Cloud angel celebrates the new Pope?

There's no need to look to religious explanations for this amazing terrestrial display

The amazing picture above was just one of many that were snapped on a Florida evening last week, right after the announcement about the new Pope. Many people reached immediately for religious explanations, which truly does the natural world a disservice. In order to believe this cloud formation was the work of God, you would have to completely disregard all of the incredible natural beauty here on Earth. How rude.

(And why would God make this announcement in Florida? Or are the angels just better about issuing public RSVPs in Florida than in the rest of the world? Then again, Florida IS the source of a surprising percentage of the world's news of weird and stupid things, so maybe it fits.)
 
Many people are unaware of the incredible things that clouds get up to when you're walking along with your eyes cast down to the ground. There are incredible things happening in our upper atmosphere every day, and this little bit of sunset on a suggestively shaped wisp of vapor is just one of them.
 
Cloud iridescence is one thing. This is a gorgeous phenomenon that occurs when ice crystals in high atmospheric clouds reflects a spectrum, creating a rainbow effect high in the sky.
 
Image courtesy Flickr/nebarnix
 
But I'll see your cloud iridescence and raise you nacreous clouds, a formation which happens primarily in the Arctic and Antarctic skies. 
 
Image courtesy Flickr/finnar malmquist
 
How about "sun pillars," which form when ice crystals shaped like plates channel light sources directly upward.
 
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
 
Or the Sundog, scientifically called a parhelion, which is a reflection of the sun that creates a halo in skies filled with ice crystals.
 
Image courtesy Flickr/simplerich
 
Lenticular clouds are always spectacular, and often mistaken for UFOs. 
 
Image courtesy Flickr/daniel duende
 
"Glory" is a suitable name for the optical phenomenon which puts a rainbow halo around the head of a distant observer or object on a foggy day.
 
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
 
Everyone is familiar with rainbows. And many people know that in a double rainbow, the second (fainter) rainbow has its colors reversed. But have you ever seen a red rainbow? They occur near sunset, when atmospheric scattering does away with the blues and greens, leaving only the reds and yellows to refract back at the viewer.
 
Image courtesy Flickr/markkilner
 
Many commenters have expressed sentiments echoing those of a Facebook user who commented that "This is not just a cloud… the probability of that is simply not possible." But hey buddy, who are you calling "just" a cloud? 
 
The only unusual thing about the "cloud angel" is how commonplace it is... and how little people seem to notice.
 

Your webcam may be spying on you

You know what they say… it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you!

For years, webcams have been a somewhat common feature in most households. But the proliferation of laptops with built in webcams in the last few years has meant that virtually everyone with a somewhat recent laptop has a webcam pointing at them. I have one myself. It's staring at me right now… or it would be, if I hadn't covered it with a Post-It note after reading this terrifying article at Ars Technica.

I should back up and start by saying that Ars Technica is one of the most well-respected sources of journalism in the tech world. Unless you are involved in tech stuff, you likely have never heard of Ars Technica. Suffice it to say that what the Wall Street Journal is to the financial world, Ars Technica is to the technology world. 
 
It's important to clarify the source because frankly if I had read this story anywhere else, I would have blown it off as lurid scaremongering of the worst kind. But coming from Ars Technica, I'm convinced that this is a real thing that is really happening.
 
It doesn't take a master-level hacker (or cracker, if you prefer the "correct" terminology) to take command of your webcam. All it takes is the ability to download and install a software program called RAT (for Remote Access Technology). This is as easy as it sounds. Then all you have to do is trick your victim into clicking a link to download the infected file, and boom: you're in.
 
The people who boast about their collections of people they spy on refer them to their "slaves." The term speaks to both the power differential, and the unwitting nature of the victims. It is also about some of the other hijinks they get up to, such as deleting files, stealing private files, and making your computer behave strangely (such as repeatedly ejecting the CDROM tray) as a prank.
 
Webcams are extremely vulnerable to this sort of thing. A court recently ruled that schools have the right to spy on people using school laptops, through the laptop's webcam. And a furniture rental store was recently caught spying on people who rented PCs with webcams.
 
