Leap Castle

Most Haunted House On Earth?

Leap Castle in Ireland is one of the world's most infamous haunted houses. This place has been home to so many horrors, it would be difficult to even know where it all started. There's the chapel, where one brother murdered another right over the altar. There's the oubliette- a kind of a dungeon, but with no door in or out, just a hole you dropped the victim into so you could forget about him. Lucky victims would land on the spike at the bottom of the pit and die relatively quickly. Unlucky victims would miss the spike and then slowly starve to death. When they started renovating the castle, it took three carts to haul away all the bones they found in the oubliette, along with one pocket watch from the 1840s- long, long after anyone should have been throwing anyone into an oubliette in Ireland.

Then there are the rumors of black magic. According to legend, the Darby family who owned the castle summoned up an evil spirit known only as “It,” which still appears from time to time, accompanied by a disgusting animal smell. There isn't really any clear description of It except that It's face always seems to be melting. “It” is only one of the the spirits that haunt Leap Castle, which is not surprising considering all of the people who suffered and died there. One of the theories about “It” is that the spirit is not the result of a black magic ritual, but a manifestation of all of the bad things that have happened at Leap Castle over the centuries.

 

 

 

The Mashco-Piro: One Of The World's "Uncontacted" Tribes

But for how much longer?
An amazing set of photographs was released earlier this week, some of the clearest pictures ever taken of the Mashco-Piro, which is one of the most isolated tribes of people in the world. The Mashco-Piro live in the Amazon, in the rainforest east of the Andes in Peru. And they have never been contacted by outsiders.
 
There are about 15 such "uncontacted" tribes tucked away in the Amazon. Estimates are that between 12,000 and 15,000 uncontacted tribespeople are living in the Amazon. You would be tempted to call it an "unspoiled life," but the entire reason we have these great pictures of the Mashco-Piro is that rampant logging in the Amazon has driven them out of their home territories, all the way to the river banks. 

From the banks of the Amazon and its tributaries, the Mashco-Piro are exposed to river traffic, including tourist groups such as the one which snapped these most recent pictures. In the past, the Mashco-Piro have reportedly fired upon tourist groups with arrows. Which, if true, is frankly pretty understandable. Wouldn't you be angry if a bunch of otherworldly machines came and tore up your property, and you had to live out in the open, like the Mashco-Piro?
 
To call these tribes "uncontacted" is a bit disingenuous, of course. Most of them have had contact with modern people over the years, be it trappers, survey teams, or fishermen. These tribes remain "lost" because they choose to do so. Many of them have responded to contact attempts with violence in the past. Other tribes have a social system based on plundering other tribes; these tribes have turned their attention to the logging camps which are pushing into the area. In plundering logging camps, the tribes obviously achieve a type of contact with modern society (which unfortunately has the potential to include germs along with the other loot).
 
A number of indigenous rights organizations are fighting to maintain these tribes' land as national preserves, to keep their territory intact. Unfortunately, the logging and petroleum interests are a powerful lobby in South America. Other dangers to their territory include illegal logging, diseases being spread from modern populations, and wildfires set to clear farmland.
 
It's amazing to think that there are still uncontacted tribespeople living in the world today. Unfortunately it seems that they may not be able to keep this privilege for too much longer. While some governments have set aside territory for some uncontacted tribes, the Mashco-Piro are apparently not so lucky.
 

Parasitic Twin To Be Removed From Peruvian Boy's Stomach

A parasitic twin is very similar to a conjoined twin; it is essentially a conjoined twin that exists solely inside the main child's body.
I can't decide if Peruvian toddler Isbac Pacunda is a lucky kid, or an unlucky one. Let's consider him lucky: doctors discovered his parasitic twin while he was still young, and the surgery is set for tomorrow. 
 
Pacunda's parasitic twin is situated in his stomach. It weighs about a pound and a half, is nine inches long, and has "some hair on the cranium, eyes, and some bones." A parasitic twin is very similar to a conjoined twin; it is essentially a conjoined twin that exists solely inside the main child's body. 

Normally, a pair of identical twins is created when the single fertilized embryo splits into two separate halves. Each half develops into a whole, separate fetus. In the case of conjoined and parasitic twins, the embryo does not divide cleanly. With a parasitic twin, the larger portion of the embryo will envelop the smaller portion. The smaller portion becomes almost vestigial, typically just a few body parts, and is wholly dependent on the main twin for all blood flow and nourishment.
 
Parasitic twins are said to happen about once in every 500,000 births. In many cases, the only result is an unnerving pocket of developed tissue somewhere inside the main fetus's body. These frequently cause no problems, and may only be discovered at some much later date, during an unrelated surgery. Pockets of hair, teeth, and even the occasional developed eyeball are what is usually found inside these strange cysts.
 
