UFOs Over China!

By erika on 7/20/10 4:14pm
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Maybe… maybe not!  A ton of images and video purporting to show a rash of UFOs over China last week have gone through a flurry of internet activity.  Debunked!  Bunked!  Re-debunked!  It's missiles!  It's a counter-missile system!  It's an optical illusion!  It's UFOs and China doesn't want to admit it!

Here are the facts: something happened to shut down Xiaoshan Airport.  To quote CNN, "Eighteen flights were delayed or rerouted and operations shut down after twinkling lights were spotted above the terminal around 9 p.m. July 7."  Some people thought it was a private aircraft which had gone astray.  Others thought it was something military - an experimental aircraft, perhaps, or who knows what.

What CNN describes as "twinkling lights" has been described by other sources as "a glowing object hovering in the afternoon sky."  


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The Psychic Properties of Clutter

By erika on 7/9/10 9:11am
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Oh clutter, does anyone escape your grasp?  I am considered (both by myself and by others) to be a ruthless, effective, and tireless fighter of clutter.  And yet I can point to six things that belong somewhere else within arm's reach of my keyboard as I type this right now.  

Clutter propagates in the dark, it creeps in on little cat feet, and can even destroy lives.  Philip K. Dick coined the term "kipple" in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

"Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you go to bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more."


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The Physics of Cold Spots: Part 2 of 2

By erika on 6/30/10 1:28pm
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Last time we discussed some of the broader issues around the phenomena of cold spots.  This time I wanted to dig down into a more narrow discussion of the physics involved.  Temperature - heat - is energy, and there are several ways to "harvest" heat in order to use it for energy.  But could ghosts be harvesting heat literally out of thin air in order to power their appearances?


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The Physics of Cold Spots: Part 1 of 2

By erika on 6/29/10 2:07pm
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Cold spots are one of the hallmarks of a haunting.  Any ghost hunter worth the title will carry some sort of thermometer for testing the temperature of the air.  Many people report that the ambient temperature drops when ghosts are present (or about to be present).  The standard explanation is that the spirits are drawing the energy from the air in order to manifest.  But what does that mean, and is it plausible?  


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Beached Shoes With Feet Inside

By erika on 6/11/10 2:07pm
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Imagine you're taking a lovely stroll along the beach one day, when you encounter a running shoe lying on the sand.  Inside: a decomposed human foot.  Hard to believe, but seven such feet have been found on the beaches of the Pacific Northwest to date.  


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Celebrity Paranormal Project, "Mad Ray"

By erika on 6/1/10 3:15pm
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Once again, the show (I assume) invents a character.  Because ghosts aren't exciting or scary enough; we need an actual bad guy that we can focus on.  The show's intro says that "Mad Ray Golina prowled underground tunnels and stalked staff members.  When he committed suicide to avoid a lobotomy, they thought the violence would end.  It didn't."  Awesome!


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Paranormal State, “Hide & Seek”

By erika on 5/19/10 1:27pm
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Now that Ghost Hunters has gone on its mid-season break, I was casting around for some more entertainment.  Having never watched Paranormal State, I picked an episode at random and sat down to see what it had to offer.

 

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Ghost Hunters, "Norwich State"

By erika on 5/17/10 1:23pm
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This episode marks the end of the first half of the sixth season.  Ghost Hunters is going on that mid-season break that seems to take foreeeeeeeever, which makes me sad every year.  Chrissy's comment reminded me that I hadn't reviewed this episode yet (slacker!) partly because it took a while to digest.


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EVP: Electronic Voice Phenomena

By erika on 5/13/10 12:57pm
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Every paranormal show worth its snuff eventually whips out the EVP sessions.  What is EVP?  Is EVP a real thing?  Well… it depends!

The term stands for "Electronic Voice Phenomena," and describes sounds - usually voices - which can be heard on electronic recording media, but which were not heard at the time.


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Celebrity Paranormal Project: "The First Warden"

By erika on 5/12/10 3:49pm
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Joe Piscopo is unimpressedJoe Piscopo is unimpressed

I have to say, Celebrity Haunted House Paranormal Project (watch it on Hulu) makes a great summer night popcorn show.  I guess there were only six episodes that aired back in 2006, which is kind of a shame.  

This episode featured Olympic ski racer Picabo Street, Baywatch star and supermodel Michael Bergin, actress Mariel Hemingway, actor Joe Piscopo, and Real World: Chicago start Tonya Cooley.  Of these, Picabo Street turned out to be the hard-core believer, while Joe Piscopo was the laid back skeptic.  In fact, Piscopo seemed actively bored at several points during the show.


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