The best protection against becoming a RAT victim is to never click a suspicious link, and to run a reputable virus scanning program which you keep scrupulously up to date. Malwarebytes has a free version which is very good at catching this sort of thing.

Russell Crowe's UFO pics

Did the actor capture a UFO on film?

Australian movie superstar Russell Crowe recently set up a camera on a fixed tripod in his office window. His intent was to snap pictures of bats emerging from Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens at dusk. Instead, he caught three snaps of what appear to be moving rods of light. The lights move from right to left across his field of view. 

Crowe has stitched together the three images and posted them online in a YouTube video, which you can watch here:

Russell Crowe captures UFO on camera [ORIGINAL] - FULL

First thing's first: I do not believe the star is trying to hoax us, nor that he is being deliberately hoaxed. I would sincerely doubt that this footage has been faked or digitally manipulated in any way. Why would Crowe risk his reputation on something like that? It's ridiculous. 
 
Also, his belligerent, defensive tone in response to attacks from internet skeptics is far too convincing. And while it's true that Crowe is known as a prankster, his flavor of humor tends to be more along the lines of making prank phone calls to Michael Jackson. 
 
However, I am also pretty sure that these are not UFOs.
 
Item the first: the lights clearly seem to be reflecting off something. Whether it's the lens of the camera, or a pane of glass in front of the camera, is hard to say. But there is definitely a reflected, lens-flare-like quality to the light trails surrounding these lights.
 
Crowe hasn't posted pictures of the camera set-up, so we don't actually know if the camera was sitting behind a window, or was situated outside (as on a balcony or window ledge). He has clarified that he was using a "Canon 5D no flash," adding that the camera was fixed, not moving.
 
Item the second: the two lights are, shall we say, extremely similar to the color of the taillights of a car that passes in the background immediately before the "UFO" appears. 
 
This video is actually four still shots stitched together. The first is an establishing shot of the gardens, and the next three show the lights passing in front of the camera. The UFO lights seem to follow the car as it passes through the frame. They travel in the same direction as the passing car, at about the same speed.
 
Whether Crowe posted this as a joke, or if he sincerely was puzzled by what he captured, remains unknown. But I think we can consider this particular UFO to be identified.
 

"Star Jelly" spotted in wake of Russian meteor

This strange substance has been recorded as far back as the 1300s.

A meteor blazing across the daytime sky is certainly an unusual event. Historically it was - and often still is - seen as a portent, a sign of something powerful and unknowable. Strange things were said to happen around these events, with one of the strangest being the appearance of "star jelly" in fields and other open areas. And it has appeared again, observed in the Ham Wall park in England not long after the amazing Russian meteor strike happened.

Star jelly is usually found as a viscous substance, gelatinous, possibly sticky or slimy. It might be transparent, white, or a pale shade of blue or green. One of the earliest descriptions of star jelly was by John of Gaddesden (1280-1361) who called it stella terrae, described it as a "mucilaginous substance lying upon the earth," and wondered whether it might have medical applications.
 
Many possible explanations for the phenomena have been proposed. No doubt each of them has been the culprit at least once. This doesn't seem like the sort of thing that will have one specific answer.
 
One of the more common explanations is that it is a slime mold. This fascinating phenomena is rarely seen in the wild, which may be why people who come upon it are frightened and confused. As well they might be. 
 
Slime mold can take a variety of shapes and forms, and is basically a fungus that acts like an amoeba. Slime mold moves along the ground with great purpose (albeit slowly). If it is divided, its separated parts will crawl back to each other to reunite. It follows chemical signatures to track its prey. Slime molds can appear quite suddenly, especially after a rain or damp night. They vanish almost as quickly, turning to dust and dispersing with the winds. 
 
In the case of the recent sighting of star jelly in an English nature reserve, officials say it is most likely abandoned and unfertilized frog spawn. It seems that this is the amphibian mating season in England, and a startled female frog will drop her spawn (unfertilized eggs suspended in a protein gel) in an attempt to get away from a predator. 
 
