a wannabe. He said that he can stay at fun games and make all of the rules he wants. Howard told that cock sucking fuck to listen to him. Howard cut himself off saying that he's going to stop using that term ''cock sucker'' since Anderson Cooper and someone else was talking to him about that. Howard said that maybe ''Douche'' or ''cunt'' would be better. He said that might be too strong. Howard said he doesn't like Jeff. He said he doesn't like guys who aren't number 1 getting jealous and watching him. He said he never speaks out against anyone but him. Howard said next time he's at the game he can come over and say hello to him. He said he's a little troll and he should keep his comments about him to himself. Howard said he's done with that now. Howard said he just made it even more uncomfortable to go to a Knick game. Gary said Howard only has to worry when ESPN covers the game. He said they're not there for every game. Howard said he got on his radar because he decided to comment on him. Howard said he doesn't remember that guy ever winning a championship. He said that means he doesn't have eye of the tiger. He said he will never know the joy of being number 1. Howard said he should be happy he's being allowed to broadcast. Howard said he should just watch the game and shut up. He said he wonders what other rules he has for that stuff. He said that maybe they can give his tickets to Nick Lachey next time. Howard said maybe you're not allowed to eat during free throws either. Howard took a call from Bobo who asked when he's driving around if he uses GPS. Howard said he always has to use GPS. He said the GPS doesn't know where the places are that he has to go though. He said his GPS was freaking out the other day when he was out. He said he has to use the GPS on his iPhone these days. He said that he isn't very good with directions. He said he has no ability to know where he is. H said he has to call Ronnie sometimes. Howard said he's like a baby. Howard said he has a whole thing going on now. He said he takes a lesson on something every week and it has something to do with Art. He said he doesn't want to be ridiculed so he won't say what it is. He said he has no idea how to get to the place he has to go. He said he has been there but he doesn't know where it is. Howard said it's not on the GPS either. Howard said it's only 20 minutes from their house and he should be able to get there on his own. He said Beth suggested he get a car service but he should be able to do it himself. Howard said it's embarrassing. Robin said they had a ride one night when they got lost and they were probably in every borough of New York. Howard said he yells at Robin about it and she's from Baltimore. Robin said they were in Harlem and got outside of the city somehow. She said they had to come back in over a bridge to get home. Howard said he used to get lost taking his daughter to the orthodontist. He said they'd be out for 2 hours lost. He said that he was like a kid driving the car. Bobo said you have to update those GPS things once in a while. Howard said that's why he uses his iPhone. Howard took a call from Walt Frasier, which turned out to be Sour Shoes doing a bad impression for once. Robin said that was the worst he's ever done. Sour was playing some Fleetwood Mac and doing impressions for him. Howard said his favorite impressions are Gary, Mad Dog and Farrell. Sour did all of those for Howard. Sour was doing a lot of his Mad Dog Russo impression. Howard said he had to take a break but he had a story to tell about Mad Dog Russo talking about Gary's pitch. He said he'll do that some other time. He went to break after that. Howard came back and said Kathy Griffin is a comedian. Howard said she won a Grammy for her album ''Calm Down Girl.'' Kathy came in and Howard told her that Benjy is in Sharknado 2. Kathy said she hopes he has back end on that. Howard asked Kathy if she did more plastic surgery. Kathy said she did not. She said she has done nothing lately. Howard said she looks different to him. Howard asked how much she weighs. She said she's 5'3'' all and 110 pounds. Howard said she was probably 50 pounds heavier when he met her. Kathy said maybe 30. Howard asked if she can get down to 99 pounds. Kathy said she hopes to. Kathy said she flirted with Bulimia at one point when she was on Suddenly Susan. She said she would work out and starve after binging too. She said that she would be feeling woozy and confused and not know why. Howard said by eating normally you can get over that. Kathy said she had lipo done and she had photos that she found funny but they were actually horrifying. Howard asked if she wished she had figured this out earlier in her life. Kathy said she does. She said she's 53 now. She said she has to use lube every time she has sex now. She said that she's gone through menopause. She still has a young boyfriend. She said he's 35 and she's 53. Howard asked what she uses for lube. Kathy said she has the lube right there within reach. She said it's right there. Howard asked if she's still horny and dry. Kathy said that she is still horny. She said that she puts this cream right on her vagina like she was told to do. Howard asked if her boyfriend is upset that he can't get her worked up. Kathy said guys don't care about that. Howard said he would think that he's not satisfying a woman if she doesn't get worked up enough to get wet. He said he knows it's a physical thing though. Kathy said she's on this hormone cream that keeps your vagina young. Robin said it's an anti aging thing. Howard said that doesn't work. Robin said it does work. She said they're hormones so they do work. Kathy said she was having hot flashes and all of that. Howard said maybe the body goes through that for a reason. Howard said that maybe it's like the women who went through morning sickness and took Thalidomide. Kathy said she can't believe he went there. Howard asked if Kathy blows her boyfriend. She said she does but she doesn't think she gives great ones. Howard said he thinks that women don't really enjoy penis when they don't do that very well. Kathy said that she thinks it's because of her gag reflex. Howard said you don't have to take the whole penis in there. Kathy said she gets it. Robin said that you have to do things with your hands. Kathy said they're all different. Howard said that when he was with this one girl she blew him in a hotel room. Howard said she had a way of doing it and she didn't take it all the way in there. He said her mouth was really wet and she didn't use her teeth. Howard said the whole act is ridiculous if you think about it but you don't have to take the whole penis down your throat. Kathy said in porn they do that gagging thing and that's what guys are into. She said it's tough to figure out the ratio of shaft to head and all of that. Howard said he wants to understand what the move is to use the lube. Kathy said when he's going for the condom she's going for the lube and she has a 2 second move. She said that she's always had her guys using condoms so she's pro-condom. She said that's their thing so that's when they do their thing and meet in the middle. She said that they both just do their thing and they're ready to go. Kathy said if they have to change position she has to re-lube. Kathy said she can't have to go to the hospital from not being lubed enough. Howard asked how long the guy lasts. Kathy said it depends on him. She said sometimes he'll be quick and sometimes he'll last a long time. She said she may change position and get the lube again. Kathy said that this conversation is what led to a falling out she had with Barbara Walters. She said that Howard told her that he'd bang Barbara Walters years ago. Howard said that was a lie. Kathy said he told her in the dressing room at The View that she might want to grab the K-Y and she said she prefers Astroglide. She said she told that joke in a stand up special and she was banned from The View for years. She said she had to work her way back on the show. Howard asked if the boyfriend ever applies the lube. Kathy said she thinks he's fixated on his penis and he knows she's going to take care of the ''vagine.'' Howard said Kathy looks more glamorous than usual. He said he likes it. Howard said she was at the birthday bash in the audience. Kathy said that show was great and she had a great view. Kathy said they had the chick table next to her and it was so much fun. Kathy said she thinks Howard is pro-woman. Howard said of course he is. He said he would like to see someone like Kathy take over for Letterman. Kathy said since Joan Rivers there hasn't been a woman in a position like that. Kathy said it just ended after her. Howard said they have mentioned Chelsea Handler as a possible replacement. Kathy said maybe she and Anderson Cooper could take over. Howard talked about how great his interview was with Anderson. Howard said Kathy is friends with Cher and he heard that she called Bob Mackie to make her some dresses and he turned her down. Kathy said she heard that it was just too close to tour time and he didn't have time to design her new dresses. Howard said he thought that maybe he was just annoyed with Cher. Howard said that he thinks that Kathy has to work hard to be friendly with Cher. Kathy said she has to be funny even in a tweet or a text to someone. Howard said that he feels the same way. Kathy said she doesn't know what to do at some point. She said the only person she has sexted is Anderson Cooper. She said that when he's in a deep, dark news story she'll send him a picture of herself topless just to keep his spirits up. She said he may not be expecting that and it helps keep him up. Howard said he thinks that Cher hates him. Kathy said she'll work on getting her on the show. Howard said he would love to interview her. Kathy said that someone tweeted about dolls that they made of her and Cher. Kathy said she texted Cher the other night with the pictures and sometimes she'll write back and sometimes she won't. Howard said he doesn't want to work hard in his personal life. Kathy said she only got 2 hours of sleep last night. She told Howard that she used to get her ass kicked in school. She said that she was called ''dog'' in school. She said everyone would bark as she walked down the halls. She said that went on for 8 years in catholic school. Kathy said she got jumped in the park once and she remembers rolling up in a ball. She said that she had 4 girls kicking her and people were walking by doing nothing. Howard asked if the nuns ever stepped in. Kathy said a nun once walked right past her and didn't do a thing. Howard asked if she's big on the anti-bullying campaign. Kathy said she is. She said the difference between what comedians do and what bullies do is so different. Kathy said she once got a letter from one of these girl's husbands who said he'd like her to come out and put his wife in her place. Kathy said that the woman must have bragged to her husband about what she did to her. Howard asked if that's why she didn't have kids. Kathy said that is part of it. She said that she was also into working so much that she didn't have time for it. Robin said that she never had that biological clock ticking like so many women do. Howard said it must be a tremendous victory for her to be accepted. Kathy said she is not in the club at all. Howard said Kathy did win a Grammy for her album. Kathy said she's the first woman to win since 1986. She said that Whoopi and Lily Tomlin are the only other two who won. Kathy said she has something in her act about Howard. She said that he can't stop her either. She said she never apologized to Oprah about what she said about her. Kathy said that she's watching the Lindsay Lohan documentary and she's watching it very closely. She said that Oprah has a god complex. Howard said she really does. Howard said she said that she'd never do that kind of programming but she's doing that Lindsay Lohan thing. Howard asked Kathy if the best way to handle her is to become friends with her. Kathy said no. She said no one gets the pass. Howard asked if people come up to her and try to stop her from talking about them. Kathy said she was doing Hollywood Squares and Alec Baldwin came up to her and said he loves her work. She said that no one gets off though. She said that she has been fired a lot more than she's been hired but that's her policy. Howard said Kathy was on the Brooke Shields show ''Suddenly Susan'' for four years. Howard said she was best friends with Brooke but then she came on the show and talked about her and now Brooke doesn't talk to her. Kathy said what Howard did was tell her to say that Brooke was a comedic genius and she didn't do that. She said that what got her mad at her was the talk about Brooke's mom. Howard said she imitated her mom and she stopped talking to her. Kathy said she has run into Brooke a few times and she is cordial to her. She said that she'll be Brooke and say hi but she's not a fan. Howard said it must be weird to have been so close and now she doesn't talk. Kathy asked Howard if there is anyone he likes no matter what. Kathy said Barbara Walters is the one for her. She said she loves Barbara no matter what is going on between them. Howard said it's amazing that Kathy is the way she is after being bullied as a child. Kathy said that she had to make the girls laugh to keep them from kicking her ass. Howard asked if she ever went home and cried over it. Kathy said she was more about revenge and trying to outwit them. Howard asked if she ever thought about getting a dog collar and calling herself a dog. Kathy said she did that with her TV show ''My Life On the D List.'' She said that was her way of doing that. Howard asked Kathy if she has a tough time with comedians saying she's not funny and things like that. Kathy said she did early on in her career. She said that they'd tell her that she's not really telling jokes but stories instead. She said that Louis C.K. was like that back when they were younger but she saw him recently and he was very nice to her. Howard asked Kathy about when she got into comedy. She said that came after she was acting. She said it didn't start until she was 30. Kathy said she hasn't had surgery since 2001 but she thought that she could be turned into Jennifer Aniston with enough surgery. Kathy said she remembers the first and last time she was on Oprah and she had complications with her lipo. She said she didn't want her thighs to touch at the time. She said she remembers Oprah telling her not to get liposuction. Kathy said she finds that pretty funny coming from Oprah. Howard said he's heard that everyone in Hollywood has had work done. Kathy said she doesn't think Oprah has. Howard said he thinks she's had Botox. Robin said Oprah has bags under her eyes. Kathy said she doesn't think she's had anything. Howard said no matter how much you get or how thin you get, do you feel like you're still unattractive. Kathy said that she said she will never feel pretty. Howard asked if the doctors would tell her that they could turn her into Jennifer Aniston. Kathy said they did. Kathy said that anything they could do was better than this. Howard asked if she's happy now. Kathy said she is happier now than she has ever been. Howard asked if she thinks that the boyfriend thinks she's not that hot. Kathy said that it can be like that. Howard said it's a terrible thing to live with that. Kathy said that her boyfriend looks great when he wakes up in the morning. Howard said he knows what that's like. He said that Beth is like that. Howard asked if Kathy has seen her boyfriend's ex's and are they hot. Kathy said they're his age and they are attractive. Howard said he was going to ask about Gwyneth Paltrow. Kathy said she is not a fan. Kathy said if she looked 1/10th as great as her she would look happy. She said she always makes that pissy face though. Howard said Beth considers her the ultimate for women. Howard said as a man he doesn't understand that. Howard had to think about who he finds really attractive. Howard said he doesn't think it's Angelina Jolie or anyone like that. Howard said it's not Jessica Alba or Sophia Vergara ether. Howard said Megan Fox is very attractive. Howard said she has fucked herself up with surgery though. Howard said most women have had nose jobs in Hollywood. Howard asked Kathy about the birthday bash. Kathy said there was so much going on there. She said that Tan Mom has to take over for Benjy at some point. She said that she arrived when Joan Rivers got there. She said that Joan had a fur on and she was screaming at them that it was fur and she wasn't apologizing. Kathy said that she found that hysterical. She said that Joan has been through so much. Kathy said that Joan made a comment about Rihanna and the Twitter fans came after Joan. Howard said he had that with Britney Spears fans. He said that they came after him after he said something about her. Howard said that Kathy had a Twitter war with Demi Lovato. Kathy said she really doesn't engage in that stuff. She said she never minds when a celebrity is mad at her though. She said that's fine with her. She said that Whitney Houston got in her face and waved her finger. She said she told her to never talk about her. Kathy said she made a joke about her at the Billboard awards and she doesn't even remember what she said. Kathy said she scared her though. Howard asked if she was afraid she was going to get hit. Kathy said she was. She said she was all alone back stage when Whitney confronted her. Howard asked Kathy what went on with her and Demi Lovato. Kathy said she was doing a Q and A one night in the middle of the night. She said she was letting Siri write it all for her and she wasn't correcting the mistakes. She said she made a joke about Mel Gibson and never heard a word from his fans. Then someone asked her who the douchiest person she's ever met was. She said that she said Demi Lovato was a little douchy and Siri posted it as something else. Kathy said that Demi's fans saw that and they freaked out on her. She said she brought some of their comments with her to read. She read about how they wanted to burn down her house and wanted her dead. They were threatening to kill her in her sleep and things like that. She was told to slit her own throat and things like that. Howard asked if Kathy had to call the cops. Kathy said they actually called her. She said that they apparently monitor that stuff. Kathy said she's not going to be bullied into stoping what she does. She said that she never made any threats though. Howard asked if Kathy is exhausted at the end of the day. He said that she's very busy with this stuff. Kathy said she is constantly on. She said she has an energy disorder. She said that her boyfriend says that she wears him out. Howard asked if she tries to calm down after that. Kathy said that he may go back to his apartment to watch Game of Thrones while she watches Wives with Knives or something. Kathy said that at the birthday show it was great when Jon Bon Jovi's face dropped when he saw Chris Christie walk out on stage and not know where to go. She said that he came out and then Jon sang ''Wanted Dead or Alive'' and they couldn't have written that. Kathy said that the musical performances were great there and it was great to see them live. Kathy said that Downey yelling at the audience was great. She said that she could have listened to the Letterman interview for 5 hours. She said it was a bizarre moment because there was a Wack Pack fight breaking out during the interview. Howard said he has done these type of shows and the audience wasn't paying attention. He said he barreled ahead and just did it. He said he knew the people at home would enjoy it. Kathy said Howard stuck to it. Howard said he ignored there was an audience there. Kathy said Dave could have left after 3 questions. Howard said he thought Dave was enjoying it. Kathy said she thinks he was too. Howard said it's kind of sad that Dave is going. Kathy said she had a talk with her friend Tom Hanks. Howard said he dint know she was friends with him. Kathy said she met him at an event they were at. She said that Harry Stiles from One Direction was there too. She said he was asking Tom about Captain Phillips and being all cute. She talked about how she almost stole Harry's jacket that night but her boyfriend talked her out of it. Howard said that Kathy is doing a lot of comedy shows. Kathy said she's all over the place. You can find out where she's appearing at KathyGriffin.com Howard said he hopes she never runs into a Demi Lovato fan at her events. Howard said she has balls going out after talking shit about so many people. Howard said she becomes friends with people and goes right out and bad mouths them. Howard said he's going to L.A. in about a week and a half but they're not going to have a Kimmel Party. Howard said that he doesn't feel like the king of England. He said he feels like Dog. Howard said that he will also be working the whole time out there. Howard said he and Jimmy will go out to dinner or something but that's it. Howard said it's just going to be 8 people. Howard said he doesn't want more than that. Howard said if Kathy was there she'd just ridicule them. Howard asked Kathy what event she has gone to that she doesn't talk about. Kathy said she has done that. She mentioned Jane Fonda's birthday party and said there was plenty for her to talk about but she kept it quiet. Kathy said she is still a human being and she has a line she won't cross. Howard said he loves Kathy and he's glad that she's doing so well. Howard said she has done the most televised comedy specials. Kathy said it's 20 and its more than any comedian has ever done. Howard said he's sorry to hear about her brother. Kathy said he passed away a month ago from esophageal cancer. Howard asked if he was a smoker. Kathy said he was not. Howard asked if he had a wife and kids. Kathy said that only one of her siblings got married and had kids. Kathy said this brother did not. Howard asked if he was gay. Kathy said he was straight and he had lots of girlfriends. She said that he didn't go in a pleasant way either. She said that she spent more time with him around the end. She said that he passed away in California. She said that he came out to visit her and stayed out there. She said her mom is still around and that was rough on her. Howard said if he had known about it he would have sent her a note. Howard said he would have been afraid of being ridiculed by her in her act though. Howard wrapped up with Kathy and gave her another plug for her web site. They went to break after that. Howard said Jon Hein gave him an article about Microsoft. Howard said they are announcing this thing that's like Siri and that's what Microsoft does. They always come out with it after Apple does. Robin said maybe they can't. Howard said it just bothers him. Robin said that's what makes capitalism. Robin said it keeps prices down. Howard said they need to have some innovations for Office and things like that. Howard said he gave up on Windows years ago though. He said he's upset about this copy of Siri. He said he is a fan of capitalism but he's also a big fan of people who come up with new ideas. Robin said that he didn't get upset with Nick Cannon when he went with a company to come out with headphones that were cheaper than Dr. Dre's. Howard said he wasn't inventing headphones though. Howard took a call from a guy who said that he's been playing a movie trailer of him playing a retarded kid but he doesn't get what the joke is there. Howard said that was an old bit they did. Fred said he's not sure what the name of it was. Howard said it may have been a My Left Foot bit. The caller said he thought he got everything with Howard but not that bit. Howard said maybe it's not funny. He said he finds it funny when an actor plays a retarded person. He said that sometimes only he finds his stuff funny. Howard took a call from Nicole Bass. Howard asked how she's doing. Nicole said she's getting back into the gym. She said she got fat. Howard said he finds that funny when people who are into fitness get fat. Howard said she has to cut back on the eating. Nicole said her husband passed and that really sucked. She said she stayed in her room watching TV. Howard said that sounds like something he'd like to do. Nicole said she's so pissed at Howard and Robin and Fred and everyone there. Robin asked why that is. Nicole said she has been with him how long. She said it's been a long, long time. Howard said her voice has gotten deeper and richer. That led to Fred doing his Herman Munster laugh for her. Nicole said that she wanted to come to the birthday show. Howard said they couldn't have everyone there. Nicole said she was going to show him her vagina for his 60th. Howard said maybe at the next birthday party. Howard said he would have had her there but she was too fat. Nicole said she's not that fat. Nicole said she's pissed at Howard for going around kissing Howie Mandel. Howard said he does love Nicole and he's sorry about her husband. Howard asked if Nicole showing her vagina is a gift or a punishment. Robin said she doesn't know about that. Howard said they had limited seats there and they couldn't have everyone there. Howard said there are still people who are mad at them for that. Howard said it's a big mess. Robin started off her news with a story about how they talked to Jay Leno about taking over for David Letterman. Howard said he thinks he has that clip. Howard said it may have been a TMZ clip. Jay said that he and Dave are going to do The Sunshine Boys on Broadway together. The interviewer asked Jay who he thinks should take over for Dave. Jay didn't have an answer that made sense. Howard said he's trying to be a nice guy but you can tell he's just annoyed. Robin read a story about a model, Geena Rocero, who was born a boy. She said she had given the picture to Howard earlier. Howard said he saw it and he thought it was a woman until someone told him it was a dude. Robin said that the model said that she was ''assigned'' a boy when she was born because of the appearance of her genitals. Robin said that the model gave a speech on the Ted stage. Robin said she was terrified to come out. Howard said this is going to kill her modeling career. He said that's unfortunate and he knows people will get mad at him for saying that but it will. Robin asked if he would make love to her. Howard said he doesn't want to be in a man made vagina. He said based on that picture though he might. Robin said she thinks that he'd do it. Howard said if he was on an island the rest of his life he'd just take hand jobs. He said he's freaked out by the man made vagina thing. Robin asked if Howard has ever masturbated with something odd. Howard said no. Robin said he has. Howard said he did stick his dick in that fake vagina thing. He said he did that on the air though. Robin said he tried one out at home. Howard said he hurt his dick. He didn't know he had to lube the fake vagina. Howard said this model looks like a real girl but it would freak him out of he knew. Robin said when she looked at this model she thought about how Asian transsexuals can pull this off. She said some of them are really beautiful. Howard said that some of them look like dudes though. Howard said that they have them beat in that category. Howard said Richard Christy used to fuck the cardboard tubes in paper towel rolls. Howard asked Benjy if he could fuck someone like that. Benjy said that he might be turned off to it if he saw it in person. Howard said he would find the part that looks like a guy. Howard said he knows Fred would be all over this dude. Robin asked Howard if he could find Ukraine on a map. Howard said he'd have a hard time finding the United States on a globe. Howard said he has no idea where Ukraine is. Robin said they say only 6 out of 10 American's could find it. Robin read about the family that took their 1 and 3 year olds on a boat trip around the world. Robin said they had to be rescued when their 1 year old got sick and their electronics failed. Robin said the mother was writing openly about her misgivings about taking their 2 kids on the trip. Robin said that she wrote that it might be the stupidest thing they've ever done. Robin said the child had a rash 2 weeks before they started their trip. Howard said she doesn't see that she has to put her personal needs aside sometimes. Robin said they say her daughter was treated for salmonella just weeks before. Robin said kids get sick all the time. She said she can't believe that family. Robin read a story about how the night sky is going to be putting on an impressive show. Robin said the earth, sun and mars will be in almost a straight line. Robin said that you'll be able to see it moving over head all night. Robin said that it will be 10 times brighter than the rest of the stars in the sky. Howard said it's never good when you see it. Howard said it's not that much fun. Howard asked if the story about internet speeds tripling soon. Robin said there is a story about how they could be bumping up the speeds. Howard read a live commercial after that. Robin read a story about Oscar Pistorius. Howard said that guy is fucking nuts. He said she should just go to jail. Robin said he's trying to impress the judge in the case. Robin said he doesn't have a whole jury to impress. Robin said he cries and it means nothing. Robin had some audio for Howard to play. Howard said he can't imagine the guy not doing jail time. Howard played the clip of Pistorius talking about shooting his girlfriend through the bathroom door when he thought there was an intruder in the house. Howard said he sounds kind of like Peter Sellers doing that French accent. At one point Pistorius said he didn't have his legs on when he went to find the intruders. Howard wondered if the judge is falling for any of this. Robin said it's not clear because she's not speaking. Howard took a call from a guy who asked if he's heard about the prequel to the Walking Dead that was mentioned in Rolling Stone. Howard said he can't imagine they'd do that because they're not fighting zombies in that. The caller said it would be what led up to it. Howard said they could do flashbacks in The Walking Dead. The caller said he knows Howard loves The Walking Dead. Howard said he is into it but he's not sure he'd be into that. He said he's not sure he'll be into Better Call Saul which is a spin off of Breaking Bad. Howard said The Walking Dead would be called Walking Alive. Howard said he wants to see Zombies and not watch people having their normal lives. Robin read a story about Ben Affleck quitting Batman Vs. Superman. Robin said that Idris Elba is replacing him as Batman. Howard said he's black though. Howard said he thought Batman was white. Robin said Howard asked for changes and this is a change. Howard said that's fine. He said he thinks that guy is a good actor. Robin said he's great in Luther. Howard said he likes that they give the job to a black guy. Howard asked why Ben Affleck quit. Robin said there were some strange scheduling conflicts with him. Robin said that Idris is already in the Thor franchise. Howard said that's right. Robin said he may switch over or maybe he'll do both. Howard asked if Alfred will be black. Robin asked why he'd have to be black. Howard said he doesn't know. Howard said there's only one source of that story Robin read and it was posted on April 1st. Howard said it's probably an April Fools joke. Howard said that's why he hates April Fools. Howard said he just read that at the end of the story that it was a joke. Robin said she didn't read the whole thing because Fred gave it to her. Robin read a story about the search for the Malaysian airliner. Robin said they have stopped hearing the pings from the black box. Robin said they're still listening for them but they haven't heard anything lately. Robin had some audio of an official talking about that. Howard read a live commercial after that. Robin read about that Idris Elba story getting a lot of interest and a lot of people want more of him as a super hero. Robin said that Idris is all for it and he'd like to play either character. Robin said the White House will not be banning selfies there. Robin said a baseball player used a selfie he took with President Obama to do promotion for Samsung. Howard said he hates that word ''selfie.'' He said that Heidi and Mel love them because they're good looking. Howard said the Loch Ness Monster hates them. He said only good looking people like selfies. Robin had some audio of someone at the White House commenting on the rumor that they were going to ban selfies. Robin said that Derek Jeter's last season is this year. Robin said that the Yankees won their game the other day and she had some audio of Jeter commenting on that game. Howard wondered if he should watch the games so some day he can tell someone he saw him play. Gary said he might have to go to a stadium and actually watch. Howard said he has no desire to go to a game. He said it seems like such a horror. Howard said he went to games with his father when he was young and he learned nothing. He said his dad filled out this card during the game. He said his dad would give him one and tell him to fill it out. He said he had no idea what to do with it. Howard said he could go to school and get tortured instead of a game. He said that's what he would have rather done. Howard said his dad would threaten to pull over to the side of the road and leave him. Howard said he would worry about what he was going to do if he did that to him. Howard said sometimes they'd actually pull over and open the door. Howard said you don't make a Howard Stern by throwing a party. Howard said this unique comet only happens with the right set of horrible experiences. Robin said that's a pretty scary thing. She said that would frighten a child. Howard said he didn't understand what the word traffic was so he'd ask if it was traffic. He said his dad would yell at him to shut up. Howard was doing impressions of his parents while he was talking about that. Howard said his dad took him to the track once and he thought he knew something about it because he accidentally picked the right horse to win. Howard said he told his dad in the car how he picked the winner by seeing the number 8 on a pole. Howard said he never went to the track again after that. Howard said he never had any fun. He said it was all a nightmare. He said life was just hard. Robin said not everyone is having that experience. Benjy said he loved hanging out with his dad. Howard said he learned a lot from his dad. He said that's how he keeps all of these mother fuckers in line. Robin read about a congressman who was video recorded kissing a staff member. He has to apologize to his wife and family now. Robin read a story about a spinal injury treatment that could help a lot of patients. Robin said that it mimics brain signals with an electrical implant. Robin said that this has allowed 4 men to move their legs for the first them since being paralyzed. Howard asked if this is another April Fools story. Robin said it is not. Howard said that would be the most wonderful thing of all. Robin read a story about Bob Geldof talking about his daughter's passing and how it destroys him to have to talk about her in the past tense. Robin read some of his quote about his daughter. Howard said it seems like just a year ago he was in there telling them about his daughter Peaches. Howard said it's just unbelievable that the kid as come and gone now. Robin said she was thinking about how she has 2 children with her husband and he's going to go off on his own life. Robin said that Bob wants the kids to be part of his family though. Robin said the guy may go on to marry another woman and she may not want to be part of the Geldof family. Robin read a story about a woman who used 911 to ask for a ride home from a bar. Robin said the woman was arrested at the bar she called from. Robin said the woman knew she shouldn't drive because she was drunk. Robin had some audio of the woman's call to 911. Howard said she didn't sound that drunk. Howard said she's a dummy. He said she should have called a cab. Robin read a story about some people who were arrested for beating up a guy who accidentally hit a 10 year old kid. The man stopped to get out to check on the kid when the people beat him. Robin said he's been in a medically induced coma since last Wednesday. Howard said that accidents can happen. He said even unfortunate ones. Robin had some audio of an official talking about the investigation. Robin said the guy did the right thing by stopping but this shows why people leave sometimes. Robin said it's nuts what people are up to sometimes. Robin read a story about a police officer who is suing the LAPD over his religion. Robin said he claims that he's been harassed because of his religion. Robin said he claims he was forced to sick through a Christian ceremony and he's a practicing Wicken so he was offended. Howard said there are a lot of religions. Robin read about how Neil Patrick Harris has been named as a possible replacement for David Letterman. Robin said that Chuck Schumer wants the show to stay in New York no matter who takes over. Robin had some audio of him talking about that. Robin read a story about the Dave Clark Five and asked Howard what he thinks about them. Howard sang a couple of their songs and had Fred play some of their stuff. Howard and the guys talked about how they were considered clones of the Beatles but they were doing their thing at the same time as the Beatles. Robin said they have a film coming out about the Dave Clark Five and they have a bunch of rock stars talking about them in the film. There will also be a book coming out by the end of the year. Robin read a story about people not exercising enough and what people can do to get a little bit at least. Robin had some audio of a woman giving advice on what to do even if it's just a little bit. Howard blurted out that he wishes he had a big penis. He said he forgot they were on the air. Robin read a story about the UConn basketball team win and how their fans were celebrating. Robin had some audio of some people talking about their win. Robin said Johnny Depp and Jimmy Kimmel had a kiss on the air. Robin had some audio of that moment from the show last night. Robin said this is the second time they did this. Howard said he saw that Jimmy had Bill Clinton on and it was a very good interview. Robin read about how a showing of the movie Noah was canceled by a flood. She said she found that interesting. They ended the show as short time later. They were done around 10:25am. Jon said that Evil Dave doesn't seem to know that the real Dave's retirement means his retirement. Gary said that Dave may go on for a few years after Letterman is gone. Jon said he can see Dave going off and vanishing when he retires. Jon said that Howard went off on Jeff Van Gundy today. He said that's the first rant they've heard in a while. He said Jeff may not have realized what he was getting into when he commented on Howard. Gary said Jeff has these rules and they're not written down and given to anyone else. He said they're just his rules though. Jon said there are some rules as a courtesy for games. Gary said if they were working the next day and the game was a blow out then they'd get out of there. Jon said he would have left too. Jon said Howard was talking about how geographically challenged he is. He said he didn't know how bad it was. Gary said he has only been in the car with Howard a couple of times. He said he drove once so he didn't see how bad he was with directions. Jon asked Gary how he felt hearing Nicole Bass today. Gary said he felt badly about a lot of people he wasn't able to invite. He said decisions had to be made. Jon took a call from a guy who said Howard went on for like 20 minutes on Jeff Van Gundy. He said that he loves Howard but he went over the same thing over and over for 20 minutes. Gary said it was a biting comment from Van Gundy. The caller said he thought it was funny. Jon said maybe Van Gundy thought that he as being like Howard saying something like that. Gary said he would love to have a camera when Van Gundy's phone blows up with people telling him what Howard is saying about him. Gary said he's not sure how it could be worse than what was said today. Benjy said he agrees with Howard about who gives a fuck when he leaves. Benjy said it's not a rule Howard would ever have. He said Howard might point out the same thing if he thought something was done wrong. Jon took a call from Hanzi who said that he thinks Gary is a liar when he says he's not behind the Eric the Midget stuff. He said he's part of what goes on there and pretends he doesn't know. Hanzi said they fuck with people from the show and they get them all riled up for good air time. Gary asked Hanzi if he thinks there is a large group of people he fucks with. Hanzi said yes. Gary asked when he thinks he has time to do that. Hanzi said he has people helping him out. He said he isn't spending his time personally doing it. Hanzi said he has people to help him and none of this is really real. Gary asked what the goal is to messing with Eric. Hanzi said maybe good air time and making them look crazy half the time. Jon asked Hanzi if he thinks that JD is part of it too. Hanzi said he wouldn't be surprised. He said he's not the full culprit. He said there are probably other people who do it. Benjy said that anyone who gets any notice on the show gets riled up. He said he must see that on the internet. Hanzi said that there's a lot going on out there like companies buying followers and things like that. He said if you speak about the higher ups in the world then you get harassed. Jon said Eric has gotten some TV appearances and things. He asked Hanzi if he feels he deserves that too. He asked how that works into the conspiracy theories. Hanzi said he knows that they're going to say he thinks he is entitled. He said that he has contributed to the show whether or not people will admit it. He said that he is the only one who hasn't gotten shit for it. He said other people are profiting off of it. He said that's why he's in his parent's basement. Gary asked who is profiting off of him. Hanzi said he has no idea. He said any place he walks into he knows this stuff is going on. Gary said if he drops him in the middle of Alabama no one would know who he is. He said he doesn't think he's nationally or internationally known. Hanzi said he can't win in this. Gary asked why he thinks he can't go anywhere without people knowing him. Hanzi said it's called gang stalking. He said people have secretly been messaging him about what's been going on with fucking with him and things like that. Gary asked Hanzi if he thinks that people hear him get upset and they just fuck with him by telling him this stuff. He said it's just people tweaking him. Hanzi said this is all in his head. He said that he doesn't expect to uncover anything. He said he just knows how this works. Hanzi said he didn't choose to believe this stuff. Hanzi said people are making money off of him. Benjy asked if he has anyone who says they genuinely like him. Hanzi said no. He said he doesn't even like being on this planet. He said that if he says he doesn't want to be there then he's even more nuts. He said he is always going to be the joke of the show. Gary said they have to move on but today he wasn't the joke. He said he was able to get an answer today and actually have a conversation. Jon and Gary thanked him for calling in and then went to break. Gary asked when Ronnie saw Cher live last. Ronnie said it was probably 4 years ago in Las Vegas. He said it was a great show. Ronnie said he may not be around for her next local show. Gary said Cyndi Lauper is opening for her at some things. Ronnie said he may not be around for Cher at the Barclay center. He said that might be the night Howard is doing the Billy Joel thing. Jon asked Ronnie if he listens to Cher music on his way to the show. Ronnie said he was in the hotel. He said he didn't listen. He didn't drive over. Gary said that he went to see Lady Gaga at Roseland and they were listening to her music on the way there. He said he wanted to see what her show was all about and he enjoyed it. Jon asked Ronnie who his favorite singers are. Ronnie said it's probably The Beach Boys. Gary asked if he saw Mike Love at the birthday show. Ronnie said he didn't see him. Gary said he's surprised that Ronnie isn't into country music since he's into NASCAR. Ronnie said that he is into some of that stuff. He said Stephanie is into the Beach Boys and some country too. Jon asked if she was a Beach Boys fan before she met him. Ronnie said she was. He said he was into the Beatles, the Monkees and all of that. Jon asked him what his favorite Beach Boys songs were. Ronnie said he doesn't know. He mentioned a couple when Jon started rattling them off. Jon asked what it is about Cher that he likes. Ronnie said he doesn't know. He said he heard her stuff when he was a kid. He said he was actually the same age as them. Gary asked if he was bummed when Sonny died. Ronnie said it was pretty upsetting. Jon asked what songs he likes. Ronnie mentioned a couple and said he likes some of her new stuff. Jon asked if he just liked her look. Ronnie said it was that too. He said she was hot. Jon asked Ronnie if he gets why Kathy Griffin is so protective of her relationship with Cher. Gary said she's friends with an iconic A-lister. He said she doesn't want that fucked up. Jon asked if Ronnie would take the chance of going to dinner with Kathy if she might use him in her act. Ronnie said he wouldn't care. Gary said she will name names when she's on the show and she's shocked when Howard won't go out to dinner or go to her house. Gary said she's going to talk about you either way. He said he loves hearing about that but he doesn't want to be a part of it. Ronnie said that they do the same thing there. He said that it's the same thing. Gary said he has an idea of how Howard is going to spin it. He said he wouldn't want Howard to be part of Kathy's act. Ronnie said he gets it there so he wouldn't care if he got it from Kathy. Ronnie said going to a party is something you should be able to do without worrying about Howard finding out about it. He said that's not what it's like for everyone. Gary said it is though. He said if they worked at an office they'd have the same thing at the water cooler. Ronnie said that people tend to forget things by Monday if they party on the weekend. Gary didn't think that was the case. Gary asked Ronnie about what the difference is between a work function and a party. Ronnie said if it's about business then it's a work function. He said if you're just out at a party then you're drinking and having fun. Jon asked what it is when they go to a steak house. Ronnie said that's a guy's night out. He said that was for Jon's birthday. Jon said it was not. Jon said they really had to take a break after that. Jon took another call from a woman who said she understands what Ronnie is saying. She said that people who work together still talk about things that happen at parties that aren't for work. She said that they still talk about that guy who got drunk and danced on a table. She said that he did it at the other party but they still talk about him as being the guy who gets drunk and dances on a table. Gary said there was a story about a guy who told a woman at a party to blow him or she was fired. She got fired the next Monday morning and she ended up suing and wining that case. Ronnie said he would have taken her out to the car at least. He said he wouldn't have done it at the party. Jon got back to Kathy Griffin and brought up the story she told about how she was called ''dog'' for 8 years while she went to school. Gary said that's pretty brutal. He said it reminds him of ''Welcome to the Doll House.'' Jon said that can do some serious mental damage. Ronnie said that might be why her act is so vicious. He said she's taking it out on other people by attacking celebrities. Jon asked if that's what she should do or should she take it back. Ronnie said she should keep doing it. Gary asked JD if he was picked on in school. JD said he was picked on a little bit. He said he was able to morph that into being invisible. He said he was able to be friends with all kinds of people. He said he wasn't too social but it was at school so there were people around all the time. Jon asked JD if he had any nicknames there. JD said he was called Cheesy. Jon asked why he was called that. JD said they were doing auditions for some play and he said something and a girl said it was very cheesy and he said ''It's not easy being cheesy'' and it stuck. Jon asked if Ronnie had any nicknames. Ronnie said no. He said he didn't get picked on either. He said he was kind of in the bad crowd. He said he was in The Hitters in school. He said things were different there. He said that it was just different guys and girls. He said that the collegiate girls would stick with the collegiate guys but then once in a while they'd want to slip in with the bad boys. He said it's like of like West Side. Gary said he got his ass kicked a bunch of times in school. He said he was kind of dweeby and a wise ass. Gary said he had a slot car track and he talked to this one guy about it. He said he thought he was his friend. He said that the kid threatened to beat him up if he didn't bring him 4 pieces of track. He said he ended up telling his mom and then the guy said he was going to beat his ass the next week. Jon took a call from a guy who asked why they though that JD was either bullied or invisible. Gary said JD had told them that before so he had a clue. Jon asked Benjy if he was bullied. Benjy said he was kind of a character and he kind of enjoyed that. Benjy said he was picked on. He said there were people who were completely harassed. He said he hopes he didn't pick on them but he might have. Gary said he was voted most popular in school at one point. He said after he won it he was surprised at what dicks people could be. He said he didn't ask for the vote so he didn't know why they were giving him shit for it. Jon said he thinks he's going to wrap up the show now. He let the guys get in their plugs and then ended the show around 11:15am. Howard started the show talking about how someone told him that the Khaleesi won't do nude scenes on Game of Thrones anymore. Howard said she was naked and that's why everyone loved her. Howard said that she's boring now. Howard said he hasn't seen the first episode of the new season but he will. He said he hates that when someone pulls that. He said they get some success and they change the whole deal. Robin said they become a sensation on the show and they see that others don't have to do that. Howard said he's been following the story about Reverend Al Sharpton and he doesn't want to get too deep into it. He said long story short he was an FBI informant on the mob. Howard said on the front page of the paper they were calling him a rat. Howard said he thinks the guy is a Rabble-rouser and he hates the Tawana Brawley stuff. He said if you're an informant he's not sure why they can't protect that fact. Howard said he's not sure why that stuff is top secret. Howard said he'd be shitting his pants if that news got out. Robin said that's a brave thing to do. Howard said it might be the only brave thing he's done. Howard said the other thing is that if someone wears a wire against the mob they call him a rat. Howard said he's not sure why they're so vested in that. Robin said it's on the cover of the newspaper. Howard said it's not right that they call him a rat. Howard said he thinks that in the paper they're saying there was a drug deal that went bad and that he may have been doing business with the mob. Robin said he's claiming that h was in the record business and the mob was trying to muscle in. Howard said it really disturbs him that they can't keep this a secret. He said they say the information is out because of the freedom of information act. Howard said he doesn't think that's right. Howard said in general if someone wears a wire he wouldn't want that broadcast all over the place. Robin said she wouldn't want to see them called a rat either. Howard said he doesn't want to see this country turned into Mexico where being a rat is the wrong thing. Howard said Rob Lowe and Danny Trejo are coming in today. Howard said he loves Danny as Machete. Howard said he was reading about him and he has a philosophy about acting where he says if they pay his day rate he'll be in anything. Howard said he was reading about how the next Machete movie will be in space. He said he loves that. Howard said Eric the Actor has been very busy on Twitter cursing people out. Howard said that he is spending what might be his last week on earth doing that. Howard said he'd think that he'd want to have some fun instead of doing that. Howard took a call from Little Mikey and said he has some of his new songs to play. Howard asked Gary where they were. Gary told him where it was and Howard played some of Mikey's new songs about Robin. Mikey said he's been working on a station playing music and they're changing to a top 40 format. He said that the program manager says he's not ready for that. He asked what his advice for announcing would be. Howard said he knew guys in the business doing top 40 and he had a guy call him to say that their friend was doing top 40. He said this guy Lou had that morning radio voice and he couldn't figure out how he did it. Howard said there are some guys who just talk in their regular voice but there are others who put something on. Howard said he could never figure it out. Howard did an impression of what he thought it sounded like though. Howard said he wouldn't know how to tell him to approach that. Howard said he thinks you have to be brain dead to do that shit. Mikey said they tell him he should be more up beat. Robin wanted to hear it. Mikey did his morning radio voice for her. Howard said he's glad he's not trying to make it in radio. Fred played Taps after Mikey did his thing. Howard did his impression of that voice and was really upbeat. Howard said you can't curse either on that station. Mikey said that his program director told him he was friends with Howard. He said his name is Tom Collins. Howard said he doesn't know the name but he may know him. Mikey said they're going to keep him on the weekends there at the station. He said they sign off when the sun goes down though. He said they're working on getting a license where they can stay on longer. Howard said there's a whole system there where they only broadcast from sunrise to sunset. Robin said she used to work at one of those stations. She said she had to go to the town hall to find out who was arrested and to the hospital to see who was admitted. She said that's how small it was. Howard said they did that for the small towns so you could get the broadcast signal from the big city stations at night. Howard said the whole business is depressing. He told Mikey not to get caught up with the music he's playing. He said that really doesn't matter. He said it's cool that he's on the air and announcing. He said he gets to work the board and all of that. Mikey said he feels he's getting better every week. Howard said Mikey should take vocal lessons. He said he kind of mumbles. He said he doesn't finish his words either. Howard said he needs to get a little confidence going. Howard told Mikey to tell him off. Mikey told Howard ''Don't come in my room, mom!'' Howard said he was a little clearer there. Howard said he's better off than he was. Howard said he could barely get the words out. Howard told him not to feel defeated. He told him to just do his thing. Howard said he was the worst and he went from the worst to first. Howard said people told him he was the loser's loser. Howard said he should have been cleaning the radio station and not on the air. Howard said he kept his giant nose to the grindstone and it worked out for him. He said he always knew in his mind what he wanted to do. Howard said if you work really hard at it he could be making $150-200 a week. Howard said that's considered a success story. Howard said he could be fired at any minute. He said it's a great career to get into. He said you have to be crazy to get into it. He said he always loved radio. He said he thought it could be a sexy medium if you did it correctly. Howard said that someone was trying to prank Michael Savage. He said he was just told his real name is Michael Wiener. Howard asked if the guy is embarrassed to be a Jew. Howard said he should come kiss his master's feet. Howard said everyone in radio knows that he's their master. Howard said he should be thanking him. Howard said you're irrelevant when you can't make a living. Howard said he lost the clip. He said if he's irrelevant in radio then everyone dreams to be as irrelevant as him. Howard said Savage isn't in the national dialog. Howard found the clip after JD told him where it was. Howard played the clip and Savage was taking calls about who the worst people in the country were. The caller threw out Lucas Dell'Abate and Robin Quivers names. Savage said he has no idea who he is. Then the guy threw out a Baba Booey. Savage asked if Howard Stern is still relevant. Howard said the guy is so embarrassed by his own name that he had to change it to Michael Savage. Howard said that's the worst radio name he's ever heard. Michael Savage was saying that no one has ever heard of Howard Stern and he ran out of wig makers. Howard said that makes no sense. He said he's a fucking moron. Howard said that's unbelievably unwitty. Savage was saying no one has ever heard of Howard Stern since he ran out of wig makers. Howard said this guy is unrelatable because of things like this. Howard said when you say Howard Stern hasn't been heard from since he lost his wig maker he's just out of it. Howard said he should come clean about his name Michael Wiener. Howard said he's trying to hide that from everyone. Howard said he's praying to be the cool guy but he's not cool. Howard said the guy has the Jewiest name of Wiener and he's ashamed so he changed it. Howard said the guy just doesn't want you to know who he is. Howard said if you come clean then you can be a great broadcaster. Howard said if you change your name then your insecurities are right there on your sleeve. Howard said he thinks he's superman when he's Michael Savage. Howard played more of the clip and Savage said Stern works for a satellite company that no one listens to. Howard said they have 25 million paying subscribers. Howard said that's not no one. Savage said that Howard Stern was hot in the 80s. Howard said he was hot in the 80s and 90s too. Robin asked when he's going to be hot. Howard asked how old Michael wiener is. Fred said he's 72. Howard said he's never going to be hot. Howard said the guy didn't make his mark when he was in his 20s. Howard said he didn't think to use radio the way he did. Howard said he went away because his wig maker went away. Howard asked what the theory is there. Howard said they seem to be making better and better wigs now. Savage was talking about how he should make balloon animals that are dirty. Howard wondered what this guy is going to do in his retirement. Howard said he has met guys like this who are ashamed of being Jewish. Howard said their names are Jewish and they just make a big change. Howard said Savage is such a douche. He said he should be proud of being Jewish. Howard said that whole strategy is so weak. He said that his whole audience sees right through it. Howard said he has never heard this guy's show before. He said that's the truth. Howard said he calls his show The Savage Nation. He said he likes Wiener Nation better. Robin said that she was watching Chasing Maria and she saw Maria talking about how she used to dream about being on the Howard Stern Show. Robin said they were talking about the old days when they got together for the first time. Robin said it was amazing. Howard said he had to take a break after that. Howard came back and said he's excited that Machete is there. Howard said it's Danny Trejo. Howard said he has to take a look at this guy. Howard said this is crazy. He said he loves Machete. Howard said he has to soak this in. Danny said in 1993 or 94 Howard came to L.A. Howard said they put them on the air out there. Danny said L.A. hasn't been the same since. Howard said he reads about his life and he's an inspiration. Howard said when you grow up the way he did... He said that he grew up in a shit hole. Howard said he really turned his life around. Howard asked if he believes in god. Danny said absolutely. Howard asked if he believes that it was divine intervention. Danny said his parents did the best they could. He said his pops believed that you could kick anything with hard work. Howard when he was a little kid he was a sweet little kid. He asked how anyone could beat a child. Danny said it was a different time. He said in the 40s and 50s you beat your kids. Howard said not everyone did. Danny said he can't put it on his mom and dad. He said he had an uncle who was a dope fiend and a robber. He said he was his mentor. He said he always had a wad of money in his pocket. He said his uncle was 6 years older than him. Howard said his parents saw him falling into a bad crowd. He said his parents would see that and come down and choke him. Danny said that's right. Howard said his dad should have intervened and saw that his uncle was a bad dude and stopped him from hanging out with him. Danny saw him with money and that inspired him. Danny said that his uncle was his dad's youngest brother and he was a great robber. Howard said it's too bad that his uncle ended up getting his degree in prison. Howard said he has met con men who can get a job anywhere. He said that they're fucking geniuses. He said that they can't play it straight though. Howard said they always get outsmarted. Howard said he finds what he did wit his life inspirational. Howard said at the age of 10 Danny hit a girl with a bat accidentally. Danny said they were playing a game where you roll a bat and hit it to grab it. He said he hit the girl with the bat accidentally and they said he did it on purpose. He said the police were coming so he ran. He was in Juvenile Hall so they could scare him. He said that he just started going there. He said it was the scariest place he had ever seen. Howard said if he kept going there he was going to get his ass kicked. Danny said when you get into a fight and bite someone in the neck they'll leave you alone. He said you have to crazy fight. He said the higher up you go in prison the less you'll fight. He said that it's easier to get away with stabbing someone than it is to fight. He said you can sit and fight or just stab then and walk away. Robin asked if he is saying he has stabbed someone. Danny laughed and said ''Uh, no.'' Howard asked if he just gives everyone anything or do you fight back. Danny said that you can pay your way out of things in prison. He said if he's doing life in prison he doesn't care who you are. Howard said he must have been one of the toughest guys in there. Howard said he was able to send home money for his family. Danny said his mom kept an account for him. He said they had a few guys that had a protection ring going so they were making money doing that. He said at one time they had 8 or 9 people they were taking care of. He said they had some gay couples that were married that wanted protection. Howard asked what he had to pay back then. Danny said it was a sliding scale. He said some guys had no money at all. He said they were willing to clean cells or do laundry so they were fine with that. Danny said that they would pay maybe 20 or 30 dollars. He said that's what they would get paid. Howard asked Danny if he could get pussy in prison. Danny said no. He said you could get prison pussy. He said they didn't have female guards when he was there. He said that prison pussy is guys. He said he didn't get any of that but he jerked off a lot. He said they had people who would draw pictures and things like that. Howard asked if that's the hardest part of prison. Danny said it's not. He said the hardest part is not thinking about what's going on outside prison. He said that you can't get institutionalized inside your own head. Howard asked if you get more and more despondent when you think about that. Danny said that you have to sever that whole thing from the streets. He said your whole day attitude can be like set on if you got a letter or not. He said you don't want people to have that power. Howard asked if he asked people not to visit or write. Danny said his cousin has done 34 years. He said he did second degree in 1980. He said he goes to visit him. He said that they're trying to get him out and they're appealing the governor denying his parole. Robin asked how much more he's supposed to do. Danny said California has more people in prison than some countries do. Danny said his cousin is in from 5 to life so it's at their discretion. Howard said Danny is his favorite actor with Machete. Howard said they have to get to his new movie too. That movie is ''Bad Ass'' with Danny Glover. Howard said he's also on Saint George with George Lopez. Howard said he was just up there yesterday recording something for them. Howard said George is a good dude. Robin said she loved Danny on Breaking Bad too. Howard said his head was on that turtle in Breaking Bad. Howard said Danny went into prison and his uncle would drive around with him and figure out how to rob a store. Howard said he was so brilliant that he'd go in and set off an alarm just to see how they reacted. Danny said he had a friend who did the same thing. He said his name was Eddie Munker. He said that he wrote some books and did a movie. Howard said Danny served his time and he didn't care about being caught anymore. He joined gangs and he was such a bad ass that he got thrown out of a gang. He was too much for the gang. Danny said they were a car club and everyone in the gang had been thrown out of some neighborhood. Howard said this is the highlight of his life. Howard said just imagine that you're so bad in a gang that you're kicked out. Danny said there are only 3 of you and you're drunk and decide to do something that's not the brightest. Howard said he would go into a party and try to beat the shit out of everyone. Danny said that's it. Danny said he's not sure why he did that. He just laughed. Howard said Danny's parents were the worst. Danny stopped him and told him that his mom was the light of his life. He said that she never gave up on him. He said that she stayed in touch with him when he was in prison. He said his dad wanted him to graduate high school so he could go to work with him doing construction. He said that college wasn't even in their lives. Howard said at the same point someone who beats you into submission isn't good for you. Howard said Danny has said that he wasn't happy, ever, when he was a child. Danny said he was happy when he was with his uncle or when he was fighting with guys. He said his happiness was different than other people's is. Howard said Danny stopped listening to his parents when he was only 13. He said he never said that to his dad though. He had just stopped listening to his dad. Howard said Danny would go into a party and just pick a fight. Howard asked how many guys he'd fight with. Danny said he'd just start fighting. Danny said if there are 10 or 11 people you have an advantage because they're all trying to get to you at once. He said someone is going to get hurt. Howard said he had an advantage because they'd get in each other's way. Danny said that's it. Danny said his jaw is fractured and he had to go to the doctor. Howard said that's one of the most painful things ever. Danny laughed and said he's on Ibuprofin. Howard asked what happened to break it. Danny said he fell. He said there was a dresser that was knocked down and he fell. He said they x-rayed it and they said it's fractured but not displaced. Howard said it's unbelievable how tough he is. Howard said it's a miracle that Danny is alive. Howard said they used to have car to car shoot outs. Danny said that they did. He said the best hand gun in the world is a 38 special. He said that's what they were using back then. Howard said now they use automatic weapons. Danny said things are different now. Howard said Danny got into heroin dealing with his uncle. Howard said he used to carry balloons in his mouth for his uncle. Danny said his uncle would walk ahead of him in the park and he'd carry the balloons in his mouth. He said his uncle would get the money and then he'd give the heroin. He said that they were shooting a lot of their profits though. Howard asked if he was a fiend. Danny said the worst heroin dealer in the world is a drug addict. Howard said Danny was a boxer in prison. Danny said that he was his dad's sparring partner or punching bag depending on how you look at it. Howard said he was a lightweight and welterweight champ in prison. Danny said that Mexicans don't understand what an exhibition is. He said that they bet money on you not knowing what it is. He said that he has to tell the guy to either go for it or he has to surprise him. Howard said he could have been heavyweight champion of the world. Danny said he wanted to be the welterweight champ of San Quentin. He said that he'd rather shoot for the moon and miss than shoot for the gutter and hit. Howard asked about his prison time after a drug arrest. Danny said he was not an honorable drug addict. He said he switched out heroin for sugar. Howard asked how they nailed him for the heroin if he had sugar. Danny said that they said he was defrauding the government. He said he was supposed to do 6-10 and he did 5 years. Howard asked about the tattoos he has and what's on his cheat. Danny said he has a Mexican lady with a sombrero on his chest. He said he knew this guy Harry the Jew since he was a kid. He said that the guy did the outline of the tattoo in prison and Harry told him not to let anyone touch it when he got transferred. He said that Harry ended up getting transferred too. He said that he showed up and did more of the tattoo. He said that Harry asked him to wait for him to finish it somewhere else. He said he waited for him there. Danny said Harry hated this tattoo. He said he became a well known tattoo artist and he always hated the on he did on his chest because it was his first. He said he's know Harry since he was 14 years old. Howard said he must have been the only Jew in his neighborhood. Danny said there were a few dropouts in there. Howard asked if he ever spent time in solitary. Danny said he did. He said that he went in from May to August of 1968. Howard asked how many years of his life he spent in prison. Danny said a total of about 10. He said the only regrets he's had are hurting people. He said he had to do what he had to do. He said whatever made him what he is today is what made him. He said that's fine. Howard asked what solitary means. Danny said you have to go crazy to keep from going crazy. He said he can make himself crazy to keep Howard from making him crazy. Danny said what you do is like what he did. Danny said he remembered the Wizard of Oz and that was his favorite movie. He said he would reenact the whole thing in prison. He said he would do the scene where the witch tells Dorothy to give her the shoes. Danny said when a guard would walk by he would be singing ''We are the lollipop kids...'' Howard said that's wild that he remembered that in prison. Danny said he also remembered the Hunchback of Notre Damme. Howard asked if he has ever been psycho analyzed. Danny said he has. He said he saw a doctor so many times that he had a whole form to fill out and if he saw one thing checked off he would call him in. Danny said that the guy told him that there was no psychiatrist who could help him unless he got off drugs. Danny said it was easier to get off drugs when you're in solitary. Danny said there was a riot on Cinco de Mayo. He told Howard why it happened. He said they ended up getting into a fight and that got him thrown into solitary. He said that this was just a bunch of Mexicans fighting and it wasn't whites versus the Mexicans like it usually was. Danny said he once threw a rock at a group. He said the rock allegedly hit a guard in the head. Howard asked if his parents ever visited him in prison. Danny said they did not. He said his mother wrote to him though. Danny said this was his step mom actually. He said his dad took him when he was 3 and he didn't see his real mom that much. He said he met his real mom in 1965 in the county jail. Danny said he was about 19 around that time. He said she came to visit him and his mom saw it in the paper that he had been arrested. He said she was trying to get in touch with him but his dad kept her from seeing him. Howard said this is some story. He said this should be the next Machete. Danny said when he threw that rock that's a gas chamber offense. He said there were three of them who had these offenses. He said that he made a deal with god to let him die with dignity. Danny said he remembers seeing a movie where a guy died in the gas chamber and he went out screaming crying. He said he didn't want to do that. Danny said he was afraid if dying poorly but not of dying. Danny said dying would have been a way out for him. Howard said he is one tough mother fucker. Danny said he made this deal with god to do that. He said he thought it was just for a couple of years. He said that the officer said that the rock was thrown by ''one of the three guys'' so the D.A. rejected the case. Danny said he came back out and thought that he made this deal and he had to uphold it. Howard gave Danny a plug for this movie ''Bad Ass 2: Badasses'' that's out now on DVD and Blu-Ray. He said they'll talk more about that later. Danny told Howard about a guy getting stabbed and how he was near there when it was happening. He said he had to get away from that and got back to his cell. He said he got into his cell and he still had the dominoes from the game they were playing. He said he had just seen a guy get stabbed and he kept the dominoes. Danny said he wondered what he was becoming. He said that he showed the guys his dominoes and some guys told him he was fucked up for holding on to them. Howard said he's so hardened that he didn't care the guy was getting stabbed and held on to his dominoes. Howard asked why the had to kill the guy on top of the game. Danny said that's it. He wondered the same thing. Howard said he was smart and buried $15,000 in his mom's back yard. Danny said he hid it from the feds. He said he shouldn't have said that though. Danny said they buried some guns back there too. He said he had a hand grenade too. Danny said his mom was telling him about how his dad was going to put in sprinklers in the yard and he told her not to let them do that in the back yard. Howard said he had 15 grand in the yard when he got out of prison. Danny said he had more money from the protection racket. Howard asked if he held up a store with a grenade. Danny said he did. He said they listen to you when you have a grenade. He said you don't have to do much. Danny said he had a sawed off shotgun that worked very well too. He said that you don't have to worry about someone not cooperating with you when you're holding that gun. Howard said Danny's uncle ended up dying. Danny said he overdosed and died. Danny said all of the guys he's mentioned today are dead now. He said they all died in robberies and things like that. Howard asked if it haunts Danny and he has nightmares. Danny said he really doesn't. He said he thinks he's moved past that. Howard said Danny got out of prison and he made this pact with God. Danny said he was working with a guy who had a wrecking yard. He said that he was working with that guy and another guy. He said they were best friends and this one guy was his sponsor. He said he was at the wrecking yard and out of prison by about 4 months. He said then his uncle got out. He said he was all straight going to AA and NA meetings. Danny said he had an apartment finally. He said his uncle pulled up in a new Lincoln just days after getting out of prison. He said he showed up in new pants and shoes and a tailored shirt. Danny said his uncle asked him what he was doing working there. Danny said he looked like a mess from the wrecking yard. Danny said his uncle put two quarter ounces of heroin on the desk with $1000. He said that he told him he couldn't do this shit anymore. Danny told his uncle that he just couldn't do it. He said he took the heroin to the back and thought about it. He said Frank Russo came back and told him to just wait. Howard said Uncle Gilbert was like the devil. Danny said he did what he knew. He's the one who died of a drug overdose. Howard said he was representing Satan in his life. Danny said for the life that he lived he was perfect. Howard said if he was still alive he'd be up his ass. Danny said his uncle saw him. He said he ran a rehab for a while. He said that his uncle worked there for a while until he got back on the drugs. He said that's how strong that addiction can be. Howard said Danny wanted to get into professional fighting but they didn't let him in because he was a criminal. Danny said he was a part of one of the first MMA fights. Howard said Danny got involved in AA and NA. Danny said he was sober and clean from 1968 to 1985. He was going to meetings and he was a drug counselor. He said he was working with dope fiends and all of that. Then in 1985 he got a call from a kid who he was sponsoring. He said he asked him for support. Danny said he thought he worked in a warehouse. He said he went down there and it turns out it was the movie set of a movie he was working on. Danny said that he walked onto the set of the movie and he thought it was the cutest thing ever. He said this guy asked him if he wanted to be in the movie. He said they asked if he wanted to be an extra and act like a convict. Danny said he said he'd give it a shot. He said he took off his shirt to change shirts and the guy saw his tattoo. He said that this guy knew him from prison and came over to talk to him. He said he was the writer guy. He said this guy Eddie Bunker used to plan robberies with his uncle. Danny said that he would sell robberies to people and his uncle bought one from him. Danny said you can see a scene like that in the movie ''Straight Time'' with Dustin Hoffman. Danny said that they used to rob poker games. He said that they could get 50 grand out of doing something like that. Danny said that Eddie asked him if he was still boxing. He said they needed someone to train one of the actors to box. He asked what it pays and they said $320 a day. He said Eddie told him that the guy was kind of high strung and it turned out to be Eric Roberts. He said he started training him for the boxing. He said Eric would do whatever he told him to do. He said this guy wanted him to be in the movie and fight with Eric. He said they had picked someone else to be in the movie but they took him instead. Howard said that's because he has that look. He said the guy was Russian and he kissed him on both cheeks. He said that he ended up asking for more money if he had to kiss the guy like that. He didn't know that it was just because he was Russian and that's what they do. Howard asked Danny about Robert Rodriguez putting him in Machete. Danny said Robert started talking to him about that about 20 years ago. He said they were in Desperado together and they talked about it way back then. Howard asked if he's nervous on set at all. Danny said it's all fun. He said he's not nervous, he's excited. Howard said it's great that he has this movie career going when so many other people have been working their whole life to be in movies. Howard said he was in prison while these guys were acting. Danny said he had a lot of great training in prison. He said you do a lot of acting in there. Howard asked Danny about his wife and kids. Danny said that's not his wife. He said that's the mother of his kids. Howard asked if he would ever marry the woman. Danny said that his kids are like 23 now so no. Howard said he thinks he could be a good dad because his dad was so shitty to him. Howard said Danny Glover is one of the greatest actors of all time and Danny is in this ''Bad Ass'' movie with him. Danny said that he gets excited watching him act. He said that they had a good time doing that movie. Howard asked if ever goes to some famous guy's house and thinks about robbing it. Danny said that you automatically think about that stuff. Howard said that's some fucking story he has. Howard asked if he stated smoking pot at the age of 8. Danny said that he did. He said his uncle got him started. Howard asked if someone did that to his kids would he get upset. Danny said it takes a lot to disrespect him. Danny said he has a 1936 Dodge Touring Sedan that he wouldn't sell for anything. He said he keeps his life pretty simple. He said he has a big house though. He said that he has a guy named Max Martinez living with him. He said he has Mario Martino living there too. Howard asked where he lives and if it's a white neighborhood. Danny said that it's Mission Hills and it's about 5 miles from the place he grew up. He said his daughter has the house that he grew up in. Howard asked if he hangs out with George Lopez and Santana a lot. Danny said he hangs with George a lot but not Santana. Howard asked if he has a girlfriend. Danny said he doesn't. Danny said he's with his kid's mom. Howard asked if he has banged everything on the planet. Danny said he has tried it all. Howard asked if he has a big cock. Danny laughed. He said it's the size of a forearm. He said Machete has a Machete. Danny said there's a scene in the movie where a girl asks if that's a machete in his pocket. Howard said Danny is a real man. Danny said he's a mama's boy. He said his step mom died when he was in London doing the Muppets. He said that this guy who is his bodyguard came into his room and had to break in to let him know his mom passed away. He said he was hugging the guy on the bed in the room. He said the bellman came in and he said he thought the bellman thought they were going to kiss. Danny said his bodyguard stayed with him the night. He said that he made arrangements to go home and he called his Mary to let him know he was coming home. He said she told him not to come home. Danny said he wanted to take care of everything. He said she told him to stay. Danny said he just shut down. He said he was really out of it. Danny said that they thought he had no emotion at all. He said his mom must have gotten pissed in heaven. He said that she sent Kermit to him and when he came in and said he was sorry about his mom he started balling. Howard asked if there is a better feeling than beating the shit out of someone. Danny said it's a power and it's not great. Howard asked if he has ever knocked someone out. Danny said he has. He said the rush you get is from adrenaline. Howard gave Danny some plugs for ''Bad Ass 2: Badasses'' and said it was great meeting him. He said he loves the Machete movies. Danny said he appreciates that. Howard asked if they have started shooting the Machete in space movie. Danny said not yet. He said he has to tell Robert they want to see it. He said they shoot those things in like 29 days. He said that Mel Gibson takes people into space and that's who he'll be fighting. Howard asked if Danny thinks that Steven Seagal can really fight. Danny said he can. He said the one who can really fight is Chuck Norris. Howard gave Danny some more plugs and wrapped up with him. Danny said that he has loved Howard since 1993 or so. Howard said he loves him too. He thanked him for coming in. They went to break a short time later. Howard came back and said that Rob Lowe is there. Howard said he hasn't seen him in years. Howard said he still looks the same. Howard said Rob has a book out called ''Love Life'' and they'll talk about that soon. Howard said Rob recently said that good looking people get discriminated against. Howard said he gets what he's saying. Howard said some people are so good looking that they don't get considered for certain roles. Rob said he was referring to that exactly. Rob said he has been told no doctor looks like him. He said he has been told that he can play an arrogant asshole though. Howard said he knows heads of companies who have said that they don't want someone so good looking around there. Howard said he may have said that himself. Rob looked around at the staff to make sure he was telling the truth. Rob said it's been so long since they've been face to face. He said on Parks and Recreation Amy Poehler and Adam Scott are always talking about the show. He said he had to do the show so they'd be talking about him over there. Howard said that he loves Danny Trejo and Rob's life is just as interesting. Howard said he's going back to his childhood and looking at how crazy it was. Howard said he grew up with Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey Jr. and others. Rob said it was Sean Penn, Chris Penn, Holly Robinson Peet and more. Rob said it was a strange time. Howard asked about growing up with Charlie Sheen and how he wasn't a wealthy kid himself. Rob said that Malibu was just regular people when he was growing up. He said that they might get someone famous but they'd be a whacked out rock star who would be wandering the highway. Howard asked if it was crazy being around Charlie Sheen. Rob said that Charlie got a BMW for his birthday and he was blown away by that. Howard asked if he was jealous of that. Rob said it just made him want to work harder. Howard asked why Charlie went to school with a bullet proof vest. Rob said you'd have to ask Charlie about that. He said he remembers it and wrote about it in his book. He said Charlie liked the vest and Polo cologne. He said that he thought it was awesome. Howard asked if he thought it was the greatest kid ever. Rob said he did. Howard said he thinks that Charlie kind of killed his greatness with his problems. Rob said that he and Charlie could spar over their sobriety. He said he's been sober for 20 years and Charlie just doesn't believe in that. Howard said Rob was on the road to ruin. Rob said he was on the slow track to ruin which is worse than the fast track. Rob said he admires a guy who can live the life he wants to. Howard asked if he really does. Rob said that he thinks it's great that you can hop on a Gulfstream and just go do what he wants to. Howard said it seems like a life out of control. Rob said that's a different life than he could lead. Howard asked Rob how bad he was when he was at his worst. Rob said Monday night football was his downfall. He said he was always very social and fun but he never knew when to stop. Howard asked if Rob knew that Sean Penn wanted to be an actor. Rob said he had been doing theater when he was a kid in 1976. He said no one there in Malibu was an actor. He said he was acting at the age of 8 though. Howard said he had a career going until he graduated high school. Rob said he was a kid on a sitcom at 15 on ABC. Howard said he must have been a big deal in school. Rob said his life at school changed over night. He said that part of the industry was different back then. He said it was strange for a kid to be on TV. Howard said he thins he lost his virginity at 14. Rob said he did. Howard said he would have loved to have lost it at that age. Rob said it was a birthday present. He said this girl invited him over for a home cooked meal. He said she was 18 years old. Howard said that's where it's good to be good looking. Howard said this girl is 18 and this girl cooks him a meal. Howard asked if she was nude. Rob said it was almost as subtle as that when she handed him a condom as a gift. Rob said he had some experimenting before that but then he knew he had to throw down. Howard asked if he regrets that whole thing. Rob said he does wonder what his whole perspective would have been if it had been his doing. Howard asked if he is angry at all. Rob said he is not. He said he wasn't planning on this but he had to get it together and get up to speed. Howard said he remembers Rob being 15 and being on TV. He said then his agent sets him up on a date with Sarah Jessica Parker. Rob said she was his age and she was playing Annie on Broadway. He said it was a rarity to be that young and doing what they were doing. Howard asked if he was pulling down some good money. Rob said he was for a 15 year old. Howard asked if his parents pushed him into this. Rob said his mother was not a stage manager. He said she supported him in the most appropriate way. He said she didn't push him though. He said his dad was in Ohio and he spent his summers with him. He said that it was a sad situation. He said divorce is not a good thing. He said his mother remarried and he liked the guy she married. Rob said when he became a father he can't imagine not being around them. Howard asked Rob if he thinks he was a father who didn't know how to be around his kids since he didn't have his father around. Rob said he was so driven and on his own that he had to learn it all on his own. Howard asked if his parents suffer from being good looking. Rob said his dad suffers a lot. Howard said he's amazed by guys with charmed lives like Rob. Howard said he knew John F. Kennedy Jr. Rob said he was a great guy. He said that he was very charismatic. Robin said they were both afflicted with that condition of being good looking. Howard said he can't imagine what it was like for Rob and JFK Jr. walking around single. Rob said he wrote a story about that. He said that he went up to John one night and asked what they were going to do that night. He said John wanted to go find some girls. He said he told him that he's JFK Jr. and the girls would just come to him. Howard asked where Rob was when he found out that Kennedy had died. Rob said he had just gotten a pilot and John put him on the cover of George magazine. He said it was the last cover he made before he died. He said that was the last he saw of him. He said that it was a favor to him and a vote of confidence for the TV show he was doing. Howard said Rob was supposed to be the star of the show that he was talking about. He said they had negotiated a salary for him and it was cut so he could just be part of it. Howard said that he figured his career would be back on track if he was in The West Wing. Then Martin Sheen was cast and he was kind of pushed to the side. Rob said he was supposed to be in the show in the background. He said he wasn't supposed to be front and center but he was so amazing that they put him right in the front. Howard said when it came to the second season they gave everyone a raise but Rob. Rob said he stayed on for another 4 years. He said he decided that he was worth at least what everyone else was worth so he parted ways with them. He said he wasn't bitter though. Rob was joking about his affliction of being so good looking. He said that there are only 30 people in the whole world with this affliction. Howard said he really is a very good looking man. He asked if he worries about his looks. Rob said no. Howard asked if he would get Botox or anything like that. Rob said the first thing he'll do is get a boob job. Howard asked if he works out to stay good looking. Rob said he's been trying to be the best he can be since he was 8 years old. Howard said he doesn't want to hurt himself though. He said he must worry about getting caught up in that looks thing. He said he isn't allowed to have an off day. Rob said he likes that. He said he's going to use that for sympathy at home. Howard said Rob knew Charlie Sheen in the neighborhood. Howard said Martin Sheen was whacked out too. Howard said he met him on Halloween one night. Rob said Halloween in his neighborhood was Lord of the Flies on meth. He said that guys would light car tires on fire and send them down a hill. He said that he had never met Martin Sheen before. He said he would walk around with a baseball bat and fatigues. He said that's how he kept the peace. Howard said he read that he jumped out from behind a bush and scared the kids. Rob said that's what he did and it just kept the peace. Howard said Rob was going out with Sarah Jessica Parker. Rob said he brought a date with him to the date. He said he was a spastic so he didn't know. Rob said that Sarah was a great singer and a great performer. Howard said he has had such a charmed life. Howard said he heard he went to hang out with Liza Minelli in her room. Rob said that he followed her luggage and just knocked on her door. He said he asked to see her and they let him in. He said he was maybe 11 years old at the time. He said she had a few and she got a knock on her door. Rob said Jack Haley Jr. answered the door and Liza was on the couch sprawled out. Howard said that story would define his whole life. Howard asked what they talked about. Rob said he doesn't remember much of it. He said it was just the three of them in the room. Howard asked Rob about this TV show he did at 15. Rob said it was a family that lived with another family. He said the ratings were horrible so they wanted to rejitter it. He said they changed one family to a black family without explaining it to the audience. He said what was fun was that the new girl on the show was Janet Jackson. He said she had such a miserable experience on the show. Howard asked what that is. Rob said that it's when your creative vision isn't filled. He said there was infighting and things like that there. Rob said he was out of show business after that. He said he was waiting tables and going to school. Howard asked if he was depressed from that. Howard said Rob's new book is out now. It's called ''Love Life''. Rob said he thinks Howard would love his Playboy mansion story. Howard didn't go for it. He asked if Rob's wife is upset about the sex stories he tells in the book. Rob said she doesn't like it. He said she's with him today and on the way over she was saying that what she likes about the book is how he told the stories. He said that he talks about how he was feeling and what it meant to him. Howard said that he's amazed when a guy like him makes a connection with a woman like he did with his wife. He said that couldn't have been easy. Rob said he doesn't know about that. Howard asked if she thought she was going to tame him. Rob said she was the one who told him to change and then they'd talk. Howard asked if she was afraid to go out with him. Rob said he had to get sober or she never would have gone out with him. Howard asked about meeting her and if he knew she was the one. Rob said that all the girl has to do is ask what the plan is or she'll move on. He said that he guy won't want to lose it so they'll marry them. Howard asked Rob about getting sober and how that worked. Rob said he had a few guys who helped him early on. He said that he had a great group in L.A. who helped. He said he never thought he'd have fun again. He said he thought he'd be a boring, lame guy. Howard asked if he ever fell off the wagon. Rob said he never did. He said that he had a hard time on New Year's Eve but that was about it. Howard asked Rob about writing this book. Rob said that he wrote about going to the Playboy Mansion at 19 years old. He said that's something not everyone can experience. Howard asked why he didn't bang anyone at the mansion. Rob said he didn't say he never did. Howard said this is the one time he didn't. Rob said he was meant to meet a girl in the grotto. He said that back then it was great and not like it is today. He said he waited out there for the girl and she didn't show up. Rob said he was waiting for her naked. He said through the mist he made out a naked girl. He said this girl was prettier. He said he was talking to her and having a conversation with her. He said sometimes she'd make a noise like something was happening to her. He said he just played it off. Rob said he started looking around if there was an EMT nearby. He said they talked for a long time and then he saw a big ebony hand around her waist. He said that she was getting it on and he was behind her the whole time. He said the guy didn't even care. He said the guy looked at him and gave him the Wassup look. Howard said Rob also didn't bang Madonna and he finds that interesting. Rob said he loves quotable people. He said that he wrote about that because what she said was so interesting to him. He said she told him that she wasn't going to let success fuck up her fun. Howard asked why he didn't have sex with her. Rob said he doesn't remember much of what went on back then. He said Madonna may not remember it either. Rob said the teenager he was, was a nerdy actor. He said people probably thought he was gay. He said the cool chicks thought he was a dweeb. He said that's his inner teenager. Rob said he doesn't feel like that guy. He said he's the guy who couldn't sit in the cool part of the bus in high school. Howard gave Rob a plug for his book and said he'll be signing copies at the Barnes and Nobel on 5th ave today. Howard asked about Rob getting the job in The Outsiders. rob said that he was told to wait from 15 until he was 18 because that's when they hire kids to work as younger kids. Howard said he went in on the audition for Francis Ford Coppola. He said Tom Cruise, Mickey Rourke, Scott Baio and others were there for the audition too. Rob said they were all there and they were there for the audition and saw the auditions. He said Francis had just bought the studio and they were on an open sound stage. Howard asked if he was nervous. Rob said he saw everyone there and he was so nervous. Howard asked if they would ridicule people. Rob said it was deadly silent if someone didn't do well. Rob ended up getting the movie. Rob said he did. Howard said that had to be a big boost to him. Rob said he survived the competition and he was going to be in this movie. He said that was the shocking thing. Rob said Tom Cruise was auditioning for his role of Soda Pop. He said Tom stopped himself and said that this wasn't working for him. He said that speaks to who he is. He said that guy is killer. He said that he has a sense of who he is and he's driven. He said he doesn't suffer those insecure foibles. Rob said he thinks the guy is amazing. Rob said he ran into Ralph Macchio there at Sirius. He said he loves to talk to those guys. He said he thinks Ralph is a really happy guy and he thinks he's lucky with his life. Howard said he didn't get that second wind that Rob did though. Rob said that's fine because he's the most happy and well adjusted guy. Howard said Rob got cut out of The Outsiders. Rob said they did and he still hasn't recovered from that. that led to Rob talking about how Matt Dillon is the master of closing with a girl. He said he's like his Obi Wan Kenobi of pussy. Howard asked Rob about doing the TV show with Jewel where he was supposed to have a passionate kiss. Howard said he knows Jewel now. He asked why she didn't kiss him. Rob said he wasn't sure what was going on. He said that she was supposed to do it but her boyfriend at the time was there so maybe that had something to do with it. Howard asked Rob about auditioning for the Footloose movie. Rob said he blew out his knee auditioning. He said he read the script and thought he had to have the role. Howard asked how he prepared for dancing. Rob said he took lessons for a month before the audition. Rob said he ended with a big running slide on his knees. He said they had a mass audition and there were like 10 guys doing it at the same time. Robin sad they do that with dancers. Howard said as a non actor he's thinking about going in with all these guys and how frightening it must be. Gary came in and said that Rob has to go. Howard said he didn't even get to the story about Roman Polanski loading up a room with girls. Rob said that's why he had to write two books. Howard asked how long it took to write this book. Rob said he wrote while working on a couple of TV shows and other things. Rob said he wrote about the things that stayed with him and that's why they're in the book. Howard said it has to be difficult to remember with the life he's had. Rob said there are things you remember no matter what. Howard asked about the Polanski story. Rob said he was going to audition for a movie called Pirates. He said the guy who took his spot in the movie looked just like him. He said he was a French guy. Howard said Polanski had a room full of 15 girls and he told Rob to take his pick. Rob said he was 18 years old and he was Roman. He said he's interesting. He said there were 20 amazing models in the room. He said he didn't know how to close and he was talking to one and then another. He said he saw Roman getting agitated. He said Roman told him to make up his mind or he'd end up jerking off. Rob said that was the best advice he ever got. Howard said Rob was also on a plane that the hijackers did a test run on. Rob said that he was coming out of Washington DC. Howard said he has to come back and talk about that and other things. Robin said she liked him in the Liberace movie. She said that was the best. Howard said that was inspired. He said he played the surgeon. Gary said that they are freaking out back there. Howard wrapped up with Rob and let him go. They went to break after that. Howard read some email after that. He said that someone said he should come out dressed as Hannibal Lecher on AGT so he doesn't have to talk to the other judges. Howard said he actually likes talking to them. Howard read another email from someone who had some suggestions for replacing David Letterman. He had a bunch of names including Iron Man. That led to Howard saying that Jon Favreau could direct. Howard said Jon has a new movie out called Chef. He said he figured he'd give him a plug since he was so good to him. Howard read an email asking how he'd feel with Nick Cannon being the replacement. Howard said he'd be fine. Howard read an email about how he should be done with Hanzi on the show since he doesn't add anything to it anymore. Howard said that he got some mail about Jeff Van Gundy and what he was saying about him yesterday. Howard said he got a lot of hateful emails about that. He said that the guy is beloved by the faithful Knick fans. Someone said that he shouldn't have gone off on him as much as he did over such a passing statement. Howard said he gets passionate when someone insults him. Howard played a clip of some announcers talking about a game and one of the guys asking them not to say anything about the celebrities there. Howard said they should keep that in mind. Howard said that someone told him to keep going to therapy after that. Howard said he brought that up at therapy. He said you think he was going off there. Howard read a few more comments from the fans of Van Gundy. Howard said someone said that he does know about being number one but Howard said he really doesn't. Howard got in a plug for the Billy Joel Town Hall he'll be hosting on April 28th. Howard said they're going to have a party. Howard said they'll have it on Howard 100, 101 and on the Billy Joel channel. Howard said they're going to have some famous singers come in and cover some Billy Joel songs. Howard said it should be a lot of fun. Howard got in some plugs for the shows they have on Howard 101 today. Howard said they had Iron Sheik on Leiberman Live last night. Howard played a clip of Jon Leiberman asking Sheik about Oscar Pistorius and Sheik went off on the guy. Howard said they asked him some questions and Sheik had no idea what they were talking about. Howard said they got dead silence from him. Howard played another clip where Sheik said ''I don't know'' when he was asked if they will ever find the missing Malaysian airline. Leiberman asked Sheik about Russia and the Ukraine and Sheik didn't have an answer for him. Howard said that's some show. He said they have to limit it to 15 minutes or your head would explode. Howard picked up on Hanzi saying he didn't have time to talk to him today. He said he'll get him some other time. Hanzi was sleeping so Howard hung up. Howard took a call from Tommy in Malden who said that Ellen Degeneres was kissing Rob on her show. Howard said the guy is good looking that she thought she could be with him. Tommy said the guy is so good looking but he's got to be pushing 60. Robin said she thinks he's in his 40s. Tommy said he's got to be in his 50s. Howard said he's exactly 50. Howard took a call from Balls who said Danny Trejo was great and an inspiration. He said Rob Lowe was good too. He said he was in a show called The Specials which they should check out. Howard thanked him for the call and had Robin start her news. Robin said Howard was a fan of the Archie comics. Howard said he wasn't a big fan but he can name the characters. Howard rattled them off for Robin. Robin said that they are killing off Archie. She said that the high school kids will continue but they're going to make Archie old and kill him off. Robin said that Sean Penn's daughter is just about nude in the paper today. Howard said she's naked with just a pocketbook covering her vagina. Howard said that's Dylan Penn. Howard said she looks good. Robin said she posed for an erotic photography magazine. Robin read a story about some family that's suing an old age home for having a male stripper there. Robin said that the women hired the stripper though. She said it's not the nursing home's fault. Howard did a live commercial and then went to break. After the break Howard said he saw that the Ultimate Warrior died. Howard said he was at some big WWE thing and he just dropped dead. Howard said JD is freaking out about that. Howard said JD said that he left a huge impression on him as a kid. Howard asked JD if he wanted to come in and say something about him. Robin said she wants to know what impressed him. JD came in and said he was a great wrestler. He said his character was great. He said he'd come into the ring and shake the ropes. He said Hulk Hogan was great too. Howard said you'd think being a wrestling fan would get him girls. JD said he was very entertaining. He said he was probably the best that ever existed. Howard said he sounds like the Ultimate Loser when he talks about wrestling. Howard said he doesn't know many people who are into professional wrestling. JD said he wanted to wrestle and his name would have been Strong Man. Fred was playing some Danny Trejo laughs during that discussion. Howard said JD picks names that are the complete opposite of what he is. Da Bad Ass and Strong Man. Howard said he should have been the Ultimate Mumbler or Inarticulate Man. Howard took a call from a woman who wasn't getting to the point of her call so he hung up on her. Howard said the call was dragging. Robin said it went nowhere. Robin wondered why a person would call with nothing to say. Howard took another call from a guy who said he enjoyed that Danny Trejo interview. He said that he thinks Howard enjoyed it even more. Howard said he loves Machete. He said he loved the name of the movie and then he saw it. He said it's like James Bond and he's killing everyone and the women are all in love with him. He said it's so absurd that it's great. Howard said Robert Rodriguez is brilliant. He said he went and created this character who is a Mexican bad ass. He said it's just inspired and he loves the guy. Howard said Danny has a great story too with his rags to riches story. Robin said she thinks Howard would really like the Dave Clark Five documentary. She said that she caught it and it was really good. Robin said they had an incredible urn of hits and then they disbanded. Howard said they came right after the Beatles and there was always one kid who didn't like the Beatles but he liked the Dave Clark Five. Robin said that they have Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder talking about how brilliant the band was. Robin said the only one who comes off kind of wacky was Gene Simmons who was in full make up talking about how they were inspired by the band. Robin said one of the things that was incredible was a musical that Dave Clark wrote called Time. Robin said he worked with Freddy Mercury and you see him talking about working with Dave on the songs. Howard said he would like to see Dave Clark Five Vs. Machete. Robin said there's a story in the paper about a North Korean guy being executed by a flame thrower. Howard did a live commercial after that. Robin read a story about the Mickey Rooney estate fighting over his body. Robin said his estate has gone down to $18,000 though so there isn't much to fight over. Robin said he had just 18 grand. Howard said that's the way to go. Robin said his sole heir was a step son. Robin said he disinherited all of his children. Howard said he'd love to have Mickey's head right there in the studio. He said he could dress him up like Andy Hardy. Howard said he could put Gary's talk box in his head so it looks like Gary is talking out his head. Howard said he had a human skull on his desk for a while but he couldn't stand it anymore. He said that guy lived and he had a family. Howard said he had to get rid of it. Howard said they have a new super buzzer on AGT this season. He said if you hit it you can save someone. He said if the judges vote someone out you can save the person. Howard said that the buzzer is crazy. He said it's more than the regular buzzer. Robin asked how it works. Howard said if you want to save an act that two judges have voted no to, you hit the buzzer. Howard said you can only use it once. Howard said he hasn't used it and neither has Heidi or Mel B. Howard said he's going to L.A. for 6 or 7 days of taping and he may use it out there. He said he gets very passionate about the show. He said he likes arguing with Howie. He said it's different with a girl though. He said he goes home sometimes and wonders if he just got into an argument over a juggler. Howard said that is the greatest show ever. He said a couple came out and threw knives at each other. He said he told them that it wasn't dangerous enough. Howard took a call from a guy whose phone cut out when he was about to speak. Robin got back to her news and read about Oscar Pistorius still being on the stand. Howard said Beth watches the trial on her computer every day. Howard said it was about 4:30 in the morning and she was talking about how excited she was to watch. Howard said that he told her that he should admit what he did and just go to jail. Howard played some audio of Pistorius crying as he was talking about opening the door and seeing Reeva there. Robin said now the prosecution is questioning him. Howard said that should be good. He said he has some questions he'd ask the guy. Robin said she'd like to know why he was knocking down the door with a cricket bat if he thought someone was robbing him. Howard took a call from a guy who asked if you can change a name when you adopt a dog. Howard said you can if you don't like the name. Robin said that she wasn't allowed to change Leroy Brown's name. Howard said that's a great name. Howard told the caller he should call his dog Machete. The caller said he'll run that by his fiancee and see if that will fly. The caller asked if he's familiar with a show on the History Channel called Cryptid: The Swamp Beast. Howard hadn't but the guy said he plays a part in the show. He told Howard to check it out on the History Channel web site. The guy said that it's a scripted show. Howard told him to feel free to make that dog feel his own by renaming it. Robin read a story about the missing Malaysian airlines and how they think they've heard more signals from the black box. Robin said they're in the same area that they were picked up before. Robin had some audio of an official talking about the search. Robin said they're still looking for some debris. Robin said the batteries may be going dead and the pings are not as powerful as they were. Robin read about a shooting at Camp Lejeune. Robin had some audio of an official talking about how the situation is under control. Robin said that they say a guard killed another guard there on the base. Robin read a story about a guy who spent 25 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Robin said he's 54 years old now. Robin said he didn't commit the crime and he stuck to that story. Robin said he claimed he was at Disney World at the time of the shooting. Robin said he was convicted because a witness claimed they saw him. Robin said the witness recanted but they left him locked up. Robin said they eventually found the receipt for the room showing that he was in Disney. Howard said that's the worst nightmare. He did a live commercial read after that. Robin read a story about the guy from Chik-Fil-A who came out against gays is now saying that they have more restaurants opening that are open to anyone. Robin said that he must have realized he should stay out of politics. Howard said these guys just don't get it. He said they start mouthing off and they're dummies. Robin read about Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin going to a ceremony in the Bahamas. Robin said they say that they had a ceremony where they had their ''breakup moon.'' Howard said that's such happy shit he can't go there. Robin said they say that Game of Thrones will have two more seasons. Robin said that she watched the series finale of Being Human and she didn't know it was the last show. She said the show has been canceled. Robin had some audio of a new song from Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull. Robin wrapped up and Howard ended the show after that. They were done around 10:10am. Gary said he doesn't understand wrestling at all. He said from the moment he heard about it he thought it was fake and stupid. He said he had a kid in his class who wasted a ton of paper making copes of wrestler pictures. Jon said he was on board for wrestling early on. JD said he was into sports and it was sort of a sport. He said he thought it was real when he was a kid. He said that he realized it wasn't real and things started to change. Gary asked if he finds it odd when people get upset when people say that it's fake. Gary asked if people think it's real. JD said that they may know it's not real but they get upset about the way the outcome is of a story. Gary said he figure they were so stupid they don't know it's scripted. JD and Jon said they may know that it's not real but they get upset like someone would get upset when they kill off their favorite character on a TV show. Jon said you accept the world that you're in when you're into wrestling. Jon asked what finishing move JD had. JD said he doesn't remember it. He said he may have had one but he doesn't know what it was. JD said the guy he was most afraid of was Killer Khan and he thinks he hid behind his dad when he walked down the aisle. He said he was afraid he was going to attack. JD said he kind of gave up on the wrestling thing when he was in grade school. Then he got back into it for a while. He said it died off again after that. Jon asked why the Ultimate Warrior meant so much to him. JD said he was a good guy for the most part. He said he was crazy and he had the make up. He said it was the way he talked and things like that. He said it was awesome to watch. Jon said he saw like 4 wrestlers in the airport on his way home from college once. He said he got so mad when he saw them eating together. He said he knew it was fake but he still got angry that they were hanging out together. Gary said he did an appearance with Rowdy Roddy Piper and he was a really nice guy. He said people would yell stuff at him and Roddy would yell back and then turn into a normal person talking to him. Jon took a call from a guy who said that he found it odd that they take bets on wrestling at sports bets. Gary said you can probably bet on who gets killed off on other TV shows too. Jon took a call from a guy who said that wrestling is like a live action cartoon. He said you get invested in it as a kid. Then you become a teen and the reality part came around so you can stay with it. He said some people keep watching because they're afraid they'll miss something good. Gary said he gets that when he was a kid he was into the Banana Splits. He said then he outgrew it when he got older. He said that some people never outgrow Wrestling and he doesn't understand that. Jon said he and his dad used to watch and his dad would laugh at it but he still enjoyed it. Jon said he phased out of it a little bit but it's just fun. Jon said he can't explain it better than that. Jon said Gary wrestled for real and that clouds his judgment a little bit. Gary said he did it for real and he's not sure what that stupidity is. Jon said they had to go to break after that. Gary said you wonder how a guy who was that bad becomes so good. Gary said one of the things he said was that when you try to scare a kid and it doesn't work, that kid will never be scared again. Jon said that Howard loves prison stories too. Gary said he loves those and mob stories too. He said he could listen to those forever. Jon said you wonder if anything ever scared Danny. He said when he was asked to act like a convict he thought he could do it. Jon said that it was just a great interview. Jon took a call from a guy who said it was an amazing interview. He said it's the best this year. The caller also said he likes Danny on Sons of Anarchy. Jon said he is great on that show. Gary said he loves that he was the head on the tortoise in Breaking Bad. Jon said that he wonders if that whole thing with his uncle ever goes away. Gary said if you take a child and put them in that environment you can't expect them to be anything else. He said that he's the unique one who got out of there. Jon said when George Lopez was there he told them to ask him about that tattoo. Jon said they learned how the artist followed Danny from one prison to another to finish that tattoo. Jon asked Ronnie how he felt about that interview. Ronnie said he didn't hear the whole thing but he loves that guy. He said that he loves that Machete movie. Jon took a call from a woman who said she wanted to say that was a great interview with Danny today. She asked if they want to book them again right away or do they let it settle down. Gary said you don't want him back in 2 months but maybe in 6 months to a year. The caller said she could have listened to him for the entire show. Jon said that the thing that kept Danny sane in solitary was reciting the lines from the Wizard of Oz. He said he has never gone to jail so he has no idea what that's like. He said he can imagine how difficult it must be. He said it sounds crazy. Gary said he wouldn't last a day in prison. He said he has spoken to some guys who have been to prison and they say that you have to go to the showers and you have to fight. He said if you don't fight then you're fucked forever. Gary said he doesn't want to be in that world. JD said he watches that Lockup show and that freaks him out. Jon said Robin did that story about the guy who was locked up for 25 years. He said he cant imagine that. Gary said he remembers seeing a guy they called Maytag because he was the guy who would do all of your laundry if you told him to. JD said he watched an HBO special about prison and that freaked him out. Gary said that they did a special about girls in prison and it was really rough. JD said that's called Beyond Scared Straight or something like that. Ronnie said he's not going to prison so he's not worried about it. Gary said that you don't plan on going to prison. Gary said he always reads about DUIs and things. He said that if you fuck up then you're going to jail. He said that there are people who have accidents and they end up going to prison. Gary said that Robin read that story today about the guy who was imprisoned for something he didn't do. Gary said Ronnie could end up in something like that. Gary asked Ronnie if he got locked up would he do something to stop it. Ronnie said he might kill himself when he's out on bail or something. Gary said if you have a live sentence you don't get bail though. Jon took a call from a guy who went off on Ronnie and told him to just answer. Ronnie started yelling at the guy and said he knows he doesn't have a job. The guy told him to get off his high horse and just answer. He said the last couple of weeks Ronnie has been flipping the fuck out. Ronnie said he's just answering the question. The caller said Ronnie is a fucking prick and no one wants to hear him. Ronnie goofed on the guy by doing an impression of him. Jon let the guy go so he could calm Ronnie down. Jon asked Ronnie if he was into wrestling. Ronnie said he liked Haystack Calhoun. Jon got a laugh out of that. Ronnie said they had to pick up Andre the Giant once when he was driving for another company. He said he had to pick him up in a van and the van ended up tipping over. He said the guy was very unhealthy. Gary said he heard stories about where he lived and how he had to lay down on the floor to be driven anywhere. Gary said when he first started working for the show he was hired to do a car show and he did it with Bruno San Martino. He said that Bruno looked at him like ''Who the fuck is coming here to see you?'' and he was thinking the same thing about Bruno. They went to break a short time later. Jon said that Rob went from Ohio to Malibu and JD went from Ohio to there. He said that has to be quite different. JD said that the subway system freaked him out. He said he didn't think he'd be able to figure it out but he did eventually. Jon said that Rob was so good on The West Wing and you can't blame him for leaving after you hear the story. He said that he had a good reason for leaving. Jon said he thought that Matt Dillon story was great too. He said that he did 3 other movies to get Diane Lane. Gary said that in the first book Rob talks about the auditions he did for The Outsiders and things like that. Jon said he did say that with Ralph Macchio he wishes he had his life instead of what he has. Jon said that he took a while to get to the place he's at in his personal life. Gary said Rob's wife was up there too and she was very nice. Gary said he thinks that Rob cheated on her and she told him to go away and get his shit together. He did that and they have been together ever since. Jon said Rob and Danny both went through their own rehab and they have stuck with it all this time. Jon said that it's easier said than done. Gary said that he thinks Rob was being too nice about Charlie Sheen. He said he thinks that Charlie Sheen will get sober eventually and he'll be deeply embarrassed by this time period. Jon took a call from a guy who said that he listened to Howard years ago when he was a shock jock. He said that he is the best interviewer now. He said you have to listen to him do his interviews these days. He said he goes from Dan Rather to Danny Trejo and you get so much information out of both. He said it's mind boggling to him. The caller said that Howard is the guy who should replace David Letterman. He said people who think Howard is way out there just haven't listened to him. Gary said he doesn't think Howard could replace David Letterman. He said he can't do a 90 minute interview in that format. He said that Howard needs his own show on HBO or somewhere like that where it's unedited and unfiltered. He said that some interviews go 40 minutes and some go 90 minutes. Jon said this week the guests were all over the place but in a good way. He said he really flexed his muscles with his interviewing skills. Gary said one thing they didn't touch on with Rob today was about the Brat Pack. He said the group went out with a reporter and he did a hatchet job on them. Gary said that he heard that nickname and he thought it was a great one. Gary said that you have an idea of who was in the group but there are some people who were thrown in there. Shuli said that Sour Shoes was calling his desk to get in on the show as all of the Brat Pack. He wanted to so impressions of them all. Ronnie said that Playboy story was good too. Gary said he has been there and he was there for the DVD release of Van Wilder. He said there were about 70 guys there and about 2 girls. He said the girls are there from 7 to 11 and they're out of there as soon as it's 11 o'clock. Jon asked Ronnie about being at the Playboy mansion. Ronnie said they were doing Howard's show there. Gary said the party to go to is the Halloween party. He said that's the one that they really want to be at. Jon asked Shuli what he had in the Howard 100 News today. Shuli ran down a few stories they have coming up today. He mentioned one story about Bobo moving to Florida and how he's going to be selling some stuff and packing up his Howard shrine for the move. Gary wondered if he's selling any memorabilia that he'd want. Shuli said he's not sure he's selling any of that stuff. Gary said he'd like to know if he is. The rest of the guys got in their plugs and they ended the show around 11:00am. Jon asked Benjy if he thinks people knowing what he's going through will change their outlook on him. Benjy said he hopes so. He said when you realize someone is facing mortality much sooner than others it makes you a kinder person. Jon said Eric has faced it all his life. Gary said this one seems pretty serious. He said he knows it's a big deal because someone in his own family has had it done. He said that it is open heart surgery. Jon said he wanted to talk about Dan Rather. He asked Gary if he ever thought he'd see Dan in there. Gary said it was a dream come true for them. He said he got the book Dan wrote in 1975 or so. He said he thought he wanted to be Dan Rather and go around the world covering stories. Jon asked if he ever did anything like that. Gary said no. He said he worked for a radio station that broke stories that were big and he thought he wanted to do that stuff. He said he took a job at NBC working for the traffic reporter. He said that was his toe in the door. Jon said that's what you have to do and that's what you tell your kids. He said you get your foot in the door and prove yourself. He said you become well liked and move yourself up the chain. Gary said that most people don't take a job at 22 and keep it the rest of your life. Benjy said they do there. Jon said that's a good point. He said almost everyone there was an intern on the show before. He said Will, Jason, Benjy, Steve, Sal, Richard and others have started there as an intern or a guest. Gary pointed out that Jon started out as a guest. Jon said once you get in there you can make things happen. Gary said they like to hire within. He said if they find someone with talent and sensibilities then they want them there. Gary said if they see those two things they hire you and no one leaves because it's a great place to work. Jon asked Benjy if he expected to be there a long time. Benjy said he was determined to get a job but he never thought he'd stay this long. He said he knew he could make it into a job though. He said that people told him that it doesn't happen there but it did. Gary said he used to go out and smoke before he went to his car. He said Benjy would stand with him and ask questions about the show. He said this was when they were at K-Rock. He said he could see Benjy had an interest in knowing more about the show. He said it was great. Gary said those were some of the best times they had together. Jon asked Benjy if he planed to leave when Gary did. Benjy said he guesses he did. He said he doesn't remember Gary smoking though. He said he remembers hanging out with him but not the smoking thing. Jon took a call from a guy who said he thinks Howard is one of the biggest celebrities out there. He said it's great when someone Howard admires walks in the studio. He said that he's awestruck and it's great. He said it's nice to see him get down to that level. Gary said Dan Rather has had a front seat to history. He said he has spoken to every president since Kennedy and he's been there for everything. Gary said there aren't many people like that left. Jon said that people learned their news from him too. He said the thing that fascinated him about Dan Rather is that he didn't get the respect that others did. He said Walter Cronkite and others never gave him the credit. Gary said some of those anchor guys weren't out there doing it like Dan Rather was. Jon said Anderson Cooper is out there doing that. He said he goes out and gets the story and puts himself in harm's way. He said Dan even said that he respected him for that. Jon said maybe the other reporters just don't get to do that. Gary said he likes Brian Williams and he thinks that he has been an anchor for most of his career. He said he met Scott Pelly last year and he was blown away in how involved he is with that news cast. He said he is the news director for that program. He said he had a discussion with him about it. Jon said he didn't know Gary was such a news junkie. Gary said he really is. Benjy asked how long Dan Rather has been off the network. Gary said it has to be sometime in the 90s. Gary said he used to watch Brian Williams but now he watches Scott Pelly. Benjy asked if Rather went to something else after CBS. He said he knows he's on AXS now. Gary said he thinks that Dan has been off a long time. Jon said he doesn't think he wanted to leave. He said he thinks he enjoys doing what he does. Jon said Dan has such a unique voice that you know who it is instantly. Gary said you don't even need to look at the radio to see who it is. Jon took a call from a guy who said there's something great about that moment when Dan talked about having the gun to his head and saying that guy said he was going to ''fucking kill you''. Gary said they all smiled and looked at each other when they heard that. He said everyone talks that way in real life. He said when he was on TV he wasn't allowed to talk like that. Gary said of course it sounds kind of shocking. Jon said you can tell that's how he really is in real life. Jon said he went to get personal with Dan and Dan said it in a classy way when he said Howard is crazy if he thinks he's going to answer that stuff. Gary said people think when you come there you have to answer questions. He said that it's up to the guest if they want to answer or not. Gary said they don't force anyone. Gary said he got a mention on Dan's blog. He said he really respects the guy and it's amazing when someone like that likes you back. Jon took a call from a guy who said last week the subject of DJs came up. He said he thinks that they could get Howard interested if they talked about how much money they're making. He said they're getting like a million or a half million per night to play. He said he thought that might be a hook to get Howard interested. Gary said that those guys are on their radar and they were pitched someone recently. Gary said that the financial aspect is mind blowing. He said that's why they were going to have this guy on. He said the guy wasn't able to make it to New York so they didn't have him in. Gary said there was a guy getting paid six figures to do one night of DJ'ing for their kid's party. Gary said that this is pretty mind blowing. Jon asked if Lucas got into it and wanted to do it for a living, would it be okay with him. Gary said that these DJs do after movies where they show all of the fun parts of the job but not the actual work. Gary said he tries to guide his son. He said that he has a major gig on Friday night. He said Lucas is the one who is handling everything himself. He said he had to sign some paperwork but that's all he had to do. Benjy said that they had DJ AM on the show so they did have a DJ on. Gary said he is a different kind of DJ. He said he was one who mashed up songs. He said the DJs they're talking about are making their own songs. Benjy said he didn't know what that was all about. Jon said they had to go to break so he cut them off and said they'd get to it after the break. Jon asked if Dave has any idea what the real Dave's retirement might mean for his career as Evil Dave. Will said he thinks he takes it day by day. Gary said he's banking on Evil Dave outliving the real Dave. He said he's not so sure that will happen. Jon said he thinks that there will be a shelf life for Evil Dave after the real Dave retires. Will said they could find out what Dave is doing in retirement every year or so. He said that might work. Gary said that Evil Dave has been around for a while and he should know that you don't eat on microphone. Will said the guy who plays Evil Dave is named Dave. He said he lives in the old days because he doesn't have a cell phone and you have to call 3 different numbers to get a hold of him. Jon took a call from a woman who asked Gary if he is going tonight for the induction for the E Street Band. Gary said he is. He said this is hands down the best class. He said that they have a stellar line up of bands being inducted. Richard Christy said Gary is beaming today. He said he thinks he has a big hard on today because of that whole thing. Jon said Gary does have a little extra pep in his step today. Gary said that's the great thing about this job. He said when you wake up and you have a great guest on the show it's easier to wake up. Jon said that the Dan Rather thing was great for him. Richard said he was up for Danny Trejo. The guys talked about Rob Lowe too. Jon said they'll talk more about that tomorrow. Jon said Gary is turning red now. Gary said he and Rob are about the same age and they have kids around the same age. He said he felt he had a connection to him because he took him out on Dial-a-Date. He said that they had a talk about those clubs they used to go to back in the 80s and that was fun. Jon asked Richard about Danny Trejo. Richard said he has been a big fan of his since he was in ''From Dusk to Dawn.'' He said he was a big fan of his on King of the Hill too. He said he has a really interesting life story too. Jon said he thinks it was one of the best interviews of the year. He said he had some great stories and he has a great sense of humor. Gary said when he talks about the tattoo he has on his chest he talked about the prisons he was in to get them and they were hard core prisons. Richard said he loved the quote he had about how acting like you're not scared in a prison riot scene that's real acting. Jon asked if any of the guys have anyone in their life that was as big an influence on their lives as Danny's uncle was. Gary said he had an uncle who was sort of living that life and he's dead now. Richard said he had an uncle Herbie who had a Fiero in the 80s. He said he taught him how to flip people off. He said he was a cool uncle and he was an influence on him. Richard said his Fiero had a sunroof and he'd have him stand up through the roof and flip his parents off. Jon asked how long he influenced him for. Richard said it was a long time. He said he had a haunted house that was great and that's one of the reasons he loves Halloween. He said he saw Evil Dead with his uncle too. Jon said they had to take another break after that. Jon took a call from a guy who said that Jeff Van Gundy is a real douche bag. He said that he really is a moron. Gary said that he's considered to be a pretty good basketball mind. He said maybe he had no idea what he was doing singling Howard out. He said he's sure that he's been to a million games where people have left early. Jon said he thinks that he was just thinking that Howard likes to mix it up with people and break balls so he decided to do it with Howard. He said he didn't know the consequences of what was going to happen. Jon said the Reggie Miller clip was great too where he said he wasn't going to mess with Howard. Gary said they have had this happen before. He said that they have hours and days and weeks to fuck with someone. He said they can do it every day. Benjy asked if Van Gundy should apologize at a Knick game. Gary said he thinks he'll just shut up and hope it goes away. Will said he thinks that the Knicks might want him to apologize so they don't discourage people from wanting to go to the games. Jon said he doesn't work for them though. He was doing a broadcast for ESPN. Jon said they'll have to see what happens with that because it's not going away. Jon took a call from a woman who asked what Gary thinks about Cat Stevens being inducted and if he will show up. Gary asked what she means. The caller said that he talked a lot of shit about the states after he became Islamic. Gary said that they're inducting him in as a musician and not about him as a person. He said that if you go that way then you have to talk about all of the people who have been arrested. He said it's about their contribution to music. Gary said that he's not sure if Cat Stevens is going to show up. He said he changed his name to Yusuf Islam so he's not sure if he'll show up if they don't call him that. Jon asked Richard how Sal is doing now that KISS is being inducted into the hall of fame. Richard said he's excited about it. Gary said he and Richard were talking about the crazy stuff Sal has done because of KISS. They talked about how he's contacted some of the band and also how he's dressed up as KISS and things like that. Richard told a story about Sal meeting Ace Frehley and how he was in the bathroom trying to put makeup on as Ace. Then Sal wanted to take a picture with Ace at the studio and the only person around was Howard so he asked Howard to take it. Gary said he saw that going on and he ran over to take the picture instead. Jon said with that they'll end the show. Gary mentioned that he'll Instagram out any good pictures he takes at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction. He said that he's not sure when it will air on TV. Jon had the guys get in their plugs and then ended the show. They were done around 11:20am. Jon asked Sal what he thinks and what Sal would do if someone came after him. Sal said it all depends. He said if someone blatantly insults Howard then it's not worth following through. He said that Michael Wiener knows who Howard is and his whole angle was screwy. He said there was no substance there and the guy was a complete jerk off. Jon congratulated Sal on his band KISS getting into the rock and roll hall of fame. He asked if Richard likes them as much as Sal does. Sal said he probably wouldn't have liked Elvis if his dad didn't play it on the 8 Track in the car when he was growing up. He said he likes Coheed and Cambria because Richard played it for him. He said that Peter Criss' solo album was a big deal to Richard and got him started drumming so they're a big deal to Richard too. Jon said that it's great that KISS is in the hall of fame now. Sal said he saw their Destroyer album when he was 8 years old and that visual was amazing. He said that this kid Chris Raggett brought the album into school and he saw it and stared at it for at least a half hour. He said he was mesmerized by it at the time. He said there was something about picking up a record and looking at it. He said he fell in love with the band without even hearing them. Jon said he fell in love with 4 guys in makeup and wild clothes. Jon said that hearing it first might have been different. Sal said KISS used glam and makeup and all of that but when you strip it down they had great music. Jon asked if Sal ever got to see KISS in concert as a kid. Sal said he wasn't allowed to go out at all. He said his dad never let him go. He said all he wanted to do was see them. He said once they took the makeup off he was done with them. Jon asked if that was tough for him. Sal said it was really hard and he knew it was bad when they did that. Sal said when they announced they were getting back together in 1996 he bought tickets to 4 shows. He said he ended up crying during ''New York Groove.'' He said he was back in the groove with them. He said it was great seeing Ace Frehley playing the song. He said his arm went up to the song and he just lost it. He said he was a mess. Jon said he bets he wasn't the only one crying. Sal said there were a bunch of people around him and none of them were crying. Sal said he went to concert 4 nights in a row and they were in all different sections. He said on the third night he was in the third row and by then he was bored out of his mind. He said he said he felt trapped there. Sal said that he ended up shooting spitballs at the guys. Jon asked Sal about what they do on stage. Sal said they put the curtain down and that's great. He said the last song they do is great too. He said they have the stage set up great and they have the record covers come to life. Jon asked JD what he thinks of KISS. JD said he likes a couple of their bigger hits. He said he's not a huge fan of them. Jon asked JD if he feels that people there influence his opinions like Sal's dad did with his music. JD said in a way they do. Jon said that Will is a fan of OAR. Sal said he has no idea who that is. Jon said that JD isn't a Rush fan because he's a Rush fan. JD said he's not. He said he didn't know about Nirvana until some of his friends turned him on to it. Jon asked if Howard being a fan has made JD a fan of something. JD said that there are some TV shows that he's gotten into. He has to pull clips from those shows. JD said he will only pull some clips because Howard brings them up. He said he won't go out of his way for some of that stuff. Jon said that there was a time that Sal almost had Howard's mentality and he could tell what he was into. Sal said he was almost there. He said it wasn't quite there. Sal said he makes an effort to figure that stuff out. He said that when he auditioned for Howard's band he played songs on the bass that Howard would like. Jon took a call from a guy who said he wants to talk about KISS. He asked if they're the most overrated band in history. Jon said he doesn't think that's the case. He said they do have a couple of really good songs. He said that they're not particularly great but he thinks people shitting on them isn't fair. Sal said that they have been bashed by the critics for years and he doesn't think they're overrated. He thinks they're underrated. Jon asked if Sal if he got dressed up as any of the KISS guys. Sal said he got dressed up like Ace once. He said they were at K-Rock at the time. He said he bought some tin foil at a store and he went into the bathroom and dressed up. He said he put the makeup on and it was horrible. He said Ace ended up walking into the bathroom while he was doing this. He said Ace walked in and he said his name. He said Ace walked right past him and went into the stall and took a dump. He said he didn't even give him a half a smile. Sal said it was like he wasn't even there. Jon asked Sal if he walks into a bathroom and someone is dressed up as him, with the bad beard and all, what would he expect to do. Sal said normally you would just wink or say hi. Sal said Ace did nothing at all. He said he thinks that the guy has been doing it so long that he didn't want to see another asshole dressed up like him. Sal said that he had zero reaction to it at all. He said the bathroom was tiny there too. He said he didn't let it get him down though. Sal said he had pitched Ace for the show that day. He said he had notes about his book but Ace didn't want to talk about any of that stuff. Sal said he had to go into the studio and try to get him to talk about that stuff. He said he was throwing that stuff out and it ended up working out well. He said he felt that Ace acknowledged him after that. He said Howard stood behind the console and he wanted to take a picture with Ace so he asked Howard to take it. He said Gary grabbed the camera and said that he'd take it. He said you can see the picture if you Google ''Sal Ace Frehley.'' Jon asked Sal what he was thinking when he asked Howard to take the picture. Sal said that was the time in his life when he thought Howard was his buddy and he could stay at his apartment. He didn't think Howard would think it was a big deal either. He said he figured Howard would just take the picture but that wasn't the case. Jon said they had to go to break after that. Jon asked if Sal feels the love from people like that when they're there. Sal said that he doesn't get caught up in the whole thing. He said you can't do that. He said you have to feel like you belong and there's a reason you're doing what you're doing. Benjy asked Sal about a social situation. He asked if he'd be more nervous in that situation than at work. Sal said he's more disappointed because he can't engage in a sincere conversation. Jon said that he's seen Sal in social situations and he is able to break the ice. Sal said he is willing to do it but he's not sure if he'll appeal to them. He said he's a big fan of George Lopez but he has to keep it professional with him. He said what happened is that he saw his KISS stuff in the office and George asked who the fan was. Sal said they ended up talking for a half hour about KISS so that happened organically. Benjy asked Sal if he thinks that the power people have in their life affects him at all. Sal said no. Jon said that Sal and Carol had a relationship outside the show already. Sal said the power they have affects him in a synchronicity way. He said he works with Howard creating stuff. Then he has a friend like Carol Leifer come in and they work on something so it happens that way. Jon took a call from a guy who asked about the Seinfeld references. He said that Howard never watched Seinfeld and then he talks to Carol Leifer and tells her that he loves certain episodes. He asked if he actually watched the show or if he has people do research there. Jon said he thinks that Howard has watched Seinfeld since then but maybe he hasn't seen every episode. He said Will and the research team also prepare him for the interview. He said some Seinfeld episodes have gotten so popular that you've heard about them even if you didn't watch. Sal said the Korean translation episode was so great. He said she turned that into a great comedy bit. Jon asked Sal if he and his dad spoke Italian to him when he was growing up. Sal said he did but he would just nod his head and not speak it back. He said he was embarrassed by that. He said if his Dad said something about his friend it was very obvious. He said he would say something in Italian and insult the kid and it was so obvious. He said he would tell his friend that it was something completely different. He said it was so embarrassing that he kept his friends away from his dad. Benjy said his parents did the same thing. He said his dad had whistles that did different things too. He said he had a whistle to get in touch with him in a mall and he'd have to whistle back until they found each other. Benjy said they still have that. He said he doesn't want to give it away. He said it's not as special now that they have cell phones. Benjy said his dad had a signal whistle that he'd do and he had an answer back. Jon said he was always envious of people who had that. He said that he loves that Seinfeld episode and how George's dad came in and busted them. He said he feels that happens all the time. Sal said they had a biker walk in one day and his dad complained about the guy in Italian and the guy heard every word and understood it all. He said his dad sat him down and said he'd give him anything he wanted when he found out he was Sicilian. Benjy said he finds that very interesting that Sal can speak Sicilian. Sal said it's very broken so when he does go off on someone they laugh at him. He said that happened once when a guy ripped him off. He said this guy started laughing at what he said because he said it a little wrong. He wanted to ask if he thought he was a joke and it came out as ''Do you think I'm a lady who wants to hear a joke'' in Sicilian. He said it was so embarrassing. Jon took a call from a guy who asked if Jon would ever go in and correct Howard when he's going off on Jeff Van Gundy. Jon said Howard was pissed because he was trying to embarrass him on TV. He said that he's not going to go in and correct him. The caller asked if Howard was upset because he has to leave everything early. Jon said he thinks that it was just Howard wondering who this guy was breaking his balls. He said if you go after Howard personally you are going to get it back tenfold. JD said if you go after Howard at a 6 Howard is going to come back at you like a 20. Jon said he's not sure how this is going to end up. He wasn't sure if Van Gundy was going to like it. JD said he thinks that he did like it. He said he has responded to the incident. He didn't read the whole story yet though. Jon said they had to go to break after that. Jon asked Lisa about KISS being inducted. Lisa said she was looking at their faces and couldn't stop. She said it looks like they had bad plastic surgery or something. Jon asked Sal if he's worried about the stuff he uses on his face hurting him in the long run. Sal said there are side effect to everything. He said that Jon is worried about the French fries he shoves down his gullet. Jon said that it's hard to think about what will happen down the road. Sal said that Aveeno cream is good for you so he's not so worried. Jon asked Sal if he would consider plastic surgery. Sal said he did consider it for the black rings around his eyes. He said that he didn't want to get into the surgery thing. He said the doctor told him he could wear makeup instead. He said that guys don't do that though. Sal said he thinks he was wearing makeup when the guy said that to him. He said that he doesn't think he'd do it unless he needed it. He said he would like to get his chin tightened. He said he'd like to tighten up his jaw line too. Sal said that if you have a weak chin you grow a beard and it helps. Sal said that's why he has the beard. Jon asked if that's why JD has a beard. JD said his is from pure laziness. JD said he would never do plastic surgery. Benjy said he would do his hair if he knew it would work. He said he has huge earlobes but he's super proud of them now. He said if you look up what they mean it means you're super smart in Buddhism. Lisa said she's scared of Botox even though she needs it. Jon asked if she would get a breast reduction. Lisa laughed and said no way to that. Jon asked Lisa how she feels about people who do it. Lisa said if it makes you happy then it's fine. She said the face lifts that women are getting younger and younger is what freaks her out. Benjy asked Jon about why he isn't disciplined with food. Jon said he has diabetes and he feels like he wants to eat what he wants to eat. He said he enjoys the food a lot. He said that the Diabetes really gets to you 10-20 years down the road. Jon said he doesn't think long term and that is selfish and wrong of him. He said he wishes he could overcome that. Sal asked Jon how he would feel if his wife and kids had surgery. Jon said they can do what they want but he would not want his wife and kids to do that. He said you are who you are and someone will love you for that. He said he would go under the knife only if it was threatening his life. Jon asked Sal what he would do. Sal said his wife wanted to do Lipo. He said he told her he had a cheaper solution. He suggested a treadmill. He said that's safer and more healthy. Jon asked how long he's been a Howard fan for. John said since Howard took his reduced hours he has taken some reduced hours himself. He said was a fan for a good four years or so. He said it became kind of an addiction. He said when he was in the car he was listening to nothing but Howard. He said he had no idea what was going on in the world other than what Robin was reporting on. John said he is a big fan because of the truth telling. Sal asked if he was a big Beastie Boys fan. He said he thinks he saw him at a show years ago. John said he is. He said he is in the KISS Army too. He said that was great seeing them in the Hall of Fame. He said that the KISS Army is a real thing too. He said you have to sign up. Sal said he never signed up. He said his parents never allowed him to have stamps to mail things. John said that the time Sal got goofed on for the retirement thing was one of the greatest things ever. He said he sat in disbelief at that segment. Jon asked if he had that coming to him. John said he did. He said he was crying over his kids. John told him it's Sal's responsibility so he should grow up. Jon asked John about why he's such a fan of the show. John said that there are some truthful people out there and Howard is one of them. He said that Michael Moore is another. John said Howard is a great interviewer too. He said he also tells the truth so that's why he's so great. Jon said that people are proud of being a fan these days and years ago it wasn't like that. Jon asked when that happened. John said when AGT became part of the whole thing it became less interesting to him. He said he has been into that kind of experience on the radio. He said that he used to listen to Steve Dahl and he was part of their whole army thing. Jon asked how many Armys he's been in. John said that it's been a lot. Jon asked what he's out there promoting. John said he narrated a movie for Disney called ''Bears'' and that's what he's out promoting. Jason said his wife is dying to see it. John said that they got super close to the bears and it's super cool to see what the mother bears have to do to raise their cubs. He said they got inside the bear's lair and you see the baby bears being born. Jon wondered how they did that. John said it's amazing and he's not sure how they did it. He said they told him that the place they filmed they have no people so they didn't care about the people being around. John said it's pretty incredible. He said you get closer to a bear than you'll ever be... hopefully. Jon said he knows John has to run but he thanked him for stopping by. John said he'll return some day and give them a proper ribbing. Sal said his kids love him in the movie Step Brothers. John told Sal not to start crying. Benjy said that John was in the movie Cyrus and the character was based on him. John asked if he was talking about his character. Benjy said he meant the character of Cyrus. Sal told Benjy that John really had to go. John had to go and left a few seconds later. Jon asked Sal how he feels knowing that a guy like that is a fan of his. Sal said that's great. He said it's amazing that he heard him that day and he stayed in his car to listen. Jon asked JD why he thought that his meeting with him was awkward. JD said he just blurted out a few things with him. Jason said he heard that John was there and John told him he wanted to meet JD. Jason said he ran and got JD to come back down and he introduced him to the guys. He said they took a selfie together and Tim Heidecker was there too and Tweeted something out. JD asked if Jason turns on the Sybian every time he gives a tour. Jason said he does. He said that's part of the whole tour every time. Benjy asked if he has a climax moment for the tour. Jason said it's bringing someone into the studio. Jon said that John C. Reilly came looking for JD. JD said he has loved him for a long time. He said that it was very cool. Sal asked who he has met that he was thrilled about. Jon said he doesn't know. He said it's strange when someone knows who you are. He said they know your voices and then they see your face and they're shocked. Sal said that he has people expecting to see a Ron Jeremy looking guy when they see him. Jon said he had to wrap up the show after that. He asked the guys to give their plugs. They ended the show around 11:05am.