Parasitic Twins Vs. Fetiform Teratomas
 
In 2010, a child in Trinidad was diagnosed as having a basketball-sized mass in his chest cavity. When doctors performed exploratory surgery they discovered "hair and teeth and what looked like eyes of an underdeveloped fetus." This was tentatively identified as a teratoma, which is not quite the same thing as a parasitic twin.
 
A teratoma is an encapsulated cyst, inside which strange structures (including eyes and hair) may be growing. The leading theory is that they occur very early in the fetus's development, when stem and mast cells still have the potential to become anything. For whatever reason, a cluster of cells in your chest cavity may decide to become hair. 
 
There still exists some discussion regarding the boundary line between a fetiform teratoma and a parasitic twin. The general feeling is that a parasitic twin is one which has developed complex structures, like limbs and a rudimentary circulatory system. Whereas a fetiform teratoma is just a collection of random bits of things, none of which are remotely fetus-shaped. 
 

Sentient Weapons

An Ancient Tradition

In the “Elric of Melnibone” series by Michael Moorcock, Elric has a sentient (and evil) sword called Stormbringer. That's a work of fiction, but legends of sentient blades with magical powers can be found in various cultures around the world.

In Celtic mythology, it is said that the ancient swords were capable of speech. Whenever the sword was pulled out of its scabbard it would sing out the full history of all its deeds, because (according to the much later Christian chroniclers) there was a demon in the blade. Cleaning the sword was seen as an act of tribute or religious worship to the spirit in the sword. These legends are remarkably similar to Indonesian and Malaysian beliefs about the “kris” or “keris.”

 

The kris is the traditional sword or knife (depending on its length) of the peoples of Indonesia and Malaysia. While the kris is a weapon, it is at least as much a ritual object, because it is designed in such a way as to be not very easy to fight with it. The typical kris has a wavy blade and an offset handle. It is worn as a symbol of manhood, but some kris are also “charged,” filled up with magic power and possessed of special powers such as the ability to warn of approaching danger by shaking or rattling. Some Indonesians even conduct rituals to pay respect to the kris, seeing it as a living being.

 

If you go to Indonesia, it's not too difficult to buy a “magic kris,” but those are just tourist trap souvenirs. If the owner believed his kris to have genuine power, he wouldn't sell it for less than about twenty thousand dollars. The kris is taken very seriously!

 

 

Is Venus Populated By Scorpions?

One Russian scientist thinks so
Leonid Ksanformaliti, a scientist with the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has been closely examining some 30 year-old footage from a Soviet probe's landing on the surface of Venus. And in a recently published paper, Ksanformaliti drops a bomb: there is life on Venus, large life which is sufficiently organized to be disturbed (if not frightened away) by the landing of the Soviet probe.
 
Venus stands between us and the Sun, and can often be seen in the sky (typically right before or right after sunrise). Venus has a similar size, composition, and gravity compared to Earth. But life on Venus would be harsh indeed. It has no water, although it seems that it did at one point in the distant past. 

All of Venus' water evaporated long ago due to a "runaway greenhouse effect" provided by its incredibly dense atmosphere, which is almost entirely carbon dioxide (topped with a thick layer of sulfuric acid). The surface of Venus is just rock, slab-like gray rock, dotted with the occasional volcano. Because of the density of the atmosphere, atmospheric pressure at the surface level is approximately 92 times higher than that on Earth.
 
Both the Soviets and the United States began exploring Venus in the early to mid 1960s. In 1982 the Soviets landed their Venus-13 landing probe, which sent back a 126-minute panoramic video. Ksanformaliti has been studying this video carefully, and he claims to have found several animate objects - creatures? - which were initially overlooked in Soviet studies of the footage.
 
Ksanformaliti's scientific article mentions three objects which he says "have the qualities of human beings." He has dubbed these items the "shape-shifting disk," the "black patch," and the "scorpion." The scorpion is particularly interesting since, unlike the other shapes which are there when the probe lands, it only appears after the probe has been on the surface for 26 minutes. The objects are between 4 and 16 inches long, large enough that Ksanformaliti is convinced they are not technical glitches or visual artifacts.
 
Certain killjoys and expert image processors, like Jonathon Hill who works with NASA's Mars missions, assert that the shapes have more mundane explanations. Hill says the crab-like half-disk is a camera lens cover which was designed to pop off once the probe landed. Ted Stryk, a professional photo editor who also works with NASA data, says that the "scorpion" is not present in the original footage, and that it is simply a blur left over from processing noise in low-quality versions of the footage.
 
(But won't they be surprised when the Venusian scorpions come knocking?)