However, the park officials also note that an unusual bright light was seen over the park just a week before the appearance of this strange jelly. Some have called it a UFO, although the park officials describe it as a "meteor-like object" which was photographed by a wildlife photographer.
 

The bizarre, secret room 322

What on earth is this room FOR?

Last week a Redditor booked a stay at Houston's swanky themed Hotel ZaZa. The hotel was packed, and after some confusion at the front desk, he was given the keys to Room 322. He went upstairs and found a truly bizarre location. 

Room 322 is only about 1/3rd the size of a normal room. One of the room's walls is brick, unlike any other rooms in the hotel. This brick wall has a mirror embedded within it like a window (rather than hung on the wall, as you would normally do with a mirror and a brick wall) which has led many to speculate that the mirror is actually one-way glass, and a camera or another room lies behind it. 
 
The room is decorated with a bed that's been chained to the wall, furniture crammed into a space too small for it, bare concrete floors, several creepy paintings, skull graphics, and a photograph of an old white dude who is apparently Jay Comeaux, president of the Stanford Group.
 
Upon checking with the front desk, he was brusquely told "that room isn't supposed to be rented," and was quickly switched to a different room. Another seemingly unrelated person tells the same story of having received Room 322 by accident, and describes it with similar terms. 
 
An intriguing connection: the number 322 is important to the Skull and Bones Society, a secret society of Yale graduates. The number 322 is part of the official logo of the Skull and Bones. In fact, the inner temple of the Skull and Bones society is - you guessed it - called "Room 322."
 
Is this bizarre hotel room a Skull & Bones special perk? Is it a themed hooker room for BDSM enthusiasts? Is it the location where secret Monarch mind control experiments take place? (Conspiracy theorists take note, the hotel's restaurant is called "The Monarch.") Or is it something else entirely?
 
When the Houston Press contacted Hotel ZaZa for more information, the hotel's spokeswoman said that the room is called "Hard Times" and is a themed room, "a play on a jail experience." While the ZaZa has many themed rooms, the Hard Times room 322 isn't listed among them on its website. Also, it doesn't really look very prison-y. I mean, at the very least, wouldn't you incorporate bars into the room's design? That seems like an obvious one. Maybe in place of that creepy mirror!
 

Pile of purple orbs found in Arizona desert

They're probably Orbeez, but that doesn't answer all the question.

Last week, two Tucson residents headed out to the desert to do some photography. In a remote corner of the desert, they found a huge pile of strange purple orbs. The orbs were puddled together in a single spot, not scattered around as you might expect if they had fallen from the sky. Upon examination, they found that the orbs were squishy and watery. Although most were purple, some were translucent. 

The couple sent photographs to a local news station, which headed out to examine the orbs themselves. The reporters described the objects as being "like gooey marbles that ooze out a watery substance when squished."
 
When contacted, various researchers speculated that they could be a slime mold, amphibian eggs, or some kind of jelly fungus. These natural phenomena have all been observed and recorded many times, although never in the middle of the Arizona desert. Molds, amphibians, and fungi all tend to do better in an environment that is a lot more damp than the Sonoran Desert.
 
However, members of the public have contacted the station to identify the objects as Deco Beads, a product that is small spheres filled with water used in planters to keep plants watered. Florists have piped up to say that they are hydrogel beads used in floral displays. And still more people (particularly parents of young children) believe that the objects are Orbeez, a toy that seems (to a skeptical eye) to be the same thing as Deco Beads but more expensive, in a wider variety of colors, and marketed to children as a toy.
 
All of these items are examples of hydrogels, which are a fascinating product in and of themselves. Hydrogels consist of polymer chains that absorb water and trap the molecules between their fibers. Some hydrogels (like those used in the Always Infinity sanitary pad) are designed to never release their fluid load. Others (like those in Deco Beads and floral beads) are designed to slowly release the water over a period of up to a week.
 
Of course, none of these explanations covers what the objects are doing in the desert. Why would someone drive so far just to dump a bunch of either Deco Beads or Orbeez? Why not just throw them in the trash? Was someone hoping to dehydrate them, in order to rehydrate them later? 
 