Volume 6 Issue 9 A Para-Chat With Annabelle The Haunted Doll Dowsing Rods The Legend of The Bunny Man Spirituality & The UFO Phenomenon Demons & The Number Three ALSO INSIDE: Dakota Lawrence, Clairvoyant Medium Psychic Manipulation of Paranormal Equipment Why Do Ghosts Haunt Cemeteries? The Nandi Bear Cryptid & The Ch’ing Shih Vampire September 2013 Analyzing the EM Pump Paranormal Underground Magazine 12-Month Digital SUBSCRIPTION Get 12 Months of Paranormal Underground Magazine E-mailed to You Each Month for just $19.99! That’s 15% off the cover price! Visit www.paranormalunderground.net and start your digital subscription today! • Haunted Sites • The Psychic Mind • Crystals & Herbology • Magic & Lore • Conspiracy Theories • Investigator Spotlight • And More! September 2013 Explore the Unexplained With Us Today! Table Of Contents CASE FILES OF THE UNKNOWN 26 Haunted Sites Ashmore Estates: A Landmark Hit by Disaster 28 Haunted Objects/Curses Annabelle The Haunted Doll 30 Cryptids & Mythological Creatures Africa’s Enigmatic Cryptid: The Nandi Bear 32 Are We Alone? Is There a Spiritual Reality Behind the UFO Phenomenon? 40 Urban Legends The Bunny Man 42 Haunted History An Irreplaceable Loss: The Life and Death of a Poltergeist Agent: The Conclusion IN THE SPOTLIGHT 16 Para-Chat Derek Acorah’s Perfect Day 18 Investigator Spotlight Dakota Lawrence: Clairvoyant Medium and Psychic Paranormal Investigator 60 Haunted Hospitality Hotel Sagamore 62 Haunted Cemeteries Why Do Ghosts Haunt Cemeteries? 82 Author Profile Moira Rogers: “Haunted Sanctuary” PARANORMAL INSIGHTS 22 Special Report Psychic Manipulation of Paranormal Equipment 48 Demonology — The Dark Files Demons and the Significance of the Number 3 and Other Symbols 52 Inside the Psychic Mind Inter-life Relationships: Part 2 54 Inside the Psychic Mind Psychic Impressions on a Vietnam-Era Destroyer 56 The Psychic Biker: Attitude With Empathy Meet the Psychic Biker 64 Crystals & Herbology The Basic Essentials to Gem Water 66 Magic & Lore Ch’ing Shih Vampire 68 Katie’s Conspiracy Corner Dowsing Rods 80 Religion and the Paranormal Native American Spirituality and the Paranormal 86 Paranormal Perspective: Guest Editorial Coming Together Is a Beginning 62 PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 72 Ghost Hunter Case Files A Family Haunted: A True Case File 74 The Extreme Ghost Hunter Investigates Meet The Extreme Ghost Hunter 76 Tales From the Haunted Heathman Hotel A Road Trip to Montana State Prison 78 Reader Encounters A Mother’s Gift From Beyond DEPARTMENTS 4 Contributors 7 Calendar of Events 8 Paranormal Top 10 List 6 Publisher’s Letter 7 Ghost Hunter Comic 12 Equipment Update Contributors WILLIAM BECKER William is a psychic medium and paranormal investigator and researcher, as well as tour guide with Northwest Ghost Tours. William’s interest in the paranormal goes back to his early childhood when he saw his first full apparition. With this interest in the paranormal along with a degree in history, it was only natural that he would jump at the chance to combine the two by giving tours. For more information about William and his work, visit nwghosttours.com and www.paranormalinsights.net. Katie Christopher Katie is a paranormal investigator living in North East Pennsylvania. She has been involved in paranormal investigation since 2006 with the team NEPA Paranormal. In that time, she has done over 400 cases. Aside from being an investigator, Katie also handles all of the case management for her team. In 2011, her team formed the sub group Ghost Detectives, which is a ghost hunting TV show that is now in its 4th season. Visit www. ghostdetectives.tv for more info. Elaine Davison Elaine is a founding member of the Western Oregon Organization of Paranormal Investigators (W.O.O.P.I). Her team was established in 2010 as a not-for-profit organization of investigators who investigate and document any scientific and photographic evidence of paranormal phenomena in Oregon. Elaine recently researched and created a pamphlet that outlined the dangers of paranormal investigation in an effort to help inform researchers about how to safely investigate a location. Karen Frazier Karen is a paranormal investigator with South Sound Paranormal Research in Washington State and a frequent contributor to Paranormal Underground. She is also the cohost of “Paranormal Underground Radio” on www.HeyZRadio.com, author of Avalanche of Spirits: The Ghosts of Wellington and Dancing With the Afterlife, and coauthor of Lessons of Many Lives. Terri J. Garofalo Terri is a paranormal investigator, as well as the artist and writer behind Entities-R-Us, Ghost Hunter Comic. She’s a freelance artist, illustrator, and designer in Hyde Park, New York. You can find her work on www.entities-r-us.com, or contact Terri at email@example.com. Chuck Gotski Chuck is a native of Chicago and also an accomplished filmmaker and writer. His interest in the paranormal started at an early age due to a personal experience. With more than 20 years of experience under his belt, he decided it was time to start his own team. So, in 2010, he created In the Dark Investigations. With the help of Larry, Al, and Janine, they have moved into the field not only gathering evidence of the paranormal, but figur- ing out the how’s and why’s of these events. For more information, visit www.inthedarkinvestigations.com. Paul Green Paul Green, The Psychic Biker, is unique in the psychic world — a gifted medium and psychic who was once an ardent skeptic. He is a hard-core, no-nonsense biker who would look more at home on the door of a nightclub than offering his services as an empathetic psychic medium. Make no mistake, Paul is opinionated and brutally honest, yet he is respected by all who know him, or as he would describe himself: “Attitude with Empathy.” Jenny Gurney Jenny is an investigator with Proximity Paranormal. The mystery surrounding the paranormal field has always interested Jenny. She is on a quest to find more about why spirits are around us. Jenny has investigated many sites, including Waverly Hills, Bobby Mackey’s, the Villisca Ax Murder House, and First Ward School House. Jenny also hosts her own Web radio show, Paranormal Hotspot. Rick E. Hale A Chicago native, Rick is cohost of “Paranormal Underground Radio” on www.HeyZRadio. com. He is the founder of Foundations Psychical Research and the author of the recently released Geek’s Guide to the Strange & Unusual. As an investigator, Rick considers himself to be a Modern Traditionalist, meaning he believes in melding the new and old schools of psychical research. Ashley Hall Ashley Hall resides in Adelaide, South Australia, where he has researched and investigated the paranormal for more than 15 years. As well as having worked for many of the state’s most professional teams, he has founded The Paranormal Guide. Ashley is open minded toward all aspects of the paranormal, but still says he sways more to the side of being skeptical. He has written more than 200 articles on paranormal and macabre subjects that have appeared in magazines and on Websites worldwide, as well as hosted his own paranormal podcast. John “Jack” Kenna Jack is a technical specialist and assistant case manager for the paranormal team SPIRITS of New England in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He has had a strong interest in the paranormal since he was a child and has helped his SPIRITS team conduct numerous client investigations, including an investigation for the U.S. Navy in 2010. Jack has been a technician and project leader for the Department of the Army for more than 26 years. Stephen Lambert Stephen is co-owner of Extreme Ghost Hunting Limited and EGH Media. Based in the North East of England, he likes nothing better than researching and spending the night alone is haunted locations. He is a Peoples Book Prize finalist as coauthor on The Psychic Biker Meets The Extreme Ghost Hunter and producer and host of online radio shows as part of the EGH Media Network. Find out more about him at www.extremeghosthunting.com and www.eghmedia.com. Cheryl Knight Cheryl is editor-in-chief of Paranormal Underground magazine and producer of Paranormal Underground Radio. She has more than 20 years of experience as a professional writer and editor and has published hundreds of articles on topics ranging from advanced technology to paranormal investigation. Cheryl’s previous magazine experience includes roles as senior and managing editor for several business publications. Michelle Pillow Michelle is an award-winning author writing in many romance fiction genres, including futuristic and paranormal. A skeptical believer, she has a fascination with anything paranormal. Michelle has a photography degree and is the co-owner of www.TheRavenBooks.com. You can contact Michelle at www.michellepillow.com. Michaela Rand (Silvermoon Medicyn) Michaela is a Medicyn Woman. Her life threads are woven between symbiotic psychic vampire and Shamanism, working closely with awakening souls looking to balance the dark and light within themselves. Her favorite tools to use are crystals, herbs, and oils. She is a Universal Life Ordained Minister and performs many services, including soul retrieval, Shamanic extraction, and walking the dead to rest. Visit Silvermoonmedicyn.com for more information. Rob St.Helen Rob has been a paranormal investigator for more than five years. He had his first paranormal experience at the age of 11. Rob is a member of West Coast Ghost Hunters, based out of Portland, Oregon, where he was born and raised. He currently works the graveyard shift at The Heathman Hotel. He has come to find that the hotel is haunted. Jill Stefko, Ph.D. Jill is a feature writer for suite101.com. She has studied the paranormal since childhood. In fall 1965, she conducted her first investigation. Jill gives workshops and lectures and writes for selected Internet Websites. Her expertise in the paranormal includes parapsychology, cryptozoology, Fortean phenomena, anomalies, UFOs, aliens and demonic possession, and exorcism. Barry Taff, Ph.D. Barry holds a doctorate in psychophysiology with a minor in biomedical engineering. He is a world-renowned parapsychologist who worked out of UCLA’s former parapsychology laboratory from 1969 through 1978 as a research associate. During his 40-plus-year career, Barry has investigated more than 4,500 cases of ghosts, hauntings, and poltergeists and conducted extensive studies in telepathy and precognition. For more information, visit http://barrytaff.net. Michele Watson-Baker Michele is an investigator, case manager, and public relations liaison of Mid Illinois Ghost Society. She has researched and read a lot about the paranormal and fully believes that there is always something new to learn. She also volunteers at a local haunted house every October, doing makeup and costumes. She has been a member of MIGS since 2011. Mari Wells Mari’s love of vampires goes back to her tween years. Recently, she has increased her vampire knowledge and expanded it to other paranormal beings. Her paranormal fictional pieces have been included in supernatural magazines. Read more about Mari at www.mariwells.wordpress.com. Michael White Michael is a team leader, researcher, and investigator for Paranormal Research & Investigations. His interest in the paranormal began at age seven with his first paranormal encounter where he was thrown across a room by an unseen entity. His paranormal interests include research into hauntings, ESP, PK, OBE experiences, UFOs, and cryptozoology. Having served in the military for 21 years, Michael utilizes his experience with surveillance and data collection in the pursuit of researching the unknown. Bishop JERRY WILLIAMS Jerry is a radio host of Eastside Paranormal Radio and an investigator with Eastside Paranormal Society. He is also a minister in Ohio and has performed exorcisms and house blessings. Jerry has been investigating the paranormal since 1993. He also has mediumistic abilities and tries to assist those seeking help. Visit www.eastsideparanormalsociety.webs.com for more information. Melinda graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in [Comparative] Religion. She served as an intern pastor while completing her master’s of Divinity. She is also a member of South Sound Paranormal Research. A freelance writer, Chad is the publisher of Paranormal Underground magazine. His interest in the paranormal led to the creation of www. ParanormalUnderground.net. Chad has investigated with East Tennessee Paranormal Research Society and counts Waverly Hills, the Villisca Axe Murder House, the Queen Anne Hotel, the Queen Mary, the Hotel Alex Johnson, and private residences among his investigations. Melinda Stum, M.Div Publisher’s Letter PARANORMAL U N D E R G R O U N D® Volume 6, Issue 9 What Fuels the Spirit of a Haunted Object? Publisher Chad Wilson Editor-in-Chief Cheryl Knight Science Editor J.D. Harrison Contributors William Becker Katie Christopher Elaine Davison Jason V. Francis Karen Frazier Terri J. Garofalo Charles G. Gotski Paul Green Jenny Gurney Rick E. Hale Ashley Hall John “Jack” Kenna Stephen Lambert Silvermoon Medicyn Michelle M. Pillow Rob St.Helen Jill Stefko, Ph.D. Melinda Stum, M.Div. Barry Taff, Ph.D. Michele Watson-Baker Mari Wells Michael White Bishop Jerry Williams Copyright © 2008-2013 — Paranormal Underground® is a registered trademark. All rights reserved. As such, Paranormal Underground and its contents are the property of its owners. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This publication and all content within this publication may not be copied, quoted, distributed, modified, or reprinted without the express written consent of Paranormal Underground magazine. Paranormal Underground magazine is a publication of Ghost Knight Media, LLC. objects are Annabelle the Doll, made aunted items have long famous by Ed and Lorraine Warren, fascinated those interested in and Robert the Doll, which “lives” in the paranormal. What is their Key West, Florida. allure? What do we find so compelling Some haunted objects are obviously about such objects? I guess the bigfake, but others have their owners tremger question would be: Are they really bling at the prospect of whatever horror haunted, or is that only wishful thinking these objects will conjure up next. The on the part of those attracted to them? stories of such haunted items can chill to I have some thoughts on the the bone. haunted item phenomena. I believe we The most frightful of can instill part of our energy tales involving haunted items in the environment. Just don’t seem to just live in the like the ancient Greeks and minds of those suffering from their beliefs in daemons, their depredations. Take the or negative thought forms, Dibbuk Box, for instance. we, as spiritual beings, can Each tale of what it has impart energy, both negative wrought on those around it and positive, into the world does not garner much attenaround us. I think this is in tion by themselves, but when part what creates some hauntChad Wilson, you look at all that has hapings, and might even be the Publisher pened, and the coincidences answer to intelligent hauntseemingly involved, then its story gets a ings as well. little bit more frightening. What if when we die a part of us And while the quaint wine box stays behind? Normally, this energy is might just seem like a box of coincidencabsorbed back into the world at large, es to some, those who have suffered its much like a decaying body into the effects surely tell a different story. surrounding soil. But what if someThen again, it could be in the mind times this is not what happens? What of those suffering from those effects, a if, when the conditions were right, that story that only feeds the ability of the part of us left behind lingers on well human soul to leave an imprint on the past our deaths? environment around it. The energies And maybe this energy can find we impart only acting to bring our worst itself residing in inanimate objects, such fears to fruition. as dolls, paintings, or even wine boxes. For in the end, we are the creators All of this is conjecture, of course, as of our own reality, whether intentionwe know little of the nuisances of what ally or not. I think haunted items will happens when we pass on from this life continue to exist as long as there are to the next. people to impart their energy into Mirrors, dolls, skulls, chairs, paintthem, as well as those who continue to ings, beds, books, religious items, and a believe in them long after the original plethora of other objects have all been owner has passed. subjected to the claims of being hauntWhat do you think? ed. Two of the most famous haunted Calendar Of Events September 6–7 3rd Annual Central Illinois Paracon (Meet and Greet/Psychic Fair) Mattoon, Illinois www.teamimps.com/2013-central-ilparacon Parafest Sands Bethlehem Event Center Bethlehem, Pennsylvania www.parafest2013.com Scare-A-Con Turning Stone Resort & Casino Verona, New York http://scareacon.com/ Volume 6, Issue 9 Pennsylvania Are MUFON Conference Sheraton Bucks County Hotel Langhorne, Pennsylvania http://mufonpa.com/wp1/?page_ id=927 Little Traverse Bay Parafest The Terrace Inn Bayview, Michigan http://littletraversebayparafest.webs. com/ SCAREFEST Lexington, Kentucky http://scarefestcon.com Fantom Fest The Menger Hotel San Antonio, Texas www.fantomfest.com ART DIRECTION Art Director Chad Wilson Design and Layout Cheryl Knight On The Cover Derek Acorah Paradigm Symposium The Historic St. Paul Union Depot St. Paul, Minnesota www.paradigmsymposium.com Paranormal Journeys Expo Home Wood Suites Lansdale, Pennsylvania www.midnightwatchmen.com/?p=2967 PARANORMAL U N D E R G R O U N D® MEDIA & ADVERTISING MEDIA AGENT C.A.S.P.E.R. – The Second Forensic Ghost Excavation Congress – Convention C.A.S.P.E.R. Research Center Bedford, Maryland. http://ghostexcavationconference. webs.com/ Leitreanna Brown Leitreanna@gmail.com Ad Sales Lori Houston For Ad Inquiries, Call 1-714-646-4197 or e-mail: Haunted Springs Paranormal Fest Hot Springs, Arkansas Pittsburgh Area MUFON Conference Westmoreland Community College Youngwood, Pennsylvania http://mufonpa.com/wp1/?page_id=929 Ghost Hunter Comic SOCIAL MEDIA Twitter Send comments and letters to: firstname.lastname@example.org The views expressed and opinions given by our contributors do not necessarily reflect those of Paranormal Underground magazine’s owners or its affiliates or sponsors. The Paranormal Top 10 List Top 10 Paranormal Objects I Will Not Be Adding to My Private Collection Any Time Soon By Karen Frazier, South Sound Paranormal Research & Paranormal Underground Radio everal years ago, I purchased a piano from an artisan who refurbished old instruments. The tiger mahogany upright is over 100 years old, and it is currently sitting right next to me as I type this. I’ve played piano since I was a kid. Early in my adulthood, however, I moved a lot and I really didn’t want the hassle of moving a piano around with me, so I played an electronic keyboard. However, when we settled in this house and my son began taking lessons, I decided to buy a real piano. That’s when we bought this one. The first time I sat down to play it, I knew there was just something about it. When I played, images flashed through my mind. It was my piano showing me where it had been before it came to me. After a few years, we bought a grand piano and gave the upright to friends. I spent hours playing that grand piano, and I never once saw any images in my head like I had with my upright. At the same time, my friends’ kids began reporting some rather odd happenings in their home that roughly corresponded with the arrival of the piano. When my son entered the seventh grade, he decided to quit piano lessons. I was so busy, I wasn’t playing as much, either. Then we received the mother of all tax bills. I realized the best way to pay Uncle Sam was to sell my beloved grand piano. The same friends to whom we’d given our old upright happened to be looking for a grand at the time, because their very talented son was pursuing his piano studies. Thus, the grand went to them, and my upright came back to the house. I was oddly happy to see it. From the first moment I sat down to play the piano, the images came back. At the same time, the odd happenings in our friends’ home ceased. My son is now a senior in high school, and we still have the upright. As anyone who has been here will tell you, my house is haunted. A few of my more psychic friends have been drawn directly to the piano as one of the sources of this activity. If you buy second-hand or antique items, the potential always exists that you could bring home an object with a spirit attachment, just like I did with my piano. Still, if you run across any of the following objects at a flea market or antique store, I’d recommend you back away slowly and buy something else. 10. Elizabeth Bell’s Wedding Dress This wedding dress was formerly on display at the Baker Mansion, which is the current headquarters of Blair County Historical Society. Elizabeth Bell, the daughter of a local iron master, wore the gown for her 1830 wedding. Visitors to the mansion reported the dress, which was displayed in a glass case, shook violently and swayed back and forth. No one was able to find an explanation for the phenomenon. 9. The Hope Diamond This diamond has long been rumored to bring terrible luck to all who possess — or even touch — it. According to legend, the diamond was plucked from the forehead of an idol of the Hindu Goddess Sita in India. The thief was mauled to death by a pack of wild dogs. In actuality, a French jeweler purchased the diamond in India in 1642 and returned with it to France. In 1673, Louis XIV had the diamond recut. He wore the diamond around his neck. The diamond was later stolen during the rule of Louis XVI. It is suspected that a large blue diamond that appeared in London in 1823 was, in fact, the crown jewel stolen from France. Although it was now cut differently, it was of the same size and quality. Ultimately, the diamond wound up in the possession of Henry Phillip Hope in the 1930s and became known as the Hope Diamond. The diamond was passed down through the Hope family until they sold it as part of a discharge of bankruptcy proceedings. The legend suggests that many fell victim to the Hope diamond’s curse by meeting an untimely death, including Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, a jeweler who recut the diamond, and even a mailman who delivered it. Regardless of whether the tales are exaggerated or not, you may want to steer clear of touching the famous gem, which is on display at the Smithsonian. 8. The Crying Boy Painting In 1985, The Sun published an article about a couple whose home had burned down. The only object left unscathed was a painting of a crying toddler. The homeowner’s brother-in-law was a firefighter who claimed he had been at numerous fires where everything was destroyed except for similar paintings of a crying boy. After the story broke, numerous people contacted The Sun claiming the same thing had happened to them. Thus, a legend was born. Whether urban legend or truth, however, if you come across a painting of a small, crying boy, you might want to think twice before you hang it on your wall. 7. The Tallman Bunk Beds In 1987, the Tallman family of Horicon, WI, purchased a set of bunk beds, which they put in their basement. A few months later, they moved the bed upstairs, and their children began sleeping in it. That very night, strange things started to occur in their home. A radio randomly switched stations with no one touching the dial, and the children grew ill. The children were also plagued by disturbing visions and dreams, and objects in the house moved seemingly by themselves. The longer the beds were in the house, the worse the activity grew. Claims include an adult being hurled across a room, and a garage that was on fire one minute with no sign of fire or damage the next minute. To end the torment, the family burned the bunk beds within months of their purchase, and paranormal activity in the house ceased. Still, it makes Ikea bunk beds seem like an even better deal, doesn’t it? 6. Annabelle the Haunted Rag Doll Lorraine and Ed Warren first told the story of Annabelle in their book, The Demonologist, which was published in the 1970s. Annabelle was a Raggedy Ann doll that was a mother’s gift to her daughter, purchased from an antique store. The paranormal activity surrounding the doll started slowly, and she moved a little here and there on her own. She quickly upped the ante, however, and began leaving handwritten notes in childish handwriting saying things like, “Help us.” One day, the doll’s owner, Donna, came home and found that Annabelle had a red blood-like substance on the backs of her hands and chest. Donna called in a medium, who determined the doll was home to a spirit of a child named Annabelle Higgins. Donna’s friend, Lou, disliked Annabelle immensely. She creeped him out. One night, awakening from a recurring nightmare, Lou saw Annabelle at his feet. She moved up his leg to his chest and stopped. Lou began to gasp for air and blacked out from lack of oxygen. This was the first of several attacks for which Lou felt Annabelle was responsible. When the Warrens became involved in the case, they determined Annabelle wasn’t possessed by the spirit of a child, but rather by an inhuman entity. They participated in an exorcism of the doll, and then took it with them so it could never bother Donna or Lou again. 5. The Hands Resist Him Painting You know how in Harry Potter, figures in paintings seem to have a life of their own as they move about the canvas? Yeah — this painting is like that, only worse. Oakland, California, artist Bill Stoneham painted “The Hands Resist Him” in 1972. The Feingarten Gallery in Beverly Hills displayed the painting. Several years later, a California couple purchased the painting from a picker who had discovered the painting in the basement of a brewery. They listed it for sale on eBay in 2000, claiming The Paranormal Top 10 List it was both cursed and haunted. Along with the figures moving about in the painting (in one such incident, the couple claimed a doll in the painting threatened the boy in the image with a gun, causing him to flee the painting), entities from the painting entered other rooms in the house. People viewing the images of the painting on eBay responded to the couple, saying the painting caused odd reactions, such as illness, fainting, and unwanted visitors in the night. 4. Gothic Ballroom of Belcourt Castle Chairs Two chairs at Belcourt Castle in Rhode Island just don’t want you to sit there. In fact, some visitors who try claim they feel a strong resistance when trying to sit in the chairs, while others have wound up unexpectedly on the floor! 3. The Dibbuk Box Vendors on eBay have offered thousands of reportedly haunted and/or possessed items over the years. The granddaddy of them all, however, just might be the Dibbuk Box. This antique wine cabinet has been sold twice on eBay. It has also been featured on an episode of Paranormal Witness, inspired the movie The Possession, and is the subject of Jason Haxton’s book, The Dibbuk Box. While incidents surrounding the Dibbuk Box are too numerous to report here, strange events include unexplainable illnesses, plagues of insects, and even sudden natural disasters. 2. The Busby Stoop Chair Also known as the Dead Man’s Chair, the Busby Stoop Chair was reportedly cursed by murderer Thomas Busby right before he was executed for his crimes. According to legend, 63 people who sat in the chair since Busby cursed it have died sudden and unexpected deaths. Currently, the chair hangs on the wall of the Thirsk Museum so no one can sit in it. Better safe than sorry. 1. Robert the Doll No matter how you slice it, this old doll is creepy as heck. Young Eugene Otto received Robert as a gift from a family maid who was said to practice Voodoo Black Magic. Family members often heard Gene and another unidentified voice having urgent conversations when Gene was alone in his room. At one point, his mother entered the room during such a conversation and found Gene cowering on the floor and Robert perched on the bed looking down at him. Even into adulthood, Eugene had an unnaturally close relationship with the doll. He built a ¾-scale attic room in his house for Robert, and he took Robert everywhere he and his wife went. People passing the house claim to have seen Robert moving about his attic room by himself, peering out the windows. After Gene’s death, his wife Anne moved away from the house, leaving Robert locked in his room. Lease agreements included a clause that Robert would always remain in his attic room as its only occupant. People living in the house reported hearing footsteps from Robert’s room, as well as odd noises. One couple even claimed they found Robert standing giggling at the foot of their bed holding a knife. Now, Robert is on display at the Fort East Martello Museum and Gardens. It seems he is up to his old mischief, and claims of activity include four pacemakers stopping right in front of his display, as well as trouble for the crew filming a recent episode of Mystery at the Museum. The Geek’s Guide to the Strange & Unusual: Poltergeists, Ghosts, and Demons Rick E. Hale’s book about unexplainable paranormal phenomena explores many of the world’s most intriguing paranormal cases and haunted locations, including the Demon Drummer of Tedworth, Lucedio Abbey, the Dagg poltergeist, and three cases of possession, among many others. Book Now Available Online at Amazon.com September 2013 Paranormal Underground 11 The Effectiveness of the EM Pump By Jack Kenna, Rensselaer Paranormal Research and S.P.I.R.I.T.S. of New England s paranormal investigators, we are always looking for the next piece of equipment that can help us make contact with the deceased, something that can be used to help make contact between us and the spirits easier. Given the fact that what is probably our primary theory that the spirit — human, animal, and otherwise — exists as energy and also needs energy in order to communicate and interact, then it would seem to make sense that a device that emanates Electromagnetic (EM) energy would be a piece of equipment that no paranormal investigator should be without. A device that actually emits EM energy to provide a spirit with a power source to draw from in order to communicate with us should result in outstanding investigations full of quality EVPs and/or direct communication through other devices, such as a K-II, Mel-Meter, or even an Ovilus. It would seem to make sense based on our theory of spirits and energy right? The obvious answer would seem to be yes, but I personally haven’t found this to be the case with regards to EM pumps, at least not yet. So why is this? I’m sure at this point some of you who have used EM pumps are disagreeing with my last statement. I’m sure some of you feel you have had great success using one or more of these devices, and maybe that’s the case for you, but my own experiences with EM pumps and my own observations and analysis of their use have provided me with a different conclusion of their usefulness and actual impact on investigation results. So, I ask that before you discard my remarks and conclusions please complete reading this article and then see if you feel any of my observations/conclusions have any merit or make any sense. EM Pump by Digital Dowsing What Is the EM Pump? Before I go much further, it’s important to first understand how the EM pump works and what it does. The EM pump is a device that produces and emits electromagnetic pulses that create a low-level EM Field (EMF). This is somewhat different from the EMF that is produced by a building’s wiring or fuse/breaker boxes, because those items radiate a constant steady flow of energy compared to the pulses put out by an EM pump. According to the Digital Dowsing Website, developer and manufacturer of the EM Pump, once turned on the device begins by emitting a “.2Hz pulse and increases to 256Hz pulse.” The EMF created by the pump is supposed to act as a beacon to any spirits that might be in the location you are investigating, providing them with a I was able to capture good EVPs during investigations source of energy to use to communicate with. It’s a sacrifiwhere there actually was a spirit involved. So when the cial electrical source in that sense, taking the place of let’s EM Pump became available, I was of course interested in say your camera’s, flashlight’s, or audio recorder’s battery trying it out. that can often be drained by a spirit during an investigaI finally got my chance during an investigation with tion. This is the main theory behind the device. my friends from San Diego Ghost Hunters (SdGH). We The issue with EM pumps though is that the field used it during an investigation of the famous Whaley they discharge can also interfere with other devices we House in Old Town San Diego. We set it up in the masare trying to use to detect paranormal activity and attempt ter bedroom on the second floor and let it run from one communication with, such as EMF meters, Mel-Meters, hour before we investigated that location until the end of and K-II meters. As I menthe investigation. tioned before, unlike electrical We did experience a few wiring, breaker boxes, and most things in that room and had The EMF created by the appliances, the EM pump emasome interesting words come pump is supposed to act through on the Ovilus. I did nates a pulsing EM Field rather than a steady field. Although however, capture any as a beacon to any spirits not, the pulse is at a regular interval, EVPs in that room or any in the location. it makes it difficult to validate photographic evidence. My what might be actual spirit combest evidence that evening was munication through one of the actually captured in the front devices mentioned earlier, or if it might be just interferparlor downstairs, which is the farthest location in the ence from the EM pump. house from where we had set up the EM Pump. Although you can baseline the normal EM Field of a This was of course just one investigation. I have been room or location, once the EM pump is introduced into involved with many other investigations though where the the environment your EMF baseline is useless. I know EM Pump was utilized to try and improve contact with some would say at this point that what I just covered is a spirit, but I have seen no noticeable improved results obvious and that the point is just don’t use other EMF when using this device. devices with the EM Pump. That’s true, and even the proOn all of these investigations, sometimes EVPs are ducers of the EM Pump state it is best used for trying to captured and sometimes they’re not; sometimes photo increase chances of capturing EVPs and/or photographic evidence is captured and sometimes it’s not. There was evidence. no noticeable difference between investigations using an They also state that the EM Field emitted by the EM Pump and those where one was not used. pump is very low at only four inches from the device, but it is best to keep your other electronic devices 12 inches How the EM Pump Interacts With Other Devices or more away from the pump to prevent possible damage What I have noticed is that some investigators have and/or interference. attempted to use their EMF detectors and K-II meters in the locations they have set up the EM Pump. They often The EM Pump’s Usefulness on Investigations get sporadic “hits” on these devices, sometimes while OK, so if the EM Pump is not really useful with, and asking questions, and some of these investigators believe is perhaps possibly damaging to our other EMF devices, immediately that they are having direct interaction with a and the main use is to try and improve chances of capspirit, not taking into account the EM Pump in the room turing EVPs, photographic, and/or video evidence, as it and what it is doing. acts as a “beacon” to draw in spirits and provides them They tend to believe that the EM Pump is the reason with a power source to draw from to manifest themselves they are getting such great spirit interaction because it’s and/or communicate with, then how useful and how providing the energy the spirit needs to communicate. successful is it at providing improved results for these My own interpretation is that it’s the device that is specific applications? actually causing the EMF device to react due to the EMF Like many of you, I’ve done many investigations the pump is outputting. Again, sometimes during these over the years, and on most of them I never had an EM sessions EVPs are captured and sometimes they’re not, so Pump. Heck, on my earliest investigations all I had was again I see no real evidence that the EM Pump is improving spirit communication or interaction, at least not yet. myself and a mini tape recorder. Even in those early days, Paranormal Underground 13 Now, I added that same disclaimer at the beginning of this article as well, and I’ll explain why. will release their findings here in Paranormal Underground magazine. In the mean time, I believe the jury is still out on the usefulness of the EM Pump, but as of the release of this article I can only suggest that if you own one of these devices, or if you are thinking about purchasing one, focus on exactly the type of evidence that the manufacturer recommends it for, which is EVPs and photo/video evidence. Do not use any type of EMF detector in the same room with the EM Pump, as at this time I do believe it will only provide you with potential false positive hits on K-II, Mel-Meter, and other EMF devices. You can also conduct your own experiments similar to what I described above. How to Properly Experiment With the EM Pump While I have found that many paranormal teams and investigators use the EM Pump, none I know of have The Bottom Line on the EM Pump actually conducted any serious comparison experimentaSo, what am I recommending regarding this device? tion with this device. What needs to be done to determine 1. Is it worth buying? 2. Will it improve evidence? and 3. the value of this item is to conduct multiple investigations Does it really provide an energy source for spirits to use in one known haunted location, both with and without the to communicate with? EM Pump. With regards to questions In order to gather a good 1 and 2, I think the jury is still In order to gather a good quality of data on this device, at out on those, but at this point least four investigations need to I would not recommend it for quality of data on this device, be conducted at a single locathe new investigator, new team, at least four investigations tion. Two without use of the or the novice. need to be conducted at a EM Pump and two with the use As for the third question, of the EM Pump. I would also single location. the answer is this: The EM alternate these investigations in Pump does produce a low-level order to obtain the best data. constant pulsing electromagAnd weather conditions and other environmental factors netic field that can possibly be used as an energy source should be the same between all of the investigations or at for spirits to draw from. least between each of two investigations (e.g.: InvestigaWill a spirit actually be drawn to this source and will tions 1 & 2 should be under the same conditions and then it use it to communicate with the living? It is possible, but 3 & 4). Also, the same room in the location should be here again I do not believe there is any solid evidence at used each time. this point to support this. These are all control elements that will help validate If you have any questions regarding equipment to use the results of the experiment. Currently, I have plans to for investigating the paranormal, or if you have any other conduct this exact testing at a known haunted location paranormal-related questions, feel free to contact me by with the assistance of my good friends Maritza and Cole-mail at email@example.com. leen of San Diego Ghost Hunters (SdGH), http://www. For more information on the EM Pump, you can sandiegoghosthunters.com/. This testing will likely take check out Digital Dowsing’s Website at http://digitaldowsseveral months to complete, but once it’s completed I ing.com/em-pump/. YOUR AD HERE! Advertise in Paranormal Underground Magazine and on Paranormal Underground Radio! • • • • • Affordable Rates/Target Audience Long-Term Exposure Thousands of readers per issue Our podcasts have more than 8,000 listeners each month iTunes and Podbean. Magazine available online and “print on demand” For more information, contact firstname.lastname@example.org Paranormal Underground 15 Derek Acorah’s Perfect Day By Paul Green, The Psychic Biker person from the worlds of the paranormal. This month erek Acorah lives near Southport in the North we speak with Derek. West of England with his wife, Gwen. His career as a medium started in his home town of Liver***** pool, and his renown quickly spread till one day a reQ: What’s your earliest memory? searcher for a TV show called him. She explained that she worked on a program called Livetime, Derek: My earliest memory is being a daily magazine program presented by pushed along Brasenose Road, BooBecky Want. Becky’s aunt had retle, in a pram by my grandmother. ceived a super reading from Derek, and She used to talk to me all the time — I she wanted him for a “one off show.” don’t remember what she used to say That one appearance on Livetime to me, but I do suspect it would have was enough to send the telephone been about the spirit world. lines into meltdown. The program makers were delighted. Derek was Q: Describe your perfect day. asked back for the following week. Derek: A beautiful sunny day spent Every week for the next five years in the company of my family would Derek Acorah was a regular feature on be just about perfect to me, especially Granada Breeze Television. if some good food was included into In July 2001, just before the closure the scenario. of Granada Breeze Television, Derek was asked whether he would be kind Q: Who from history would you Derek’s first supernatural experience enough to donate his services to the like to share a dinner party with? came as a child when the spirit of his late making of a proposed new television grandfather visited him. program. It was to be called Haunting Derek: Being an avid watcher of old Truths. He agreed to this request. films, I think I would like to spend The program was sold to LivingTV and renamed dinner party time with some of the “greats” of Hollywood. Most Haunted. Derek spent five series and numerous live John Wayne would be a definite, plus James Cagney and events demonstrating his phenomenal gift of mediumship actors of that era. If it was a more spiritually themed dinand in communication with some of Britain’s most notoriner party, then I think I would like to talk to Ghandi and ous spirits. Mother Theresa, because I believe that far from being This was the program that many readers will know saintly as they are portrayed, they would be very human Derek from. The show is now no longer on air, apart beings, but with their hearts firmly set on justice. from repeats. But what is behind the public persona you see? Q: If you could be invisible for a day, what would Each month I ask the same questions to a different you do? Derek: I would make an unseen visit to the people who have been unkind to me in the past and let them experience some REAL paranormal activity. I would take huge delight in seeing genuine fear on their faces. Q: What’s your pet hate? Derek: Mosquitoes. Q: What’s your favorite book? Derek: Gulliver’s Travels and Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons. Q: What can’t you resist? Derek: Puddings. Q: What’s your current or upcoming project? Derek: Apart from completing my autobiography, I will be continuing on with my live tour of the UK plus some live shows in major U.S. cities. I also have one or two trips up and coming where I will be visiting sacred sites — not unfortunately for television. I have also recently been involved in making a pilot program that seems to be progressing nicely, though of course there are no guarantees that it will be commissioned. ***** About Derek’s Upcoming Book Derek hopes to publish a new book soon. The book was dictated by Derek and written by his wife Gwen, the perfect partnership, Derek says. It was completed some time ago, and some of the content — in Derek’s own words — “blows the lid off Most Haunted.” However, as he recently said on his Facebook page, “Yes, there is a confidentiality clause in place which effectively gags me from making any comment on the program for the duration of my involvement. This contract is currently with my lawyer who is looking over the whole situation because the time has come when I feel that I have a right to reply. Since I resigned — and yes, I did resign — I have a right to make comment, just as much as anybody else who is a potential viewer should I choose to do so.” Hence, we can assume that until that issue is sorted, we must await the book. I for one am looking forward to it having worked with other Most Haunted cast members. Feel sure when the book hits the shelves, I shall be having a more in depth chat with Derek for Paranormal Underground. Derek lives near Southport in the North West of England with his wife, Gwen. They share their home with their two dogs — Jack, a Standard Poodle, and Penny, a German Shepherd Dog. Did You Know? • Derek’s early career was playing football with teams such as the legendary Bill Shankly’s Liverpool Foot ball Club. • Derek has always been a keen fish-keeper and is very proud of his Koi carp. He recently developed an interest in keeping chickens and ducks. His daily routine while at home now includes looking after the flock he was given for his birthday in 2011. To find out more about Derek, visit http://derekacorah.com/. In 2007, Derek traveled to Egypt where he filmed Paranormal Egypt. This six-part program gave insight into the lives and some of the mysteries surrounding the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. Paranormal Underground 17 Dakota Lawrence Clairvoyant Medium and Psychic Paranormal Investigator By Jenny Gurney, Proximity Paranormal akota Lawrence is a gifted clairvoyant, medium, and psychic paranormal investigator from Shreveport, Louisiana. He has a history of incredibly gifted psychics in his family, and at the very early age of 12, he knew that he was gifted himself and even began doing readings for others. Dakota attributes his gifts and talents to God and serves his clients with the utmost respect. Dakota has been guiding people on matters from life questions to lost loved ones and missing person cases. Dakota’s style is straight forward and honest as he explains everything to his clients in ways they can understand. He believes that honesty is the best policy, and a little bit of edginess never hurts either! Dakota recently spoke with Paranormal Underground about his abilities and work in the field. ***** Q: Tell us about yourself and when you realized you had abilities? Dakota: I never truly had that big “awakening” to being psychic. I was raised in a psychic household, so I was always around the psychic aspect of life. It was nothing out of the ordinary for me. It is something that is just an integral part of my family, so it’s just like having dinner together at the table; we’re a family of psychics. Q: When did you start doing readings professionally? Dakota: After September 11, 2001. I was 15 years old. I realized that not everyone possessed the same psychic sense that my family and myself possess. I then made it my mission to do this professionally. I love helping Dakota Lawrence embraces his Native American family heritage, and with every reading he respectfully approaches his native ancestors and asks for assistance and guidance. people, meeting people, and traveling, and I’ve been completely blessed by accomplishing all three things in my career. It is very scary being self-employed, and this being literally my full-time job; however, I’ve never had a doubt that this is what I am supposed to be doing and where I am supposed to be. Q: What is the difference between a clairvoyant medium and a psychic paranormal investigator? Dakota: A clairvoyant medium focuses more on the reading of people and their lives and lost loved ones. Being a psychic paranormal investigator, I like to call myself a glorified digital voice recorder and electro-magnetic field meter. I like to go into a location and gather what I psychically get from a location, and then have the investigator(s) go in and do their thing. Then we compare notes at the end. It validates what I was picking up through my abilities, as well as the evidence they were able to document as well. Q: What is your advice to people who are realizing they have abilities? Dakota: Go with your gut and where you are drawn to. There is no singular path for developing your abilities. Read all the books and learn all the styles other people read and connect to Spirit; then find the way that suits you best. We’re all different, and while we all connect to Spirit, finding our own personal way of connecting works best. Q: How has your Native American heritage helped you in life and your abilities? Dakota: I would say from the aspect of my life it is really about the balance and focus on myself and spiritual path. I’m a firm believer in karma and to learn from the world “Physical death is just the soul’s transition into another realm.” around us, which includes the people, animals, and trees; there is always a message for us. The Red Path is all about creating and keeping that balance within yourself and nature. Psychically, I would say that it has helped me maintain a strong spiritual balance within myself, which of course helps me intuitively. Dakota’s readings are what he calls a “soul level” reading, which helps the client understand what is going on in their life and what is going on around them, helping them improve their own lives and personal enlightenment. want to die anytime soon, I don’t have a fear of dying because my abilities have shown me that physical death is just a transition point. When it comes to life, I truly see how much we focus on the negativity around us and not on the things we are supposed to work on. It’s easy to get yourself trapped in a toxic routine instead of truly allowing ourselves to be free from the shackles of negativity. Life is about love, which is where my trademark “love is life” came from. While negativity must happen for us to learn, we can’t dwell on the negative aspects or the positive aspects in life. We must take it all in stride and learn the most that we can from all experiences we go through. Q: Do you plan to write a book, and if so what would you write about? Dakota: I don’t believe in “death.” It’s merely the soul’s transition into another realm. So I would say while I don’t Dakota: Yes. I have two that I want to write so far. One will definitely be about the psychic paranormal investigation side and some of the case files that I have worked on. Because my case files are confidential, if I did write my case file book, I would change the names and locations. I wouldn’t want people to go back and investigate the private estate just for jollies. Q: Have your abilities changed the way you view life and death? Paranormal Underground 19 Investigator Spotlight Dakota: I heard that nickname and had to laugh. I never truly learned the origin of that nickname, but I’ve been called worse and it is kind of catchy. My life is pretty bland and boring outside of my career, so if someone wants to give me a really interesting nickname like that I’ll take it. And, hey, who knows. I doubt I ever would pose for playgirl, but if Hugh reads this, give me a call. (Laughs) Q: Everyone who knows you says you have an obsession with the titanic. When and how did you become obsessed with the titanic? Dakota: First, when I was around six or seven, there was a special about it on TV. My mother had it on, and I informed her that I had died on that ship. She asked me how I died, and I replied, “The ship hit a giant ice cube and I drowned.” Of course, my mother was used to that sort of thing, but then when James Cameron released his version of Titanic, I knew I wasn’t John Astor or one of the other first-class people. I knew I was in steerage. I guess that’s why I live by the motto of going first class or staying at home now. Beyond that aspect, it’s the fact that it is literally a 100-year-old time vessel at the bottom of the Atlantic. Dakota’s up-beat personality and Southern style has made him one of the most recognized readers within the paranormal and metaphysical community. Q: Do you do investigations, and if so what is your favorite location? Dakota: I still do investigations, though I do keep my investigations private as I prefer doing private residences more than the “ghost spots” like haunted locations or, as I like to call them, attractions. I’ve got a lot of mixed feelings on a lot of them. Some use the aspect of being haunted as a for-profit business venture, while others legitimately do care about their locations and their resident spirits. I would have to say my favorite location I go to that doesn’t treat it like a for-profit haunted attraction would be The Pride House in Jefferson, Texas. Q: Tell us how you got the nickname Playboy of the Paranormal? “My favorite location to investigate is The Pride House in Texas.” She had the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor from all over the world on that ship, and I find their stories to be fascinating, as well as the spiritual lessons of ego behind the Titanic and her sister ships The Olympic and Britannic. Q: What is your favorite life quote, and what does it mean to you. Dakota: Not to be big headed, but my favorite life quote is something I came up with: “Love is Life.” It is just simply so short yet so true. Also, of course, James Dean’s, “Dream as if you’ll live forever; live as if you’ll die today.” To learn more about Dakota, find out more about getting a reading, and learn about his future appearances, visit his Website: www.dakotalawrence.com. Paranormal Underground Radio Thursdays @ 9-11 p.m. ET/6-8 p.m. PT www.heyzradio.com • Ghosts & Hauntings • UFOs & Alien Encounters • Cryptozoology • Spirituality • Investigating • Crystals & Herbology • Magic & Lore • Urban Legends • Demonology Explore the Unexplained With Hosts Rick Hale & Karen Frazier September 2013 Paranormal Underground 21 Psychic Manipulation of Paranormal Equipment By Michael White, Paranormal Research and Investigations hen paranormal investigators are conducting an investigation in a possible haunted location, they are looking to their instruments, noting changes in their environments and exploring their feelings for indications that they are not alone. These changes can be in the form of a disembodied voice, a tactile response, a change in instrument readings (temperature, EMF, etc.), a visual event, an electronic voice phenomenon, etc. When a particular stimulus is received, the investigator attempts to find a logical explanation for it. When all other possible explanations fail, the received event is generally attributed to a spirit, entity, or ghost, depending on the investigator’s personal philosophies. Attributing all unexplainable phenomena as interactions with the dead might not always be correct, though the actual explanations may still fall within paranormal realms. Do Investigators Cause Paranormal Activity? When receiving evidence during an investigation, a significant factor in determining the success is causational. Asking a direct question may result in an EVP or other form of communication. Asking for an unseen entity to make a K-II meter light up, turn on a flashlight, or make a change on any other instrument or object in a room is standard practice. A direct response to such a request generally results in a determination of an intelligent haunting. But what if it was the investigator that actually created the received stimulus? Could the equipment or could the investigators themselves be influenced psychically? In June 2013, Paranormal Research and Investigations (PRI) devised and conducted an experiment to determine if manipulation of investigative equipment could be achieved through psychic means. With a belief that all people have some psychic abilities, some more The experiment was created to determine if common “ghost-hunting” equipment can be psychically manipulated consciously or subconsciously by the living. The experiment took place at the PRI headquarters in Silverdale, Washington. than others, it was determined that the experiment would best be conducted using people with known abilities. For this particular experiment, two people with remote viewing experience participated. The goals of the experiment included the documentation and corroboration of the remote viewer’s interaction with the research team and manipulation of electronic equipment. The experiment took place in a home in Silverdale, Washington, at 8 p.m. on June 26, 2013, with PRI team members, Katie Jones, Matthew Quesada, and Michael White, participating. Approximately one half hour prior to the commencement, both remote viewers (Ellen All- mendinger in Yakima, Washington, and William Becker in Northern Oregon) were called and briefed that the experiment would begin at 8 p.m. and secure at 8:30 p.m. without signal. The goal of the remote viewers was to locate and announce a playing card that was to be selected at random. If they were unable to detect the card, they were to say the word “negative” through the SB7 or audio recorder. Note: Neither of the remote viewers have visited the experiment location before and were not supplied with floor plans, interior or exterior details, or pictures. Preparing for the Experiment Preparations for the experiment included turning all lights off except for one above the dining room table. A MEL Meter and SB7 were placed on the dining room table, and a video camera was set up to record their readings. In the center of the table, a cardboard box contained a digital voice recorder and one playing card; the card was selected at random and not viewed by the PRI team. Additionally, one low-voltage detector was placed in the vicinity of the box, and a brass statue of the deity Shiva was placed at the far end of the table simply to test the remote viewer’s abilities in detecting it. At approximately 7:56 p.m. all equipment was turned on and the three PRI team members left the dining room and sat in the den near the fireplace. During the experiment, the PRI team noted what they had heard or felt. At 8:30 p.m. all equipment was turned off and the team members discussed their personal experiences. It was then noted that the playing card that had been selected was the Jack of Spades; however, this deck was Two remote viewers were asked to remotely identify a playing card. The card that was selected was the Jack of Spades. Analyzing the Experiment Data The analysis phase of this experiment consisted of reviewing the audio and video data from the recording devices, as well as reviewing all of the anecdotal reports from the PRI team and the remote viewers. Video review was essential in ruling out anomalous audio from the SB7; it was easy to determine which SB7 voices were a result of picking up parts of broadcasts as the device scanned through the frequencies from those that came through in the same vocal tone over a wide scan of frequencies. Documented electronic anomalies associated with the experiment included temperature readings fluctuating inconsistently with what one might expect from an energyefficient home, the fixed camera shook as if bumped on several occasions, SB7 announcements were recorded, and an intelligent response EVP was discovered after the experiment had concluded. The anecdotal reports from the PRI research team and those from the two remote viewers, Ellen and William, outshined the equipment evidence. The reports, once compared, suggested that interaction between the remote viewers and PRI team did indeed occur and that the goals of the experiment were achieved. Interactions of significant note included: • Ellen knocked via remote viewing, and a knock was heard by the PRI host. • Ellen made note that she had remotely touched the back of the head of someone with blonde hair, and Katie Jones noted that at one point she felt a chill and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. • Ellen said that she repeated the word, “negative,” a few times, one of which may have been recorded. Ellen knocked via remote viewing, and a knock was heard by the PRI host. from Disney World, and the Jack was being represented by Donald Duck. All participants, including the two remote viewers Ellen and William, finalized their reports of the experiment independently and submitted them to PRI for analysis. Paranormal Underground 23 Pictured above at left: All experimental equipment was laid out in the dining room on the table. Above at right: The PRI research team sat in the den adjoining the dining room during the experiment. • William’s supported interactions include his vivid and accurate description of the dwelling’s exterior and interior. • William noted tapping the shoulder of a PRI member remotely, and the PRI host reported feeling that sensation unmistakably. eyes closed and my head back like this, and I felt like someone ...,” An EVP (male?) corrected him and said “something.” In William’s description of the focus area and placement of equipment, the description was completely inaccurate for this experiment. However, that description was correct for previous experiments that he was Other Important Results Emerge unaware of. In a previous experiment, where the coffee Additional information that made the experiment table was, the focus area and a card was used (the 9 of considerably more interesting came from reports and data diamonds). not necessarily related to the William’s depiction of the experiment. Before the experiequipment set up and the card William’s description ment began, Katie Jones asked was 100% accurate for that the PRI host if the home had earlier experiment that he was of the focus area been cleared of entities that unaware of. matched a previous might want to interfere with the When planning this reexperiment. mote viewing experiment, the experiment 100%. The PRI host replied that assumption by all parties was if anyone would purposely and that remote viewing activities jokingly interfere, it would be his late grandfather. Duroccur in real-time. Apparently, that is not always the case ing Ellen’s remote visit, she noted running into an entity based on this discovery. named “Horace,” which was the name of the host’s late grandfather. The Bottom Line The EVP that was received after the experiment Overall, the experiment was determined to be a succoncluded occurred when the PRI team compared cess. The theory that paranormal investigators and equipnotes. Matthew Quesada was talking about an experiment can be manipulated by psychic means was generally ence where he had his eyes closed and it seemed like supported by the data and corresponding anecdotal re“someone” had passed in front of him, creating a ports; however, more refined experimentation is needed. shadow on his eyelids. For a complete abstract of this experiment and At that time, a Class B EVP was received that planned experiments, visit the Paranormal Research and sounded like it corrected him. Matthew said, “I had my Investigations Website at http://pri-wa.com. Does it seem impossible to find help with spirit removals? Master Psychic Dave Gerke offers his services to help rid you of Attachments, unwanted Spirit attacks, and/or home invasion. $50 consultant fee required. Serious inquiries only. To set up payment for consultation fees, contact Assistant Stephen Frey at email@example.com. To find out more about Dave, check out his writings, including “The Story of a Master Psychic,” “Billy the Kid, Serial Killer, revised,” and other informative writings. For book purchases online, just click the links listed below. Story of a Master Psychic (Adventures, Tales, Happenings, and Tips for Becoming a Master Psychic): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/story-of-a-master-psychic-david-l-gerke/1111725972 Billy The Kid, Serial Killer Revised (Billy’s Own Words of His Killings, Mutilations, and Loves as Told to Master Psychic): http://www.amazon.com/Billy-The-Kid-Serial-Killer/dp/1478719621 Paranormal Underground 25 Case Files Of The Unknown: Haunted Sites By Jenny Gurney, Proximity Paranormal, & Michele Watson-Baker, Mid Illinois Ghost Society shmore Estates is a landmark that resides in Coles County, Illinois. The history ranges from a poor farm to a house for the Intermediate Care Facility for the Developmentally Disabled. The building was off-limits to the general public for 20 years. Many had visited the site illegally and experienced the haunt first hand. Many paranormal teams have been through the Ashmore Estates doors to investigate the spirits that are roaming the halls of the building. Ashmore Estates has been featured on Children of the Grave II, Ghost Adventures, and Ghost Hunters. Ashmore Estates History: A Storied Past Leads to a Paranormal Present Ashmore Estates, also known as the Almshouse, is a three-floor building that was built in 1916. It has housed people who were indigent and those who had mental disabilities. From 1916 to around 1959, the building was the Coles County Almshouse. It was located on 200-300 acres in Coles County. The Almshouses were in every county, and were used as a precursor to modern welfare. People were actually “sentenced” to the poor farm. If you were a widow, an orphan, elderly, disabled either physically or mentally, or even a criminal with no home to go to, you ended up in the Almshouse. So, unfortunately, it really was possible for a rapist and a two-year-old to share a home. The poor farm was self-sufficient; they raised all their own crops. Life would have been very difficult for everyone who lived there. The building was used as an almshouse until 1959, about 43 years. It was then closed down, because of the advent of the modern welfare system in the county and the state. Around 1961 the building was reopened as a psychiatric hospital. We have very little information on this era, as Originally built in 1916, Ashmore Estates closed in 1987 and stood abandoned until 2006, when it was opened as a commercial haunted house. many of the records are missing. We think the psychiatric hospital ran for about eight years, as we believe the building was empty in 1970. In the 1970s, the building was purchased and used as a home for the developmentally disabled, Intermediate Care Facility for the Developmentally Disabled (ICFDD). In 1977, the owners of that establishment built the addition. That’s the big square at the end of the building that people see today when they visit the building for investigations. In 1987, the building closed its doors for good. They moved all of its living residents out and locked the doors. They left all the records, 47 beds, dressers, and nightstands behind. Ashmore Estates then sat empty for 19 years. When the Kelleys bought the building in 2006, there was one bed left, which is still with the building. In late January 2013, a tornado his Ashmore Estates, tearing off much of its roof. A Restoration effort has been organized since the disaster to restore the haunted location. reports that range from class A EVPs to full-body appariDisaster Hits Ashmore Estates: tions. Different teams have experienced different activity Tornado Tears Roof Off Haunted Location while at Ashmore. A tornado hit Ashmore Estates the evening of JanuWhen you visit the location, you never know what ary 29, 2013. We don’t know what strength it was, but we you will get that night when investigating. Everyone that did have clarification that it was a tornado. The roof of the investigates this building walks away having experienced structure was torn off during the event. something strange and unusual. The next day, clean up be“Ashmore Estates is not gan on what was left behind after Paranormal activity at only a true iconic piece of the tornado. The main roof of Ashmore Estates includes Coles County History, but it the building, the iconic red roof, is also one of the most active was sitting in front of the buildthe appearance of fullplaces I’ve ever investigated,” ing, blocking most of the original bodied apparitions. said Becky Guymon of the building. The Kelleys, who Illinois Metaphysical & Paraowned the building at the time, normal Society. “Her walls speak and she will not let and her family spent the day crying and assessing damage, you down.” along with many kind-hearted souls and volunteers. To find out more about Ashmore estates, visit http:// The entire main roof of the original building, the www.hauntedashmoreestates.com/history.html. porch roofs, and the kitchen roof were destroyed. The gorgeous dormers and gable end were destroyed. They have no estimate at how much the damage cost or what it would cost to repair the building. The Save Ashmore Estates Committee has held one successful benefit and is planning another to raise the • At least 200 people reportedly died in Ashmore funds to rebuild the historic building. Recently, Ashmore Estates during the 1950s. Estates has been sold, but the new owners are keeping the • There have been almost 70 paranormal investigations building open to investigators! performed within the walls of Ashmore Estates. Paranormal Activity • The Booth brothers used Ashmore Estates for a Ashmore Estates is said to have a bit of everything documentary called Children of the Grave II. when it comes to paranormal activity. The owners have Did You Know? Paranormal Underground 27 Case Files Of The Unknown: Haunted Objects/Curses By Ashley Hall, The Paranormal Guide n the 1970s, a terrible event took place in a small apartment, lived in by two nursing students. For quite some time strange goings on were noticed by the students, which included unusual handwritten messages on paper, objects moving around the house, and strange dreams had by all who stayed the night. It would all culminate when a friend was attacked, with bloody and burned claw marks torn into their chest. The culprit? A Raggedy Ann doll named Annabelle, who was thought to be possessed by a demon and taking on the guise of the ghost of a little girl. A Doll Comes to Life It all began when Donna, a nursing student, was given a Raggedy Ann doll as a birthday gift from her mother. Raggedy Ann (and Andy) dolls were quite popular in the 1960s and ’70s, and the graduate student very much liked this gift. The doll was placed on her bed as a decoration, and not much more was thought on the matter by Donna or her roommate, Angie. However, the girls soon began to find the doll creepy — something was not quite right about it. It sat on the bed in Donna’s bedroom, but the girls felt as if they were being watched. Over time, these strange feelings would develop into fear, as the doll took on a life of its own. It began with the doll seemingly moving about the house on its own. The roommates would come home and find the doll in the most unexpected of places. At first, its pose on the bed had changed, but soon the doll would be found throughout the house. Much of the time the girls would arrive home to find it sitting cross-legged on the couch, a place where the girls would spend much of their time. Donna thought the roommate may have been joking, so in the morning, before classes, she took the doll off her bed and placed it on the couch. However, she came home before her room- After receiving a Raggedy Ann doll as a gift, a nursing student and her friends experience unnerving paranormal activity. mate and found the doll back on her bed. The strangest and most inexplicable way the doll was found was standing upright and leaning against a chair. This very much startled the girls, and they knew something was definitely up, as the dolls legs were too flexible to support its own weight. About a month after receiving the doll and dealing with it moving about the apartment, a new phenomena be- gan. Donna and Angie would arrive home to not only find the doll moved again, but also found pieces of parchment containing short messages written in a seemingly childlike hand. The messages would say things like “Help,” “Help Us,” and “Help Lou,” referring to a friend of the women. Enough was enough! Not only were the messages creepy, but the girls could not find a source for the paper, as neither kept parchment paper in the house! The Dangers of Inviting a Spirit Into Your Life Donna sought out the help of a medium, who soon made contact with the spirit of a young girl named Annabelle Higgins. Annabelle used to live in a house near to the land where the apartment complex was built. Annabelle was only seven when her body was found in the field where Donna’s apartment stood. Annabelle, in spirit, had been staying in the complex for many years, but when Donna and Angie had moved in, she liked the girls and found the doll suitable for habitation and manipulation of the surroundings. Donna gave Annabelle permission to stay with them, as long as she stopped doing things that scared them. Donna, Angie, and the medium seemed happy with the arrangement, but their friend Lou did not like what was happening. Lou felt that the doll was evil and should be gotten rid of. When he stayed in the apartment, he would have very vivid dreams about Annabelle attacking him. One evening Lou and Angie were sitting on a lounge, reading over maps in preparation for a road trip the following day. They were startled by rustling sounds coming Pictured at left: Lorraine Warren worked on the case of the haunted Raggedy Ann doll with her husband, Ed. from Donna’s room. Fearing it was a burglar; Lou quietly crept up to the bedroom door then suddenly rushed in to confront the intruder. No one was there except, once again, Annabelle had moved. This time she was sprawled out on the floor, the feeling of life having left her. Lou walked up to the doll to inspect it, then got the distinct impression that someone was standing behind him. He turned, expecting to see Angie, but was rather surprised by a burning sensation in his chest. Lou fled the room to the safety of the living room where he removed his shirt. To his and Angie’s amazement, seven distinct claw marks were found burned and bleeding in his chest, three were vertical and four were horizontal. The wounds slowly beaded blood, but the burning was more pronounced. Something unseen had definitely attacked him. The Warrens Arrive on the Scene Donna now believed the doll to be possessed by an evil entity and once again sought help. Help arrived in the form of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who had worked on many cases concerning dark/negative spirits, eventually including the Amityville Case. It was soon decided that the doll was not possessed, but was rather being used to give the impression that it was possessed. The entity in this case was not capable of possessing the doll, as it needed a human host. And since this can take time to succeed, the doll was used to fool the girls into believing that it was a much more friendly spirit. Essentially, in their minds, a “demon” had attached itself to the doll, but wanted so much more. And through the previous séance, Donna had unwittingly given it free reign of the house when she gave it permission to stay. It seemed that the demon’s intent was to possess Lou by using the doll, trying to get his attention and possible sympathies through the handwritten notes, many of which had Lou’s name on them. The dreams, scratches, and burns were typical of the early stages of a demon making its mark and intent to reside within a human form. An exorcism was performed on the apartment, and the Warrens took the doll with them. Donna, Angie, and Lou were now free of the terrors that had plagued them for the past few months. As for Annabelle the Doll, she sits locked in a glass case in the Warren Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, together with a sign that says, “Warning. Positively Do Not Open.” The presence can still be felt within the doll by those with sensitive abilities, but as for why the entity stays attached to the doll? It is not entirely certain, but maybe it is looking for the right person to pay a visit to the museum in which to make a new attachment. The doll began moving around the house on its own. Paranormal Underground 29 Case Files Of The Unknown: Cryptids & Mythological Creatures Africa’s Enigmatic Cryptid: The Nandi Bear By Jill Stefko, Ph.D., Suite 101 Contributing Writer oologists claim there are no bears living in Africa, but ursine fossils have been discovered there, so it’s possible that the Nandi Bear isn’t extinct. The Nandi tribe, for which this bear is named, are the people who have seen this mysterious animal more often than others. According to witness accounts, this cryptid, an Unknown Mysterious Animal, UMA, has the bears’ characteristics and posture. The small brown animal climbs trees. It’s a ferocious, nocturnal animal, said to eat humans and livestock. The Nandi Bear has successfully avoided scientists and hunters. The Nandi Bear It has various names, including chemosit, chimosit, kerit, duba, vere, kikambang, sabrookoo, gadet, and geteit. Witnesses have sighted the cryptid since ancient times. Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, wrote about it in the 1st Century CE. Some witnesses say the cryptid resembles the European brown bear that has relatives in America and Asia. It has thick, dark auburn or brown fur, a substantial mane, large teeth, and a long pointed head and snout, said to be comparable to the American brown bear. According to others, it’s similar to a powerful, standing, tree-climbing hyena, is between four and six feet tall, with high front shoulders and a sloping back. According to legend, it ate only the brains of its prey and could devastate herds of cattle and sheep. The Nandi Bear: Selected Sightings Most of the sightings were in the early 1900s; two are undated. • Major Braithwaite and C. Kenneth Archer saw an animal that they thought was a lioness until they noticed a snout. The standing creature was about four feet five inches tall at the shoulder. The back sloped steeply toward the rump. It moved with a shuffling gait, like a bear’s. The dark Some witnesses say the Nandi cryptid resembles the European brown bear, which has relatives in America and Asia. (Source: Philip72/Wikipedia) brown coat was thick. The cryptid fled with a clumsy trot and went into trees by the river, where it disappeared. • Early 1900s, Geoffrey Williams, a member of the Nandi Expedition, encountered the UMA. His cousin and he were walking toward Sirgoit Rock when they saw a large animal sitting up on its haunches less than 30 yards away from them. Its posture resembled a bear at a zoo, begging for food. It leaned forward and shuffled away in a sideways canter. • 1912: Major Toulson sighted the cryptid in the Uasin Gishu plain. One of his boys said that a leopard was near the kitchen. He immediately ran to see the creature and witnessed a strange animal, with a bear’s gait, shuffling away from the house. • March 1913: N.E.F. Corbett, District Commissioner of Eldoret, encountered the UMA. He was eating lunch by the Sirgoi River, when he almost bumped into the creature that was drinking water. It shuffled way from him in a bear-like manner. sible that known animals are mistaken for the bear. • During the construction of the Madadi Railway, In addition to various hyenas being misidentified as workers reported encounters with the bear. One railway the elusive UMA, black honey badgers and baboons are employee, Schindler, discovered a succession of caninealso mistaken for it. like tracks that were eight and a half inches long, with five Natives continued to report the bear committing violent toes and a long heel. He drew sketches of them. attacks against them. Kitapmetit Kipet, chief of a Nandi vil• March 8, 1913: Railway engineer G.W. Hickes, in lage, claimed the cryptid was a devil that stalked the nganasa charge of building the railway through East Africa, saw the (hut settlement) on nights, looking for humans, especially bear. Initially, he thought it was a hyena. As he got closer, children, to consume. According to him, it was a half-man he saw the cryptid had a thickset body, with high withers, and half-enormous ape-faced bird with a scary, howling roar a short neck, squat nose, broad and a glowing red mouth. rump, very short ears, no visible Sightings by Westerners, Some cryptozoologists tail, shaggy legs, and large feet. after the 1920s, are rare, but still postulate the Nandi Bear • 1913: A native servant happen. Recently, bear huntsaw a strange animal like the one ers, searching for the UMA, is a species of hyena Hickes saw. The creature was reported finding tracks and believed to be extinct. standing on its hind legs. A subhearing terrifying howls, unlike contractor saw a similar creature. those made by known animals. The Nandi Bear: Theories The Nandi Bear could be a European brown bear wandering south into the African jungles or an Asian bear that migrated. Some cryptozoologists postulate the Nandi Bear is a species of hyena believed to be extinct, an unknown species or a surviving Chalicothere. Hyenas are fierce hunters who attack and kill herbivores and panthers. Short-faced hyenas, thought to be extinct, were as large as lions and had ursine faces; however, it’s doubtful that the Chalicothere theory is valid because this herbivorous animal was related to horses and tapirs, which evolved during the mid-Eocene era. Some zoologists postulate that the bear is an unknown species of a giant baboon. There are African natives who say it’s a type of monkey. This makes some sense because people who haven’t seen a bear compare it with other animals they have seen — apes being the most likely candidates. Europeans maintain that the animal is a type of bear, especially when they have seen it up close. Some suggest the cryptid is a type of aardvark that can be seven feet tall and have long tails and short chubby legs. They eat insects, not humans, which is, physically, impossible for them. The bear doesn’t have a long tail. Nandi Bear: a Misidentified Known Animal? Around 1920, British Museum authorities investigated the Nandi Bear because of accounts that the creature was attacking humans. Skulls and hides of the alleged animals were sent to the museum for examination. They were those of leopards and hyenas. The pelt of one animal was usually attached to the skull of another’s. Paw print tracks were sent, but it turned out to be impressions of a hyena’s paw superimposed on another one. It’s pos- The Nandi Bear: Cryptid Kin The Australian cryptid thylacine (AKA Tasmanian wolf/Tasmanian tiger) is believed to be extinct, although sightings have been reported. The last one, Benjamin, died on September 7, 1936, in the Hobart Domain Zoo. Some people confuse the Queensland Tiger, an Australian enigmatic feline cryptid, with the thylacine because of similarities in their appearance. Thylacines resemble canines in photographs. The tiger’s appearance is similar to the thylacine, except for its feline head and its stripes, which are darkest and most prominent toward the front of the body; the thylacine’s, on the rump. The Nandi Bear’s Western kin is the onza, a mystery Latin American Big Cat. Some cryptozoologists want the onza recognized as a third species of Latin American big cats; others think it’s a mere myth. Reports of onzas go back to the early 1500s when Spanish Conquistadores invaded South America. Could the Nandi Bear Exist? Some animals declared extinct aren’t. In June 2006, conservationists said they found proof that the okapi, a rare giraffe-like mammal, still lived in the Congo’s Virunga National Park. The elusive animal was considered a myth until it was discovered in 1901. The okapi wasn’t seen in the park since 1959, but it was seen in other areas. The World Wildlife Fund and the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature found 17 okapi tracks and other evidence of its existence during a recent survey. This article was originally published at http://suite101.com/ article/africas-enigmatic-cryptid-the-nandi-bear-a409750. Paranormal Underground 31 Case Files Of The Unknown: Are We Alone? Is There a Spiritual Reality Behind the UFO Phenomenon? By Jason V. Francis erard Aartsen is an educator at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. He is the author of George Adamski: A Herald for the Space Brothers (2010) and Here to Help: UFOs and the Space Brothers (2011). He has lectured about the “Space Brothers” in Europe, America, and the Philippines. Having been a student of the Ageless Wisdom teachings for more than 30 years, Gerard is able to take a spiritual look at the UFO phenomenon. I had the privilege of interviewing Gerard about why he believes the people behind the UFOs are our “Space Brothers,” and their purpose in coming to Earth. ***** Q: Who are the Space Brothers? Gerard: The Space Brothers are the people from other planets in our solar system who come to Earth to assist us, not just humanity as a whole, but our elder brothers, the Masters of Wisdom, in a major transition in consciousness, a realization or reawakening to the spiritual realities of life, to our real spiritual nature that we have lost sight of. I am aware that there are many reports of people who claim to be in contact with people from outer space. A lot of people say that they come from out of this solar system, because our science tells us the other planets in our system are uninhabited and even uninhabitable. According to the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, and this is the background from which I speak and write, life is universal. You cannot go anywhere where there is no life, because life is the underlying principle of everything that exists. It’s just that because we are so conditioned by life on the solid physical plane, and we do not have etheric vision, which is the ability to see the higher planes material reality above the dense physical, liquid, and gaseous physical, that we take for granted that other planets are Gerard Aartsen, educator and author, examines how our “Space Brothers” are here to help us find what we’ve lost sight of. (Photo source: Glenn Peter Perez.) uninhabited. So most contactees say the space people in the UFOs must be from out of the solar system. However, based on my study and research of the Ageless Wisdom, I believe that the Space Brothers are from within our solar system. They are here with their advanced technology and advanced ethics and morals to assist us mostly discretely and in the background. But they have begun to make themselves increasingly visible, even since the 1940s and 1950s. So it is becoming harder and harder for the authorities to deny their existence. Q: What is the “Ageless Wisdom”? Gerard: The Ageless Wisdom has been defined as “the means by which humanity is kept informed of its essential divinity and of its journey of evolution toward perfection.” It is the sum total of mankind’s spiritual tradition and the source from which all major religions have sprung. Q: Could you tell us about your book George Adamski: A Herald for the Space Brothers (2010)? Gerard: It’s interesting because now that I have a book out, I am invited to speak and give interviews. It seems that a lot of people have forgotten about George Adamski. In the 1950s, he was one of the very first people to speak out about his contacts. He wrote a very famous book he coauthored with an Anglo-Irish gentleman, Desmond Leslie, called Flying Saucers Have Landed, which was published in 1953. It’s mainly a historical overview, a study by Leslie, of the flying saucer phenomena. When Leslie was looking for a publisher, he heard about Adamski’s experience in the California desert in November 1952. Adamski had written it up and was looking for a way to have his report published, which was included as the second part in the same book, Flying Saucers Have Landed. That’s where he first became famous. Also, he had the most detailed photographs of flying saucers. Even until now because I really don’t know about clearer or more detailed photographs of flying saucers. After Adamski’s first encounter with someone who Authorities set in motion a campaign to discredit Adamski, after which many people saw him as a hoax. came out of the flying saucer that landed in the California desert in 1952, in 1953 he had further contacts and was taken aboard flying saucers that took him to mother ships — larger spacecraft that usually carried lots of people and numerous saucers or “scouts,” as they are called. He spoke to the people on those mother ships, and some of those people were revered even among the space people aboard those mother ships. I think they could be compared to our Masters of Wisdom that we know about through people like Helena Blavatsky and Baird T. Spalding. He received a lot of serious and inspiring teachings about the nature of life. That became the topic and content of his second book Inside George Adamski (1891–1965) claimed to have photographed ships from other planets, met Nordic alien “Space Brothers,” and gone on flights with them. the Space Ships that was published in 1955. In the meantime he was lecturing, especially in the U.S. and Mexico at the time. He became world famous, in fact, because of his book. Flying Saucers Have Landed was translated into no less than 10 languages. Mind you, this is the mid-1950s. Within a short number of years he was giving talks, and by 1959 he was on a world tour that took him to South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. He drew huge crowds that came to listen to him. That really worried the authorities. They set in motion a campaign to discredit Adamski. It has been so effective that in the late 1950s and in the early 1960s until his death in 1965, he was generally seen as a hoax or a crackpot. The thing that I think he should be remembered and given credit for is the amazing teaching that he provided through his contacts with the space people. What I do in my book is find the parallels between those teachings and the teachings that have come to us through people like Alice Bailey and Helena Blavatsky that are known as the Ageless Wisdom teachings. It is so interesting to see that the space people actually have the same view of life as the great teachers on Earth. Q: Could you tell us about the Amicizia contact case that took place in Italy concurrent to Adam- Paranormal Underground 33 Case Files Of The Unknown: Are We Alone? Q: What is the general impression of the space people by those who have met them? Gerard Aartsen has been a student of the Ageless Wisdom teaching for more than 30 years. His research into the teachings of the Masters of Wisdom resulted in a comprehensive annotated catalogue, which he has published online as Our Elder Brothers Return: A History in Books (1875–Present). ski’s outreach in the U.S. that you mention in your book Here to Help: UFOs and the Space Brothers? And are there other similar encounters? Gerard: The Amicizia, or Friendship, Case in Italy was a case of mass contact between hundreds of Italians and space people who lived and worked in underground bases in Italy. Actually, similar contact cases seemed to be going on in other European countries at the same time. In Italy, the Friendship Case started in 1956, and while in most contact cases people are invited on board extraterrestrial spacecraft, in this case they were invited into the underground bases of the space people. The case involved quite a number of well-known Italians too, such as university professors, one or two journalists, a painter, and a consul, Alberto Perego. The true scale of Amicizia only became known through the account of psychologist Bruno Sammaciccia, whose story was included in a book titled Mass Contacts by Stefano Breccia, which came out in 2009. Apart from the fact that the various participants all talk about very human-looking space people, what stands out in this case for me is the focus that the space visitors put on the importance of right human relations — friendship and understanding as they called it. This coincides exactly with the stated aims of Adamski’s Get Acquainted Program, which he set up in 1957 on the suggestion of his space contacts. And given that we also know about branches of the Friendship community in South America since 1985, this points to a worldwide, sustained effort on the part of the space people to emphasize the importance of living by the Golden Rule that can also be found at the basis of every major religion. Gerard: It is interesting to see that in all the serious cases of contacts with space people that I have researched — some historical, some more recent — they are seen as morally far advanced compared to ourselves, working and living according to the highest ethical standards. This was reported not only by the early contactees of the 1950s, but also by the people in the Friendship case in Italy and South America, more recent contactees such as Giorgio Dibitonto from Italy and Carlos Diaz from Mexico, and by high-profile individuals who have testified about their encounters. When you look at it closely, it is astounding to find so many people talking about the goodness and wisdom of the people from space. Q: The idea of beneficent Space Brothers stands in stark contrast to nasty “aliens” abducting and examining people. Do the Space Brothers abduct individuals? Gerard: That’s why it is so important to get this message out. I believe it also shows how effective the whole disinformation campaign has been ever since Adamski became so well known in the 1950s. Unfortunately, there have been covert government operations with some secret agencies that even our administrations and presidents didn’t know about, which have increasingly got their own way by giving the space visitors a bad name by depicting them as malicious: responsible for cattle mutilation and beaming people into their ships to have objects implanted into them and to subject them to nasty experiments. None of that is true according to Benjamin Creme, who is in constant contact with one of the Masters of Wisdom. You don’t even need to believe the claim that he is in contact with a Master of Wisdom, because if you go back through the stories of the early “contactees,” none of them ever mentioned having been abducted. More interestingly, more recent testimony of people of high standing (dignitaries and officials), when they speak about their experiences with people from outer space, none of them talks about any of these nasty things. For instance, there have been other early contactees who never mentioned abductions. Pope John XXIII, also known as the “Good Pope,” in the early 1960s had an experience in the garden of his summer castle — the Castel Gandolfo. There was a scout ship or saucer that landed at the south end of the garden. The Pope asked his assistant, who was there as well, to stay put as he went over. The assistant later related that he saw someone come out of the saucer. The Pope kneeled down and got up again and had a conversation for 15 to 20 minutes. The Pope came back and told his assistant that our brothers are everywhere but sometimes we have difficulty recognizing them. In 1997, there was the president [Kirsan Ilyumzhinov] of Kalmykia, a Southern Russian state, who has been quite open about his experiences when he was invited into a cylindrical-shaped craft. It became headline news again just last year in the UK, and he never talks about being “abducted.” So it really shows how effective the military and government’s cover-up has been. And, of course, Hollywood has had its share in how extraterrestrials are depicted. tually be the governments of the world coming forward and admitting that we are indeed being visited by highly advanced civilizations from other planets. Other people have suggested that disclosure will be more gradual and organic; generations being brought up with information about UFOs on television and in print will eventually create an overall consensus that the phenomenon is real. What form do you think disclosure will take, and do you anticipate it soon? Gerard: To be sure, I think disclosure is no longer in the hands of our governments. They have been given the Q: Does the idea of people being “Space Brothopportunity, especially in the 1950s, to announce to the ers” enlarge upon the idea of a universal humanworld their knowledge of and contacts with the people ity that not only transcends national borders but from space, but have chosen to keep it to themselves for also transcends our own world? reasons of self-interest. Gerard: Exactly. We are everywhere. The human experiAt the same time, the space visitors are showing ence is a universal experience, because it is an essential themselves more and more openly, with ever more stage in the evolution of consciousness. There may be spectacular and concrete sightings that cannot be exslight differences between different races and populations plained away anymore. At the same time the world has on different planets just like now arrived at the point where there are differences between the Masters of Wisdom, and “The whole purpose of the races on Earth, but they are the World Teacher as their cover-up by the military and relatively minor. There are no head, are ready to emerge into economic interests is to three-legged beings with just a full public view at this crucial giant head and one eye walking stage of our evolution. Once maintain their control around or any other crazy dethis has happened, very soon over society.” piction. The human experience, now, the space people will be form, and kingdom are a universal occurrence. introduced by these, our Elder Brothers, and they will be landing openly for everyone to see and acknowledge. Q: What are the governments, militaries, and other institutions and people of power around the Q: You have mentioned the Masters of Wisdom. world, who are “in the know” about the UFO isWho exactly are the Masters of Wisdom and the sue and seeking to keep it covered up, frightened World Teacher? of when it comes to disclosure? Gerard: The Masters of Wisdom are really the next kingGerard: The whole purpose of the cover-up by the dom in nature up from the human kingdom. We know military and economic interests is to maintain their control through Darwin’s work of the evolution of the physical over society. I mean, as soon as the general populace would form, with the vegetable kingdom having evolved out of know about alternative ways of living, of relating, ways that the mineral kingdom; the animal kingdom evolved out of are not based on competition and greed for fear of “the the vegetable kingdom; and the human kingdom evolved other,” but rather on empathy, sharing, and justice for all, I out of the animal kingdom. Our science and, very often, am sure that would spell the end for the existing powers. people generally think that it is all a mere accident on the Until now people have been led to believe that the scale of the universe where a number of chemicals mix only way to survive in this world is to fend for yourself, together in a fortunate way and life became self-conscious. your own community, your own country. But it doesn’t The Ageless Wisdom Teachings hold the opposite have to be that way, and the space people are living proof idea. They say that what is actually going on, because life that there are other, more viable and more peaceful ways is everywhere, is the evolution of consciousness and the of living together as one human race. evolution of the form only exists to facilitate the evolution of consciousness. Q: Some people think full disclosure will evenMankind is sort of the midway station or clearinghouse Paranormal Underground 35 Case Files Of The Unknown: Are We Alone? of that consciousness. After it has involved itself all the way through the densest levels of matter, the evolution of form and the forces that lie beneath it, it works its way back up through the lower kingdoms into the human kingdom where literally matter and spirit meet, which is where selfconsciousness comes from. And because we are only one stage in the whole evolution, we are not the end station, and the next station up from our level are the Masters of Wisdom. From our point of view, they are perfected men and women like us but ahead of us in evolution. You go through the evolution of consciousness that is available on this planet that takes you to that level of perfection after five major expansions of consciousness, which are really the final phases of the life of the human being on this planet. Those five phases were illustrated for us in the life of Jesus. Some books by Alice Bailey give a very vivid picture of that, but briefly: the birth of Jesus in the cave (the cave of the heart) is a symbol for the first initiation where you gain control over the lower physical nature; the Baptism in the river Jordan is the second initiation that indicates control over our emotional nature; the transfiguration on the mount is the third initiation that gives control over the mental nature; the fourth initiation (the crucifixion) signifies the final sacrifice of our complete lower nature for the soul and higher Life; and the fifth step is symbolized in Jesus’ life by the resurrection, which signifies the raising back to our spiritual nature — the Spark of God out of the material world in which we have grown over many incarnations and cycles. That is how you become, after the fifth initiation, a Master of Wisdom. That has been going on ever since mankind came into being on this planet. Once a person becomes a Master, some choose to stay on Earth to help the rest of us. And one comes back into the world from time-to-time. Others go onto higher ways of evolution. The Master of all the Masters — who has manifested historically through Krishna and Jesus — is the World Teacher. There is always a World Teacher who is the head of the Hierarchy of Masters of Wisdom. Sometimes, in their own evolution, they move up to higher ways of evolution to other cosmic realms. The present World Teacher, our eldest brother, is the oldest of our humanity. Every cosmic cycle, roughly every 2,150 years, the solar system (therefore, our planet) comes into an energetic alignment with the next sign or constellation of the Zodiac. Whenever a New Age starts, the World Teacher manifests himself, but not always in person — 2,000 years ago, he manifested through his disciple Jesus, and 5,000 years ago, he manifested through his disciple Krishna. This time he has come himself according to the information coming from Benjamin Creme. That makes this a historically Gerard speaks at the 2nd Philippino UFO Conference in Manila, October 16, 2011. (Photo source: Glenn Peter Perez.) unique point in time, not only because he comes himself but also, as I said earlier, because humanity as a whole is making a huge step forward in consciousness, a reawakening to our cosmic nature and cosmic brotherhood. Q: Does this have anything to do with the “Age of Aquarius”? Gerard: Yes. We are moving into an ever-fuller alignment with the Constellation of Aquarius and out of the Constellation of Pisces. The mission of Jesus inaugurated the Age of Pisces. We are in a gradual movement into Aquarius that takes several hundred years until we get the strongest influence of that energy. We are now at a point where the waning energies of Pisces are as strong as the incoming energies of Aquarius. That is really the cause of the enormous political tensions in the world, which also work out on the economic level, and tensions in every field, including the religious. Q: How do the Space Brothers and the Masters of Wisdom work with humanity? Gerard: I do not claim any special knowledge or relationship with either the Masters of Wisdom or the Space Brothers. But based on my study and my research, what I do know is that the Masters of Wisdom who have stayed behind to guide us are always here to guide us and work in different fields of human endeavor, as well as in fields we know nothing about. They guide us to make these steps in consciousness and protect us as much as possible. The Space Brothers are here now to help alleviate natural disasters through their advanced technology. Ever this realization. Once we have that realization, we need to put it into practice. We need to make sure that we cooperate to share all of the food and resources, technological know-how, and the educational and healthcare resources so that everyone can live and prosper in peace and freedom, which should not be limited to the fortunate few who can afford it in the mostly Western countries. That will be an expression of our real spiritual nature — one human family. That is not going to happen overnight and all by itself, and that is where the Masters, especially the World Teacher, are coming in. Based on the information from Benjamin Creme, he has come into the world in July 1977 to inaugurate the Age of Aquarius. He has been working until now mostly behind the scenes. He has taken some major initiatives and a lot has changed because of his influence and his energy and inspiration. The release of Nelson Mandela, as well as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East Bloc, and the Soviet Union, were inspired by the World Teacher — whose personal name is Maitreya (My-TRAY-uh). So a lot has changed already, but Maitreya hasn’t made himself known yet. But moment is really very Q: You mentioned the “Our main responsibility at that close. When that happens incoming Aquarian Age. this point is to realize that everybody will know and be How exactly is the world aware of it. There have been going to change as we enter we are one human family: several points since 1977 where the Aquarian Age, and We are not separate.” there has been an opportunity what is our responsibility for him to come forward and in it? You spoke about the speak to the world, but somehow things got in the way. Masters guiding mankind’s evolution and the We are now at a point where he will no longer be Space Brothers being here to help, but we are ultistopped by our inaction or the inaction of the media. For mately responsible for the world we create. instance, in 1982, there was a major opportunity where Gerard: Yes, you are absolutely right. The forces from the international media were asked to symbolically go and the old age and new age are in sort of an equilibrium that look for him in London. He would have just come up to causes that massive tension and conflict in the world. All them and that would have set the whole thing in motion. of our institutions are outdated because they are formed The media did not respond in sufficient force, and he had to take the long way to where we are now. through our response to those old energies. So those old structures no longer serve our needs. Our main responsibilWe are now at a point where in December 2008 four ity at this point is to realize that we are one human family: major and very large spacecraft (according to Benjamin We are not separate. We are linked not only by DNA but Creme’s Master) have been positioned around the planet as also by the fact that we only have this one planet that we (in modern day “Stars of Bethlehem.” On YouTube, you will find dozens if not hundreds of clips by people from all over our present form) can live on and get our sustenance from. And unless we come together and realize that we are one the world amazed at seeing this new star or very strange and act on that realization, we will destroy ourselves. craft or light. And it is literally happening all over the world. The increasing conflict that we have seen and the old And they will remain there until Maitreya has made himself ways of trying to solve those conflicts by increasing the known to announce the start of his open appearances, which happened in January 2010 when Maitreya gave his reign of market forces, greed, and competition will only lead to further conflict. Of course, it will not take a whole first interview on an American television station as part of a lot to make further conflict final and altogether destructive panel of people who were asked for their views. of the planet and life because we have nuclear weapons. He does not use the name Maitreya when he appears on television, because it is important that people want The Masters are doing everything to help us to get to since the invention of the atomic bomb, they have worked tirelessly to neutralize the nuclear radiation that comes from all of our atomic testing and explosions and the nuclear power plants. A lot of the radiation our scientists think they can measure fairly well, but the most important levels where nuclear radiation has the most destructive effects, which are the etheric levels of matter I mentioned before, our scientists cannot measure. That is also where nuclear radiation undermines our immune system and causes every greater instances of Alzheimer’s in everyounger people. Of course, our scientists don’t know about that yet. One of the main tasks of our Space Brothers is to alleviate the problems we are causing ourselves due to our ignorance. They do a lot in that respect. How exactly they work with the Masters, I do not know, but they are all in telepathic contact because they don’t need speech or conferences in order to convey thoughts or concerns. They are constantly flying around our planet. According to Benjamin Creme, they have also put a ring of light around our planet to keep it on its axis. Paranormal Underground 37 Case Files Of The Unknown: Are We Alone? he will not speak. Everyone will hear his message inwardly. You will hear him in English; I will hear him in Dutch; the French in French; and the Japanese in Japanese, etc. That will help us get that realization, but not everybody will be convinced. A lot of people will start doubting right after the event. Though, Maitreya has said that enough people will be inspired to start moving and demand from their governments that justice be done, we change our structures, we start cooperating internationally, and give expression to that oneness by sharing all of the abundance of this planet. Q: You said that a large number of people are going to unite behind Maitreya and call for freedom and justice, for their rights and a better world. Is this connected to the various peoples’ movements we have been witnessing around the world? Gerard: Absolutely, yes. That is exactly what is happening. We saw early chapters of that “people power” movement in 1986 in the Philippines. We saw dramatic scenes of the same thing happening in Europe in 1989 and 1990. You may remember the scenes on television. For instance, one day it was Hungary, the next day it would be Czechoslovakia, and the day after another country. It was an incredible expression of people power. The same thing has now been inspired in the people in the Arab countries, as well as the protest in Wisconsin and other states in the U.S. where similar protests were staged. That is exactly what we are looking for. Exploring the facts behind the myths, this book re-frames the debate about the reality of the space visitors in view of the unprecedented changes engulfing the world today. what he is advocating and not because of who he may be. The expectation is that even though he has been fairly low-key until now, he will soon become more outspoken. This will increase in frequency and clarity, so-to-speak, until the day that it will be clear to everyone. The interviews have also now been taking place in Mexico. The plan is that it will happen next in Japan, then Europe, and other countries. This will inspire the people to ask the media to bring this man forward and give him a universal platform. Then he will make himself known. That will be the Day of Declaration. Maitreya will give us massive, undeniable experience that we are one human family. We will actually be able to feel it. His love will stream out and it will feel, as he has said, as if he embraced us. At the same time hundreds-ofthousands of miraculous healings will take place. While we see his face on television, he will be giving us a message, but Q: You mentioned a modern-day “Stars of Bethlehem.” Was the Norway Spiral one of these stars? It captured quite a bit of media attention around the world before being dismissed, which seemed like a stretch, as a Russian missile test. Gerard: A failed Russian missile test, mind you! But I’ve never heard of Russian missiles that are designed to look like spectacular Chinese fireworks in case their launch fails. Again, the establishment has done the public a major disservice by trying to explain away this unprecedented celestial display. According to Benjamin Creme, this was the first of a major manifestation of the four “star”-like spacecraft that are positioned around the Earth to alert the world to the imminent emergence of the World Teacher, Maitreya. We were told that many such manifestations would follow, in addition to regular sightings of the “stars” in various shapes and colors. Spiral UFOs, as they seem to be called now, have since been reported all over the world, and they are great signs of hope for mankind. Gerard: The main message in my book is that people should look carefully for correspondences and parallels between the message from the space people and the Gerard: For the next 2,500 years, he will be at the center Ageless Wisdom. If you look for those parallels you will of our lives. Anytime we come back into incarnation, see that the nature of the space Maitreya will be at the center of people and UFOs cannot be our lives in this world. So will other than beneficent. “The common denominator be a whole host of the Masters If you compare it with the of Wisdom around the world; of many contactees is teachings coming from our there are 14 Masters back in the Golden Rule.” own elder brothers on this the world already. We cannot planet — the Masters of Wisimagine the effect the energy dom — that can be found in the major religions, but more they embody, the ideas that comes with that energy, and recently in much less colored form through disciples like the cosmic nature of that energy will have on the world. Helena Blavatsky, Alice A. Bailey, and Benjamin Creme, Maitreya and the Masters will be available for consultation you will see that the teachings from space and those from and teaching. our own elder brothers are the same. They both teach us that we are one unit on this planet Q: Looking at all of the contacts between people just as the people are one unit on other planets. We live on Earth and those from other planets, is there a in a cosmic brotherhood. The fact that we have forgotuniversal message that is common to all? ten about it since the time of the destruction of Atlantis Gerard: Yes, the common denominator that I found doesn’t change that fact. through my research of the testimonies of many contactWhat is happening now is all this talk about interees over six decades is the Golden Rule. I summarized dimensional portals, ascension, and things like that all it in my new book as “Life is One, so live as one … or come down to the same thing: We are on the threshold of perish.” We must recognize that we are one human family rediscovering our true selves. and act on that realization — that is the only way we can And when that happens, we need to understand what survive on this planet. is happening and put it in practice. For more information on the work of Gerard AartsQ: Is there anything further you would like to add? en, visit www.bgapublications.nl. Q: How long will Maitreya be with us as Head of the Spiritual Hierarchy of Masters? Paranormal Underground 39 Case Files Of The Unknown: Urban Legends By Ashley Hall, The Paranormal Guide ear Clifton, Virginia, is a small railway overpass that spans Colchester Road. The tunnel that runs under the Colchester overpass is known as the Bunny Man Tunnel. A silly name perhaps, but one born from an urban legend. And one that draws quite a crowd at times. The tunnel is named after the “Bunny Man,” a man in a bunny suit that terrorizes those who visit the area. In the early 1900s, a lunatic asylum in Virginia was closed down with many of the criminally insane being transported to other asylums in secure buses/carriages. One of these transports violently crashed, killing many of the inmates and seeing the rest escape. All of the escapees were eventually rounded up ... except for one. A search of the local area and beyond was conducted in order to apprehend the escaped lunatic, but after several weeks the search was called off ... he was either dead or had moved on. The Legend of the Bunny Man However, within a matter of months, hundreds of skinned rabbits were found in the woods near Colchester road. They were hung by their back legs, much the same way as a trapper would; however, many of the rabbits were mutilated beyond being skinned — heads were ripped off, spines removed, limbs missing, and remains partially eaten. The local papers got wind of the story and soon named the rabbit killer the Bunny Man. Another search of the area was made, and before long a man was found hanging up in the trees in a very similar way to the rabbits. Soon several other human bodies were discovered — hanged, skinned, mutilated, and, yes, partially eaten. It was feared that the lunatic had survived in the wilderness or had returned from wherever he had been in hiding. This time the search ended differently. In late October of that year, they tracked down the killer and chased This small railway overpass in Clifton, Virginia, is known as the Bunny Man Tunnel. Be careful not to be caught alone at night around this spooky place or it may be the last thing you do. him to the tracks near the Colchester overpass. A bit of a stand-off took place before the Bunny Man leapt in front of an oncoming train. He was killed instantly. Soon after his suicide, the full identity of the Bunny Man became known. He was the inmate that was not found after the transport had crashed the year previously. His name was Douglas J. Griffon. The reason for his being locked up in a lunatic asylum in the first place? He had murdered his wife and children on Easter Sunday a decade earlier. The legend concludes that in the final days of October every year, new rabbit carcasses are found in the woods near the overpass and that a man in a rabbit suit is seen in the tunnel that runs through the Colchester Overpass/bridge. If he gets you alone, he will kill you, skin you, and hang you from the nearby trees. Is the Bunny Man Legend True? This story sounds incredibly cheesy — escaped criminal lunatic, bunny suit, gutted rabbits, Halloween ... but believe it or not there seems to be an element of truth to As he approached, this strange man looked at him this tale! and told him that he was trespassing and that he was going In October 1970, there were two verifiable reports of to smash his head in. a man in a bunny suit that terrorized people going about their business. The reports both take place in Burke, The Bunny Man Legend Continues Virginia — not too far from Clifton — and both take place Police investigated but failed to find any physical just before Halloween. sign of this “Bunny Man.” In the first report, an army However, more than 100 other Verifiable reports of a cadet and his girlfriend had people say they witnessed this parked their car at around midodd fellow at night around the “Bunny Man” exist, night to “talk.” It was around Burke and Clifton areas in the including from a security midnight, and they were just nights leading up to Hallowcoming home from a football een. guard and a young couple. game. Soon after they began Another note of interest is to get to talking, they noticed that at the same time people movement outside and to the back of their car before the were finding their pets dead and partially eaten. passenger window smashed showering them with glass. A So was this mysterious stranger in a bunny suit the man in a bunny suit yelled at them, telling them they were inspiration for the legend, or was he in fact the one and on private property. the same Bunny Man? The couple sped off and later found what had Bunny Man is not just seen in Virginia, but the legend smashed the window — a hatchet lay on the car floor. seems to have spread to other nearby states as well. Two days before Halloween in a nearby area, a secuThe telling of the tale changes somewhat with some rity guard was doing his rounds of a new construction area version involving a lot more death. I chose this version when he was startled to find a man in a bunny suit hacking as it seems to be the closest to the verifiable “Bunny away at a wooden post. Man” reports. Paranormal Underground 41 Case Files Of The Unknown: Haunted History AN IRREPLACEABLE LOSS The Life and Death of a Poltergeist Agent: The Conclusion By Dr. Barry Taff, http://barrytaff.net/ For Part 1 of this article, see our June 2013 issue. For Part 2, see our July 2013 issue. For Part 3, see our August 2013 issue. n July 17, 2005, Barry and Lisa accompanied me out to a new haunting case on Cielo Drive within Benedict Canyon of Beverly Hills. If Cielo Drive rings a bell, it should. On August 8, 1969, the followers of Charles Manson viciously murdered Sharon Tate and four of her friends. A stone’s throw away, maybe less than 100 feet down the block, a new house was built in 2002 and was occupied by the son of the builder. Not surprisingly, the construction crew, the resident, and many of his friends have experienced a wide range of paranormal phenomena, including apparitions, psychokinetic displays, and disembodied voices. However, we had absolutely no way of knowing upon our arrival just how utterly unique this specific property would turn out to be. Our instruments indicated bizarre and totally unprecedented magnetic field amplitudes and polarities throughout the entire house, combined with an ambient electromagnetic background anywhere from 20-100 times normal. This house was a compass needle’s worst nightmare. A Paranormal Investigation Causes Physical Illness After this first visit, Barry, Lisa, and I came away from this house feeling physically ill. In fact, after turning beet red, I had passed out at the bottom of the stairwell where the highly localized geomagnetic field (GMF) measured out at 1,700 milligauss [mG], when 300-500 mG is normal. While both Barry and I had relatively strong adverse reactions to the high amplitude geomagnetic fields, as David Oman’s alleged haunted home, 300 feet away from where Sharon Tate was murdered. (Source: PacificCoastNews.com) have about 67% of those visiting, Lisa’s response was far more severe. In fact, there’s a distinct possibility that her spending some six to eight hours in the Cielo house pushed her back into a series of intense relapses from which she never recovered. However, I am not saying that the energy in the house was responsible for her untimely demise, but it possibly hastened its arrival. It then was not surprising to later learn that the U.S. Geological Survey lists this specific location as a geomagnetic anomaly site. Had we known that this property had such strong, positively polarized magnetic fields associated with it, we never would have allowed Lisa to even step foot on the property, let alone within it. Over the course of almost four decades, nothing even close to these levels of energy has been experienced around here during such investigations. As mentioned earlier, there is substantial body of clinical evidence indicating that exposure to negatively polarized magnetic fields substantially inhibit the growth of many types of cancers, while positively polarized magnetic fields appear to rapidly accelerate their growth and proliferation. It goes without saying that neither Barry nor Lisa ever returned to the Cielo house. I, on the other hand have visited that location more than 20 times over the course of a year and have gotten sick on virtually every occasion. Before you assume that I am a masochist with a death wish, let me assure you that it is simply a matter of my intense scientific curiosity overwhelming my logic on occasion. In my opinion, the Cielo case offers more potentially rewarding information toward unraveling this aspect of the paranormal than any other location I’ve visited during the course of my career. I may return to this location if I am paid to do so on a shoot or able to bring more sophisticated instrumentation into that environment to better study it. However, there is one specific requirement that must be met before I ever return to this location again. It is that I fashion a head-to-foot suit out of Giron or Mu-metal to shield my body from the high intensity magnetic fields. I may look like a chunky alien, but at least I will no longer get physically ill from being in this house. Over the next nine days, Lisa physically degenerates and lapses into a coma from which she never emerges. As she requested, she was brought home from the hospital to spend her final days in a familiar environment; there is round-the-clock nursing/medical care. Approaching two in the morning on July 25, Buster ran to the stairwell and began intensely barking as he looked up to the top of the stairs, as if he was sensing something Barry could not. Half an hour later, the nurse tells Barry that she believed Lisa was about to pass. Barry rushed to her side and held her hand. Though she’s in a coma, Lisa seems to be aware of Barry’s touch and responded ever so slightly by very gently squeezing back. Lisa took one last, painful breath of air and stopped breathing at 1:50 a.m. Lisa no longer felt the incredible pain from the consuming cancer within her body. She was, at last, forever free of it. Barry’s eyes, along with many of his friends and Lisa’s 23-year-old daughter, welled up with tears. There was silence in the large room as everyone gently lowered their heads. This brief moment of silent prayer was sharply broken by the sound of numerous doors within Barry’s large house opening and closing on their own accord. This was shortly followed by lights in the patio and throughout the house flickering on and off. Was this Lisa’s attempt at communication, or simply another one of the many PK incidents occurring in and around the house? Lights in the patio and throughout the house flickered on and off. Lisa’s Condition Turns Critical As the summer of 2005 end, so did the phenomena’s dry spell at Barry’s house. At midnight on September 26, Lisa and Barry were about to go to sleep. Suddenly, there were extremely loud banging noises heard throughout the house, preventing their rest. Buster went nuts, believing someone was at the door. These poundings lasted for several minutes and then ceased. At 3 a.m. there was another volley of loud pounds accompanied by footsteps coming up the stairs. Buster again went wild. During this time, Lisa had been very ill from the ever-growing cancer. For the next eight months, Lisa’s physical condition rapidly deteriorated and the PK outbreaks stopped. Lisa had started radiation therapy in hope of turning her condition around. She had lost much weight, had numerous tumors throughout her body, and was very fatigued. Lisa knew that she was dying and told Barry that she just wanted to be free of the constant physical pain she has had for almost two years. Lisa promises Barry that if there is a way, she will attempt to contact and communicate with him from “the other side.” At 11 p.m. on July 16, 2006, a very loud explosion was heard at the front of the house. No source was found. Lisa McIntosh and Barry Conrad. Paranormal Underground 43 Case Files Of The Unknown: Haunted History Does Lisa Try to Communicate From the Beyond? Four days later on July 29 at approximately 12:45 a.m., Barry was in the kitchen talking with Lisa’s daughter’s boyfriend while she was in the bathroom. An ice cube materialized (apported) into the space directly between them, hung motionless in the air, and then fell to the ground. Barry just took it all in thinking that perhaps this was “contact” from a discarnate Lisa. The boyfriend didn’t believe in the paranormal. His eyes widened in horror as he immediately bolted out of the house. After a sleepless night, Barry awoke late the next morning and went to his office. For some unknown reason, the front office door would not open. Something was preventing it from moving. Barry went around through the bathroom and entered the office through the other door. He was astonished to discover that many tapes he had recently shot for his current project were wedged up against the front door preventing it from opening. No explanation. Did this represent “contact”? Several extremely anguish-filled days later, Barry and a friend were reviewing footage they were editing when they suddenly both heard and felt the whistling of cold wind moving through the house. epileptic. When these physically unique individuals take their prescribed meds to quell their seizures, the psychokinetic outbreaks cease as well. This more than suggests that the same region of the brain responsible for mediating seizures and epilepsy may also mitigate psychokinetic phenomena as well. Strangely, most people suffering from seizures and/or epilepsy do not manifest poltergeist phenomena, while the majority of PGAs seem to be either seizure-prone or epileptic. This observed mind-body nexus suggests that this might be a unilateral effect and that there is a missing or unknown variable here that has yet to be discovered. My own case files clearly demonstrate this unexpected relationship. If we had only known what questions to ask many decades ago, the database on this matter would be absolutely enormous. This case is unique and stands on its own for many reasons. Examining this case strictly from a medical perspective is perhaps the best starting point. According to the oncologists who dealt with Lisa and Barry, she is, perhaps, the youngest person on record to contract and so rapidly die from Multiple Myeloma, as this form of cancer is normally associated Is RSPK Responsible for Research indicated that a high with elderly patients, although its etiology is totally unknown. Some Poltergeist Activity? percentage of these “polAs I was keeping and It’s now early 2007, and tergeist agents” were either building the database on this Barry’s house had returned to case, entering data usually its normal ambiance that did not seizure-prone or epileptic. within hours after it occurred, include poltergeist activity. This we have the unique opportunity case presents a unique and fasto retrospectively observe the longitudinal patterns that cinating opportunity to evaluate one of the major theories developed over the course of five years. The collected within parapsychology related to poltergeists. As discussed data strongly suggests that, in this particular case, the earlier, modern academic paranormal researchers believe waxing and waning of the psychokinetic outbreaks were that “living, breathing” people are the physical generators directly correlated with Lisa’s physical health. of Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinetic activity, better When Lisa first started feeling sick enough to consume known as RSPK. Moreover, there is a truly enigmatic psyvast amounts of over-the-counter painkillers starting in late chodynamic relationship between these unique individuals 2002 until May 2003, we see the first major drop off in acand the electromagnetic environment in which they live. tivity. It was as if her body was marshalling all of its energy As research has indicated, a high percentage of these to fight off the initial onslaught from the pathogens. “poltergeist agents,” or PGAs, are either seizure-prone or Interested in Having Paranormal Underground Magazine Mailed Directly to You? http://paranormalunderground.magcloud.com/ And Select the Issues You’d Like to Order. Paranormal Underground 45 Case Files Of The Unknown: Haunted History After Lisa became very ill around Christmas 2004, necessitating her reluctant visit to a physician and resulting in her being diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, we again see a significant attenuation of phenomena. When she began to physically degenerate and required radiation therapy as a last resort, the RSPK activity around her almost completely abated. Since Lisa’s passing in late July 2006, and the minute flurry of events that followed, it feels more like the last capacitive discharges from her physically depleted system. Although one cannot draw any conclusions from any single case, the accumulated database, which is far more comprehensive than discussed herein, and its biomedical correlations, may finally point us in the right direction in terms of understanding this type of phenomenon. Does a Poltergeist Agent Grow Out of Their “Condition”? Generally speaking, in the majority of poltergeist agents I’ve personally investigated or read about, the phenomena dramatically tapers off or completely ends well before ones thirties or forties. To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a single case where a documented and continuously active poltergeist agent dies and the phenomena abruptly stop. The normal course of events is one where the poltergeist agent simply ages and matures, “growing out of” their paranormal “condition.” I would think that the probability of a relatively young individual dying during the course of a poltergeist outbreak is extremely low. Therefore, such data would very likely not exist. If, in fact, it does, no one within the paranormal research community is aware of such at this time. This case is more than simply amazing; it’s incredible, for it finally provides a physical, perhaps even causal, link between the material world and the seemingly non-material, paranormal one. I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of knowing and working with Barry Conrad as a research associate for 18 years. In that time, I’ve learned what a kind, gentle, intelligent, and giving person he is. His dedication to parapsychology is rivaled perhaps only by my own. I’ve met every woman he’s dated since meeting him in 1988. Lisa was, in every respect, a breath of fresh air in Barry’s life of failed relationships with emotionally damaged women who frequently took advantage of his magnanimous nature while sharing absolutely nothing in common with him. Moreover, Lisa was a breath of fresh air in everyone’s life that came to know her. I had such admiration and respect for her, having talked with her extensively since meeting her in 2001, that I would have chosen her as a mate over every woman I’ve known in my five decades on Earth. Both Barry and I keep asking ourselves why did Lisa have to die at the tender young age of 42? In a world of over 6 billion souls residing on this small rock in the heavens, why was Lisa forced to give up her existence and the love she shared with all her friends, family, and especially Barry? Why here, why now? What’s the point and meaning of it all? In a strange twist of fate, the loss of Lisa to my colleague and best friend Barry Conrad may have inadvertently provided us with a vital key to unlocking the very domain she dedicated her all-too-short life to. Let the loss of Lisa’s physical life be seen as a new beginning in unraveling at least one small fraction of the paranormal. Barry’s loss may have given the rest of us incalculable knowledge that we might never have otherwise acquired. Lisa ... if there is any portion of you still residing within the physical world we call life, please hear the call from Barry and the rest of us. Your untimely death was not totally in vain. You will never be forgotten. As long as we remember you, keeping you alive in our hearts, minds, and dreams, you are still with us. Thank you for being you. The world desperately needs many more enlightened beings just like you. You are truly one of kind. Let this not be your final goodbye. Paranormal Underground 47 Demonology — The Dark Files Demons and the Significance of the Number 3 and Other Symbols By Bishop Jerry Williams, Eastside Paranormal Society & Demonologist uring my many years of being a demonologist, we have cases where the number 3 comes up. Most people have probably read or seen movies on the demonic and the number 3. I want you to think for a moment about when someone dies and you hear the popular saying, “Death comes in threes.” This refers to deaths that seem to occur in a series of three. So, for instance, when three sports figures pass away at about the same time, or three actors, or three (fill in the blank). I think that relating the number 3 with death does ring true. Why? First, Jesus died on the cross with 3 nails: two in the hand and one in the feet. What about when Jesus died and then rose on the Third Day, fulfilling the Prophecies. The common number 3 is good and bad. Death is not evil, but a celebration of life. When three people you know are taken from you, it’s because they were in a common tie with that celebration of their new life. One other point to make is that there were three crosses when Jesus was crucified. Two criminals were crucified with Jesus in the middle of those two crosses. Demons and the Number 3 My opinion is that demons and the number 3 is very bad. What does this mean? Well, let’s look at this notion for a moment. We know that demons will turn a cross or crucifix upside down on a wall or even in symbolization. This is a mockery of The Trinity: The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit. Now, I’m going to take you one step further into the story behind this. When Simon-Peter the Disciple of Jesus Christ was put to death, he begged to be hung upside down on a cross. He thought that he was not worthy to be executed in the same way as Jesus Christ, and because of this he wanted to be crucified upside down, with his head toward the ground and his feet toward the sky, called the Petrine Cross Method. The theory is that demons see this as a weak point in Christians, so they use this symbol as a way to express that a home or person is not worthy of being spiritual or faithful to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Three Scratches and the Demonic Now let’s talk about “three scratches” and how they relate to the demonic. Demons are said to leave three Paranormal Underground 49 Demonology — The Dark Files so active that you will find some evidence on a recording device. The Demonic Hour is from 3 a.m. and lasts usually until 3:30 a.m. This is the most common time frame of demonic arousal. Demons sometimes will be active after 3:30 a.m. Another thing to be aware of is that certain demons become stronger in specific months. We will talk about that topic next time. scratches on the body. This is usually seen around the legs, neck, belly, torso, and middle back areas. The scratches are usually seen as three lines that are three inches long or even sometimes up to six inches in length. The number is again significant to the demonic, like 3 or 6 are typically The Beast’s number. Sometimes victims will explain on an interview that they heard three knocks or three taps on the walls, ceilings, doors, floors, and even three door bell rings. This again is a mockery of the Trinity and the significance of being unworthy and making fun of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. When the number 3 appears with demonic activity, it’s pertaining to Peter and his crucifixion along with making fun of the Trinity. Demons will also make three lines behind the right ear. They appear like a tattoo that has been made in black ink. The number 3 may appear on walls, human bodies, floors, and other surfaces throughout a property. This is also considered a demonic number, again meaning mocking of the Trinity or the Petrine Cross method. One last thing to note about the number 3: Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus Christ, became burdened by selling him for 30 pieces of silver. When Jesus rose on the third day, Judas was possessed by the Devil. He took a rope and hung himself, committing suicide. The time was recorded as 3:17 in the afternoon. Now take a moment and read and study this, and you will see the pieces of the puzzle coming together. (Note: Judas was the only recorded person possessed by Satan himself.) The Demonic Hour One last thing to look at in relation to the number 3 in relation to the demonic. The Demonic Hour is known as the hour when demons become most active. This is the hour when demons will more likely become Extra Information You May Not Know Demons have their own language. Demons will speak in Enochian, which is considered to be the angel’s language. This is how it was thought that Adam and Eve communicated with God through these angel’s voices. This was because God’s voice was too powerful to the human ear and would destroy man. This is where the angels came in as a translator from God to man. We now speak a form of this language today. Demons will still use what sounds like growls on recordings that are actually words and sentences they use to communicate with a person. Demons will also use We usually hear growls and what appear to be squealing sounds when playing back recordings. Latin and German as their primary language of communication. We usually hear the growls and what appear to be squealing sounds when playing back recordings. If you play it backwards, you can usually hear the language in it’s true form. Thank you for reading this month’s column. Remember to check out my new demonology school. We have pre-recorded classes. All you need to do is register and then pick Demonology Basic 101 to listen to the audio. Once you have completed all of the work and passed applicable tests, you will become a certified demonologist. We also have paranormal investigation classes instructed by Don Ford of V.I.P.S. For more info go to www.crisedu.com. You can also join my Facebook at DemonologistJerryWilliams or check out my radio show at www.goingbeyondradio.com. Paranormal Underground 51 Inside the Psychic Mind Inter-life relationships: Part 2 By William Becker, Paranormal Insights he client I mentioned in last month’s column and I have continued our work with his past-life soul mate and relationships in this life. One of the theories of reincarnation is that we choose how much of our full soul, our full self, we bring into any one particular life. This accounts for how some people can actually be incarnated into two different lives at once. This can also account for the energy levels we have in this life. If we don’t bring enough of ourselves into a life, we can lack energy. This really isn’t a digression, but a lead-in to part of my point in this article. My client and his soul mate are currently together in the in-between-world. This seems to emphasize the feelings in my client of not settling for a relationship with someone that doesn’t have as deep of a connection. This seems to bring the comparison of what was very much to the present. As my client has opened up to those beings around him, he finds that his soul mate also visits more regularly. We’ll call the soul mate Andre, for expedience sake. Andre will come and hold his hand, nuzzle in his ear, give him a big caress. My client feels his presences, see’s him psychically, but it’s not the same feel as a living person by any means. It does have the soul — the emotion of a living person though, and is very real. One of the things we are looking at is seeing if this closeness not only gives a standard by which to compare other relationships, but also gives the client a sense of cheating on Andre if he develops a romantic relationship with someone else. Andre laughs at the notion, but that doesn’t mean that the client doesn’t have that feeling in his subconscious. We have also found more about their incarnated lives together. These two souls have shared many lives, always as men and always as lovers. In each case, one was an intelligent warrior with a good heart, and the other was the role of the wise healer and teacher. The two together always made a complete whole — a completely balanced being of oneness. The two were always complete equals in each life. The two are now balanced in this. Both souls have that oneness, that complete balance in themselves, as well as together. This will add another dimension of completeness to their relationship if they do meet in this life. The client hasn’t totally lived that completeness yet, but it’s there. We feel that they have reached the end of their incarnations in this world and timeline. Andre may have already reached that point and this is my client’s last life. I don’t know yet if Andre is incarnated at this time or not. When I ask or broach the subject, he winks, smiles, and laughs knowingly, like I’m not telling you — yet, anyway. I’m not getting a reading on this, but do get what I consider to be a psychically guided feeling. I feel that the two will be together in this last lifetime as well. Perhaps not in the geographical area the client currently resides. His past lives have all been in the Eurasia vicinity, and he’s always felt the outsider on the North American continent — at least outside of Canada with its European flavor. The feeling I have gives me the vision that as the client has learned the lessons he’s needed to learn on his own in this life, he and Andre will be reunited in the flesh to live out the last part of their last incarnation in our dimension. It’s really a beautiful thing to behold. I’m hoping the feeling is indeed a form of reading and that they will know it when they meet in person. Andre has it I think. The remnant of my client in the between life place also knows it. He hopes that they both recognize it when they meet here. Within the pages of “The Harvey Boat,” Spiritual Medium Robyne Marie tells the story given to her from “behind the veil,” after connecting with a spirit who passed away on 9/11. The spirit asked for his powerful, touching, and heartfelt message to be shared with “the children,” so Robyne Marie set out to make this request a reality. Book Now Available Online at September 2013 Paranormal Underground Amazon.com Inside the Psychic Mind Psychic Impressions on a Vietnam-Era Destroyer By Karen Frazier, South Sound Paranormal Research & Paranormal Underground Radio had some interesting experiences recently aboard a Vietnam-era destroyer during a paranormal investigation. While on board, I came in contact with the spirit of a young sailor, who I won’t identify out of respect for his family. The connection with him was very strong. He came to me one deck below the bridge. First I felt him when I walked aboard the ship past the gun mount on the aft deck. Next, he was in the Captain’s quarters. There, when we asked what he did aboard the ship, he told me, “Gunnery.” I asked Jim (my husband who was in the Navy) if that was a job, and he told me, yes, the ship would have had an entire gunnery section. A Strong Psychic Connection Is Made From the captain’s quarters, we moved next to the XO’s office, which sits just off the quarters. At the time, we were hearing what sounded like something latching/unlatching in the XO’s office, which we later determined was likely the line/hold buttons on an old rotary phone. In the XO’s office, I was overcome with the urge to walk down the hall a bit, which I did (by myself). I walked just a short way down the hall and found what appeared to be a supply room that had two racks (bunks) in it. The sailor was there, and he followed me back to the XO’s office. Patty saw his shadow right behind me as I stepped through the door. Back in the XO’s office, I sat down and got very, very cold. This is the coldest I have ever felt. At the same time, I felt like rocking and keening — I believe the sailor was hugging me. Patty picked up the name of the sailor, and when she said the two similar names that popped into her head, he then confirmed the second name to me psychically. I grew colder and colder and started to cry. I closed my eyes and zoned in on him and just sent all my love, telling him over and over it was OK. I believe I reminded him of his mother. Pictured above: The ship off the coast of South Vietnam, April 1968. (Source: http://www.ussturnerjoy.org/gallery.html) Megan, who was also in the XO’s office with Patty and me, was shaking during the entire encounter. We went downstairs to the galley to meet up with other groups, and the sailor was still with us. While the groups reconvened, I stepped out onto the deck just to collect myself. Feeling Psychic Symptoms A few hours later we were down in the crew bunk rooms (Patty, Megan, and me again). We had shut ourselves in a small NCO’s rack area that had two bunks. Patty and I were seated in chairs, and Megan was lying on the lower rack. The room was quite warm — about 73 degrees. Suddenly, I was overcome with the same cold again. Patty could touch me and feel the cold on my skin in spite of the warmth in the room. Megan began to shake again. I started to feel physical symptoms. First, I felt cramp- ing all across my shoulders and incredible fatigue, as if I had been working very hard for a long time. Then, I felt searing pain all up my right side, particularly in my torso area. When I asked what the pain was, the ovilus said, “burned.” I realized it was the same sailor again from earlier. I closed my eyes, and he showed me pictures and gave me emotional/physical feelings. Later when we were on the aft deck, I asked if anyone knew if something had happened with that gun mount or not. Jim pointed out a sign that described an incident in October 1965 during the Vietnam War. The ship was involved in a protracted gun battle. It had been going on for 24 hours of shelling. The gun in the mount on the aft of the ship misfired. The Navy drills for misfires, so the gunnery ***** crew knew what to do. They tried in vain to unload the unexploded He is on deck. It is hot and ordinance. Unfortunately, they dark. He is exhausted. He has couldn’t get it out of the barrel. something heavy on his head and The gun barrel was hot from heavy around his body. I can see 24 hours of use, and that heat two others nearby in a dark, conseeped into the unexploded ordifined space. They are wearing helnance as they tried to remove it. mets and some type of a heavy vest. A tragic accident on the ship took the lives of (Jim says this is most likely a three men. (Source: http://www.ussturnerjoy. Eventually, it ignited the ordinance, which exploded and blew back into org/gallery.html) flack vest and that my descriptions the gun mount. Three sailors were were historically accurate). killed, including the sailor I met I feel a sense of exhaustion, on the ship that day. I believe he was standing slightly to overbearing heat, and fear. Something happens that isn’t the left as the blow back blew into the gun mount, which supposed to. At first, there is a calm feeling of efficiency, as would explain the pain on his right side. if ,“Oh, we can deal with this; it’s what we’ve trained for.” As they work, though, the efficiency gives way to fear Another Psychic Impression Proves Accurate and then to terror. Whatever they are doing isn’t workAnother thing occurred down in the engine room. ing, and that’s a terrible thing. There is a flash, the searing The last time I was on the ship, I had a lot of anxiety in the pain on the right side. The sailor’s terror and pain is engine room and picked up there had been some kind of a overwhelming. tragic steam rupture that either hurt or killed someone. After I see/feel all of this, a door opens up in front In the engine room, I am led to a spot where there’s of me. I don’t see it physically with my eyes — they are some kind of a wheel and a catwalk that goes over a closed. I see it in my mind’s eye. It seems to be floating in bunch of equipment. On the catwalk, I can hear loud, a black void with light streaming out from behind. I talk excited voices and see people running. I can feel panic. both in my head and aloud to the sailor about the light. I Where the wheel thing is, I can see a guy frantically turntell him he doesn’t have to relive his pain and terror over ing it, trying to shut off the steam leak. According to Jim, and over — that he can just go through that door. that is exactly what would have happened. For some reason, he looks to Patty and I say, “He’s My friend Elaine worked with a man who was aboard looking at you.” Patty also tells him he can go through the the ship at the time, and he confirmed that the event I dedoor. Suddenly, she gets hives on her arms, and I’m still scribed actually happened. He drew Elaine a diagram of freezing cold. I can feel him kind of tear away from me the engine room to show her exactly where it happened, and make a rush toward the door, as if it is taking courage although I didn’t know that when I was on the ship for the to go there. investigation. Then I see the door close, so I think he has gone Later, Jim went into the engine room with Elaine and through. Patty’s hives go away, and I gradually start to she showed him where the accident happened. It was at warm up. The temperature in the room never fluctuates that valve wheel that I pictured and along the catwalk. The at all, according to our equipment. engine room is huge, and there are a number of those ***** wheels, so I don’t believe it’s just a lucky guess. Paranormal Underground 55 The Psychic Biker: Attitude With Empathy Meet the Psychic Biker By Paul Green, Extreme Ghost Hunting elcome to my first in a series of articles for Paranormal Underground magazine. I thought I would use this first column to introduce myself. I guess one of the first questions I should answer is: What’s up with the name “The Psychic Biker”? As with so much of my life, it came about while in a pub with my bike club mates. A stranger must have been listening to our conversation, and when I went to the bar she asked if I was really a psychic medium. This is a question I am used to being asked, as I am six feet tall, heavily tattooed, have a shaven head, and I am told that even in a good mood I have a face that looks like a bulldog chewing a wasp. So, she got the usual spiel I give to people who ask that question, and having been served I sat down. As the lady was leaving, she made her good-byes, including to me during which she came out with the phrase “The Psychic Biker.” The name stuck, and I decided to use it when I set up as a professional medium. How did I arrive at this stage in my life as medium and a ghost hunter? I am hardly someone with a background that would have led me down this path. Looking back in my youth I had experiences that were clearly psychic, as well as “seeing” relatives who had died, in one case my grandfather before we knew he had crossed. I was also into all sorts of odd things, anything from UFOs to Black Magic, in the latter case I hasten to add simply as a reading topic. However, given my interests and experiences in my youth, when I hit my late teens I became a complete and utter cynic — very much a “when you’re dead, you’re worm food” attitude. When my wife and her friend visited the local spiritualist church now and then, I was very scathing in my comments. I might have stayed in that sort of mode had there not Paul Green, aka The Psychic Biker, is a talented medium and psychic. He was once an ardent skeptic. Paul now operates Extreme Ghost Hunting tours with Stephen Lambert. The tours take place in Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, Cumbria, County Durham, Scottish Borders, and throughout the UK. been a huge change in my life in my late 40s, when I gave up work to become a caregiver for my wife. That meant going from working away from home on oil rigs, usually working 90 hours a week, to being at home with a huge drop in income and not working 90 hours a week, or at least not in the same hard physical manner. Maybe quite understandably I became stressed, so it was suggested that I should try meditation. It was probably my wife who suggested it; she wanted some peace I suspect. I was skeptical but was ready to try anything. So after a little research on how to meditate, I gave it a go. As anyone who has tried this will know, it is not easy; either you end up drifting off and wondering what to have for dinner or you fall asleep. I was intrigued so stuck at it, and from that start I began to wonder about the strange images, smells, sounds, and in particular a picture of one man I kept getting in my head, who I found out much later was my spirit guide. I also started to get an inkling that this was how mediums received information. Over about 18 months I had started to glean quite a bit of knowledge on mediumship and psychics, but still scoffed at all that rubbish. I had also come across lots of info on how mediums and psychic faked things, so I was still pretty much on the skeptical side of the fence. Moving on from my reading and research, I felt my next step was to visit a spiritualist church and see how things went “eyes on” so to speak, even though I vowed I was not going to sing along to the hymns. The first church I went to was the church my wife had visited, and the irony was not lost on me. I received a friendly and enthusiastic welcome; later I was to learn that is not always the case at all churches. I was still strictly an observer watching and trying to figure out how the mediums “did it.” I then decided to broaden my experience and visit some other churches along with a fellow bike club member and good friend, Wendy. That was fun, as she is also a biker and some mediums made the assumption we were together as a couple, other than just as friends; they would then come up with some outlandish readings and com- ments about our relationship as a couple. Also there was always someone that one of us supposedly knew that had died on a motorcycle. We knew no one who had died on a bike, and we weren’t, as I said, a couple. But there were other mediums that seemed to know information about myself that they shouldn’t logically be able to know. As a result of all this research and experiences, which were spread over about 12 months, I decided to give this mediumship game a go, always being of the opinion that if you want to fully understand something then it is best to try it for yourself. The next step I felt was to attend “Open Circle.” This is usually at a church where the public and trainee mediums could come along and, under the guidance of an experienced medium, practice receiving and passing messages from dead loved ones to other people in the circle, without the stress of doing it live so to speak — even then I was more of an observer, still trying to suss out this mediumship lark. Gradually, I started to realize that some of the images and sensations I was “getting,” but saying nothing about, were being picked up by other people in the circle. As with most things, I found that the more I practiced the better I became, plus I was learning a huge amount from watching other mediums, both what to do and what not to do in terms of how to deliver a message in the best possible way so it could be understood. It sounds easy, but that is one of the main skills of a medium: learning to understand how the spirit world will use your senses to get info to you and give you the best possible chance of passing it accurately to the person you are reading for. My way of working includes first getting the mental picture of the person who was deceased, and then, once the connection had been made, more informa- “I found the more I practiced mediumship, the better I became.” Paranormal Underground 57 The Psychic Biker: Attitude With Empathy tion came through. I also learned how not to do readings, seeing the arrogance of some mediums who, while getting a “no” response from information they were trying to pass on, would tell that person it was their fault “they were blocked.” Even then at a pretty early stage of my development, I vowed never to use that sort of tactic and be honest. Then I was invited into a development circle. That in itself was a great honor and responsibility. You do not simply join a circle; you have to be invited. And by joining you are making a commitment to your teacher, your fellow classmates, yourself, and more importantly to the spirit world that says you will be there every week ready to work with them and for them no matter what. I lost my reluctance in getting to my feet and speaking in front of people; I got used to passing on messages and had my first experience of transfiguration. Transfiguration is when the face and/or the body of the medium takes on the visage of the spirit person that is trying to communicate. The background to the whole tale is long and involved. If you ever meet me, ask and I may tell you about it, but the end result was to find myself on my feet seeing six very shocked faces staring back at me and total silence around the circle. Later, I was told I stood up shouting angrily at two women who were giggling and my face and head changed into a much older man with a thin face and a black beard. I could not and cannot recall that part of the experience. After a while I wanted to move away from the church and reading. Enjoyable as it was, the structured way the church teaches you to do reading was starting to grate on me. I would guess anyone who is reading this will have some knowledge of the TV program Most Haunted. I watched this at times, and the whole concept of how the medium working reminded me of my experiences as a kid visiting the castles on school trips. In fact, that program sparked an explosion in interest in mediumship, including having mediums presenting shows on TV. It also led to the creation of a multitude of amateur ghost hunting groups around the UK. By chance at that time I saw an article in a local paper about someone wanting information on gaining access to a local Art Deco cinema, which had been closed for a number of years, for a paranormal investigation. That person was Stephen Lambert (aka The Extreme Ghost Hunter — see his article in this issue), and that was the start of a friendship and business partnership. We did gain access to the cinema, which is sadly now in a very poor state of repair. In fact, as I write this, roads were recently closed around the area where it stands because it had become classified as a dangerous structure. The actual night at the cinema did get me hooked on paranormal investigation. It was so different doing readings there, far faster-paced and much more to my taste. However, I shall end with a funny story that shows ghost hunting is not always a serious business. While at the cinema some of the team wanted to go get a takeaway meal. I gave them directions and opened a small door located to the side of the main doors. I saw two slightly tipsy young girls heading home after a night out. As far as they were concerned, they were passing a long closed and derelict cinema. The resulting screams and the sight of them disappearing into the night while trying to run in tight skirts and heels while a little drunk, but a lot terrified, will stay with me for life. Pretty sure that tale of a ghost opening the door on them and saying, “Hi girls,” will have been told over and over the next day to their skeptical friends. So, that’s me and my background. You will find I tend to have an in-your-face attitude to most topics, or as I say, “attitude with empathy.” Paranormal Underground 59 Hotel Sagamore By Rick E. Hale, Foundations Psychical Research ost paranormal researchers agree that places such as prisons, hospitals, and schools have the potential to be places where the dead still roam, mostly due to high levels of emotion, be it good or bad. However, you can add hotels to that list. Murders, suicides, unrequited love, you name it; hotels have seen it all. In this month’s column, we’ll explore one of the most haunted hotels in upstate New York: the Hotel Sagamore. Built in 1883 by Myron Brown and a number of wealthy investors, the Hotel Sagamore was destined to be a sportsman’s paradise. The Hotel was constructed on Green Island in the Adirondack Mountains and not only offered five-star accommodations but offered breathtaking scenery, fishing, and an award-winning golf course. If you loved the outdoors, Hotel Sagamore was the place to go. Although it was considered the best hotel to stay at when visiting the Adirondacks, the Sagamore did have its fair share of bad times. The Hotel nearly burned to the ground in 1893 and 1914, killing several guests. In 1930, Hotel Sagamore was fully reconstructed, but by this time the U.S. was deep in the Great Depression, and the Hotel had to close its doors. In 1983, a businessman from Philadelphia bought the hotel and returned it to its former glory. The Hotel Sagamore was once again ready to receive guests. Little did they know that there were already inhabitants at the Hotel, of the ghostly variety. A Hotel Hosts Ghosts of the Past Shortly after the Hotel Sagamore reopened its doors, guests and employee alike began reporting encounters with the spirits of the Hotel’s past. One of the most curious hauntings witnessed by many appears to be a psychic imprint, more commonly known as a residual haunting, of a couple wearing 19th Century clothing involved in a violent quarrel. Those who have witnessed the strange event all report the same thing. Eyewitnesses watch as a young man and woman dressed in fancy clothes descend the stairs from the second floor while arguing. When they reach the dining area the man is said to violently throw the screaming woman to the ground, and the two just melt into the carpet and vanish. No one is really sure who the couple were and why they were fighting. Although the above-mentioned ghosts appear to be a violent scene captured in time, one spirit that haunts the dining room is another matter entirely. The apparition of a woman in a white gown has been seen in the dining room by several employees. A former chef had a very personal encounter with this lady in white. The cook reported that the apparition walked up to him while he was cooking and said a few unintelligible words. She then passed through him and vanished. The chef walked out on his job. From my own personal experience, I can tell you a spirit pass-through is not a very pleasant thing. A Spirit Named Walter All the employees and many visitors of the Sagamore will tell you that the dining area is not the only place where spirits of the hotel haunt. Apparently, the hotel is crawling with the dead. And one of those spirits is a rude gentleman simply called Walter. Walter is described as a chubby man wearing a suit and tie and sporting a walruslooking mustache and is said to haunt the elevator. Many have entered the elevator to find Walter silently standing in one of the corners looking straight ahead. Those who encounter Walter report that he rudely nudges them while trying to exit the elevator. Thinking they had just been accosted by some rude, old rich guy, the witness watches in horror as Walter takes four steps off the elevator and vanishes. More Mischievous Spirits Haunt the Hotel Sagamore Although these spirits may be somewhat benign in nature, the last two I’ll mention here are known to be somewhat more troublesome. One spirit is said to be another lady in white who enters people’s rooms, climbs into bed with them, and breaths an icy breathe in their face. She is another spirit whose identity is unknown, although she is believed to have been a guest who died in one of the fires that destroyed the Sagamore in the past. The final spirit is perhaps the most mischievous and loves messing around with golfers on the golf course. In the 1950s, a local teen was struck and killed by a car as he was chasing down a golf ball. Golfers have reported seeing the spirit of the young boy stealing golf balls and throwing golf clubs. The boy is said to run away giggling as he fades into nothingness. The Hotel Sagamore can be found on Green Island in the very haunted town of Bolton Landing, New York, in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains. It’s a great place to stay if you don’t mind sharing your room with the dead. For more information about the Hotel Sagamore, visit http://www.thesagamore.com/. Paranormal Underground 61 Why Do Ghosts Haunt Cemeteries? By Rick E. Hale, Foundations Psychical Research ccording to many parapsychologists, graveyards should not be haunted. After all, why would a person want to hang out in the place where their body has been laid to rest? I have to say, I strongly disagree with this theory. In fact, places of eternal rest around the world seem to be anything but restful. And these seemingly haunted cemeteries have always intrigued me. I believe that when the body expires the spirit of the person either sticks around their final resting place or finds their way back to a loved one or location they had fond memories of. But why would any self-respecting spirit hang out in the place where their body is buried and will eventually decay to the point of dust? There are theories why a soul would hang around a bone yard amidst the tombstones and the dearly departed. However, before I go any further, I feel compelled to make something very clear. Cemeteries are a place for family and friends to remember the life of a loved one that has passed. The last thing anyone wants to see is someone wandering among the gravestones behaving disrespectfully. Also, please never trespass into a cemetery. Always get permission before investigating. Now, on to my theories about why cemeteries might be haunted. Theory 1: The Occult Connection Graveyards are a place that many perceive as being creepy and forbidding, so some occultists actually carry out rituals on cemetery property. In fact, at some cemeteries in the U.S., there has been evidence of Black Magic and arcane rituals performed within their confines. Knives, altars, and evidence of blood sacrifices have been found. Some believe these rituals are conducted to summon the dead or something far worse. This could be a reason why some graveyards are haunted. Theory 2: You Can’t Take it With You, But You Sure Can Try We love our stuff, don’t we? We work our entire lives to obtain the things we love. Sometimes people are buried with their worldly possessions, and they maintain that attachment. They loved their “stuff” and will follow it no matter where it is, buried or not. Theory 3: Nothing Wrong With a Little Self Love A third theory centers on spirits haunting graveyards because they cannot handle the thought of being separated from their bodies, even when they get a terminal case of decay. And if you haven’t guessed it yet, this is just an introduction to a series on haunted cemeteries. Each month, I’ll be featuring a haunted cemetery in the U.S. that is home to spirits from the beyond. Stay tuned! Paranormal Underground 63 Crystals & Herbology: Mystical Etchings From A Medicyn Woman’s Grimoire The Basic Essentials to Gem Water By Silvermoon Medicyn, www.silvermoonmedicyn.com em water, otherwise known as gem elixirs, are made up by extracting the essence and vibration of stones into water that is then used for healing. Every single thing on this planet has a vibration. The vibrations are part of the life force that is all around us. The vibrational patterns are influenced by many things, like our emotions, the situations we live in, and people we keep around us. All these factors assist in the performance of our health and expand our life force energy. When our life force is strong and we have a stabilized pattern of vibrating energy, we are less likely to become ill or have negative situations influence us. The vibration of the stone is what seeps into the water, giving it the power to transform the user’s vibrational energy field. These elixirs are powerful life-transforming tools that have been used by shamans, root workers, and medicine people for centuries. It is even rumored that Cleopatra bathed in Malachite and Lapis Lazuli to give herself power over others. These magical waters have been used to soothe and eliminate many illnesses and injuries. It has been known to cure emotional imbalances to physical symptoms when consumed or bathed in. When you use these waters, the spiritual essence of the stone is absorbed into the skin and used by the soul to send information to the core of your being. It is just like carrying a stone in your pocket, but this increases the amount of essence you get into your system. Their uses are very similar to Bach Rescue Remedies, except those elixirs use flower and tree essences to cure people. That we will save to talk about another time. Picking and Cleaning the Gemstones Picking the right stone is an important part of the process. Not all stones can be made into elixirs due to the types of metals and toxic substances they are made of, Pictured above is the direct method of extracting a gemstone’s essence. Make sure to use a clear glass, which helps the sun or moonlight penetrate into the stones. but if you use the indirect method of extracting, described later in this article, any stone can be used. Commonly found stones that are not usable are Turquoise, which has copper; Pyrite (Fool’s Gold, Inca Gold), which has sulphur; and Amber, which holds toxic dust fumes that could cause possible ingestive toxicity, just to name a few. So research the stones you wish to use first. It is best to use raw stones, but really any stone works. You can tell if the stone is correct just by feeling its vibration. Trusting your higher power and spirit guides are the key to this process. Next is cleaning the stone. It is best if you use salt and some water, scrubbing the stone with a toothbrush. Salt will gently and naturally clean any loose particles away and My favorite way is to place the well cleaned stones in enough water to cover them and then allow it to sit in the sunlight or moonlight for a more powerful charge. I recommend the stones sit in the water for at least two to four hours; they can sit longer but for no more than 24 hours. I judge my remedies by watching the air bubbles on the inside of the jar. When most of those air bubbles have escaped, I know the water is ready. This process ensures the water gets an adequate amount of charging time, and it allows the stone vibration to naturally seep into the water, creating a gentle process without any forced One method of extracting the gemstone’s essence is by using an indirect method, also called the Test Tube Method. This is where you place the stones action, thus ensuring the harmony of in a tube or another vessel and then place the tube in the water. the elixir. Once you have the water ready, place it in a dark container or store in also clear the stone of any negative residual energy. a dark, cool area; this will help to preserve and to keep Using harsh chemicals are bad for the stone and the it pure. Some use vodka as an agent to help preserve the elixir, since they leave a chemical residue that can taint elixir, but I don’t encourage it. Alcohol can be counterthe remedies. Once you clean the stone, it is important productive to your healing process and not suitable for you don’t touch it too much. Even with clean hands and children. surfaces there is always a chance for bacteria to grow. The elixirs are best if used quickly and regularly, decreasing the risk of bacteria growing. Preparing the Elixirs There are a few ways to extract the vibration from How to Use Your Remedy the stone. If you are using the direct method by placing Remember, if you’re drinking the remedy, you the gemstone(s) directly in the water, it is best if you use don’t need much to make it work. But you can conclear glass like an empty jar or test tubes; this helps the sume as much as you like sun or moonlight penetrate for as long as you feel you into the stone. need the healing work. Some Some people use a boiling often choose to bathe with method to exact the vibration the solution or wash specific from the stone, but I don’t parts of the body to create a recommend that method. It stimulated healing point for can harm the stone; heat could the remedy to work. cause it to break or splinter, making it so your remedy is After the first few days you should notice some unusable. Plus cooking on a Teflon pan could taint the changes. I recommend talking to your healer or spirit elixir. guides and taking note of how you’re feeling once you Another method of extracting the essence is the indibegin the treatments. This will help you measure the gem rect method, called the Test Tube Method. This is where water’s effectiveness. you place the stones in a tube or another vessel and then You should detect a difference in your energy levels, place the tube in the water. The issue with this process is stabilizing and decreasing your emotional swings, giving that the stones never physically touch the water, making you the balance you need without the drugs that are easily the remedy less potent and harder to charge the water used today. The benefits not only help you, but they will with the stone’s vibration. also create a deep understanding of one’s ability to selfBut don’t dismay, this can be done, but I suggest you heal and renew the soul. let the gemstones sit for at least eight hours. You should detect a difference in your energy levels. Paranormal Underground 65 Magic & Lore Ch’ing Shih Vampire By Mari Wells, www.mariwells.wordpress.com he Chinese believe in a demonic vampire creature that goes by many names, including Ch’ing Shih. Variations of this name include Chiang-Shi or Shih, Giang Shi, Kiang-Kouei, Kiang Shi, Kiangshi, Kouei, Kyonshi, Xianhshi, and “The Hopping Vampire of Asia,” to name a few. There are some differences in these creatures, but the similarities are far greater. The Ch’ing Shih originated from a region between China and Serbia and is known all over the world as the “hopping vampire,” because it’s “created” when a cat jumps over a corpse or if a person has been cursed to rise as the undead. If a person has the misfortune to die far away from home, and is not returned to his or her homeland for burial, he or she will rise as a Ch’ing Shih. When the Ch’ing Shih returns, its eyes are red, fingernails curved, teeth serrated, and skin a pale green-white that glows slightly. Its hair still grows and turns white; long white hair on a Ch’ing Shih is indicative of physical maturity. They are very strong and vicious; there are reports of victims’ heads and limbs being ripped off. Men are its favorite blood source. They have to surprise their victims, because they don’t have any special or particular powers to lure humans. They are well known for a voracious sexual appetite; women are often raped and then devoured. Its breath is so stinky that if it breathes on you, it would kill you. The Ch’ing Shih is a shape-shifting vampire. It can change into a ball of light, called a corpse candle. Once it is matured, it will be able to fly at will, can hunt its prey by scent, and take the form of a wolf. The moon gives the Ch’ing Shih its power. On moonless nights or during the day hours it stays underground. It’s also blind. This vampire can’t cross over running water, and it’s afraid of thunder and loud noises. The only thing it truly fears is the White Emperor (an Emperor of the Xin Dynasty) and his court, which it has to pay homage. If you need to destroy an adolescent Ch’ing Shih, you must capture it. There are two ways of doing that. Trap it in a circle made of iron fillings, red peas, or rice. Another method is to toss handfuls of grain in front of it or as soon as you see it, and then begin to sweep it back to its grave. The Ch’ing Shih is compelled to count the grains. Once you have it trapped, you must press a Buddhist or Taoist death blessing that’s written on paper to its forehead. You could also lead it to its ancestral burial ground and give it a proper burial rite. When the Ch’ing Shih is buried, perform a Buddhist or Taoist magic spell to bind it to its grave. Capturing a mature adult Ch’ing Shih can only be done by firing a bullet into the air. You may be lucky enough to try to trap it while there’s a thunderstorm; a very loud thunderclap will work. As soon as it falls over, burn the body. Thursday & Saturday at 11 p.m. Eastern Paranormal and Conspiracy Radio With Demonologist Bishop Jerry Williams For information, September visit: 2013 Paranormal Underground Katie’s Conspiracy Corner Dowsing Rods By Katie Christopher, NEPA Paranormal’s Ghost Detectives The purpose of this article is to educate readers on the facts behind some of the most popular and controversial paranormal conspiracy theories. There are many things out there being hidden and covered up. But we have a right to know the truth. Each month I will cover a different conspiracy theory — some well known and some a bit more obscure. You will be given details and theories about each topic, and in the end, it is for you to decide what you believe. Please e-mail me at KatiesConspiracyCorner@yahoo.com with any questions or topic suggestions. or this month’s article, I wanted to go a bit outside the box on some of my previous topics. As a paranormal investigator, there are many theories and methods and pieces of equipment that we use in an effort to communicate. Each of these ideas and devices are all critiqued in their own way. What I wanted to do was cover a controversial piece of equipment that I myself work with on many investigations: dowsing rods. I want to cover the history as well as their use in the paranormal field. What Is Dowsing? The dictionary defines dowsing as a form of divination involving rods or a wand, especially the art of finding underground supplies of water, ores, or oil, as well as finding grave sites without the use of scientific apparatus. The most common methods of dowsing are either using dowsing rods or a pendulum. There are some interesting historical facts available on dowsing as well. Dowsing is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. In the Book of Numbers, it says Moses struck a rock with what could be a type of dowsing rod, and the rock produced enough water for all of his people and their cattle. It was believed then that dowsing was acceptable as long as it was used to do the work of the The origins of dowsing can be traced back to 15th Century Germany when the practice was used to find metals. Lord. It was not OK, however, for the average person to attempt the act of dowsing. The Catholic religion specifically believed that all forms of dowsing were considered to be the work of the devil. In 1518, Martin Luther said that dowsing was a violation of the First Commandment. This is interesting since his father was a miner. In the 16th Century, dowsing was common practice in mining. Dowsing was used not only been around for thousands of years and simply is a method of using the dowsing rods to direct the operator to a hidden source of water, such as an underground spring or well. Even with all of the advancements in technology over the years, dowsing is a method that is still used today. In 1998, an article on water dowsing was published in Popular Mechanics magazine. For a scientific The Theories magazine, the results were interestThere are many different theoing. In hundreds of cases, the article ries as to how dowsing specifically stated the dowsers were able to works. Some believe it is an elecpredict the depth of the water source tromagnetic attraction between the and the yield of the well within 10rods and the object they desire to 20%, and it went further to say that find. This theory is backed up by the after carefully considering the statis“pullâ€? one feels on the rods while tics, they far exceeded lucky guesses. dowsing. Albert Einstein was noted In summary, they concluded as saying he believed dowsing was the that water dowser were much more Map dowsing is the practice of using a pendulum over a map to locate a person, successful than they suspected they result of that pull. place, or object of significance. Others believe it is a result of would be and proved to be obviously a phenomenon called hyperacucia, far less expensive. which is the ability to be aware of the Map Dowsing: This is the pracsmallest details that most people cannot see, meaning the tice of using a pendulum over a map to locate a person, subconscious has registered the answer or item you are place, or object of significance. One simply holds the penlooking for, but it has not traveled to the portion of your dulum and pins down a location based on the movement brain that is consciously aware of that answer. While this of the pendulum. This method has proven particularly is an interesting theory, it is not fully supported, because it successful in locating missing persons. would not explain how someone finds something underAgricultural Dowsing: Farmers have been noted to ground such as wiring or grave sites. use dowsing to assist in finding the appropriate locations Another theory suggests that everything in this world for their crops. The rods can be used to direct the operavibrates in its own unique way, and these vibrations are tor to the best places on the land to plant. picked up by the dowser and revealed through the rods. Other farmers have used pendulum dowsing to deIt is also said that dowsing is a result of a psychic ability termine the health of their soil by holding the pendulum or form of ESP in which the over a handful of soil and gaugdowser uses their ability to ing the pendulums reaction. One of the most common operate the rods. This is not a Medical Dowsing: In holisuses of dowsing is for widely supported theory, but tic healthcare, dowsing can be locating water supplies. would provide some explanaused for medicinal purposes. tion as to why some people find There are two types of medical themselves unable to use dowsing rods. dowsing. The first would be preventative. In this method, Lastly, in the paranormal field, it is believed that a the operator would use dowsing rods to look for harmful spirit can use its energy to manipulate the rods in an effort gasses in the air, such as radon, which can cause cancer if to communicate and answer yes or no questions or lead exposure happens over a long period of time, as well as an investigator to a place or object of significance. be responsible for headaches, insomnia, chronic fatigue, sterility, and even tuberculosis. Methods of Dowsing The second form of medical dowsing is a diagnostic Water Dowsing: One of the most common uses of method. Those qualified have their patient lie down and dowsing is for locating water supplies. This process has then use a pendulum, working their way over the patient’s to locate mines, but also to explore the mines. Surprisingly, dowsing is also used in the military. In the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, U.S. Marines used dowsing to locate tunnels and weapons. In 1986, when 31 Norwegian soldiers were buried in an avalanche, the Norwegian army used dowsing to locate them. Paranormal Underground 69 Katie’s Conspiracy Corner charged that I could almost feel the electricity in my hands and arms. And other times, they would stand still, completely unmoving with no evidence of any type of energy in the room. This proved to me that they do have different reactions at different locations based on the different energies at that location. Lastly, I noticed that there were times where I would receive responses that I could never have known the correct answer to. I have even conducted experiments of my own to help validate the authenticity of the responses I received. One experiment involved an investigator asking me true or false questions from a world history book on facts that I haven’t known the answer too since my sophomore year of high school. Interestingly enough, we received a correct response each time. I personally had little faith in dowsing rods until I picked up a pair for myself. In another experiment we conducted, we had each investigator introduce themselves. Then I was blindfolded and Dowsing in the Paranormal Field taken out of the room. The rest of the team scattered The word divination specifically means the practice themselves around the room, then I was led back in unof seeking knowledge of the unknown by supernatuable to see where anyone was. I asked the rods to point to investigators by name, and much to my delight, I was able ral means, so it is easy to see how this method became popular in the paranormal field. As I briefly touched on to locate each investigator. earlier, dowsing takes on its own meaning in relation to I have also had some very interesting dowsing rod the paranormal. In this case, the person using the dowssessions throughout my investigations. I have used the ing rods is simply the operator, and the rods will become rods to pin down details on who a spirit is, how old they are, and what their reasons are for being in a specific locacharged with energy and move on their own when a presence comes forward. tion. I have also used my dowsing rods to locate objects of Some people within the paranormal community find significance, including a book in a fourth-floor library! the rods to be an ineffective piece of equipment because Opinion too much is left open to suggestion. For instance, is there Dowsing is an art form that has been around since a natural electromagnetic energy source causing the rods to move? Or is it possible the operator could be maniputhe 15th Century, and possibly longer, and has proven to lating the rods on their own? be successful and incredibly useful in so many aspects. I personally had little faith in dowsing rods until I Specifically in the paranormal field, dowsing can be an amazing tool for an investigator. picked up a pair for myself. The first thing I noticed is In my personal experience, I’ve noticed that at times they are virtually impossible to control, so manipulating the response is incredibly unlikely. After working with dowsing rods are much easier for a spirit to maniputhem for a while, another thing I noticed was how differlate. They seem to require less energy to communicate ent they would feel on different investigations. through, which results in longer sessions that result in some compelling evidence. At times they would be incredibly charged, so body until a positive reaction is received. This assists the operator in determining the specific area of the patient’s body that is affected. Archaeological Dowsing: Dowsing is also used to locate artifacts of importance. This is done similar to water dowsing. This method has proved successful in finding arrowheads, dinosaur bones, and even ancient church remains. Dowsing for Grave Sites: Another interesting use for dowsing is to locate unmarked grave sites. This is done by using the dowsing rods in the general suspected area and then moving about the suspected area until a positive response is received. You can also use the rods to give you direction to the general area before receiving your positive answer. There have been several accounts of this being an effective method of locating unmarked graves. The Psychic Biker Meets The Extreme Ghost Hunter! Available on Amazon.com Today! In this book, Paul Green and Stephen Lambert take a candid look at the world of ghost hunting and the paranormal. They also reveal their thoughts on ghosts and hauntings, as they willingly seek to experience the things most people would run from in terror. Paranormal Underground 71 Personal Experiences: Ghost Hunter Case Files A Family Haunted: A True Case File By Rick E. Hale, Foundations Psychical Research Note: All names of the clients have been changed to protect their identity. few months ago my sister-in-law told me that a close friend of hers had a considerable amount of spirit manifestations in her home and wanted an investigation done. To be honest, I’m always a little reluctant to conduct an investigation on a family member’s home or a friend’s home. It is easy to become emotionally involved. However, after seeing a video that the client’s sister e-mailed me, I was more than a little intrigued. A Video Possibly Catches Paranormal Activity The video was of the client’s one-and-a-half-year-old son sitting in his crib. What struck me as odd was that the baby appeared to be interacting with somebody in the room. As far as I could tell, no one was in the room with him. And then, I began seeing strange pulsating lights flying through the frame. Most would dismiss this as being insects or dust. However, in this case, the lights did not have a fluttering look about them. They were pulsating. Also, the child is a special needs child with some health issues, and his room, like the rest of the house, was kept extremely clean. Apart from the lights, my attention was drawn to the side of the crib. I could see what looked like a shadow form manifesting at the end of the crib. I had seen enough, and despite my rules concerning friends and family, I took the case. Seeing the Light Show in Person The house of Mr. and Mrs. G was a newer home. They were the first owners of the home, so naturally I assumed that the activity could be attributed to the land where the house stood. However, upon researching that I could see what looked like a shadow form manifesting at the end of the crib. theory, the land, like most areas in northern Illinois, was once a cornfield. My next thought was that the family may be attracting transient spirits. In psychical research, we call these people ghost magnets. Now it was time to investigate. At the start of the investigation at the G house, I took several pictures and conducted several EVP sessions. At this time, the little boy took his nap. Naptime was when the manifestations happened. After his parents put him to bed, I sat in the kitchen watching a video baby monitor. Sure enough, shortly after putting him down, the little boy began to react to something in the room. As with the prior video, he was laughing and acting as if he was playing with someone. And then the light show began to happen. As I watched I could see numerous pulsating lights zipping around the little boys bed. The funny thing is these lights seemed to be coming from the open closet to the right of the crib. I began to wonder if perhaps the closet door was acting as some kind of portal for these spirits to come and go. I have seen this many times before and wondered if there was some truth to the old “monster in the closet” myth. The client’s son never did nap that day. If you’re a parent, you know that this is an ever-present situation. When I went upstairs to gather my recorder, I carefully scrutinized every inch of that room looking for any bugs or signs of fakery. I came up with nothing. Evidence Captured During the Investigation Over the next couple of days I went over every picture I took and nothing substantial caught my eye, except for a large, glowing ball of light in the front room. However, audio was a different matter altogether. I received many one-word answers to my questions on audio. These audio recordings substantiated the claims of the client and solidified in my mind that there was true spirit activity in this family’s home. After sharing the evidence with the client and the client’s sister, I was shocked to discover that another sister had a substantial amount of spirit activity in her home. And like the client’s home, her sister’s home was relatively new and resided in a relatively new subdivision. Of course I thought this was I wondered if there was some truth to the old “monster in the closet” myth. unusual that two sisters with two relatively new homes would have such activity. So as with any good ghost hunter, curiosity got the better of me and I took the case. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this article in our next issue. Paranormal Underground 73 Personal Experiences: The Extreme Ghost Hunter Investigates Meet The Extreme Ghost Hunter By Stephen Lambert, Extreme Ghost Hunting elcome to my new column, “The Extreme Ghost Hunter Investigates.” In the coming months, I will be presenting you with information on haunted sites in the UK, some of which have never been investigated before. I will also be throwing into the mix various strange accounts that I have stumbled across during my travels! This month, I’d like to introduce myself. I was born in Ashington, Northumberland, England, in November 1973. I had a normal upbringing in the North East of England. Looking back I have tried to establish when exactly I became interested in the paranormal and have come to the conclusion this was an ongoing interest from a very early age. My first real dealing with death was the loss of my grandfather from my father’s side of the family. I was very young at the time and remember waking up during the night and seeing what can only be described as various heads of gentlemen around my sofa bed. I am not saying that these were ghosts. Maybe I didn’t wake up and was dreaming or possibly it was the imagination of a young boy. It was very strange nevertheless. What is not in doubt is the root cause, albeit a good one, of my interest in all things horror and spooky. It was my father who helped start me on the journey I am now on. He absolutely loved horror movies. Rightly or wrongly, as a young boy, I had watched many such movies as The Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead, The Exorcist, and many more. My parents still have a box set of 1970s LPs that has a Ouija board drawn on the inside of the cardboard box that held the LPs. Now I have never seen them use it, and I am not sure having the letters in alphabetical order is correct, but at least they tried. Stephen Lambert has more than 10 years of experience in ghost hunting. He has spent a lot of this time on overnight ghost hunts alone. Moving forward a few years there was the loss of my other grandfather. This affected me greatly. I was very close to him, and to see an intelligent man, who had survived his ship being sunk in the Second World War, just wilt away to nothing was very hard to take. His mind and body had gone, and I remember being told to visit him as he didn’t have long left. I didn’t like the service home he was in. Not that there was anything wrong with the staff or people; I just didn’t like it. The staff had dressed and sat him up in a chair for our visit. When I saw him, there was nothing there; it was just like the lights were on, but no one was home. My par- ents were talking to him, but there had been no response of any kind for weeks. I just held his hand. As my parents were chatting to him, they told him Stephen was here. At the same time, and from absolutely nowhere, he shouted my name. He didn’t move or stop staring at the wall, just shouted my name. We left, and a few days later he was gone. I have not really talked about this until now, but that day affected me quite badly. I still find it quite hard and often visit his grave when I am down or needing help. The next major influence, as was with probably a lot of people, was the introduction of TV shows surrounding ghost hunting. I was hooked. I set off on the Internet to see where I could get involved. I stumbled across a Website for North East Paranormal UK (NEPUK), which is sadly no longer running. I approached them and quickly became involved with the group. I can still remember the very first investigation we went on. It was at the Newcastle Keep in England. Moving on again, there have been a few instances with my son that I cannot explain. When he was a toddler and slept in his cot, his toys were always at one end of the cot. You never think about this, and why should you? It’s nothing strange. It only became strange when I was doing an investigation at Kielder Castle. I have some history you could say with the ghost of Emma at Kielder. Whilst at Kielder a medium told me the ghost of Emma had visited me at home and had seen my son. She didn’t know I had a son and also asked me if his toys were at one end of his cot. My jaw dropped at this point. She explained that he may have seen her and was trying to give her his toys to play with. The next strange occurrence involves both my son and father. I was at work and got a call from my mother to say that my father had seen Evan, my son, in the bedroom at night with another boy that he did not recognize. This was not the first time my father had seen ghostly figures, so I just talked it away. That was until my wife at the time called me to tell me about Evan’s dream. Evan told his mother that during the night he had floated to see his granddad in his bedroom. Apparently, he was standing in the bedroom looking at him. Now to hear that about an hour after the first bit of information just stops you in your tracks. I cannot explain either event, but both are very interesting. With dwindling members of NEPUK, I decided to go it alone. I had an idea for a book, which has been released now with Paul Green — albeit it has taken many years and many format changes to get to this point. I wanted to have a go at things my way. I had made up my mind to contact locations in Northern England and Scotland about the possibility of spending time at their haunted locations. I would document the history and ghost stories, as well as record accounts from the overnight vigil. The big difference being, this was to be done by myself or, at most, there would be only two of us on location. To my surprise I was getting a lot of positive responses from locations. Previously, whilst trying to acquire locations for groups, I had found it much more difficult. I can only surmise that people preferred fewer people on their property. My work for the book at this time was very enjoyable. I got the chance to stay in some wonderful places, some which were family homes not open to the public. One of my accounts was published in a book by Jason Karl of 21st Century Ghosts. I had met Jason previously on a ghost hunting night to help raise money for charity. Working on the book then gave me the idea for a TV show. Being on location alone really captures what I believe ghost hunting is about, and this is what I wanted to give the public the chance to see. No fancy equipment. (Obviously there would be the need to carry a video camera or how could it be a TV show?). At one with the elements and the fear of being alone. As with the book, this idea for TV has evolved over time. Hopefully, as well as just reading about us, you will be able to see us on the TV in the not too distant future. To help us with the book, TV, and many other ideas, I created the company Extreme Ghost Hunting Limited. The first question I get from a lot of people is why is it extreme? The fact that people ask that question means that the name works. People are interested and intrigued. When creating the company I tried to think of lots of different catchy names until I got to the word extreme. This was the nearest word I could get to explain the points I mentioned with the TV idea, points such as alone, scary location, no fancy equipment, and against the elements. Throw a Psychic Biker into the mix and I think Extreme Ghost Hunting works very well. As we are finding out, everything to do with TV is a very slow process. I believe there is an element of luck involved with it as well. Being in the right place at the right time comes to mind. Who knows, by the time you have started reading this article, you may have already seen us on TV. I documented each location’s history and ghost stories. Paranormal Underground 75 Personal Experiences: Tales From The Haunted Heathman Hotel A Road Trip to Montana State Prison By Rob St.Helen, West Coast Ghost Hunters or this month’s column, I’ll be leaving the Haunted Heathman and taking a detour. I recently had the privilege of driving to Montana and doing a joint investigation with Olympic Peninsula Paranormal Society (OPPS) (http://www.olympicpeninsulaparanormalsociety.com/) at the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, Montana. It was a very quick trip for me, as I left at 1 a.m. Friday morning, headed north to pick up a friend (Deanne Stewart), and then went east, which felt like forever. We arriving in Helena at 3:30 p.m. We had a scheduled tour setup at the prison. Unfortunately, we were late getting to the location and missed the tour. However, Scott Powers and company at OPPS took the tour and filled us in on the details when we met up later that night for a great Mexican food dinner and chat about the prison. After dinner, we discussed investigative ideas and how we wanted to set up cameras and voice recorders. It was fun for me just being with team OPPS, and I really enjoy working with them. We got back to our hotel around 9 p.m., and by 10 p.m. I was out. Saturday, the day of the investigation, I was beyond excited, of course. I am pretty sure we all were. We had been waiting for this day for a while. I woke up around 6 a.m., had breakfast, and laid low for most of the morning. Once early afternoon hit, we took off for our first look at the prison. When we arrived at the prison, I was amazed that it sat on the side of the main street, not in the middle of nowhere as might be expected. As we arrived, we were met by Tambi and Pete, members of OPPS. They had taken the tour that we had missed out on the previous day, so it was nice to have them there for their input and stories of what they had learned from the tour. Six-thirty p.m. hit and we had access to all of the prison. Julie and her daughter, facilitators at the prison, At top: The exterior of the prison. Bottom photo shows a normal-sized cell inside the prison — photo taken by Deanne Stewart. were absolutely wonderful to have around. They were very nice, answered the many questions we had, and gave us access to investigate just about any area we asked for, including cell floors, wardens office, etc. It was a great experience, one I will not forget. I am looking forward to hopefully going back next year for a second go around. While we were there, we did experience some unexplained activity, including hearing disembodied footsteps walking above us and knocking on a rail. We are still going over audio and video from the investigation at this time. Scott, Michelle, Mary, Tambi, Pete, and Tamara: “Thank you” for this incredible invite. I know I had a wonderful time. And after chatting with Deanne, I know she had an experience of a lifetime! Vampires, Werewolves, & Witches! Mari Wells Delves Into The Myth Surrounding Some Of The World’s Most Feared Creatures! Join the conversation at http://mariwells.wordpress.com/ September 2013 Paranormal Underground 77 Personal Experiences: Reader Encounters A Mother’s Gift from Beyond By Charles G. Gotski, In The Dark Investigations ’m always asked, like most of you that are in the paranormal field, what made me get into paranormal investigation. For me it was a personal experience. Most of the story I have shared before, but there was always a part I had left out. Why? Probably for fear that even to the people who believe in the paranormal it would sound a little crazy. But I think it’s time that we get everything out in the open. Time to clear the air or to leave no rock unturned (I just love old sayings). OK, so (deep breath in) here we go. It was 1974, and I was 15. I had already seen my fair share of relatives or friends, people that I knew and loved, pass away. And what always would run through my mind was something like this: Wow, so that’s it. We are born, we do what we do while we’re here, and then we just fade to black? I never understood what purpose there was to that. I was raised a Methodist and was taught within the church, as it was explained then, that when we passed we just went to Heaven (or Hell if you were bad). And that was about it. Before we go any further, I want to make something clear. I’m not knocking religion or what anyone believes. I’m just speaking from strictly my own perspective. I just couldn’t see in my mind’s view that with us as human beings, such a complex entity, that all there would be is life and death. (Little did I know much later that the answer to this question would come in such a sad and usual way). I mean, come on! Really, that was all there is? Seems kinda pointless to have all these great experiences, gain all this knowledge, and then to have it all go out the window when we die. Just didn’t make sense. Lucky for me I was a curious fellow by nature and an avid reader. I especially loved to read about weird and unusual events — things that couldn’t be explained. You know, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. I would go to the library always scouring for something new to get into. One day while looking for something interesting to sink my teeth into, I came across an author by the name of Hans Holzer and a book called The Ghost Hunter. I started to read these stories, and I was just blown away by the accounts that were held within. It fit more to what I kind of believed myself, but at the Charles’ mother pictured in 1963. same time I had to keep telling myself I didn’t know this man personally. I had to think these were just stories right? You know that old saying (here I go again): Don’t believe everything that you read. Written to amaze and entertain you as the reader and nothing more. So, as much as I enjoyed these tales of the other side, they really didn’t hold any meaning for me, at least not yet. The day everything started to change I remember quite clearly. I had come home one day from school to see my mother and father sitting at the living room table, my father’s face very serious and stressed. And my mother looked like she had been crying a lot. They told me to sit down and that they had something they needed to talk to me about. My first thought was I was in some kind of trouble, but that was not the case. My father stated that because I was the oldest that I needed to know what was happening and that he would be counting on my help with things. They just found out that my mother had lung cancer. Unfortunately, due to a doctor’s error, they found out much later then they should have, and the cancer had spread. My mother had to go in for an operation to see it any of it could be removed. It didn’t look good. With the news, my eyes welled up and my heart broke. I mean, my mom and I had our share of disagreements, but I still loved her. She was my mom. From that moment things went downhill. I remember lying awake night after night after two surgeries had failed to do any good. I listened as my dad tried desperately to get my mom to eat something as she paced back and forth, slippers on her feet, across the tiled floor of our kitchen crying, saying that it was too painful to do so. Eventually, she returned to the hospital until the cancer took its course, spreading everywhere until there was no life left within her. Another fade to black. remember quite clearly I had been at a friend’s house for And what was once a beautiful, dark-haired woman, vibrant the day and was heading back home. I was waiting to cross with life, ended with her gaunt and pale, the chemo taking the street, kind of daydreaming (which I still do from time to time) and thinking about what had happened just days what was left off her once-beautiful locks, extinguishing her before, when I looked up and there on the other side of the like water to a flame. street was my mother. Yes my mother! Many months later, after she was gone, we all tried to get back to some kind of normalcy. My dad was out dating She was just as I had remembered her when she was now, and my two younger brothers and I were just trying to alive and well — dark hair, thin, and beautiful as always. And she was smiling at me. I mean just beaming as happy move forward. I still remember the night that it happened as someone could be. I remember just staring and thinking, so well. It’s been 30-plus years, but it’s just as vivid now as it Am I really seeing this? Is this really happening? was then. I was sitting in the living room; my brothers were asleep, and my Dad had gone out. And then as quickly as it happened, a bus crossed over The TV was going. I think I was watching Happy Days, where she was and she was gone. It was in that exact moment that I felt a peace come over me. Like I finally had the answer when I suddenly heard the noise I had heard so many times to the question I had been wondering about for so long; we when my mother was alive. The unmistakable noise of somedon’t just fade to black. The person we see when we look into one pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor. Now, I know I had locked both the front and back door, partly out the mirror every day isn’t who we really are. It is the spirit or of being in the house with only my two the soul that resides within that makes us a human being. brothers and partly because I was always So now, thanks to my mom, what freaked out when sitting alone at home. was only thought of as a terrible injustice So I got up slowly and made my way to the kitchen. I had to see what was hapin my eyes was actually so much more. pening no matter how freaked out I was. Am I saying that I don’t miss her for who she was? No not at all. But what I As I entered the kitchen, the realized is that in life all things happen sounds stopped as if on cue as my foot for a reason, even death. And that somehit the kitchen floor. No one was there. And if that wasn’t enough to freak me thing that I had looked at my whole life out, it was then that I realized I recogas being so terrible — the loss of a loved one —also had another side to it, a posinized that sound. That it was the same tive side. It gave me a purpose to my sound that my mother had made so Charles is pictured in 2011 investigating. life, something beyond the daily grind many times before when pacing in her slippers when she had become ill. for which we all must endure. It put me What makes it even more unbelievable is that we had into a field that I’m passionate about and allowed me to be who I am today. carpeted the floor shortly after her death, and it wasn’t even And not only that, but along the way it gave me the oppossible to make that sound on the floor anymore. It’s at that portunity to meet some incredible people, such as my team moment I remembered the book I had read about haunted houses. Was it possible that it had been my mother, back to members and friends Larry, Al, and Janine. I got to meet give me a sign like I had read that some spirits of people do. Cheryl Knight and Chad Wilson, who allowed me to introduce myself to others within the field through this awesome Was she letting me know that she was still around? Maybe. magazine. For being invited to be on Paranormal UnderOr was it just my imagination at work? ground Radio and meet two wonderful people in Karen FraEven though I knew what I had just experienced had no logical explanation, I wasn’t quite ready to make that leap in zier and Rick Hale, the latter who has become a good friend my mind that it had been something paranormal, at least not and fellow investigator. To all the clients we have met along the way, such as Al, Judy, Justin, Matt, and so many others. yet. OK, so this is the story that I have shared with all who Not to mention meeting people from across the world like ask, the half of the story that isn’t too risky to talk about. But my good friend Ashley Hall from The Paranormal Guide it’s not what really made me believe; no, it is the other half, the one I’m about to tell you that, until now, I had never or my best UK buddies The Psychic Biker Paul Green and mentioned to anyone, ever. Extreme Ghost Hunter Stephen Lambert. And to many others who I have yet to meet. So, to those This is what made me a believer. The one thing that who wanted to know why I’m in the paranormal field this is showed me in which direction my life would be destined my story. The whole story. to go. That there were things out there that we just couldn’t explain. Events in our lives that were for all intents and purAnd to my mother. I will always love you for finding a poses considered to be, well, paranormal. way that day to show me the real truth. To you I say thanks Mom; thanks for such a precious gift. It had been weeks since my house incident, and I Paranormal Underground 79 Religion And The Paranormal Native American Spirituality and the Paranormal By Melinda Stum, M.Div., South Sound Paranormal Research rior to the arrival of Europeans, North America flourished with a rich diversity of native cultures that differed in religious narratives, practices, and convictions. This diversity cannot be universally or comprehensively defined into a single Native American spirituality. However, these spiritualities share a common spiritual foundation upon which their experiences of the paranormal are built. Native American Spirits Native American spiritualities share a cornerstone with interest in the paranormal and afterlife research, known as animism, or a belief in the soul and the spirit world. Native American animism, however, is rooted deeper than popular paranormal interest in disembodied human spirits. It proclaims that the natural and supernatural/paranormal are shared, not separate, including the spirits of nature, animals, and humans. Thus, the Native American spiritualities have traditionally embraced spirits with respect, not fear, and perceived the spirits as neither inherently benevolent nor malevolent. In regards to disembodied human spirits, Native American cultures have spiritual practices regarding death, the bodily remains, and proper burial to ensure that the spirit may peacefully rest. If these spiritual practices are not granted or properly conducted, the spirit may not be able to peacefully rest. If the grave or remains are disturbed, the peacefully resting spirit may be awakened and doomed to walk the Earth until peace is found once again. These non-resting spirits are able to affect the living with drained energy levels, headaches, nausea, fever, the sensation of suffocation, and the experience of hallucinations. These non-resting spirits are those often associated with paranormal investigation and afterlife research. Shamans Shaman is an anthropological identification for the spiritual leader and/or healer in Native American spiritual traditions. As the spiritual leader, the shamans have spiri- tual obligations and responsibilities for their community. One responsibility is to communicate with the spirits and the spirit world. The shaman may communicate with a malevolent spirit as a representative of the community or a mediator between the spirit and the affected living. The malevolent spirit may seek revenge or retribution; the obligation of the shaman is to appease the malevolent spirit and return the spirit to a peaceful rest. A second responsibility includes encouraging a spirit to occupy their physical person during a public lodge ceremony. The spirit may be enticed with ceremonial chanting and drums. Afterwards, the spirit will depart the shaman in order to complete the requested task. A third responsibility includes spiritual, or out-of-body, travel. The shaman may enter into a trance, during which the shaman is able to travel through the underworld or significant distances on Earth. These travels are often for the purpose of healing individuals or finding lost possessions. Vision Quest + Guardian Spirit Vision quests are rites of passage celebrated by a variety of Native American cultures. The vision quest marks the transition of a young male into manhood, either prior to or during puberty. During the vision quest, the young male will leave the comfort of the community behind and enter into the wilderness alone. While in the wilderness, the young man will fast, meditate, and engage in physical challenges. Although the vision quest engages the mental and physical being of the young male, the intention is spiritual in nature. This intention is for the young male to experience a vision, or a revelation, which guides his continued development until death. In order to honor the vision, the young male is to seek a guardian spirit that will guide and support him for the remainder of his lifetime. Animal Spirits and the Hunt As I previously wrote, Native American animism embraces animal spirits. These animal spirits exist in relationship with nature and human beings. The human-animal relationship is evident in the philosophy of the hunt and the ritualistic mannerisms of the hunter. The philosophy of the hunt in several Native American cultures is intriguing. The cultures hold that animals must choose to be visible to human persons. Therefore, the hunted animal must choose to be visible to the hunter. Thus, this choice is an active sacrifice of their life, flesh, and spirit in order that the human persons may be fed. In honor of this sacrifice, the Native American hunter will only hunt as needed and will utilize the entirety of the animal’s remains. The Native American cultures and their hunters have established ritualistic traditions to honor the animal. The hunter will speak, or chant, a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving for the animal’s sacrifice. A few Native American cultures insist that the successful hunter consume the animal’s warm blood and with it the animal’s spirit. In regards to these Native American cultures, this ritualistic tradition is particularly significant for a hunter’s first kill. However, whether the tradition is a prayer, consuming the blood, or another ritual, these intend to appease the animal’s spirit and convince other animals to willingly sacrifice their life, flesh, and spirit for the health of the human persons. Conclusion Native American spiritualities, paranormal interests, and afterlife research share a common cornerstone known as animism, a belief in the soul and the spirit world. This cornerstone supports the foundation of spirits, the responsibilities of shamans, the vision quest, and the experience of the hunt. This is a solid foundation upon which an interest, experience, and/or belief in the paranormal may be built. Do you have a paranormal problem? Founder/ Lead Investigator Are you in the Kendall County, Illinois, area? All investigations last 4 to 8 hours, depending on the claims and severity of the case Case Manager/ Investigator No Fees Are Charged Researcher/ Investigator in Training Contact the Team at: Keep The Lights Out ... Paranormal Underground 81 “Haunted Sanctuary” By Michelle M. Pillow, www.MichellePillow.com es, it’s true! Moira Rogers is actually two people, a pair of best friends who collaborate to the extent that sometimes they might as well be one person. (Or perhaps share one brain between the two of them.) So, how do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. Toss in a dash of whimsy and a lot of caffeine, and enjoy with a side of chocolate by the light of the full moon. By day, Bree Bridges and Donna Herren are mildmannered ladies who reside in the Deep South. At night, when their husbands and children are asleep, they combine forces to unleash the product of their fevered imaginations upon the page. So, let’s take a look at the duo behind “Moira Rogers.” After devoting several years to getting a degree in computer science, Bree quit her job as a database programmer to enjoy the crazy life of a full-time writer. She is interested in paranormal romance, urban fantasy, sci-fi, fantasy, post-apocalyptic tales, and any book that tells her how to knit, crochet, felt, bead, silkscreen, sew, quilt, cook, bake, do woodwork, make stained glass, or program computers. As the mother of two young daughters, Donna spends most of her time helping with homework and social tribulations, trying not to learn any more about Justin Bieber than absolutely necessary, and talking up superheroes as role models. She also enjoys reading, watching television, listening to music, and cooking, usually in some odd simultaneous combination. The duo’s newest paranormal romance novel, Haunted Sanctuary, was released in January 2013 from Eden Green can’t remember a time she didn’t believe in monsters — her cousin was born one. Her family’s dark past casts a long shadow, making it hard to make friends and harder to commit to a lover. She lives a quiet life, but she’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Samhain Publishing. So where did the name Moira Rogers come from? Middle names. But Bree and Donna aren’t telling you whose. ***** Q: In your book, Haunted Sanctuary you delve into the world of werewolves, witches and ghosts. What inspired you to write about this? Moira: Though this is hardly the first time we’ve written about werewolves or witches, this new series gave us a chance to do something we’d always wanted — to introduce our paranormal heroes and heroines to their own sort of Thing That Goes Bump in the Night. We love ghost stories, the really good ones that give you the shivers because you’re not quite sure whether to believe them or not. It seemed like it would be fun to put our werewolves in the same situation. Sure, they’re tough, rough, and howl at the moon. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be just as scared of ghosts as we are. Maybe even more. ;) Q: When world-building, did you base your story off of known myths throughout history? Moira: We always pick and choose among popular mythology for all paranormal creatures before giving the world an edge of our own. In our Sanctuary series, magic is a thing of balance, with werewolves representing life and vampires death, with witches straddling the line. I think my favorite part of creating a paranormal mythology for a fictional world is deciding how your mythology could create the popular myths of the day. It’s almost like reverse engineering a new truth from popular fantasy. “I think we’re obsessed with wonder and fear.” Lorelei Adams has lost many things — her humanity, her life, even her son. She’s always fought through her exhaustion, always stayed strong for her pack, but now there are new alphas to take care of the others. Unfortunately, time to rest means time to think about her own pain. the fantasy of discovering a new world that’s been around us all along. What are your favorite paranormal shows, movies, and books? Moira: I think we’re obsessed with wonder and fear. It’s so much fun to imagine a secret world just beneath the one we see every day, to imagine that all those odd things we can’t quite explain fit into a larger picture, one that thrills us and scares us and ultimately delights us. I think humans are explorers, at heart, and we all love Moira: Oh, we love so many. Both the purely fictional, like True Blood and my current favorite Lost Girl, to the ones where people are really chasing ghosts, like Ghost Hunters or The Dead Files. We don’t care how campy or silly the show is; it’s always good clean (or dirty!) paranormal fun. When it comes to books, there are almost too many to name. Some of my auto-buy authors include Kelley Armstrong, Meljean Brook, Kristen Callihan, Patricia Briggs, Vivian Arend, Ann Aguirre, and Keith Melton. Q: Why do you think readers, and society in general, are fascinated by the paranormal? Paranormal Underground 83 Author Profile Q: Do you believe in the supernatural? Or are you a skeptic? Donna: Yes to both. Bree: I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but I am afraid of them. So, there’s that. Q: What kind of paranormal creatures do you wish you could meet? Moira: Anything but zombies. But I think I’d pick witches. I’d love to see magic at work, because the idea of magic has entranced me my whole life. It’s what led me to pick up fantasy novels, and then move to urban fantasy and paranormals. Q: If given the chance, would you become a werewolf? Moira: TOTALLY. As long as I got the super-healing and the great metabolism. I could handle rare steaks, dodging hunters during the full moon, and a whole lot of other inconveniences if I got those two things in return. Q: How would you react if you came face to face with a ghost? Moira: I like to say I’d try to talk to it, communicate with it, and learn all sorts of spiritual truths to get a greater understanding of our world. But I’d probably scream, throw something at it, and flee into the night in a blind panic. Q: What does the future hold for your werewolves and their ghosts? Moira: Haunted Sanctuary was the first of four books that will delve into the history of one small Southern farm, and explore all the ways people — even paranormal people — can be haunted. Our four werewolf couples will have to face their pasts, their fears, and some very real ghosts before they can find their way to a happy ending. Q: Have you ever been abducted by aliens? Moira: I’m pretty sure not ... but maybe that’s what the aliens want me to think! ***** To learn more about Bree and Donna and the duo’s books, visit http://www.moirarogers.com. Moira Rogers Book Titles Southern Arcana Crux Crossroads Deadlock Cipher Impulse Bloodhounds Hunter’s Prey Shadowed Moon Diana’s Hound Wilder’s Mate Archer’s Lady Shattered Moon Merrick’s Destiny Sanctuary Cry Sanctuary Sanctuary Lost Sanctuary’s Price Sanctuary Sanctuary Unbound A Safe Harbor Undertow Sanctuary Redeemed Building Sanctuary Haunted Sanctuary Haunted Magic Haunted Wolves Children of the Undying Demon Bait Hammer Down Paranormal Underground 85 Paranormal Perspective: Guest Editorial Coming Together Is a Beginning By Elaine Davison, Western Oregon Organization of Paranormal Investigators “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” –Henry Ford firmly believe there is a big huge misunderstanding in the paranormal community. Everyone is part of the paranormal community for their own reason; let’s make no mistake about this fact. The community is a better place because of it; however, people often don’t recognize the fact that diversity makes the community better and stronger. Instead, insecurities reign as people speak ill of those that do not believe or have different theories as them. The community is made up of teams, groups, and individuals; this adds balance to the community. When teams go awry, chaos and conflict can dominate in the community. Let’s start by discussing personalities; everyone has a core personality that adapts to the environment that they are in at that moment. If one was to take the Myers-Briggs personality indicator at home, work, with their paranormal group/team, alone, and in a crowd — it is highly probable the results will all be different. One’s environment and background help to form one’s personality, so if the environment changes it is highly probable that one’s personality changes. I have been to many conferences or group investigations where teams have imploded before my eyes because they have never seen the other personalities of their mates and all hell broke loose. We need to always remember we react differently in different environments, so do not be shocked if your mates react different at a paracon than during a team meeting. The environments are different. Individuals in the community are just people choosing to go out and investigate and experiment on their own for a variety of reasons, despite the fact that a team or a group can often reach a better solution than an individual working alone. A group is a bunch of individuals; they don’t necessarily have a common goal. These people are not bound together in a cause; they simply exist as individuals with similar interests often sharing ideas. This is not wrong, but they are not a team. The definition of a team is “a small group of individuals with complementary skills who must work together toward a common purpose/goal for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” Nowhere does this state they all must agree on everything; a psychic, skeptic, believer, and non-believer can make a wonderful team if they agree on a common goal such as: “To prove or disprove the existence of life after death.” In most cases a team can reach a better conclusion than an individual or group because each team member will look at the same outcome in different ways and confer. To work as a team, though, they need to have some sort of an agreement, mission statement, or charter as a better reach the team’s ultimate goal. The team is able to guide to align under. plan and take direction without chaos ensuing. The team Teams are more complicated than groups and take expectations and rules are followed. nurturing to be successful. There are four stages, accordTeam leaders should be stepping back during the ing to Bruce Tuckman’s model, that each team must go Norming phase, letting each team member share the rethrough to become a successful performing team. A fifth sponsibility. No one person should bear the responsibility and final stage added much later than the original model to keep a team going. This is a good time for paranormal of four is Adjourning. teams to venture out and meet socially. Try bowling, campWhen teams first form, the Forming stage, interpersoning, or playing mini-golf. This allows the team to have fun al relationships are often guarded. People are on their best while getting to meet each other’s “other” personalities. behavior, and the team is often dependent on the team’s The fourth stage is Performing. In this phase team leaders for guidance. It is immembers tend to be more portant to clearly ask each team flexible in their roles and come All team members must member for their input. Teams together to support one anaccept and work toward the should take the time to critique other. Team methods and data goal of the team and particitheir processes and openly discollection and review become pate in team meetings. cuss which method the team will second nature. Team energy use. Writing a mission statement is high during this phase, and or a charter will help the team be focused. leadership is situational. Often someone approaching the The second stage, Storming, is the hardest for most team would not be able to pick out the team leader withteams to get through. During this stage, ideas are often atout asking. The team develops a sense of pride, not just in tacked and defended. The team structure is often resisted, their self or team, but in each other’s successes. and people wander off doing their own thing and many of Teams in the Performing stage that go out to parathe discussions are argumentative. Productivity is stalled cons and paranormal meet-ups tend to learn more and as tensions arise, because people have hidden agendas are able to put the information gathered at these events to and don’t listen to each other. much better use. The team will trust each other to at least There are paranormal teams out there that never try new concepts at least once. get past the storming phase, as members never find their All teams must start at the Forming stage and canniche and insecurities dominate the group. Understanding not skip phases. Each phase is important, as it will help why conflicts are occurring and the various steps of a team build cohesiveness. Teams can move backwards through may help; members realizing things will eventually get betthe phases. Perhaps a new member is having a hard time ter will help teams through this phase. Team leaders need fitting in or suffers from HPD, throwing the team back to to remain positive but firm while helping those who are the Storming phase. less secure find their way. All team members must accept and work toward the There are a small percentage of people who find goal of the team and participate in team meetings. To their way onto paranormal teams who suffer from Hismake the team successful, often members must fulfill trionic Personality Disorder (HPD). These team memresponsibilities and assigned tasks outside investigations bers often “stir the pot” to keep the turmoil alive. These and meetings. Members should always practice beneficial people thrive in this state, as they can draw attention to team behaviors; negativity reflects not only on the memthemselves by playing the victim. When the team begins ber, but the entire team. to move on past this stage, these people will begin to There are many people and teams claiming to strive talk about other teams in a negative light or cause drama for para-unity. The definition of unity varies from dictionbetween teams to keep the attention going. These people ary to dictionary, but most have something along the lines create toxicity in the entire paranormal community and that it brings (people) together so as to form a whole or to should be monitored at all times. Teams who have memcombine (people) in interest, attitude, or action. bers like this will never move to the next phase until the The community has become so large that this dream member is dismissed or has otherwise left the team. of peace and harmony for all is not likely until norms are Norming is the third phase. Things begin to calm established throughout the community and individuals, down, and people openly express ideas and feelings groups, and teams are identified and accepted as such. without feeling attacked. People accept each other and There is room for most, and the differences of all should their differences and work to use these differences to be celebrated, not mocked or discouraged. Paranormal Underground 87 For Back Issues of Paranormal Underground Magazine, Visit www.paranormalunderground.net! In this issue of “Paranormal Underground” magazine, we profile Most Haunted’s Derek Acorah, Clairvoyant Medium Dakota Lawrence, and paranorm...