Lights in the Sky? Check Your Calendar

This time of year, it's probably Chinese sky lanterns
I smile every time I read a report of a UFO in the skies this time of year. These "seasonal UFOs" move slowly, seeming almost to drift with the wind. They are completely silent. They are a single bright ball of light, or may have a somewhat lopsided or semi-spherical shape. The light may appear to be originating from the bottom of the "craft," illuminating the inside of the sphere from below. There is usually only one or two seen at a time, although occasionally you hear reports of dozens soaring silently past at the same time.
 
Most likely, they are Chinese sky lanterns.

These lanterns are a bit like illuminated kites, autonomous decorative hot air balloons, or a flying version of the Mexican traditional luminaria. They are made with rice paper over a bamboo frame. The frame is a series of nested hoops, which has the side effect of making the lantern collapsible. You may have seen similar lanterns used as lampshades or hanging ornaments.
 
Sky lanterns include a small dish at the bottom, in which a tea light or small can of Sterno is placed. When lit, the heat from the tiny flame fills the paper lantern with warmer air, and liftoff is achieved. The lanterns are beautiful as they float through the sky, which they do by the thousands in China at New Year's as part of the traditional festivities.
 
The Lantern Festival is part of the Chinese New Year festival traditions. The festivals begin on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar, and end on the fifteenth day of the first month with the Lantern Festival. The Lunar New Year begins on January 23rd this year, and the Lantern Festival will technically happen on February 6th. 
 
However, the lanterns are so entertaining, beautiful, and all-around awesome that many people light theirs and send them off prematurely. Later in the year you also have the possibility of pranksters trying to frighten the populace, or people just having a bit of fun with a pretty toy.
 
Regardless of the reason they are in the sky to begin with, Chinese sky lanterns can easily be misidentified by people unfamiliar with them. It can also be difficult to judge their size, particularly after dark. (Is it a small thing flying close by, or a large thing flying high up in the sky?) 

Should Google Censor Conspiracy Theories?

In a word: no.
On one hand, I empathize with Slate writer Evgeny Morozov when he passionately explains why it is bad that search results for whackadoodle anti-vaccination sites are ranked on Google right along with regular sites that provide actual information which has the benefit of being A) true and B) scientifically proven. 
 
I get it, because I too have groaned aloud at the latest "anti-vax" tirade. The king of the anti-vax movement has been as thoroughly dethroned as it is possible to be, but people keep believing his lies. And when they do, children die of preventable disease. Diseases which we, in our wonderful modern time, could probably eradicate if there weren't so many idiots out there letting their kids be vulnerable to measles. 

It's a quixotically First World problem, because in the rest of the world kids are dying of preventable diseases because they can't afford otherwise. Kids die of mosquito bites and bad water, and they can only dream of living in a country so advanced and wealthy that parents have the ability to choose not to vaccinate their kids.
 
But you know what? Kids are dying, either way.
 
That being said, if I could push a big red button that would delete all anti-vax websites and forums now and forever… I wouldn't. Because those sites have just as much right to exist as any other website. I can only hope that most people have enough critical thinking skills to understand that it's the worst kind of fear-mongering. (And clearly they do, because the vast majority of parents quietly vaccinate their kids every year.)
 
Google is not in the business of censorship, or of shaping reality. And if you ask Google to censor websites or shape reality (by determining which information is right and which is wrong), you are on a slippery slope to disaster. The entire point of Google is that it indexes the web without judgment. It maintains the Wikipedia-style ideal of the "Neutral Point of View." 
 
What would Google be, if it were otherwise? It would fall somewhere between "useless" and "actively damaging." You can say that "I would only ask Google to flag sites which are scientifically inaccurate and unproven, like anti-vax and 9/11 truther sites." But the obvious consequence here is that Google would then have to go on to flag any site which is even tangentially about religion, because what is more scientifically inaccurate and unproven than religion? And who decides what is proven and what isn't? The next thing you have is a Digg-style takeover by people with an axe to grind and an itchy "Flag This Site" finger.
 
It's a big world, folks. There's plenty of room for all the ideas in it.

Debunking the Sky Sounds

Mostly, they come from a novel musical instrument called a waterphone
A lot of good work has been done around the internet to debunk the reports of mysterious, seemingly sourceless sounds from the sky. 
 
Most people have noted that the biggest red flag is that these reports consist almost entirely of YouTube videos, which are trivially simple to fake. There is little in the way of written eyewitness reports, or of multiple reports of the same incident. I mean, if a huge metallic grinding noise filled the sky, wouldn't you expect other people to hear it, too?

If you listen very carefully to several of the videos, it becomes apparent that the sky sounds were added to the videos in post-production. This is simple to do in any video editing software, like iMovie (a standard program which comes free with every Apple computer). It is the moving pictures equivalent of Photoshopping.
 