Personally I'm going to stick with my all-purpose explanation for every weird, nonsensical thing that some random stranger does: "probably a meth addict."
 

Elvis Presley and aliens

A surprisingly strong connection.

Conspiracy theories have swirled around Elvis Presley since long before his death. But I was surprised to learn recently that there are a lot of connections between Elvis Presley and aliens. Not only was Presley obsessed with UFOs, it seems like UFOs may have been obsessed with Presley.

Aliens at Elvis Presley's Birth
According to Michael C. Luckman, author of the recent book Alien Rock: The Rock 'N Roll Extraterrestrial Connection, people spotted a "strange, unidentified blue light" that hovered in the sky over the home where Presley was born in Tupelo, MS. The light was reported by both Presley's father Vernon, and the doctor who delivered baby Elvis. 
 
The story was corroborated by the man who served as Elvis' hairstylist and mentor for twelve years. Larry Geller told AOL News that in the 1960s, Vernon Presley told him about the mysterious blue light. Evidently Vernon spotted the light when he took a break from the delivery and stepped outside for a cigarette at 2 a.m.
 
Elvis Presley's Dead Twin
Many people don't know that Elvis Presley was an identical twin. His twin brother was delivered 35 minutes before Elvis, stillborn. Although Elvis is considered an only child, he kept his deceased twin in his mind, mentioning him occasionally. 
 
The loss of his brother may be one of the factors which kept Elvis interested in the paranormal. Over the course of his life, Presley amassed a sizeable collection of books on the paranormal, occult, spiritualism, and UFOs. The collection bothered Presley's manager Colonel Tom, who at one point suggested that they burn all the books in a bonfire. (Elvis refused.)
 
Elvis, Age 8: Contacted By Telepathic Aliens
Elvis has claimed that when he was eight years old, he was telepathically contacted by two alien beings who showed him his future. Reportedly, the aliens showed Elvis an image of "a man in a white jumpsuit singing to a crowd," but the eight year old Elvis didn't understand what it meant.
 
Elvis Presley's UFO Sightings As An Adult
We turn back to Larry Geller, who was with Elvis for two UFO sightings. Once, as they drove through the desert in the middle of the night, they spotted lights circling in the skies. 
 
In the second incident, Geller and Presley spotted UFOs near Graceland. They were walking through the estate one night when they spotted "odd lights in a field moving back and forth."

Would you buy a haunted house?

You can get a good deal, if you're game!

Depending on where you live, there may or may not be rules on the books which require a realtor to disclose if there was ever a death in the house. The real estate jargon is "stigmatized properties," and each state's laws vary. However, since ghosts don't affect the physical nature of the house and aren't exactly provable, most real estate laws do not cover disclosure of ghosts. It's considered rumor if that. 

This results in a lot of families finding to their surprise that they are not the only ones occupying their houses. In some cases, the family may be able to make a legal case that they should have been warned. In other cases, these incidents serve as the basis for changing the laws. For example, most of our contemporary laws about this sort of thing stem from the original Amityville Horror case. (Which ironically is widely considered a hoax designed to get the family out of a punishing mortgage for a house they could no longer afford.)
 
But assuming that the realtor is up front about the hauntings, these properties can sell for substantially below market value. One might almost say "suspiciously" below market value in some cases!
 
Hong Kong has a similar stigma against homes where the residents died, particularly violent deaths and suicides. Called "hongza," these houses are considered haunted, and typically sell for 15-20 percent off the normal asking price. Considering the price of real estate in Hong Kong, that's a killer deal (if you'll forgive the pun). Housing prices have risen 70 percent in Hong Kong since 2009. 
 
And a man named Ng Goon Lau has made himself the King of Haunted Houses by buying up a string of these houses at bargain basement prices. He then either resells them at a price or rents them out to non-superstitious people. 
 
If you want to try your hand at buying a haunted house at a bargain, real estate data blog Trulia has crunched the numbers and found the top 10 towns to find a haunted house. They based their analysis on the number of houses priced below market value and built before the 1940s. 
 
The Rust Belt turns out to be the best place to find a haunted house, including towns like Detroit, Toledo, and Cleveland. They also broke out just the towns in the south, and I trust you will not be surprised to see New Orleans on that list!
 