OCPL PROGRAMMING NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 2013 Special Events this Month: Supernatural Ballads: Monday, Oct. 7th, 6:30pm Celebrate the mysterious at the Library! Local favorite Robert Tincher will be performing traditional ballads that explore the unexplained. This program is free and for all ages. Family Craft Night: Tuesday, Oct. 8th, 6:30-8pm Drop-in at the Children’s Library in Main and make a fall-themed craft with your family! Support the Oldham County Public Library and get started early on your holiday shopping! Saturday and Sunday, October 12 & 13, Barnes & Noble in the Paddock Shops (formerly the Summit) will be hosting a book fair on behalf of the Library. Part of the proceeds from any purchase made with an OCPL voucher will go directly to the Library. Vouchers can be obtained at any Oldham Library, or picked up at the store the days of the book fair. Children’s Librarian, Shannon, will be holding a special StoryTime in the store, and the drama club from OCHS will be performing. Come out, say hi, buy a book, and support the Library! BOOK BABIES! 10am Thursdays at Main Book Babies is a lapsit program for babies that are pre-walkers and their caretakers. Come enjoy simple stories, songs and play! Boo-Dell: Saturday, Oct. 26th, 11-3pm, Yew Dell Gardens It’s time again for Boo-Dell! This free event is the perfect scare-free Halloween occasion for families. Explore the beautiful grounds of Yew Dell while gathering goodies on the Trail of Treats from 11-2pm. Enjoy a hay ride and see all of the entries in the Book-o-Lantern competition. Picnic and try out the fare of Grind Burger Truck & Lil Cheezers. At 2pm, enjoy the comedic magic of Mr. Magic himself. Parking for the event is $5. Do you have a business or organization that would like having a free table at Boo-Dell? See www.oldhampl.org/programs.html to register. Author Visit by Julie Kagawa: Join internationally best-selling author Julie Kagawa on Thursday, Nov. 7th at 6:30pm at the Main Library. Ms. Kagawa will talk to teens and other YA Lit fans about her writing process. Her new novel, The Iron Traitor, is set for release on October 29th. The author will be signing copies of her new book. Legislative Meet & Greet: Come meet your new state legislators at this informal lunch sponsored by the Friends of the Oldham County Library. October 16th, 11:30am. Mark your calendar for International Games Day, coming up Saturday November 16th! Oh, The Places You Can Go! Preschool Story Time Fun for the elementary school crowd! Join us for our weekly adventures on Thursdays at 4 PM @ Main Story Time is for children ages 3 & up! We read books and make a craft! 11 AM Tuesdays & Fridays at Main October 3rd: Travel Adventures 11 AM Wednesdays at South Oldham October 10th: Creative Adventures 11 AM Thursdays at Mahan Oct 1st-4th: It’s Wild October 17th: Edible Adventures Oct 8th-11th: Pockets No Afterschool Adventures on October 24th or October 31st! Oct 15-18th: Fire Fighters Oct 29-Nov 1st: Halloween Toddler Time Toddlertime is for infants through two years old. Parents and children sing songs, do fingerplays and are introduced to picture books. It is a time to sit and interact with your child and become familiar with the library. 10 AM Tuesdays & Fridays at Main 10:10 AM Wednesdays at South Oldham 10:10 AM Thursdays at Mahan Paws to Read is designed to allow kids and struggling readers the chance to read to a non-judgmental listener, one who will accept the story exactly as they read it. Each session is 15 minutes of one on one time with a certified dog. Sign up online! Young Readers, age 4-8,will be matched up with a teen volunteer who will be their reading mentor. Snacks, books and cozy spaces for teens and kids to read together will be provided! Come read with a cool older friend! Sign up online! Oct 14th & Oct 29th at 4:30 @ Main Book Babies 10 AM Thursdays at Main Book Babies is a lapsit program for babies that are pre-walkers and their caretakers. Come enjoy simple stories, songs and play! Oct 15th 6:30 PM Fun for Tweens! Ages 9-12 Ghost stories & s’mores By the campfire! Join us for a block party and build with LEGO! Oct 28th at 4:15 at Main For Ages 5-12 Sign ups begin Oct 1st online! Come learn how to work with LEGOS & Robotics! Oct 29th at 6 PM at Main Ages 10 & up! Sign ups begin Oct 1st online! Book Besties We have a new opportunity for Teens to volunteer at the Library this fall, “Book Besties.” will be matched up with young readers, ages 4-8, who are looking for a reading mentor. The meeting time is twice a month from 4:30-5:15 p.m.—we’ll have snacks available; a selection of books; and plenty of cozy space for teens and kids to read together. This will be a fun way for kids to work on their reading skills with a “cool” older friend. Teens can earn service hours and this program looks great on college applications! Meetings are at the Main Library, October 14 and 29. Sign up for all volunteer opportunities at our Teen page: www.oldhampl.org/teens.html Tuesday, October 15th, 4:30pm at Mahan Library; Thursday, October 17th @ 6:30pm at the Main Library Teens will design a custom-made Halloween mask. We’ll also teach Teens how to do monster make-up and send them home with enough latex to recreate their look on Halloween night. We’ll have ghoulish food and games, too. Mondays@ 6:30 p.m. @ Main Library—October 7th We’ll provide the writing prompts and snacks to get your creativity flowing—You provide the words. We will have time to write and share (if you want to). Teen Book Club Each month we’ll host a book discussion for Teens at the Main Library. Pick up your copy of each month’s book in advance at the Main Desk, check it out and read it before you come. We’ll have activities and snacks to go with the theme of each book. Monday, 6:00-7:00 p.m.—October 28th. Book: The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (available for pick-up beginning 9/30) Tuesdays @ 6:00 p.m. October 29 Bricks 4 Kidz will present these workshops based on the fun of building with LEGO® bricks, PLUS the challenge of computer programming, robotics using motors, sensors and software! Using drag-and-drop icon-based software, Robotics provides an excellent introduction into the world of computer-programming and robotics. Sign-ups for the October class open October 1; See teen page for registration. Admission & Financial Aid 101 (KHEAA Presentation) October 3 @ 6:00 p.m.: Get information about the financial aid and admission processes to college. TAP: Teen Advisory Panel One Saturday each month Teens will have the opportunity to volunteer to do Library projects at the Main Library. We’ll spend time coming up with great program ideas and completing a service project each month. Teens can earn service hours and this program also looks great on college applications. Saturday, 12-2 p.m. @ Main Library, November 2nd MORE INFORMATION AT WWW.OLDHAMPL.ORG/TEENS.HTML ADULT PROGRAMMING Trivia Night: Cryptozoology! Thursday, October 10th, 6:30-7:30pm Monthly trivia nights are going strong! Join us each 2nd Thursday of the month at the Main Library. Trivia themes will match the STEAM theme of the month. This month we'll be asking questions related to Mysterious Phenomena. Come test your knowledge, learn, win prizes & have fun! Bring the correct answer to this question the night of the event to be entered into a drawing: This local cryptid mystery figure became famous after a sighting featured on WAVE 3 and soon started both a twitter account and popular advice column. Crafty Readers: Thursday, October 17th, 6-8pm Sign up to read this month’s Crafty Reader’s book club pick: The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. Once registered via www.oldhampl.org/programs.html, we'll send a copy of the selected book to your home library for you to check out. We’ll be making glow in the dark ocean terrariums to go along with the book. This event is free, & for adults only. STATS & MORE Your Library by the numbers 2,436 eBooks were checked out from www.oldhampl.org 1,024 Searches were conducted on Ancestry.com using OCPL’s free account for patrons 238 new people registered for Library cards At the Main Library Basic Computer Skills: A three week course designed to introduce computers to the beginning user. Class will cover parts & functions of computer; how to use basic applications; and how to access the internet and browse safely. Next session: Wednesdays, 10-11:30am; 10/9, 10/16, 10/23. Must attend all three courses. Microsoft Word 2010: Introductory course for using Microsoft Word. Class covers formatting, inserting images, and mail merge. Next Session: Monday, 10/14, 10-noon Microsoft Excel 2010: A course that introduces formulas and functions of Microsoft Excel. Topics included are graphs, basic calculations, simple tables, and Pivot tables. Next Session: Saturday, 10/5 10-noon PowerPoint 2010: Introduces the functions of PowerPoint and how to create presentations. Class includes how to insert graphs, Youtube video, and multimedia. Next Session: Monday, 10/21, 10-noon To register for computer Overdrive: This class teaches how to use the Library digital lending service, Overdrive. Learn to download free audiobooks, ebooks and more to your classes, sign-up online or home computer or portable device! Next Session: Monday, 10/28 6-8pm call the Library. Social Media: A two hour class teaching the basics of the most popular social media sites. Learn how to navigate Facebook & get started on Twitter. Learn the basics of protecting your privacy online. Next Session: Saturday, 10/5, 1-3pm REGISTRATION REQUIRED FOR ALL COMPUTER CLASSES