To compound the fakery, several of the videos apparently have the same bird sounds audible at the same time stamps. For locations flung far across the globe. Which is proof enough that these videos are fake.
 
And now comes word that the true source of several of the sounds has been found: a novel instrument called a "waterphone." It's like a disc with pipes sticking out, which you play with a violin bow. Sounds unlikely, but if you watch this video of the waterphone in action, many of the noises it makes are recognizably those which purportedly were coming from the sky.
 
It's remotely conceivable that some of these videos are inadvertently documenting some random person nearby who happens to be playing a waterphone. But it seems more likely that someone - or a collection of someones, either organized or not - are simply dubbing waterphone noises over normal street scenes to make them seem scary.
 
If you step back and look at this objectively, it could basically be described as "the crop circles of the new millennium." Patently fake, carried out by multiple people worldwide with only the most tenuous connection, and bizarre enough that some people are going to believe it no matter what.
 
Speaking of which, Sharon Hill of the Who Forted? Blog has the best take on this whole thing: this is 2012, so buckle up and put on your skeptic hat, because this entire year is going to be chock full of stuff like this. Your hoax radar is going to need to be very finely tuned in order to make it through to 2013 intact!

Vampire Hunting Kits

A Fun Bit Of Fakelore

According to Ye Ancient Legendary Tome of E-Bay Marketing, 19th century travelers through the wild Carpathian regions of Eastern Europe would often bring along a special “vampire hunting kit,” containing an assortment of weapons against the threat of the undead. Supposedly you could even acquire these from the concierge of any reasonably well-appointed Eastern European hotel. A handful of these kits have survived intact to the present day, and you can still find one every now and then on E-Bay.

The whole story is implausible for several reasons. One is that the genuine Carpathian vampire folklore is so different from the Dracula stereotype as to be almost unrecognizable as the same legend. So, a lot of the items in these kits might help you if you're stranded in the Buffy universe, but would be of little value against a hungry Carpathian vrkolak. Another is that hotels for travelers would have been unlikely to cater in any serious way to what the owners would probably have seen as rural superstition.

 

The real explanation for these vampire hunting kits is probably that the popularity of the novel “Dracula” led to a brief tourism boom in the Carpathians, and the vampire hunting kits were sold as kitschy tourist-trap souvenirs. Perhaps you really could get one from the concierge of your hotel, but he'd probably be laughing at you as soon as his back was turned. The kits are part of the history of pop culture merchandising, not vampire folklore. But I would still love to have a good look at one!

 

 

Rudolph Fentz: Unfortunately, Not A Real Time Traveler

It sounds like a Twilight Zone episode... which isn't too far from the truth!

 

The tale of Rudolph Fentz is an amazing one. Too good to be true, you might say. And sadly for those of us in the Fortean biz, you would be right.
 
Here is the story: in 1950 a man materializes on the streets of Manhattan, right in front of a speeding car. The car strikes the man, killing him instantly. When police arrive at the scene, they note that the man's clothing is bizarrely out of date, archaic yet seemingly new. The man has old currency in his pockets, some of the coins still apparently new from the mint. In his wallet they find a card identifying him as Rudolph Fentz, Sr., along with receipts for such old-timey things as boarding fees for his carriage horse.
 
One plucky New York City policeman can't let the mystery drop. He checks the phone book and finds a listing for a Rudolph Fentz, Jr. When he pays the younger Fentz a visit, he learns that Rudolph Fentz, Sr. went out for a walk in 1876 and never returned.

 
Was he sucked through some kind of time vortex, only to be tragically struck and killed the instant he landed in the modern era?
 
The first clue that this story is just a story is that its narrative is too pat. It's a tale ripped straight from The Twilight Zone. It's too story-shaped, to coin a phrase. 
 
And it turns out that this is indeed a work of fiction. Somehow a 1953 short story by an Akron, OH author named Ralph M. Holland has managed to enter the collective unconscious, and found circulation as an urban legend. (Oddly, Holland's story is itself a fabrication, based apparently on a Jack Finney story from the Heinlein-edited anthology Tomorrow, The Stars.)
 
Humans love mysteries. It seems to be practically baked into our mental motherboards. A mystery is a question that needs to be answered, an itch that you can't quite scratch. The mystery of time travel, the appearance of a mysterious stranger, the fact that he is identified only with the evocative term "European," it's all just too seductive for us NOT to believe in it, if only for a few moments.
 
Statistically, if something like this were to happen, it's most likely that the unwitting time traveler would be dumped unceremoniously into the ocean. (The world is, after all, about 75% water.) The likelihood that a time traveler would be dropped in the middle of a street in Manhattan is almost as low as the likelihood of time travel itself!

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