Richard III's body found beneath a parking lot

Remains of England's famous king identified by mitochondrial DNA.

They say that history is everywhere in England, but I wonder how many people who used this particular parking lot realized that they were parking above the remains of Richard III. 

Richard III died during one of the last battles in the War of the Roses. The last King of England to die in battle, his body was buried at Greyfriars, a monastic abbey in Leicester. The abbey was demolished in 1530 and the property subdivided and developed, which is how Richard III's body came to be interred beneath a parking lot. The remains were lost to history until they were unearthed by a recent archaeological expedition.
 
The archaeologists suspected, based on what they found of the corpse, that they might have the remains of Richard III. In order to test their theory, they matched the mitochondrial DNA from the corpse with a direct descendent of Richard III's sister, a cabinet maker living in Canada. The results came back an unmistakable match.
 
Richard III was only King of England for two years, but they were tumultuous years indeed. The last king of the House of York, Richard III came to power when his older brother died in 1483. Possibly after murdering two young boys who might have otherwise stood in his way. (The boys were ensconced in the Tower of London before Richard III's coronation, and were never seen from again.)
 
During Richard III's two-year reign he snuffed out two rebellions. One led by his former friend and ally Henry Stafford, and one by Henry Tudor (who would later become King Henry VII). 
 
This hated king was evidently mistreated by his subjects after his death. He was found in an unusual position which indicated that his hands had been bound. His skull was intact, although there was evidence of two "severe blows." The archaeologists also found evidence that his body had been "mistreated," although in what fashion they have declined to say.
 
Richard III went down in history as a scheming, devious, misshapen man with a quick with and a quick temper. But in large part, this reputation hails more from Tudor propaganda than it does contemporary evidence.
 
After Richard III's death, his successors to the throne slandered his name to make their own reign seem more legitimate. In truth, Richard III was not too bad a king, and better than many. And while he may not have been particularly attractive, as well as suffering from scoliosis, he was hardly the deformed monster often described in historical texts. 
 

African "goblins": tikoloshe, zvikwambo, and more

They can bring riches… and disaster

 

African "goblins" have been in the news a lot in recent years. Stories about goblins stealing women's panties while they sleep, or causing a house to explode when they are beheaded, create a great deal of confusion for readers from different cultures. 
 
The word "goblin" is just a loose translation in this sense. In the west, a goblin is a small, malicious creature. Most of us probably think of something like a cross between Gollum and a movie gremlin. Something mostly harmless, and completely fictional.
 
But in rural Africa, goblins are serious business. They go by many names, depending on the region and the language spoken. Most commonly, these creatures are called either tikoloshe or zvikwambo. The trade in these creatures used to be very hush-hush, occurring only behind closed doors. But in recent years, the sale of goblins has become much more public. Many can now be found for sale in market stalls throughout Africa. And the demand for goblins is rising steadily.
 
A goblin is created when a shaman harnesses a spirit and places it inside the body of an everyday item or (more often) living creature. Thus, a "goblin" could literally be anything: it could be a doll made from a coconut shell, a large beetle, a hedgehog, a mouse, a large moth - the shaman can choose any vessel to house the spirit. Most of them are sold encapsulated inside glass vials which are sealed to prevent the goblin from making magic (or mischief) before it is sold.
 
These are powerful spirits, and their use is regarded by most Africans with dread. As with any powerful spirit, you traffic in them at your own risk. The goblin may bring wealth or success, but it will almost invariably extract its revenge by bringing down calamity upon its owner. But just as desperate Americans were willing to sign up for balloon mortgages in the early 2000s, desperate Africans are willing to risk their house exploding or some other catastrophe in exchange for the slimmest hope at being able to make ends meet.
 
One reporter visited a market outside Harare, Zimbabwe and found that larger goblins reportedly cost around $11 USD, with smaller goblins selling for $4-5 USD.  In a country rated as one of the three most impoverished nations in the world, with an average annual salary of $176.20 USD per person, the price of a goblin represents a substantial investment. 
 

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