Call of Duty: Ghosts Nemesis is now available for your Xbox One or Xbox 360. This last of four planned expansion packs brings with it the four new maps Showtime, Goldrush, Subzero, and Dynasty. It also includes Exodus, the final chapter in the contra-alien Extinction storyline. It’ll cost you $14.99, or you can buy it and the other three DLCs as part of a $49.99 season pass. A PS3 and PS4 version of Nemesis should be coming in about a month. The complete press release is below: Nemesis – the Final DLC Pack in the Call of Duty: Ghosts Season of Downloadable Content – Is Available Now on Xbox Live The Call of Duty®: Ghosts DLC season closes out with Nemesis, which introduces four new multiplayer maps, each featuring a unique Field Order, and includes the fourth and final entry, and epic conclusion to Extinction’s episodic narrative with “Episode 4: Exodus.” The four new, small-to-medium size multiplayer maps in Nemesis are designed specifically for Call of Duty‘s distinctive, fast-paced, gun-on-gun gameplay. - “Goldrush” – Set in the Southwest United States, this abandoned gold mine’s network of tunnels and perilous shafts create the ideal setting for medium to long range combat. - “Subzero” – A hastily evacuated submarine base in the frigid Canadian outpost – with control room, submarine pen and research facilities – harbors a mysterious terror that will decimate opponents in this medium-sized map. - “Dynasty” – Multiple pathways crisscross this lakeside Chinese village surrounded by picturesque mountains, vivid gardens, and spectacular architecture – a serene environment that is anything but Zen-like. - “Showtime” – A sadistic reimagining of “Shipment” – the smallest map in Call of Duty history and fan-favorite map from Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare®. Closing out Call of Duty: Ghosts final DLC Pack is the dramatic conclusion to the game’s episodic Extinction narrative. “Episode 4: Exodus” follows the CIF Unit’s harrowing escape from the alien underworld and the successful recovery of Dr. Cross and the cortex, with the team now tasked with fighting off the Cryptid army’s siege of the last bastion of human resistance. Your mission is to get key personnel to safety by restoring power to the shuttle and then launching it to a low Earth orbit space station. “Episode 4: Exodus” gives players unprecedented control of their escape route – choose your path, gather new intel, craft new weapons – and introduces the deadliest of Cryptid enemies with a range of lethal powers, including mind control and psionic attacks – the Ancestors. Call of Duty: Ghosts Nemesis is available now, first, exclusively on Xbox Live for Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and the Xbox 360 games and entertainment system from Microsoft, with other platforms to follow. Nemesis is available a la carte for a suggested retail price of $14.99, or as part of the Call of Duty: Ghosts DLC Season Pass, which gives fans access to all four epic Call of Duty: Ghosts DLC Packs** planned for release in 2014 – Onslaught,Devastation, Invasion and Nemesis – at the discounted* suggested retail price of $49.99. ACTIVISION, CALL OF DUTY, MODERN WARFARE and CALL OF DUTY GHOSTS are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. *Based on Season Pass suggested retail price of $49.99 and four DLC Packs at a suggested retail price of $14.99 each. **Content in the DLC Season Pass may be sold separately. If you purchase the DLC Season Pass, do not also purchase these standalone DLC Packs, as you will be charged for them. DLC Season Pass and DLC Packs may not be available on all platforms or in all territories. Pricing and release dates may vary by platform.

Beast of Boggy Creek sighted in Ghoultown! I recently had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Lyle Blackburn of Fouke Monster and Ghoultown fame! Lyle Blackburn is a frequent contributor and cryptozoology advisor to Rue Morgue magazine, one of the leading horror media publications in print today. Lyle’s Monstro Bizarro blog is featured on Rue Morgue’s website and his “Monstro Bizarro Presents” news column appears monthly in the print magazine. He has also contributed to websites such as Cryptomundo.com, and has been a featured speaker at paranormal conferences and horror conventions around the country. Growing up in Texas, Lyle has always been fascinated with legends, lore and sighting reports of real-life “monsters.” He has studied the phenomenon in legend, fact and film, and is the author of The Beast of Boggy Creek: The True Story of the Fouke Monster. Lyle is also the founder and frontman for the Texas-based rock band, Ghoultown. Since 1998, Ghoultown has released eight albums, toured extensively in both the U.S. and Europe, and has appeared on several horror movie soundtracks. Most recently, Lyle and his band collaborated with legendary television horror hostess, Elvira – Mistress of the Dark, to create her new theme song, which was also turned into an extended music video. The video was featured on Elvira’s Movie Macabre television show, which is syndicated throughout the U.S. on local stations. Your book The Beast of Boggy Creek: The True Story of The Fouke Monster has been selling consistently well and receiving great reviews. It even has a Video Promo. How long did you spend putting it together? From the time I started researching and writing, it took one year. Of course I had prior knowledge and experiences that went into the book, but as far as from the time I drove up to Fouke with the intention of book research to the date I finished and got a publishing deal, it was almost one year exactly. During that year I went to Arkansas many times to conduct interviews, visit the Texarkana libraries, and even go into the swamps and woods myself so I could investigate some of the sighting locations. Word is there’s a follow up in the works. Can you tell us anything about it yet? One of these days I plan to write a follow-up to Boggy Creek, but it’ll be awhile before I start. Since releasing the book, I’ve already investigated several new Fouke Monster sightings, found out about some more old ones, and also dug up some more interesting facts that will make for a great book. But it still needs time to develop more before starting that. There’s still stuff coming in so I don’t wanna jump the gun. In other words, I don’t wanna throw out some sequel just because the first book was popular. It needs to be worthwhile for myself and the reader. In the meantime, I have a list of other cryptid books I plan to write, not to mention I just finished a new book that will be out this fall. When did you start hunting monsters? Was it something you always wanted to do? I was always interested in strange creatures like bigfoot, yeti, and lake monsters, but never really considered going out to look for them until much later in life. After seeing The Legend of Boggy Creek as a kid, I did look over my shoulder when we hunted or went camping in Arkansas, but my interest was mostly confined to reading other people’s accounts in books. Then after years of playing in bands, which pretty much confined me to the jungles of nightclubs and music venues, I decided to cut that off and start getting back to my love of the outdoors and monsters. I started with bigfoot research, which led to the book, which has now led to most of my time being spent researching cryptids both in a scholarly way and in the field. The Legend of Boggy Creek was a major inspiration for my novel Progeny as well. You’ve amassed a comprehensive list of Bigfoot flicks. What are some of your favorites? My favorite, of course, is The Legend of Boggy Creek. For me it not only satisfies my craving for scary bigfoot tales, but also reminds me so much of my childhood going through small towns like Fouke on the way to bow hunt with my dad. There was always something creepy about old towns, as if they held monstrous secrets that outsiders could never know. Such is the basis for many other horror films, I suppose. Some of my other favorite classic bigfoot films are Creature From Black Lake, Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot, and Snow Beast. As far as new films, I like Savage and one that was never widely released called Paper Dolls. But the best of the new crop, and my favorite besides Boggy Creek, is Bobcat Goldthwait’s Willow Creek. It’s not released yet, but I had a chance to see a special screening of it last month. It’s simply amazing. Something that people probably won’t expect from Bobcat, but certainly one of the best bigfoot films – if not one of the best horror films – I’ve seen in awhile. I’ve a had a few. The most notable was when myself and a friend were canoeing in an Arkansas bayou late one night. We heard six evenly spaced howls that sent chills up our spines. We’ve heard all kinds of animals in the woods over the years, but this was something altogether different. It was a large animal that sounded very unique. Luckily we got one of the howls recorded. Back at home I listened to numerous sound clips of animals common to the area, but couldn’t find any matches. To this day, I’m not sure what we heard. In previous interviews you’ve stated that you are more inclined to the theory that sasquatch and its variants are flesh and blood creatures, rather than interdimensional travelers with supernatural powers. Does this extend to other strange topics, such as UFOs and ghosts? In other words, have you pretty well ruled out validity of paranormal phenomena? Not necessarily. I think it depends on how we define paranormal. By definition, unidentified flying objects undoubtedly exist. People do see strange lights and crafts in the sky. The question is, are they driven by an extraterrestrial force? Nobody can conclusively prove that one way or the other, so it certainly falls into the category of paranormal until we have more concrete evidence to go on. Ghosts too. I think that people are seeing, hearing, and experiencing things that can’t be easily explained. The question is, are these the immaterial forms of a dead people? Again, nobody can say at this point, so that too falls into the category of paranormal. If you somehow obtained indisputable proof of the existence of one of these creatures, what do you think you would do with it? I would probably consult a few of my closest and most well-respected friends in the bigfoot research community so that we might be able to thoroughly document the evidence before going public. Then I would probably hold a press conference or something so that no one could dispute that we had something before the government or some other major scientific organization moves in. I think it would be an earth-shattering discovery to find something that is so human-like as bigfoot appears to be, so it shouldn’t be something taken lightly or made public in a haphazard way. Like everything else, Bigfoot and his cousins have found their way to reality television and its ilk. Do you find this to be a positive or negative development for the science of cryptozoology? It’s both good and bad, I guess. It’s good, in that it makes people feel like they won’t be called crazy if they do report a sighting. But bad, since reality television is not the same as thorough science or research. People may draw conclusions about cryptozoology based on the approach of these shows, or even the cast members, when it may not necessarily represent what truly goes on in the field. That being said, I personally don’t get all stressed out about these shows. I understand that it’s entertainment television and I choose to enjoy the shows, or not. I’ve even been on some of them. Some of them are fun and some are kinda worthless, but overall I think it’s gotten the public fired up about the subject of mystery monsters, and to me, that’s not a bad thing. So I just don’t spend much energy worrying about things I can’t really control. I just try to write good books and present good lectures. That’s the part I can control, so I focus my energies there. What other anomalous phenomena interest you? I’ve always been a fan of ghost stories and sightings. I love creepy stuff, so anything like that is cool. I just got the In Search Of… DVD set, so it’s fun to watch all the different episodes which cover so many weird things. The world is always a better place when there’s a bit of mystery involved. Onto music. Your band Ghoultown has been together since 98 which is a pretty long run for a band. How do you guys maintain the magic? I think the secret to our longevity is that we don’t take it too seriously. The music business can really kick you in the ass, so at the end of the day you just have to try and have fun doing what you do. We’re also good friends, so that helps too. On the Ghoultown website, the band bio concludes with the statement to the effect that you are not a part of any genre, trend or musical scene. Why do you feel it’s important to make this disclaimer–if that’s what it is? I guess you could call it a statement of independence. But really it’s just something that popped into my head as I was writing up the new bio. It sounded cool, so that was that. There’s no doubt that Ghoultown is a unique melding of genres. Who are some of your influences and favorites? Spaghetti westerns and horror movies are the main influence for the band. Most of the bands I listen to have no influence or relation to what I do in Ghoultown, so there’s not very much influence coming in from other music. Of your own songs, which mean the most to you for whatever reason? “Return of the Living Dead” is my favorite because I think technically, it’s the best song I’ve written. Some of my other favorites are “Under the Phantom Moon,” Walking Through the Desert With a Crow” and “The Worm.” I hardly ever go back and listen to our music once it’s been recorded and released, but these are songs I listen to and say ‘wow, did I really write that?’ Anybody ever tell you you look like that dude from Monster Magnet? Yes. The clerks at the big retail guitar store give me discount because they think I’m in Monster Magnet. I just roll with it.

|Posted on March 13, 2011 at 7:31 PM| SASQUATCH (BIGFOOT), YETI, MOMO, THE FOUKE MONSTER AND OTHER APE-LIKE CRYPTIDS - PART 2 ASTONISHING TALES OF THREATS, ASSAULTS AND ABDUCTIONS The existence of Bigfoot (or Sasquatch or many of the other names assigned to this unknown primate) is not yet a proved fact, simply because one has not been captured - dead or alive. There is, however, a lot of good circumstantial evidence in the form of hundreds of eyewitness accounts, footprints, hair samples and, less convincing, a few fuzzy or contested photos. You may have heard or read about many of the sightings of the elusive "hairy biped," but less known are the "close encounters of the third kind" (contact) or even the fourth kind (abduction) with Sasquatch. Yes, people have reportedly been physically attacked by Bigfoot - and even abducted by the creature. Why are these stories less known? Probably because they are so fantastic that most of these accounts are not taken very seriously; even those who think Sasquatch exists look upon these cases with a highly skeptical eye. That's not to say they are not true, only that they have very little or no evidence to back them up. That said, here are some first-hand accounts of... when Bigfoot attacks! 1902 - Chesterfield, Idaho. A group of people enjoying a winter's day skating were suddenly terrorized by a hairy monster brandishing a wooden club. The witnesses said the creature stood about eight feet tall. Later, four-toed footprints were found that measured 22 inches long and 7 inches wide. Bigfoot indeed! No one was injured in the attack. 1912 - New South Wales, Australia. A surveyor named Charles Harper was camping with several colleagues on Currockbilly Mountain. One evening, as the men sat sound their campfire, they became increasingly unnerved by the strange sounds they heard coming from the woods. To help allay their fears, they piled more wood on their fire. The increased light revealed that something unexpected had invaded their camp. "A huge man-like animal stood erect not twenty yards from the fire, growling," Harper later told a newspaper, "and thumping his breast with his huge hand-like paws." Harper estimated that the creature stood about 5'8" to 5'10" tall and was "covered with long, brownish-red hair, which shook with every quivering movement of his body." To say the least, the men were terrified. One even fainted. For several minutes, the creature continued to growl and make threatening gestures at the men, then turned and disappeared into the forest dark. 1924 - Ape Canyon, Mount St. Helens, Washington. Fred Beck and several other prospectors were puzzled by very large footprints they found in the canyon - until they encountered the beast that made them. They saw a large, ape-like creature peering from behind a tree, watching them. One of the miners leveled his rifle at the creature, shot and possibly grazed it in the head. It ran off out of sight. Later, another creature was seen by Beck. As it stood on the edge of a canyon wall, Beck shot it in the back. It fell, irretrievably, into the canyon. These acts of violence by the humans was not to go unavenged by the Sasquatch. That night, the miners' cabin was attacked by at least two of the primates. For five hours, they pounded on the door and walls, and hurled rocks onto the roof in an attempt to break in. Fortunately, the windowless cabin, built to withstand harsh winters, kept the Sasquatch from entering. As dawn approached, the creatures abandoned their assault. When the miners finally ventured outside, they found numerous Bigfoot prints all around the cabin, and a strip of wood gouged out from between two logs. (There is some evidence that this "attack" may have been a hoax, while others contend that it is true.) 1924 - Vancouver, British Columbia. Albert Ostman is one of the few people who claims to have been abducted by Sasquatch. It happened while he was searching for a lost gold mine that he heard existed somewhere near Toba Inlet. He had heard from an Indian guide about the legendary Sasquatch, but didn't take them seriously until he discovered that something was stealing food from his campsite at night. Then one night he was awakened by something picking him up in his sleeping bag. "I was half asleep and at first did not remember where I was," Ostman said. "My first thought was - it must be a snow slide... Then it felt like I was tossed on horseback, but I could feel whoever it was, was walking." After hours of being carried, Ostman was finally dropped to the ground where he heard a strange-sounding chatter. It wasn't until dawn, however, that Ostman made his way out of his sleeping bag. He was astonished to find himself in the company of four Sasquatch - what appeared to Ostman to be a family: adult male and female, and a young male and female. Ostman was able to provide detailed descriptions of the creatures, all of which, except for the young female, were enormous. Ostman claimed to have spent six days in the company of the Sasquatch family. When he decided he had had enough, he fired his rifle into the air and made a run for it. 1928 - Vancouver, British Columbia. A trapper named Muchalat Harry also claimed to have been kidnapped by Bigfoot. The powerfully built Indian of the Nootka tribe was plying his trade in one of his favorite hunting grounds around the Conuma River that autumn. Like Ostman, Harry was picked up in his sleep, bedding and all, and carried for about three miles by a large Sasquatch. When set down, he found himself surrounded by about 20 of the creatures, both male and female, which he at first thought planned to eat him, as their campsite was littered with large bones. The creatures poked and prodded Harry, seemingly puzzled by his clothing. After a while, they appeared to grow tired of the human curiosity, and many left the camp. Seeing his chance, Harry made a run for it - running right past his own camp to his canoe on the river. He never went trapping in the woods again. 1957 - Zhejiang, China. On a May afternoon in the sparsely populated Chinese province, Xu Fudi heard her young daughter screaming. The girl had been tending the family's cattle, and Xu Fudi hurried to see what had happened. She was startled to see her daughter struggling futilely in the powerful arms of a young Yeti - the Asian version of Bigfoot. Xu Fudi rushed at the Yeti with a stick of wood and began to beat the creature. It tried to escape through a paddy field, but was slowed by the thick mud. More women from the village joined Xu Fudi in beating the creature to death. So terrified were they of this strange creature that they cut its carcass into pieces. Eerie cries of mourning were heard from the hills the next day. 1977 - Wantage, New Jersey. New Jersey isn't the first place one thinks of when Sasquatch is mentioned, but this reported attack comes from a rural area of that state in the month of May. The Sites family was disturbed by something that had broken into their barn and crushed several of their rabbits to death. The predator returned that night, and the Sites saw it clearly standing in their well-lit yard. "It was big and hairy," Mrs. Sites reported. "It was brown. It looked like a human with a beard and moustache. It had no neck; it looked like its head was just sitting on its shoulders. It had big red glowing eyes." When the Sites' dog attacked it, the creature effortlessly swatted it away - sending it flying about 20 feet. On subsequent nights, the creature was seen several more times by the Sites. THE FOUKE MONSTER The Fouke Monster is a legendary cryptid reported near the town of Fouke in Miller County, Arkansas during the early 1970s, where it was accused of attacking a local family. Initial sightings of the creature were concentrated in the Jonesville/Boggy Creek area, where it was blamed for the death of local livestock. Later, sightings were made several hundred miles to the north and the east of Fouke. The creature was named by journalist Jim Powell, who reported on it for the Texarkana Gazette and the Texarkana Daily News. The Fouke Monster has been the subject of several films and a number of books. It has been speculated that it might be a bear, a mountain lion, or a previously unknown form of hominid. During what was a spate of sightings between 1971 and 1974, the creature was described as being a large hominid-like creature covered in long dark hair, and it was estimated to be about 7 feet tall with a weight of 250-300 pounds. Witnesses said that its chest was about 3 feet wide. Later reports, published during the early 1980s, claimed that it was far larger, with one report describing it as 10 feet tall, with an estimated weight of 800 pounds. Some accounts describe the Fouke Monster as running in a "hunched/slouched" posture and swinging its arms in a similar fashion to a monkey. Reports also describe it as having a terrible odor and as having bright red eyes, about the size of silver dollars. A variety of tracks and claw marks have been discovered which are claimed to belong to the creature. One set of foot prints reportedly measured 17 inches in length and 7 inches wide, another appeared to show that the creature only had three toes. Chronology Pre 1971 Although most cases date from the early 1970s onwards, Fouke residents claim that an ape like creature had roamed the area since 1964 but that sightings had not been reported to news services. Local legend also holds that the creature can be further traced back to sightings in 1946. Most early sightings were in the region of Jonesville. Owing to this, the creature was known as the "Jonesville Monster" during this period. Despite claims of earlier sightings, the Fouke Monster first made headlines in 1971, when it was reported to have attacked the home of Bobby and Elizabeth Ford late on the night of May 1. According to Elizabeth Ford, the creature, which she initially took to be a bear, reached through a screen window while she was sleeping on a couch. It was chased away by her husband and his brother Don, who were returning from a hunting trip. The creature returned shortly after midnight (Sunday, May 2), when it was reported to have grabbed Bobby Ford across the shoulders as he stood on the porch, throwing him to the ground. Bobby managed to crawl free and was later treated in St. Michael Hospital, Texarkana, for scratches across his back. He was suffering from mild shock when he arrived. During the encounters, the Fords fired several shots at the creature and believed that they had hit it, though no traces of blood were found. An extensive search of the area failed to locate the creature but found three-toed footprints close to the house, scratch marks on the porch, and some damage to a window and the house's siding. According to the Fords, they had heard something moving around outside late at night several nights before their encounter but, having lived in the house for less than a week, had never encountered the creature before. The creature was spotted again on May 23, when three people, D. Woods, Wilma Woods, and Mrs. R Sedgass, reported seeing an ape-like creature crossing Highway 71. More sightings were made over the following months by local residents and tourists, who found additional footprints. The best known footprints were found in a soybean field belonging to local gas station owner Willie E. Smith. They were scrutinized by game warden Carl Galyon, who was unable to confirm their authenticity. Like the Ford prints, they appeared to indicate that the creature had only three toes. The creature began to attract substantial interest during the early 1970s, including interest from hunters and tourists. Soon after news spread about the Ford sighting, the Little Rock radio station KAAY posted a $1,090 bounty on the creature. Several attempts were made to track the creature with dogs, but they were unable to follow its scent. After an initial surge of attention, public interest in the creature decreased until 1973. It was boosted significantly when Charles B. Pierce released a documentary-style horror feature on the creature. By late 1974 interest had waned again and sightings all but stopped, only to begin again in March 1978, when tracks were reportedly found by two brothers prospecting in Russellville, and there were sightings in Center Ridge; both approximately 4-1/4 hours drive northeast of Fouke. There was also a reported sighting in Crossett; 4 hours drive east of Fouke, on June 26 that year. During this period the creature was blamed for missing livestock and attacks on several dogs. Since the initial clusters of sightings during the 1970s, there have been sporadic reports of the creature. In 1991 the creature was reportedly seen jumping from a bridge. There were 40 reported sightings in 1997 and, in 1998, the creature was reportedly sighted in a dry creek bed 5 miles south of Fouke. One month after the Ford sighting, Southern State College archaeologist Dr. Frank Schambagh determined that "There is a 99 percent chance the tracks are a hoax." According to Schambagh, the tracks could not be from a species of ape, or ape man, as claimed by witnesses, because they were from a three-toed creature, whereas all primates and hominids (both modern and historical) have five toes. In addition to the number of toes, Dr. Schambagh cited several other anomalies as part of his conclusion. He noted that the region had no history of primate activity, ruling out the possibility of the creature being the remnants of an indigenous species. He also argued that while all primates are diurnal, the Fouke Monster appeared to be nocturnal. In 1971, three people were fined $59 each "for filing a fraudulent monster report." When hunters began to take interest in the Fouke Monster, Miller County Sheriff Leslie Greer was forced to put a temporary "no guns" policy in place in order to preserve public safety. The Legend of Boggy Creek was originally to be titled "Tracking the Fouke Monster." During the production of The Legend of Boggy Creek, Fouke Garage owner Willie E. Smith, on whose land three toed footprints were found soon after the Ford sighting, starred as himself. Many characters were named after the people who played them. The people in Fouke, Arkansas resent some questions about this monster, since "skeptics" have accused them of being idiots, lying, worse. Area Law Enforcement does NOT want anyone hunting this monster, due to the possibility that pranksters are possibly "hoaxing" this monster and that someone will shoot and kill them by mistake, as well as other concerns. BIGFOOT IN TEXAS? By Craig Woolheater, 2002 Some people think that the Bigfoot phenomenon is strictly a Pacific Northwest occurrence. They would be sadly mistaken. There have been reported sightings in every state in the Union with the exception of Hawaii. There is a common misconception of Texas terrain as being nothing but prairies and deserts, with a lone tumbleweed rolling by. I'm sure that most people who have never been to Texas, form their opinion from watching the television show "Dallas" in the eighties. In East Texas, which is where the majority of the reported sightings of Bigfoot occur in the state, there are nearly 12 million acres of forestland. That is equivalent to 12 million football fields. There are four national forests and five state forests in Texas, all located in East Texas, the primary and most important forest area in Texas. The East Texas Pine Belt, or "Piney Woods" as it is commonly called, extends over forty-three counties and accounts for almost all the state's commercial timber. There has been a long history of sightings in the state of Texas. One of the first in the history books is the strange case of the "The Wild Woman Of The Navidad". This is a story that was recounted in the Legends of Texas published by the Texas Folklore Society in 1924. The creature was described as covered in short brown hair and was very fast. She eluded capture because the horses were so afraid of the strange creature that they could not be urged within reach of the lasso. These events occurred in 1837 in the Texas settlements of the lower Navidad. Mysterious barefoot tracks were seen frequently in the area. There are Native American legends dating back hundreds of years that describe tribes of giants that were hair-covered and lived in the woods. A report that I came across years ago was written up in a Bigfoot newsletter in 1970. It was written by a man from California who shared a barracks in the Army with 2 soldiers from Longview. He wrote "In or about the year 1965, there was a rash of reports of giant hairy creatures roaming the thickets and back country between Jefferson and Longview, Texas, but nearest to Longview. A man and his little daughter reported it as being large, black and not a bear. Several head of cattle and a couple of people were supposedly killed by it. Private Jacobs was a member of a posse that hunted the creature when he was a teenager. He told me that he saw the body of one of the murdered persons and that the victim had been torn apart. At the time, he threw his gun back in the car and went home. I can't blame him, he was only 14 or 15 at the time." We started investigating this case by digging through the newspaper and library archives in Marshall and Jefferson, finally finding an article dated September 1st, 1965 that mentions the Marion County Monster Legend. The article was titled "Boy Says For Real Sighting of Monster Renews Marion Legend." The story is about a 13 year old boy who was chased by an ape-like creature while walking home from a friend's house one afternoon. Two men picked the boy up in a car and drove him home. The boy described it as "about 7 feet tall with thick long black hair all over its body except for the face—the face, stomach and palms of its hands." Marion County Deputy Sheriff George Whatley investigated the scene, but found no evidence of a large animal having been there. A UPI clipping, dated September 20, 1965, from Jefferson, Texas, entitled "Town Fed Up With Monster Hunters" was also found concerning the incident. Sheriff Luke Walker is quoted as being upset by the Bigfoot hunters from three states who had overrun his small northeast-Texas town since a thirteen-year-old boy came running out of the woods three weeks earlier telling of seeing a big, black hairy thing. Charles DeVore of Karnack, one of our members, started doing some follow up investigation, using the names found in the articles. Sheriff Luke Walker and Deputy George Whatley had both passed away. He went to current Jefferson law officers who were very helpful and directed him to one who worked for Sheriff Luke Walker back in the early 70's. This officer related that he had spent many hours with Sheriff Walker back then talking over events of his career and there was no possibility that any Bigfoot killed anyone around Marion County during the 60's or any other time in Jefferson history. This officer even called several people that he knew that were around back then and none of them knew of any Bigfoot killing. Next on the list was Dwain Dennis who owned the Jefferson Jimplecute at that time. Charles found him to be in good health and with a very sharp memory. He corroborated the Marshall News Messenger story about the 13-year-old kid who claimed to have been chased by a Bigfoot. He had interviewed the kid himself that day. He related that something had scared him very bad but to this day is not sure what it was. He feels that the tracks that he found were all faked evidence. He and his wife spent all their spare time for about 6 weeks researching into that story and a few related stories that sprang up from the original. His newspaper articles generated calls from throughout the country and from several foreign countries. Many other stories sprang up in other media and tabloids and got embellished from there. While many people did come to Jefferson to learn more or chase down embellished rumors, or hunt down the imaginary killer Bigfoot, there was no posse organized to hunt it down. All the wild stories were generated by other outlets and totally false. He stated that there were no killings in or around Marion County or Jefferson that could even remotely be blamed on a Bigfoot. Probably the most famous of these reports is the case of the Lake Worth Monster. This case hit the public consciousness in the summer of 1969. While America was caught up in the moon landing, sightings of this hairy creature were being reported in the Greer Island area of Lake Worth in Fort Worth, Texas. The animal was described as being approximately seven feet tall, weighing in the neighborhood of three hundred pounds, covered with white hair and walked upright like a man. It was seen repeatedly throughout the year and during July the area was packed with locals who had witnessed the beast. At one point it was said to have become annoyed at the onlookers and hurled an automobile wheel and tire at them from the distance of five hundred feet. Needless to say, they leapt into their cars and departed the area post haste. The last sighting of the creature that year was by Charles Buchanan on November 7. He was sleeping in the open bed of his pickup truck and was awakened when his sleeping bag was suddenly grabbed by a creature and was pulled from the truck. He stuffed a bag of chicken in its mouth and it shuffled off into the water and swam towards Greer Island. This series of events was the impetus of my interest in this field. I was a child of nine years old that summer and my grandparents lived in Fort Worth. They had a boat on Eagle Mountain Lake, which was separated by a dam from Lake Worth. I can still remember seeing the headlines in the Fort Worth Star Telegram about the "Goatman". We spent many a night anchored out in the middle of the lake and my imagination ran rampant with all manner of scenarios of the monster climbing aboard our boat. That same summer something was going on in the Sulphur River bottoms near Commerce, Texas. Jerry Matlock and Kenneth Wilson saw a creature that they described as about eight feet tall, man-like in posture and covered with brown hair. They went back the next day and found footprints left by the beast. "I put my arm down in one of the prints" Matlock recalled, "and that print was as long as from my elbow to the tips of my outstretched fingers". Our group has recently contacted Mr. Wilson and we are planning to go with him to the site. There were two separate sightings in the same area in September of 1973 near the town of Peerless. Again they were in the Sulphur River bottoms. Are we beginning to detect a pattern here? Later that fall, Kenneth Thurman of Paris, Texas had an encounter with what he described as "a hairy bipedal creature over eight feet tall". This occurred thirty miles Northeast of Commerce, Texas. Once again it was not far from the Sulphur River. Mr. Thurman was making butane gas deliveries in a rural community. He stopped the truck and he and a co-worker stepped outside to relieve themselves. They noticed a foul odor in the air. They spotted a long shadow moving toward the back of the truck. Mr. Thurman found himself facing the rapidly approaching creature that was as tall as the butane tanks on the truck. "That thing wasn't four feet from me when I dove into that truck," Thurman said. "Listen, I'm a hunter and I'm not scared of the woods or anything in it, but that thing reached out for me and I was afraid for my life. I don't know what I'd have done if it caught me. It must have come out of the woods from behind the truck. We dove in, threw that truck in gear and took off. Bet it wasn't two seconds from the time I saw that thing until we took off." Thurman got a better look at the creature in the side mirror as he sped off. After making the deliveries, the men had to take the only route back to the highway, the same road they had come in on. Thurman sped through the area and entered the highway. At this point they saw it for a second time. It was running in the same direction as the truck, seventy five yards out in a field. The road curved ahead, but before the creature crossed their path, it ran into the woods. "I was doing about sixty miles per hour and it was outrunning the truck," Thurman said. He reported the incident to his company but he was laughed at. We received a report from a woman that was traveling to Lake O' The Pines with her husband and daughter. She saw a large, ape-like creature squatting down next to the fence line as they drove past it. The only movement she detected was its head turning to face them as they drove by. Her daughter turned around in the back seat and watched it stand up and run off after they passed it. This took place on a Friday evening in the summer of 1974. From November of 1974 through August of 1976 there were numerous sightings in the San Antonio area culminating in two sightings near Kelly Air Force Base. A witness saw a seven-foot-tall brown Bigfoot run out of his backyard. A few days later his next-door neighbor saw a three-foot-tall brown creature sitting on her back step. It then ran off on two legs. The summer of 1976 brought a sighting in Hallsville, Texas where a witness saw a twelve-foot-tall silver-haired Bigfoot shucking corn. A smaller red-tinged female creature accompanied it. This location is in close proximity to Caddo Lake, where we have received several sighting reports. We are actively conducting research in this area and investigating reports of Bigfoot sightings and activity. July 6 of 1977 three witnesses saw the "Hawley Him", and it threw rocks at them. This occurred at the Abilene Boys Ranch near Hawley, Texas. The next month, three women saw a Bigfoot on the road near Trinidad, Texas, which borders Cedar Creek Lake. Two weeks later a man saw a seven-foot-tall Bigfoot on a road near Corsicana, which is in the same general area. In January of 1978, a woman in Sand Hill reported to the Harrison County Sheriff's Department that a Bigfoot growled at her, and was fighting with some dogs in the woods in the community about eight miles west of Marshall on U.S. Hwy. 80. In June of 1978, in the town of Vidor, Texas, a couple had so many sightings of a Bigfoot around their house that they were forced to move out. August of 1978 brought a flap of activity to the Commerce, Texas area in the vicinity of guess where? The Sulphur River bottoms. On the nineteenth, in broad daylight, a witness saw a Bigfoot cross the road ahead of them and it went across a pasture towards the river. Also that month a witness saw a seven-and-a-half- foot-tall Bigfoot cross a forty-two foot wide road in three steps while he was driving at night. Two days later on the same road, three boys saw a Bigfoot around midnight. There have been several reports out of the Woodlawn area. A family out after visiting family on Easter Sunday decided to stop to commune with nature while the husband did a little target practice. After only a few shots, a large animal lunged at them and chased them back to their car. On New Year's Eve 1996, a mother and her son saw a large animal crouched down on the side of the road. In the fall of 1987, a deer hunter on the southeast side of Benton Lake off Big Cypress Bayou above Caddo Lake observed a large, hair covered animal stand up from a crouched position in 1 foot of water. The creature did not detect the camouflaged hunter as it turned its head from side to side, walked out of the water and disappeared into the woods. In January 1992, the Hamilton Herald News printed a lengthy letter by a man that claimed that while driving home from Stephenville late at night with his family, they saw a huge, hairy creature on the riverbank. Here, in part, is what the letter said: "It stood, I would say, approximately seven to eight feet tall, weighing probly (sic) between four to five hundred pounds. Its body was covered with hair. It had long arms that extended down to its knees. Its face looked almost human…It looked at us and growled a low moan, showing four fang-like teeth, two on top, two on the bottom, and the rest flat like humans. Then it hurled over the guard rail and ran off into the night toward the brush along the river banks on the west side… For the record, we were not drunk or doing drugs or anything like that, and we have respectable jobs in this and surrounding towns. We are not crackpots. I thought maybe there are others living here who have had a similar experience and would come forward now that the door is open to talk about it." It did have that effect on Hilda Lunsford. She wrote the newspaper telling about her experience early one morning in 1985 while driving between Olin and Cranfills Gap. "A huge thing came out on the side of the road and got right in front of the car and stood up on its hind legs and I stopped and locked my doors on the car and waited to see what it was going to do," Ms. Lunsford wrote. "It looked right at me and it had a face of an ape and it was [a] big black something…Yes I was laughed at for telling about it, but every word is true." On October 5, 1995, Danny Sweeten had an encounter near Cleveland, Texas, forty miles North of Houston. While out surveying some land he was considering buying, he came upon a creature lying on the ground. The animal rose on two legs and ran toward Sweeten. It hit him in the chest and caught him under the chin with its forearm, flipping him over and knocking two teeth loose. He was dazed, but managed to shoot some video as the creature retreated into the woods. He quickly left the area. Sweeten was harassed by an investigator from a non-existent government agency the man named as the Federal Wildlife Protection Agency. He was told to turn over the tape. Sweeten eventually sold the tape to the television show "Strange Universe". The footage was shown on November 3, 1997, along with comments by several well-known Bigfoot researchers. Loren Coleman was interviewed along with Danny Sweeten on Art Bell's radio program "Coast to Coast". This is where I first learned of the incident. Luke Gross investigated this case before forming the Texas Bigfoot Research Center. His opinion is that this footage is genuine and shows an animal, not a man in a suit. In November of 1998, two squirrel hunters encountered an eight-foot-tall hair-covered creature near Longview. One of them shot at it 3 times. The creature grunted as if hit, then roared loudly. They ran through the woods, towards one hunters' home. It followed them, running upright through the woods, making its own trail to their left, keeping pace with them. They felt that it could have caught them at any time, however it stopped once they reached the clearing near the house. It remained in the wood line, circling the house, roaring and shaking the trees. A pig came up missing that night. The homeowner went out to investigate. He shined his spotlight and saw the creature again, taking another shot at it. In December of 2001, a deer hunter saw a "7-foot upright stooped ape like figure dark brown in color." This was near Marshall. He observed it for 2 minutes through his riflescope from a distance of at least 150 yards. He observed it picking up apples that the hunter had put out to attract deer. We received 2 reports of sightings in Harleton in 2003. One was an 8-foot Bigfoot crossing Highway 154 in front of a car at the Little Cypress Bayou. The other was repeated activity and sightings at a dog kennel near Harleton. There is a common denominator to most of the reports listed here: water. All occurred near a lake, river or creek. Many of the encounters took place near the Sulphur River or one of its tributaries. The Sulphur River runs through the city of Commerce and winds its way throughout Northeast Texas. It exits the state of Texas South of Texarkana, near the area where the reports of the Fouke Monster originated. These reports were the basis for the 1970's movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek". So as is plain to see, when someone says that there are no Bigfoot creatures in Texas, I would clearly have to disagree. Bord, Janet and Bord, Colin, The Bigfoot Casebook, Stackpole Books, PA, 1982 Clarke, Sallie Ann, The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island, Ft. Worth, Texas, author, TX, 1969 Clarke, Sallie Ann, personal correspondence and in-person interview, 1999 & 2004 Coleman, Loren, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Fate Magazine, OH, February, 1998 Green, John, State and Province Sightings Data Jackson, Kathy, "Sasquatch Watch", Dallas Morning News, TX, February 27, 1992 Jones, Mark and Smith, Teresa Ann, Has Bigfoot moved to Texas?, Fate Magazine, OH, July, 1979 Texas Folklore Society, Legends of Texas, Publications of the Texas Folklore Society ©Copyright 1999-2004 Texas Bigfoot Research Center Photos, film footage, and video of Sasquatch are extremely rare. At worst, they are murky, fuzzy, and inconclusive. At best, when they are clear, they are highly controversial and suspected of being hoaxes. The Patterson/Gimlin film is by far the most famous and most scrutinized footage ever taken of Bigfoot. Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin shot the footage in 1967 with a 16mm camera while on an expedition to find the elusive creature in the Bluff Creek area of the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California. Large footprints had been found in this region in previous years. Debate among various "experts" over the authenticity of the film has been ongoing for 30 years. In recent years, some people have come forward to claim that they participated in the hoaxing of the film, but even their testimony has been called into question. In September, 1998, a Florida gift shop owner named Shealy took 27 photographs of a 7-foot-tall creature in the Everglades. "I had been sitting up in the tree for about two hours every night for the past eight months," Shealy said. "I dozed off for a little while, and when I woke up, I saw it coming straight at me. At first I thought it was a man, but then I realized it was the skunk ape." Shealy followed the tracks of the animal and made what he said could be the biggest skunk ape discovery: small footprints he says appear to be from a baby skunk ape. Shealy now estimates there are between nine and 12 skunk apes roaming the Everglades, and said most people who have spotted the creature usually see them in groups of three or four. THE BIGFOOT-GIGANTO THEORY "Bigfoot research" is a term loosely used to describe any efforts to probe or explain the reports and physical evidence associated with bigfoots. Over the years several different theories have been offered. Some of the more common theories are: 1) fear manifestations, 2) misidentifications of bears, 3) paranormal / UFO-related, 4) the Collective-Memory hypothesis, 5) the Bigfoot-Giganto hypothesis. Bigfoot advocates as well as informed skeptics generally do not believe a hoax is responsible for this phenomenon, primarily because the observations extend so far back in time. The patterns among eyewitnesses are not demographic, they are geographic -- they are not reported by certain types of people, rather by people who venture into certain areas. This simple pattern suggests an external cause. No matter what that cause is, it is important to understand, and not just because of the potential behind the most likely explanation. Bigfoot researchers generally lean toward one explanation: The Bigfoot-Giganto Theory (hypothesis). The subject of Gigantopithecus has attracted an increasing amount of interest among anthropologists and primatologitsts over the past few decades. The Bigfoot-Giganto hypothesis suggests that bigfoots are surving relatives of the genus Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus (the Latin word for "Giant Ape") was a giant cousin of the orangutan. It was presumed to be extinct. Bigfoot-Giganto theorists deal with a few issues that affect the potential linkage of modern bigfoot reports to ancient Gigantos. Probably the most crucial question concerns whether Gigantos walked upright. There is more than one school of thought among anthrolopogists regarding this issue. Some physical anthropologists interpret the scant fossilized remains to indicate an upright walking ape, measuring an impressive nine feet tall, and weighing more than 1000 pounds -- the general description of bigfoot type creatures reported for centuries in North America and Asia. Even if Giganto posture is uncertain, no one can reasonably dispute the conclusion that Gigantos were the largest primates that ever walked the earth. Bigfoot-Giganto theorists believe that Gigantos' large brain size (perhaps the largest in the terrestrial animal kingdom) and upright-walking posture facilitated their dispersion across Asia and North America. Thousands of years of adaptation to temperate and mountainous climates, it is believed, would have given these large upright walking apes the ability to tolerate cold temperatures, climb through deep snow, and cross high mountain ranges with relative ease. There is some physical evidence to indicate that Gigantos in Asia were hunted and eaten by Homo erectus (supposed ancestors to humans that lived contemporaneously with Gigantos). The mainstream explanation for the apparent disappearance of Gigantos lays blame primarily on this predation by Homo erectus. Bigfoot-Giganto theorists do not accept the idea that a highly mobile genus like Gigantopithecus could have been completely wiped out by Homo erectus. Instead they look to consistencies in present day bigfoot reports and see the necessary behavioral adaptations which would have allowed the Giganto line to avoid extinction at the hands of man. Bigfoots are typically sighted in or near remote wooded, mountainous, or swampy areas. They are rarely seen far from the cover of trees. If they encounter humans during daylight hours they tend to retreat and vanish into the forest. They seem to be most active when humans are least active -- late at night. Unlike mountain gorillas, bigfoots are never seen in large groups, and they don't stay in the same place for very long. The ellusiveness of these modern mystery animals may stem from their bad experiences in the past with humans in Asia. Over thousands of years, while humans lived primarily in stationary settlements, Gigantos remained semi-nomadic in the thick forests. Small family groups of Gigantos were widely dispersed in these forests. This dispersal provided more reliable foraging. It also made quick, quiet evasion much easier. As small Giganto families of 2-4 wandered nomadically through vast forests, their territories were usally remote, but sometimes bordered human settled areas. After hundreds of generations they developed some amazing evasion/defense mechanisms and behaviors, including night vision abilities. They also developed powerful vocal abilities, which allowed them to locate and interact with others of their kind. They made powerfully loud screams and howls that could be heard for miles in the dead of night. Late hours allowed them to avoid various undesirables: human dangers, overheating, water loss, and the worst insects. The night time vocalizations, and occassional tracks, were usually the only things noted by humans in the area. The most commonly heard argument against the Bigfoot-Giganto hypothesis is that "we should have found their bones in North America by now..." This argument is, in fact, weak when one considers that very few remains of Gigantos have ever been found in Asia, where they were much more abundant. Thousands of years of Gigantos' accepted existence in Asia would have produced literally millions of Giganto skeletons, yet the volume of collected remains from Asia is so small that the entire collection could fit easily in one suitcase. One flavor of the Bigfoot-Giganto hypothesis suggests that bigfoots might not be direct descendants of the genus Gigantopithecus, but rather some other offshoot of the giant Asian "wood ape" line, perhaps a line for which we have zero fossils remains at the present time. The Giganto line is an important reference point for this alternate explanation for two reasons: 1) the Giganto line illustrates the potential for primates to grow to such 'gigantic' proportions (twice as large as the largest 'known' living primate), and 2) the fact that so few remains of Gigantos have been unearthed and identified makes it more conceivable that there could have been other lines of giant Asian wood apes for which we have no fossil remains at the present time. People often assume that bones of a wild animal are present and available long after the animal's death. Many people assume that wild animal bones always become fossilized. The fact is bones become fossilized or otherwise preserved only in the rarest of circumstances. Without fossilization or preservation, bones of wild animals will, in time, become completely reabsorbed into the biomass. We would literally be climbing over piles of animal bones if they were not naturally recycled. An animal carcass in a dense forest will be reabsorbed relatively quickly through weathering, decay and scavenging by other animals and insects. The odds are very very poor that bones of a rare, elusive, forest dwelling species will be found in some recognizable form by a hiker cruising along a trail. No research group has ever made an attempt to look for Giganto bones in North America, so no one should be surprised that Giganto remains have never been identified in North America. Ironically, the most vocal skeptics and scientists who rhetorically ask why no bones have been located and identified on this continent are the last people who would ever make an effort to look for them. Some Bigfoot-Giganto theorists speculate that fragmentary remains of Gigantos have been unearthed in North America in the past but were simply disregarded or misidentified. The second most common argument against the Bigfoot-Giganto hypothesis asks " Why haven't hunters shot one in North America yet ? ..." The reasons are more obvious than most people might realize. The third most common argument against the Bigfoot-Giganto hypothesis asks " Why aren't there more photos of these modern Gigantos ? ..." The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an apelike cryptid said to inhabit the Himalaya region of Nepal and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology. Nepalese have various names for Yeti like "Bonmanche" which means "wild man" or "Kanchanjunga rachyyas" which means "Kanchanjunga's demon." Most mainstream scientists, explorers and writers consider current evidence of the Yeti's existence to be weak and better explained as hoax, legend or misidentification of known species. Even today, the Yeti remains one of the most famous creatures of cryptozoology. As such, the Yeti can be considered a Himalayan version of the Sasquatch. The name Yeti is derived from the Tibetan yeh-teh, a compound of the words yeh meaning "rocky" or "rocky place" and ti, te or teh which translates as "bear", the full name being "rock bear". The term Yeti is often used to describe various reported creatures: A large apelike biped (that some suggest could be a Gigantopithecus) Human-sized bipedal apes (the Almas and the Chinese wildman) and Dwarflike creatures (such as the Orang Pendek). The term is often used to refer to creatures fitting any of the aforementioned descriptions. For example, the fear liath has been dubbed as the "Scottish Yeti". The "Abominable Snowman" The appellation "Abominable Snowman" was not coined until 1921, the same year Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the Royal Geographical Society's "Everest Reconnaissance Expedition", which he chronicled in Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921. In the book, Howard-Bury includes an account of crossing the "Lhakpa-la" at 21,000 feet where he found footprints that he believed "were probably caused by a large 'loping' grey wolf, which in the soft snow formed double tracks rather like a those of a barefooted man". He adds that his Sherpa guides "at once volunteered that the tracks must be that of "The Wild Man of the Snows", to which they gave the name "metoh-kangmi". "Metoh" translates as "man-bear" and "Kang-mi" translates as "snowman".

Texas — A man in Wise County believes there could be a Bigfoot creature roaming the woods surrounding Denton Creek. Joanathan Grummer, a religious man with a YouTube channel mainly dedicated to preaching, says the series of incidents occurred when fishing the creek and playing disc golf in the area. “The creek is about 30 minutes from where I live. I was kayaking with my friend, we stopped along the creek to go fishing, we weren’t catching anything. I decided I was gonna to continue paddle up the creek to another area I normally go,” he said. He produced a 30-minute video where he shows and explains the different sounds and events he believes could be related to the creature. From loud tree branch cracks and water splashes to unidentified “howls”, Grummer suspects something odd is going on in the area. “I was preaching on the camera, sharing a testimony, as I was kayaking up and speaking to the camera, I heard a really loud crack on a tree, like someone was taking a bath and hitting a tree really hard and really loud,” he explains. “I heard a creature make a howl and it sounded like a coyote… but I realized that what i heard that sounded like a coyote, I don’t think it was a coyote. It was a single howl, spaced out, happening every 10 minutes or so,” he said, adding that he came to that conclusion after listening to other alleged Bigfoot sounds on YouTube. Grummer is not the first publicly religious person to believe in the existence of the purported bipedal. In the summer of 1973, First Baptish Church minister Randy Creath said he had spotted the cryptid in the Westwood Hills subdivision of Murphysboro, Illinois. The white haired creature, he said, was covered in some sort of slimy substance that emitted a foul odor. He claimed the animal was about 8 feet tall and “as stocky as any football player”. In 2014, an Alabama minister captured the sounds of what she believed to be the cries of a “baby Bigfoot”. She also linked additional unusual activity, such as stolen food and unidentified footprints, to the hairy cryptid. But while Grummer is not claiming that the sounds are necessarily signs of Bigfoot, he still believes further research in the area is necessary in order to find out more. “I honestly don’t know if it –the branch breaking sound– was Bigfoot, Sasquatch or just a person making the sound but when I heard it it was really loud and near by. It came from something large and there are no bears in this area and if there are its extremely rare. I do plan on going back to this site with my video camera to see if I can find evidence of Bigfoot,” he said. He also says he is willing to share the full footage with a serious researcher if requested. Denton Creek’s dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers and is a popular recreational spot for the county residents. Latest posts by Cryptozoology News (see all) - The ‘Russian Dashcam Bigfoot’ - May 23, 2017 - Two People See and Photograph Unusual Blue UFO - May 21, 2017 - State Trooper Claims Bigfoot is Real: ‘I Speak with Them’ - May 16, 2017

World War III (WWIII, or WW3) was an international conflict taking place in the Americas, Europe, the Middle-East and East Asia (isolated skirmishes also took place in North and East Africa), lasting from 2028 into late 2034, early 2035 – or roughly 7 years (although related conflicts began as early as 2001). It involved over half of the world’s 194 countries – including all of the great powers – eventually consolidating into loyalty to one of two major international military alliances: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Russian-Turkish-spearheaded Collective Security Organization (also known as COSECTOR) and the neutral United Nations General Assembly and Security Council permanent member-states (Egypt, the U.S. and Scotland) that become involved only when attacked by COSECTOR forces. Although the two main factions remain steadfastly against one another, some infighting does unfold between the various sub-factions, the most notable of which being the Second American Civil War (2022–2024), which results from an unresolved stalemate between the United States and Chinese-backed secessionists in New York and in Texas. This instability on the American continent not seen since the Revolution and the Great Sioux War of the late 18th and 19th centuries respectively is one of the main causes of the conditions leading into World War III, and also directly affects the infighting. COSECTOR doesn’t see much of this, remaining mostly united throughout the War, although Russia, Hungary and Bulgaria do at one point distance themselves from an ultranationalist Turkey seen in the throes of an Iron Guard 2.0 scenario on steroids, the original Iron Guard originating in Romania during WWII as a Christian Fascist movement. With the advent of unmanned advanced combat technology (ranging from high-power intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBM, nuclear weapons, biowarfare and Mechanized Autonomous Weapon Systems or MAWS), WWIII was significantly less involving than its predecessor. Although, with only 72 million people directly involved (a sharp drop from its predecessor conflict) hailing from from over 50 different countries (more than its predecessor conflict), it was significantly more widespread and encompassed significantly more of the geographical world area than WWII. Over 5 million from the United States and North America and 16 million from China contributed to the war effort, constituting a third of the total ground forces in the war. NATO (excluding North America) contributes 9.4 million from 27 member-states, representing the largest bloc of nations in the war, and COSECTOR boasts 10.7 million, with Turkey alone constituting two-thirds of the total active COSECTOR manpower, from 29 nations that voluntarily ‘secede’ from the UN. Another 10 million represent Jihadists, terror groups and other unaffiliated paramilitary, and roughly 22 million civilians directly participate as well. All-in-all, an estimate 86,112,780 total people perish in the wake of the Third Global Confrontation – 55,163,200 of them being Chinese soldiers and paramilitary during the Siege of Shanghai and the Third Sino Civil War. Of that; nearly 1,000,000 perish in the Turkish “Directed Energy Munitions Orbiter,” “DEMO” Strikes on Malta and Romania – 90% of them being civilians, an estimate 986,500 (again, mostly civilians) also perish in the 2029 English missile attack on France, the 2029 nuclear bombings of Kaliningrad, Chicago, and Colorado Springs combined – still only a total sum slightly greater than the 2030 DEMO Strikes that occurred over the time span of under 12 minutes. Three-point-five million (also mostly civilians) perish during the Turkish–Hungarian Invasion of Europe, roughly 400,000 die during the Second Battle of Berlin (also known as the Berlin Blitz), and a grand total of roughly 1,762,700 perish from the Zombic outbreak. In the end, more people die as a result of this war than the number of people that participate in it. When factoring in the civilian death-toll from the regimes of U.S. President Cruz and England’s Lord Pharaoh, as well as the several-million Japanese soldiers that perish during the Siege of Shanghai and Tibet – not to mention the millions that perish under the reign of Fang – the cost of WW3 reaches 93 million dead on the high end, and with the official historical estimate – 86.1 million: World War 3 surpasses WW2’s 74 million figure to become the costliest war fought in human history by a wide margin. Whereas WWII is widely regarded as the responsibility of Adolf Hitler and German expansionist militarism and internationalist eugenics, the cause of WWIII is primarily attributed to the United States – and later “North American” – Governments as a whole (also due to Pharaoh’s destabilization of Britain and Ireland), although during the conflict the countries of Turkey, Hungary and Russia – and later, England – are labeled and regarded as the “New Axis” ad-nausea by the US/North American/NATO-run global power structure, with the U.S. under the illegitimate and illiberal North American corporate rule of President Cruz, Territorial New Yorkers, and the EU being infiltrated by Cruz-ally Lord Pharaoh. Pharaoh and Cruz both are found to be cooperating with the Post-Putin Kremlin, and the Sino–American Fang, Trump, Clinton and Gates dynasties group to divide-up and conquer Europe. These elites were specifically employed by the Bush-Clinton Syndicate, the Kravychko–Serif Syndicate, and headed by the English government and mafia, to launch World War 3 (predicated by the false narrative and scapegoat of a Turkish/Russian Axis being the new threat to humanity) all in a massive conspiracy to distract the American and World public from one crucial truth. The fact that the United States – the sole superpower and most powerful nation in history – was hijacked by the internationalist-backed superstate of North America (which overcomes the U.S. in the 2020’s) in a blatant coup to silence a revolution, suppress a movement, and empower neoconservative theocrats bent on fulfilling the Book of Revelations and plunging humanity into ordered chaos and engineered apocalypse. - See: War on Terror, 9/11, PATRIOT Act, PRISM, Iraq War, Russo-Georgian War, Libyan Civil War, Syrian Civil War, Crimean Crisis, European Migrant Crisis, Brexit, & Independence Front (11 September 2001 – Present Day) May 3 – U.S. President Bill Clinton, David Rockefeller, Governor George W. Bush, al-Qaeda operative Khalid bin Mahfouz, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak meet in secret. FBI Agent George Davis spies on their conversation, evades the FBI for 48 hours, before being subdued and disappearing without a trace. Subjects of discussion included the planned September 11 and a "newly established" UN/NATO military base on the far side of the moon. Should it be leaked to the public it would cause the downfall of their coup and their empire. June 11 - The Kosovo War that began in March of 1998 concludes with the Kumanovo Treaty being signed. Yugoslav forces pull out of Kosovo, which had asserted its independence in 1997. The NATO Intervention – Operation Allied Force – is debated and seen as controversial by several international organizations, such as the UN and Amnesty International. It is the first widespread warfare seen in Europe since the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. September 11 – A series of multiple coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. area occurred when 19 terrorists from the Islamic militant group Al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally crashed two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. Hijackers also crashed American Airlines Flight 52 into the Empire State Building which was managed to be narrowly saved from the same fate as the North and South World Trade Centers, and American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The death-toll climbed to an estimate 3,000 civilian casualties by the end of the day. On September 12th, George W. Bush, President of the United States, declares a Global War on Terror in cooperation with NATO, the UN, European Union, and Israel, effectively setting forth the first steps toward a Third Global Confrontation. October 7 – The US invades Afghanistan with assistance from NATO, and Israeli forces. Bush signs the PATRIOT act, the former of which granted broader security and surveillance permissions to the Executive branch of Government, formed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). March 20 – The US invades Iraq based on Bush's claims that Iraq possesses WMD's. US government's true motives are to control the oil industry, the same goes for the similarly based invasion nearly a month later. May 16 – Fall of the Ba'ath Party government in Iraq. Unknown Date – The US government's NSA establishes, in secret, a mass, nationwide surveillance program known as PRISM, not to be exposed until 2013 by Edward Snowden. The US government labels him a traitor, and attached to him the accusation of 'aiding the enemy', indicating that by this point the US government considered its people 'the enemy'. February 2 – In his State of the Union address, Bush attempts to privatize certain assets of the Social Security program, but fails when public approval dwindles, arriving dead in the water for the remainder of his term. However, in the Senate, he narrowly succeeds in its privatization by 2 votes. August 11 – Demand increase in oil results in an all-time high of $60 a barrel. This is due to lack of control over the central banks and the Federal Reserve in their management interest rates, thus allowing oil prices to get out of control, and the depreciation of the US dollar due to inflation, which will continue to occur as long as the US dollar is a fiat currency backed by nothing. April 15 – Due to the precedent set by privatization of Social Security the Republican-controlled congress, facing fears of a Democratic victory in November, pass greater deregulations toward the housing and financial sectors. November 5 - Saddam Hussein is executed. May 9 – Amidst fears of a looming financial crisis and facing an angry American public, President Bush unlawfully grants himself new powers by stripping states and their senators of power and signing into law a Presidential Directive, known as National Security and Homeland Security Directive 51, wherein all power of the Judiciary, Legislature, as well as the House and Senate, resided with the President, transforming the United States into a fiat dictatorship. December - US enters longest post-WWII recession, which is only a shadow of what is to result from Bush's draconian privatization of Social Security. August – Russia invades Georgia. The War lasts for just under a week, and ends with Russia annexing parts of neighboring Georgia. It is the first European War of the 21st century. September – The financial crisis becomes more serious after the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and a Bush Administration federal bailout of American International Group, Inc. for $85 million. Just a few weeks prior to this the US stock market saw its largest drop in history. With the collapse of major firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Dow Jones is at its lowest in decades at 8,219, by September 11. November – Over 500,000 jobs were lost, and confirmed to be at over 2.6 million by year's end, the largest loss of jobs in the US in the past 34 years. Reports come in en masse as millions of Americans report that their health care claims, and social security benefits, have been denied by the private insurers. President Bush's popularity falls to as low as 8%, and calls for impeachment are higher than ever before. Barack Obama announces a change in his healthcare policy, promising that he will push for the passage of Single Payer, universal healthcare for all. Following the collapse of the financial sector, the private insurance sector of the US economy soon follows and over 150 million Americans are without healthcare or social security. Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States of America in a landslide election. December – President Bush becomes the first President in modern history to be denied the right to attend the inaugural address for his various calls for impeachment. A tent city begins in Central Park, Manhattan. Residents call it "Bushville". The market plummets even further as the revenues from the Christmas shopping season are the lowest in decades. January – Former senator, and Democratic Party Nominee, Barack Obama, becomes the first multiracial President of the United States. Obama’s primary opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of 42nd President Bill Clinton, is picked to be Secretary of State. Democrats gain a supermajority in the House and Senate, and even their fellow Socialist and Green Parties are present. On January 24th Obama signs the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Plan into law which costs more than $1 trillion. The plan includes huge tax increases on people making more than $250,000 per year and spends hundreds of billions on the military-industrial complex. March – Due to the acute extremity of the United States financial crisis, at this point being referred as the "Second Depression", the formerly known Euro Crisis is now being taken into heavy consideration yielding to the fact that the independent EU nations, due to the devastating impact the Second Great Depression has delivered unto the global economy, may no longer be able to stand on independent economies. The plummeting borrowing power caused by the dollar and currently causing the Euro Crisis gives birth to a lot of American resentment, blaming the US Government's "ruthlessly fascist imperialism" over the past decade as the cause of it all. September – China begins pressuring the US to pay back their loans to the PRC. NASA loses most of its funding, and only has a few billion dedicated to satellite maintenance. December – President Obama increases US troop presence in Afghanistan by 30,000. The Egyptian people peacefully overthrow the reign of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Two years later, the first democratically-elected President of Egypt, Muhammed Morsi, is subsequently overthrown by a Military Junta. February – After Libyan dictator 'King of Kings' Muammar Gaddafi takes questionable measures to repress the 'Arab Spring' in his country, the nation erupts in civil war, supported by NATO military intervention rebels, primarily Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah associates, launch counterattacks against the regime. March 15 – Conflict begins in Syria between forces loyal to the Syrian Ba'ath Party Government and those seeking to oust it, with popular demonstrations that grew nationwide by April. Conspiracy theorists and realists alike suspect that it is possible Al-Assad was propped up by western influence to spark a middle-eastern anti-western force in the Middle-East, to justify further American intervention into the region. July – Obama begins plans for a 'Domestic National Security' force to be headed by the Department of Homeland Security, increasing Government Surveillance Policy, and the extent of the PATRIOT Act. September 17 – Angry American citizens march on Wall Street in a movement known as 'Occupy Wall Street', inspired by internet hack-tivist group 'Anonymous'. October – Protests spread to over 70 other US cities by the 9th of the month, marking the greatest public demonstration since 1966. This is due mainly in part to the diminishing US foreign relations, the Depression, and American imperialism. People are fed-up with the US government running their lives, and are determined to deliver the power back into the hands of the people. Later in the month Libyan rebels overthrow Gaddafi’s regime, and establish the “National Transitional Council”. Various Dates – The PRISM program under Bush sees widespread mass-surveillance and the dawning of a police state in embryonic form. This inadvertently results NSA Contractor Edward Snowden leaking files incriminating the US Government in mass-surveillance scandals involving the NSA's PRISM program. In the data leaked, foreign governments, mainly the EU, and mainly supposed 'allies' of the US government, were having their phone calls, their emails, and their personal privacy violated and spied on by the NSA. Various Dates – Russian-backed separatists seize the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and initiate breakaway illegitimate governments in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, resulting in a War in Donbass after Ukrainians peacefully overthrow the Russian-friendly government of Viktor Yanukovych. Fall 2015 – Due to the fallout of the Syrian Civil War, record numbers of refugees flood into Europe from the Middle-East. Extremist anti-immigration parties climb the polls all across the continent, particularly in Eastern Europe, where the continent is hit hardest. Spring 2016 – The US Presidential elections see big money maintain influence in American politics, which spark protests in dozens of cities, with the largest in Washington-DC. Presidential hopeful and champion of the 99%, Senator Bernie Sanders is routed by Wall Street candidate, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – the candidate of the war machine, who seeks to reclaim the Oval Office for her political dynasty, surround herself with an impenetrable fortress protecting her from her ‘enemies’ and continue her hawkish foreign policy – the opposite of what Sanders intends to do. Throughout the primary season the two frontrunners solidify their leads into the general election season. Fall 2016 – Eventually, it comes to the attention of government transparency advocate Julian Assange – and his associates at WikiLeaks – that Clinton’s team is actively sabotaging the campaign of Sanders and infuriating millions of people – thus weakening the ability of the Democrats to stand against Trump. With help from an insider within the U.S. Intelligence Community, WikiLeaks attempts to expose Clinton before the DNC, but are too late. The leaks don’t drop until the general election, all but guaranteeing a Republican Presidency. During the primaries, the FBI concludes its investigation and surmises that Hillary Clinton violated no national security and declines to indict. The Republicans nominate billionaire businessman Donald Trump, who rapidly becomes a media sensation due to his off-the-cuff remarks about illegal immigrants, banning Muslim immigrants, building a Wall on the Mexican–American border, and initiating sweeping mass-surveillance, as well as his disturbingly cozy relationships with both of the Clintons, the mafia, dictators abroad (such as North Korean Premier Kim Jong-un) and his status as a Democrat not even a month before deciding to run for the GOP Nomination. The Republican nominee helps boost Hillary’s poll numbers. Trump had reportedly received a phone call from ex-President Bill Clinton a week before announcing his bid from the Presidency. On into the summer and beyond, Trump continues to (seemingly) purposefully sabotage his own campaign. His pro-Democrat donations come up. His donations to the Clinton Foundation come up. His ties to the mob. His ponzi schemes. His crookery. His scams. His lies. Trump receives a record amount of free media coverage, all the while – conveniently enough – the Clinton Scandals are for-the-most-part ignored or marginalized. But, what she isn’t helped by is her connection to the Iraqi and Libyan Invasions, and – most damning of all – her close friendship with former-President George W. Bush. Although she wins the primaries against Bernie Sanders, his Revolution invigorates a movement of informed and aware young people, and while they largely split down the middle between those heeding the calls of the sabotaged campaign of Bernie Sanders to rally around Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, a great many reject the false narrative of the corporate Democratic-Republican Duopoly and side with the insurgency of third parties. Hillary Clinton and the Wall Street Democrats, one of whom Obama was considered by many of Sanders’s constituency, had silenced a generation desperate for change, desperate for a future free from poverty and war, desperate for a future with an accessible middle-class and college education. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton’s corruption goes unnoticed and unrevealed until after the California primary – the largest and most decisive state contest. After the DNC, and Bernie’s official concession to Hillary Clinton, the fall and winter months of 2016 feature a general election between the two most hated Presidential candidates in American, and perhaps World, History. The leaked documents from the DNC indicting Hillary Clinton for corruption are stolen by Russian hackers – likely affiliated directly with then-President Vladimir V. Putin (as all U.S. Intelligence Agencies would inevitably confirm) almost immediately after WikiLeaks acquires them, guaranteeing the downfall of Sanders and the ascension of Donald Trump. The arrogance and rampant lust for power of Wall Street and War Machine Candidate Hillary Clinton drives the Democratic Party into disarray, alienating and silencing the Progressive Wing of the party and elevating Trump. By forcing a flawed and heavily-disliked candidate down voters’ throats, and sabotaging the campaign of Progressive Bernie Sanders (who was shown in multiple polls to be beating Trump by landslide margins), the Democrats (and Russians) had effectively selected Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. For another 4 years, Trump continues Bush’s foreign policy, tearing apart the Middle-East, and by the time the 2020 elections roll around, Trump’s reluctant ally, Theocratic 2016 Republican runner-up from Texas, Senator Ted R. Cruz – fuelled by a bitter hatred of Progressives and his humiliation by Trump in the previous election – had returned with a vengeance. Cruz was determined to establish his authoritarian ultra-nationalist theocracy. Coincidentally, this also marked the return of the Bernie Sanders Revolution’s second-in-command – Elizabeth Warren. By the end of Trump’s Presidency, Hungarian President Viktor Orban, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Russian Kremlin and the Wall Street financial elite had solidified power to such a stark degree in comparison to the rest of the political world that the very fabric holding world peace together was beginning to fray under the weight of a global system thrown into disarray by such a chaotically-imbalanced international oligarchy whose corruption knew no limits. - See: Balkan Emergency, January Crisis, War in Uzbekistan, British Insurgencies, Elizabeth A. Warren, Donald J. Trump, Ted R. Cruz, North America, Terrorism, & JaF Years Later (C. 2019–2024) Circa 2019-2024 – After the virtual extinction of ISIL (Islamic State), the Sunni Army of Conquest active in Syria during the Civil War also ceases to exist. In its place, Hezbollah Al-Hejaz, OIR and other Shia militant groups fill the vacuum and combine to form the jihadist-militant network, organization, and radical cult-like following known as Jundallah al-Fatah – لله الفتح جيش – (God’s Army of Conquest), or JaF. Although JaF is formed from Shiite Jihadists, it receives a majority of its fighters overtime from Pashtunwali and other Pashtun-affiliated organizations. JaF cells emerge throughout the next two years in Iraq, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, although the first to emerge – Jundallah al-Fatah in Iraq – is destroyed two years after its emergence. The immediate rise-to-power of the Pakistan, Afghan and Turkmen cells implicates Iran in the eyes of many Republicans, however. But the JaF cell in Turkmenistan quickly escalates into a War in Uzbekistan when it becomes clear that it is in fact the powerful Central Asian dictatorship that is supporting the God’s Army of Conquest jihadists. The continued presence of the IS-like Jihadists in the region facilitates the growing view around the world of the Middle-East and Central Asia regions as frozen conflict zones much like the Korean Peninsula, as well as continued US presence in the region. Many attempts are made to limit US presence via UN-mandated EUFOR and Europol alongside UN Peacekeepers and Volunteers. The size and strength of Eurocorp, EUFOR, Europol and the UN Peacekeepers and employees expand overall throughout the next two years, and as a result the United States Armed Forces are able to more aptly focus their attention elsewhere. This causes an abrupt freeze in relations between Brussels and Washington, with President Trump reiterating his support of an ‘exceptionality clause’ regarding the U.S. Military’s ‘freedom-of-movement’ with regard to international crises – a viewpoint originally espoused by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Although tensions remain high between the U.S. and the EU for the foreseeable future (at least to the end of President Trump’s tenure as POTUS), they don’t escalate beyond threats of mutual sanctions, and remain stagnant – hindering Western military cooperation and enabling Russia. Throughout the late 2010’s, starting in 2016, European countries began to fall under Moscow’s sphere of influence, which is recognized by the 45th U.S. President Donald Trump. While Trump’s presidency is kept in check by his Vice President and the American public – the populist President’s victory emboldens both populists and ultranationalists across Europe and Central Asia, most prominently in the corruption-ridden countries of Turkey and Uzbekistan, with Tashkent forced into submission by the newly-emboldened and empowered Russian war state. In the 2024 Russian presidential elections, incumbent President Vladimir V. Putin is defeated by an insurgent rival within his United Russia party, bringing an abrupt and unexpected end to his decades-long reign over Russia. Although the Presidency is reclaimed by a more moderate politician, a new generation of oligarchs with connections to Wall Street seizes power in Moscow, particularly the State Duma, and the Federation Council and with the Chairman of the Federation Council, subtly influencing the policies of the new Russian President. The Brexit referendum also begins a balkanization process of the United Kingdom – in time, resulting in its collapse, and the emergence of a rogue England. With the activism and even-handedness of the new Russian President inspiring an improvement of relations between Russia and Europe for the first time since the 1990’s, along with Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, Germany, France, Spain the Benelux and the Balkans all reopen regular diplomatic cooperation with Moscow. It isn’t long, however, before most of Europe begins to realize it had, in fact, made a drastic mistake in playing into the hands of a Russian government controlled by Wall Street and the Turkish mafia-shadow government. In addition, the federal deficit of the United States reaching such great levels forces the U.S. to sell the USS Kitty Hawk and the most powerful naval warfare vessels on Earth – the only 2 completed Montana-class dreadnought battleships, the USS Montana and USS Ohio – to Russia and Britain, after the British government demands collateral for the debt owed to it by the US, France and Brexit. A period of tensions – involving riots, congressional filibusters, and even border skirmishes – lasts for 3 months before Paris finally capitulate and give up the French Navy’s flagship, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the only non-American nuclear-powered supercarrier on Earth, which would now fall under a joint British-Russian jurisdiction. Through the UN, this is expanded to all former-U.S. naval vessels as well. The Era of American Supremacy was over – the Era of Ultranationalist Europe had come. With extremism on the rise within the Middle-East and the ultra-militarization of the English and Russian Navies, the EU core states – led by France – begin to point the finger at President Trump’s warmongering and “seeming disconnect from reality” as being the primary culprit for the return to Europe of extremist war states, tensions, political and civil unrest, and the growing lack of respect for the European Union as a political entity – but most of all (not withstanding opening the case for serious consideration of American imperialism) – for the resurgence of Ultranationalists. New York City Mayor Hillary Clinton decides to run for President in 2020 against Republican contenders Rand Paul, Neil Bush, several others, and Ted Cruz (against the advice of her Husband). Cruz and Bush essentially steal the election, and at the last second Cruz exposes Bush’s association with the Clinton Foundation, and Bush’s poll numbers plummet as Cruz goes on to win the remaining contests by landslide margins. Bush drops out before California’s primary. Meanwhile, Clinton changes her mind about running for President when Senator Elizabeth Warren announces her candidacy and goes on to win the Iowa and Super Tuesday contests against Clinton stand-in Senator Al Franken. But Franken poses a greater threat to Warren than realized, after he wins the Texas and Virginia primaries by blow-out margins, yet Warren persists – embodying the movement that Senator Sanders galvanized among the millennial generation 4 years earlier when he challenged Hillary Clinton herself. Yet, now, not only was the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party united and organized, they had also grown due to the aforementioned demographic – the millennial one. Young people and progressives of voting age – particularly those that supported Sanders in 2016 – flock to Elizabeth Warren and reject Franken, delivering her the nomination. Coincidentally (or not), Hillary Clinton runs for Mayor Re-election in 2021 and, not only wins by a wide margin, but also successfully extends the Mayorship tenure to 3 terms, as well as acquiring greater autonomy for the City itself. Despite Democrats trying to push Clinton, Franken or Cruz into the Presidency, Warren not only attracts disillusioned former-Democrats dissatisfied with the President, but splits the support of former-Republicans with the other Democratic Senator Al Franken – the moderate establishment candidate she defeats in the primaries. They support Franken – and Warren, in time – because they see Trump’s Secretary of Defense Ted Cruz and the GOP for what they really are: sellouts to metropolitan elites and corrupt politicians – having capitulated to the Democrats in the 2020 Congressional elections. After the Republican capitulation in 2021 in all states holding gubernatorial and legislative elections to Democrats, Trump declares the 2020 Republican primaries and 2021 local elections illegitimate, rigged and that he himself is the rightful President, and refuses to step down. Trump – in an effort to “preserve the absolutely important law and order of the United States of America” – initiates a section of George W. Bush’s Presidential Directive 51 through “executive order”, declaring a No-Fly Zone under ‘Territory Order” along New York State lines, and the Republican Party and the President initiate the most widely-sweeping accumulation of power in the history of the Office of the President. Seen as the underdog, the next revolutionary, and the ultimate challenger to the corporate oligarchy powered by the terrifyingly-One-Party Administration of President Donald J. Trump; Senators Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken – between the two of them – attract the largest voting bloc in American History, surpassing that of even the world-renown campaigns of Sanders in 2016 and Obama in 2008, at a time in the country’s history where the government was becoming dangerously close to becoming a One-Party Dictatorship. To further reinforce the voting bloc and bulwark against the Oligarchy in Washington, Elizabeth Warren, at first, nominates Sanders as her running-mate. At 79-years-old he is the oldest person to be nominated for Vice President, or any High Office for that matter. A month later, the elections are marred by the death of Sanders – godfather of the Progressive movement now led by Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken (whom she selects after Sanders) – his death unites the movement in her and Sanders’ memory and as opposed to discouraging and putting the brakes on momentum – invigorates the campaign like none other before it. To add the final capstone on their Independence Front, Senators Franken and Warren unite their ticket, and form a new political party and movement, unlike anything before seen in history, proceeding forth easily under record-high disapproval with the withering and horrifically-corrupt Presidency of Trump. The Second American Civil War is declared – from 2022 to 2024 – with Texas (whose delegates refused to vote for Warren who won the state in the general) declaring independence from the United States and declaring Ted Cruz the rightful President-elect of the United States, and New York attempting to do the same but supporting the legitimacy of Trump instead. This eventually results in a heightened period of civil unrest in New England, Manhattan and the surrounding New York Metropolitan Area due to the high concentration of both pro-Trump and anti-Trump demographics. The Mayor of New York City – Hillary Clinton – spearheads a union of local government officials along with the Pentagon and the FBI to preserve the unity and economy of the state, even if it meant secession. Upon the horizon of the 2024 presidential election – fearing escalation and doom in a period of heightened emotions – American Civil War II quickly transforms into an American Cold War, with the battle lines drawn between the U.S. and the emerging countries of Territorial New York and the Republic of Texas. New York officially becomes an independent Territory supporting an unrecognized President and as New York becomes an unrecognized state, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the rest of Eastern Canada secedes from its parent country, with each province declaring their independence in support of New York’s right to independence and to elect Hillary Clinton the President of New York. All across the world, nations and their citizens rally in support of Clinton and New York, which further exacerbates the unrest unfolding in New York City and surrounding populations centers (across New England and the Northeastern United States). NATO and UN peacekeepers supported by France, the United Kingdom, European Union, CIA, and other rogue elements of the U.S. Government rising up against the emerging New York rogue state, attempt to start a countermovement to the effort to erect an Independent New York. Furthermore, the secession of Quebec, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia results in a political crisis in Canada. On November 8th, 2024, Vice President Al Franken and the administration’s supporters’ hopes and dreams are shattered when President Elizabeth A. Warren is assassinated. Although the wise leadership and steady hand of President Warren had kept the hounds of war at bay and maintained U.S. preeminence over the continent, in the blink of an eye, it was history. The government is shut down by an ad-hoc international criminal probe into the US government itself – after evidence emerges that Senator Bernard Sanders was assassinated as well. A radical sect of Jundallah al-Fatah based out of Central Asia and the neo-fascist Grey Wolves of Turkey both claim responsibility, but a DOJ investigation launched immediately finds that elements of Wall Street – perhaps even an individual within the administration itself – may have been cooperating with the terrorists. The DOJ reports to the ICC, and the White House and Congress fall under a joint ICC-Interpol investigation, wherein the conclusion is unanimous – within the Security Council – runner-up Ted Cruz, who chooses Don J. Trump (the eldest of the Trump children) as Vice President, would serve as Interim President until the situation is declared safe to allow the transition of power to resume normally. As Cruz steps up to become the Interim President, for at least for the few months it would take to allow the Federal Government to continue functioning in a normal manner, he immediately seizes absolute power. Vice President Franken inherits a movement of supporters who, having lost a President, and Bernie in 2016 to the superdelegates and Wall Street, were utterly defiant and infuriated at having Vice President Franken – whom they refuse to recognize as anything else other than President – receiving insult in addition to injury as they watch a coup unfold in Washington, and begin moves to erect an impenetrable resistance effort that would last for many years – and even decades – into the future. Having a face for the movement – which eventually grows beyond America to many nations, and becomes known as the Independence Front – one with the charisma, wisdom and leadership of a President, not to mention combined with a convincing argument that he is the rightful President of the United States of America (one of the best arguments and fact-based claims a politician could have in the realm of geopolitics, especially when your political opponent is the infamous Billionaire Theocrat Ted R. Cruz – who is now a contested President with one of the most radical domestic policies – if not the most radical domestic policy – in American History) helps cement the Independence Front and future-President Al Franken into the chronicles of American and World History. Preeminent, President and Chairman of the Territory is the new executive position that Cruz creates, essentially for himself. Under the guise of a “failsafe” – should the “New World Order” as he calls it attempt to ‘illegally’ wrest the power of the Presidency from his hands – Cruz invokes George W. Bush’s “Presidential Directive 51” and the PATRIOT Act to justify his unification of legislative and judicial powers with the Executive Branch. To further ‘legitimize’ his cause, he even lays out the territory that would be controlled by his newly-empowered Presidency should the cause for it come into fruition – a ‘non-aligned state zone’ encompassing the Territory Order of New York established by President Trump, as well as – with the backing of the governments of Quebec, New Brunswick and Labrador (despite their citizens) – regions of Eastern Canada as well; and in the event that civil unrest hit a breaking point, the entirety of this “Megaregion” could be ‘shut down’ by the Department of Homeland Security, NSA, NYPD and various other paramilitary organizations. Trump and Clinton back Cruz for two diverging and different reasons, with Trump citing ‘absolutely important preservation of the Republic’ as the precedent for such an action, and Clinton seeing opportunity to leverage the U.S. into funds and support for her North American project, which she intended to control before Trump did, not that he had a choice. The rise of the nation of North America and the political crisis involving the CIA, UK, UN and France immediately hurls the government into further chaos. The Capitol is closed to meetings, making it impossible for Washington to legislate. The U.S. suspends its NATO membership as President Cruz begins a nationwide crackdown on dissent and Muslim populations. Cruz’s withdrawal of the U.S. from NATO brings attention to his worryingly close relationship to businessman Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. There is also murmuring among governors, local and U.S. state government that the government of the North American state was cooperating with Trump and controlling Cruz and the Territorial government to ban the interim New York administration in Albany involving the UN, unshackle Wall Street from their surveillance, and balkanize the United States. All across Europe, war drills are ran in preparation for a potential U.S.–Russian attack on NATO Europe – the Cruz-Medvedev alliance representing the most threatening adversary since Nazi Germany. The growing threat from Russia and North America prompts a union in Westminster led by the Scottish delegation, with support from Ireland, to press Britain to relocate 30% of its Air Force, granting Scotland over 290 aircraft (85 planes and 131 helicopters) total. Scotland also gets a third of the UK’s Tanks (134), Armored Fighting Vehicles (1,962), SPG’s (29), Towed Artillery (45), Rocket Projectors (13), as well as 24 surface vessels including a Queen Elizabeth-class supercarrier and Battleship Strongbow (with another 6 advanced corvettes under-construction), north to British bases in Scotland at Military Bases Lossiemouth, Faslane and Clyde and the entirety of the British reserve forces are brought online, bringing the total number of active military forces in the United Kingdom to 240,050 soldiers – including Scottish forces based overseas in Canada who express solidarity in the mutual defense of Scotland from Russian forces – and of that a total of 27,680 soldiers pledge allegiance to Scotland and Great Britain (along with a willing-and-able fit manpower of nearly a million), marking a revival in English Ultranationalism a decade after the Brexit referendum to leave the EU shook the foundations of the UK. The presence of a militarily-stable Scotland in possession of such a formidable military force – including the Scottish-run Vanguard-class submarines part of the Trident nuclear programme – elicits fear and paranoia amongst many elite circles in Westminster and the Greater London area at the thought of Scotland attempting to assert their independence from Britain by force – which at this point they were very-well able to do so. In an attempt to allay fears among the rebellious Scottish public that London no longer represents the best interests of Britain, Downing St. cooperates with various elements of Belfast and the military/industrial foundation of contractor corporations that reside in Glasgow, to grant the North greater autonomy from the United Kingdom, the initiative spearheaded by a notable friend and close-ally of Russian President Medvedev and the Turkish Serif Dynasty, former-Mayor of Leeds, Lord Pharaoh himself – who had recently come to lead the House of Lords. In response, the British mainland begins to see political turmoil. Scotland, the second-largest country in the United Kingdom after England, sees English, Russian and Uzbek-JaF terrorist attacks and bombings, which begin steering the region into a frozen proxy conflict with U.K. forces. This also causes a strain in relations with Ireland and Britain, the latter currently dominated by the conflict between Scotland and England – a country three times its size and dominated itself by English ultra-nationalists supported by Red Hand Commando sympathizers. Not but a few weeks later a militarized front of paramilitary organizations consisting of a newly-reorganized and sophisticated Ulster Defense Association allied with various other English and English-backed Ulster ethno-nationalists and ultranationalists begins terrorist actions against Scottish Britain similar to that of their Muslim counterparts in the Middle-East. The formerly-United Kingdom had effectively become the new Yugoslavia. October 7, Unknown Year Certain elements within the Department of Defense, lying just outside of the jurisdiction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff through cleverly navigated loopholes, go public with the DOD's answer to the North American infiltration of the U.S. Government via President Cruz: the Omega Response and their paramilitary arm – Response Coalition Network – “RECON”. Initially an international intelligence, paramilitary and espionage organization founded in October of 1774, RECON stumbled upon a secret interlocking deep-state of invisible borders – existing between ultra-wealthy from the financial, military, and political sectors – that essentially implicated the three nations of the triangular power structure of the Cold War era (China, the USSR, and America) in an undeniable scandal in which all 3 participated in financial lobbying between these power brokers across the world (primarily in the West) overseen by the NSA and GRU. During the opening months of 1975, RECON narrowly saved the United States from being destroyed by Soviet nukes (thanks to the assistance of the British government). Between 1963 and 1975, RECON was a disavowed unit of the Pentagon after unearthing this conspiracy. However, after saving the US from extinction a dozen years after their disavowal, the Pentagon decided it was only proper to reestablish RECON a military and managerial heavyweight in the sector, with special powers that could challenge the Intelligence Community and/or the Joint Chiefs of Staff should they accumulate too many that made it impossible for the Legislative branch and Congress to adequately challenge them. The Pentagon and Congress are contacted by UN Human Rights and Operations Officers and a Europol team regarding their eyewitness accounts of a conspiracy being carried out – in conjunction with China – under NATO nations and the United States under Presidents Cruz and Trump, as well as the Joint-Chiefs (the latter of which was beginning to resemble a Junta), and that the upper echelons of the organization had been infiltrated by Interpol (which in turn had been infiltrated by the Russians and Chinese via Interpol since the 1960’s) in an attempt by China to break the EU and hijack NATO’s disillusionment with US President Cruz and utilize the Alliance against the UN. On October 11 the RECON Ambassador to the Capitol proposes that the US Government investigate NATO and the first ‘Nations of America’ summit, postulating that the NSA and – to a lesser-extent, the IC had infiltrated the bloc and were backed by the People’s Liberation Army, PLA militants within the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party of North America against the UN. The proposition goes through Parliament but is vetoed by the President. This sparks a petition in the US to petition the UN to intervene in the North American–U.S. Conflict, before NATO invades, which begins to split the armed forces down the middle, leading to many defecting to such paramilitary organizations like the NYPD, and DHS – both directly controlled by the NSA. This, however, aids RECON in their efforts to push out the current Cruz-loyal Joint-Chiefs, and eventually they succeed. Realizing that they will have to work with the UN, RECON leads a diplomatic mission to the UN General Assembly concerning the complaints of UN officers in question to the Pentagon. Throughout the next several years, the UN Secretariat begins a counter-movement to the Chinese-led initiative to ‘ostensibly dominate’ smaller sovereign nations. This eventually leads to a crisis which results in the United States seat on the Council being contested, after the Pentagon, Congress, and a record-number of the American Populace protest President Cruz. The Russian influence of Cruz becomes undeniable, and Cruz is eventually declared an illegitimate President, and Russia is replaced on the Security Council by Egypt. Coincidentally – or not – North America is formally recognized as independent; Secretary-General Hillary Clinton the official Head of State of the Democracy, and New York City becomes the Capital of North America. Many people initially suspect the Independence Front to be behind this, but when Hillary Clinton declares herself ‘President of the Democracy of the United States of North America’ (henceforth known as the N.A.S.), the I.F. immediately realizes that their movement had been hijacked by the metropolitan elite and that Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz – along with many others – were working together in the interests of the globalists to balkanize the United States and give the country its own version of 1989. The IF contacts RECON, and the game begins. "About a Decade Later" November – About a decade later (about 10 years after Brexit) English men and women fed up with corruption in London attempt to “continue the Revolution” that began at the end of 2016-2017 with Brexit, but the English government and military dismisses the protests as a Brussels-backed coup attempt. The protesters – approximately a million – are met with tear gas, violence and, eventually, militarized responses. Britain descends into a Crisis not seen by Europe since the Russian invasion of Crimea over a decade earlier. The British Crisis reverberates throughout Europe, with the West piling the blame onto Moscow, whom they accuse to be the puppet-masters of the incumbent London government. For two months, pro-Britain and Brussels-backed resistance fighters are pounded by the English military, ultimately outmatched and outgunned. Unfortunately, the anti-Britain English government consolidates power, the resistance is crushed, and England undergoes a transformation for the worse into a modern-day East Germany, only much larger, much more powerful, and much more militant. January 2026 – Turkish, Hungarian and Bulgarian armor and tanks are spotted by satellite in Armenia and Romania, fighting alongside the jihadist God’s Army of Conquest in the former, and causing the Grey Wolves Insurgency by funding and fighting alongside these militant, Turkish ultranationalists in the latter. U.S. Intelligence and scout units active in Armenia and the surrounding Middle-East and Central Asia regions confirm that JaF and the Grey Wolves had been utilizing Turkish, Russian and Bulgarian-manufactured weapons and equipment, and air drops are confirmed from the aforementioned countries which are revealed to be stoking unrest and instability in Armenia, Moldova, Slovakia and the Romanian region of Transylvania. However, despite this critically-important intel, an impasse emerges highlighting the simple fact that the four aforementioned countries supposedly under siege by Turkey, Bulgaria and Hungary were beginning to fall beyond the Western sphere of influence and into that of Russia’s. This also implicates Moscow and the Kremlin’s involvement, but – alas – nothing could be done, openly and effectively, without incurring serious adverse strategic consequences. RECON points out that this was the fault of the EU for inflaming tensions between Russia and the West, and further goes into the root causes of the Ukrainian Civil War – that the EU went about ousting Yanukovych in the incorrect way, which in turn caused the current polarization between NATO and Russia, threatening humanity with a Third Global Confrontation. June 2025-2027 – After the London government takes questionable violent acts (via a military response from England) against Scottish militia participating in the neutralization of a terrorist threat on the Scots-English Border, alternative media organizations, activist organizations, and people's alliances unite to mold a new generation. Alongside mainstream media programming and newspapers, the truthpapers are established, backed by the BBC and Democracy Now, pointing out flaws in the established system of selected individuals for the jobs of Prime Minister of the British and Presidents of the United States of America and France. The major point was; if one were to look past the smaller things like Gay Marriage and Abortion one would see that all political, military, and foreign policy goals were all virtually the same regardless of political affiliation. The bandwagon expands from nearly 500,000 supporters in July to over 17 million people across 21 countries by the latter part of the subsequent year. It is also in the midst of this month that the Left Resistance against the incumbent German government that causes its resignation seizes power in Germany, along with subsequent exchanges of power in other nations throughout the month and the next; the most ardently anti-NATO and anti-EU being the Serifs and the Kremlin-backed English “Centurions” led by the rising influence of Leeds frontrunner Christian E. Pharaoh's separatist views gaining popularity in the House of Lords, which continue to more and more support English independence from Great Britain. Eventually, Pharaoh’s policies change from ‘independence from the British’ to ‘English supremacy’ over Europe – an agenda opposed by well over a third of the population of English “Free Britons” – who declare their allegiance to Britain and a United Kingdom under the rightful ruler and rightful powers and nation of the British people. RECON finds incontrovertible evidence the rising influence of American, French and Balkan–Slavic oligarchs are responsible, and notwithstanding English Ultranationalist operatives undercover in said governments across the Euro (Chris Pharaoh was a personal aide to President Xi during the South China Sea crisis and long-time friend of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush). October – The London government begins to take extensively questionable, overreaching and unconstitutional methods that include spying on and politically targeting the Independence Front. This only increased the rate at which the “IF” was gaining new supporters threefold, all according to RECON'S master plan. The injustice unfolding in Europe contributes to this accelerated pro-British disillusionment with the new Centurion-run London government. Britain continues their sanctions war against Russia, completely neglecting to acknowledge the rise of militants in England to the south and the Eastern European countries of Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. Naturally, the U.S. leads the charge that England has betrayed NATO. November – About a week after Holyrood declared that they would continue and expand sanctions against Russia, a second Collective Security Treaty is signed in Aktau, Kazakhstan reaffirming the signatories’ commitment to mutual and collective defense. At the same time, independence referendums in Wales and Ulster pass, and the two nations subsequently unite with Scotland, with Pharaoh’s England left to its own devices. High-ranking officials from Westminster secretly attend this second declaration, called the Aktau COSECTOR, or Aktau Pact – increasingly referred to as simply ‘the Pact’ by the end of the decade – which consisted of the European nations of Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria and the other original signatory nations of the CSTO; including all of the former Soviet Republics and one new addition: the Kingdom of England. Although England was only an observer and did not have the official veto power within the COSECTOR that Turkey and Russia did – it was easily the third-strongest behind Russia and Turkey, and besides Hungary most of the other COSECTOR members relied heavily on Russia and Turkey, and thus England, for military assistance, and so, England, Turkey and Russia – and to a great extent, Iran – were increasingly seen as the ‘Next Axis Powers’ by the Allied world, including the new North Americans. As Cruz’s influence is more and more isolated to North America, Cruz utilizes his power before his inevitable resignation or removal to officially cement the independence of the Republic of Texas in law, which causes a break between two semi-autonomous regions – Upstate New York and the Lower East Side, with the rest of Manhattan rapidly splitting between Western and Eastern Manhattan, the latter siding with the Albany-led autonomous Lower East Side, and the former with Trump’s pro-Cruz Trump Tower Region government-in-exile. Tensions further escalate when, nearly two years later, East Manhattan and the UN refuse to recognize Quebec as part of the “New York Territory Order”, and a reapplication process is begun out of sheer defiance of Clinton to reintegrate them back into the United States of America. After this, tensions reach such a point between the pro-UN U.S. Intelligence Community and the pro-NY Department of Homeland Security and NSA, that a large crackdown begins on members of the U.S.IC that harbored views or sympathies with the DHS, NSA and NYPD – leading to dozens of Agents within the CIA, FBI and Pentagon being apprehended or fired. Secretary Gen. Clinton publically defends the DHS and NYPD, echoing her predecessor – NYC Mayor Bloomberg – in calling them her ‘own army’ – which, in total, was among the top ten largest armies on Earth – and that the NAS, despite its size, should “not be underestimated”. The Department of Homeland Security declares allegiance to North America and opposition to the UN, and with nearly 100,000 paramilitary officers (excluding several hundred FEMA officers) and personnel backing the 50,000-strong NYPD – as well as U.S. Marshals, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Coast Guard, and tens of thousands working for private military contractors – the North American Army began to seem a reality. 2024 - 2026 August - From April until mid-July the growing global awareness to the massive corruption of the English Government increases. Afterward, with sweeping support and influence, Pharaoh drafts a merger of the EPP and Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats (S&D) to form the European Socialist Alliance (EUSA), which becomes the dominating political group in the European Parliament with over 432 seats out of 766, forming the largest ruling supermajority of any democratic party in a democratic parliament in history, even rivaling that of the Republican supermajority under George Bush II in 2001, following 9/11. Chancellor Pharaoh of England explains the merger was to challenge the rising political influence of Russia in EU politics via the rising UUP, which sat at roughly 161 seats, and to more adequately assist the EU in their efforts to pull back the “Scottish–Russian incursion”, spearheaded by Turkey, into Eastern Europe. He later acknowledges that his ‘Euro Activism’ was designed to challenge Britain’s position as the prime contender against France for the role of heavyweight contributor to the bloc amongst the EU members – insisting that the much more ‘unshackled’ England of the 2020’s was better suited to the role. November - After struggling for almost a decade to get together an effective organized resistance to the tyrannical administration dominating the Executive Branch of the English Government, elements within MI6, spearheaded by RECON officials, declare a national emergency, affirming Great Britain’s security at risk to foreign interests – namely Russia. The EU-dominated NATO responds aggressively, declaring RECON a “rogue military dictatorship” despite the fact they are only doing their jobs, which is the defense of their country. RECON comes under fire from elements within the Pentagon loyal to the NATO hegemony as well as personnel within the Congress, Supreme Court, and – of course – Downing Street. The situation continues to unravel throughout the rest of the month until it all comes to a head on November 5th, when the first shots of the English Rebellion were fired in Glasgow, Scotland. War in Britain - See: Gamma Thirteen, English Rebellion, American Civil War II, Hungarian–Bulgarian Pact of Unity, MI6–Pentagon relations, North America, & Independence Front 2024 - 2026 November – After a transitional force of NATO peacekeepers begin to police New York in an effort to disrupt an alleged “rogue Pentagon” which they blame for the rise of President Cruz – the Pentagon and Defense Department are essentially labeled terrorist organizations, and the Department of Defense institutes a lockdown of regions constituting what was known handily by now as North America – officially recognized as a rogue-state spearheaded by the Republican President Rafael Ted Cruz. The basis for the NATO intervention into the United States comes under the pretence that Washington is working for North American special-interests on Wall Street, as opposed to the Will of the People. The evidence of this is incontrovertible, yet RECON comes into alarming information from GCHQ and MI6 that English and Russian-Turkish forces are seizing upon the NATO-led opportunity to launch plans for a multilateral invasion of both Scotland and the United States, and effectively topple the US and British governments. Although they are seen as corrupt by most of the world, the majority of the world decries the move as “an unnecessary use of force” that distracts from the fact that the dynasties in America (the Trumps, Clintons and Bushs), France (Le Pen and Sarkozy dynasties), the Russian-Turkish Bloc (Serif and Kravychko dynasties), England (Pharaoh and Windsor), China (Fang dynasty), and the House of Saud (Saudi Arabia) were behind the corruption and behind the infiltration of the U.S. and UK governments. Glasgow and the British Crown declare that they will not stand by and allow Russians and NATO to hijack the British military just because “a separatist British faction (England) says so,” and thus, ‘Great Britain’ is reformed incorporating the constituent countries of Ulster, Scotland and Wales. England – despite having its independence internationally rejected and unrecognized – refuses to accept constituent status and a COSECTOR military alliance consisting of English, Russian and Turkish units is erected to support England and combat Scottish influence – the latter of which ascends as the solitary bulwark against a full-scale invasion of the United States of America, increasingly seen by NATO as critical to unseating President Cruz and bringing the US back into NATO. The EU’s allegiance to the Alliance, and Scotland’s (at this point) reluctant alliance with the US, prompts an EU–Scottish split, and, despite the evidence pointing to special influence in the Europarliament. NATO declares the CIA the prime culprit of corruption in the US government, that British MI6 were enabling it, and enacts an active campaign against these organizations “indefinitely”; to stave off public condemnation whilst simultaneously coming to the aid of pro-British forces in their row with pro-English/Russian forces in Scotland. Furthermore, England becomes far more aggressive after the Scottish National Party is replaced by the pro-UK Democratic Union of Scotland Party, realizing their propaganda portraying Scotland as ‘extremist’ would no longer work. An attempted intervention by England into Glasgow, Scotland in an effort to repatriate military assets that they claim are English from what they call militants is underway as of November 5th, but civilian casualties and asymmetric warfare waged by English guerrillas and Russian air strikes forces the campaign to a screeching halt three months later. Satisfied that they had demoralized the Scots with indiscriminate bombing of civilians, the Russians and English pull back, and begin preparation for terms of surrender. 2025 - 2027 February – The Glaswegian Campaign, despite a crushing defeat, inspired confidence in the resistance against the Russian forces and the people therein that the fact that nearly half of the British Military… 110,000 of the men and women in uniform to be approximate… were siding with the people, and inspired confidence that the war could be won, and the island of Britain could be a beacon of light, freedom, and unity once again. However, England’s connections through the Ulster Defense Associates and the UVF to Al-Qaeda were uncanny, as it was them the United States government’s CIA and Westminster’s MI6 supposedly organized to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980’s (According to the Alt-Right) and, allegedly, set up to launch the 9/11 Attacks (although it was really the Pentagon and Wall Street). Working in communion with global financial assets, Interpol, the Bank of International Settlements, and Saudi Royal Family, the Pact enlists the assistance of many Al-Qaeda-related organizations which harass Scottish forces throughout the war, and in addition to this, the many Fundamentalist Islamic terrorist organizations convene with foreign, globalist aid to give birth to a new breed of bioterrorism, a government-engineered nanobot-mutagen form of the so-called “zombie fungus”, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, and Ophiocordyceps sinensis, or the “caterpillar fungus”, both of which they were allegedly working on mutating to conform to a human host since the early 1990s, an alternative media source claims. Thus far they had only gotten the fungus to be able to jump from ants to cattle, deer and elk by 2012, but were making “great gains” in the sector of bioterrorism and biowarfare. Naturally, the governments and the terrorists fought bitterly for control over the species. On the 12th of the month, JaF launched a notable offensive against the Scottish Military in Ulster, when they were successfully repelled by the 14th. They attacked again, with assistance from Chinese and Russian forces. By March, the EUSA commanded much of the minority seats, controlling an increase of 49 seats, and the Pharaoh-controlled Interpol and NATO continued to dominate the movement of armed paramilitary forces into Britain. Whilst NATO had virtually no reason to put up a substantial effort to repulse the English incursion, Pharaoh’s England had already scored major victories against British forces, and confidence and English patriotism was at an all-time high. Although by now most of Northern Ireland and the Glasgow metropolitan area had been infiltrated by Russian and English military forces, dissent did arise from within the ranks of the Interpol forces throughout April and May, even well into June and July when the EU had practically imploded due to the renegade nature of these radical Interpol, primarily controlled by London and Moscow. June – Hungary is the first nation confirmed to the public to be stoking unrest in the Balkans and the Eastern Europe after the Grey Wolves Insurgency and JaF attacks a few years earlier. Hungarian forces are able to mount successful takeovers of Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Slovenia. Although Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia were fairly strong allies, their geographic and strategic shortcomings were too great to overcome. And although Austria and the Czech Republic had far larger air powers, the multitude of Hungarian armor, tanks, and surface-to-air missiles represent a fielding of juggernaut-strength ground forces not seen in possession of Hungary since the First World War. With this, Hungary manages to wage a protracted war against Central Europe, which in time expands to involve NATO, Russia and Turkey. October – Pact forces launched a final attempt at an all-out assault on British territory. They are met with firm resistance from Scottish Armed Forces and militia movements for the most part, but a fragment of the invading force make it through into Wales where they attempt to set up a forward operating base in the Cambrian foothills, but are quickly pushed back by armed citizens. Most are killed but some are taken as prisoners or escape. By the end of the month, 33.3% of U.S. troops have been recalled to the homeland, and another 50% are put on-call should an international crisis break out. Coincidentally, shortly thereafter, NATO holds a meeting at headquarters in Brussels on the rapidly unfolding situation. The NATO Secretary-General proposes declaring the English rebellion a “Non-Aligned States Zone” while maintaining that the United Kingdom has not fragmented and that the current conflict be recognized as no more than an attempted military coup. The move is put forth, and the United Kingdom is “reestablished” and the resistance is “abolished”, but still, England resists. Meanwhile, the Chinese government, with support from Russia and North Korea, repulses the Taiwanese invasion. Taiwan surrenders on the agreement they are left alone, and thus, the Second Sino Civil War comes to a halt, just as the English Rebellion nears its conclusion as Westminster assumes a more diplomatic stance with the Pentagon and Holyrood. October – Throughout the first half of the year hostilities begin to falter. With the more aggressive, militaristic stance initially taken by Westminster and the Pact’s interests relaxed, Holyrood opens talks with Westminster about reestablishing a United Kingdom of Great Britain and N. Ireland. Little progress is made – for Chancellor Chris Pharaoh finally had absolute power over much of England and had successfully cemented himself into the annals of history. Meanwhile, the United States Congress votes to impeach Cruz – a mere 9 months after his ascendance – as the death toll skyrockets from Cruz’s air campaign targeting families of suspected terrorists in the Middle-East. The onslaught wrought by President Cruz unites major parts of the Arab World and Muslim nations abroad in their bitter hatred of the United States and the west. Turkish–Hungarian Invasion of Romania - See: Ibrahim V. Serif, Hungarian Invasion of Austria, Turkish–Bulgarian Border Crisis, Turkey, Hungary, Turkish–Bulgarian October Coup, Turkish 2020’s Uprising, & African Crisis October – Since the 2016 coup attempt against Turkey’s President Erdogan, the executive branch in Ankara had continued to consolidate and accumulate power. After Russia demonstrated its power in influencing the elections of foreign countries, Turkey aspired to do the same – to neighboring Bulgaria. Although Ankara was caught in the act, the pro-Turkey DOST party provides enough of a distraction to slingshot the far-right pro-Russian “Ataka (Attack)” ethno-ultra-nationalists into power a few years later. By 2027, the Black Sea was almost entirely encircled by COSECTOR countries, save the isolated NATO member-states of Romania and Georgia, and the war-torn Ukraine and Crimea. The Bosporus and Dardanelles were controlled by the rampantly pro-Russian country of Turkey, and a paralyzed Hellenic Republic – thus the Kremlin had free reign over the Mediterranean and NATO’s once-great influence in Eastern Europe was practically erased. An expeditionary force consisting of a reluctant alliance between IF and NATO forces deploy into Romania and Moldova after Turks, Hungarians and Bulgarians supported by the Kremlin cross the border (and the Black Sea) and begin air raids on Baia-Mare and Tiraspol, the former by Turkey and Hungary. Allied forces have to literally scramble air and ground forces as quickly as possible only to greet the Hungarian–Turkish offensive head-on and with a mere toe-hold in the northern tip of the Moldovan region of Transnistria. By the end of the new decade the Eastern European region was already unstable. But now, following the NATO vs. Hungarian–Turk military exchanges a few short months ago, the region had descended into complete and utter chaos. What was once a bastion of peace on Earth, the continent of Europe was now beginning to look a lot like a modern-day Middle-East. By the late 2010’s, it became quite clear to Ukraine that the hawkishness of Kiev toward Moscow wasn’t going to end the Crimean Crisis on the best terms for Ukraine, with every new ceasefire and peace agreement dictated by Russia and favoring the Kremlin’s ambitions. Thus, the Ukraine began to drift back away from the West and back towards Moscow. With the rest of Eastern Europe and the Balkans also in uncertain political climate, the newly-internationalist Ukrainian government began to pull the surrounding countries with it, and later – populist Hungary, Russophile Bulgaria and nationalist Serbia. Serbia maintains neutrality, allowing both NATO and COSECTOR forces to move across its borders. This paves the way toward a Hungarian–Bulgarian Pact of Unity military alliance, which forms an effective spearhead to the incursion into the region by Turkey. Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and Bulgaria significantly drawdown their support of the internationalist foreign policy of the United States of America and European Union, along with the internationalist institutions that inherently support them, such as NATO. This further emboldens the aforementioned ultra-nationalist regimes, which had already soared into power on the populist wave sparked by the popularity of left-wing populist Bernie Sanders and right-wing Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Presidential election of 2016. The Hungarian “Jobbik” and the Bulgarian “Attack” governments are the most ardently pro-Russia of the bloc, but all governments in Central and Eastern Europe (besides Poland, the Czechs, Slovakia and former Yugoslavia) openly and liberally support Turkey. Alleged Kremlin plant and Russian agent Boris Timoshenko – cousin of former-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko – is elected President of the Ukraine in the 2020’s. During his administration, notable right-winger and Trump-supporter, Andrii Artemenko, becomes Prime Minister. Prime Minister Artemenko is instrumental in the isolation and ultimate downfall of Tayyip Erdogan, and the elevation of his replacement – Ibrahim Volkan Serif – into the Turk Presidency. The Christian, yet rampantly ultra-nationalist, Serif Brothers appropriate large swathes of the Turkish government into the Presidency, with the elevation of Nusrat Abdul-Qadir Serif to Supreme Commander of Armed Forces and empowerment of both Christian and Islamic extremism. With Timoshenko leading Ukraine, and Ibrahim Volkan and Nusrat Abdul-Qadir Serif empowering the Turk Presidency, throughout the next several years the Ukrainian and Turkish governments in Kiev and Ankara transform, slowly but surely, into a plutocratic autocracy with a right-wing, ultra-nationalist bent in the former, and a neo-fascist death cult in the latter. On April the 18th, the détente standoff between NATO Europe and Pact forces comes to an end as Turkish–Russian mechanized units supported by Hungarian infantry and artillery, and led by the commander of the Russian Spetsnaz, Colonel Yuri Sokolov, enter Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Norway, Austria, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Sweden, Moldova and the Netherlands. This date is marked by many historians as the first conflict of WWIII. With the joint-attack by Turkey, Hungary and Russia upon the countries of Lithuania, Romania, Moldova and Belarus, followed by an intervention into Slovakia and Austria and an emboldened England’s attack on Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden a few days later – the aforementioned regions would not cease hostilities until the end of the War, and would, in time, be occupied by either Russia, Turkey or England for long periods of time. NATO units head them off in Innsbruck. Bombardment continues throughout the rest of the month and into May. In June English, Russian and Turkish forces commit a sizable attack thereafter. With a multilateral and intercontinental counterattack, NATO forces are knocked back riotously by Pact soldiers. Due to being associated with Medvedev, North American involvement in the United States prompts NATO to break off any and all relations with the United States of America. NATO – at the highest levels of government – launch a last ditch attempt to distract away from their ties to Russia (via Bush, Clinton and Trump) and Cruz, by accusing the French of providing the bulk of the missile systems to the Russian–Turkish offensive, when in fact it was Washington. Infuriated, IF-led initiatives result in a “balkanizing” process of the US – which Clinton’s North America immediately seizes upon to manipulate into a ‘Putinist’ expansion and annexation of territory, in time fully annexing Eastern Canada. With angry men and women in uniform marching on New York from New Jersey in support of Eastern Manhattan; North American-backed Territorial riot control respond in the way they would to an unruly protest demonstration or ‘riot’ – what they do not expect is a full-fledged military assault into New York City – the skirmish lasts 15 minutes and ends only as Territorial President Trump threatens to nuke the Pentagon and Eastern Manhattan – specifically, UN headquarters. Beijing and Albany also threaten to detonate nuclear weapons over Quantico, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Nashville and Los Angeles out of opposition to the United States whom they accuse of being behind New York’s secession (and vice versa) – and with nearly a fifth of the population of the US at risk, President-elect Randall Howard Paul backs down at the behest of President Franken, but not without voicing his concerns about a development that – coincidentally or otherwise – occurred on the same day that the Manhattan Crisis did so, the Invasions of Austria and Romania. The Balkan Emergency was formally recognized worldwide by November Third after NATO fell back, delivering parting strikes on IF and Pact forces alike. The dispute is assessed diplomatically between RECON and Brussels at a meeting between the two sides. NATO Secretary-General Bush accuses IF forces of ‘getting in the way’ and convoluting NATO’s campaign. Eventually ties warm after the IF and NATO (as well as the United States and North America) agrees to set aside differences and focus on their mutual foe: rogue jihadist radical extremists and the Pact – particularly Serifist Turkey. But the event in question that President Paul addresses does not have to do with the Balkan Emergency, it has to do with what else RECON found on their classified mission, which is soon echoed by Serif’s announcement of the return of the notoriously-fascist and grotesque Iron Guard. The Turkish Ultranationalists announce an exchange in government structure – into the hands of Serif – and a change of name, the Legion of the Archangel, and – even more terrifying - the establishment of the LA Iron Legion secret police force, which shortly thereafter transforms into an assassin army of covert death squads. The infamy of the unusual morbidity of the originally-Romanian Iron Guard – even for a fascist movement – was well-known throughout World War II. Even the Mussolini faction of Italian Fascists distanced themselves from this “death cult”. Nevertheless, nearly a century later, the repugnant organization had returned, proudly displaying its devoutly murderous ideology which, in conjunction with its radical theocratic Christian martyrdom and its sinister and militaristic application thereof, was compared to an “Islamic State on Steroids”. The legacy of Ibrahim V. Serif and the “Iron Legionnaire State” is one of unparalleled authoritarianism not seen since Putin, in fact – far more so. The Totalitarian suppression of dissent and freedom of speech – not to mention the presence of Iron Legionnaires, coupled with Serif’s militant expansionism – serves to put Serif in the same category as Adolf Hitler by the end of the decade. Although Hungary and Russia stand by their ally to the southeast, even Moscow and Budapest begin to distance themselves from the increasingly neo-fascist, hyper-nationalist foreign policy and ideology of Turkey’s totalitarian and xenophobic president, whom they even claim several times throughout the next decade that such desires would endanger not only all of Eastern Europe, but all of Europe and Asia as a whole. Nevertheless, the Russians and the Hungarians would in time follow Turkey into battle against their sworn enemy – the internationalist European Union… and the United States of America. - See: Fall of Norfolk, Persian–Turkish Invasion of Saudi Arabia, Turkish–Hungarian Invasion of Romania, Turkey and England Attack the United States & Central-East African Conflict November – The Communist Party of China declares COSECTOR an illegal organization, and that Moscow is merely illegally occupying the former Soviet Republics. Under international law they would be correct, but the IF (at this point consisting only of scattered, disorganized factions outside of North America) would say otherwise, accusing them of acts of “communist-neofascist techniques of regionalist aggression”. The Independence Front (citing their policy of non-alignment and prevention of WWIII), along with the states loyal to the “Pact” – abstain, although this does nothing to prevent the continuing NATO provocation of Russia, and thus, the Aktau and their allies. The US embassy is closed in China, further gapping the already massive rift between NATO-aligned and IF-aligned countries. With the suspension of U.S.–Chinese relations, Beijing quietly gives SCO members a silent nod of approval for their support of the Pact, and soon after retract their statements critical of Russia. As China retreats into isolation, the Pact expands from its founding members to include; Libya, Venezuela, Iran, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Azerbaijan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Eritrea, Somalia, Central Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With an international and intercontinental military alliance of nearly 30 countries, China had effectively leveled the playing field with no more than a quick 30 minute meeting and no more than a few sentences. Shortly thereafter, England is accused of transforming into a European-version of North Korea, with a right-wing ultranationalist government seizing absolute control of the country and enacting a mandatory military service for all able-bodied people over the age of 18 by November 2028. Like North Korea, the new regime in London enlists nearly all of their manpower fit-for-service into their reserves, and after English and Russian ambassadors are purged from all EU and NATO member-state capitals, England activates their paramilitary reserves, bringing their active manpower to over 5 million – growing to become both the largest and most powerful military in Europe – surpassed only by Turkey and Russia. At London’s command, England later embarks upon political expansion of its own; annexing regions of Newfoundland, Greenland, Flanders and Holland (plunging the latter two states into frozen conflicts) in a joint English-Turkish offensive commanded by Lord Pharaoh and Turk Supreme Commander Nusrat Abdul Qadir Serif. The propaganda is powerful, painting both the EU and Kremlin as degenerate, but stressing that England “spearheaded” by the COSECTOR’s Turkey, Hungary and Russia, running an internationalist campaign built on uniting English-speaking people everywhere was key to forming an effective bulwark against Brussels. England was one of the G8, and one of only 15 navies with a fleet carrier, one of only 8 with more than one, supported by a fleet of over 100 commissioned vessels. In addition, England was overall one of the top ten war powers on Earth – with nearly 8 million in manpower, nearly 10,000 armored fighting vehicles and tanks, and one of the only 2 dreadnoughts in service on the planet. England possessed dozens of nuclear weapons, and untold supplies of other chemical, mechanical and biological weapons, and was backed by Turkey, Hungary and the beast of Russia. With the US sanctioned, Africa in turmoil, and NATO forces bogged down in the conflict overseas, when NORAD goes dark barely any military forces active there realize. With the North American continent blind, isolated and wide-open, and 4 of the 10 active US supercarriers (one had gone missing in the Mediterranean a half-hour after the nuking), along with nearly 100 (nearly a third) of the U.S. surface fleet docked at Naval Base Norfolk, and roughly a quarter of America’s Air Power stationed there as well – what happens next is Clancy-levels of horror. November 14th – The Nuclear Bombing of Colorado Springs was at first attributed to terrorism, but later found out to be England with assistance from the North Americans. Over 200,000 people are killed instantaneously and another 100,000 by the Wars’ end, the nation is paralyzed. Before anything can be done to alleviate the absence of NORAD and air reconnaissance, with roughly half of America’s military in North Africa fighting against Russians and insurgents and an international effort to curtail the damage of the bombing’s fallout, literally beyond the radar the all-too-familiar silhouette of a battleship last seen under the command of the US Navy, 6 carriers, the former-Charles de Gaulle (previously owned by France), the former-USS Kitty Hawk – which US Intelligence denote as originating from the U.K. – 4 Anadolu-class light carriers and a strike group of dozens of other Turkish and English ships of various size and class – including a Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft supercarrier and 2 of the 5 notoriously-Scottish Vanguard-class assault submarines – show up off the shoreline of Naval Base Norfolk. The sleeping giant is, poetically-speaking, slain in his slumber. The flagship, the dreadnought battleship, formerly known as the USS Montana, and now known by the English as the infamous New Imperial, launches a missile bombardment – with accompanying strikes from the carrier strike group – effectively neutralizing the base’s and docked carriers’ shoreline and air defense systems in one fell swoop. Following this – a joint-squadron assault of Turkish and Russian air forces, fighters, bombers, and attack helicopters bombard, and destroy, the four docked supercarriers, and over the course of a half-hour (even amid a hastily thrown-together counterattack from Norfolk forces stationed there and abroad), with staggeringly-high levels of ballistics support from the surface battalion (nearly 100 ships “spilling” out of the canal, able to be seen from orbit) the entire base is wiped out – along with every man, officer and military asset – down to the last scrap of equipment – erased from existence. Knowing full-well the staggering level of martial power the United States possessed, the entire continent of North America is paralyzed in terror. England and Turkey (with Russian and Hungarian air assistance) had effectively yanked the titan that was once the U.S. military down to their level by its Achilles’ tendon. Every strategic move made by Russia, Turkey and England had been executed perfectly and without error – and now the U.S. was fighting an even battle with England alone, and Russia had officially eclipsed U.S. military prowess. To make matters even worse – a naval strike battalion of hundreds composed of the Chinese navy was on its way across the pacific, China was positioning its 714-vessel-strong Navy into a threatening geographically-strategic formation at premeditated locations across the world, and U.S. ally Japan was powerless to do anything about it. Less than 24 hours later, NATO invokes Article 5 of the Collective Defense Treaty and multilaterally declares war on Russia, Turkey, Hungary and England for attacking the Balkans (including NATO members Greece, Bulgaria and Romania), and thus attacking their territorial integrity, as well as the theft of nuclear weapons from France – originally attributed to the nation in question. England and Russia emerge as the Japan and Germany of the imminent Third Global Confrontation. With NATO on one side; England, Russia and the COSECTOR on the other, our embattled planet Earth’s various warring nations, territories and governments had solidified into two, roughly three, adversarial factions vying for control of said associated territories. This was the Dawn of WW3. The Dawn of WW3 - See: Argentine–Brazilian Territorial Crisis, NATO Declares War on England, NATO Declares War on Russia, Russia Declares War on the United States, England Declares War on the U.S., & NATO Invasion of Iran February – Guerrilla and asymmetric warfare being waged by Venezuelan military forces and Argentine insurgents in the Falkland Isles against Islander military and U.S. elements since the culmination of the African Conflict between the West and Aktau, escalates to a new all-time high when a high-ranking Islander politician and ambassador to the IF is assassinated by Venezuelan militia via carefully-placed moles in the Falklandic and Argentine governments. The outcry causes the Falklands and United Kingdom to declare a state of emergency, and it isn’t but a few days later that public demonstrations against the executive order spread like wildfire. The Venezuelan movement Tupamaro was discovered to be what the anti-government demonstrations primarily consisted of after investigations into the nature of the controversy were launched by the CIA, MI6 and RECON. Further investigations revealed obvious war-crimes and human rights violations, all of which were being ignored or covered up, or both, by Russia, Brazil, and other Venezuelan allies. Discovering this, the US deployed immediate reaction groups based around RECON and NATO primarily associated with regional disaster relief response and political crises. The alarm sets in throughout South America, with revelations that Brazil and Venezuela had been supporting the movements financially, and cooperating clandestinely under the careful cover of Aktau whitewashing for closer military cooperation, and plans to cripple the South American, and by extension, the US economy and gain a long-sought foothold in the Western hemisphere for their Aktau allies. With efforts put forth by the North American and Argentine governments, all of South America rally behind Argentina and the Falklands in opposition to the Tupamaro strike-teams. Venezuelan patriotism sees the opposition to Tupamaro only increase their power and influence in Venezuela, and by the early months of the very next year, Tupamaro both indirectly and directly controls the Venezuelan and Brazilian governments. Venezuela, and guerillas led by Hungarian Commandant Dragomir Radu, assisted heavily in this endeavor. The revelation of this to all of America, including the Territory, results in widespread condemnation of the Venezuelan Tupamaro government and an intense territorial crisis between Argentina and Brazil, as the latter begins channeling troops over the country’s borders by the truckloads and boatloads, utilizing the miles upon miles of dense jungle to trickle their forces into Argentina to prepare for an invasion. Their efforts are discovered and cut off by the end of the second day and beginning of the third night of Brazilian military exercises. The result is full-blown conflict and an intense Brazilian Civil War. Said conflict reverberates throughout South America for years to come. Mid-March – NATO formally decides to, within their own legitimate sphere and scope of international credibility, recognize multilaterally between their most economically, politically and martially powerful allies, the State of Palestine. NATO declares war on Israel and accuses the Israelis of committing genocide against the Palestinians. The true anti-Semitic face of NATO Europe is unveiled, and the Israeli government does little more than a half-hearted attempt to smooth relations. Soon after, the people of Israel are drawn into an armed conflict between Israeli and Russian forces, and NATO-backed Palestine. Russian–Turkish War Bots - See: Liberation of Corsica, England Declares War on the U.S., NATO Invasion of Iran, Turkish DEMO Strikes on Romania and Malta, Turkish–led Invasion of the EU, MAWS & Russian–Hungarian Invasion of Germany June – The Scottish Prime Minister and the House of Commons call on RECON for an emergency summit between IF and NATO powers in regards to a massive buildup of troops and armor on the border between Scotland and England. NATO declines the invitation, but the IF attends with rigor, still at odds over Pharaoh’s justifiably unfulfilled demand that the US cede Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas back to the Crown. Just a week ago Queen Elizabeth II had died, and Great Britain, transformed by the British Civil War, Rebel England and Third Global Conflict, splits the Monarchy down the middle between those loyal to England and those supporting a reunification of Britain. The latter are forced into exile, but Scotland and Ireland pledge to defend them from their political opponents. The highlights at the meeting are Pharaoh’s steady – but gradually declining – cooperation with Russian and Turk forces invading the French island of Corsica. Apparently, England and Egyptian officials cooperated with Saudi GID, Islamist and JaF assets to sow conflict in the Middle-East to distract from the invasion of Corsica, due to the presence of anti-Pharaoh rebels on the island. Through cooperation with RECON, the British government-in-exile begins plans for a coup to overthrow Chancellor Pharaoh and his supporters in London. Meanwhile, RECON-Unit 7 and NATO forces arrive in Corsica to beat back Russo-Turk forces attacking the island. Unit 7, with heavy assistance from the IF and Corsican rebels, defeat the Russians and free the Corsican people from enemy hands. Soon afterward, Russia formally declares war on the United States and NATO. August – Turkey’s Nusrat Serif declares military action and invades Spain, Lebanon, Italy and Greece, before launching an ICBM barrage at NATO bases across Central Europe, the Peloponnese and South Aegean, in addition to the detonation of a nuclear warhead in North Cyprus by NATO out of retaliation. Nearly a million are killed almost instantaneously. NATO and IF are on-site within the hour, with France, Italy and Spain committing a majority of their amenable military forces supported by the 119 NATO-Allied UN (as well as the other 46 Nations openly opposing COSECTOR) into UNTAES and UNMIK zones in Serbia, where a Turk-Hungarian Joint-Force led by Hungarian General Radu is waging guerrilla warfare. Turkey, supported by Hungarian and Bulgarian ultranationalist paramilitary and armed battalions and armies led by Radu and Serif, attempts to establish a foothold, but Coalition forces are able to beat back the invaders by September. Late August – Russian infiltrators seize upon the finance-weary Balkans to bolster and erect an effective bulwark powerful enough to threaten most of Eastern Europe. An international summit convenes between the EU, Scotland, NATO and beleaguered Ukrainian government opposition in Bratislava, Slovakia, at the behest of the Slovak President in Grassalkovich Palace. It is when the leaders of NATO are convened that a bombing eliminates most of NATO’s command structure… immediately followed by an occupation and invasion of eastern Slovakia by the Russians assisted by military forces of Hungary. The invasion of Bratislava by the Russians and Hungarians is repulsed by NATO and IF forces, but the victory is short-lived as a Russian-Hungarian joint-intervention into Southeastern Germany and Romania overshadows the average active 50-100,000-strong troop-strength in Western Slovakia and Austria at that time, putting the entire region into shock. Turkey’s carrier task force and Russia enter and occupy Austria and the Romania utilizing 2 million soldiers, 8,000 AFV, 5,000 tanks, 500 MLRs, and 600 SPGs, as well as half of their air force – roughly 1,000 craft. The Turks, Russians and Hungarians, led by Radu, Serif, and infamous Bulgarian Secret Police Chief Nikita Kravychko, shut down the Austrian, German and Romanian communes by pouring over a third of their entire military strength into the regions, quickly locking down the city and setting up a forward operating base to allow their air craft to join in on the bombardment and invasion of the communes. Before anything can be done, Russians and Turks quickly shut down Austria, sending half of the invasion force north, and the other half south – back into the Hungarian-occupied Austria. Their MLRs and SPG – as well as all air powers – remain in Southwestern Austria, but are suspiciously ordered northeast shortly thereafter. With over a third of their missile strength aimed for mainland Europe, the Hungarian-Russian force drives home their implied message with one final saber-swing. The top-secret U.S. orbital strike (Directed Energy Munitions Orbiter – “DEMO”) program (stationed in orbit over Western Europe to safeguard the United States’ NATO allies from potential Russian attack in the 21st Century) went offline in early August and by August 11th it was made abundantly clear that this was a Russian/Hungarian-caused problem. Controlled by Russia and Hungary by this time – the Hungarian government faced a sizeable invasion from EU and RECON forces roughly a week later and used the weapon on the Romanian North, destroyed and rendered vast areas of the region uninhabitable, killing an estimate 286,664, a still-devastatingly-high bodycount that could have been as high as 1,000,000 had RECON not done their part to get as many civilians and resistance fighters to safety. Unfortunately, their actions prove for naught. A few minutes later, before the weapon can be shot down, Turkish President Serif orders a DEMO strike on Malta. The island nation is destroyed, and rendered uninhabitable – 651,023 people are killed instantaneously. The destruction wrought by this time provides enough of a distraction to allow the Hungarians, which had been (unknowingly) cooperating with Moscow, Sofia and Ankara since the end of the Cold War to pioneer the penultimate orbital WMD, to unleash a monster upon their enemies the likes of which nobody to ever walk the Earth has ever before witnessed. September 2030 – Hidden amid the thousands of satellites and pieces of debris orbiting Earth, a weapon system far beyond the level of technological advancement of any combination of dominant economies or militaries the forces of Earth could ever hope to bolster sat just beyond the prying eyes of the Human Race. Serif and the Hungarians gain official jurisdiction over the COSECTOR’s secret joint-army of MAWS – Mechanized Autonomous Weapon Systems – pledging to use them against their enemies. Whereas about half of NATO’s forces were tied down in the Middle-East, Europe was left without much defense at home, and most European nations had virtually no standing military left, economically dependent on the United States after the Cold War. In major capitals and cities – Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Bonn, Vienna, Geneva, Innsbruck, Venice, Strasbourg, Manchester, Yorkshire and London – as well as Bogota, Mexico City, Toronto, Potosi and Santiago de Chile on the American continent (although all inbound for the United States are shot down by US ICBM barrages) over 3,100 MAW units deploy from orbit all across the planet into standby mode, bearing the flags and insignia of the countries of Hungary, Russia and Turkey. Upon activation, just 50 MAWS are able to lay waste to an entire country. The death toll tips 3.5 million within just 48 hours of global MAW activation. It isn’t a moment later; however, that RECON and NATO are assembled for an emergency summit at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. It is here that it is discovered that not only do Hungary (810), Russia (1,150) and Turkey (440) possess an estimate 2,550-strong MAW force (the 100-odd Bulgarian MAW force is later discovered to be under the control of the Hungarians) – but as do the Scottish, US and Japan (Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and Switzerland also possess smaller, cheaper MAWS), with a combined force of over 4,200 – the Scottish and US possessing a combined 2,308 of the units prepped and ready to go as was the Japanese (whose had been kept secret since the early 1970’s) Ronin One (1,892). With units inbound for Europe, and some deployed into America, the Joint-Chiefs assess that although the two sides’ MAW forces are evenly matched, they denote that unlike the NATO and IF MAWS which involve some form of human interaction into the Autonomous equation, the hulking Hungarian and Russian MAWS are 100% literal, AI-powered killing machines. Russian–Hungarian Invasion of Germany - See: Russian–English Occupation of Holland, Liberation of Denmark, Russian–Turk Occupation of Ukraine, English Siege of Glasgow, & British–English relations (September – December 2030) September – The MAW force in America destroy the enemy force while suffering only 26 casualties. The situation in Europe is not so tame. Three Russian and Hungarian MAW battalions are formed into around 100-300, and two teams of Russian–Turkish MAWS (200-300) each to hit the forces in Scotland (Hungarian & Russian), Austria (Hungarian), Spain (Turkish & Russian), Germany (Hungarian & Russian), and Southeastern Europe (Turkish and Hungarian) respectively. An eighth, composed of American and Scottish forces, numbering at about an even number to that of the Russian-Turk MAW battalion, meets the enemy MAWS just as they reach Berlin. In a conflict that results in the deaths of another 450,000 people, it is a Pyrrhic victory for the Allied MAWS. By the end of the month all of the MAW forces have been pushed into Germany – the nexus of the Pact occupation of Europe. In response, the English hit UN ground forces in the region. October – RECON Units deploy into Austria, Serbia, Hamburg and Berlin in search of Bulgarian DS Agent Nikita Kravychko, and the Russian Spetsnaz directing the attack from the ground – Colonel Sokolov – and his right-hand, Dragomir Radu, who are believed to be in one of the three countries. Although they are not, NATO Command sees them as potentially linked to the North Americans and their rogue Trump–Cruz regime reigning over the Territorial war state. NATO officially responds to RECON presence in Germany and Austria by deploying their deadliest Special Forces – the Danish Hunter Corps. In addition, the Norwegian MJK deploy alongside the Danes in a joint-military-operation to hunt down and take out RECON. Belgium also deploys MAWs – with some tasked specifically with the neutralization of the RECON soldiers. The Belgians also propagate the misinformation of RECON being an Israeli sleeper-cell throughout Europe – at the wishes of NATO Secretary-General Bush – and RECON soon finds themselves hunted throughout the continent by both of the warring factions, as forces from Hungary, Scandinavia, Bulgaria and Belgium converge on and relentlessly pursue the international task force. Fortunately, the RECONS manage to evade their predators and successfully track down and capture Sokolov (although Radu escapes back into Hungary). The Scandinavians, realizing the RECONS’ true objective, come to the conclusion that the Belgians were attempting to protect Sokolov, and that Belgium’s ambitions involved allowing Russia and England to conquer and weaken Europe enough for the three countries to come in and assume supremacy of the continent. Unfortunately, this information endangers the Scandinavian soldiers, and they are assassinated and eliminated in various mysterious ways throughout the rest o f 2030. The Allies liberate North Holland, which separates from the Occupied Government to form its own independent nation. West and North Norway also establish territorial independence, but soon fall under puppet regimes controlled by England and Russia respectively. By the end of the major hostilities in Europe – specifically Berlin – the Allies had suffered 1,567 MAW casualties, while the Russians and Hungarians had suffered 2,693 (1600 in Germany, 306 in Zurich, 722 in Spain), with the remaining 1,315 pushed back into Austria. Frustratingly, the two MAW forces remained almost evenly matched, with the tactically-superior AI MAWS only 310 behind the Allied MAWS. The Zombic Crisis - See: Zombic War, Eugenics, Zombic Fungus, Bioterrorism, Zombic Outbreak of Europe & the Americas (January – June 2031/2032) January – The Black Thirteen, an anti-neural agent created from the mutation of the O. unilateralis by nanotechnology, is discovered to be the weapon of choice utilized by the bioterrorists. Seeing how they attack European states at first, it is suspected they work for the United States by NATO and the Pact…that is until they attack the Western United States. It is confirmed they are neither Islamic terrorists nor are they Ultranationalist extremists from any one country. What elicits further confusion is the advanced power armor and weaponry they utilize. The prime suspicion for the funding and support of the bioterrorists then shifts to international organizations such as NATO. After bioterrorist attacks on Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Seattle, Dallas and Los Angeles, all implications of US or IF involvement in the bioterrorism is swept aside, and nations all across the world begin to set their sights on Interpol and NATO – or, eventually, even a false-flag inside job operation by North America against its resident civilian population. June – For six months Europe struggles against the Zombic threat. The Pact deploys a reserve force of 3,771 MAWS to combat the rapidly spreading bio-weapons. They succeed in pushing the threat back out of Eastern Europe and into the Southeastern/Balkans region by late June. Earlier in the month, although the American public take up arms against the infected back in February, in the end the entire continent west of the Mississippi River is quarantined, the major points of the Red Line established by US forces in western Chicago and Memphis TN. San Francisco quarantines the city limits and establishes a ‘Fortress Francisco’ policy put forth by the city’s Mayor and the Governor of California both. Officials note that a smaller infestation occurred in Mountain City in Eastern TN, which resulted in the town being quarantined. Although the culprits were not then known, with recent developments it becomes clear that the source of the weapon was borne in Oak Ridge, a few short miles north of Knoxville. By July 2031 over half-a-million people in the United States and North America alone have fallen victim to the contagion, with that number approaching approximately 1.8 million worldwide. Japan, India and Tibet vs. China - See: Chinese Invasion of the Philippines, Chinese Invasion of Japan, Tibetan Uprising & Zombic Crisis of East Asia (February – August [2033-2035]) February – On February 15th the insurgents launch several more attacks in East Asia – Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Petropavlovsk, Seoul, Pyongyang, Singapore, Vladivostok, Osaka, Manila, Quezon City, Hat Yai, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok – in 16 cities in Russia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, North Korea, Japan and the Philippines. Twelve hours later over 3,780 sightings have occurred and over 960 confrontations involving the cryptids have been reported. At least 7,791 deaths occur within nine hours of the attacks, and continue to escalate by an average of 2.4 deaths an hour, with another 0.6 death increase in escalation at a roughly 50% chance of said growth and nearly 0% chance of any visible implosion every ten hours that went by. Chinese authorities manage to attain a pyrrhic victory against the cryptids – with approximately 90% of the territory of Jiangsu Province, along with the 11 other surrounding provinces reporting cryptid presence and Q-Zone status, under hostile occupation – yet manage to evacuate most of the civilian populace, while Singapore manages to drive the infected out of the city-state and quarantine the city limits by the morning of the 21st. Other cities that manage to survive are Vladivostok (which, although a protracted campaign, manage to use the coastline and harbors as an effective brace against the encroaching hordes, allowing them to perform a tactical piston to rebound against the enemy), Ho Chi Minh City (using their home field advantage they eliminate the infected and push them back into China within twelve hours, before they can pose an adequate threat), Seoul (by the 16th), Osaka (manage to quarantine the infection within the south district by the 17th) and Manila (by the 16th). However, Shanghai, Petropavlovsk, Pyongyang and Quezon City are flattened by the infection – the result is the complete infection of the northern Philippines, cryptid occupation of Far-East Russia, the infection of East China, regions of Southern and Central China, North Korea, and the entirety of the Malay Peninsula by February of next year. The most devastating events of the Zombic Crisis occur in East China – Shanghai, during the Bund Nightmare: 586,383 people die within six hours at the hands of the bloodthirsty cryptid weapons – and the Malay Peninsula, during the “KL (Kuala Lumpur) Purge”, in which 326,225 die by infection and another 55,664 die from firing squads and government police instructed to wipe-out the infected areas of “vectors” left behind during the evacuation. A combined 968,272 perish in the Zombic Crisis of East Asia, with Shanghai and the Malay Peninsula regarded as the preeminent epicenters of the entire Crisis by many historians – with more people dying in the Bund Nightmare and the Kuala Lumpur Purge than in the entirety of the rest of the International Zombic Crisis as a whole. August – During the Zombic Crisis of East Asia, China comes upon the realization that Japan’s, and the rest of the region’s, intense focus on the containment and pacification of the bioterrorist threat lends it the perfect opportunity to trample Japan and occupy the island, to exact revenge upon the Nationalists that attacked their country in WWII. China invades Japan and the Philippines with its full force of tens of millions of soldiers, thousands of aircraft and hundreds of naval vessels including fifty battlecruisers and 3 supercarriers. What China forgets is the Japanese MAW complement of still-over 550 MAWS (459 Scout, 77 Tanks and 9 Command), which they had been actively upgrading and retrofitting with constantly-updating technology and consistently more advanced weaponry for the past two years. Although China still has over 1,000, they are outmatched both technologically and in raw firepower by Japan. The invasion is repulsed, miraculously, as Japan throws all 10,173,000 of its military personnel from the navy, ground forces and air forces – including its 557-strong “advanced walkers” – against the invaders. Over 50 million Chinese soldiers are killed, including three quarters of their own MAW force, while the Japanese lose a paltry 17 MAWS, even with the fabled “Gun Dragon” Command Walker (of which China claimed to have an entire army, yet only had two with one a secret), the People’s Liberation Army falls to the RONIN fighters and their NINJA counterparts – the latter revered as the pinnacle of the manned Command Walkers to fight in the Third World War. China’s Philippines invasion is repulsed almost instantly by the heavy number of infected there, and shortly after the Japanese repel China on August 20th anti-Communist Tibetan separatist movements begin to surge across the continent. With the Liberation Army already in a weathered state from their battering by the Japanese, they make the last mistake they should’ve made – poorly executed intelligence and a heated ‘shoot first ask questions later’ attitude. Delivering the exact same response they have given to every attempted uprising, what they do not expect is a tactical, guerrilla-style counterattack with carefully and patiently-executed strategic response by the Tibetan Insurrectionists. Several cells placed within the PLA and Communist Party execute bombings against government structures in Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin – as well as PLA strongholds in Chengdu, Luoyang and Xuchang. This creates a domino effect resulting in the immediate elimination of most of the Communist Party and PLA command structure, throwing the Chinese armed forces into disarray and giving the Tibetan opposition the tactical superiority for the duration of the confrontation. Sympathetic Anticommunist movements gain footholds in each of the seven military regions arising from opposition to the Communist Party from within the PLA. Throughout the rest of the year, into the next, and the beginning of the year after that, the Communists slowly lose their grip on Beijing and China as a whole. Eventually they are weakened to a point that the North Korean government, dependent on Communist support from Beijing, collapses, and Seoul becomes the seat of a unified Korea for the first time in almost a century. Shortly thereafter Korea, Japan, Taiwan and India launch an all-out assault on Beijing, capturing it and politically liberating China no more than 48 hours later. 2034-2035 – Despite Tibet’s ostensible political victory, the Communists – led by the imperialist and hypernationalist Fang Kaizeng – via UN and North American support hold out for several more years within the walls of the Forbidden City as the de facto headquarters of a Chinese-led UN dominion. Field Marshal Fang Kaizeng, the self-appointed yet unchallenged UNCIC since 2033 after Obama, had been the last person seen with his predecessor, and is thus blamed for his disappearance as he attempts open totalitarian rule over the United Nations – the Security Council that includes Egypt, Great Britain, France and the United States of America – and by extension, ruling the known world. By 2035 the IF led by Tibet is able to mount a successful assault on the Palace of Heavenly Purity and capture Marshal Fang, destroying a hidden second Gun Dragon in the process, thus ending the incessant hostilities fomenting within Beijing since 2033. Belgian–NATO Invasion of Israel NATO Invasion of Israel It wasn’t long after the fall of Red China and North Korea that the nations of Eastern Asia were able to mount a united offensive against the cryptids. By September 6th the East Asian Outbreak was slowed and pacified, with a few stragglers here and there in remote regions. Europe, although still struggling against the shadows of Russia and England, was able to keep the infestation contained in the West Balkans of Southeastern Europe, and after the fall of the extremist governments in Iran and Syria; Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt are able to mount a successful offensive against the infection in the Palestinian and Anbar regions of the Middle-East. A rampant Zombie crisis in Riyadh had spread to outlying regions by this time, however, and Saudi military elements were forced to focus attention inward. Meanwhile, the mainland United States was still struggling against the rampant hordes. While Memphis, Chicago and San Francisco held steadfast, the US had not experienced a moment’s reprieve long enough to formulate a unified offense strategy. The NATO Secretary-General, George W. Bush, is discovered to be working secretly with English Chancellor Pharaoh who had effectively taken control of Europe. Now, the final show down was imminent, as Belgian and NATO forces prepare to invade Israel – and choke what they claim to be the last lifeline being fed into the economically-implosive regime in Moscow. Or so they would have us believe. During the infestation and before an effective quarantine procedure could take place, the rogue Sunni government in Jerusalem is forced to vacate, and it is during this time that a Zionist-Muslim coalition government is erected and democracy and equality is reclaimed between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs for the first time in nearly a century. Despite this, NATO – primarily backed by Belgium and the MLF (Multinational Land Force), and Nordic EU battle-groups, and spearheaded by the Danish Hunter Corps – launches an attempted occupation of Haifa, intent on claiming Israel regardless of who or what was in power. In an unexpected reentry into WW3, U.S. and Japanese MAW forces – spearheaded by RECON – come to the defense of Israel against the Belgian–Danish NATO invasion force. The Russians also commit a sizeable assist, and the NATO intervention is repulsed. In the process, however, Russian forces destroy several U.S. naval assets, including a submarine – while pro-Russian Israelis seize and occupy a U.S. Ford-class supercarrier. Backed by Russia, and reinvigorated with the possession of such a powerful military asset, the Russian-controlled Israeli military pledges to assist Russia and England in a revenge attack upon Europe and the United States of America, while the moderate Israeli government, forced into exile in Tel Aviv, pledges and reaffirms its commitment to the United States, and a Civil War between the pro-Russian and pro-American factions within Israel erupts across southern and western Israel. English Invasion of New York City Beginning in mid-September, bombings in Queens, Newark and the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Sunset Park and 8th Avenue by the independent Jihadists in control of the supercarrier preamble a subsequent invasion by England of the Eastern Seaboard of Manhattan, New York. Isolated skirmishes unfold in Jersey City and parts of Newark and its outskirts in late September, November, and throughout the Summer of the following year, respectively. The first tally on the mission parameters is the occupation and lockdown of the financial district, particularly Wall St. The invasion is precipitated by precision missile strikes against the MMB, Empire State Building (to disrupt nationwide broadcasting), 432 Park Ave. (used as partial residence for U.S. infantrymen), 70 Pine St., the Woolworth Building, the Tishman-Speyer Building, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Grand Central, NYC Transit, One Liberty Plaza, Ft. Hamilton, NYPD, and the Statue of Liberty over the course of roughly 15 minutes (NYPD, Ft. Hamilton, the Statue of Liberty, 432 Park Ave., MMB and the Empire State Building are all destroyed simultaneously). In addition to these preliminary strikes, residential buildings suspect of housing North American and US infantry in preparation for the invasion of the United States and England respectively – 1717 Broadway, Liberty Tower, Barclay Tower, Biltmore Tower, CitySpire Center, The Corinthian, The Eldorado, The Epic, Madison Green, Metropolitan Tower, Battery Park’s Millennium Point and Millennium Tower – are destroyed. Although the 200,000-strong mobilization was – tactfully – spread out primarily in as many low-lying residential structures as possible, the leveling of New York’s residential skyscrapers still took out a rather large chunk of the total invasion force; 57,000 soldiers and over 100,000 civilians are killed. (October 2033–July 2034) – English forces manage to maintain a foothold in the Upper East Side throughout the entirety of the campaign (until the U.S.–RECON Raid on the NEON “Independence” Weapon on May 22nd over a year later). Within a month, however, U.S. forces had managed to secure the United Nations building and surrounding neighborhoods of English forces. The very next month, U.S. and RECON forces launch a joint operation to reclaim the supercarrier from the English and jihadists. They do so successfully, immediately turning the vessel on the other twenty-odd vessels in New Jersey waters, pounding them throughout January and February. By March English ground forces are surrounded, but manage to hold out for another three months before surrendering (although the English dreadnought returns briefly in April to attempt a rescue). Throughout the rest of June, English deserters and guerrillas commit blitzkrieg-style attacks on U.S. forces patrolling the New Jersey–New York border and throughout Jersey City. By early July the skirmishers have been pushed out of Jersey City and into Newark and surrounding neighborhoods, and within a week the remaining 100-odd belligerents have all either been captured or killed. Russian–Turk Siege of San Francisco - See: Siege of San Francisco, Battle of Chicago, Zombic Pacification of Mainland US, Turk–Russian Invasion of Anchorage & Battle of San Francisco (May – July 2033/2034) May – Throughout May Japanese Ronin Two MAW formations, led by one of the only three NINJA fighters in existence, lend crushing assistance to the ailing American resistance against the Zombie hordes. In response to the alarming developments in Manhattan, the second-largest MAW squadron on Earth is sent to Western America to take some of the pressure off of them by giving them an outstanding head start through “laser-carpet-bombings”, weapons systems the Japanese designed specifically to target and destroy nanotechnology (i.e., hapless victims of the Black Thirteen nano-virus), with one bombing run resulting in the destruction of thousands to tens of thousands of infected in one fell swoop. This gives the resistance enough of a window to conduct National Guard and United Militia clean-up exercises orchestrated to deliver the maximum effective response to the question of how to get rid of the infestation as quickly and wholly as possible. In the same month, a military coup led by General Valyn Zharkov seizes control of Moscow and executes Russian President Medvedev. The government under Zharkov is much more overtly ultranationalist and fascistic than Medvedev’s Russia. June – With the bombing runs concluded by May 21st, the dezombification of the western mainland begins immediately afterwards. The ANG and North America divide the Western US up into 3 zones denoted by their proximity to whichever of the three central nuclei of the Antizombie Resistance Movement (ARM) they happened to be – Chicago, Memphis or San Francisco. Although they had a lot of area to cover, this was their sole challenge in mopping up what little 1% of the initial Zombies remained behind after the devastating anticryptid bombing measures undertaken by the Ronins, and the sole reason it takes ARM from May 22nd up until June 29th to reduce the cryptid threat level from yellow to green. The main reason ARM has to cease prioritizing of the antizombie countermeasures is the Turkey–Russian invasion of San Francisco on June 30th. July – On the morning of June 30th NORAD orders a no-fly zone over California after alerting residents to the presence of over 40 Turkish naval vessels, spearheaded by the entire 269-vessel-strong Russian navy sitting just beyond eyeshot of the American West Coast. A citywide evacuation of San Francisco is underway by 7 AM, with RECON diplomatic assets inserted beforehand to coordinate and supervise – but it is too little too late. Oakland and Berkeley are quickly overrun, particularly due to their weakened state in the wake of the Outbreak. Fisherman’s Wharf is the first area of the city to fall under Russian bombardment. It isn’t until roughly an hour later, after the destruction of the westernmost suburban region of the City, the US forces discover this is a diversion. About 47 minutes into the attack Russian Spetsnaz and Turkish Commandos deploy into and occupy Point Vista. With all of the available US military assets focused on western SF, Russian–Turk forces quickly shut down any possible land-based assistance to US infantry via occupation of Point Vista and the Golden Gate Bridge. AA emplacements are quickly erected in Western SF and the Marina District, sealing out any available air-based reinforcements with Multiple-Launch Propulsion Systems, Artillery and advanced laser-based AA systems. The Russian occupation of mainland San Francisco proceeds with perennial bombing runs up and down Market Street, and an infantry-based shut down of Union Square, the Tenderloin District, Haight-Ashbury, The Castro and Financial Districts in that order. When US forces dugout on Lower Market, Upper Mission and parts of the Financial District prove to be a greater resistance force than the Spetsnaz anticipate, artillery batteries erected on Alcatraz, in Oakland and Berkeley preeminent to the main assault ruthlessly bombard the aforementioned municipal regions. It is at around this point in time that NATO and RECON – in response to the pinned-down US forces in mainland San Francisco – deploy behind enemy lines in Point Vista to retake the Russian–Turk shutdown of the Golden Gate and neutralize Russian and Turkish artillery. This endeavor, due to its extremely covert nature, catches the Russians and Turks by surprise and is a sweeping success for IF forces. Throughout the rest of the night, until the sun rises on the new day – July 1st – US forces remain on the defense. Due to the intense fighting in West Africa and the Middle-East, IF and NATO forces are hard-pressed to strategically allocate armed forces as tenderly and carefully as possible, and by 7 AM on July 1st, although US forces have suffered immense casualties, armored and airborne reinforcements arrive to deliver a crippling blow to Russian ground and naval assets. RECON assists in the evacuation and defense of Homeless Youths shelters from Russian belligerents and RECON air support assists in the process. District-by-district, RECON, NATO and IF forces shut out the Russian and Turkish forces. The supreme commander of the Turks present during the Siege of San Francisco, Nusrat Serif, the twin brother of Ibrahim Serif – and his right-hand man, the Hungarian General Dragomir Radu, make an attempt to escape from the war-zone, but Serif is eventually tracked down and taken in for interrogation by RECON-Unit 7. The Siege lasts for another two weeks but is reduced mainly to a war of attrition. During the interrogation of Nusrat Abdul-Qadir Serif, Unit 7 discovers that the attack on California was just a small part of a much larger plan involving all of the Pact and Interpol and even the enigmatic ‘Shadow Hub’, the terrorist organization responsible for these ‘Shadow Police’ bioterrorist attacks. The first step of the master plan to bring the mighty United States to its knees was a covert Russian invasion of Alaska with help from Interpol and this mysterious ‘Shadow’ organization. Shortly after the capture of Serif, Turkey collapses into civil war. President Serif is poisoned, and the entire government structure collapses into disarray. Ankara is torn apart by sectarian strife, terrorist enclaves and nonstop street-to-street firefights and bombings. Istanbul secedes and reforms as the city-state of Byzantium, while East Thrace joins the mainland Hellenic Republic. Turkey is effectively extinct by this time (although roughly three-fourths of Turk forces continue fighting for nationalist ideals, bolstered by the support of the Grey Wolves insurgencies active across Europe), with the failed DMZ states of Kurdistan, and West and East Anatolia, arising from the ashes. July 1st – RECON meets with NATO forces in Anchorage an hour after discovering this revelation from Serif. Sure enough, Russian-speaking men in uniform are spotted on the town’s outskirts. Covert and stealth operations are launched against these Russian ‘observation cells.’ The anti-insurgency operations are a massive success for RECON and NATO forces. After the debriefing at the RECON base a few miles outside of town, NATO and the civilian staff at the base is discovered to have been infiltrated by pro-Interpol GRU and NSA moles. A bitter struggle erupts, after Russian and Peacekeeper forces reveal themselves within the very interior of the RECON HQ, to secure the base. It is here that the most devastating confrontation between RECON and cryptid hostiles unfolds. Eventually, the only solution becomes evident – evacuate and nuke the site from orbit. Capturing a smuggled Russian nuclear warhead, RECON and NATO forces evacuate – but not before losing 3 quarters of their initial forces. The base is destroyed, along with the cryptid threat. As they are arriving back in the mainland United States, RECON receives word from Shield Team that the bioterrorists have arrived in Chicago with power armor reminiscent of the IF-based ‘Pestilence” armor systems, only much more advanced. With their own men in the center of the battle zone, RECON changes course and they then head for Chicago. Zombie Apocalypse Cancelled - See: The Zombic Crisis, Eugenics, Bioterrorism, Zombic Pacification of Mainland US, Operation STARMAN & Zombie Pacification (July 2033) What would become known as the Zombic War, also referred to just as frequently as the Zombic Crisis or Outbreak, would last for two-and-a-half years – from January 2031 until July 2033 – and would be the most terrifying part of the Third Global Confrontation for many. In July of 2033 it is discovered, through RECON moles in the CIA and Intelligence State, of information they had been hiding from RECON, the US, and humanity as a whole. An organization known only as the Shadow Hub, a secret society behind the CIA Shadow Committee and Britain’s GCHQ and SIS, as well as the power behind the Saudi Throne, Wall Street and the Bilderberg elites – operating from secret underground bases all across the planet – were the people the mysterious bioterrorist ‘Shadow Police’ represented. Not Islamic extremists or Communists this time around, but something even more difficult to extinguish than an ideal, but a mindless, violent force against all nations on Earth. The Shadow Hub represented the first ‘Anti-Nation’, and was a far greater threat than any one nation, any one terrorist organization, or any army with numbers of untold and unknown millions throughout Earth, and state of the art technology and bio-weapons. Obtaining a monopoly on the G13 and B13 weapons, they did not need MAWS, they did not need nukes, they didn’t even need to stake territory – all they needed was to destroy it. And that was their single-minded single greatest and most sought-after objective – to destroy all nations. Unfortunately for them, their plan at destabilizing the world indirectly by loosing a potentially apocalypse-scale biological weapon in key cities of the world’s most powerful region had been slowed about 10 months later, and by the time nearly 2 years had elapsed the Outbreak had been contained to small and concise quarantine zones in the aforementioned cities. The Shadow Hub had been thwarted… and angered. Could they be thwarted again? Their program of long-term Eugenics had not yet been thwarted, but it was under attack with their exposure by Omega Response. The Omegas believed in being the last line of defense against a Scorched Earth policy, which the Shadows represented as the penultimate manifestation thereof. Although nobody would believe them, certain elements within RECON claimed evidence had been found that implicated the SH in a vast thought-control conspiracy dating as far back as the Dark Ages, possibly even to the time of Roman domination of Europe and Asia and the Egyptian Pharaohs – of course back then they would have gone by a different name, but still been complicit in their agenda to enslave humanity. Fewer still thought evidence pointed to the SH making contact with another dimension through secret science programs – namely a dual program in Oak Ridge, TN and Flatwoods, WV. It was believed to be called Operation STARMAN. Only Unit 7 would come into contact with this revelation directly. Although the details are classified, it is believed to be connected to some of the more terrifying cryptid sightings, such as the Mothman, Flatwoods Monster, the Native-American mythical beast known as the Wendigo and the infamous and terrifying Jersey Devil. The Outbreak and indicative Apocalypse had been thwarted – but it had done its damage. Nearly 2,000,000 (584,317 in North America and the U.S., and 210,111 in Eastern Europe), were robbed of their humanity, and their life, by the time it was said and done – with roughly 50% of the casualties in the cities of Kuala Lumpur and surrounding areas, and the Chinese city of Shanghai alone. The Shadow War - See: Shadow Government, Battle of Chicago, Super-Fungus, Nanobot Virus, Fall of Kiev & Shadow Heavy (October 2032 – July 2033) In October of 2032 or 2033, shortly after the contagion was beginning to be overcome, it became common knowledge that the forces seemingly seen as separate regional entities formed for different purposes were in fact part of a stealth expansion by forces responsible for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, that shared their views of European – and eventually global – domination. These entities in question are none other than the EU, NATO, Interpol and Bank for International Settlements. Through the latter, which had passed into Nazi hands during WWII (along with Interpol), they controlled the World Bank, World Trade Organization, and International Monetary Fund. Connecting these entities together into a singular machine for world domination and perpetuating centrist totalitarianism and populism across the world were the power elite – the Kings and Queens of Europe, the Saudi Royals, the CEOS and Chairmen of multi-national mega-corporations, former and currently-serving politicians and heads of state, including Zharkov and Pharaoh – who had initiated a permanent convention in a secluded underground base in the Appalachian foothills as opposed to the annually-rotating meetings between various cities. This time they had enlisted the presence of the Interpol and NATO heads, as well as the presence of Pharaoh and the Hungarian Supreme Commander, Dragomir Radu himself. November - January Throughout the duration of this active ‘Shadow Hub’ (unofficial name; "Shadow Heavy"), the terrorist activities of the Shadow Police became more frequent and more direct. The first direct attack occurs on November 20th, in Bethlehem. Using high-impact EMP’s, advanced laser-guided artillery and directed-energy weaponry (and of course their state-of-the-art power armor), the insurgents shut down Israeli and IF fortifications in the city almost instantaneously. The defenders have to resort to guerrilla tactics and makeshift ‘blitzkriegs’ to push back the vastly-outnumbered yet ordinance-heavy belligerents. The second occurs 3 days later, in London. The Shadow insurgency bombs British and SAS airbases and fortresses utilizing low-altitude high-impact surface-to-air ballistic missiles (HSBMs) deployed from hidden facilities beneath the city. Big Ben is also destroyed by an HSBM and Buckingham Palace is partially damaged. The attack takes the Royal Armed Forces by sweeping surprise and – although vastly superior in numbers – proceed to fight an uphill battle against the insurgency. In addition to being blindsided, the insurgents also plant moles within the British command substructure and the active armed forces, further complicating their resistance efforts. While the entirety of the British loyalists throw their weight and brace back against the invaders in a last stand at Downing St, the Russians see this as a perfect opportunity to take down the Island of Great Britain once and for all – and they would have, had it not been for an identical insurgency launched against Moscow mere hours later. Throughout the rest of the month and into January, the British and Uzbeks brace against the ostensibly interminable attacks and tricks utilized by the insurgents, including a seemingly endless supply of drone weapons and advanced technology, until finally the illusive belligerents fall back and leave the respective victim cities in ruins, vulnerable to one another and ripe for renewed warfare and bloodshed, on January the 17th. February - April The next, perhaps most devastating, attack occurred on February 11th, 2033. Utilizing HSBMs loaded with raw nanobots jury-rigged by the insurgents from the original B13, only without the fungus medium used to transform its victims into walking weapons, simultaneous attacks are launched in Paris, Barcelona, Geneva, Madrid, St. Petersburg FL, Russian St. Petersburg, Bangor, Phoenix, Houston, El Paso, Little Rock and Memphis. Instead of creating zombies, like its fungal medium would’ve done, it merely destroyed the nervous and immune systems, replacing them with volatile chemicals created from the rapidly-replicating nanobots that transformed the hosts into ticking and walking time-bombs. They would explode and the chemical would cause a chain-reaction rippling domino-effect. So if 10 people died, 100 people died, and then, if it wasn’t contained quickly enough, as many as 10,000 could die. Civilian and military alike were targets, and within 24 hours of the attack, all 12 cities had been shut down and occupied by the insurgents. In an unlikely twist of fate, however, Russian–led forces deploy with a fresh batch of MAWS and wreak havoc upon the assailants, with assistance from NATO. They hold out longer than expected, with the stragglers not being pushed from the last city (St. Petersburg in Russia) until April 16th. May - June Unfortunately, the presence of Russian and NATO MAWS in Florida only encourages Pact forces to begin planning a joint-invasion and occupation of the United States, which leads to the Manhattan Attacks in June and the Siege of San Francisco later that month. When officials in Moscow refuse to withdraw the killer robots, and NATO officials in Brussels likewise refuse to do the same, the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and the entire Independence bloc recall the entirety of their armed forces and put them on high-alert with possible orders to nuke Moscow off the map or, even worse, launch their own MAW force into the aforementioned regions. It isn’t soon after that the opposing forces leave the United States. Although this immediate crisis is ostensibly averted, more issues arise later on. July – The Third Global Conflict begins to get really nasty after Pact forces begin to become desperate. The terrorist attack in Moscow sparks a chain reaction after the destruction is contained. Shortly thereafter, the insurgents launch their biggest assaults yet. Moscow and Chicago – utilizing over 100,000 Shadow Police apiece – are shut-down by the insurgents in under 2 hours. Amid the chaos, Ukrainian Vyshchyy Artemenko is overthrown and executed in the streets. Meanwhile, the Battle of Chicago marks one of the most intense battles the American home land will ever see. Battle of Chicago When RECON arrives the insurgents had already shut down half of the city and US military were fighting a losing battle. Leading up to the battle, throughout the day – July 1st – the US military began arriving in the neighborhoods between O’Hare and Bucktown, and then from there to The Loop, and from there again all the way down to Chinatown. What NORAD had been warning Chicago local law enforcement, counterterrorism and military forces against was a possible amphibious assault from Lake Michigan, consisting of consecutive strikes on The Loop, Prairie District and Chinatown, as well as a possible attack in Douglas, Streeterville, the Gold Coast, Bucktown and Lincoln Park. What intelligence authorities did not know (or purposely withheld) was that SH forces had hijacked a plane inbound for O’Hare International Airport and the staff therein were completely unaware. The plane lands successfully and by this time the 62 insurgents had forcibly purged the crew and passengers from Flight 187, and another 56 had done the same on Flight 292. The two planes landed successfully at O’Hare terminals, and within minutes the concourses had been bombed and the airport shut down. The US rapid-reaction team of approximately 210 soldiers on sight in O’Hare responded immediately, fully engaged in a firefight to liberate the airfield less than 10 minutes later. A third bomb is located and successfully diffused, a warhead with the capacity to take out the entire northwestern portion of the city. About 5 minutes after O’Hare is secured, laser-guided bombardments precipitate upon Lincoln Park, The Loop, West Loop, Gold Coast, Streeterville, New Eastside, and every neighborhood along the Lakeside between China Town and Hyde Park faces an invasion of between 1,500 and 9,800 troops depending on area size. With over 110,700 soldiers, the 36,296-strong (36,330 before the O’Hare Attacks) US defenses do not look to be facing very favorable circumstances by the beginning of the next hour. The heaviest concentration of fighting occurs in West Loop, Loop, and Lincoln Park. A heavy fortification of 750 US Marines in Printer’s Row establishes a bulwark against a force of about 1,000 Shadow troops, locking down all entries into the district with over 100 tanks and armored vehicles. This is disproportionate to the total number of about 600 armored vehicles present during the battle – leaving only about 482 to be distributed amongst the Loop, West Loop, Lincoln Park and Gold Coast, with possibly some extras for single-use in Streeterville, New Eastside, South Loop and the Prairie District if they’re lucky. The subsequent turn of events prove they are not. By about 6:30 PM, the Marines had successfully locked down West Loop, United Center Park, Noble Square, East Village and Wicker Park. However, virtually the entire city center – The Loop, Streeterville, New Eastside and Lincoln Park (as well as questionable reconnaissance activities by insurgents in Bucktown) – remained embroiled in ostensibly ceaseless fighting. Although by between 7:15 and 8:00 the U.S. forces had whittled away the invasion force by about 15,000 soldiers, they had on the downside lost around 6,000 themselves, with the death toll rising. By 7:30 the defenders had erected a bulwark in the southeastern end of The Loop, aided by the victors from Printer’s Row and survivors from the Prairie-South Loop region. Around 5,500 Marines stamp out a forward-assault base with most of the heavy weaponry and armor positioned in a strategic line running the entirety of Wells St. and flanking off about 550 ft. down Lake St. to the north and Van Buren to the south. The rest of Lake St. consisted of spare munitions, equipment and a makeshift armory, allowing the Marines to quickly brake ranks, grab a refill, and return to Wells in the event of an attack (asymmetric skirmishes were occurring roughly every 15-20 minutes at this point, mostly unmanned recon drones but occasionally a strike team of insurgents would launch an attack). Wabash Ave., at least three-quarters of the way down, was part of a makeshift command post, with the central headquarters set up at the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building on S. Dearborn St. occupying 26 of the 42 floors. The remainders of Wabash and Van Buren, and several abandoned buildings and complexes located therein and around the State St. area were converted into a makeshift hospital for wounded soldiers and refugees. At around 10:15 the SH launch a full-on assault, with artillery and a grenadier battalion of 1,000 positioned on the CTA rail taking the brunt of the blow. The front changes multiple times throughout the hour, with Allied forces at one point being pushed all the way into the park, but eventually the defenders manage to push the enemy out to Wacker, and after another hour of intense fighting – RECON arrives. With RECON assistance, the Allies manage to push insurgent forces across the bridge to Canal St. It is at this point the SH launch their final, most desperate and most dangerous biological warfare attack yet… At 11:38 AM, Chicago falls victim to 18 consecutive B13 attacks in the 18 formerly-most populous districts. By this point the entire city had been evacuated, by 9:48 to be exact. The damage is done, however, the attacks proving brutally effective against US forces. They don’t stand a chance as their forces are dissolved from the inside-out by the virus. Now facing a two-pronged assault, Shadow Police on one side and zombies on the other, the US forces realize they are going to lose. RECON gets as many out of the city as possible and prepares a contingency plan – hijack the North American nukes hidden beneath Chicago, activate them, target the city, and get the hell out. UNIT-7 does just this, penetrating into the underground facility, and evacuating via airlift. The Battle of Chicago ends with the entire city and the infestation therein, being wiped out. - See: US “Independence” N.E.O.N. (Near-Earth-Orbiter Network) Platform, First Infantry Combat in Space, First Vehicular Combat in Space, & Raid on the US Independence (April – May 2034) March – English Ultranationalists, fighting a protracted campaign again vying for control over Yorkshire in England since the beginning of hostilities over 5 years ago, launch their greatest incursion into the West Yorkshire Urban Area yet. Utilizing hundreds of tanks, thousands of Armor units, hundreds of aircraft, hundreds of artillery and rocket systems, and over 500,000 soldiers from England, the English Military launched a several-pronged attack into the area mainly focused in Leeds. Following a series of UDA suicide-bombings killing over 100,000 – English forces are met with equal resistance from NATO forces – 70% of which are composed of British, Ontarian, Quebecer, U.S. and North American Warfighters. Although the attack begins with a flourish – the English Defense is called back to London just mere days from completely taking the city of Leeds, in preparation for a new campaign and strategy – raising fear and suspicion in Edinburgh and Washington that the English and their Pact allies may be preparing for something even more devastating. NATO convenes in Holland for planning and counterterrorism operations against the UDA, possibly involving an invasion of London. April – When English forces realized they may in fact lose the Manhattan Campaign, and were being pushed back, an effort to appropriate Special Weapons Assets from the United States and into Russian hands was put in motion. The US Independence Near-Earth-Orbiter Network, or NEON Platform, began construction in the early 2010’s beyond the eyes of the public, and was initially a preliminary emergency defense system designed to counter the possibility of Russian expansion beyond Ukraine (following Russia’s annexation of Crimea) and was still currently under construction but was ready-and-able to be used against targets. In late April, NATO collaborated with Russian forces to conduct a raid operation on the orbital facility. When a similar weapon – known as the DEMO – was used against a US military base in Malta (effectively rendering the Island uninhabitable and resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians) on May 19th, 2034 – the Russian–English Joint-Special Operations Division (JSOD) began a campaign as early as 48 hours later to add the larger and stronger NEON to accompany the DEMO in the emerging COSECTOR Space Warfare Branch. RECON assembles their own space operation, the second in the history of warfare (after the NATO–Russian operation to occupy the Independence), and deploys to the station in a captured Soyuz. May 22nd – RECON UNIT-7 deployed onto Independence on May 22nd at 2:25 AM and was met with immediate resistance. The station was occupied by 27 Special Forces operatives – 19 Russians and 8 Englishmen – but managed to pull through and make it to the firing control center before the weapon was able to successfully fire on New York City and Long Island – its next target. Had UNIT-7 failed to prevent the Independence from firing – it would have leveled New York City and erased Long Island from the face of the Earth. This would have killed nearly 10 million people and plunged the world economy – and the world as it stood – into irreparable chaos, leaving a power vacuum previously held by North America and Europe, allowing Russia and England to seize absolute power. After Unit-7 succeeds, the orbital platform is deactivated, putting a wrench in their strategy. The Russian and North American-led NATO forces, although having different methods and slightly different goals, had one thing in common: they wanted the Independence Front and the United States of America destroyed. Hungarian–Turk Invasion of the U.S. - See: Turkish–Hungarian Invasion of Eastern US, Assault on Boston, Turkish Occupation of Boston, Turkish–Hungarian Occupation of Florida, Siege of Ft. Lauderdale, Occupation of Miami, & North American Occupation of New England (April – October 2034) April – On April 30th England and the straggling Turkish forces utilize the full extent of their machine armies to launch an invasion and occupation of Croatia and the Balkans. England is pushed back by NATO forces by mid-May, and the Balkan occupation is brought to an invasion followed by Poland and the Czech Republic in June and July respectively. In late August, a Hungarian–Turk assault force invades Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, with the sole objective to work as much destruction and devastation in as little time as possible. With the Pact maintaining a firm stranglehold on Europe via the Netherlands and England, as well as parts of Northern France and Luxembourg, and the conflict between the EU Benelux Battlegroup and COSECTOR thus reduced down from full-scale war to scattered, erratic skirmishes that consisted of mostly individual, isolated events… the MAW-led Hungarian-Turk beast sees an opportunity for its most daring move yet. July – Over the span of roughly 46 hours between the end of July and beginning of August, realizing the Turkish and Russian governments were in chaos, RECON deploys Shield and Sword Agents on a plainclothes sting operation to take out the Hungarian Commander that had eluded them so many times before – Dragomir Radu. He is located in Orșova, attempting to escape to Russia through the Black Sea. Although most of the operation unfolds in the Retezat National Park, the final 13 hours of the operation involve a manhunt, which escalates in the last six hours into a chase and gunbattle at the Iron Gates. Before capturing Radu, the RECONS learned that he intended to kill himself to prevent an interrogation leading to the revelation of his manipulation of NATO and thwarting of his Europe designs. However, right as he is captured, he reveals that his plans have already been set in motion by his cohorts Lord Pharaoh and the late President of Turkey, as well as North American President Gates and the Trumps – through pro-Russians within the Chinese government – to blackmail the King of Belgium into a NATO-COSECTOR joint-invasion of the United States of America. August – Between May and July 2034, NATO and COSECTOR, while still officially enemies, are appealed into a coalition by the Chinese-friendly North Americans under the prospect of replacing the United Nations with a “Socialist World Government” that would end World War III and unite the planet and all of its nations under one flag. The North Americans claim, at the behest of Chinese officials (including Fang) that sympathized with Russia and the Hungarians, that the United States – the foremost power on the United Nations Security Council, must be coerced to capitulate to the new continental nation of North America. After Egypt steps down from the Council, the United States, France and Britain – as the Security Council Triumvirate – are effectively labeled the ‘singular mutual threat’ to both the East (Russia and Asia) and the West (NATO) and that the two rival civilizations must unite to ‘end the scourge of patriotism’ once and for all. On August 15th, 2034; the Hungarians and Turks, followed by the entire NATO bloc of the Belgian-led EU (excluding Holland), Denmark’s Greenland taskforce and spearheaded by the Pharaoh Government (each faction intent on toppling the United States before the other), launch the most devastating attack in military history upon the United States of America. Like rain, the MAWS fell from the sky and attacked locations all along America’s Eastern Seaboard. At 7:43 AM Fort Lauderdale, Florida was attacked by a staggering 351 Hungarian-, Turkish- and Belgian-aligned MAWS. IF forces deployed in an effort to stymie the assault, but since most of their MAWS had been destroyed during the European Conflict they had to – terrifyingly – resort to old-fashion military tactics to combat the mechanized monsters. At 4:14 and 7:52 AM on August 16th, 173 Turkish and Hungarian MAWS deploy into Boston, Massachusetts and Virginia Beach in the Old Dominion. The French Navy – a powerhouse of a global naval power – almost single-handedly defeats the Turkish-Russian Fleet (possessing 4 aircraft carriers to the Turks’ 1, despite being outnumbered numerically) whom they outmatch with firepower and technology. The French Air Force also contributes heavily, possessing an air fleet of nearly 2,000 themselves. On the ground, however, with only a few dozen MAWS of their own to lend support to the ground forces, the United States – abandoned by the Pentagon, and unable to call for support from NATO – fights an uphill battle throughout August and into September. RECON does all they can, but eventually the hostiles – backed by Turkish and Hungarian MAWS – manage to push the 500,000-strong force beyond the Appalachian Mountains. It is here that the American, French, British and Japanese joint-force makes its final stand against the invaders. With 35 nations (23 defending, and 12 attacking) and over 5 million people from those and other countries directly involved in airborne, naval or person-to-person combat during the Battle of Ft. Lauderdale and the Turkish–Hungarian Occupation of Florida (August 2034 to October 2035), the aforementioned sites, operations and theatres of warfare (henceforth known as the North American and Eastern American Theatres of World War III) become the second-largest in the history of warfare, with the Siege of Beijing and the Asian Theatres being the largest (with over 20 million people directly involved), although only seven nations are involved. - See: Russian–English Attack on France, Franco–Norwegian Liberation of Holland and Denmark, Second Battle of Berlin, Eastern US Front, & Dragon’s Mouth Siege (September – December 2034) September – September 2nd, 2034; RECON forces make a stand in the city of Knoxville and the surrounding municipalities of Forge, Newark, Mountain City and Sevier City – the Gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Appalachian Mountains. It is here the Allies draw their line in the sand against the enemy forces, and having taken down 262 of the total 524-strong Turk–Hungarian MAW forces to deploy along the Eastern Seaboard. With 90 MAWS in Knoxville, 59 in Forge, 65 in Sevier City, 47 in Newark a total of 3 MAWS make it to Mountain City – the last of the cities group in proximity to the Park. Coincidentally, this happened to be the region with the highest concentration of RECON forces. Within just a few hours RECON manages to eliminate the MAWS, but then just as they are about to secure the area – UN forces show up with Anti-MAW Tanks and begin eliminating the MAWS. At first the UN helps RECON, but then it becomes apparent they were merely representing the interests of the Shadow Hub. The SH and UN forces had been working hand-in-hand the entire time to execute a strategy that would end with them as the victors of the conflict, by simply playing the warring factions against one another – and then striking when they were at their weakest. In the region that eventually becomes known as “Dragon’s Mouth”, a Final Stand occurs in which the straggling and vastly-outnumbered 100,000-strong US forces and 311-strong RECONs take their stand against a multimillion-strong UN and Chinese invasion force spearheaded by more than 100 Anti-MAWs… directed against primarily infantry and light armor. It goes down in history as one of the most one-sided fights in military history, surpassed only by the Battle of Thermopylae during the Greco-Persian Wars of BCE. Although the Allies lose the battle, and the UN autocracy regains control of the United States for the first time in almost a decade, they continue to wage guerrilla warfare against the Occupation well into the 2050’s (the first manned mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa) and even by some accounts into the early 2080’s (the first decade of interplanetary colonization) under the moniker; ‘Union Minutemen’. On September 10th English forces launch a protracted campaign against Berlin – which alongside The Hague, London, Brussels, Oslo and Copenhagen was one of the last six governments in open opposition to the English and the rogue Russian forces fighting for Ankara long after the fall of Zharkov – in what came to be called the Second Battle of Berlin. Although it is far bloodier than its WWII counterpart, the Berliners quickly repulse and weaken the invaders through attrition, much better equipped and coordinated than the Germany under the shadow of the Nazis 9 decades earlier. By October 3rd the Invasion of Berlin has been repulsed with assistance from Spain, France and the recently-liberated Polish and Swedish military. October – In late October, supported by Denmark and (primarily) Belgium, the U.K. leads the invasion of England. Simultaneously, most of the Euro-bloc military braced against the English, repulsing the Anglo–Russian military from France by early October. The last of the English naval forces are surrounded and, with assistance from one final interrogation of Serif and Kravychko, and the warfare expertise of the last soldier of RECON Unit-7, the Europeans board and informally occupy the USS Montana and HMS Prince of Wales in the Strait of Dover between France and Britain, in the final battle of the Third Global Conflict – the Siege of Calais. England’s dreadnought is a powerful and terrifying “wall of fire and metal”, pulverizing the beachhead and light armor with its massive guns, blowing a U.S. Command Walker straight out of the sky like paper Mache, and resisting some of the most coordinated and forceful air strikes. In time, the Allies come to the conclusion that they must conduct an all-out assault on the dreadnought and its escorts, spearheaded by a Ford-class assault supercarrier jury-rigged into a heavy missile supercruiser specifically to defend its critically-important air force payloads during the pivotal Berlin Blitz a month earlier. Realizing the likelihood that the British and French-backed RECON forces could triumph over the England Naval group, and that because of the recent turn of events they likely already knew of the Belgian infiltration of the EU, collaboration with the English indicative therein, and their role in the ascendancy of Hungarian ultranationalists, Belgium turns against European forces at the last minute, losing the support and control they had of the German and Italian forces. Backed into a corner and isolated, Belgium and the ultranationalist war states of England, Russia and Hungary had inadvertently united the world against them, and to top that off, they end up losing control of their naval assets. Losing the battleship to the supercarrier assault, England, Russia, Hungary and Belgium formally surrender and WWIII ends. Fallout & Aftermath

Daily Painting #933. Hot Dog by Cryptid-Creations.deviantart.com on @DeviantArt #kitchen from sortofpink.fl _ and when it gets hard, you know it can get hurt sometimes it is only thing that makes us feel alive. _ nordic bakery in LONDON instagram.com/moreparsley Tocchi e ritocchi, Damien Florebert Cuypers Love this idea of mixing food and eating disorders to create a human figure. Projects - Simona Ciraolo Brosmind - awesome graphics! Too cute :) ramen fullbody by meago.deviantart.com on @deviantART n e m u p a n — One of my favourite mahou shoujos.

Now you can live out all of your kaiju-inspired fantasies as a terrifying behemoth in Rank17’s MIGHTY MONSTER MAYHEM 🙂 Renowned for your research in cryptozoology and mutations, you were ridiculed and outcast from the scientific community while trying to prove the existence of monsters. After recombining cryptid DNA, you found a way to bolster the human immune system and increase strength. However, your research has been deemed fraudulent – and the local Cryptozoological Research and Progenation chapter has cut your funding. In a last-ditch effort to validate your work, you’ve decided to give the scientific community a live demonstration by drinking one of your molecular mutation liquids and transforming into a legendary monster … Choose to blend your DNA with one of five different creatures including Cthulhu Carl, Ronald the Rock, Ian Insectoid, Toni the Oni, or Gorzilla (a.k.a., “Todd” – who doesn’t like labels) and start wreaking havoc across town. Use the HTC Vive’s motion controllers to tear down skyscrapers, munch on unsuspecting pedestrians, and monster-punch everything you see. Need to reach a new vantage point or hit a target that’s just out of reach? No problem: Use the motion controllers to climb the tallest buildings and throw objects like the good monster you are. Play through the single-player campaign and make 9 cities crumble at your feet. Rampaging alone is fun – but reducing everything to rubble with friends is even better. Unleash your fury online as you battle with (or against) your friends – and lay waste to the human world! - Tear down entire cities building by building and stomp your way around town. - Challenge or join your friends in multiplayer destruction. - Obliterate cities in single-player mode. - Choose your monster: Cthulhu Carl, Ronald the Rock, Ian Insectoid, Toni the Oni or Gorzilla (a.k.a. “Todd”). - Climb buildings, throw objects, and monster-punch things! - Wreck everything in sight, earn a high score, and climb tall buildings (along with the leaderboards). PRICING & AVAILABILITY Mighty Monster Mayhem will be available on Steam VR/HTC Vive next Thursday, April 20 for $8.99 – 40% off the game’s retail price. The sale will end a week after launch (April 27).

I'm not sure who or what is more monstrous: the smug sceptics or the scant cryptids. Let me explain. Having interviewed Debbie Martyr (research conservationist with Flora and Fauna International) 12 years ago about her apparent sighting of the primate cryptid the orang pendek in Sumatra and more recently interviewing ape expert Ian Redmond on his research into sasquatch/big foot (supported by David Attenborough and Jane Goodall), over the years I have acquired a fascination for primate cryptids. So I was eager to attend a recent lecture at the Zoological Society London (ZSL) entitled "Cryptozoology: science or pseudoscience?". Henry Gee, a senior editor at Nature looking and behaving like a jovial, off-duty roadie dressed in grubby T shirt and ruby crocs, chaired the event in which Drs Michael Woodley, Charles Paxton and Darren Naish presented their crypto data. Paxton reminded us that atmospheric electrical disturbances such as sprites, blue jets and elves were only identified in the 1980s and 1990s when they were photographed. Until then, anecdotal reports of flashes of light above the clouds were frequently ignored. Scientists used to dismiss accounts of meteorites as paranormal fantasy and poured scorn on eyewitness descriptions from lucky survivors of rogue waves – until satellite images in the 1990s confirmed their existence. The mountain gorilla wasn't believed to exist by Western science until two were shot dead in 1902, and the bonobo was not credited with being a unique species until 1930. In the past 20 years, 70 species of primate have been newly described, including a Vietnamese gibbon and the Bili ape: a large, sub-species of chimp from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2009, a Papua New Guinean crater yielded up a cat-sized species of woolly rat, among other previously undiscovered creatures. In an age of satellites and robotic submersibles, it's easy to assume, with a "been there done that" attitude, that we know all there is to know about Earth. Clearly nature is far from being fully understood by science, and yet some sceptics persist in contemptuously sneering at almost everything outside of their immediate knowledge. With their high-systemised inability to tolerate newness, they stymie open scientific debate, bully original thinkers and drive away those with fascinating new data on unknown species. I was sad to witness this and their non-reflective guffawing at ZSL. Paxton and Naish seemed particularly conscious of this spiked criticism and made a point of distancing themselves from misleading and bad science. Nothing wrong with that, but they were so ardent in this respect that the friend I was with mistakenly thought the panel were themselves anti-cryptozoology. The three speakers focused their statistical analysis on sea monsters, Paxton saying that he prefers the term monster to cryptid. He also wanted to assure the audience that, "taxpayers have no fear, your money is not spent on crypto research, scientists do this in their spare time." Paxton's talk underscored the fact that anomalies should be actively pursued and science should be about wonderment. But how should science deal with low-frequency phenomena that might well be real? One approach is to break witness reports down and analyse interesting properties. To illustrate, Paxon used his data of "initial reported distance" from sea monsters given by witnesses aboard boats. Significantly, initial sighting are usually reported close to the boat. Paxton wasn't sure why this might be. I would suggest that it is because witnesses do not know what they do not know – they have to see it close-up to be confident they are witnessing something unexpected. An unknown creature seen at a distance could be dismissed as a dolphin or a piece of wood. Initial sightings of terrestrial cryptids also tend to be at close proximity, and again the same factor may well apply. Naish addressed the "prehistoric survivor paradigm". Some 65m years ago, during the late cretaceous, the coelacanth, the plesiosaur and many other species disappeared from the fossil record during a mass extinction. But in 1938 and again in 1999 two species of coelacanth were discovered. This Lazarus-like survival of the coelacanth gives confidence to those who suggest a long-necked surviving plesiosaur swims in our lochs and oceans. As a palaeontologist Naish was able to explain how the vertebrae of plesiosaurs could not move in the flexible, swan-like motion often described in reported sightings. But he believes this is a case of wrong classification rather than an indication that sea monsters do not exist. We were reminded of the new Indonesian species of ray and shark and the two recently identified (1991/2002) species of beaked whale, inhabiting a deep-sea niche: the deep sea and its inhabitants are barely understood. During the Q&A an elderly sceptic quipped: "Some people say they've seen aliens and have even talked to them!" The panel trod an uneasy path as they attempted to accommodate these sorts of jibes while keeping on track. The three speakers confirmed that their modelling indicates there are between 10 and 50 large species of marine animals yet to be described. They were also in agreement that marine sampling methods for cryptids must be established and remain constant. For those readers left wanting more, the Weird Weekend is the biggest gathering of cryptozoologists in the world, held in Devon in August. Naish will again be speaking.

Welcome! In this week’s Ronin Round Table, we’re showing off the cover to the revised and updated edition of Hero High for Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition! Plus introducing you to the heroes in the latest lineup of the Next-Gen! We’ll cut right to important stuff and show off the cover first! This image was born from a discussion between M&M game designer Steve Kenson and me. I sent him a paragraph about two different ideas, one in which the characters were standing on some bleachers with a defeated enemy on the gym floor in front of them and the second idea was them standing on a giant defeated robot. Clearly, the ideas were combined Voltron-like into the above image, which shows the heroes standing on a defeated robot (a Probot from the Terminus, also featured on the cover to the Gadget Guides) in front of outdoor bleachers! Seven of the eight members of the Next-Gen from the updated Hero High are shown on this image. We couldn’t squeeze Blue Bolt on the cover, but he’s featured in the Mutants & Masterminds Quick-Start that’s currently in the works. Blue Bolt was featured in a couple of Power Profiles and we liked the character design Sean Izaakse came up with so much we decided to use him as a character in Hero High! Because the Next-Gen is a team made up of students at the Claremont Academy, its lineup changes frequently. The members of the team featured in the original Hero High are now out in the real world, dealing with challenges all their own. (You’ll hear more about them in Freedom City when it’s released later this year.) Now, let’s meet the new lineup of the Next-Gen so you can be prepared for them when Hero High is released in a couple of months. (We’re commissioning the interior art now, but the cover and text is finished!) Blue Bolt is Jae Murphy, a Korean-American kid from Irvine, California. He’s a half-human/half-alien with the ability to generate and sense electricity, cause blackouts, and make quick jumps in the form of living lightning. He’s a thrillseeker who’s in love with the idea of being a superhero. Catalyst is Reena Sarin, the daughter of Indian immigrants and is from Florida. She’s a very smart, impulsive girl whose body produces incredible amounts of excess bio-energy. Initially she could only generate a powerful energy blast that exhausted her when she used it, but she built herself a control rod that stores and allows her to control her energy to create a wide variety of effects. She’s determined to prove herself a valuable member of the team, but her unluckiness and destructive powers make that difficult for her. Elflight is Alea Arlissan, a half-elven girl from Tuatha, the realm of Faerie. She came to the Claremont Academy at the suggestion of Seven, who she helped on a recent quest that took her to Tuatha. Elflight wields the powers sword known as Whitestar, has mastered a few spells, and is accompanied on Earth-Prime by her dragonling familiar Phoros. She is motivated to be a force for good in the world–and to hunt down and deal with supernatural threats. Junior is Wally Thompson, Jr. and he’s actually a young sasquatch from the Cryptid Clans found in the wilderness around Emerald City. Abandoned by his parents on the doorstep of an isolated farm, Junior was adopted and raised as a human child. As a young sasquatch, he still looks mostly human, but is incredibly strong, has a connection to the natural world, and possesses a supernatural ability to hide from view. Junior was raised right and believes he should try to make the world a better place. Miss Kitty is Amelia Cero. Her family owns CeroSoft, a software manufacturing company in Chicago. Her grandmother gave her a beautiful Egyptian cat statuette which was a family heirloom. The statuette came to life in the moonlight and explained Amelia was the next in line to be granted powers by Bastet and act as her emissary on Earth. Calling herself Miss Kitty, Amelia became a hero, but as soon as her parents discovered what she was up to, they sent her to Claremont Academy. Despite her youth–she’s 14–Miss Kitty is one of the most experienced heroes on the team. NGM is Martin Conte, grandson of Leroy Conte, the Civil Rights-era hero known as the Golden Marvel. When Leroy was released from Buckner Ridge, better known as Lockdown, and he saw the difficulties Martin was having, he decided to pass on the golden light he possessed in the hopes it would give the boy a purpose and prove he could make a difference. Now, Martin, as NGM, is a powerful, overconfident, and angry young man. He wants to do good and he especially wants to be recognized for doing good. Silver Eagle is Nina Cruz, the daughter of two AEGIS agents, one of whom was exposed to large doses of interdimensional energies during the Terminus Invasion. Since birth, Nina has possessed “argent energy” she can use to fly, enhance her already considerable strength, protect herself, create objects from the energy, and generate destructive blasts. Silver Eagle was trained by AEGIS for a number of years and is a patriot through and through. She’s also the most responsible of the students and has been at the school for years. Wraith is Luke Dixon, the son of a scientist for the Foundry. When he learned what his father did, he ran … right into a war zone where he was blown to bits. Rather than let his son die, Malcolm Dixon rebuilt him using the “living cybernetics” he was experimenting with for the Foundry. Unlike so many before him, Luke survived and was rescued during an AEGIS raid. Now recovered from his transformation, Luke feels less than human despite his enhanced strength, speed, and toughness. Wraith believes he should make the best of his abilities and feels it’s his responsibility to use them to help others. The Next-Gen are designed as PL8 heroes, which is the recommended power level for teen heroes in Hero High, so you and your friends can use them as player characters if you want to get started playing right away. Be on the lookout for more information on the Next-Gen and Hero High in the coming weeks! Latest posts by Jon Leitheusser (see all) - Ronin Round Table: Good-bye, Green Ronin - December 5, 2016 - Ronin Round Table: How to Get the Most Out of Hero High by Catalyst - June 20, 2016 - Ronin Round Table: Share Your Enthusiasm - May 9, 2016

The Owlman: Paranormal Creature in Mawnan, Cornwall The Owlman of Mawnan How many odd, supernatural creatures are lurking in the shadows? You've heard of the Lochness Monster, and you've heard of Bigfoot. But have you heard of The Owlman of Mawnan? Our fears and fascination with birds take a bone-chilling spin in this little-known Cornish legend. The Owlman of Mawnan is a cryptid that has been seen on several occasions in the village of Mawnan in Cornwall. From his name, you can probably take a guess as to what he looks like...that's right. He's a terrifying mixture of a giant owl and a man. The folklore of this creature has been circulating Mawnan since the 1970s, but the history of the Owlman could possibly date back to centuries before. Let's explore this paranormal legend: the theories, the sightings, and the potential origins. Sightings of The Owlman Being that the Owlman is a pretty popular legend in Cornwall, you would think the sightings would date back centuries...but alas, this is just not true. The sightings first started in the 1970s - 1976 to be exact. And yes, you guessed it...two young girls had witnessed The Owlman's frightening appearance while on a leisurely walk (in the dark) by Mawnan Church. The girls swore to their father that they had seen a large creature perched on top of the Church tower. They explained the creature as having wings, and flying about the skies above the Church in Mawnan. This incident was reported via a letter to a paranormal investigator by the name of Tony Shiels. The witnesses were a twelve-year-old and nine-year-old girl. This is not to discredit the sighting, but to draw attention to detail. Another Owlman of Mawnan sighting occurred that same year, a few months after the first chilling sighting. Again, two young girls reportedly saw a large creature that resembled a man with wings, red glowing eyes, and razor sharp claws. This sighting occurred near the Mawnan Church while the young adolescents were camping. For the record, these two girls knew of the previous sighting as they had read about it in the news prior to their camping trip. Then after the sightings of 1976, the legend of the Owlman of Mawnan fell off the media stream a bit. Another sighting didn't occur until the late 1980s, and this time The Owlman didn't show himself to two young girls but to two stable-minded adults. Then the last sighting took place in 1995 by a woman who was visiting from the United States. She wrote her story and sent it to a newspaper, and her explanation of the Owlman's features were eerily similar to the other three sightings. Since the incident in 1995, there have been no reported sightings. Is the Owlman of Mawnan still out there? Does he only show himself on certain occasions to certain individuals? Could he have been just a collective figment of the imagination? Let's explore the theories and potential origins behind this creepy Cornish tale. Theories of The Owlman's Origins Whether the sightings of the Owlman of Mawnan are legitimate or not, the legend is prominent in the town of Mawnan to this day. Theories on the Owlman's origins abound and probably range from "ghost" to "alien" in nature. After digging into the history of the town of Mawnan and the ancient Celtic people who resided there centuries ago, I have put together some theories of The Owlman's origins. Please vote in the poll to follow. Well before the reign of the Roman Empire, a large portion of Europe was considered to be part of the Celtic Empire. The ancient Celts were very much residents of what is now known as Great Britain. So if we look back at what the ancient Celts believed, we can see that the owl was considered to be a sacred animal. Some tribes believed that Owls were wise, night messengers or perhaps even a psychopomp of sorts (psychopomp is a spiritual guide to the other-world). They were also seen as guardians of the dead, and were heavily associated with the Goddess in her oldest aspect (the crone). Two Celtic goddesses thought to be able to transform into an owl included Arianrhod and Blodeuwedd. Though these two were Welsh goddesses, it is possible that other Celtic tribes probably had their own form of owl deities. My question and theory is this - is it possible that the Owlman is simply an ancient Celtic guardian deity...there to guard and guide the dead to the otherside? In fact, the sightings of The Owlman of Mawnan take place over the parish church of Mawnan, which also is the site of an old graveyard dating back to the thirteenth century. Often these religious sites were built on top of old Celtic pagan religious or burial sites. Another of my theories involves the idea that the church itself might indeed be haunted by various ghosts. Take for instance the Mawnan Church's Lych gate pictured above. A lych gate was a place where people would bring a recently deceased corpse to shelter from the harsh weather while waiting for a priest to perform funerary rites. These lych gates were connected to lych roads (corpse roads) and are connected to many frightening hauntings throughout Europe. Is it possible that The Owlman is simply a long-since-dead ghost who is able to manifest itself into the shape of an owl at will? If you don't believe that ghosts can manifest in various forms, perhaps you might believe that The Owlman is in fact a demon of some kind? My grandmother used to say that ghosts were actually demons playing tricks on us human beings. Could it be a demon instead of a ghost? Or is The Owlman an extraterrestrial from another planet? Modern day pagans might be inclined to say that The Owlman is in fact none these things. He is most likely an ancient spirit that guards the land, known as an "elemental". These spirits were helpers of sorts to the ancient gods and were guardians of nature. And now that we as human beings are knocking down trees to make way for technology and large buildings, these elementals can be angered and manifest to try to scare away intruders. In fact, some believe that a lot of "poltergeist" cases might actually be attributed to ancient elemental spirits. They aren't out to hurt us, but they will do what it takes to guard their ancient sacred places. Or maybe none of these are correct, and The Owlman of Mawnan is merely a figment of our overactive imaginations. But if this was the case, and logic wins the race, at least we had fun in the meantime, right? Well, what do you think? Please vote in the poll: Which origin of The Owlman is most likely? Logic or Belief? In many supernatural cryptid cases, we might be inclined to judge the people who believe in such whacky things...until we experience or witness these things for ourselves. That's where logic transforms into belief of the unknown and misunderstood. In a world that criticizes people for believing in God, angels, ghosts, and the like...we can't expect these same people to believe in such things as The Owlman. But perhaps these same people will get the surprise of a lifetime when they see a huge birdman themselves! © 2014 Nicole Canfield

The old ways of researching cryptids are sometimes not very useful. Perhaps it is time to start thinking beyond the “let’s get a photo or a corpse” mentality and look to modern research to see if it may apply. One of the newest studies compares animals of all kinds to humans with respect to disease. Animals and humans share a remarkable similarity in that respect. If we continue to assume that our Fortean creatures are indeed biological animals, perhaps studying comparable diseases may yield new clues. We tend to think of cancers as a human problem, but most other animals can be stricken by “the Big C” as well. Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers in humans, both men and women. It is also a disease that nearly all animals can get and have gotten. Jaguars, cougars, tigers, sea lions, kangaroos, wallabies, beluga whales, alpacas and llamas have all been documented as having had this specific kind of cancer. In fact, the only animals it doesn't show up in are those considered “professional lactators”—dairy cows and goats. Skin cancer too is fairly common, even though animals have skin quite different than ours. Rhonda the rhino, who lives at the Los Angeles Zoo, was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a common type of skin cancer, on her horn. The zoo consulted with oncologists who work with human skin cancers, and Rhonda was diagnosed, had surgery, and is now cancer free. Osteosarcoma, a common type of bone cancer, is the leading cause of death in golden retrievers. This disease has also been found in the bones of wolves, grizzly bears, camels, polar bears, some reptiles, fish and birds, so it logically follows that there would be incidences in every cryptid from Sasquatch to Mothman. Obesity and diabetes shows up in many animals. Usually the ones who are held in captivity in zoos or as pets are more susceptible to these two diseases. Scientists suggest that the limited exercise and the feed consisting of genetically modified crops may play the major roles in both diseases, just like they would in humans. It would follow then that rural cryptids like Sasquatch would probably dodge those issues, but more urban ones like chupacabra would be at risk because of garbage scavenging. Perhaps a more important research note is that when investigating reports of urban cryptids, it would be wise to understand the symptoms associated with these diseases to better identify the cryptid as an already known animal. Obese animals, especially when dead, can give a false first impression of being something unknown. Untreated diabetes can cause fur loss from scratching dry skin and even erratic behavior. Knowing these diseases can appear in animals gives us one more test of “normalcy” when making an identification. Horses and many primates can experience erectile dysfunction. This can be from organic issues like diet or vascular constriction, but it can also be from depression or even trauma. Stallions not only have been found to experience erectile dysfunction, they can have sexual dysfunction if they were bred too young or have an upsetting first sexual experience with a mare. Chimps have been studied for their propensity to experience both Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. The most riveting is a painstakingly detailed month-long observation of three captive chimpanzees (Blossom, Rosie, and Chippy) as a fourth chimp, Pansy, became gravely ill and died. A research team, led by psychologist James Anderson, observed their reactions. The fact that the chimpanzees were continuously, systematically, and meticulously observed over a thirty-day period lends the paper greater credibility than previous reports, which were largely anecdotal. From Anderson’s paper: “During Pansy's final days the others were quiet and attentive to her, and they altered their nesting arrangements (respect, care, anticipatory grief). When Pansy died they appeared to test for signs of life by closely inspecting her mouth and manipulating her limbs (test for pulse or breath). Shortly afterwards, the adult male attacked the dead female, possibly attempting to rouse her (attempted resuscitation); attacks may also have expressed anger or frustration (denial, feelings of anger towards the deceased). The adult daughter remained near the mother's corpse throughout the night (night-time vigil), while Blossom groomed Chippy for an extraordinary amount of time (consolation, social support). All three chimpanzees changed posture frequently during the night (disturbed sleep). They removed straw from Pansy's body the next morning (cleaning the body). For weeks post-death, the survivors remained lethargic and quiet, and they ate less than normal (grief, mourning). They avoided sleeping on the deathbed platform for several days (leaving objects or places associated with the deceased untouched)” Some animals, including animals, actually bury their dead. Perhaps this possibility as the explanation for why there are no dead Sasquatch lying around is sounder than some give it credit for. If we think of the word “bury” meaning simply to cover rather than as a ritual, it is actually fairly common. Animals know that carcasses draw predators and disease and most find a way to remove the dead from the living area. Some take that further and actually cover the body with soil or vegetation, technically burying it. STD’s and heart disease are also common in the wild. One in four humans worldwide die of sexually transmitted disease and this too is an issue for our animal population. In fact, chlamydia has reached epidemic status in Koalas in Australia. Animals can experience heart attacks and many species can be frightened to death. Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz professor of cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, and a member of the medical advisory board at the L.A. Zoo first became interested in the ties between animal and human disease when a lioness at the zoo was suffering from fluid around her heart. She joined with journalist Kathryn Bowers to write the book Zoobiquity, which explores how animal and human commonality can be used to diagnose, treat, and heal patients of all species. The associated website with much more information on common conditions can be accessed here. Veterinarians deal with a wide range of species including mammals, reptiles and insects. Unlike human patients, the animals can't describe their symptoms to their doctors so veterinarians have to be keen observers. As researchers, we must study like the veterinarians—learn all we can about a wide range of species. This learning should also include their diseases.

Play Full Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in Best Video FormatNow you can play full Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in best quality with duration 100 Min and was released on 2013-05-16 with MPAA rating is 4. - Original Title : Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon - Movie title in your country : Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon - Year of movie : 2013 - Genres of movie : Action, Adventure, - Status of movie : Released - Release date of movie : 2013-05-16 - Companies of movie : - Countries of movie : - Language of movie : English, - Durationof movie : 100 Min - Average vote of movie : 6.3 - Youtube ID of movie : Ln0a0jnHWgY - Translation of movie : EN,RU,FR,NL,PL,HU,SV,ES,DE,PT, - Actors of movie : - Scott Adkins ( Travis Preston ) - Dolph Lundgren ( Harker ) - Crystal Huang Yi ( Dr. Lan Zeng ) - Nathan Lee ( Brandon Hua ) - James Lance ( Doug McConnell ) - Lydia Leonard ( Katie ) - Geng Le ( Jianyu ) - Murray Clive Walker ( Chuck ) - Viktor Sobtchak ( Vadim ) - Tom Austen ( Scott ) - David Thomas Jenkins ( Fry ) - Li Shengye ( Han Wu ) - Yang Caiyu ( Bai Xi ) - Paul Philip Clark ( Karl ) Movie synopsis of Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon : Free Streaming Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in Best Quality with movie plot "Travis and his team travel to China in search of what isn't supposed to exist ... their mission to capture a Cryptid which is wreaking havoc in a remote village and they need to do this before it is killed by Harker, the legendary bounty hunter." in HD video. Full Streaming Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in HD Format by push of the button above. ... Full Streaming Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in HD Video 720p ... Now you can enjoy Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in HD quality. play full Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon video with single complete the style by simply clicking on the image from the sign upward button. Enjoy all of the albums brand new movie using all preferred movie loading! only watch this movie Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon today for free access this online movie. This really is truly spectacular and could one particular rare incredible. The excellent was great around. Management, pictures and image effects have been all incredibly innovative and brilliant. The pleasure with the script, often humorous and has lots of heart for many his characters are very ripped. Director : Eric Styles, Writer : Andy Briggs, Cinematography : Yang Shu, Yes, now you can view movie regarding Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon completely length and have the hyperlink to this flick Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon in best quality.

31 Days of Halloween: On Atlas Obscura this month, we’re celebrating Halloween each day with woeful, wondrous, and wickedly macabre tales all linked to a real locale that you can visit, if you dare. “Little Red Riding Hood & the Wolf,” by Gustave Doré (via Wikimedia) At dusk, a young girl is snatched from the edge of a field, never to be seen again. Dawn brings the discovery of partially devoured bodies, and enormous footprints leading into the forest. Considering some of the historic stories of deadly encounters with wolves, fanciful stories on the edges of truth of battles done with enormous wolf beasts, murderous men transformed into deadly Canis lupis through demonic bargains, and the power of the full moon, it is no wonder that even in the near absence of wolves in the modern wild, we still maintain an instinctual fear of the Big Bad Wolf. Occasionally, the nightmare beast with glowing eyes, bloodstained claws, and mighty jaws dripping with gore turned out to be real. Wherever they once roamed, wolves have given form to the fear of that which lurks at the edge of the light, hiding in the shadows and creeping along on silent paws. In children’s story and ancient fable, the wolf is an allegory for the devil or represents the fears of the unknown darknesses found when one strays from the safety of home. Today, with wolves reduced to rarities, all but vanished in the wild except in the most remote parts of the world, it can be difficult to understand the true fear they instilled in the hearts of men, and the effect that living in the presence of a skilled predator had on the lives of people, even in cities and towns that could theoretically protect themselves. Stories of rogue wolf packs attacking cities were not uncommon, including the time in 1450, when a pack of wolves breached the city walls, descended on the city of Paris, and killed and ate forty people. By the next century, wolves, and people in the guise of wolves, were at the center of the witchcraft trials which spread across France and the rest of Europe. Shapeshifting was a common accusation, usually into whatever animal was feared most locally, or had been recently seen attacking livestock or people. Detail, showing the death of Peter Stubbe (or Stumpp) (via University of Pittsburgh) A sensational trial in Germany in 1589 saw a man accused of making a deal with the devil, shapeshifting into a wolf, and killing 128 people, among other assorted gruesome crimes. Known as the “Werewolf of Bedburg,” Peter Stubbe (or Stumpp) was executed on October 31, 1589, along with his daughter and mistress. As an example to others tempted by the devil’s offer of magical shape shifting garments, the execution was spectacularly horrific. The story was spread throughout Europe in a pamphlet describing the trial, torture, and death with relish. Then, as now, a story with a title like A True Discourse. Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter, a Most Wicked Sorcerer sold like hotcakes, and the werewolf myth gained more ground in the popular mind. “A True Discourse. Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter, a Most Wicked Sorcerer,” London, 1590 (via University of Pittsburgh) After lurid accounts of his supposed crimes including assorted murders, acts of cannibalism, and the ripping of children from the wombs of their mothers, after which he “eate their hartes panting hotte and rawe,” his final execution was described thus: ....his body laide on a wheele, and with red hotte burning pincers in ten seue∣ral places to haue the flesh puld off from the bones, after that, his legges and Armes to be broken with a woodden Are or Hatchet, afterward to haue his head strook from his body, then to haue his carkasse burnde to Ashes. Today there is debate over whether Stubbe was a spectacularly bad man — a serial killer of the day — or if perhaps the spate of deaths might in fact be blamed on actual, non-demonic, non-shifting wolves, or whether he simply found himself, like so many others, on the wrong side of an inquisitor’s political or religious agenda. Whatever the truth, his was not an isolated case by any stretch of the imagination: in France alone, between 1598 and 1600, it has been reported that more than 600 people were sentenced to death on accusations of shapeshifting into wolves. Sometimes, wolves were fearsome enough without demonic intervention. In the late 18th century, something had gone very wrong in the relationship between people and wolves in France: In 1765, a wolf attacked 18 people, killing four in Soissons. A pack of wolves in Perigard attacked in 1766, killing 18 people. Four of the wolves were eventually killed, and two are on display as taxidermy mounts at the chateau of Razac. Another wolf in the town of Sarlat attacked 17 people that same year 18th century illustration of the Beast of Gévaudan (via Wikimedia) Perfectly timed to take advantage of the crippling fear the French citizens had cultivated for wolves, a spectacularly fearsome creature entered the fray. Described by witnesses and survivors as a massive red-black wolf-like creature, with enormous claws and crushing fangs, something started killing in the spring of 1674 in the countryside of the rural area of Gévaudan, starting with one young girl tending a flock of sheep, and eventually attacking more than a hundred people, mostly women and children, killing and devouring most of them. The locals dubbed it The Beast of Gévaudan. In the face of such horror, the local citizenry understandably freaked out. They sent hunters by the thousands to sweep the woods and mountains where the beast was thought to roam. They killed dozens, probably hundreds, of wolves in the attempt to stop the violence. In January of the following year a group of eight young boys were attacked and managed to survive to tell their tale, which reached all the way to Louis XV, who granted a reward to the youngsters and followed up by sending his finest huntsmen to the countryside to find and kill the beast. While these marksmen tracked the wolf without success, the attacks continued unabated. One young woman met the beast on the road, and nearly killed it. Statue in Auvers of the attack (photograph by Szeder László) According to sworn testimony recorded in 1765, a young woman named Marie-Jeanne Valet was walking through the wooded countryside, crossing between two branches of a river, when she turned and, to her horror, saw the beast tracking her from behind. The beast attacked, and she parried, thrusting a homemade spear into the beast’s chest. Injured, the animal cried out in pain and lifted an enormous paw to the wound, before disappearing into the racing waters of the river. The king’s men were fascinated by the story, calling her “the Maid of Gévaudan,” and comparing her to Joan of Arc. The attacks did not stop. The next month, the king’s men caught word that a large wolf, with mate and whelps, had been spotted in nearby woods. They recruited forty sharpshooters, gathered the guns and the hunting dogs and headed into the woods. There they quickly found themselves face to face with an angry, protective, and six-foot-long, 140 pound wolf. The king’s gun bearer raised his musket and took aim. A shot to the eye only slowed the animal in his attack, and despite being hit a second time, the beast covered another 25 yards before succumbing to his wounds. Illustration of the wolf shot in 1765 (via Wikimedia) This massive wolf — known as Le Loup de Chazes — was triumphantly preserved and brought back and presented at the court of Louis XV. The huntsmen were fêted as victors over the dreaded beast. The attacks continued. The king’s hunters turned their attention to the female wolf and the youngsters, which had escaped the September battle in the woods. More large wolves were killed in the following months, and the attacks on villagers seemed to come to an end. The king’s men called it a day, collected their reward, packed their bags, and left Gévaudan. A few months later, in the dead of winter, the attacks began anew. It was not until June of 1767 that the end finally came, when a local farmer and innkeeper by the name of Jean Chastel headed to the hills in pursuit of the Beast. According to legend, when Chastel made his way to the beast’s lair, he sat down, and opened his Bible, and patiently waited for the animal to approach. As a huge wolf came out of hiding, unable to resist the opportunity, Chastel raised his gun and fired, killing the legendary Beast of Gévaudan at last. 1765 illustration of the beast (via The London Magazine) There remain a lot of questions surrounding the basic facts reported at the time, and the passage of centuries has allowed the already extraordinary story to be embellished and an almost unceasing dialogue about just who or what caused the beast to attack, and what the true identity of the beast might have been. Later accounts put the story firmly in werewolf country, and claim Chastel took the beast down with a silver bullet, melted from a religious amulet, despite no contemporary sources claiming as much. Others have theorized that Chastel and his family may have in fact trained the attack animal for their own nefarious gain, while still others postulate that the animal was a rampaging hyena, rather than a wolf, or a cryptid of some other more fanciful sort. Most scholars of the subject agree that the most likely culprit was a series of attacks by several large — but not mythically so — wolves over time. Today the area once known as Gévaudan (now Lozère), like most of Western Europe, is essentially wolf-free, people having long since hunted the animals to near extinction. Only in recent years have small wild populations started to reappear. However, the area has embraced its long association with the Beast, and is home to numerous memorials, monuments, and proud statues of the Beast and its hunters. Perhaps most encouragingly, it is also home to Les Loups du Gévaudan park, a wolf sanctuary where over 100 wolves live in and roam the lands in which they once hunted, a place dedicated to their history and restoring their reputation in France. Charles Perrault’s original “Little Red Riding Hood” short story. Spoiler: it’s a happier ending for the wolf than Little Red. Explore in the Footsteps of the Beast: LES LOUPS DU GEVAUDAN WOLF SANCTUARY, Saint-Léger-de-Peyre, France MONUMENT TO JEAN CHASTEL, La Besseyre-Saint-Mary, France MARIE-JEANNE VALET VS. THE BEAST OF GEVAUDAN, Auvers, France MUSEUM OF THE BEAST OF GEVAUDAN, Saugues, France More Wolf Sanctuaries: WOLF CONSERVATION CENTER, South Salem, New York SEACREST WOLF PRESERVE, Chipley, Florida Click here for more of our 31 Days of Halloween, where each day we’re celebrating the strange-but-true unsettling corners of the world.

Chupacabra Madness For Your TBR Pile Okay Hellions, I’m about to give you your spring reading assignment, so pay close attention… As you all know, I don’t just write about cryptids – I read everything about them I can get my hands on. Some of the most enjoyable cryptid horror of the past few years has been the Chupacabra Chronicles series by Raegan Butcher. These are flat out, balls to the wall monster madness and mayhem. You have never seen Chupacabras like the beasties in Butcher’s crazy books. The third installment, RISE OF THE CHUPACABRAS just came out and I can’t wait to dive in. I recently finished reading the second in the series, REVOLT OF THE CHUPACABRAS, and it was the most batshit, insane, laugh out loud cryptid romp of all time. Set in a Mexican jungle, it’s filled with gladiator fights to the death, mad scientists, a maniacal drug lord, a multitude of morphing chupacabras and more. Aaand, counting down to the one that started it all (I feel like Casey Kasem) is FURY OF THE CHUPACABRAS, where we meet our former drug dealing band of Chupacabra hunters. If you think their job sounds cool, read the book and find a new vocation. If you’ve read my books and didn’t think I took things far enough, well, Raegan Butcher is just the man for you. If you picked up all 3 in ebook, you’d spend less than ten bucks for hours of reading pleasure. Trust me, it’s money well spent. Unlike the dough I forked over for La La Land.

Bat out of Hell "For something is amiss or out of placeBats are creepy for many people. They often seem rats with wings to us, they are thought to spread rabies, and apparently like to hang out in all sorts of dark, foreboding places (caves, bell towers, abandoned houses, castles, crypts, etc). Three species (out of over 1,000!) are infamous for drinking blood, and have led to a strong association between bats and vampires. As such, bats frequently show up as antagonists in horror themed media. Can be roughly divided into a few types: When mice with wings can wear a human face." When mice with wings can wear a human face." — Theodore Roethke, "The Bat" - Normal bats: Frequently depicted as The Swarm; a shrieking mass of menacing wings, regardless of whether or not they pose any actual danger to the cast. - Dire bats: Larger and more vicious than normal bats, and menacing even without The Swarm to back them up. - Werebats: Monstrous, anthropomorphic creatures with a mixture of bat and human features. - Robo bats: Robotic bats. open/close all folders Anime and Manga - The Chiropterans in Blood+ take the vampire/bat comparison and run with it (check out the name). Even the humanoid chiropterans get batlike features when they go One-Winged Angel. - Ulquiorra Schiffer from Bleach is one of these. - In Yaiba, the strongest of the Hakki is the Batman (or Bat-Guy in the anime). See also Our Vampires Are Different. - Minor demon Blackie in Wedding Peach is a bat. - Both played straight and inverted in one episode of the popular children's anime series, Dogtato, where a bat/apple hybrid visits the Veggie residents. Although sweet and kind in the day, during the night the bat/apple gets a Split Personality Takeover that causes it to bite all the veggie-hybrids, turning them into apples that roll up and gather together in the branches of a nearby apple tree where the bat holds residence. They return to normal in the morning. - One of Fabian's devils in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Vivid is a cartoony looking bat that could grow greatly in size and subsequently shrink any unfortunate mage that it swallows whole. - The Autumnlands: Tooth & Claw has a tribe of human-sized warrior bats. - Batman chose the bat as his symbol due to its fear-inducing properties (because bats specifically scared him as a child, and/or the superstitious nature of criminals in general). One of his villains, Man-Bat, is a Were Bat. - The Batcave is appropriately named, not only because of its owner but for the many, many bats that live down there. Gotta wonder how Batman keeps the place clean with one butler... - Not to mention the stink! - Simple. He's Batman. - His 'Heroic Brutality' in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is attaching a sonic device to his foe's chest that attracts a swarm of bats to torment them. Thanagarian: Your weapons are pitiful! - He also does this to some Thanagarian mooks in Justice League when they attack the Batcave. Batman: Wait for it... - He did the same to a large crowd in broad daylight as early as Batman: Year One. - There's also Batman/Dracula: Red Rain, in which Batman becomes Vampire Batman. - The Batcave is appropriately named, not only because of its owner but for the many, many bats that live down there. Gotta wonder how Batman keeps the place clean with one butler... - The Marvel Comics version of Dracula could transform himself into a giant bat, or a bat/human hybrid. - Marvel also has Batwing, who mainly showed up in Untold Tales of Spider-Man. A Man-Bat homage by Kurt Busiek. Films — Animated - FernGully: The Last Rainforest: Batty the giant bat was actually a normal bat who just looks huge in comparison to fairies. He's also friendly, if a little addled. - Averted in the 1997 film, Anastasia. Bartok the albino bat objects to his master's heinous acts, and gets beaten up by demonic insects. He got his own sequel called Bartok the Magnificent. - The Boggans' favorite mammals in Epic. - Ratigan's henchman Fidget in The Great Mouse Detective. - Inverted for some viewers of Fantasia: Viewing Chernabog as a Big Bat may serve as Nightmare Retardant. Films — Live-Action - Dracula and his wives in Van Helsing can turn into a werebat. Their children were also bat creatures. - Marcus Corvinus of the Underworld series is the very first vampire, and significantly more bat-like than every other vampire. However, this is only after his corpse ingests Lycan blood, and his becoming a hybrid was overridden by his vampire genes, making him able to change into a batlike form. - Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) features a cave of Dire Bats. Technically, A Natural History of Skull Island identifies these creatures as winged carnivorous rodents, not true bats. Their looks still play off the killer-bat-from-hell trope, however. - The giant bats in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were actually real bats — but not vampire bats, contrary to what Indy says. - Many large bats in Real Life have been saddled with taxonomic names containing vampire references, so Indy might well have been misled by this. - Or he was just trying to screw with Willy. Just listen to his voice when he says that line. - Ace Ventura: Ace loves all animals... except bats, which he fears and loathes. "DIE, DEVIL BIRD!!!" "TAKE THAT, YOU WINGED SPAWN OF SATAN!!!" (No, it's not that the bats are actually creepy, but hell, his reaction is hilarious.) - A giant bat steals Jeff Portnoy's bag of "jellybeans" (actually cocaine) in Tropic Thunder. - In the 1999 horror film Bats, people start to die in a small Texas town and the prime suspects are bats. A specialist in bats is called in, and reveals that the bats have been engineered to be become a deadly human-hunting cooperative. - A Direct-To-TV sequel to this film, Bats: Human Harvest, was made by the Sci Fi Channel in 2007. - The "crystal bats" in The Dark Crystal. - Turned around in the Argentine computer animated movie Plumiferos (free birds). Clarita the bat frightens Feifi the sparrow at first during her new life of freedom out of her cage, but the misunderstanding is cleared up and they become good friends. - The Creeper is Invoked as this in Jeepers Creepers 2. - The rat-bat-spider creature in 1960 Sci-Fi film The Angry Red Planet. - The Gyaos from the Gamera films are giant man-eating bats. It should be noted, however, that the Heisei Gamera films refer to them as genetically engineered birds, despite retaining bat-like ears and wings. - One of the more prominent threats in the Monster Mash climax of The Cabin in the Woods is a tiger-sized batlike predator, listed on the betting board as a "dragonbat". - In the film Daybreakers, a virus which started in bats caused some of the human population to become vampires, eventually resulting in 95% of the human population becoming vampires. These vampires cannot transform into bats, but, if deprived of blood, they become batlike, animalistic creatures. - A deleted scene in Batman Forever has Bruce Wayne confront a giant bat in a secret, hidden chamber in the Batcave. which showed up in the trailers. - The Dark Knight Saga (being a reappropriation of the most iconic elements of the Batman mythos) milks this trope for most of its worth, most especially in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises. Notably averted in The Dark Knight though, as it's the first Batman film not to feature any bats (either live-action or CG). - The 1979 horror film Nightwing has a swarm of killer plague infected vampire bats summoned by a vengeful Native American shaman. - In The Abominable Dr. Phibes, one of the not-so-good Doctor's methods of execution is releasing a swarm of bats to nibble their victim to death. However, the flying foxes shown in the movie are fairly docile and prefer fruit and nectar to humans. And they're kind of cute, too. - Stephen King's Graveyard Shift has giant bats that actually are mutant rats. - The King Bats in The Princess Bride novel. They're one of the few things of which Fezzik is actually afraid. - Subverted in Spellsinger, where Pog the bat (oversized and intelligent, like nearly all animals in that world) is one of the nicer characters in the series. - Completely subverted (and also played straight, if you think about it) in Silverwing - the protagonists are bats. The story is about bats. Bats are the good guys, with birds and land mammals (the traditional heroes) as villains or at least bad-tempered (with a few exceptions). Granted, the main villain is also a bat... - However, in the third book, Firewing Griffin and Luna are literally bats out of Hell. - The pair of giant mutant bats in Vespers. They are also accompanied by huge swarms of normal bats, which are driven to attack by the influence of the giants. - Oddly averted in Redwall, which normally plays "good" and "evil" animal stereotypes straight. Mossflower's bats are perfectly nice, help the heroes, and speak with an odd nervous tic, nervous tic, nervous tic... This is explained by Word of God as the bats having spent their entire lives listening to their voices echo in the caves they live in, so now they provide their own echo. - Averted in the children's book Stellaluna. - Subverted in Animorphs when the team morphs bats in The Android. Later Rachel gets a bat as her cover morph in The Underground. - The Red Court vampires of The Dresden Files universe are large, slimy bat-creatures who hide behind idealised human flesh-masks. - Averted in The Underland Chronicles. As the bats are the humans' most valuable allies. - Lois McMaster Bujold's fantasy series The Sharing Knife features "malices" which create monstrous servants by magically twisting animals into more-or-less human bodies, with at least some semblance of human intelligence. In Horizon (the fourth and so far final book of the series) a malice gets hold of an enormous cave-ful of bats (one character notes there are millions of bats in some of the caves in that region) and winds up creating a flying army of creatures somewhere between "Dire Bats" and "Were Bats", while the malice itself takes the form of an especially large and eerily beautiful Were Bat. - In After Man: A Zoology of the Future, an island-chain that emerged after humans' extinction happened to be reached by bats before birds, and they came to dominate its ecosystems. Bat-descended animals found there include seal-like surfbats, flightless bug-eaters that imitate flowers, and bizarre shrieking predators called "nightstalkers" that walk on their front limbs and claw with their back ones. - In Elfstones Of Shannara, The Dagda Mor mounts one of these for his final confrontation with the Roc-mounted Allanon. - Chiro from Nightsong, another children's book, is a subversion, being a cute young bat. - James Bond in Nobody Lives for Ever is attacked by a hybrid giant vampire bat in a hotel bathroom. Its threat comes from the possible diseases it may carry and after killing it, Bond scrubs the bathroom with antiseptics so that no trace of said diseases are left behind. - In The Reynard Cycle, bats are generally considered to be creatures of The Watcher, the god of death, and are thus generally considered an ill omen. In The Baron of Maleperduys, Hermeline recalls that the castle of Maleperduys had to be cleared of a swarm of them before Reynard and companions could call it home. - Dark Shadows. The witch Angelique Bouchard summoned a vampire bat (presumably from Hell) to transform the wealthy Barnabas Collins (her former lover who broke her heart to marry her employer) into a vampire, leading to the town's pursuit of him. - Gilligan's Island episode "Up At Bat". Gilligan is bitten by a large, nasty looking bat and thinks he's turning into a vampire. - The Future Predators, Primeval's answer to the Daleks, are highly evolved flightless bats. - Appearently inspired on the flightless bats of After Man: A Zoology of the Future. - The Rani's Tetrap Mooks in the Doctor Who serial "Time and the Rani" from the Seventh Doctor's tenure are large vampire bat-like creatures. - Blackwing, Advent Beast of Len, aka Kamen Rider Wing Knight, is a rare good example as it serves one of the good guys there. - His Japanese counterpart Ren, aka Kamen Rider Knight has Darkwing, due to them being the original versions of the characters on which Len and Blackwing are based. Darkwing is also a good guy, though this seems to be more out of loyalty to Ren than anything else. - In one episode of The Office, a bat winds up loose in the titular office. Jim, playing to Dwight's usual Genre Blindness, convinces him that he was bitten and is turning into a vampire. - An episode of Married... with Children has a throw-away gag where Peg opens one of the cabinets in the family's kitchen to reveal a mass of cobwebs and a large bat flapping around. She wisely just closes it again. - Very large bats called "deathgleaners" appear in The Future Is Wild, and are creepy-looking predators and scavengers. - Power Rangers Megaforce has "Zombats", cyborg creatures used to make monsters grow. They have black, serpentine bodies which end in blades and a single large eye for a head. - The Murcielago from NBC's Grimm are bat-like Wesen with the ability to emit a screech that can rupture windows, lungs, ear-drums and eyes. - In the Doctor Who story "State of Decay", Aukon commands a swarm of blood-sucking bats. - The album trilogy of the same name by Meat Loaf surely deserves a mention. All three albums include cover art of a demonic bat (perhaps Satan in a beast form) in a hellish background and a muscle bound hero on a magic flying motorcycle. The animated video for "The Monster's Loose" brings all three album covers together by telling the story of the man with the motorcycle who rescues his (literally) angelic girlfriend from a giant bat. She narrowly escapes Damsel in Distress territory by saving him herself at one point. - The Camazotz of Mayan mythology was a bat-god associated with night, death and sacrifice. The name literally translates as "death bat". In the Popol Vuh, Camazotz are the bat-like monsters encountered by the Mayan Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque during their trials in the underworld of Xibalba. The twins had to spend the night in the House of Bats where they squeeze themselves into their own blowguns in order to defend themselves. When Hunahpu stuck his head out of his blowgun to see if the sun had risen, Camazotz immediately snatched off his head and carried it to the ballcourt to be hung up as the ball to be used by the gods in their next ballgame. - The "Moon-Hoax", a series of fake articles published in the New York Sun in the mid-19th century, convinced gullible readers that a new kind of telescope had revealed life forms on the moon's surface. At the climax of the series, a race of intelligent bat-people were "sighted", and subverted this trope by being peaceful vegetarians. - Mortasheen has three, created by vampires to protect their larder of humans. There's Bullysnag, a gorilla like bat that is trained to always go for the kneecaps when hunting, Clawsimon, a spotlight-like bat designed to stop escaping humans, and Chiraptor, who is the vampire equivalent of a hunting falcon. The actual bat vampire, Sinister, as it prefers to be left alone amongst its hordes of mind-controlled bats. - Vampire Counts from Warhammer have several bat units, including Bat Swarms (regular bat), Fell Bats (bigger bats), and Varghulfs (frickin' huge bat-like vampire monsters!). Winged Vampire Lords and Strigoi are more monstrous vampires with bat-like characteristics. - Dire bats, from Dungeons & Dragons. - The Eyewing combines bat wings with a Faceless Eye. - Several magical species of giant bat are found in the Forgotten Realms. - Subverted by D&D 3E's desmodu, bat-like subterranean humanoids which are actually the good guys. - Two of the minor domain lords in the Ravenloft setting are werebats. - The mobat is basically a dire bat, only smart, with a spike on its tail. - Giant bats in Basic D&D are the size of hawks, and about 10% are giant vampire bats with a paralytic bite. - Averted in Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Of all the various breeds that exist, including spiders, sharks and dinosaurs, the werebats are not one of them, having been wiped out several centuries ago. Werewolf: The Forsaken, however, allows them in the form of "skinchangers". - Mind you, the reason the Camazotz (the werebats) got eliminated in the first place is because the Shadow Lords who were part of the expeditions to South America fell prey to this trope. While the Camazotz served as Gaia's nocturnal messengers (not unlike the Corax, or wereravens), the Shadow Lords pointed out that anything with a shape like that had to be in thrall to the Wyrm (they weren't, as it happened). With the South American Camazotz wiped out, Bat, their totem, ended up falling to the Wyrm, dooming the surviving Australian Camazotz as their creation ritual became corrupted. The Shadow Lords have been trying to make up for that fuckup ever since and have even managed to free an aspect of Bat from the Wyrm's grip... but the Camazotz are still dead. - In Rocket Age Martian Devil Vultures are Type 2s, being hairless wolf sized creatures with four grasping limbs and two wings. They're intelligent enough to make dead-fall traps. - One of the trails in Disney's Animal Kingdom lets you bypass the bat exhibit — the bats alone among all the other animals. For perspective, this is the trail that walks you right by a KOMODO DRAGON without a similar warning. The bats, unlike the Komodo dragon, are in a small dark room, and going back out into the bright light can be disorienting, even if you don't have any fear of bats themselves. - In World of Warcraft, one quest has you kill a giant bat named Duskwing. Giant bats are common in lots of places, and some are used as flying mounts. - The Forsaken and the Darkspear Trolls seem to have a particular affinity for bats, as their flight routes use them instead of the wyverns that the rest of the Horde prefers. They even use bats as bomber planes and Troll Druids transform into bats as their Flight Form instead of the usual birds that other Druid races use. - Zubat and its evolutions in the Pokémon series, which are also literal Goddamned Bats. - Gligar and Gliscor appear to be a a cross between a bat and a scorpion. Funnily enough, the anime used Gligar rather than Zubat for its Batman parody. - Woobat and Swoobat are subversions. In the games, Swoobat gives off ultrasonic waves that actually put people in a better mood. - Pokémon X and Y introduce Noivern, a bat crossed with a dragon! - The pure blood vampires in Bloodrayne are werebats. - A giant bat is a classic boss monster in Castlevania. It was, after all, the first boss monster at the end of level one for the first game. - Castlevania also had the werebat form for Dracula in a few of the games. - Then there's the bat swarm boss in Dawn of Sorrow. - Subverted and played straight in Symphony of the Night. The bats which attack you near the beginning are fairly weak enemies (ironically, the game has Goddamned Bats in many areas, but the actual bats aren't among them), and the giant bat boss appears, though it isn't a very strong boss. On the other hand, Alucard has a bat form (which you have to use to fully explore several areas and obtain various special items), and a bat familiar he can summon; bat-form Alucard can attack enemies with fireballs and sonar waves. - Castlevania also had the werebat form for Dracula in a few of the games. - NetHack, despite its deserved reputation, is another game that features bats who are fairly weak enemies. The offshoot Slash'EM includes some more deadly varieties. - Resident Evil 0 had Billy and Rebbecca fight a giant bat and for bonus points it was in a church/graveyard. - Resident Evil 5 also had some kind of giant bat/insect creature as the boss for the second mission. - Castle Crashers had the ridiculously huge vampire bat, Pipistrello. - Vespertillo Canor and Pteropus Canor from The World Ends with You. - Sa Ga Frontier has a Bonus Boss in the form of the Abyss Bat. - A sort of Dire Bat exists in Final Fantasy XI, but they don't really swarm. The normal, small bats do, however: three small bats are actually considered one monster. - The Winged Twilights from The Elder Scrolls are basically female were-bats. - Nexus War has the Revenant class, which can summon a swarm of bats as a pet, turn into a small bat for faster travel, or turn into a werebat for increased strength and the ability to see invisible characters with echolocation. - The Keese from The Legend of Zelda are pretty average sized... but can light themselves on fire! ...Or ice! - Vampires in AdventureQuest normally turn into Werebats, and more powerful Vampires are always Werebats (except the queen). Werepyres are part wolf, part bat, but they look more like a bat than a wolf. - The Mario series has a lot of giant bat type enemies (Swoopers, Swampires, Swoopulas, Fangs, etc), most being roughly Mario or playable character sized and in some cases, annoying as they either swoop down or drain Mario's health. Antasma, the primary villain of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, is an anthropomorphic one, and is known as "the Bat King". - Similarly, the Wario Land series has various kinds of creepy bats, from the annoying flying bomb-shaped bats which explode after attaching themselves to Wario, the bats in Wario Land 4 which turn him into a vampire just by touching him, the ones in Shake It which just swarm him, and whatever the heck Catbat is actually meant to be (some kind of flying cat thing with bat wings for ears, a mechanical bat head on it's head, that floats like a ghost). - Battle for Wesnoth's Vampire Bat line. Which are, handily enough, also Goddamned Bats. - Somewhat subverted with Sonic the Hedgehog character Rouge the Bat. She's a Classy Cat-Burglar (with rather improbable goals) and generally on the evil side (especially in spinoffs), but closer to True Neutral and often acting as an Anti-Hero. Shes a lot more like a real bat than usual, much like Korbat. - Played straighter with Ixis Naugus, although he's one-third bat, one-third rhino, and one third lobster. Yikes. - Classic enemy Bat Brain. - Darksiders features not only enemy bats (occasionally fire breathing or using sound attacks), but also their mommy: Super-sized bat demon Tiamat. - Riviera: The Promised Land featured three bats... as weapons! You catch them and use them against your enemies. However they are also known to have a chance of rebellion, unless Serene uses them. Serene herself also works with the iconography, bat wings and a large scythe like the grim reaper. - In the very early computer game Hunt The Wumpus, a giant bat can swoop down and carry the player to a new location in the Wumpus's cave. - In Afterlife, one of the disasters that can attack the Fire and Brimstone Hell are Bats out of Hell, a swarm of bats who defecate on buildings. - One level of Dragons Lair has a swarm of bats, as well as a Dire bat. - Donkey Kong Country Returns gives us the Squeeklies, which combine this trope with Goddamned Bats and take them both Up to Eleven. They are one of the major reasons the cave world is so reviled, particularly Crowded Cavern, which is chock full of 'em. There's even a giant Squeekly that's as tall as the screen (DK is only about an 8th as tall by comparison), whose sonic beams are THE one reason why the "Crowded Cavern" level is SO. FREAKING. HARD. - A bat enemy by the name of Mr. Batty is a recurring mook throughout the MOTHER trilogy. They seem to be more Played for Laughs, especially considering its battle theme in MOTHER 3 does a Suspiciously Similar Song version of the 60s Batman theme... - Viva Pinata manages to invoke this with one of the wild and destructive sour pinatas. While sour it looks like a horror movie bat and makes other pinatas sick with its bite. Once you cure it (with garlic) it becomes... A rabbit-like thing with hilariously tiny wings. - Several of the Might and Magic games have enemy bats. They are not particularly dangerous, but they are rather unfriendly (and in Might & Magic VII, the most dangerous variant can attack you with fire). - The bats in the Trophy Room in Brain Dead 13. Somewhat downplayed when one of them (a giant bat) wraps around Lance and starts playfully chewing on his head while Lance gets a slightly irritated look, in one scene that is less of a death scene and more of a cutesy mosquito bite scene. - Both played straight and averted by the Komory Bat dream eater in Kingdom Hearts 3D. The creepy red eyes and dark colors their evil Nightmare versions possess give them a rather unsettling appearance, and they're the other kind of bat as well. On the other hand, the brightly colored friendly Spirit version is adorable and a surprisingly helpful ally in combat despite being one of the two starter dream eaters. - The Demons, large, flying surface predators in Metro 2033, allegedly evolved from tigers, though they resemble bats more than anything else. - The Adventures Of Massmouth has the Stuka-Bats, inhabiting Abandoned Mines on the planet Nemo. They are frighteningly fast and vicious, and their bizarre, scary screams don't help. - Solidly averted by the bats in Minecraft, which are completely harmless and incapable of attacking the player. - Terraria has many varieties of bats that all attack the player. Including literal bats out of hell in the game's Underworld. - Dark Dizzy/Dark Necrobat from Mega Man X5. - On Neopets, Korbats are, in general, very cute. This makes them more like Real Life bats than usual! - It's also played with in the case of the most prominent character who happens to be a Korbat, Lord Darigan. Introduced as the apparent Big Bad in the Champions of Meridell plot, we later learn that he and his people were victimized by the supposed "heroes", Meridell, when they stole the Orb, and cast a curse on them, despite Darigan's kingdom being pacifistic. Despite looking like a mixture of Man-Bat and a lich, Lord Darigan and his people are merely fighting to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. Although they won the war, a Diabolus Ex Machina ended with Darigan going Brainwashed and Crazy when the orb failed to work. Not only did King Skarl get away scot-free and earned a position in the Gallery of Heroes while Darigan was placed in the Gallery of Evil, Darigan's successor, Lord Kass, was far more monstrous. Fortunately, Lord Darigan returned from the dead and saved Meridell, forgiving them and trying to usher in a new era of peace. And yet Darigan's still in the Gallery of Evil with Kass and the like. - Gaia Online's vampires can turn into bat swarms according to the comics and single bats according to the vampire-themed items. The ones that appear in zOMG! have bat wings, but don't transform. - zOMG! also has the bat-winged Clutch and Purse Animated, though they're not the worst of the Animated in Deadman's Pass. - Transformers: Ratbat, one of Soundwave's cassettes, turns into a bat (as his name belies). In the comics he was obsessed with using Energon efficiently. Decepticon hypnotist Mindwipe falls into this well complete with Hungarian Accent. - Giant Bat of Godzilla: The Series, a Kaiju-sized monster bat. - Subverted in the Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers episode "Good Times, Bat Times": Yes, Foxglove is a bat. And yes, she is a witch's familiar. But no, she is anything but horrifying. Instead, she is a cute and lovable bat the size of a chipmunk and in love with Dale. - The Emperor's New Groove: When Kuzco and Pacha are attempting to climb out of the chasm they have fallen into, Kuzco (as a llama) rams his mouth and nose into a small cave opening, which is of course revealed to be full of bats. The bats all immediately attempt to flee, leading to... blech! - The ThunderCats (2011) version of Mumm-Ra is a type three bat humanoid, complete with leaf-nosed snout, gaining bat wings in his One-Winged Angel form. - Completely averted in one episode of The Wild Thornberrys, where vampire bats are rightly shown as flighty and timid of Eliza and Darwin. - Averted in "The Brave Little Bat", a Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones and featuring Sniffles. Batty, the titular character, briefly looks scary in the shadows. When he walks into the light, he's a chatty, cute little guy who looks like Sniffles, but with pointier ears. He also wears Dutch wooden shoes and a Chico Marx hat. - My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has a few varieties of bats. Normal bats, though "dark and mysterious", are perfectly viable pets, and Fruit Bats (literally bats with fruit-like features) are entirely harmless, though inconveniently ravenous at times – a flock may chew on your fruit salad hat if you're not careful. Both kinds aren't any less cute than any other small animal in the series. Vampire bats are larger and have a more frightening appearance and don't stay in only a section of the orchard, though they're still not malicious. However, "Bats!" gave us Flutterbat, a bat-pony with a thirst for apples. - Wolf-bats from Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's a vampire bat mixed with the legs, paws, and tail of a wolf! - Completely subverted by fruit bats. If not for their wings, they look like tiny, wide-eyed foxes. To add a little extra "AWWWWWW", fruit bats love being cuddled and their favorite snack is banana smoothies! - Subverted by the noble Spacebat. - Spectral Bats, who have 3-foot long wingspans and are the largest carnivorous bat alive, will eat anything smaller than it and will hunt other bats as well. Except that bats with offspring are very good mothers and fathers. The male will even sleep with the mother and young in his wings. - Real vampire bats avert this trope through their altruistic social behavior. Bats who come home with full bellies will regurgitate blood to feed hungry flockmates, even when the recipients aren't related to them. - There was, during the Pleistocene, a species of giant vampire bat Desmodus draculae. They were roughly one and a half times as large as a modern vampire bat, or the size of a smallish fruit bat. - On the other hand they can be considered as pest as they can carry rabies. - Ordinary insectivorous bats can likewise be vectors for rabies. The odds of any given bat being a carrier are low, but rabid bats eventually lose their ability to fly due to neurological degeneration, greatly increasing the risk that a predator or unwary human will investigate the grounded bat and get bitten for their trouble. - An American dentist investigated the possibility of rigging bats with tiny explosive charges, to be carried into the rafters of Japanese buildings in World War II. The bat-bombs were never deployed, and a Disastrous Demonstration resulted in some escaped bats blowing up the researcher's own workshops. - In Spain, bats were believed to be a sign of good fortune, and this belief traveled over to the New World. When Dona Amalia (the wife of one of the founders of Bacardi) saw leaf-nosed fruit bats roosting in the original still, she thus interpreted this as a sign that her husband's business venture would be a success, and came up with the idea to use a bat as the company's logo. - Orang-Bati, a large, cryptid bat that's said to eat babies. - Subverted with Honduran white bats. They eat mostly fruit and resemble little white puffballs.

so, a couple of months ago, a friend e-mailed me with a link to a newsarama article/interview with the creators of a new book coming out from image called "proof". actually, a couple of friends pointed it out. these friends, very loyal and caring people, and doing nothing more than looking out for craig and me, commented that this book looked a little something like the perhapanauts and that maybe we should check it out. so craig and i told our friends over at image that we were concerned. they told us that they were concerned that we were concerned. and THEN we got an e-mail from alex and riley saying that THEY were concerned that we were concerned. see, alex grecian and riley rossmo, the writer and artist of proof, respectively, are a couple of, not only talented, but sincerely nice guys. they were quick to send us early copies of proof to show us what the book was all about and where they were going, wanting to make sure that WE didn't feel that they were stepping on our perhapa-toes. but let me say right here, right now, that, while proof and the perhapanauts play around in the same creepy, cryptid, paranormal playground, they are definitely not alike. we play with the same toys, but we tell totally different stories with them. proof is a horror book, set in a world tinged with darkness and evil. if the perhapanauts could be likened to the incredibles, proof would be more like se7en. we've both got bigfoots; ours is called big, theirs is named john "proof" prufrock. proof is an fbi agent working for a special branch that investigates cryptozoological occurances or cryptid-centric crimes. they are horrific, terrifying, and, in some cases, quite graphic. there are also moments of grim humor and well-characterized humanity. i really dig this book! i've read the first three issues and i can't wait for alex to send me #4!! proof is a chilling, compelling tale that you won't want to put down. hell, i don't feel that i'm doing it justice, so here are a couple pages for you to see for yourself. alex and riley were smart enough to get a bunch of issues in the can before debuting their book, so you can be sure that it's not gonna go a few issues and then drop (like so many comics tend to do...). and they were fortunate enough have their premiere happen TODAY--a week before our favorite creepy holiday!! good job, guys! so go creep yourself out and hook onto this new book! you'll be glad you did! i guarantee that if you pick up this first issue, you won't want to miss the 2nd!! that's it for today! got a great ghost stor from our own mcgill on friday! plus a few questions... smell ya later!

It’s existence has been denied by science, contradicted by logic, and rebutted by rationality, but that isn’t stopping Mark Kasting, a Penn State junior enrolled in the Eberly College of Science. He has been inspired, lured in by a fascination that was sparked by a popular television show on Animal Planet. While watching “Finding Bigfoot” with a group of friends, Kasting decided that he didn’t just want to sit around and wait for evidence of the ape-like cryptid to fall into his lap, he wanted to be the one to go out and find it himself. Kasting and his friends were already spending a lot of time in the woods, both hiking and camping, and they decided that they could do something useful in the process. “Making that transition into looking for Bigfoot was natural,” he said. “It’s a fun thing to do when you’re out in the woods, just making crazy calls.” But after a few night investigations with his buddies didn’t pan out, Kasting, who has flowing brown hair and sports a tie-dye shirt, attire that could be expected from a true Bigfoot enthusiast, wanted to recruit more squatchers to join in on the hunt for proof, so he started the Penn State Searchers of Sasquatch. “I was first inspired by Bigfoot this January or so, I just started getting an intense fascination with him,” Kasting said. “He or she or whatever it is, it’s not something that you grow up believing is a real possibility, but as you come into it you realize that people have claimed to have seen him, and nobody’s gotten any real proof.” The group plans to search local areas such as the Rothrock State Forest and Allegheny State Forest for evidence of the beast. But they insist that northeast and northwest Pennsylvania are the most likely areas for a sighting due to the denser woods that exist there. “The deeper you go in, the more squatchy it becomes,” said Kasting. The university has not yet officially recognized the PSU Searchers of Sasquatch, but they have started the process and already have 139 prospective members in a Facebook group that the devotees use to discuss everything Bigfoot-related. He is already laying the groundwork for the organization’s future, developing a “Book of Squatch” that includes everything from the “Tenets of Squatching” to sketches of the mythological creature. Kasting’s eyes light up as he pulls the converted sketchpad out of his backpack, which features a watercolor painting of a Bigfoot on the cover. He begins by reading off the list of tenets, which include vague, transcendental phrases such as: “looking for sasquatch is always on your mind in some respect, for example, an unconscious urge to find sasquatch that becomes conscious only when triggered by squatching territory.” As he flipped through the pages, pointing out the occasional unidentifiable drawing, he recites various Sasquatch-related lists and rules, such as a page on Bigfoot dream analysis, which might seem to some as the ramblings of a madman. But no, this is just an aficionado who has a true passion to one day find the great beast. The typical night investigation includes building a nice campfire, perhaps having a few beers, cooking some bacon to attract them with the scent, and then breaking off for a hike while be extremely vigilant and observant. Kasting said that they call for each other when they hear or see something out of the ordinary, and then eventually reconvene around the fire to discuss what happened. Kasting has high hopes for the future of the PSU Searchers of Sasquatch. He said, “In my wildest fantasies, I would love to rent out 100 Thomas and hold up the Squatch Flute and say, ‘Let us go out and search for the mighty Sasquatch,’ and lead this giant parade out of Thomas and squatch across campus.” The Squatch Flute is one of the artifacts of Sasquatch-searching that Kasting invented while hiking the Appalachian Trial in Georgia over spring break. He and some friends met a local who went by the name Red Rider, and when they went to his house, Kasting found some pieces of dark-brown pipe amongst the various plumbing supplies that Rider owned, connecting them to form a device used to call the bipedal humanoids. After wrapping up his explanation of the Book of Squatch, Kasting reached into his bag and pulled out the flute. He disassembled the three pieces of the pipe, which form a “T” shape when put together, and explained that you can blow through any of the parts individually or connect them in a total of 16 different potential assemblages, all which lead to unique sounds. While the art of calling sasquatches is meant to result in the discovery and recording of proof that the animal exists, there are also moral issues that need to be considered when it comes to releasing photographs of one should that occur. For that reason, the organization is working with an ethics advisor who plans to deal with the issues that might arise if they’re able to record a Bigfoot on camera. Jay Bagins, an esteemed squatcher with semi-long blonde hair and a short beard, is the man in charge of debating these principles when the time comes. “I think there’s a lot of ethical issues with bringing back evidence of a Sasquatch,” he said, “because once there’s proof that it exists, people are going to go out in huge numbers and try to capture one, and I don’t think that’s right for their livelihood.” Kasting’s ultimate goal is to show the world that the Bigfoot is indeed out there, but he does admit that Bagins has a point. “They’re at peace with their environment and don’t feel like they need to interact with humans to have a good life,” he said. “Would it be ethical to bring them out of that life and open them up to the world? It would be like bringing King Kong to Manhattan, and we know that that kind of stuff doesn’t work out well for Manhattan.” Believe it or not, squatching is becoming more and more popular as stories of sightings spread across the Internet. “A lot of people are interested in this kind of thing, Bigfoot is hitting a cultural crescendo right now,” Kasting said. “It may just appear to be a fad, but I believe there is something deeper to it. (‘Like the green movement,’ added Bagins.) I feel like now is the age of Bigfoot, the era of Bigfoot.”

- STAFF PICKS - GIFTS + GIFT CARDS - SELL BOOKS - FIND A STORE Used Trade Paper Ships in 1 to 3 days Elephant Runby Roland Smith Synopses & Reviews In 1941, bombs drop from the night skies of London, demolishing the apartment Nick Freestone lives in with his mother. Deciding the situation in England is too unstable, Nick's mother sends him to live with his father in Burma, hoping he will be safer living on the family's teak plantation. But as soon as Nick arrives, trouble erupts in the remote Burmese elephant village. Japanese soldiers invade, and Nick's father is taken prisoner. Nick is left stranded on the plantation, forced to work as a servant to the new rulers. As life in the village grows more dangerous for Nick and his young friend, Mya, they plan their daring escape. Setting off on elephant back, they will risk their lives to save Nick's father and Mya's brother from a Japanese POW camp. In this thrilling journey through the jungles of Burma, Roland Smith explores the far-reaching effects of World War II, while introducing readers to the fascinating world of wild timber elephants and their mahouts. In this thrilling journey through the jungles of Burma, Smith explores the far-reaching effects of World War II, while introducing readers to the fascinating world of wild timber elephants and their "mahouts." About the Author Roland Smith is the author of Zach's Lie, an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers; Cryptid Hunters; Thunder Cave; Jaguar; The Last Lobo; and Sasquatch. He lives outside of Portland, Oregon, with his wife Marie, who also writes children's books. What Our Readers Are Saying Average customer rating based on 3 comments: Other books you might like Children's » Awards » Oregon Reader's Choice Award Children's » Historical Fiction » Military and War Children's » Middle Readers » General Children's » Middle Readers » New Arrivals

|Scientific Name||None (cryptid)| |Loot|| Sasquatch Heart| |Voice actor||Joel Garland| –The last Sasquatch to John Marston. Sasquatch have been described in reports as large, hairy, ape-like creatures, ranging from 6–10 feet (2–3 m) tall, weighing in excess of 500 pounds (230 kg), and covered in dark brown or dark reddish hair. Alleged witnesses have described large eyes, a pronounced brow ridge, and a large, low-set forehead; the top of the head has been described as rounded and crested, similar to the sagittal crest of the male gorilla. Sasquatch is commonly reported to have a strong, unpleasant smell by those who claim to have encountered it. In Undead Nightmare, they come in both reddish-brown and dark brown colored fur and have an appearance and characteristics similar to a gorilla. The darker colored ones are assumed to be male (as seen in The Birth of the Conservation Movement), while the reddish brown ones are assumed to be female. They are intelligent and are able to speak English fluently. According to Rockstar's game art and a crazy man in the wilderness, they prey on human infants and are "Extremely dangerous and should not be approached". However, they actually eat mushrooms and berries and have been living in the forests of Tall Trees for over one thousand years according to the "last" sasquatch. Despite their appearance, they are very similar to humans by reactions and feelings. They are always found in and around Tall Trees, regardless if the player kills the supposed "last" one. The in-game Sasquatch are timid and apt to run from the player if threatened in any way. They claim to have been living in Tall Trees for over a thousand years, but they cannot be found in the normal campaign. In the stranger mission "Birth of the Conservation Movement", the player is tasked by a man wearing clothing similar to the Expert Hunter Outfit to kill the Sasquatch around Tall Trees. When the last specimen is found, he'll tell a moving story about being the last of his kind and how he wishes to be killed. After the cut scene, the quest is complete. However, the player can choose to leave him be or to end his life. If you choose to kill him, sometimes headshots don't kill instantly. So far, this has only happened with the one that tells the story and wants the player to shoot him. This decision will ne storyline or the rest of the game. Whether the player decides to eliminate the final Sasquatch or not, the player will occasionally find Sasquatch within Tall Trees. - The term "Sasquatch" is an anglicized derivative of the word "Sésquac" which means "wild man" in a Salish Native American language. - Sasquatch cannot be skinned, but can be looted. - Other humans seem to take no notice of Sasquatch, as noted with the Doctor random event, either this or they aren't considered a threat to the doctor. - The Sasquatch are surprisingly easy to kill, as they can be downed with a light shot in the back. - Zombies will chase and kill a Sasquatch as if it were a human. - After the Sasquatch sits next to the tree if the player punches him he will act like a normal Sasquatch and run. He will also run away if attacked by a Zombie. - Sasquatches still appear later in the game, after the "last" six were killed. - If the player attacks a Sasquatch, it will shout "Please no!", "This is my home!" or "You have ruined this land!" - It is possible to lasso the Sasquatch, but it cannot be hogtied. - The sasquatch looks a lot like the sasquatch found in the Patterson-Gimlin film, filmed in 1967. - The sasquatch is most likely a reference to the myths of Bigfoot in the forests of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, another game by Rockstar, due to the fact it and Undead Nightmare both came out on October 26, and the Achievement/Trophy for killing a Sasquatch is named Six Years in the Making. San Andreas was released in 2004, six years before Undead Nightmare. The French version of the achievement/trophy translates as "No need to seek it anymore, CJ" (Plus la peine de chercher, CJ). - It is possible to find both male and female sasquatch. After killing one, closer inspection occasionally reveals a more feminine facial structure and breasts, similar to that of the Patterson-Gimlin Film. There is also a chance for female sasquatch to have flowers on their heads. The dark brown ones are considered to be male and the reddish brown ones are considered to be female. - The in-game Sasquatch seems to have unusually long legs. Most sightings report relatively short legs and long arms. The in-game Sasquatch's rear end is also quite noticeable. - When getting the chance to kill the last sasquatch during the mission, if the player throws a tomahawk at its head, it can survive and follow the player around, but it doesn't attack. - If the player goes just outside of viewing range of the final Sasquatch, and then immediately turns around and goes back, he will have disappeared. - If the player looks where the Sasquatch steps, instead of leaving their trademark footprint, they leave a shoe imprint. - The cheat "Beastmaster" does not work with Sasquatch. They will continue to do whatever they were doing. - Sasquatch seem to recognize firearms. They will stare at the player and sometimes even run away when a gun is aimed at them. - While viewing a Sasquatch, they will sometimes crouch and eat berries or run randomly even if there is no visible threat. - During "Birth of the Conservation Movement", Sasquatch can be found around Cochinay, but when the mission is completed, they are only found around the central area of the Tall Trees. - The in-game Sasquatch is most likely based on a human NPC because of the way they act in some situations. Occasionally, they will "sink" into the ground up to their kneecaps, being the same height as the player. Other times, they can be seen performing human activities, such as hanging out by a campfire and even smoking a cigarette. This can be seen here. - When lassoed, sasquatches will fall to the ground, as if dead. They do not struggle or move at all. However, if the player releases it, it will continue with its normal activity. - It is possible to lasso and drag a Sasquatch as far as Manzanita Post. Locals seem to take no notice even though the Sasquatch Hunter claimed a small girl was eaten there by a Sasquatch. - In Grand Theft Auto V, there's a mission with a man in a Bigfoot suit whose dialogue is based on that of Undead Nightmare's Sasquatch. - When attacked by Undead Wolves or Coyotes, Sasquatches will uses the same defensive animation used by NPC: where the canine bites onto the arm but is thrown off. Hunting and killing a Sasquatch will contribute to the acquisition of the following Trophies/Achievements: Find and kill a Sasquatch. Attain 100% Game Completion statistic in Undead Nightmare.

reply to post by mf_luder Interesting post. This is just some commentary. I see that your approaching it at a semi-Christian/Goetic angle. I don't like to use the term "demon", but prefer something along the lines of "unclean spirit" or the specific types of unclean spirits, e.g. Ovoth, Shedim, Seirim, Yidonim. Early Christians called them pneuma akatharton, pneuma pythona, pneumata plana, spiritus immundi. etc. The idea of them coming from Gehenna (what some call Hell) isn't biblical. The Bible doesn't really say where they come from. It does mention them dwelling on earth among ruins and wasteland. The Koran seems to agree with some of the Biblical writings. The Unclean spirits here are called Djinn and there are multiple types, that somewhat overlap with the other types in the Bible. The idea of invoking or evoking such entities is really asking for problems. Proper rites are not even needed to invoke such things, unclean spirits are drawn like flies to rot as soon as someone begins to research the subject. They are attracted to ruin, decay, desolation, filth, and impurity. The idea of a relationship with an unclean spirit is very dangerous, both psychologically and physically. Its a quick way to insanity and worse. I have had quite abit of experience with the paranormal, going all the way back as a child. I, and sometimes others with me, have seen things that are hard for me to explain or believe. I have seen what they can do to people, the insanity and destruction they can inflict. One of the first things to understand about them is that they are not human. Do not attempt to anthropomorphise them. Their minds are alien in every sense of the word. Trying to reason with them or understand them is futile. Humans have a very bad habit of applying human traits to animals and objects. Most of our "knowledge" about them is based more on assumption and speculation that says more about the authors of such "knowledge" than it does the subject matter. Taking a more objective view on the subject we can look at the history of such entities going all the way back to Sumeria and see constants in their One constant is an association with madness. Regardless of culture, some sort of insanity is often associated with spirits. Possession is a universal myth found around the world. Another constant is "Night Spirits", parasitic or predatory in nature. Often preying upon travellers at night or those asleep in bed. Normally these are two different types of entities. There are widespread beliefs around the world dealing with some types being able to shapeshift and some having a beastial form. Another type found in many places is a source of knowledge, divination, inspiration, and extra sensory perception. The Bible has analogs of these, but these analogs are missed if people read only the English translations. The Ovoth are the type of unclean spirit most modern Westerners are really thinking of when they use the term "demon" or a "demon" is referenced in pop culture. These are malicious possessing spirits. They sometimes also called Dybbuk in cabalistic lore. The Yidonim are "divining" spirits. The early Christians called them Pneuma Pythona, as these were the type of spirits that possessed the Greek Oracles. These seem to be the type channeled by mediums. They fit more of the description of the Roman Genius or Greek Daimon. They don't seem to be near as malicious, but nevertheless the Torah forbids those who enter into covenant with the G-d of Abraham to have contact with them. The Shedim are different than the Ovoth or Yidonim. They seem to be more powerful, demand blood sacrifice and sacred prostitution. Lilith is sometimes speculated as their progenitor. The Seirim, shaggy or hairy ones. Often thought of as goatlike in appearance. They are associated with the desert waste. Their chief is thought to be the fallen and bound Azazel. Like the Shedim, they accept sacrifice and worship. There are few other obscure names mentioned such as Ochim, Iyim, Tsiyim and Lilith individually. The first three names may refer to three types but there is overlap between them, so they may refer to one type that may be described as "howlers" that dwell in the waste. The appearance thought of like that of Jackal or Hyena. Compare to the Islamic class of Djinn known as the Ghul, which is also said to appear like a hyena and dwell in the Lilith is of course, the archetypal night spirit. Sometimes thought of as the consort of Azazel and "mother" of the Shedim. Together they are thought of as some kind of "royal court" ruling over the Shedim and the Seirim. These two classes or types have more in common with "Nature Spirits" and their "royal court" overlaps with various lore about a "Great Mother" and "Horned One". There is an association with liminal loci. Modern Western society would probably classify them as "cryptids" instead of How or if they even do relate to the Ovoth and Yidonim is unknown. From a purely objective point of view, the idea of entities of various types haunting our world and possessing humans is universal. It can be found in every culture. Monstrous nature spirits can be found universally among the world's cultures. The belief is universal. Anomalous phenomena fill our world, from bizarre lights in the skies, animal mutilations, cryptid sightings, abductions that result in post traumatic stress disorder, and no one is exactly sure what it is. No one knows where it comes from or why its here. All that we may really know is that it appears to be manipulative and deceptive as pointed out by authors like John Keel and Dr. Jacque Vallee. From my own personal experiences, the anomalous phenomena that fill our world and the universal belief in malicious spirits are one and the same. They are two aspects of the same phenomena. Like many others have said, their activity in the world has become more prevalent. Between the time of the Enochian Keys and Swedenborg, the phenomena really began to pick up the pace. By the time Theosophy and Spiritualism emerged in the 19th century, the phenomena had made its presence known far and wide. A number of constants began to emerge in the channelings from it: worldwide government, extermination of Jews, hybrid master race, eugenics, the prominence of mediums, and the entities channeled by them. These channeling cults grew and multiplied in the early 20th century. Much of their "wisdom" came to influence the Nazis before World War 2. After WW2, Alice Bailey and the various Contactee cults continued and expanded their channeled "wisdom". Meanwhile the phenomena increased its presence in the world, a presence that has continued to grow since World War II, spawning new cults and influencing world affairs. Everything is accelerating to somekind of telos, one that doesn't appear to have our best interests at heart.

From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia Shin Dai Nippon Fusen Fuukyouuu Minshushugi Keizaiteki Happy Happy Kawaii Evilru Taishū Bunka Teikoku New Pacifist Democratic Economic Popular Culture Empire of Japan |Anthem: Pokemon Theme" by Nintendo.| |Official language(s)||Gibberish (official), Japanese (national), Chinese, Teriyakese, Hondaese, Toyota-ese, Toshiba-ese.| |Government||Zaibatsu/Feudar-anarchist/Mathematicar Obrigation-Based Democratic Hierarchicar Autonomous Corrective| |‑ Prime Minister||Herro Kitty| |‑ His Imperial Majesty||Emperor Pikachu| |‑ President||Honatawa Sushayo Tadasti Teriyaki Suzuku Hond Civic| |‑ Vice President||Godzilla| |Ethnic groups||41% Native Otakus, 53.2% Hentais (immigrated to Japan from, mainly, mars), 15% Godzilla (immigrated to Japan from the rest of the universe, minority group), 0.8% George Bush (recently immigrated to Japan).| |National Hero(es)||Mooningu Musume, Ash Ketchum, Ayumi Hamasaki, Utada Hikaru, Koda Kumi, Doraemon, Gojira, Ultraman, Kamen Rider Decade,Zero| |Established||Way back when Susanoo-no-Mikoto defeated Yamata no Orochi, the first kaiju| |Religion||Anime, Yaoi, Anti-Koreanism| |Major exports||Tuna, Sushi, Whales, Mercury, Soy sauce, Diapers, Tiny trees in pots, Gundam, Condensed Insanity™, Statues of Asuka Langley on the toilet, bizarre sexual fetishes, Japanese bondage, Gwen Stefani and her Harajuku girls, kawaii stuff, and sex pests| |Major imports||Otaku, gay shit, vintage apparel| “私はオスカー＝ワイルドです (Watashi Wa Osuka Wairudo Desu)” “ 日本人が変態 であることは毎日新聞による捏造です” Japan is the nation that is on the other side of the world, if you live in America. It's that one that isn't China. If you live in China, it's quite close. If you live in Japan, just look out of the window. ヒストリｲー Hisutorii (History) The history of Japan includes samurai, ninja, Mt. Fuji, anime, porn, bonsai trees, and geisha. Through paintings, written records, and other archaeological artifacts, historians have been able to piece together what Japanese life may have been like. Amazingly, it consisted of dinosaur rearing, tentacle agriculture and ancient astronauts. Confusionism from China was introduced to Japan via Korea late in the 3rd century AD. Bukkake first appeared on the Japanese mainland in the latter part of the 5th century AD. Despite the fact that many Japanese history books extol the virtues of collective jizzlobbing by native inhabitants of Nihon, ancient pottery found in modern day Disneyland suggest that Japanese businessmen and their daughters first learned Bukkake from California hippies during their summer excursions abroad. To this day, young Japanese girls spreading their forays in this delicate art, which they call "HappyHappyCameraFun!!!" to the four corners of the internet. The Japanese liked to ramble on with war and take everything from other countries nearby them, such as culture and potties. But do not worry, because the Japanese give back to these countries by raping them even more. The Japanese claim that they are 1,000,000,000 BCE ye ol' people (and possibly more). The Japanese also like to bitch about how their neighboring countries such as Korea and China stole many, many of their cultures back in ancient times and World War II. They were generated by some ye ol' gods who formed the weird, sea-horse shaped island with magic salt from some dried up prune. The ye ol' gods, called kami, liked sea-horses and liked to devour them, so they created an island with few people now known as the Japanese. Every now and then, Japan sinks into the sea, which means that the kami guys are slowly devouring their precious sea-horse island. The Japanese take pride in their history, and deny any sort of nonsense talk about the ye ol' ancient Koreans and Chinese immigrating to their land and shaping their country up to tip-top shape with developed technology and arts in the harsh ancient times. Japan is famous for complex social etiquette that doesn't make much sense but somehow people like it and follow it anyhow, originating from when Emperor Sudoku introduced the Chinese nine-rank system and forbade courtiers from standing in the same row, column, or box as any other courtiers of the same rank. This made nocturnal sexual liaisons difficult (unless one had a Genji Glove) as everyone had to move in a concerted fashion, much as in a sliding number puzzle. Mikado of Gilbert and Sullivan employed ridiculous rhymes against which Japanese poets were defenseless. The Emperor always won. If you went against everything that the Emperor told you to do, you were going to be attacked by swordy ninjas and anime porno characters every night. The Japanese mothers, afraid that their children would be raped by the Emperor's raping minions, told them that the Japanese Emperor was always the greatest and that he was god. The children, believing this, took their mothers' advices in the most honorable way by always obeying the Emperor to the extreme and eating up all the crappy Japanese propagandas. The children also hated other races because their Emperor told them too. Japan has been, until recently, a largely agricultural economy; staple crops include rice, wheat, barley and miso. Most of these can be bought from vending machines which is pretty pricey. You can find these delicious diet staples at the Harajuku district, where Gwen Stefani lives with her magical harajuku girls who are -in her rotting eyes and brain- invisible. Portuguese Christian missionaries came to Japan in the 17th century. The Japanese were offended by Portuguese, which they regarded as a poor substitute for Spanish, and sent Hello Kitty to ejaculate the Portuguese from Japan in the most sexually offending way. Japan began a period of isolationism until US Navy commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived aboard the famous Black Ships. Japan: "No Perry, I don't think I'm ready. There's no rush is there? I mean we both love each other; isn't that enough for the moment?". Perry was drunk and the only thing on his mind was opening up those beautiful long slender Japanese trade routes. He replied, "Oh, that's okay. I just thought, if you really loved me, you would do this for me." Japan blushed and looked away, leaving the truth unspoken between them. Perry left, intent on returning next year to "just stick it in" and not deal with "all this emotional bullshit and crap". He liked that. Oh yeah, he did. Perry returned on February 15, 1854, badly drunk, and he shoved a long hard black ship into Japan and they had a good time thrusting before he came on her face in the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa. Japan, like other nations, has entered into a number of conflicts in the past, most recently World War II. In the 1930's, Japan attempted to turn Southeast Asia into an amusement park that would imitate Hell featuring natives in the role of the damned. The empire of Japan entered into a flurry of mad conquests with their national favorite Hello Kitty and anime porno characters, Their main form of attack consisting of wearing huge goggles and pulling orgasmic faces whilst flying tampon-shaped (or dildos, whichever they liked to pick) planes over large stretches of land and sea doing Kamikaze (a type of sexual harassment ritual in Japan) in an effort to piss off absolutely everyone into submission. The Imperial Japanese Army defeated colonial military forces in Southeast Asia with heavy casualties on both sides. IJA conscripts were all gays to save the trouble of "comfort women". Japanese soldiers found themselves irresistibly attracted to native men and many of these Japanese soldiers' wives had to cuff them to a tree branch in order to make them resist (and this is where the cuff/sex thing came from). Indescribable things took place. When news reached the USA, the puritans decided to put an end to this. Japanese forces in the Pacific were wiped out by an all-star cast including Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. In 1945, the USA bombed Hirosammich and Niggasaki using atom bombs that killed so many Japanese. The Japanese people still talk about this to this day, but all they are really wanting are sympathy from Amerika and other-less-important-but-still- important Euro-nations. The Japanese ignore what they've done to many of their Prisoners of War, captured Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Fillipinos, etc., etc. The Japanese then became peace-loving businessmen making affordable automobiles, consumer electronics, pocky, colored TV, pollution, Hello Kitty anal love beads, and anime porn. China and Korea continued to demand a formal apology - during WWII, six-legged vaginas with tentacles were created by Japan and given as 'gifts' overseas. Tragically, they went "berserk" and raped at least 20,000,000 people to death. WWII is given a somber and objective treatment in Japanese history textbooks. You don't want to read it while you sit on one of those magical Japanese toilets that cleans and flushes itself while butt raping you. The textbook itself will rape you as well. For an example of this, see World War II. ガバメント Gabamento (Government and politics) The Japanese government consists of five members in a governing senate. They are dressed in traditional attire, consisting of tights in various colors and a modern helmet with a plastic or metal plate of some sort that covers the face. The record of their history is known as sentai. One of them is designated their leader, and usually clad in red, but this can vary according to rules of succession. In times of crisis and martial law, they take part in defending the country. Only the most elite warriors may be assigned this task. They pilot one large robot each, capable of fusing with others to form Megazord (previously Voltron). The leader's robot is usually more powerful, or larger, but that fact usually does not play a role in battle. Plans are underway to reduce the governing body to three members and rename the robot GekiToja - proposed slogan: "Shine on! Mighty Municipal Guardian 5! We rokuuu!!!" The legislative branch of the Japanese government is known as the Diet because of its role in selecting foods; these foods are then used to settle civil disputes through elaborate "kitchen battles" (see Iron Chef). There are also contemporary theories which posit that evil whaling-videogame conglomerate Kona-Mi, oft-criticized for its ruthless draining of the planet's resources and for its overall evil nature, secretly controls all of Japan. See Kona-Mi for more details. “Citizens, unite! Come to the light - Makkō-Kujira (sperm whale) energy. Power is truth. Kona-Mi is the future. Real happiness can be found in obedience to the company.” “People, please ignore the last sentence. Kona-Mi, Inc. does not own Japan, and does not spy on you when you are sitting on your toilet. Please go back to your normal lives. - Love, CEO of Kona-Mi, Inc.” ナショナル フラッグ Nashonaru Furaggu (National Flag) The flag of Japan is called the Hinomaru (ナプキン, Old Sanitary) and represents what an anus might come to resemble if a guy sticks into it one of the sharper rocks on Mount Fuji. The disc in the middle used to be white but that was changed when a Romanian inflatable raft, red in color, invaded the country thinking that Japan was surrendering. Since the wise men of Chelm were in the country trying unsuccessfully to persuade all anime characters to convert to Judaism, they saw this raft, figured that it had something to do with the sun, and since the Japanese worshiped the sun, they suggested that the raft be made part of the flag. The wise men of Chichibu, who were about as wise as those of Chelm, agreed. In spite of this story, some scholars believe the flag represents an obscure candy called the 'dingu-dongru' back in the ye ol' ancient Japanese times. ロー エンフォースメント & ミリタリー Roo Enfousumento & Miritarii (Law Enforcement & Military) The Japanese military is called the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). In the event of war, the JSDF's pledge specifies that they will not attack first but will keep Koreans out of their sea-horse shaped country anyways. The JSDF maintains a high level of combat-readiness by defending Japanese cities against kaiju attacks - mostly by giant crabs which inhabit the many meteorites that fall on Japan per year. Japanese forces are trained to attack the giant crabs' weak points for massive damage. The JSDF currently consists of giant robots called Transformers, magical girls in sexy thongs and wavy wands, ninjas with kick-ass jutsu techniques, supreme martial arts champions, vampires, vampire hunters, cute bioengineered/cryptid animals, Son Goku, and space-faring bounty hunters. Traditional weapons platforms were phased out in the 1950s due to their inadequacy in dealing with building-sized robots, demons, and mutants that threaten Japanese cities, especially Tokyo. Instead, the JSDF employs anthropomorphic giant robots, complete with human-looking faces capable of facial expressions. Bipedalism allows the robots to traverse the rugged mountain terrain in Japan - an ability of questionable usefulness in flat urban environments. The robots are piloted by teens, specifically those in the midst of puberty. Japan does not have a standing giant robot battalion at the moment. The robots are used as ordinary vehicles until war or a state of emergency is declared. The vehicles will then transform into robots or merge to form gigantic robots. This function is standard on all Japanese cars, superbikes, aircraft, watercraft, and some buildings. Those without the requisite amount of mental entropy to pilot giant robots are given support roles as magical girls. Boys accepted into this program are given sexual reassignment surgery and rebranded as futanari. Magical girls wear sailor uniforms as a homage to the legacy of the navy. They are imbued with special powers that include brief nudity while transforming into a more powerful being. Easily demoralized due to their age and the fear of looking fat, they are supported by an adorable but fear-inspiring animal companion. Characterized by their marketability and horrifying cuteness, these small animals form the moral backbone of the JSDF. They take part in all levels of combat and support, including propaganda and diplomacy. e.g. Hello Kitty is the Japanese ambassador to China. But quite a few high-ranking animals have been accused of misconduct in recent years, most notably Mashimaro for alcoholism. Vampires have the highest potential combat-effectiveness of all units, due to superhuman intelligence, speed, and strength; they are also invulnerable to conventional weaponry and can manipulate enemies' thoughts. Their mortal enemies are vampire hunters, who are often half-vampire also. The JSDF solves this problem by telling vampire hunters that they are actually vampires. The anti-smoking ninjas are one of the prominent militant groups in Japan. While not allowed to kill by the code of Bushido (オウム真理教), they are authorized to accost smokers and issue smoking tickets. The default penalty for smoking in an anti-smoking ninja zone is removal of a finger, but the penalty can be commuted to a full day of unpaid labour as a hosuto. The JSDF reportedly tried to develop a J-Pop-powered orbital directed-sound weapon, designed to play annoying songs at enemies until they surrender. The idea failed because scientists realized that people would rather kill themselves. Lately, war broke out between Japan and the Antarctic Alliance. Japan claimed a scientific right to kill a quota of X,XXX whales in Antarctic waters. The Emperor of the penguins refused Japan's demand because killing whales in the Antarctic would lead to the collapse of the region's whale bukkake porn industry. The Japanese nuked a lolpenguin city and let PETA loose in Antarctica, wiping out many land birds, dromaeosauridae, and EBEs. The penguins responded by invading Japan, which allied itself with Greenland and Iceland. The Greenlanders scoffed, saying, "We don't even have a fucking army, how are you going to defeat us?" Then they learned penguins eat people, to which Greenland's queen said, "That is just stupid." Both Greenland and Iceland immediately surrendered. The penguins promised not to bother invading Greenland or Iceland. At the Battle of Osaka Bay, the penguins along with their Hungarian, Bolivian and Kryptonian allies claimed victory by dressing up as Pokemon, which had a zombifying effect on the Japanese troops, following which they blew the little suckers to bits and ate them. Shocking, but not as titillating, was the Pentagon's recently announced procurement of ~13,000,000 gallons of white paint and ~2,500,000 snow uniforms. ミリタリー Miritarii (Military) The military of Japan is an army. Trained to shoot really small hamsters out of tvs they have protected Japan from its samurai and shogun. The current leader is Satoru Iwata. He is renowned for having lost almost all of Japan's territory to the Diet separatist army. He is now ruler of the Tokyo desert. Typical weapons of the military are Pikachu tanks, Naruto aircraft, BOJ-type cannons and the ballistic missile, "Ikan no I (遺憾の意, Expression of Regrets)". Apparently the Japanese "Self Defense Army" (自衛隊) in Korean language is the synonym for "group of masturbationers" (自慰隊) Annually around 20,000 officers are submitted to disciplinary actions due to lewdness. At the same time, Ministry of Defense of Japan had no comments and a right-winged dude, a cartoonist self-styled onlooker, made an excuse that the phenomenon was equivalent to taking Copyright for Coffee Light. ジオグラフィー Jiogurafii (Geography) An island nation, Japan is isolated from its neighbors - Russia, Korea, Hyrule, Ivalice, and Mainland China by the Sea of Japan (also called the Korean Sea by rabid South Korean jingoists, like the 2002 Warcraft 3 champion Kim Jong-il, who persistently derides the console-loving Japanese who "will never understand the true beauty of even Starcraft"). This has caused Japan to form its own unique language, culture, and customs, but only after China became too large to raid every time the ninja were in a bad mood. However, these customs are viewed with disgust and suspicion by its neighbors, as they are freakish and incomprehensible, inspiring both furious masturbation and unspeakable nightmares of porn and forced sex porn. The physical geography of Japan is characterized by upheavals and depressions. Because so much of the land mass is mountainous, 94% of the population is forced to live on mountaintops so that the limited amount of flat land can be used for cultivating indigenous monsters. Japan has a high percentage of mountainous terrain, much of which is covered by forests and woodland inhabited by a diverse variety of fauna, divided into three categories: kaibutsu, kaiju and poketto monsuta. Some are featured in videogames while others are a part of everyday life. Lying on a fault line located on the shell of a huge deceased prehistoric turtle, Japan is vulnerable to natural disasters, including earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, tornadoes, avalanches and stock market crashes. The current capital city, Takeshi's Castle, has been destroyed and rebuilt by giant robots no less than 3 times. In addition, because Japan is a nation of reprobates, they are subject to a litany of non-geological disasters, such as Crustacean Based Monster Attacks, meteorites, and terrible evening dramas. God also blighted the Japanese populace with reduced height and breast size, as per the Pope's request. Said incident arose when former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi mistakenly ejaculated all over a statue of the Virgin Mary (see: Sticky Mary Incident) - bukkake is a standard practice in Shinto rites. ““You mean mutant ninjas?”” “No....you see Oscar.....there was a bomb.....an atom bomb.....it made them mutant.....and now we have....a crime scene.” ““In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.”” The Japanese populace and government are very focused on preserving their natural resources and environment. The effort to reuse and resell panties, in particular, is admirable and is estimated to cut usage of textiles by nearly 45% the G7 nation average (normalized). The prime importance of this initiative is evident from samplings of Japanese media and culture. The Japanese also make use of renewable energy sources such as whale oil, whereas the West uses fossil fuels which take thousands of years to regenerate, and require the invasion of Middle Eastern countries to obtain. Westerners have, in the past, hunted the tastiest species of whales, only to send them to Mars. 科学技術 Scientzu and technorogii (Science and technology) Japan invented the wagon early in its history. Oh yes, they did in very brilliant fashion. But since ninjas preferred to run or fly(although a ninja named thomas was to fat to run or fly), the wheel was quickly forgotten until gaijin brought rubber tires that burned on the asphalt and vaginas to Japan in the 19th century. The history of modern Japan dates from the invention of the flush toilet. The inventor, Chisai Shittaki-Sutupedfuuker Surippa-san, was awarded the Deming Prize and is a folk hero in Japan. He is the patron saint of electronic products and large feet. To this day it is nearly impossible for people in Japan to own a real pet. Most dogs, cats and other small creatures are no match for packs of feral ninja that lurk in wait of something. Reports have been made of robodogs being killed by ninja in Yomomma district. Japanese R&D focuses on the high-tech multi-function sitting toilet. Nobody except the Swiss have any idea why they enjoy making toilets like Swiss-army knives, but they do. Japanese toilets are so versatile that new apartment units now consist of only a lavatory. Most coffin hotels replaced older coffins with the toilet cube – a high-tech toilet inside a cube of vitreous china. It has ~1/3 the footprint of coffins. It replaced cubicle farms in Japanese office buildings. On a related matter, there are rumours of demon toilets that take over people's minds. デモグラフィク Demogurafikku (Demographics) Japan is an island country with a large male population composed almost entirely of ninjas.It is ranked as the most lecherous country in the world, where most housewives, schoolgirls, or office ladies are daily raped by old men (retired former pedophilac-ninjas) or fifty foot tentacles. In general, Japan lacks many natural resources other than perverted old men. The average height in men in Japan is 2'4", but sometimes, in the case of the sumoru wrestlersu, this can reach the impressive height of 2'8". These "Giantos" as they are known in Japan, are revered as gods among the population, and are showered with gifts on special days. They were also the inspiration for Godzilla, a movie which became a smash hit in most countries outside of Japan. But the Japanese themselves found it extremely patronising, as they felt it portrayed their sumo wrestlers as savage beasts. The Japanese are also known for not dying when they are killed. Alternatively, the Japanese are born dead, and as such, they must prove their worth to be able to live. Rape-ninjas in Japan are bound by honour to ravish no less than 20 unfortunate females a day. (Tip: Refrain from trying to stop groping on trains, as this is generally enjoyed equally by the ninja groper and the female gropee.) Market research shows that photo-taking and video-recording devices are intensely popular with Japanese men. It is a popular stereotype among people from other countries, that most Japanese are taciturn or soulless; some doctors say that this may be due to an "abnormal ardor of blood-flow to erogenous zones" that occurs specifically among Japanese people. Japan has one of the highest rates of priapism in the world. It is seen by rape-ninjas as a commonly occurring occupational hazard. Treatment for priapism in Japan is similar to the treatment for nicotine addiction. Doctors normally prescribe softcore pornography. Few doctors, however, prescribe pulsating cobra hearts for priapism treatment. It is common to see decapitated Mongolians for sale in hospitals. The remaining population is equally divided between lolita schoolgirls, J-popu singers, roninu samurai, pokemonu, kitsune, Erubisu impersonators, and Gundam pilots. There are more, such as the true native Japanese tribes, the ignored poor commoners back in the good ol' ancient Kamikaze-Japanru days, and decedents of many Koreans, few Chinese, and Taiwanese forcefully pulled out from their own contries long, long ago back in so many eons ago but no one gives a crap about them anyhow because the world is all just too darn ignorant. All Japanese people are capable of going Super Saiyan (just Levels 1 and 2) and destroying everything in a 1 kan radius (68,000 km). Most kids aged 14–22 look nearly the same; the only thing separating them is school uniforms and out-of-this-world haircuts (e.g. ~5 kg of goopy wax and various toilet cleaning products). All girls have tremendously nice figures and pride themselves in nothing more than providing gratuitous pantyshots at all times of day regardless of the situation. All boys have the effect of chick magnets and usually have at least 4 girls fighting over him (although a boy often looks like a girl and acts like one as well). The most common hobby of all kids in Japan is to drive around in ~150 feet-tall mecha with ULTIMA-BUSTER CHO-MEGA PARTICLE CANNONS and fight whatever POP-UP-OUT-OF-NOWHERE-BADDIES-ALIENS-WTF-CRAP happens to be lurking around. To pacify the children of Japan, the US government demanded after WWII that they spend the greater portion of their waking life watching anime to quell their rage and enter a state of eternal bliss (see: Pikachu seizure). The Japanese are hardy folk, having developed special powers against the various monsters that plague the region. Many people have noticed that Japanese people will often talk to each other without making a sound, but then the sounds suddenly appear when they stop talking. Do not be afraid, this is perfectly normal and Japanese. For some reason, the japanese always come up with new ways to do useless things. Since they are perfectionists, you will often find them trying to find and document the myriad ways of doing mundane tasks. The lost art of erebe-ta-do (エレベーター道), otherwise known as the art of pushing elevator buttons, is one such pursuit. The complex art and finesse of pushing elevator buttons takes many years to master. A 10th Dan elevator black-belt can push the buttons in such a way that can make the elevator do more than it was intended to, such as produce lemon and grape snowcones during summer. Another art in common use today is the Japanese business management art of kakunin-do (確認道、あるいは過労死), or the art of checking things. Due to Japan's economic success, kakunin-do was studied by the management of many Western companies and implemented for a while until Western managers started dying from the utter monotony. A typical artisan of kakunin-do studies the five eternal principles of the way of kakunin. These are: Over-checking, Distrust, Dodging responsibility, Indecisiveness, and Postponement. A true master of kakunin-do will politely inundate his subordinates with requests for checking, and other seemingly benign comments, until nothing ever gets done. This results in the celeryman underlings having to work long hours of unpaid overtime with no progress on the business project ever being made. Most celerymen do not survive, and instead turn into undead zombies capable of no more than obeying an instinctive lust for seijin manga. Japanese businesses openly acknowledge that they profit from robot and zombie labor. カルチャー Karuchaa (Culture and recreation) Japan has a fully modern infrastructure but many cultural traditions remain as a crunchy layer under the creamy Western frosting. Kyoto is the cultural capital of Japan. Previous ones were overrun by oversized deer named Godzilla #2, most notably Heijo-kyo (modern-day Nara). The abundance of deer is due to the Shinto teaching that all things in Nature contain a spirit, or "anima", and cannot be killed, except cetaceans, foreigners, and fugu. Osaka is an ancient underwater city and the birthplace of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. Ikebana can cure insomnia. The National Diet of Japan is based on European parliaments with some Japanese quirks. Under the constitution at least one session of the Diet must be convened each year. The Emperor opens every session of the Diet by reciting a poem outlining the government's plans for the upcoming year. Traditionally, at the closing of the session, delegates have tea and makkoukujira while the Emperor has tea and shironagasukujira. A common misconception is that haiku poetry originated in Japan. Buddhist monks brought haiku to Japan from China, together with dodoitsu, nokkunokku joku, kuikomi, shichueshonkomedei, pinpondasshu, and waki no shitano he. 2chという巨大掲示板には、1日当たり2000万件ものアクセスがある。日本国民は2chが大好きである。 一日中、パソコンに張り付いて2ch（おもにニュー速VIP）ばかり見ている輩もいるほどである。 そして2chユーザーの努力により毎日新聞の嘘(the lie told by Mainichi)が暴かれた。 プロパー グリーティング Puropaa Guriitingu (Proper Greeting) The Japanese are proud people who are easily insulted and are dishonored by shameful events. Therefore, proper steps must be taken to greet a Japanese citizen/leader/pervert. A quick bow of the head and a "Konichiwa, Baka-San!" (Good afternoon idiot!) is compulsory. The Japanese have quite a lot of different letters with different meanings. Here is an example on a few Japanese characters: 確 - true/drone/bird 道 - road/pirate/dish 死 - die/horrible/shit 足 - leg/nose/plate/orange ジャパニーズ テレビ Japaniizu Terebi (Japanese TV) The typical Japanese television show features people eating. People are eating and people are eating, and sometimes people are eating. These are interspersed with the occasional brain-spasm inspired game show, which are much more interesting than watching people eat, so let's see a clip from one of those. HU.MAN...TET.LIS. Its Fun Happy Happy. Hayo ahso! (´ﾟДﾟ｀)凸 (Fauna Spotlight: Monsters) The Japanese landscape is littered with various super-colossal monsters that are the result of natural springs that produce potent nuclear waste. Godzilla is the most famous of these creatures, capable of reaching heights up to 500 feet tall. However, despite its reputed gentle nature, it has been known to devour tourists that try to feed it. There is also another few million Godzillas, which were created in Nissan factories. They range in power from 54 bhp to about 1300 bhp, seeing as those crazy guys at VeilSide make so many crazy things. About a millenia ago, King Kong and Godzilla fought, but ended up making love and a new breed called King Kongru-Gojira of Tokyo Tower within 156 hours. It was very kawaii. Other monsters include Mozilla, Gamera, kirby, and Mothra, and a wide assortment of other rubbery mutants. As stated above, Japan has been able to make use of these creatures with the exception of Mothra, which has been named an endangered species. Giant monsters are easily recognizable — not only are they huge, but from a distance they appear to be a trick of the eye, much like an old blue-screen effect. Among the Japanese schoolchildren, tentacle monsters (ブッシュ大統領) are the most popular. These cuddly, tiny mouse-like creatures are often captured and kept as pets or tapped for their electrical prowess. These tentacle monsters also like to touch Japanese children to sleep. Ironically the Japanese Government won't invest in Nuclear Energy. モンスター バトルズ Monsutaa Batoruzu (Monster Battles) Many areas in the Archipelego seem to have their own "home monster". This is recorded in the Japanese holy books, the Kojiki and the Monsteru. - Honshuu: Godzilla - Hokkaido: Yamata No Orochi - Okinawa: King Ceaser Shisa - Kyushu: Gamera - Tokyo 3: 18 giant bio-mechanical robot angles from God - Tokyo 3: 9 giant bio-mechanical robot angles made by man - Tokyo 3: Some 14 year old kid who destroys the world while piloting another giant bio-mechanical robot made by man, but this time in order to destroy the human race - Shikoku: Giant space crabs - Galveston: Yajuu, the japanese reincarnation of TangelaKitchenTimer with only one head. - Shibuya: DesSpidahKikumo, the evil queen of ganguro bikers, along with her greatest rival, Elven Kogal-Flowery Enelda. - Fresno: Hedorah - Nerima: Sesshoumaru, Dog-Deity of loli and furries. - New Mexico: Mengsel - Shinjuku: Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, headquarters of the Super Tokyo Metropolian Bureaucrat Rangers, which transforms into the Super Kaizer Tokyo Metropolitan Government Robot whenever city is under threat. - Yokohama: Satan Goss These monsters regularly meet for territorial bouts, fenced in by large "War-Halls" to protect the surrounding property and precious schoolgirls, camera drones, and announcers. Often the color commentary is done in traditional Japanese song, with the monster's name being the only lyric. The most famous song, written by Junichiro Koizumi, reads as follows: Usually, at least one bout takes place per week, and a small portion of the revenue is used for a variety of noble causes. The majority of the funds, however, are funneled off to special interests like the Pregnant Schoolgirl Fund, the Sentai Commission, and many positively evil organizations (see: NERV). There also exists a junior league, mostly consisting of the children of the major-league monsters (Son of Mothra, etc). Each Spring and Summer, they compete in a national tournament called the Koshien. The winner is allowed to travel to America to compete for the world crown against monsters such as Godzilla 2000, xenomorphs, Sigourney Weaver in a huge robot, the Moth-Things that acted in a movie with Mira Sorvino, and the giant subterranean worms that acted in Tremor. ヴォヤーリズム Voyaarizumu (Voyeurism) The favorite Japanese pastime is to watch others without being seen. Often this involves an unwitting party engaging in sexual activity or visiting the toilet. The government allowed this in 1965, following the example of Thailand (a.k.a. "Hooker Central for Crusty Old Rich Guys"). Initially, voyeurs had to hide in closets, often being spotted and chased away. With the advent of the camera, needless chases and killings could stop. There was a week of celebration. Voyeurism in Japan entered a golden age shortly thereafter. Japan is well-known in the West as having a completely different way of doing things. Notable differences include: - Japanese remove their shoes when they exit a house. This minimizes wear-and-tear and keeps shoes from being covered in dog-poo like Americans. - The Japanese integrate a cooling mechanism into toilet seats. This keeps buttocks from overheating during summer. - To reduce hospital crowding, the government recently abolished the tradition of bowing as people frequently bang their heads in crowded places - instead, people now roll their eyes. Due to strong attachment to tradition, headbanging still happens sometimes. - Japanese 24-hour stores are all-pervasive and far more convenient than their Western counterparts, in that they have toilets, fax machines, photocopiers, kettles, washing machines, stationery, and cookers for public use. One can pay bills, get a haircut and manicure, or get a massage. In addition, most of these stores are mounted on a twin-legged chassis to give added convenience to customers after midnight. - There are 24-hour PokeCenters in most cities for Japanese people to recharge their pokemon so as to be ready to "catch em' all" in the next day's work. - The former Japanese PM, Junichiro Koizumi, closely resembles Richard Gere. - Japanese women believe all Western men are "cool" - including "giksu" and "niggazu". - In 1650, Japan inexplicably disappeared from the face of the Earth for 200 years. Many theories were offered, including alien abduction, or that it had become submerged. In 1850, an American expedition stumbled upon Japan in a forest in Northern Alaska. Apparently, it had swum across the Pacific Ocean but forgotten how to get back. Chinese hauliers moved Japan back to its rightful place. The debt was settled after Japan met China's request to be invaded in 1931. - The age of consent in Japan is 20 years. Many Japanese believe this is far too high and should be lowered. - The age of retirement in Japan is 80. Due to their love of work and little else (console-gaming is considered a form of work by Japanese), many Japanese believe this is far too low and should be raised. - Sex is considered the most vital part of life. It is very sacred to the Japanese and was made as fun packed, family oriented porn movies to watch as home enjoyably with future adult children in 153 BCE. ファン ボーイズ Fan Bouizu (Fanboys) Japan, according to the CIA World Factbook, draws more fanboys than any other nation. Citizens of other nations, in large numbers, are known to wish they were Japanese. This leads to 'odd' behaviour, such as taking part in cosplay ; watching hentai documentaries; or taking distance learning degrees from the University of Hikikomori. Cosplay is an elaborate game whereby one dresses up as a character from Japanese anime and mimicks the behaviour of a completely different character. Documentary where the lens slowly pans over scenery while the narrator discusses his personal life instead of the scenery. Hence "hentai" - "talk cock". ボーイズ ラブ or びーえる Bouizu Rabu or BL (abbreviated for Boy's Love) This is a secret movement in Japan to convert all males (including humans, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, etc...) into homosexuals. To achieve their goal, they spread their campaign products called "Boyz Laavu". Boyz Laavu is pruduced in various formats, including movies, animes, games, mangas, and novels. However, all of these products talk about the love between two MALES. (Sometimes three or more males.) This movement is relatively not known to gay communities, so most members of the movement are evil Zapanese females. In Boyz Laavu, all males (including Pikachu, Super Mario, Batman, Junichiro Koizumi, Adolph Hitler,...etc...and you) are homosexuals. Boyz Laavu is also called as Yaoi in Japan. フード Fuudo (Food) The Japanese diet consists mainly of bio-luminescent squid, lice (pronounced "rice" but acually lice), Green Tea Kit-Kats, and beer (pronounced "beeru" 小便). The morning meal is normally rice, followed by more rice with a side of rice. Lunch (pronounced "runchi" ゲロ) is typically ramen (pronounced "cuppanudoru") or rice sandwiches with a side of pickled mice babies. Dinner (pronounced "supah-nite-eat-taimu" 肛門) could be anything from sake, to jakku danierusu, to omelets. Omelets are strictly for dinner in Japan, because Fed-Ex deliveries from American breakfast exporters do not arrive until 6PM. When the main portion of dinner does not satiate the appetite one will fill up on whale. When there is no whale left, the custom is to go to the sea to spear some more whale. The Japanese have taken to Western food in an odd way, modifying even the simplest of dishes to be compatible with their unique Japanese physiology (raw, noxious, salty, and "small") and creating Frankenstein creations that are fed to TV personalities at night to orgasmic moans of "Oishii!" ("It feels like 16 prawns shat in my mouth and are mud wrestling in it!"). As a result of the diet, Japanese people tend to have a curious body odour. (Deodorant is banned in Japan, as it is considered a form of non-conformity.) Introduced in late 1940s, ice cream (pronounced "sofuto kureemu" 下痢 - the word "aisu" [ice 覚醒剤] was banned in Japan's Edo Era, as it sounds like the verb for "love", and using phrases of affection in public is deemed disgraceful) became an instant hit with all generations of Japanese and by the early '50s frozen unagi (pronounced "eel" 蛇) popsicles became a mainstay of the delicatessen market. However, in recent years its popularity has been eclipsed by whale ice cream. Japanese dessert is called "bukkake" (ぶっかけ). This dessert is made out of liquified milk that is embedded inside a banana. The customary way to eat a bukkake is to rub the banana steadily and vigorously to increase its internal temperature. The milk will ooze out of the banana and squirt directly into a person's mouth. Japanese seafood prices work on an inverted price principle whereby the more foul, disgusting, slimy, or poisonous it is — the more it costs. Savvy Japanese fishermen and their agents are constantly on the lookout all over the world for newly discovered marine monstrosities to rush into Tokyo fish markets. Mega-rich Japanese consumers regularly flock to fugu (poisonous seakitten 海猫) restaurants where, after paying exorbitant amounts of yen, they consume less-toxic portions of the seakitten which probably will not kill — unless the chef has a hangover, just broke up with his girlfriend, or is pissed off at the world that day. Fugu is part of the extreme eating movement and is one of many options available to the suicidal Japanese businessman/student. Many experts believe that eating such fare allows the Japanese to avoid farting and gives them an edge in competitive eating contests (see Kobayashi). However, it is not yet apparent whether eating such vile forms of "food" is performance-enhancing, or merely exceedingly foolish (see: lactose intolerance). Historians consider Japanese cuisine an essential part of Japan's warlike past in that samurai warriors, coming home from a hard day of disemboweling peasants and giving themselves silly haircuts with a katana, would take a good look at the so-called "food" on the table and immediately go to war against the nearest enemy lord in the hope that they might have something better to eat. These raiding parties would lead them to Korea, until the development there of Kimchi — an area denial weapon. Rather than eating their meals with a knife and fork, Japanese typically use blackboard chalk (lit. "chopped sticks") to manipulate their food until it is evenly spread across the plate, after which it is poured into the mouth. The traditional Japanese tea ceremony (Guzzo Dat Shitto Niggazu) consists of two people taking turns refusing to drink a cup of hot water until it has evaporated. Such traditions give rise to the slender Japanese physique, as evidenced by the ubiquitousness of the Japanese celeryman. The Japanese obsession with pachyderm laxatives has had a serious effect on their stature and growth rate. Those individuals unfortunate enough to become overweight are forced to fight each other on national television wearing only diapers. If you ask for sugar for your green tea in Japan, you will wake up with your ass hurting and your head crushed in, while the offended person will call upon the weather gods to rain corrosive sushi upon the "ignorant foreign devils." Unfortunately, tourists often ask this question, so this is normal weather in Japan. In Japan it is polite to say "it's a fucky mess" when served a meal. After eating it is customary to wish everyone in the restaurant, in a loud voice, "goat chiizu on slimy desukutoppu". フォービッデンフード Foubidden Fuudo (Forbidden Food) Whale penis: the Japanese government imposed a partial ban on the sale of whale penises. Whale penis is reserved for seriously ill medical patients who need the treatment desperately. People caught buying/selling "weiyo kokku" at fish markets are normally given a warning by Greenpeace "whitehat" squads (正義の味方). Upon refusal to abandon it is confiscated, screened, and sent to fast food restaurants to be made into "fried whale penis". Some Japanese public schools do offer fried whale penis on the lunch menu, using whale penises discarded by hospitals. Since the meat is less fresh, the taste is considered inferior to that of whale penises sold in fast food restaurants. Anywise, the Japanese people love their penises. And vaginas. Dolphin: Though protected by international treaty, Greenpeace, Hayden Panettiere, and animal lovers worldwide, somehow this salty and smelly sea creature finds its way onto dinner tables - usually in the form of black market whale meat. Ironically, such counterfeit whale meat is often fraudulently labeled "dolphin-safe". Metroids: The inspiration for the smash-hit videogame Metroid, these lovable woodland creatures are known to frolic on the upper slopes of Mt. Fuji. Although metroid-hunting is condemned by international law, many still find their way onto the Japanese dinner table, as a key ingredient of nigiri and in ometoroido-yaki stew. Prices on the open market remain high as a result of the ban on private metroid-hunting and the difficulty of the hunt itself - while many find that cracking the protective outer shell and shooting the metroid's cerebral cortex with particle guns is trivial, strict gun control makes such equipment difficult to obtain. リリジョン Ririjion (Religion) The official religion of Japan is the Church of Periwinkle The religion was created by the Monks of Periwinkle based in the solitary location of Los Angeles, California. The Church of Periwinkle is currently the fastest growing religion in the world. They claim that Periwinkle is the reason for everything good in the world and that pansy colors like red and blue are the cause for everything bad in the world (like Muslims). The Church of Periwinkles holy book is called the Color Wheel. They believe that the only thing that can stand in the way of the mighty path of periwinkle is the evil Wikipedia. In the book of Colorvations it says that in the end the armies of Wikipedia and the almighty periwinkle will face off which will lead to the ultimate destruction of Wikipedia. Then the earth will become the perfect world it was meant to be. シー オルソー Shii oruso (See also) - Hayao Miyazaki - Things That Are Bigger in Japan - Japanese Stomping Fish - Attack of the Japanese Monsters - Pacific War 脚注 Footonooto (Footnotes) - ↑ Japanese translation of this page available. Japanese is here, English is here. WONDERFUL FUN! BIG CRUNCH TIME? SUPER ELBOWS! - ↑ It fires people out of a cannon into a giant haystack. - ↑ Floating glass bottle. 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History: Prehistory | Kamakura/Minamoto Shogunate | Muromachi/Ashikaga Shogunate | Sengoku Period | Azuchi/Oda Shogunate (Incident at Honnō-ji) | Edo/Tokugawa Shogunate | Empire of Japan | 2011 Earthquake in the Land of the Rising Sun |Countries and territories of Asia| |Euroasia||Armenia - Azerbaijan - Cyprus - Georgia - Japan-France - Russia - Turkey (the country, not the bird) - Lebanon| |East Asia||People's Republic of China - Hong Kong - Japan - Kansai Republic - Korea (north) (south) (pick 'em) - Macau - Mongolia - Taiwan (Republic of Taiwan)| |Western Asia||Afghanistan - Arabia - Bahrain - Iran - Iraq - Israel - Jordan - Kuwait - Oman - Pakistan - Palestine - Qatar - Saudi Arabia - Syria - United Arab Emirates - Wherethefuckistan - Yemen| |Central Asia||Kazakhstan - Kyrgyzstan - Tajikistan - Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan - other-stan| |South Asia||Bangladesh - Bhutan - India - Maldives - Nepal - Sri Lanka - Tibet| |Southeast Asia||Cambodia - East Timor - Indonesia - Laos - Burma - Malaysia - Philippines - Singapore - Thailand - West Timor - Vietnam|

Posted by: John Kirk on October 2nd, 2006 It’s not often that one has the opportunity to be in two lake monster venues in a very short period of time, and it is even less often when one is there just shortly after there has been a sighting. This summer I had the incredible fortune of following up on two sightings at lakes in England and Scotland. It has been a longstanding wish of my mine to visit the Lake District in Cumbria, northern England as it is one of the most scenically beautiful locales in all of Britain. A long time ago my ancestors came from this area and I wanted to get in touch with some of my roots. It was also the home of many famous people including poet William Wordsworth, writer Beatrix Potter, philosopher John Ruskin and artist John Constable. I have often wondered why Lake Windermere has never boasted a cryptid sighting even though it is England’s largest lake. There are a large number of lakes in Scotland from whence sightings have been obtained of unknown creatures that yet remain uncatalogued by science, but there is a real dearth of them in England. In August an English newspaper published in the Lake District carried this amazing story: From the Westmorland (Eng.) Gazette: 18 Aug. 2006 Lake ‘monster’ sighting A HOLIDAYMAKER has spoken of his horror at seeing a Loch Ness-type monster’ emerge from the depths of Windermere, report Paul Duncan and Peter Otway. University lecturer Steve Burnip and his wife, Eileen, were shocked at seeing the serpent-like creature surface from the waters as they stood at a well-known viewpoint. "I was absolutely flabbergasted, I just stood there and couldn’t believe what I was looking at," said Mr Burnip, who has been holidaying in the area for 13 years with his family. He claimed the creature was about 15-20ft long with a little head and two small humps following in its wake. "It was like a giant eel." Mr Burnip, who is 51 and from Hebden Bridge, was looking out from Watbarrow point that looks across the lake to Waterhead. Ian Winfield, a fish ecologist for the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Lancaster University, believes Mr Burnip could have seen a catfish, as they have been introduced to a lot of lakes for angling. "The Wels catfish comes from mainland Europe and can grow to about 500cm and weigh up to 306kg and there have been numerous records of catfish washing up dead in Cumbrian lakes," said Mr Whitfield. When I got wind of this story, I must admit I was absolutely thrilled to bits at the possibility that there was a cryptid yet to be found in English waters. I happened to have booked a stay in the town of Windermere itself from August 22 to 24 and was going to spend a fair chunk of time visiting the lake and nearby Coniston Water where Sir Donald Campbell died while attempting to break the world water speed record aboard Bluebird in 1967 so I had the opportunity of checking Lake Winderemere out. People often say that if there is a cryptid in a lake why haven’t more people seen the creature and more often as well. If the body of water is anything like Lake Windermere, I can fully understand why this creature would be so rarely seen. Unlike North American lakes, access to the shore around Lake Windermere is extremely difficult. True, there are a number of piers from which you can board tour boats of the lake, but most of the shoreline – particularly at the southern end – is inaccessible. The witness, Mr. Burnip, was very fortunate that he was in a location that afforded a good view of the lake. Watbarrow Point is the home a famous local castle so it is not surprising Mr. Burnip and his family were in this area. As the report indicates you can see Waterhead very well from this spot so the witness description of his sightlines is accurate. Although it is certainly possible there are Wels catfish in Lake Windermere, what Mr. Burnip saw and described is nothing like a catfish. He is adamant that he saw head and two humps and this is certainly not an aspect that one could possibly expect a catfish to exhibit. Richard Freeman and the gang from the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) in Devon, also checked out the lake, as I did, after Mr. Burnip’s sighting and they hypothesized what Mr. Burnip saw might have been a large sterile eel. Now, that is a hypothesis I could live with. It is possible that Mr. Burnip saw an eel swimming on its side (this does happen and I have seen footage of it myself) which would account for the creature. It would have to be a very large eel to be 15 – 20 feet long, but it is a possibility with some merit to it. Neither the CFZ crew or our British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club (BCSCC) field work team saw anything out of the ordinary at Lake Windermere, but I am fairly excited about the prospect of revisiting the lake to ascertain whether this unknown creature is a cryptid or an extraordinarily large and unusual eel. Next time, I follow up on a spectacular sighting at cold and windswept Loch Ness. One of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998). In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur. Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC. In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.

Posted by: Lyle Blackburn on August 30th, 2012 While on a recent book research trip (I’m working on a follow-up to The Beast of Boggy Creek), I passed through Darien, Georgia where I had the opportunity to stop off and investigate a famous cryptozoo creature known as the Altamaha-ha, or “Altie” for short. Although this particular creature does not fit into the scope of my new book project, I did not want to pass up an opportunity to learn a bit more about the legend and visit a few sighting locations. Cryptomundo has offered some detailed posts about Altie before, but just to refresh the waters, the creature is reported to dwell in the tributaries, marshes, and former rice fields of the Altamaha River near Darien, Georgia. Darien is a cozy little town of less than 2000 people located in McIntosh County about 50 miles south of Savannah and just north of Brunswick. The first reports of Altie date back to the 1700s before the English settled the area. The Tama Indian tribe had long told of a legendary creature believed to live in the waters, describing it as a “snake-like giant.” In the 1920s, a group of men reported seeing the creature swimming in the waters of the Altamaha. In the 1940s, the serpent was sighted by a local Boy Scout troop, and later in the ‘50s, it was reported by two officials from the Reidsville State Prison. Modern sightings include a report by a fisherman in 2002, in which he claims to have seen the creature raise its head from the water for a few moments before disappearing again below the surface. Like all water-bound cryptids, a host of explanations have been offered up in an attempt to explain away the reports. Some theorize that people are actually seeing a dolphin, manatee, alligator, or even a beaver. But regardless, the sightings have given birth to a tradition and legend which Darien has embraced. The first sign of the legendary creature can be found at the Darien Visitor Center. A large billboard guides you into the parking lot of an outlet mall where the center is located. Inside they feature a fantastic museum-quality replica of Altie created by Rick Spears, an exhibit designer at the Fernbank Science Center. Spears based the design on witness descriptions, resulting in an impressive piece. (So just in case you aren’t able to get snapshot of the “real” Altie down by the river, this makes an eye-catching substitute.) The visitor center also provides a wealth of information on local attractions, including a nice tri-fold brochure on the subject of Altie. The brochure includes a run-down of the history and sightings, with a map to their locations. You can even buy a few stickers with the creature’s image. Heading out across I-95 from the visitor center, you can drive down U.S. 17 where it’s easy to find spots to pull over and view the Darien and Altamaha Rivers. Myself and my research partner, Cindy Lee, stopped at several waterfront locations where we were able to contemplate the possibility of Altie’s reality with our video camera at the ready. We were not lucky enough to get a glimpse of any such lake monster, but nonetheless we were able to catch a large gator on film as it lazily traversed the dark waters near Butler Island. (And just for the record, it just seems impossible that anyone would mistake a large alligator for a serpent. It was easy enough to tell the difference.) The entirety of this area along U.S. 17 – with its numerous waterways, picturesque structures, boat docks, and seafood restaurants – gives off a lazy air of old-world charm. The fact that it has a famous cryptid associated with it makes it even better. Cindy and I both agreed that if you are passing through the area, or if you have a particular fascination for freshwater monsters, then it’s definitely a place worth visiting!

NEW YORK, NY – Sports Illustrated’s annual Swimsuit Issue hit the stands recently, and one of the photographs revealed more than anyone expected. In the background of several shots of cover model Bar Rafaeli a sea monster can clearly be seen. Currently famous for being Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend, Rafaeli can now expect to be a super-celebrity among conspiracy theorists and crypto-zoologists. When asked about the background of the shots, Sports Illustrated representative Miles O’Rourke says “The image in the background of the shots is completely unintentional. We did not put the creature there and we are not trying to make any point by including it in our publication. Sports Illustrated currently has no stance on the cryptid issue.” When asked how the image slipped by their editors he continued “Honestly, no one was looking at the background in those photos.” Sports Illustrated subscriptions have skyrocketed in the last few hours. The magazine is reaching a whole new untapped customer base, one that has no interest or talent for sports whatsoever but an undying passion for the truth. In the past 6 hours sales have gone up 438% to addresses that end with “my parent’s basement.” Representatives remain tight lipped as to whether they will appeal to their new base by including more cryptids in future issues. When approached for comment about her newfound celebrity among cryptid enthusiasts, Mrs. Rafaeli used Krav Maga to illustrate her refusal to comment by putting one reporter in a choke hold and sending the other two running.

Cryptozoology, BioForteana, and Remarkable Species Saturday, January 31, 2009 Friday, January 30, 2009 Thursday, January 29, 2009 A new bird has been discovered in China. (News source.) "A new fist-sized, babbler bird species has been discovered in a series of underground caves in China" ... "Ornithologists Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu first saw the bird, dark with white spots on its breast, in 2005 and has since then established its identity as an unknown species. They labeled it the Nonggang babbler, scientific name Stachyris nonggangensis, named for the region of China where the bird was found." Wednesday, January 28, 2009 More Mystery Cats Grizzlies Returning to Manitoba Officially noted as extirpated in Manitoba, grizzly bear sightings are coming from the northern section of that province. (News source.) "Grizzly bears, which are officially listed as extirpated in Manitoba - no longer existing in the region - appear to be making forays into the northern fringe of the province, according to provincial wildlife officials. "One to three grizzly bear sightings are being confirmed every year by Manitoba Conservation, provincial biologist Bill Watkins said." (Via Kevin Stewart) Rocky Mountain Hybrids Monday, January 26, 2009 Wolves Returning to Central France From the news: "Wolf tracks have been found in the snow near Bondons, in the hills and forests of the Cevennes National Park 500 kilometres (312 miles) south of Paris, where one park official believes he saw one of the predators. "A dead calf was found on farmland nearby, but it had been torn at by so many different animals it was difficult to say what killed it. Authorities are to conduct DNA tests on spoor samples found in the forest." More Canadian Black Felines Sightings of "black panthers" continue. (News source.) "Marina Ploughman knows what she saw - people can say what they want. "'Well my dear, I definitely saw one,' said the Port au Choix senior. 'It was all black, jet, jet black. My first instinct was it's a domestic cat gone wild.' "But it was too big - the animal she remembers seeing near Whaleback Pond on the road behind Hawkes Bay last July had a body (from neck to rear) 3.5 feet long with a 4.5 foot tail. She estimates it crossed 50 feet in front of her on the road she's been driving to her cabin for 30 years. "'It just strutted right across the road in front of me - its paws were just awesome to see spread out on the road. And its teeth, big fangs. The only thing that surprised me was it wasn't overly tall off the ground, just long and slender.'" Labels: black panther Sunday, January 25, 2009 Millipede-Eating Dung Beetle A new paper: From coprophagy to predation: a dung beetle that kills millipedes Trond H. Larsen, et al. Biology Letters (Tuesday, January 20, 2009) The dung beetle subfamily Scarabaeinae is a cosmopolitan group of insects that feed primarily on dung. We describe the first case of an obligate predatory dung beetle and contrast its behaviour and morphology with those of its coprophagous sympatric congeners. Deltochilum valgum Burmeister killed and consumed millipedes in lowland rainforest in Peru. Ancestral ball-rolling behaviour shared by other canthonine species is abandoned, and the head, hind tibiae and pygidium of D. valgum are modified for novel functions during millipede predation. Millipedes were killed by disarticulation, often through decapitation, using the clypeus as a lever. Beetles killed millipedes much larger than themselves. In pitfall traps, D. valgum was attracted exclusively to millipedes, and preferred injured over uninjured millipedes. Morphological similarities placing D. valgum in the same subgenus with non-predatory dung-feeding species suggest a major and potentially rapid behavioural shift from coprophagy to predation. Ecological transitions enabling the exploitation of dramatically atypical niches, which may be more likely to occur when competition is intense, may help explain the evolution of novel ecological guilds and the diversification of exceptionally species-rich groups such as insects. From a Chicago-area paper: "Former Arlington Heights resident James E. Colvin, a scholar who helped create the Great Books Foundation, has died. "Colvin, 96, died on Jan. 4 in Greenville, S.C., where he moved from the Northwest suburbs after retirement." ... "Colvin served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, after which he worked for Encyclopaedia Britannica in Chicago as director of public relations, taking the train in from the Arlington Heights station. He later moved to World Book Encyclopedia, directing two unsuccessful expeditions to find the Loch Ness Monster. He retired in 1972 and moved to North Carolina and later to South Carolina." Labels: loch ness Thursday, January 22, 2009 A new climbing catfish has been described from Venezuela. The species "has a specialized pelvic fin that decouples from its body and moves backward and forward independently." This is "used in combination with a grasping mouth to move like an inchworm up rocks." (News source.) Wednesday, January 21, 2009 Another Homo Floresiensis Study Monday, January 19, 2009 FL Panther Deaths New Marine Species from Australia Sunday, January 18, 2009 Papers: Civets and Lemurs Via Kevin Stewart, a couple of new papers to mention: Lemur Diversity in Madagascar Mittermeier, et al. International Journal of Primatology (2008) 29: 1607-1656 This is a review of the taxonomic status of lemurs, recognizing 99 species and subspecies. It also notes several controversial areas, and points to potential new species (as yet undescribed). The taxonomy of the endemic golden palm civet of Sri Lanka Colin P. Groves, et al. Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society (2009) 155: 238-251 This is the citation for the golden palm civet paper noted in a previous blog posting. Paradoxurus stenocephalus, a new species, is described, and a possible new species is identified but not yet described. Saturday, January 17, 2009 Species Hotspot in Cambodia A new novel, Kronos, has the following description: "Two years after his wife's death, oceanographer and former navy SEAL, Atticus Young, attempts to reconcile with his rebellious daughter, Giona, by taking her on the scuba dive of a lifetime-swimming with a pod of peaceful humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine. But the beauty of the sea belies a terror from the deep-a horrific creature as immense as it is ancient. There is no blood, no scream, no fight. Giona is swallowed whole by the massive jaws. Only Atticus remains to suffer the shame of the survivor and his inconsolable grief turns to an unquenchable thirst for revenge. "Drawn by the spectacle, Trevor Manfred, a ruthless billionaire, approaches Atticus with a proposition: Trevor will make available all the advanced technology of his heavily armed mega-yacht, the Titan, to aid Atticus in his death-quest. In return, Trevor is to receive the beast's corpse as the ultimate hunting trophy. But in the midst of the hunt, Atticus makes a terrifying discovery that changes the way he sees the ocean's creatures and begs the question: what is Kronos? The answer sets him on a new and much more deadly course." Not sure if this is cryptofiction or not, haven't read it yet, but could be of interest. Also noted that another addition to Steve Alten's Meg series is due to come out soon. Wednesday, January 14, 2009 Macaque Roaming Clearwater Area Careful As You Go... Big Cat Fake Australia: Big Cat Track? Monday, January 12, 2009 Sunday, January 11, 2009 Friday, January 09, 2009 British Tourist Gag Becomes UAE Hoax More Australian Cat Stories Solenodon on Film Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson For those of you who get up way too early in the morning, put on your hiking boots, grab your binoculars, and set out to look for flashing wings and trills in the tree tops, a new book will be just your cup of tea. Elizabeth J. Rosenthal has interviewed his friends, family, and colleagues to introduce us to the genius, drive, and humanity of a singular individual, Roger Tory Peterson. Birdwatcher shows the foibles and insecurities along with his love of nature and the determination behind his conservation efforts. Birdwatcher: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson The Lyons Press $29.95 / hardcover / 464 pp. Thursday, January 08, 2009 A new newsletter, the Cryptid Chronicles, is being offered by David Acord. It will be a weekly publication, 12 pages an issue, 52 weeks a year, for $29.95. A free issue and more details can be seen here. My only caveat is that the articles seem to be based solely on digital newspaper archives; there's little else right now. Nothing wrong with archives, they are foundational for my own publishing, but it's easy to miss broader correlations if that's all you use. For example, the collection of articles on whistling snakes is interesting, but overlooks the many cases reported elsewhere (herpetological or herpetocultural publications) of snakes making strange sounds. Within the cryptozoological community, Karl Shuker has noted several such cases. And, then, there's the discussion of the Ohio "proteus," which appears to puzzle the editor, who doesn't seem aware that "proteus" was commonly used historically as a generic term for aquatic salamanders. The animal in question is no puzzle; it's a mudpuppy. So, taking it with an open mind (but with some critical examination), this could be a good choice for those who look forward to new (old) crypto reports in their email every week. WV Cougar Allegations Wednesday, January 07, 2009 Panther Corridor Considered Now available, Invertebrata Enigmatica, a collection of classic science fiction and fantasy stories involving insects, arachnids, and other invertebrates. Some are straight-forward fantasy, mystery, or supernatural stories, but many qualify as cryptofiction (involving encounters with unknown species). Details and contents available at CoachwhipBooks.com. Tuesday, January 06, 2009 Australia: Feline "Breeding Colony" UK: Big Cat Sightings Continue Monday, January 05, 2009 New Galapagos Iguana (More to Come?) The media is jumping on the designation of the "rosada," a pink-tinted Galapagos land iguana, as a new species. See details at Discover News, and New Scientist. Interesting, though, is a paper from this past November, noting that five populations of land iguanas in the Galapagos "represent distinct conservation units (one of them being the recently discovered rosada form) and could warrant species status." So, perhaps a couple more species to come?

Stand back, because I’m about to bust open Pandora’s Box and unleash hell by addressing a touchy topic among horror fans – that being the popular but controversial subgenre known as the horror “mockumentary.” By definition, a horror mockumentary is a fictional documentary production addressing horrific subject matter (including scary supernatural/fantastical themes or more down-to-earth horrors like serial killers) by treating it as if the source material were 100% genuine. Now, the first thing that probably springs to your mind when I mention this topic is the “found footage” phenomenon… but that’s not what I’m going to discuss today. There’s obviously a very fuzzy line between the two, but for the sake of this list I’m ruling out any feature film that treats its visuals as raw, unedited footage and not the product of a fictional filmmaker’s editorial vision. In other words, you won’t find Cannibal Holocaust, The Blair Witch Project, the Paranormal Activity series, Cloverfield or any of their countless imitators listed here. Sure, all of the titles below contain a variety of staged footage, fictionally claimed to have been obtained by the filmmakers, but that’s where the similarities to typical found footage entries end; instead, these films use a documentary framework to lend a sense of believability to the events depicted onscreen, and when done properly the technique is often more terrifying, as the structure of a documentary implies an authority and authenticity that most found footage features lack. Maybe I’m nitpicking, and maybe you’re hoping to find more traditional found footage titles here… but don’t worry, I’ll be tackling the found footage craze itself in the future, so those films will get their own moment in the shaky spotlight. Here are thirteen mock-docs that creeped me out the most, listed in chronological order… and if you have a favorite that isn’t listed here, be sure to add it in the comments! The War Game (1965) You may be surprised to see such a vintage entry in a genre that is otherwise a 21st-century phenomenon, but you’ll be amazed at how chilling this extremely controversial UK television movie can be. It uses a news/documentary format to package a grim and horrifying scenario in which Cold War tensions finally ignite into a thermonuclear exchange over Europe. For my money, this one is far more disturbing than the infamous TV drama The Day After, which aired a full 20 years later. Punishment Park (1971) Another old-school entry, this experimental film is set in a fictional dystopia where protesters are labeled traitors by the state and rounded up into camps. The main twist here is that the authorities offer the prisoners a shot at freedom if they volunteer to take part in a bizarre, twisted game of “capture the flag” over a 48-hour period, under the watchful eye of paramilitary police – who are beginning to show moral tensions within their own ranks. This seldom-seen production may have been the product of Vietnam-era angst (and it’s more than a little preachy), but in light of police brutality stories making the news today, with images of protesters facing police tanks on small-town streets, it’s kind of relevant again. [On a lighter note, this film likely served as inspiration for the Australian exploitation flick Turkey Shoot, which was tons of sleazy fun, but not nearly as disturbing.] The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) The first monster movie to disguise itself as a docudrama was the invention of Charles B. Pierce, producer of popular drive-in fare throughout the 1970s. Pierce’s first film capitalized on ’70s “Bigfoot mania,” delving into local legends of the “Fouke Monster” which has allegedly terrorized Arkansas river dwellers for decades. Threadbare production values and an amateur cast (Pierce recruited locals to play themselves) lend a kind of gritty realism to the film, and some genuine scares combined with the “G” rating meant some impressionable young kids were soon scarred for life. [Not only is a Boggy Creek remake in the works, but a new version of Pierce’s creepy 1976 thriller The Town That Dreaded Sundown hits screens next month.] Another UK television special, this prime-time chiller was packaged as a completely legitimate news program. The scenario: a camera crew spends one night with a family in their reportedly haunted suburban home (itself based on a reported poltergeist incident) while hosts, paranormal researchers and other talking heads analyze their footage in real time from the studio. A cast of familiar faces from British TV news and talk shows, combined with very few disclaimers that the show was fake, led many viewers to believe the events onscreen were real, which prompted a wave of panic – especially during the final moments, when the evil forces occupying the house apparently possess the TV signal itself. Man Bites Dog (1992) This French/Belgian production is equal parts pitch-black satire and skin-crawling horror. Shot on hand-held 16mm cameras in grainy black and white, it’s presented as the project of two renegade film students who somehow convince a brutal serial killer (co-director Benoît Poelvoorde) to allow them to film his day-to-day routine as he plans his next string of murders. It’s a given that this scenario will soon get completely out of hand, but you may not expect just how twisted things eventually go down. The makers of The Blair Witch Project must have viewed this film at some point, since many of the shots – especially the terrifying finale – are remarkably similar. The Last Broadcast (1998) Another kindred spirit to Blair Witch, this micro-budget DV production (the first feature film to be projected digitally in theaters) went before the cameras first, but was released around the same time. But where Blair was one of the first films to discard a narrative framing device in favor of raw (fabricated) found footage, Last Broadcast sticks to the documentary format… at least up to a point. I won’t spoil the film’s climactic twist, but suffice to say it divided audiences in a major way; some viewers despised the final scenes, while others are still haunted by them. Either way, it’s a thoroughly creepy little flick about a filmmaker searching for the truth behind the bloody murders of a public-access TV crew shooting a show about the legendary “Jersey Devil.” Noroi: The Curse (2005) This Japanese production seems to have slipped under the international radar, and I’m not sure why; at the time, Asian horror mania was still in full swing, and Eastern shockers were being remade by the dozens in the wake of The Ring‘s box-office success. While director Kôji Shiraishi is better known for his graphic 2009 torture-fest Grotesque, Noroi is a surprisingly subtle, slow-burn piece in which a documentary director (Jin Muraki) investigates of a psychic child’s disappearance, which may be linked to a creepy, reclusive woman and a demon said to dwell within a submerged village. It’s dense, complex and maybe a little too slow for viewers expecting over-the-top shocks, but the horrific final scene is worth the wait. Head Case (2007) One of the more extreme entries on this list, this gritty production may not depict as much onscreen violence as, say the notorious August Underground series, but the naked sadism of the psychopathic subjects is so realistically horrifying that it’s nearly impossible to watch some scenes without flinching. The sweet, vacant smiles of the white-bread couple featured in this film are masking a monstrous secret: it seems their shared hobby involves the systematic torture and and murder of numerous victims. More horrifying than the kill scenes themselves is the couple’s calm, nonchalant attitude toward their crimes, as they discuss the best ways to prolong a victim’s torment the way your favorite aunt might share her secret for red velvet cake. Long Pigs (2007) Taking an obvious cue from Man Bites Dog, this darkly comic gorefest is presented as the work of two young gonzo filmmakers who manage to ingratiate themselves to a cannibalistic serial killer, who decides he’d like to share his deranged philosophy – and his preferred method of butchering and preparing human meat – with an audience. You don’t have to see the film which inspired it (although you should) to know that things won’t go well for our camera crew as the macabre humor peels back to reveal some shocking and disturbing acts. But a compelling performance by Anthony Alviano as the surprisingly amiable madman will still keep you guessing. The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007) Unlike other serial killer titles on this list, the unseen villain at the heart of this gruesome tale – presented as an Unsolved Mysteries-style investigative program – has no charming qualities to lighten the proceedings. Our subject, known only as the “Water Street Butcher,” is a totally inhuman monster, whose sadism is unlike anything ever depicted on camera. There’s little onscreen violence, but it’s the Butcher’s manipulation of his victims and the investigators that will have you installing new deadbolts on your doors. While the “experts” interviewed throughout the film are a mixed bag of performers, the killer himself is so unrelentingly evil that his vile deeds – which he films for posterity – practically pry your eyes open and force you to watch. While this film never saw official release (not even on DVD), creators John and Drew Dowdle would soon find success in more found-footage features, including Quarantine and most recently As Above, So Below. Lake Mungo (2008) One of the most subtle and artful films on this list, this Australian production nevertheless contains one of the scariest scenes I’ve ever witnessed. On the surface, it’s a fairly straightforward documentary about teenage girl whose spirit allegedly continues to haunt her family after she drowns in a swimming accident. However, the accompanying interviews, still photos, and archival footage reveal a more earthbound mystery, exposing the unpleasant underbelly of a small, quiet suburban community. If this sounds a bit like Twin Peaks, that’s probably no coincidence (the victim’s last name is Palmer), but the subject matter is played totally straight… until the story takes a shocking, unexpected turn that pulls the rug out from under your expectations. The Fourth Kind (2009) While it has its fair share of flaws, this film gets a nod for taking a unique, two-tiered approach to the material: at the outset, we are told this alien abduction tale is a dramatization, with star Milla Jovovich introducing herself (as herself) to the audience in the prologue; but the more theatrical presentation is intercut with glitchy low-fi footage treated as the actual events of abduction stories, revealing a different set of actors who are a bit less glamorous than Jovovich and her co-stars. The stunt doesn’t entirely work (the “real” footage still feels too stagey, even contrasted with the slicker “re-enactments”), but it earns points for originality, and some of the body-morphing “possession” scenes are legitimately creepy. The Tunnel (2011) This Australian shocker plays much like a subterranean version of Spanish found-footage classic [REC], but sticks more closely to the documentary format, so I’m including it here. The simple premise finds a journalist (Bel Delia) and her team delving deep into a network of abandoned tunnels beneath Sydney to determine why the government has apparently hushed up the disappearances of several homeless people who took up residence within the concrete labyrinth. Needless to say, the scoop they’re seeking isn’t the real story here – the truth is much more dangerous. Interestingly, the folks behind this indie production used a distribution model which is now becoming the norm, raising funds via crowd-sharing sites and providing a download code to anyone who donated to the project. Runners-up [Not Scary, But Still Awesome] Below I’ve added a bonus handful of excellent mockumentaries that, while definitely horror-themed, are more deliberately comical than scary… but they’re so entertaining, I felt compelled to mention them somewhere: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) Dead-on references to all the classic slasher villains and an incredibly funny, charismatic lead (Nathan Baesel) make this mock-doc a must for any true slasher fan’s collection. Rumors of a prequel, Before the Mask, have been circulating for years; I’m still holding out hope that the amazing Baesel will reprise his role as Leslie. Incident at Loch Ness (2004) Legendary director Werner Herzog turns in a droll, sardonic performance as he lampoons his image in this hilarious jab at cryptid hunters, pretentious indie filmmakers, and direct-to-video monster crap (it’s such a dead-on satire that I’d overlooked it for years, assuming it actually was just a lame CGI monster flick). Totally worth watching, if just for Herzog’s contribution alone. This eccentric meta-jumble begins as a legit documentary about the popularity of underground fetish-horror films, but it quickly turns dark (and, I hope, fictional) after digging deeper into one of the filmmakers (Erik Rost), a strange man whose gory video series looks a bit too realistic to be mere fiction. Troll Hunter (2010) Some of the coolest monsters ever depicted onscreen (yes, even for CGI, they’re awesome) grace this Norwegian pseudo-doc, which taps into local folk tales for a hilarious, spooky and rowdy snowbound adventure featuring the title character (Otto Jespersen), a grouchy monster exterminator contracted by the government, who’s quite sick of his extremely dangerous job.

Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 17th, 2009 Besides around Halloween, the other “big time” of year for some cryptid sightings, supposedly, is the “Silly Season.” ~ Loren Kingston Daily Freeman Kingston, New York June 17, 1922 IRELAND HAS FOUND ITS OWN SEA SERPENT It Has an Irish Name and Fishermen Insist That Sight of It Is Bad Luck. This being the time for the annual crop of sea-serpents the public here is being regaled with a new one of Irish nationality. Its Irish name is “Gorramooloch.” It cannot only swim and lash its tail in orthodox sea-serpent manner, but reports from the west coast of Ireland, where it is alleged to have been seen frequently, credit it with the power of flight. According to inhabitants of the wilder parts of the coast of Connemara, Mayo and Donegal, the “Gorramooloch” frequently turns up for exhibition stunts, principally at night. It is described as being shaped like a porpoise, 100 feet long, and rushing through the water with the speed of an express train. Occasionally it would leap out of and forward over the water a distance to its own length. When it fell back into the sea again[,] the splash was said to sound like the crack of a three-inch gun. The fact that these creatures are not seen more often is because, it is explained, they appear principally at night. It is then that they go a-hunting after the gannet, a sort of seagull. When they see one flying near the surface of the ocean, they leap out of the water 40 or 50 feet and gliding, by the aid of their large wing-like fins, guided by their vertically set tail, bring down the bird. Fishermen, curiously enough, consider the appearance of the “Gorramooloch” to be a sign of bad luck, though it has not yet been reported to be cannibalistic [sic]. But there is another brand of sea serpent which they fear more as a sign of ill omen. This one is yclept the “Bo-dree-more.” It is said to be a large whale-like animal, so large and powerful that it chases whales for sport. According to local superstition, the sight of a “Bo-dree-more” means certain ill luck for the men and the craft who spot it. Thanks to Jerome Clark for this archival report. Please click on the button below (not the one up top) to send in your museum donation. Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013.

The Australian sense almost certainly derives from Gulliver's Travels, despite Holman's report (quote below), since the sound "H" does not occur in aboriginal languages, only in words learnt or adopted from Europeans. (Reference: Bunyips and Bigfoots, Malcolm Smith, Millenium Books, 1996, ISBN 1-86429-081-1.) yahoo (plural yahoos) - A rough, coarse, or uncouth person; yokel; lout. - A loud boisterous person. - (pejorative) A white person from the former Confederate States of America (i.e., Southern United States). - (cryptozoology) A humanoid cryptid said to exist in parts of eastern Australia, and also reported in the Bahamas. - 1835: The natives are greatly terrrified by the sight of a person in a mask calling him "devil" or Yah-hoo, which signifies evil spirit. — James Holman, Travels, 1835 (quoted by Malcolm Smith, above) - 1985: Yahoos in the Bahamas — title of paper by Michael Raynal, Cryptozoology, volume 4, 1985 - An exclamation of joy. - A battle cry.

Posted by: Craig Woolheater on March 13th, 2014 If you missed it or perhaps don’t get the History Channel, here is the link to watch the latest full episode. Cryptid The Swamp Beast: The Bone Pile Unusual circumstances surround the recovery of a local man’s body deep in the swamps, and the panic intensifies when two young boys go missing. Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005. I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films: OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.

I'm sure you all know the story of Kasai Rex, which was a hoax (and a very obvious one), but the idea of a tyrannosaur feeding on a rhino was too good to let pass Another cryptid tyrannosaur in Australia called the Burrunjor, if real, probably had the same ancestry, except it's ancestors migrated down through Indonesia and into Australia. It evolved from a dwarf tyrannosaur that migrated to Africa through Asia, grew big over 40 million years, and also developed features that aren't portrayed here. The dino in the Kasai rex photo does come from a movie, and even if it didn´t, it doesn´t really look like a real theropod according to what we know now about them. nah, esta historia es un must remember de todos los dino fans! Ubieses echo la version de el varano gigante xD La verdad no planeé el dibujo, es lo que salió espontaneamente XD 'Til I found out it was hoaxed a few years back, the Kasai Rex was among my favorite saurian cryptids...though it never made sense to me how a large tyrannosaur managed to reach Africa, of all places. A carcharodontosaur would've been a bit more likely suspect, but I guess that's what happens when a non-dinophile hoaxes a "dinosaur sighting". Are you going to make a picture of the Mokele Mbembe? Your picture offers a pretty interesting what if scenario. ^^ Maybe he just found it already dead. But that is true, ambush is a likely tactic.

|Other name(s)||Abominable Snowman Migoi, Meh-teh et al. |Country||Nepal, Bhutan, China, India (called as "Bandya"), Mongolia, Russia| The Yeti (//) or Abominable Snowman (Nepali: हिममानव himamānav, lit. "mountain man") is an ape-like cryptid taller than an average human that is said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology. Stories of the Yeti first emerged as a facet of Western popular culture in the 19th century. Etymology and alternate names The word Yeti is derived from Tibetan: གཡའ་དྲེད་, Wylie: g.ya' dred, ZYPY: Yachê, a compound of the words Tibetan: གཡའ་, Wylie: g.ya', ZYPY: ya "rocky", "rocky place" and (Tibetan: དྲེད་, Wylie: dred, ZYPY: chê) "bear". Pranavananda states that the words "ti", "te" and "teh" are derived from the spoken word 'tre' (spelled "dred"), Tibetan for bear, with the 'r' so softly pronounced as to be almost inaudible, thus making it "te" or "teh". Other terms used by Himalayan peoples do not translate exactly the same, but refer to legendary and indigenous wildlife: - Michê (Tibetan: མི་དྲེད་, Wylie: mi dred, ZYPY: Michê) translates as "man-bear". - Dzu-teh – 'dzu' translates as "cattle" and the full meaning translates as "cattle bear", referring to the Himalayan brown bear. - Migoi or Mi-go (Tibetan: མི་རྒོད་, Wylie: mi rgod, ZYPY: Migö/Mirgö) translates as "wild man". - Bun Manchi - Nepali for "jungle man" that is used outside Sherpa communities where yeti is the common name. - Mirka – another name for "wild-man". Local legend holds that "anyone who sees one dies or is killed". The latter is taken from a written statement by Frank Smythe's sherpas in 1937. - Kang Admi – "Snow Man". The "Abominable Snowman" The appellation "Abominable Snowman" was coined in 1921, the same year Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition which he chronicled in Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921. In the book, Howard-Bury includes an account of crossing the Lhakpa La at 21,000 ft (6,400 m) where he found footprints that he believed "were probably caused by a large 'loping' grey wolf, which in the soft snow formed double tracks rather like a those of a bare-footed man". He adds that his Sherpa guides "at once volunteered that the tracks must be that of 'The Wild Man of the Snows', to which they gave the name 'metoh-kangmi'". "Metoh" translates as "man-bear" and "Kang-mi" translates as "snowman". Confusion exists between Howard-Bury's recitation of the term "metoh-kangmi" and the term used in Bill Tilman's book Mount Everest, 1938 where Tilman had used the words "metch", which does not exist in the Tibetan language, and "kangmi" when relating the coining of the term "Abominable Snowman". Further evidence of "metch" being a misnomer is provided by Tibetan language authority Professor David Snellgrove from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London (ca. 1956), who dismissed the word "metch" as impossible, because the consonants "t-c-h" cannot be conjoined in the Tibetan language." Documentation suggests that the term "metch-kangmi" is derived from one source (from the year 1921). It has been suggested that "metch" is simply a misspelling of "metoh". The use of "Abominable Snowman" began when Henry Newman, a longtime contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta, writing under the pen name "Kim", interviewed the porters of the "Everest Reconnaissance expedition" on their return to Darjeeling. Newman mistranslated the word "metoh" as "filthy", substituting the term "abominable", perhaps out of artistic license. As author Bill Tilman recounts, "[Newman] wrote long after in a letter to The Times: The whole story seemed such a joyous creation I sent it to one or two newspapers". According to H. Siiger, the Yeti was a part of the pre-Buddhist beliefs of several Himalayan people. He was told that the Lepcha people worshipped a "Glacier Being" as a God of the Hunt. He also reported that followers of the Bön religion once believed the blood of the "mi rgod" or "wild man" had use in certain mystical ceremonies. The being was depicted as an apelike creature who carries a large stone as a weapon and makes a whistling swoosh sound. In 1832, James Prinsep's Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal published trekker B. H. Hodgson's account of his experiences in northern Nepal. His local guides spotted a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson concluded it was an orangutan. An early record of reported footprints appeared in 1899 in Laurence Waddell's Among the Himalayas. Waddell reported his guide's description of a large apelike creature that left the prints, which Waddell thought were made by a bear. Waddell heard stories of bipedal, apelike creatures but wrote that "none, however, of the many Tibetans I have interrogated on this subject could ever give me an authentic case. On the most superficial investigation it always resolved into something that somebody heard tell of." The frequency of reports increased during the early 20th century, when Westerners began making determined attempts to scale the many mountains in the area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures or strange tracks. In 1925, N. A. Tombazi, a photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, writes that he saw a creature at about 15,000 ft (4,600 m) near Zemu Glacier. Tombazi later wrote that he observed the creature from about 200 to 300 yd (180 to 270 m), for about a minute. "Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes." About two hours later, Tombazi and his companions descended the mountain and saw the creature's prints, described as "similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by four inches wide... The prints were undoubtedly those of a biped." Western interest in the Yeti peaked dramatically in the 1950s. While attempting to scale Mount Everest in 1951, Eric Shipton took photographs of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (20,000 ft) above sea level. These photos have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Some argue they are the best evidence of Yeti's existence, while others contend the prints are those of a mundane creature that have been distorted by the melting snow. In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest. Hillary would later discount Yeti reports as unreliable. In his first autobiography Tenzing said that he believed the Yeti was a large ape, and although he had never seen it himself his father had seen one twice, but in his second autobiography he said he had become much more skeptical about its existence. During the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition of 1954, the mountaineering leader John Angelo Jackson made the first trek from Everest to Kanchenjunga in the course of which he photographed symbolic paintings of the Yeti at Tengboche gompa. Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints in the snow, most of which were identifiable. However, there were many large footprints which could not be identified. These flattened footprint-like indentations were attributed to erosion and subsequent widening of the original footprint by wind and particles. On 19 March 1954, the Daily Mail printed an article which described expedition teams obtaining hair specimens from what was alleged to be a Yeti scalp found in the Pangboche monastery. The hairs were black to dark brown in colour in dim light, and fox red in sunlight. The hair was analysed by Professor Frederic Wood Jones, an expert in human and comparative anatomy. During the study, the hairs were bleached, cut into sections and analysed microscopically. The research consisted of taking microphotographs of the hairs and comparing them with hairs from known animals such as bears and orangutans. Jones concluded that the hairs were not actually from a scalp. He contended that while some animals do have a ridge of hair extending from the pate to the back, no animals have a ridge (as in the Pangboche "scalp") running from the base of the forehead across the pate and ending at the nape of the neck. Jones was unable to pinpoint exactly the animal from which the Pangboche hairs were taken. He was, however, convinced that the hairs were not of a bear or anthropoid ape. He suggested that the hairs were from the shoulder of a coarse-haired hoofed animal. Sławomir Rawicz claimed in his book The Long Walk, published in 1956, that as he and some others were crossing the Himalayas in the winter of 1940, their path was blocked for hours by two bipedal animals that were doing seemingly nothing but shuffling around in the snow. Beginning in 1957, a very wealthy American oilman Tom Slick funded a few missions to investigate Yeti reports. In 1959, supposed Yeti feces were collected by one of Slick's expeditions; fecal analysis found a parasite which could not be classified. Cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans wrote, "Since each animal has its own parasites, this indicated that the host animal is equally an unknown animal." The United States government thought that finding the Yeti was likely enough to create three rules for American expeditions searching for it: obtain a Nepalese permit, do not harm the Yeti except in self-defense, and let the Nepalese government approve any news reporting on the animal's discovery. In 1959, actor James Stewart, while visiting India, reportedly smuggled remains of a supposed Yeti, the so-called Pangboche Hand, by concealing it in his luggage when he flew from India to London. In 1960, Hillary mounted an expedition to collect and analyze physical evidence of the Yeti. He sent a supposed Yeti "scalp" from the Khumjung monastery to the West for testing, whose results indicated the scalp was manufactured from the skin of a serow, a goat-like Himalayan antelope. Up to the 1960s, belief in the yeti was relatively common in Bhutan and in 1966 a Bhutanese stamp was made to honor the creature. However, in the twenty-first century belief in the being has declined. In 1970, British mountaineer Don Whillans claimed to have witnessed a creature when scaling Annapurna. According to Whillans, while scouting for a campsite, he heard some odd cries which his Sherpa guide attributed to a Yeti's call. That night, he saw a dark shape moving near his camp. The next day, he observed a few human-like footprints in the snow, and that evening, viewed with binoculars a bipedal, ape-like creature for 20 minutes as it apparently searched for food not far from his camp. In 1983, Himalayan conservationist Daniel C. Taylor and Himalayan natural historian Robert L. Fleming Jr. led a yeti expedition into Nepal's Barun Valley (suggested by discovery in the Barun in 1972 of footprints alleged to be yeti by Cronin & McNeely). The Taylor-Fleming expedition also discovered similar yeti-like footprints (hominoid appearing with both a hallux and bipedal gait), intriguing large nests in trees, and vivid reports from local villagers of two bears, rukh balu ('tree bear', small, reclusive, weighing about 150 pounds) and bhui balu ('ground bear,' aggressive, weighing up to 400 pounds). Further interviews across Nepal gave evidence of local belief in two different bears. Skulls were collected, these were compared to known skulls at the Smithsonian Institution, American Museum of Natural History, and British Museum, and confirmed identification of a single species, the Asiatic Black Bear, showing no morphological difference between 'tree bear' and 'ground bear.' (This despite an intriguing skull in the British Museum of a 'tree bear' collected in 1869 by Oldham and discussed in the Annals of the Royal Zoological Society.) There is a famous Yeti hoax, known as the Snow Walker Film. The footage was created for Paramount's UPN show, Paranormal Borderland, ostensibly by the show's producers. The show ran from 12 March to 6 August 1996. Fox purchased and used the footage in their later program on The World's Greatest Hoaxes. In 2004, Henry Gee, editor of the journal Nature, mentioned the Yeti as an example of a legend deserving further study, writing, "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth ... Now, cryptozoology, the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold." In early December 2007, American television presenter Joshua Gates and his team (Destination Truth) reported finding a series of footprints in the Everest region of Nepal resembling descriptions of Yeti. Each of the footprints measured 33 cm (13 in) in length with five toes that measured a total of 25 cm (9.8 in) across. Casts were made of the prints for further research. The footprints were examined by Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, who believed them to be too morphologically accurate to be fake or man-made, before changing his mind after making further investigations. Later in 2009, Gates made another investigation during which he discovered hair samples. A forensic analyst concluded that the hair contained an unknown DNA sequence. On 25 July 2008, the BBC reported that hairs collected in the remote Garo Hills area of North-East India by Dipu Marak had been analyzed at Oxford Brookes University in the UK by primatologist Anna Nekaris and microscopy expert Jon Wells. These initial tests were inconclusive, and ape conservation expert Ian Redmond told the BBC that there was similarity between the cuticle pattern of these hairs and specimens collected by Edmund Hillary during Himalayan expeditions in the 1950s and donated to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and announced planned DNA analysis. This analysis has since revealed that the hair came from the Himalayan Goral. On 20 October 2008 a team of seven Japanese adventurers photographed footprints which could allegedly have been made by a Yeti. The team's leader, Yoshiteru Takahashi claims to have observed a Yeti on a 2003 expedition and is determined to capture the creature on film. A group of Chinese scientists and explorers in 2010 proposed to renew searches in Shennongjia province, which was the site of expeditions in the 1970s and 1980s. At a 2011 conference in Russia, participating scientists and enthusiasts declared having "95% evidence" of the Yeti's existence. However, this claim was disputed later; American anthropologist and anatomist Jeffrey Meldrum, who was present during the Russian expedition, claimed the "evidence" found was simply an attempt by local officials to drum up publicity. A yeti was reportedly captured in Russia in December 2011. A hunter reported having seen a bear like creature, trying to kill one of his sheep, but after he fired his gun, the creature ran into a forest on 2 legs. Border patrol soldiers then captured a hairy 2-legged female creature that ate meat and vegetation. The creature allegedly was more similar to a gorilla than a bear, but its arms were shorter than the legs (in contrast to a gorilla). It was about 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) tall. This was later revealed as a hoax, or possibly a publicity stunt for charity. Misidentification of Himalayan wildlife has been proposed as an explanation for some Yeti sightings, including the Chu-Teh, a Langur monkey living at lower altitudes, the Tibetan blue bear, the Himalayan brown bear or Dzu-Teh, also known as the Himalayan red bear. Some have also suggested the Yeti could actually be a human hermit. A well publicised expedition to Bhutan reported that a hair sample had been obtained which by DNA analysis by Professor Bryan Sykes could not be matched to any known animal. Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed the samples were from a Brown bear (Ursus arctos) and an Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus). In 1986, South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner claimed to have a face-to-face encounter with a Yeti. He wrote a book, My Quest for the Yeti, and claims to have killed one. According to Messner, the Yeti is actually the endangered Himalayan brown bear, Ursus arctos isabellinus, or Tibetan blue bear, U. a. pruinosus, which can walk both upright or on all fours. The 1983 Barun Valley discoveries, prompted three years of research on the 'tree bear' possibility by Taylor, Fleming, John Craighead and Tirtha Shrestha. From that research the conclusion was that the Asiatic Black Bear, when about two years old, spends much time in trees to avoid attack by larger male bears on the ground ('ground bears'). During this tree period that may last two years, young bears train their inner claw outward, allowing an opposable grip. The imprint in the snow of a hind paw coming over the front paw that appears to have a hallux, especially when the bear is going slightly uphill so the hind paw print extends the overprint backward makes a hominoid-appearing track, both in that it is elongated like a human foot but with a “thumb” and in that a four-footed animal’s gait now appears bipedal. This "yeti discovery", in the words of National Geographic Magazine editor Bill Garrett, "[by] on-site research sweeps away much of the 'smoke and mirrors' and gives us a believable yeti". This fieldwork in Nepal's Barun Valley led directly to initiating in 1984 Makalu-Barun National Park that protected over half a million acres in 1991, and across the border with China the Qomolangma national nature preserve in the Tibet Autonomous Region that protected over six million acres. In the words of Honorary President of the American Alpine Club, Robert H. Bates, this yeti discovery "has apparently solved the mystery of the yeti, or at least part of it, and in so doing added to the world’s great wildlife preserves" such that the shy animal that lives in trees (and not the high snows), and mysteries and myths of the Himalayas that it represents, can continue within a protected area nearly the size of Switzerland. In 2003, Japanese researcher and mountaineer Dr. Makoto Nebuka published the results of his twelve-year linguistic study, postulating that the word "Yeti" is a corruption of the word "meti", a regional dialect term for a "bear". Nebuka claims that ethnic Tibetans fear and worship the bear as a supernatural being. Nebuka's claims were subject to almost immediate criticism, and he was accused of linguistic carelessness. Dr. Raj Kumar Pandey, who has researched both Yetis and mountain languages, said "it is not enough to blame tales of the mysterious beast of the Himalayas on words that rhyme but mean different things." Some speculate these reported creatures could be present-day specimens of the extinct giant ape Gigantopithecus. However, the Yeti is generally described as bipedal, and most scientists believe Gigantopithecus to have been quadrupedal, and so massive that, unless it evolved specifically as a bipedal ape (like Oreopithecus and the hominids), walking upright would have been even more difficult for the now extinct primate than it is for its extant quadrupedal relative, the orangutan. In 2013, a call was put out by scientists from the universities of Oxford and Lausanne for people claiming to have samples from these sorts of creatures. A mitochondrial DNA analysis of the 12S RNA gene was undertaken on samples of hair from an unidentified animal from Ladakh in northern India on the west of the Himalayas, and one from Bhutan. These samples were compared with those in GenBank, the international repository of gene sequences, and matched a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago. The result suggests that, barring hoaxes of planted samples or contamination, bears in these regions may have been taken to be yeti. Professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Cambridge Bill Amos doubted the samples were of polar bears in the Himalayas, but was "90% convinced that there is a bear in these regions that has been mistaken for a yeti". Professor Brian Sykes whose team carried out the analysis of the samples at Oxford university has his own theory. He believes that the samples may have come from a hybrid species of bear produced from a mating between a brown bear and a polar bear. Sykes told the BBC: |“||I think this bear, which nobody has seen alive, may still be there and may have quite a lot of polar bear in it. It may be some sort of hybrid and if its behaviour is different from normal bears, which is what eyewitnesses report, then I think that may well be the source of the mystery and the source of the legend.||”| A research of 12S rRNA published in 2015 revealed that the hair samples collected are most likely those of brown bears. In popular culture |This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2013)| ||This article contains embedded lists that may be poorly defined, unverified or indiscriminate. (November 2014)| The Yeti has regularly been depicted in films, literature, music and video games. At Disneyland, a 1959 ride named the Matterhorn Bobsleds features three audio-animatronic Abominable Snowmen. Walt Disney World's more recent attraction Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom is themed around the folklore of the Yeti and features a 25-foot-tall audio-animatronic Yeti which appears during the ride. - Similar alleged creatures - Almas – Central Asia - Amomongo – Philippines - Ban-manush – Bangladesh - Barmanou – Afghanistan and Pakistan - Batutut – South-east Asia - Bigfoot – North America - Daeva or Div – Tajikistan, Iran - Chuchunya – Siberia - Fear liath – Scotland, United Kingdom - Fouke Monster – United States - Genderuwa – Indonesia - Grassman – United States - Hibagon – Japan - Mande Barung – India - Mapinguari – South America - Momo the Monster – United States - Nuk-luk – Canada - Orang Mawas – Malaysia - Orang Pendek – Indonesia - Skunk ape – United States - Yeren – China - Yowie – Australia Media related to Yeti at Wikimedia Commons - Sullivan, Tim (10 August 2008). "Losing the yeti in the forgotten nation of Butan". The Victoria Advocate. - Bigfoot Files, Channel 4 (UK TV), November 2013 - "Yeti". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. - Eberhart, George (2002). Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. ABC-CLIO. p. 613. ISBN 978-1-57607-283-7. - Napier, John (2005). Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth and Reality. London: N. Abbot. ISBN 0-525-06658-6. - Pranavananda, Swami (1957). "The Abominable Snowman". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 54. - Stonor, Charles (30 January 1954). The Statesman in Calcutta. Missing or empty - Swan, Lawrence W. (18 April 1958). "Abominable Snowman". Science 127 (3303): 882–884. doi:10.1126/science.127.3303.882-b. PMID 17733822. - Izzard, Ch. 2, pp. 21–22. - Heuvelmans, Bernard (1958). On the Track of Unknown Animals. Rupert Hart-Davis. p. 164. - Izzard, Ch. 2, p. 199. - Stonor, Charles (1955 Daily Mail). The Sherpa and the Snowman. Hollis and Carter. Check date values in: - Izzard, Ch. 2, p. 22. - Pranavananda, Swami (1955). Indian Geographical Journal, July–Sept 30: 99. Missing or empty - Jackson, John A. (1955). More than Mountains. George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd). - Tilman, p. 131. - Howard-Bury, Charles (February 1921). "Some Observations on the Approaches to Mount Everest". The Geographical Journal (The Geographical Journal, Vol. 57, No. 2) 57 (2): 121–124. doi:10.2307/1781561. JSTOR 1781561. - Yourghusband, Francis; Collie, H. Norman and Gatine, A. (February 1922). "Mount Everest" The reconnaissance: Discussion". The Geographical World Journal (The Geographical Journal, Vol. 59, No. 2) 59 (2): 109–112. doi:10.2307/1781388. JSTOR 1781388. - Howard-Bury, Charles (1921). "19". Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921. Edward Arnold. p. 141. ISBN 1-135-39935-2. - Izzard, Ch. 2, p. 21. - Tilman, pp. 127–137 - Izzard, Ch. 2, p. 24. - Straus, William L., Jr., (8 June 1956). "Abominable Snowman". Science 123 (3206): 1024–1025. doi:10.1126/science.123.3206.1024. - Kirtley, Bacil F. (April 1964). 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Anatomy of a beast: obsession and myth on the trail of Bigfoot. University of California Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-520-25571-5. - Tenzing Norgay (told to and written by James Ramsey Ullman) (1955). Man of Everest — The Autobiography of Tenzing. George Harrap & Co, Ltd. - "Daily Mail Team Will Seek Snowman". Cabernet.demon.co.uk. Retrieved 27 January 2012. - Jackson, John Angelo (2005). "Chapter 17". Adventure Travels in the Himalaya (pp135-152). New Delhi: Indus Pub. Co. p. 136. ISBN 81-7387-175-2. - Dobson, Jessie (June 1956). "Obituary: 79, Frederic Wood-Jones, F.R.S.: 1879–1954". Man 56: 82–83. - Wilfred E. le Gros Clark (November 1955). "Frederic Wood-Jones, 1879–1954". 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by Chris Parker Drawing: Mound Builder Artifact from the book: “Records of Ancient Races in the Mississippi Valley, 1887” It’s amazing how little we as a supposedly educated culture actually know about the past. Even if we’ve studied the past, much of what is being taught or that is commonly believed is untrue. For instance, Columbus did not “discover” America. He was preceded here certainly by its inhabitants of the time, but also by the Norse, the Chinese, Africans, the Irish and the Vikings to name a few. Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned, Eve did not eat an apple, Egyptians were Africans. Dinosaurs and man Did interact When in comes to the American continent, Native Americans supposedly came here from Asia 20,000 years ago across the Bering Straight land Bridge. However, a mysterious people, now called the Mound Builders whose works the Native Americans didn’t know were apparently here before them and their artifacts show that they interacted with the mastodon, dinosaurs and aquatic reptiles. Dinosaurs and aquatic reptiles supposedly went extinct more than 65 million years ago. No one knows for sure who the Mound Builders were and where they came from but one thing is certain; no one believes that they lived with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The question is; did some dinosaurs and Mound builders live together here on this continent in “recent” times? I present here some theories about the actual aimals being depicted here. Of course I could be wrong but I feel that if science believes that the ancient mound depicted on the left represents a Swan rather than a quadruped such as a sauropod that I’m on safe ground. “The group of cultures collectively called Mound Builders were prehistoric inhabitants of North America who constructed various styles of earthen mounds for burial, residential and ceremonial purposes. These included the Pre-Columbian cultures of the Archaic period; Woodland period (Adena and Hopewell cultures); and Mississippian period; dating from roughly 3000 BCE to the 16th century CE, and living in regions of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River valley, and the Mississippi River valley and its tributaries. As a comparison, beginning with the construction of Watson Brake about 3500 BC in present-day Louisiana, indigenous peoples started building earthwork mounds in North America nearly 1000 years before the pyramids were constructed in Egypt. Since the 19th century, the prevailing scholarly consensus has been that the mounds were constructed by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, early cultures distinctly separate from the historical Native American tribes extant at the time of European colonization of North America. The historical Native Americans were generally not knowledgeable about the civilizations that produced the mounds. Research and study of these cultures and peoples has been based on archaeology and anthropology.” Wikipedia Mound Builder Theropod Dinosaur The author and the experts refer to the depiction as a “dragon” and it might seem presumptuous of me to disagree (particularly since we have only the head of the creature) but I see something else entirely. The Mound Builder creatures surrounding this piece are for the most part recognizable and are sculpted in a realistic style. There is no reason to suppose that this is a mythological creature other than because one has an A Priori scientific belief that these creatures did not exist within the lifetime of man. Here is the author’s discussion of the piece in question and the other pieces found with it in the mound. “In our collection of pottery from the ancient mounds we have several pieces ornamented with dragon-like devices. We give an illustration of two of these; burial vases, with a most pronounced dragon-head standing up from the rim of the vessel. There is the great mouth with the teeth revealed, and protruding tongue, with fierce eyes, and the general aspect, not only of the Piasa, but of those mythological representations of the dragon so frequently found in Asia. We present a sketch of another. Graphic:Left, Allosaurus, Right Carnotaurus It is all the more interesting since we found with it a magnificent collection of pottery, of more than a hundred pieces, at the base of the great Cahokia mound, (pictured above, right) in the American Bottom, in Madison County, Ills. This is the largest artificial mound in the United States, and perhaps in the world, being one-hundred feet in height, and covering with its base sixteen acres of ground. It is the centre of a group of seventy-two others, which surround it, and of which a description will be given farther on in this work. They are situated on a level plain, miles from any natural elevation. For a complete description and survey of them, see “The Antiquities of Cahokia, or Monk’s Mound’ Upon taking these curious old burial vases from the place where they had rested for ages, it was like exhuming a museum of natural history in ceramics ; for these were the shapes of animals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and aflmost all animated nature, together with the shapes of From Cahoki Mound. ithe human form. Among them were several vases adorned with the dragon heads.” This is a realistically sculpted creature, posed withn a frog, it is certainly not a lizard and its teeth and head indicate that it is a carnivorous reptile. Quite frequently, such a creature is laabeled a dragon, and if not then a crocodile or alligator. This creature is clearly not one of those. It appears to be a lifelike depiction of a theropod dinosaur; a species similar to the allosaurus, t-rex or Carnotaurus. Are those horns on the top of its head or are those prominent eye ridges as depicted in a number of t-rex renditions. Keep this in mind; the piece you see here may have been done by an eyewitness. We have compared here the Mound Builder creature with several examples of meat eating theropod dinosaurs. In our minds, the Carnotaurus, to date found in South America, most closely matches the Mound Builder artrifact. Carnotaurus (pronounced /?k?rn??t?r?s/; meaning “meat-eating bull”, referring to its distinct bull-like horns (Latin carne = flesh + Greek tauros = bull) was a large predatory dinosaur, with horns vaguely resembling a bull’s. Only one species, Carnotaurus sastrei has been described so far. Carnotaurus lived in Patagonia, Argentina (La Colonia Formation) during the Campanian to the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous, and was discovered by JosĂ© Bonaparte, who has uncovered many other South American dinosaurs. Wikipedia Allosaurus and T-rex are North American dinosaurs according to science. Mound Builder Aquatic Reptile: Champ or Ogopogo The Tusayan people are named after a ruin located in the Grand canyon National park in Arizona. These ancestral Puebloan people lived in the area until 1,000 years ago archaeologists believe. In American Anthropologist, Volume 5, January 1892, in an article entitled “ A Few Tusayan Pictographs” is a very interesting pictograph showing four long necked creatures. Aquatic reptiles became extinct more than 65 million years ago as did the long necked sauropods according to science. The pictographs were thought to be a little as a thousand years old, possibly several thousand but certainly not millions of years old. Could science be wrong or are the more benign “nothing to see here, move it along” explanations of the archeologists satisfactory? Here we compare the Mound Builder pictographs with; an ancient Roman “sea monster” and with several other classic sea or lake monsters. Here’s what the author wrote about the pictograph in question: “It will be noticed in examining the cut of these four pictographs of the great serpent that one is about horizontal and the other three erect. It will also be noticed that the horizontal specimen has a zigzag outline, as if in motion, which the others do not have. They are undoubtedly, however, figures of the same mythological personage”. Ogopogo and Champ “Ogopogo or Naitaka (Salish: n’ha-a-itk, “lake demon”) is the name given to a cryptid lake monster reported to live in Okanagan Lake, in British Columbia, Canada. Ogopogo has been allegedly seen by First Nations people since the 19th century. The most common description of Ogopogo is a forty- to fifty-foot-long (12 to 15 m) sea serpent. It has supposedly been photographed and even been caught on tape.” …Wikipedia “Champ, or Champy is the name given to a reputed lake monster living in Lake Champlain, a natural freshwater lake in North America, partially situated across the U.S.-Canada border in the Canadian province of Quebec and partially situated across the Vermont-New York border. While there is no scientific evidence for the cryptid’s existence, there have been over 300 reported sightings. The legend of the monster is considered a draw for tourism in the Burlington, Vermont area.”… Wikipedia The creature appears to be drawn with a beard which is typical of some “sea monsters” and drawn with a type of headcrest or ears. I’m not suggesting that this creature is either Ogopogo or Champ but that it could represent a tyoe of sea or lake monster that has been seen and described by even the Romans and Greeks and by ancient and recent North and South Americans. It appears that neither theropod dinosaurs or aquatic reptiles died out millons of years ago and were instead seen and memorialized by ancient peoples.